Help! My laptop is giving me a beep code

So, here’s the deal.
I’ve got a Dell Inspiron.
About a month ago, the GPU (Nvidia GeForce 8600 m gt 512) died on me, so I swapped it out. Everything was running fine until today. I turned it on this morning, used it for an hour, shut it down like usual... then later tonight, I hit the power button hoping for the best. Walked away for a second, came back to a black screen. No sound. No response from the mouse. I tried a hard reset, but when I boot it up this time, I get a beep code—one long beep followed by two short ones. Screen stays dark. My guess? The graphics card is acting up again.
Any help would be appreciated... thanks.

It’s almost certainly the GPU. Microsoft's BIOS is throwing a "search for drivers" error. Plus, you're getting one long beep followed by two short ones, which is a classic checksum failure. If you were running an Award BIOS, those codes would be telling you the exact same thing: bad video card.