wrote:
I've got an 8RDA+ system that was running fine early today. (It is not
overclocked, but I'm thinking overclockers may have some insights too,
hence the cross post.)

It was left on while people left the room. When they came back a few
hours later it was dead. Now it won't even POST.

History: ~3 weeks ago it started giving a message at boot time saying
the CPU had changed. (It hadn't)
I swapped in a new CMOS Battery and after a lot of other Windows
related issues had the machine running fine again, except that it
would complain that the 80 conductor 2nd-ary IDE Cable was not
connected. (it was)
After a while longer, it failed to boot because it didn't detect the
floppy (which was still connected). I went into the BIOS and told it
to ignore that error. It booted fine and continued working.

Now it's dead. A few times I was able to get the power and fans to
come on but the system would not even get to the BIOS screen. I
checked the PS with a volt meter and got proper voltages on the
peripheral connectors (+5v, +12v) The LED error codes would stop at a
different value each time it froze: 00, FF, C1, CF, 0d. It was very
random. I would sometime get long beeps. Then I started getting hi-
lo-hi-lo alternating beeps.

I disconnected ALL the IDE cables and their power supplies and even
the MoBo from the PS. Then I reconnected them all and now I don't
even get power or fans. I can see the NIC lights (yellow and green)
come on, and I can see the LED briefly flash FF (0.5sec).

I'm starting to think the BIOS Chip went south. Any other
suggestions?

This machine has been a trooper and I'd hate to see it go.

I'd appreciate any pointers.

Thanks.

Glen

The hi-lo-hi-lo police siren, suggests you should have a look at
the capacitors near the CPU socket.

http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/1-vt65416.html?start=0

There is a closeup here, of some bad capacitors. The reason the
ones around the CPU tend to go, is because they are under the
most stress (high ripple current). Also, look on the PCB, as there
could be a brown stain, where a liquid leaked and dried up.

http://www.badcaps.net/images/caps/kt7/image004.png

If you don't stop using a motherboard, when the capacitors start
to go, there can be collateral damage. The MOSFETs or the
toroidal coils near the caps, can fail as a result of the
overload caused by failed caps.

People have managed to fix things like this, but at some
point, the amount spent on parts or tools, outweighs
any possible saving. For example, one guy used to charge
$50 to re-cap a board, but for that price, you might find
a whole replacement board on Ebay. Some enjoy stuff like
this, and for them the money is not an issue.

Paul