Weird startup problems

[Athas]

Someone asked me for help with this problem but I've no idea what's wrong.

Basically the situation is he's using my old computer which to the best of my knowledge didn't have any problems when I handed it over, I even put in a new HD. Says he started it up and it seems to be working fine but it froze on the login screen and he turned it off by holding the power button. Now when it turns on, the screen stays black and the fan seems to be going as fast as it possibly can - I could hear it over the phone. It's also beeping six times, first four then it stops and beeps twice more.

Any idea what's wrong? All I could come up with is its 6 years old and it just died randomly.

[Killgannon]

need to know what kinda BIOS it has to diagnose the beeps, but its likely something with the processor... or the motherboard (due to the fans spinning fast) i would find out what kind of motherboard it has, and look up POST codes for it