So I pulled my Optiplex GX50 (which had previously been fully functional with Windows ME setup) out of my garage to play some games and much to my dismay its now throwing errors. This was stored on the concrete of my garage along with all the other desktop format systems and the one that was right below it seems fine so I doubt its a storage related issue.

This is a very unusual Tualaron SFF Desktop with a sideways riser to accept 2 full height PCI cards, I'm actually pretty stressed out about this as I always considered this to be one of my more unique systems. There also appears to be nearly zero parts availability. There are neither motherboards nor whole systems available on eBay for me to source parts from so my options are pretty much non-existant except repair. I had been running it with a GeForce2MX 32MB and a Soundblaster PCI and it made a really nice, really performant Windows ME machine for 9x games.

Anywho I've tried:

* Pulling the CMOS Battery
* Disconnecting all drives
* Swapping RAM
* Reseating everything
* Cleaning the entire motherboard
* Various BIOS changes

Does anybody have any idea where on the board the issue might lay? If memory serves Intel chipsets didn't have USB controllers on board at this time so I guess it would be an external controller. Sometimes I can get it into the BIOS and sometimes it will lock up, sometimes it won't. I know once it said "Previous attempts to boot this system have failed at checkpoint [CRT?]" but I have no idea what CRT means in that context. "Clock; Real Time" perhaps?. Google was not forthcoming with answers.

Should I just shotgun capacitors onto it? None of these caps LOOK bad but eh you never know with these early 2000s Dells. It does get pretty cold in my garage so I guess with it having been on the ground level on the concrete a cold cracked solder joint is possible but I would like to rule out any other options before I go reflow the entire IO section.