Rebuild of aging PC

[PMich]

I haven't been around for a few years but I am glad to see PCMech is still running strong.

I am trying to rebuild an aging Athlon XP system for my soon to be 5 year old son to use. I built it about 4 years ago. It stopped working about 6-8 months ago and has sat since.

The original problem was that it would get to the XP boot screen and then the screen would go blank. I can enter BIOS okay and change CMOS setting no problem. I thought it was a video card issue and swapped my old VIVO for with a Sapphire X1650 (it needed an upgrade anyway, so I am not out anything here).

Now I only get a POST beep every other time I power on the computer and I have to have the Windows XP disk in the CDROM to get anywhere. I tried to do a fresh install on my Windows partition and couldn't get anywhere due to the fact that it would fail to post on reboot.

I am now beginning to think there are bad sectors on the boot portion of my Windows partition or that I have a PSU issue. Any thoughts would be appreciated. I have a new HDD coming from Newegg but wonder if I need to order a PSU as well.

The specs are as follows:
Asus A7N8X-X
Antec True 330W
Athlon XP 1800+ (or similar, IIRC)
WD 80GB Caviar (Partitioned into 10GB for Windows, 30GB for programs, and 2x20GB for data)
ATI VIVO (swapped a Sapphire X1650 in attempt to fix)
2x256MB DDR Corsair RAM (IIRC)

[Cricket]

Check the motherboard capacitors for bulging or leaking.

The Antec True Power PSUs were a lot better than the Smart Power PSUs so I wouldn't automatically consider your Antec to be the problem. But I've had several Antecs die on me recently (all over 5 years old) so it's a possibility.

Problem might also be a failing motherboard. I've had a couple ASUS motherboards die on me (these were over 7 years old though).

Did you try the computer with just 1 stick of RAM installed?

Did you try the computer with the optical drive(s) disconnected?

Did you replace the data cables (IDE or SATA) to the drives?

Cricket

[PMich]

All the caps looked okay the other day but I will go over them again. Those were some thoughts that I had as well. I am planning to pull one of the RAM sticks tonight. I wasn't sure about the optical drives since the only way I could get anywhere was with the XP disk in the CD drive. I'll see if I can dig up an IDE cable somewhere. I did "round" the cables myself when I built it so we may be onto something there.