The other day my pc, while not being used, froze. I had to reset it, but it never finished rebooting. Instead I got a bad post test beep (I've checked several lists of award beep codes and none of them have this one). Now when I turn on the pc's power, the fans all come on and the HDs do a short start-up spin, but the computer never actually boots. I've tried replacing the cpu, ram, power supply and cmos battery but nothing has had any affect. My next guess is to buy a replacement bios chip, but would a dead bios chip have caused my computer to freeze up in the first place? I was always under the impression that the bios was only important during the boot process and therefor a bad chip would not have affected my computer until my next startup. Is a new bios chip a likely solution, or do I need to think about trying a whole new board? Thanks, -Nordo

bad motherboard. If there is something wrong with your bios, it won't even beep

try booting with minimum system gfx card only

YOU WROTE: "Now when I turn on the pc's power, the fans all come on and the HDs do a short start-up spin, but the computer never actually boots" ===================================== I had a bios burn out on me recently, and my mobo did EXACTLY what you describe. The fans spun up, I could feel the drives kick in - and that was the end of that. However, I went to www.badflash.com/ and got myself a brand new bios for only $24 bucks - shipping included - and now the computer works absolutely fine again. Before going through the expense of a completely new mobo - especially if you liked your old one - changing the flash bios certainly won't hurt. They accept PayPal, standard credit card payments, and have complete, detailed instructions. NOTE: You have to give them the exact specs and correct bios version of your mobo which is easy to find on the mobo manufacturers website. You also have to CAREFULLY remove the flash bios chip, and note any written info. UNDER the existing labels. Finally, you have to make sure that you remember exactly in which manner or direction the flash bios was on the board, because if you install the new one in a wrong direction, then the new flash bios will burn out immediately upon powering up. But again, if you have a few days of time, this might verey well prove to be a considerably cheaper solution. They laso have a bios UPDATE option, but that might be a waste of money if the bios chip itself was going bad already. Hey Intel, AMD rulez!

Hey Nordo, Could be either a bad MB component or a bad BIOS. Only one way to find out, you either need to find out where the POST process is stopping, or flash the EEPROM with a programmer with current BIOS software. If the only thing you can go by is beep codes, you're screwed, you can take the chance of new BIOS like Leembo suggested, but really it's a 50/50 chance. The MB could have a failed component and the POST process is doing what it's made to do and stopping and that initialization of that failing device. Good luck Joe