It could be having severe trouble reading from the CD Drive.

Are the Hard Drive and Optical Drive on the same IDE Channel?

Have you tried a different optical drive?

Try running MemTest. Those are cheap and easy fixes, even if they're low probability. It could just be that the hard drive is going bad.

If you have other parts, how is the time to start swapping. Hard drive seems to be the first one to try.

You could try getting a PCI IDE controller. They're pretty inexpensive.

fitzpatr wrote:

Are the Hard Drive and Optical Drive on the same IDE Channel?

Yes they are.

Have you tried a different optical drive?

Not yet. I'll look at that when I can (the comp isn't with me right now)

Try running MemTest. Those are cheap and easy fixes, even if they're low probability. It could just be that the hard drive is going bad.

Problem: MemTest runs from a floppy disk. I don't know if I mentioned it but part of the issue I was having with floppy disks was I could no longer even boot from them. (The floppy disk is NOT on the same cable as the HD and Optical)

EdmondDantes wrote:

Problem: MemTest runs from a floppy disk. I don't know if I mentioned it but part of the issue I was having with floppy disks was I could no longer even boot from them. (The floppy disk is NOT on the same cable as the HD and Optical)

You can get a copy of memtest that boots from CD.

Athlon 700? Sounds like a Via Chipset, probably with 686B southbridge. That's asking for trouble with an SBLive-series Creative sound card like the Audigy. Technically Creative was working out-of-spec by using Intel-proprietary PCI extensions, but only Via chipets failed in a way that conflicted with the IDE functionality. Sounds like you got a good dose of that. It's been too long since I've had to deal with this, but if you look up Via 686B and SBLive you should find lots of hits...

EdmondDantes wrote:

fitzpatr wrote:

Are the Hard Drive and Optical Drive on the same IDE Channel?

Yes they are.

Try putting them on separate channels. Some boards have trouble using two devices on the same channel at once.

Also, try a different power supply to exclude a power load issue.

@dionb - I took the Audigy out when it wasn't working, and my current batch of problems started when I had an SB16 in there... though is it possible the Audigy did permanent damage to the motherboard?

So yesterday I had unplugged the hard drive (expecting to borrow another from a friend who wound up unavailable) but when I went home after seeing suggestions and plugged it back in, I tried to power on the machine....

BEEP BEEP BEEP (pause) BEEP BEEP BEEP (pause)

with nothing displaying on my monitor.

Well, fortunately I do have replacement parts on the way: one, I actually found someone selling the same motherboard at a much lower price due to it not having a processor (oh well, I'll just give it my current board's processor) and also some replacement hard drives in case those are the problem.

I'm still thinking once the replacement mobo come in I might send my original to someone to check it out (also because its ps/2 ports are bad and I dunno how to fix them and I would really like them fixed/reinforced--if you look at my posting history you'll notice I had an obsession with optical mice in DOS. This is why). Does anyone know a person/service like that who will do motherboard repairs for a fee?

This being an Epox: how are the caps looking? Do you have any way of measuring ESR?

dionb wrote:

This being an Epox: how are the caps looking? Do you have any way of measuring ESR?

Epox boards of that era need to have their caps replaced ASAP.

Imagine my joy when I first got my EP-7KXA - bulged caps AND leaking caps as well.

Didn't even think twice before yanking out nearly EVERY cap on the board and outright replacing them with newer caps of good quality. Especially the tiny buggers - those can be a living nightmare if they aren't replaced.

Just one Google search and I'm already seeing the dreaded Tayeh caps that were on my EP-7KXA being used on the EP-8KTA, although that quite makes sense since both boards came out in 2000.

tl;dr variant - Replace the caps ON SIGHT. Epox loved to use cheap caps (so did almost any manufacturer in that period) that over time will leak and bulge, making the board prone to errors and even make the board quit working.

The Unable to write to the C: drive could have the following issues with the HDD:

1) HDD is failing
2) IDE cable is loose or oxidized (likely)
3) IDE controller failure (can be caused by bad capacitors)
4) Dust and cobwebs that can cause a short (possibility).

I had that issue before in the past, so I backed up the entire hard drive (registry, Windows itself, and every bit of data, including games) with separate backup files (one for programs and games, one for Windows, and one for DOS and miscellaneous data).

I recommend putting a bootable diskette that can access, read, and write on FAT16 and FAT32 partitions, at the A:\> prompt, type in C:, and type in dir.

If you get something like this:

1Volume in drive C has no label.
2Directory of c:\
3file not found
427,823.28MB free

It means your HDD is dead in the water. If you get something like this:

1Volume in drive C has no label.
2Directory of c:\
3.
4..
5DIRECTORY [dir]
6WINDOWS [dir]
727,823.28MB free

Back up your data ASAP to prevent the HDD from getting hosed.

Hard drive is backed up. I haven't powered on the comp since last time I posted (was away for health reasons).

Unfortunately I don't have the tools or know-how to recap the board myself nor do I even know what "ESR" is. I didn't see any obviously-damaged parts of my own board but now that I've been alerted to this problem I'm going to be looking into repair services.

If you guys can recommend any, lemme know.

EDIT: Alternatively, recommend a different (more reliable?) motherboard. Basically something that equals or exceeds the specs on that Epox I've got, I'm not too picky as long as it has at least one ISA slot and one USB port (for my keyboard).

Badcaps.net offers a recapping service and a metric buttload of information.