First post, by Steage
Long time reader, but finally had to bite the bullet and create an account... sorry for another one of these posts.
I've been gathering parts for a while to build a Win98SE late 90s gaming PC. Now I'm getting the full experience with a PC that won't do anything. When I turn it on all the fans spin up but I get some beeps and then no picture (although the monitor does wake up from power save mode). I now suspect that the motherboard is bad, but I've reached the end of my troubleshooting capabilities and I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas.
Specs:
Motherboard: ECS K7S5A (v3.1)
CPU: Athlon XP 1800+ Thoroughbred (with NOS Cooler Master cooler)
GPU: Nvidia Geforce4 Ti 4200 (have also tried ATI 9600XT)
Memory: Varying amounts, from 1 512mb, to 1 256mb to 2x256mb
PSU: Brand new EVGA 500w
Troubleshooting:
- Monitor/VGA cable works with my laptop
- Reseated CPU, tried multiple memory sticks that I'm told have worked previously (I have no other way of testing DDR1 memory)
- Replaced CMOS battery, reset CMOS multiple times
- Went down the path of assuming my GeForce4 GPU was bad. Same behavior with ATI
- POST test card says PSU is good (not surprising given that it is new)
- Boot with everything disconnected except CPU + memory: 7 beeps (I believe this is asking for a GPU) and FF on the POST test card
- Boot with CPU+memory+GPU: one short beep, followed sometime later by another short beep followed by 2 short beeps (I think...). End up with 85 on the POST test card
I'm having a hard time interpreting the beeps and POST codes. I'm not sure how the beeping is supposed to be separated, but it seems like it's pointing to memory issues. Which I guess could be the problem, but I would be very unlucky to have so many bad memory sticks. Also, if I read the description of code 85 it doesn't really help me troubleshoot...
"Memory size check done
About to display soft error and check for password or bypass setup"
Any ideas??