ES40 strange beeps on boot

["Carlos Rodrigues" <carlos.efr@mail.telepac.pt>]

Hi!

I have an AlphaServer ES40 here (running Debian Sarge). Today I
noticed that it does some strange beeping on boot (two sequences of
1-1-4).

>From the "owner's guide" I see that this beeping means a "ROM err"
("The SROM code is unable to load the console code. Or, a flash ROM
header area or checksum error has been detected.").

The "owner's guide" goes on about loading the firmware from a floppy,
but I'm not about to undergo some risky procedure without knowing
exacty what the problem is.

My question is... has anyone experienced something like this? The
machine seems to boot just fine and shows no problems after boot
(although a user has told me that the simulations he is running today
seem to be taking MUCH longer to complete, and the CD-ROM on the
machine stopped working - don't know if this is related or not, but
doesn't hurt mentioning it).

BTW, earlier today the machine crashed. When I arrived, someone had
already rebooted it, but he said the little LCD screen showed
something like "CTERM error" before he power cycled it. We started
hearing the beeps after this (the last reboot was made remotely, so
I'm not sure if they were heard then).

Thanks in advance for any help.

--
Carlos Rodrigues