Got some baggy capacitors?
Also try to clean the contacts on your RAM

1 long, three short beeps usually means VGA fail.
Infinite long beeps usually means bad RAM.

Post your beep sequence and your BIOS maker, so we can check what does it means.

Also, you may try clearing the CMOS.

I recently had a similar problem with one of my XP systems. When turning it off sometimes it would just come to a dead stop, as in not finish the shutdown procedure. Gradually it would refuse to turn on. One time flicking the PSU switch corrected it. Other times it required waiting increasingly longer periods after shutting down. Finally all it would do is make the lights on the keyboard blink. I had sent the motherboard for repair once before so I suspected it was having problems again. However it turned out the power supply had become unstable.

The blinking lights were from the initial startup, then suffer from a power failure, and try to start up again.

Have you followed these steps yet?

http://www.illwillpress.com/tech.html

Its infinite long beeps. I think its a CMOS bios but without being able to turn the computer on I can't really tell.

I have trouble believing its the memory considering its used several different sticks by different makers, unless its the socket itself that's bad.

EDIT:

In all honesty I'm tired of trying to "fix" it. As far as I'm concerned, its an old piece of junk and all its problems are due to age. What I'd like to do is get a new machine. I'm not sure I can buy any factory-made to the same specifications (that would be too convenient) so I'm instead looking for a good modern machine that I could run DOSbox and a virtualizer on without breaking the bank. Any suggestions?

I've had this problem before when moving PCs around with PCI/AGP video card. Take the video card and re-seat it. AGP slot are especially sensitive to have the monitor plug removed then attached, back when I was PC tech this was a primary culprit. Check other lose connections as well!

Hey guys,

Last night I tried some of ya'lls suggestions (reseating, cleaning the contacts etc) and then booted the thing up.

Oddly enough, now its working fine, and hasn't given me any trouble since last night.

I'm still a little skeptical, as this thing is known to work great for a long time then all the sudden start acting up (oddly enough, the change from summer to fall seems to affect it), but for the time being I am one happy gamer!

Seems it's fixed now but "BEEEEP! *pause* BEEEEEP! *pause* BEEEEP!" usually means the processor is overheating. This can be due to the HSF needing to be reseated, the CPU fan malfunctioning, the CPU fanconnector somehow dislodged (If it's on a molex, reseat and if that doesn't work, try another molex in case the old one has gone bad or something) or dust in/on the heatsink. If it's dust, clean it using a brush (or if it's a LOT, strip the layer of dust off of it in 1 go! ;D )

Also if your PC is an oem, the PSU will be minimal for that system and simply may have had it's best time passed it. I'd recommend using a spare 250W or better from a good manufacture (I favor FSP's since those are good quality and easy to come by, and CHEAP 😉 ).

If you get into trouble in the future, check for dust anywhere in/on your hardware (including the PSU) and check for bulging/leaking caps (including in the PSU).

Good luck, and have fun with it 😉

"BEEEEP! *pause* BEEEEP! *pause* BEEEEP!" usually means no memory found.

I'll keep that in mind.

Hey, I've been wondering: On my old comp I figured out how to do things like configure Win98 so it gives you an option at boot of whether to go into DOS or Windows (and from there, options such as "load with EMS" or "Load DOS without CD-ROM" (so you can load an ISO as your CD-ROM drive) ), and some all-purpose reminders for what to do when a game doesn't work. I was thinking of making guides to all that stuff and posting it here for future generations, but I'm not sure its still necessary or relevant in a day and age where everyone uses DOSbox and/or probably figured all that stuff out anyway. What do you guys think: should I compile/post this stuff?

Also, now that I've got it working, what should I play?

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

"BEEEEP! *pause* BEEEEP! *pause* BEEEEP!" usually means no memory found.

h-a-l-9000's right! I was confusing it with the continuous high-low-high-low BEEEPS. My bad! 😅

EdmondDantes wrote:

I'll keep that in mind.

Hey, I've been wondering: On my old comp I figured out how to do things like configure Win98 so it gives you an option at boot of whether to go into DOS or Windows (and from there, options such as "load with EMS" or "Load DOS without CD-ROM" (so you can load an ISO as your CD-ROM drive) ), and some all-purpose reminders for what to do when a game doesn't work. I was thinking of making guides to all that stuff and posting it here for future generations, but I'm not sure its still necessary or relevant in a day and age where everyone uses DOSbox and/or probably figured all that stuff out anyway. What do you guys think: should I compile/post this stuff?

Also, now that I've got it working, what should I play?

I think everyone here is in the same situation, but it still wouldn't hurt to post your findings in a thread. Others will surely comment on it, making the thread an interesting read 😉

What games to play? Anything you'd like! 😁
What I'd do is install a Voodoo 2 or 3 and play Glide games on it 😀

Btw, now that I'm thinking of h-a-l's last post, memory problems like you described could be that either the memory is going (less likely) or that your PSU is going (somewhat more likely if it's an underpowered and much used oem PSU).