One long beep when starting computer

Hi,

I have an Acer aspire X3990, which is about 3 years old (or young).
This issue started a few days ago out of the blue.
I was using my computer until it got jammed, I waited but nothing happened, so I cut off the electricity to shut it down. When I turned the electricity on again, my computer started up too, but it gave one long beep sound. Something I've never experienced before. The monitor showed nothing and the beep didn't stop until I turned of the electricity again. When I turned it on again my computer worked perfectly fine. The day after it worked fine too.

Today, something similar happened. I turned my computer on, it started up normally, but it shut down automatically after a few minutes, then it started up again (I didn't do anything) and gave the same long beep.

I don't have any experience with hardware from computers whatsoever, does anyone know what the problem could be?

p.s. just a few side notes: I did leave my computer on sleeping mode for a few days prior to this, I use a lot of Photoshop (big software..?) and don't have much free space left.

Thanks,

Natascha

 

Thanks plodr.

I ran an extended memory diagnostics test (from Windows) twice, but no problems were found. Should I try something else? My computer 'crashed' again today.. same way.

 

I ran memtest for 7 passes, but 0 errors were found.

Should I try to test other hardware components if that's possible?

 

Greetings moviprep.

My next step would be to perform the "RAM Dance" - assuming that this is a desktop, power down and unplug the machine, take the side cover off and verify that there are at least two memory modules installed. If so, follow safe anti-static procedures and swap the memory modules and/or remove one module at a time, verifying operation and symptoms changes as you go. If there is only one module you might try re-seating it.

If this is a laptop computer you could perform the same tests, but access to the memory module(s) might prove problematic. There are myriad YouTube videos available that illustrate the correct procedures for handling and testing RAM.

Also: are there any USB peripherals attached to the machine (printers, external drives, speakers, etc.)? If so, unplug them and try testing - I've seen USB problems present as memory issues.