stealthjoe wrote on 2025-05-20, 06:24:

Update:

I gave a good bath to the motherboard using soap water after removing the battery, CPU and RAM. Then dried it for over 24 hours. After that I further dried it using a hot air gun at low setting on all the slots as these are the places where drying takes eternity. Also applied hot air on high setting over the northbridge and southbridge. Connected the board and tried to start, but still no luck. Later I noted that there was a broken trace near one of the caps I replaced (close to the ATX connector). This damage was visible only after washing the board as there was some residual flux over it. I somehow managed to fix it after a few setbacks yesterday.

After soldering the trace properly, I connected the board and tried starting. This time, the board sprung to life. There was output on the monitor and it was such a delight to see the Intel splash screen after missing it for many moons (actually for only 10 days 😜). Hooorrraayyyy!!!! 😁 😁 😁 . Tried running some games and it worked good. However, I had to change the PSU as it was causing the system to shutdown immediately after entering Win 98. Now the build seems fine and stable. Thank you all for your help and inputs. It is my birthday today and I am happy that things worked favorably this time.

Glad to hear that, but i wonder if this damaged trace was already there ?

Also, did you use a brush to clean the motherboard with water and dish soap, or just put into the water and wait .....?

_StIwY_ wrote on 2025-05-20, 10:19:

Glad to hear that, but i wonder if this damaged trace was already there ?

Also, did you use a brush to clean the motherboard with water and dish soap, or just put into the water and wait .....?

I am thinking if the trace could have been damaged while changing a cap. Problem is that one of its legs was between some traces and very close.

I did use a brush to clean the board with soap water and poured water over it. Didn't dunk the board as I was a bit skeptical to do that 😁