Vista - Windows Vista Ultimate continuous beep on boot

Hi everyone - here's hoping you can help!. I have a Windows Vista
(Ultimate SP 1) Hp Pavilion Desktop (Intel Core duo CPU/3gb Ram/
Bios American Megatrends Graphics 512 mb Nvidia Geforce 8500 GT)
which yesterday suddenly produced a long continuous beep on booting
with an hourglass in a dark screen and would go no further. I am
able to get into Safe mode and have run some HP Diagnostics which
seem to indicate that the Drive and RAM are ok.
Could someone please give me some advice as to how to proceed from
here.I am not to sure how to add back the various drivers in Safe
Mode. The computer is only 4 months old so still under warranty but
I would prefer not to have to go back to factory settings (as the HP
Helpdesk are probably going to make me do) if at all possible.
Everything seems to be functioning ok in Safe Mode - there are 3
exclamation marks in the device manager: 1.under Mirosoft Issatap
Adapter #2 (under Network Adapters) 2. Under Consumer I/R devices in
System Devices and 3.Under USB controllers eHome Infrared Receiver
USBCIR - however the keyboard and mouse work fine in safe mode - as
does the internet hence my post.I have a UPS power attached to the
computer which appears to be functioning normally.
I have downloaded all the windows updates regularly and have updated
the NVidia card also. A system restore has not resolved the problem
and the computer was running fine the night before this happened.
Your help would be much appreciated. Sue G

http://www.pchell.com/hardware/beepcodes.shtml

and in particular:
http://www.pchell.com/hardware/beepcodes.shtml#ami

Personally I'd start with reseating the graphics card.

--
Cari (MS-MVP) Printing & Imaging
www.coribright.com/windows

"SueG" <suegil@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Xns9AF47EBF5432sueg55@xxxxxx

Please do not multipost

--
Peter

Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others
Requests for assistance by email can not and will not be acknowledged.

"SueG" <suegil@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:Xns9AF47EBF5432sueg55@xxxxxx

"Peter Foldes" <okf22@xxxxxx> wrote in news:#HTk21Q#IHA.4320
@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl:
Apologies if I multiposted - not exactly sure what that entails - I
accidentally sent the initial message to windows vista security
group and thought I had cancelled it immediately - Safe Mode was
making it quite hard for me to see what I was doing.

"Rick Rogers" <rick@xxxxxx> wrote in
news:ui9RgDU#IHA.524@xxxxxx:
Thanks Rick - as I said my multi post to Windows Vista security was purely
accidental - thanks to Safe mode I couldn't properly see the group name at
the bottom of the window while I was composing it. I usually open several
groups at once and should have double-checked - if I was going to multipost
or preferably cross post it would have been to Windows Vista General not
Security!!. I hit "cancel" almost immediately but alas was caught out!!I'm
using XNews not the web forums but have hardly ever posted before.
For some reason System Restore seems to have fixed the problem -but thanks
for you help anyway. Sue G