#Report# When your computer beeps at you, that's a cry for help
When Mohit starts his computer, all he hears is “nonstop beeping,” and then his monitor enters power-saving mode. All I can say is “we’ve all been there,” or at least I certainly have many, many times. It’s like turning on your car expecting to hear the engine fire up and purr like a kitten, only to hear sputtering and coughing and be left with a hairball. Not all is lost, though, because those annoying beeps are actually like a Morse code in computer BIOS language. Every computer runs a quick test before booting to make sure everything is functioning properly. Every time you turn on your PC it runs a program called POST, which stands for Power On Self Test. This quick test is your PC's way of making sure everything's working fine before it proceeds to the boot sequence—sort of like NASA engineers checking all the rockets prior to launch. While the POST is running you can actually see the results on your display, assuming it’s working. It looks like the compu