Overheating, imporoper component communication, these are all good thoughts bout what might be going on. A bit more background: Th internal PC speaker on pretty much every PC manufactured before the Pentium II (with MMX!) would make one of a few different sounds for certain types of erros. Most of those computers' BIOS had a "Beep on Error" option that is fairly easy to shut off. Also, there is the overheating alarm on newer computers, which is really the only use that those poor old internal pc speakers seem to get nowadays. What is of possible concern is the fact that the computer is running windows Me and it's overheating or error-ing out. That's the kind of thing that might not be fixed with a restore, as i've heard reports of Windows Me just refusing to work properly on legacy hardware. any confirmations on this?

keep us posted, synaptic;

xo