Thanks very much for all replies, I will try one of the acer forums and maybe even give a quick call to acer support.

I should have had it looked at last year when it was within the 3 year guarantee, but daughter was the main user and could live with the annoyance of the beep at startup.

Got her a new acer laptop so I have the old one. If it takes too much to fix will just live with it too, just a bit of annoyance at each startup.

thanks again

Martin