Gateway ALR 9200 User Manual

Error and Informational Messages

When you turn on the system, POST displays messages that provide 
information about the system. If a failure occurs, POST emits beep codes 
that indicate errors in hardware, software, or firmware. If POST can display 
a message on the video display screen, it causes the speaker to beep twice as 
the message appears.

The BIOS indicates the current testing phase during POST after the video 
adapter has been successfully initialized by outputting a 2-digit hex code to 
I/O location 80h. If a port-80h ISA POST board is installed, it displays the 
2-digit code on a pair of hex display LEDs. Hex codes and their meanings 
are listed in Table 34.

Table 34: Port-80h Codes and Beep Codes 

Port-80 
Codes

Beep 
Codes

Error Descriptions

02

Verify Real Mode

04

Get processor type

06

Initialize system hardware

08

Initialize chipset registers with initial POST values

09

Set in POST flag

0A

Initialize processor registers

0B

Enable processor cache

0C

Initialize caches to initial POST values

0E

Initialize I/O

0F

Initialize the local bus IDE

10

Initialize Power Management

11

Load alternate registers with initial POST values new

12

Restore processor control word during warm boot

14

Initialize keyboard controller

16

1-2-2-3

BIOS ROM checksum

18

8254 timer initialization

1A

8237 DMA controller initialization

1C

Reset Programmable Interrupt Controller

20

1-3-1-1

Test DRAM refresh

22

1-3-1-3

Test 8742 Keyboard Controller

24

Set ES segment register to 4GB

28

1-3-3-1

Autosize DRAM

2A

Clear 512K base RAM

3424.boo  Page 170  Wednesday, September 2, 1998  9:23 AM