Need more info: What model Gateway Destination ?
Can you take a picture of the motherboard and post the picture ?
No POST codes is a bad sign. Rarely do Pentium cpu's die so most likely the board.

What about the 486 ? Does it work ?

Photos attached.

The motherboard seems rare. A shame as I'm a bit neurotic and would like an exact replacement. It seems that there are some other *very* close motherboards from Gateway out there. That said, the magic of the machine seems to be the Chromation mpact DSP (or whatever it is) and associated cards. So, maybe it won't be so bad to get a close enough motherboard and cut a new IO shield.

The 486 works OK...except when you start playing sound on it. I think the Mad 16 Sound Card that came with it is off. It plays OK for a minute or so...then freezes. The 486 was what I originally contact the FB poster about. Thought that there was a good chance of a Socket 7. Meanwhile, the Destination looked too new for that, having RCA jacks on the front and a DVD ROM drive. While obscure PCs are not my thing, I recognized it as something interesting, having home-theatre style feet on it and insano inputs. I suppose the "Pentium" badge on the case helped. Got the wireless keyboard for it too.

Can't identify board with so much stuff in the way. That in itself is the first thing to rule out: when faced with a non-booting system, keep it simple. Remove everything except for CPU, a single DIMM and VGA (which may be onboard). In fact, take motherboard out of case for testing to rule out short circuits there too.

Also, testing voltages with a multimeter gives a basic indication of PSU operation, but doesn't guarantee performance under load. I'd see what it does with a different PSU before assuming this one to be good.

P/N suggests it's a Gateway 'Lawman' 430tx board.

https://www.recycledgoods.com/gateway-4000275 … x-system-board/

There's still quite a few GW2K 'Destination' links on archive.org but little in the way of useful troubleshooting

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2021-05-04, 06:52:

P/N suggests it's a Gateway 'Lawman' 430tx board. […]
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P/N suggests it's a Gateway 'Lawman' 430tx board.

https://www.recycledgoods.com/gateway-4000275 … x-system-board/

GW2K Lawman 4000275.jpg

There's still quite a few GW2K 'Destination' links on archive.org but little in the way of useful troubleshooting

Looks plausible based on the bits we can see. Those are some juicy looking caps around the ATX power connector. If they have failed that might explain a bit.

Well, I've done it. Out of the case.

Caps look fine. No bulge, no leak, no fluid on the board.

More! Also, I powered it on out of the case with just the CPU and RAM. No beep.

I'm pretty good with a soldering iron, and could redo the caps...but again, I don't see anything off there.

What's that?

Looks like a copper pin that belongs in some slot..

If it looks like it came out that DIMM slot, try the one next to it instead.

dionb wrote on 2021-05-04, 14:53:

What's that?

I'm working at the moment, but I believe it's a sliver of a woodchip rather than a copper pin. I have tried the other RAM slot, but have not done so since removing the board from the case. I will inspect that thing and try the other ram slot again this evening.

Well, got home tonight, looked once more at the board. The thing on the board was, sell, I don't know what it was. Not metal. It's gone now. Still no boot. Everything looks fine aside from being a bit dirty.

Did you try a fresh coin cell batterry?...one pictured (Rayovac BR2035???) looks kind of original

The PL(M) series, if leaking (some do), will do so in the bottom, apparently the electrolytic fluid in these eats away the rubber seal.

Failing that, I'd say it's time to start checking voltages on various points on the board to see if you can isolate where it's going wrong.

I second replacing the bios battery. I've had quite a few motherboards that wouldn't post or just acted weird with a low/ dead/missing bios battery.