VOGONS


First post, by Shogun

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On my old 486 computer when you boot it up and it does the mem check as the numbers go up you can hear this buzzing sound coming from the PC speaker. It made me wonder how common this was? Is this a setting you can turn on/off somewhere? Most computers to my knowledge do this silently so I was curious if it was specific to motherboard manufacturers or something.

Reply 1 of 8, by jakethompson1

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Specific to American Megatrends BIOS, whether or not it can be disabled and whether it's on by default is up to the motherboard manufacturer who customized the BIOS with AMIBCP (or look for AMISETUP)

Reply 2 of 8, by Jo22

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That's the "memory tick(ing)" sound..
I think it was kind of common at the time (late 80s-early 90s).
808x-386 PCs had it, I think.

I think it's also in found in the old DOS game "Telekommando" (an advertising game):
When you start one of the fictitious PCs that are used to go online via BTX service.
The simulated POST does make memory ticking sound.

It's audible at around 12:40..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCt0LI6nxMk&t=760

^That's the PC/DOS version, btw. An Amiga version of the game existed, too.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/das-telekommando

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Reply 3 of 8, by leileilol

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The AMIBIOS ticking was indeed a thing for me that I associate with the 486 era. Eventually that ticking would just be a brief buzz (something I used to be impressed by). Award's AMIBIOS-inspired boot sadly didn't clone the tick. 🙁

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Reply 4 of 8, by Grzyb

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That ticking was especially impressive on 286 machines - slow and loud.
I don't know why, but on many 286s the PC Speaker seems to be noticably louder than on other PCs.

In modern times I've built a 386DX/40 with 64 MB RAM and AMIBIOS - when "memory test above 1MB" is enabled, it's ticking, ticking, and ticking... then it hits the 32MB limit of cachable memory, and keeps ticking slower, seemingly forever...

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Reply 5 of 8, by DerBaum

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Grzyb wrote on 2022-08-11, 10:03:

I don't know why, but on many 286s the PC Speaker seems to be noticably louder than on other PCs.

Maybe old pcs had a bigger internal speaker and more amplification because games and programs used the pc speaker for sound.
Later it bacame just a status beep on bootup and a small piezo beeper was enough...

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Reply 6 of 8, by Shogun

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Jo22 wrote on 2022-08-11, 08:53:
That's the "memory tick(ing)" sound.. I think it was kind of common at the time (late 80s-early 90s). 808x-386 PCs had it, I thi […]
Show full quote

That's the "memory tick(ing)" sound..
I think it was kind of common at the time (late 80s-early 90s).
808x-386 PCs had it, I think.

I think it's also in found in the old DOS game "Telekommando" (an advertising game):
When you start one of the fictitious PCs that are used to go online via BTX service.
The simulated POST does make memory ticking sound.

It's audible at around 12:40..

I can barely hear it but it sounds like a slow tick tick? I couldn't find any videos of this it'd be interesting to hear a 286. Heres what mine sounds like (turn the volume up):

https://youtu.be/PeopvJn3cLw

Reply 7 of 8, by creepingnet

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Shogun wrote on 2022-08-11, 17:09:
Jo22 wrote on 2022-08-11, 08:53:
That's the "memory tick(ing)" sound.. I think it was kind of common at the time (late 80s-early 90s). 808x-386 PCs had it, I thi […]
Show full quote

That's the "memory tick(ing)" sound..
I think it was kind of common at the time (late 80s-early 90s).
808x-386 PCs had it, I think.

I think it's also in found in the old DOS game "Telekommando" (an advertising game):
When you start one of the fictitious PCs that are used to go online via BTX service.
The simulated POST does make memory ticking sound.

It's audible at around 12:40..

I can barely hear it but it sounds like a slow tick tick? I couldn't find any videos of this it'd be interesting to hear a 286. Heres what mine sounds like (turn the volume up):

https://youtu.be/PeopvJn3cLw

Well, I have a 1990 GEM Computer Products 286 AT Clone with an AMI BIOS in it, and it does this. It makes a DRASTIC difference whether Turbo is on or off, or if you added a ISA RAM card to it. When I had the RAMpAT card in there, you knew when it hit the RAMpAT card because the extra 2048K Memory would slow down. If you press escape it makes a nice electrical "Fart" noise as it counts up to 4096K with Turbo on.

https://youtu.be/oPoMecEC4-k?t=647 - Here's the GEM POSTing from the AMI BIOS, you can kind of hear it there. This is an old video.

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