A couple of weeks ago i began experiencing occasional blue screen/memory dumps in XP. They became more frequent. The last blue screen i saw had some message about wdmaud.sys (I have integrated audio). When I restarted the computer the monitor did not come on. None of the diagnostic lights light up.

 

When I press the power button, everything comes on - the hard drives, CD/Floppy, processor, video card (AIW 9600) - the front light is green with no blinking. All of this without video to the monitor. Im pretty sure the bios and windows never loads.

 

I've tried another video card (AIW 7500) and monitors with same result.

 

I have been able to get video by removing and reinserting every piece of hardware (including the battery) -  Unfortunately it only lasts for about 30 seconds before everything freezes. Never loads into Windows.

 

I have tried to enter maintenance mode (if there is such a thing) by removing the jumper, moving the jumper, removing the jumper and the password jumper, etc.

 

I have managed to boot from a floppy with video in an attempt to overwrite my bios, but everything freezes before i can.  I managed to boot from the floppy without video but a new bios never loads.

 

Ive attempted to boot without the memory inboard, without drives, without processor - in any combination - i still get no video with power.

 

I figure the motherboard is fried - So I tried another 8300 motherboard (do i need to do anything while installing another board except just plug everything in?). Same results. With the new board i was able to get 6 beeps. Ive havent been able to reproduce the beeps after the first time (i couldnt tell you if they were short or long beeps).

 

Hard drives are OK. I havent tried a PCI video card (but Ive used two different motherboards).Power supply seems fine, processor seems fine. Maybe the processor is fried? It comes on, gets warm.

 

Im puzzled. Any suggestions? Thanks..