Well, I assume you've reseated every cable, the RAM, etc.

Then I would try a different PSU and different RAM and see what happens.

What motherboard does that thing have? 1999-2003 era PB systems used motherboards (mainly MSI) that were rather vulnerable to capacitor plague. If you have some bad caps around your board's power regulation, it could cause this kind of stuff.

It's a packard bell PB-850 mobo. These were made 97-98 I believe.
Caps all look fine as do the cables. Not sure what difference a different PSU would make but when I have one spare (I have some being delievered in the next few days) I will give it a go.

If the PSU is delivering incorrect voltages, it can cause all kinds of bizarre symptoms.

oem isn't the best if your fitting out of oem specifications drive geometry wasn't so magical for oem disk images back then. Cap plague and PSU well all caps dry up in 20 years being battery elecorlyte related worth researching.
For me I would probably change caps mosfets and regulators to protect the logic.
There are tecnicians guides on substituting such components with more modern part numbers.
If PSU is oem design I would refurb it but only if it isn't standard design (you can't put a square in an oval shape)
Lastly be sure to put all official patches into windows autopatcher 97 is fantastic for that and try for later drivers if possible.

All up a professional would cost a fortune and I would load software updates with fingers crossed i dont need to solder.

Additionally a disk image program to save your own system image than resorting to the factory oem with your improvements such as powerquest/norton disk image has floppy disk and can be booted on cdrom with more enhanced geometry support. (internet archive has them programs )

keenmaster486 wrote on 2022-05-04, 17:18:

If the PSU is delivering incorrect voltages, it can cause all kinds of bizarre symptoms.

Good point.

I will take another look at the capacitors on the board and hopefully in the next day or two I will have some other PSU's I can try.

So the caps all look realy good to me?

And this is the screen right after the win98/starting your pc for the first time-

Just hangs instantly.

Have just tried different cables, no joy.

Might try an original version of windows, maybe its a driver issue? But it's doing it in safe mode as well as normal which doesn't bode well for it being a driver problem 🙁

Need to try another hard drive also...

zapbuzz wrote on 2022-05-04, 17:21:

If PSU is oem design I would refurb it but only if it isn't standard design (you can't put a square in an oval shape)

These boards should use standard ATX pinout. Or at least mine did iirc.
I don't know about the formfactor, because I intended to use it with a different case because I didn't like the original one.

In case you don't already have the jumper settings: https://www.dosdays.co.uk/media/biostar/M5SIB/jumpers.txt

When you installed the video card, did you disable the onboard video with the jumpers? Have you run Memtest86?

Tetrium wrote on 2022-05-04, 19:48:

zapbuzz wrote on 2022-05-04, 17:21:

If PSU is oem design I would refurb it but only if it isn't standard design (you can't put a square in an oval shape)

These boards should use standard ATX pinout. Or at least mine did iirc.
I don't know about the formfactor, because I intended to use it with a different case because I didn't like the original one.

Can confirm this (PB-850 = GVC FR500) is both regular uATX form factor and works with a regular ATX PSU. I have a mousemat made out of one in my vintage room 😉

The FR500 is from before the big cap plague, but it's certainly old enough for caps in either PSU or motherboard to have dried up. Note that failed caps don't always bulge or leak (but if they *do*, you can be 100% sure they are dead). So first step would be to try a different PSU. If that doesn't solve it, I fear re-capping of the motherboard is still in order.

how muchmemory has this machine have?

32GB

Richy85 wrote on 2022-05-05, 14:04:

32GB

Tell me where you got this 32GB stick of SDRAM from, I must know now! 😁

Richy85 wrote on 2022-05-04, 19:16:

So the caps all look realy good to me? […]
Show full quote

So the caps all look realy good to me?

Hang on... that's not the PB850/GVC FR500, it's the Biostar M5SIB ('Pegase' in Packard Bell code terms).

Doesn't change much else, same form factor, PSU and potential issues.

Richy85 wrote on 2022-05-04, 19:16:

So the caps all look realy good to me?

Caps can start to fail even before they show physical issues (bulging, leaking).

The only way to know for sure would be to desolder them and test them individually. At which point you may as well replace anyway.

Tetrium wrote on 2022-05-05, 16:23:

Richy85 wrote on 2022-05-05, 14:04:

32GB

Tell me where you got this 32GB stick of SDRAM from, I must know now! 😁

Dunno, came with the motherboard....

So, disabled the on board graphics with the jumpers and things did seem to be working! Got to the screen with windows searching for devices but then started encountering some issues, one time it bluescreened and something about writing to c:/ and the other few times it just froze...
Might try with another hard drive when I finally get some. Been using old laptop sata drives with a sata to IDE converter - which has always worked fine for me before, and works well in my other Club 30 but be interesting to try with a normal IDE drive.

Testing mosfets, do I test across the three legs and there should be continuity to ground only on one leg? On one of the mosfets I have continuity on two legs?

Richy85 wrote on 2022-05-06, 14:30:

Dunno, came with the motherboard.... […]
Show full quote

Tetrium wrote on 2022-05-05, 16:23:

Richy85 wrote on 2022-05-05, 14:04:

32GB

Tell me where you got this 32GB stick of SDRAM from, I must know now! 😁

Dunno, came with the motherboard....

So, disabled the on board graphics with the jumpers and things did seem to be working! Got to the screen with windows searching for devices but then started encountering some issues, one time it bluescreened and something about writing to c:/ and the other few times it just froze...
Might try with another hard drive when I finally get some. Been using old laptop sata drives with a sata to IDE converter - which has always worked fine for me before, and works well in my other Club 30 but be interesting to try with a normal IDE drive.

Testing mosfets, do I test across the three legs and there should be continuity to ground only on one leg? On one of the mosfets I have continuity on two legs?

Are you joking or really not getting it? That would be kinda cute. "GB" is the place you live in, not a unit of storage size for 1990s RAM modules. 😁

Good luck fixing that box. Some good advice above and my two cents, try keeping it simple, remove board from case, use exactly one RAM module, authentic HDD, VGA, etc. - if possible, borrow from your other machines if those are the same generation.

TBH I didn't realise I typoed GB, meant MB of course. Only just realised.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-06, 14:41:

Are you joking or really not getting it? That would be kinda cute.

Top 10 bruh moments

If you can find another RAM stick, try it.