Hello, I installed StartOS on an old Lenovo Thinkcenter about a week ago and I love it! Yesterday I had to reboot it for the first time after opening a port with chroot for the Public Pool service. On reboot, it would show that it was starting systemd services and then the screen would go black and the computer would make two loud, short beeps every minute or so.
Thankfully, it’s easy to reinstall the OS and initialize with the data on the disk and pick up where I left off, I was pretty worried I’d have to re-sync my bitcoin and monero nodes. I tried again and got the same result. Then, after initializing, I tried just rebooting without doing the chroot simpleproxy stuff for Public Pool and got the same result.
So for now, any time my machine shuts down I’ll have to reinstall/reinitialize, which is annoying but not a deal breaker. I can also just start the simple proxy service I needed from root instead of chroot to avoid a reboot.
Has anyone seen this before and is there a good fix for it?
On Thinkcentre boards, two short beeps is typically the code for an error with the CMOS settings. It would be a bit of a shot in the dark, but you might try replacing the old CMOS battery with a new one. If the battery is dead, it loses settings between power cycles, and even if it is just running low it could theoretically lead to corrupted CMOS values.
Thank you for the reply! I really appreciate it. I’m no CMOS expert, but if it was the CMOS battery, would the system date/time, boot order, and other settings be reset? In my case they are not.
The issue happens when StartOS is booting up, the logs on the screen before it goes black are systemd services starting, which makes me think it’s StartOS related. Again though, I am no expert in CMOS or really in anything and I could be totally incorrect about all of that. Please let me know if I am!
You are correct – those other values resetting would be expected if the battery were completely dead. What model number (and size if it comes in varients like Tiny or Small) is your device? Maybe that particular model has a different/supplemental definition for the two short beeps repeating code.
I’m used to this code referring to a CMOS error on the Thinkcentre models that I have had experience with. So although I would consider replacing the battery to be even more of a shot in the dark, it would probably still be worth a couple bucks to rule out.
The other interesting thing here is that motherboard beep codes tend to be tied to the BIOS, not to the OS. Technically, an OS could implement its own set of beep codes, but the only one I’m aware of is the single long beep in the case of kernel panic. Whatever the problem turns out to be, I doubt it is StartOS directly generating the beeps, but some lower-level condition that is being reported by the motherboard. That’s probably not all that helpful, though.
Another thing you could rule out (if you haven’t already) is if the system is actually loading, and there is only a problem with the display. You would test this by going to your server’s .local address from another device on the same network and see whether or not it loads. Another unlikely shot in the dark, but wouldn’t cost anything to check.
I have a tiny m910Q. I found this online:
2 short beeps: POST error. Check RAM, video card, and motherboard
What’s strange to me is that I can boot into windows or live usb just fine. Even though CMOS is a shot in the dark, I may go get a battery later and give it a shot anyway.
I also checked that it wasn’t just the display. I was unable to reach the .local address and when I’d try to SSH into it, it would ask for a password and I’m not sure what password that would be.
This is indeed a mystery. The order of things starting up is:
Power‑on / POST. Firmware checks RAM, CPU, chipset and throws any beep codes now .
Boot‑loader (GRUB). Only reached if POST was “good enough” to hand control to the disk.
Linux kernel. Decompresses, probes hardware, then…
systemd (PID 1). The kernel passes control to systemd, which starts the units you’re watching scroll by .
So to get an error code indicating a POST error after systemd messages have started to print is indeed surprising. I don’t think the system is restarting and running a second round of POST checks, though, because if that happened I believe you would see the Lenovo splash again after the screen blanked, before the beep codes started.
On the other hand, I do not believe the beep code is coming from StartOS. From the documentation, I can see that StartOS has some additional codes besides the single long-beep kernal panic code that I mentioned earlier. Other codes that StartOS generates according to the documentation are:
“bep” - Starting up
“chime” - Server is ready
“flatline” - Server initialization failed / no network connection
Beethoven’s 5th - Something has gone wrong and Diagnostic Mode has been launched on http://start.local, please check here for solutions.
None of those are two short beeps repeating, though.
I frequently direct folks who are on a tight budget to this family of refurbished systems, so I am interested in figuring out if this is a problem with that particular model itself, or if it is something specific to your device. I’ve got one on order now, so I’ll let you know what I discover, in case you don’t figure out the problem in the mean time.
Wow I feel bad that you’ve ordered a computer just to try and reproduce my problem! Thank you for all your help, I’ll let you know if I figure anything out as well.
Haha, no worries. It isn’t just for this specific problem. Besides increasing my own knowledge, I use these DIY systems in promotions to increase my reputation and get more clients for my side-hustle.