Inspiron 660 POST problem

An update: I've repeated my steps, disconnecting power, then all cables, then holding the power button in for a while. Without connecting any drives, there's no beeping - but, no getting past the "Dell of Death" (DOD) either. It's unresponsive to F2, and no complaints about boot. Just... Dell in a white circle. Dan

Yet another update: 1) The beeping is certainly a red herring. It occurs each time I pop the coin battery out, pop it back in and power up. Each subsequent power cycle, it goes away. 2) This article: www.dell.com/.../EN states that you should press F12 to get to the diagnostics, and if your keyboard doesn't have an F12, try hitting zero instead. Well, my keyboard has an F12, and it does nothing, just like F2. But, 0 does something! As soon as I hit it when the Dell logo appears, I get a blue slider that lasts for a few seconds - and the message "F12 boot options" appears in the upper right. If I do nothing, the slider disappears when it's scrolled all the way across, and I'm back to the DOD. If I hit F12 while it's scrolling, the slider immediately disappears and I'm back to DOD. So, what's this all about?! (*tap*, *tap*...) Hey, is this thing on? Anybody out there? Dan

Yet another update! It doesn't matter *which* key I hit, I get the scrolling blue bar and "F12 boot options" in the upper right. That is, any key (including Fx keys), except for F2 and F12. If I hit them first, no scrolling blue bar. And if I hit any other key and get the scrolling blue bar, it immediately disappears after I hit either F2 or F12. Yes, I've tried another keyboard - same deal. I have two 4MB memory sticks - I've removed both and tried one at at time in slot 1 - no difference in behavior. Dan

Yes - it turned out to be a bad MoBo.  I had it replaced, and all is now well.

How much did it cost to replace the Mobo?

It's good to know that the issue can be resolved.