need help with old socket A board

[teddyastuffed]

hey everyone! im trying to help out my mother with her computer. its an old setup, but it should be working fine and i cant figure out what the problem is.

the computer is pretty much this:
msi k7t266 pro2-a mobo w/ no bios updates/upgrades
amd athlon xp 2000+ (stock settings) w/ a volcano 9 coolmod heatsink/fan (it was my old computer )
512mb of some samsung memory, i can find out what model it is tomorrow.
an 80gb 7200rpm western digital hd (dunno model either)
a dvd-rom drive and a cd-rw drive (random drives)
a voodoo 3 3000 gfx card
an sblive 5.1 soundcard

ok pretty much the problem is whenever i turn on the computer, the computer beeps once, pauses, then beeps 3 times (sorta like beep ------ beep beep beep) and after the first beep the screen turns red for a split second. the motherboard is an AMIBIOS type and i tried looking around on the internet and it said faulty ram, but the thing is the computer still turns on, works fine, and sometimes that beep problem doesnt even occur. temperatures are all fine. i cant figure out the problem and its aggrivating my mother. also all of a sudden after i fixed her cpu (she was having problems with the bios not recognizing the fan on the cpu turning on), supposively the internet stopped working (which is ironic because it was working the night i fixed the cpu...). she said her other computer on the router was working and that she tried to plug in directly to the cable modem and it still wouldnt work. i dont think its a cable issue as it worked the night before she said there was a problem. anyone have any suggestions? im going to go to her office tomorrow to format the computer and reinstall windows and so forth for her (because she requested a new format due to problems with SP2).

 

[Skeith]

Reseat the ram to make sure that its getting a good connection. Also just because it works sometimes it dont mean its not bad ram. I had some old PC133 ram that would boot but would cause crashes and errors randomly. Never suspected it was the ram. Replaced it and it worked fine. As for the CPU fan is it stock or 3rd party? maybe just time for a new one? Maybe a Bios update? Also as for cable internet. I dunno about where you live but i know that in Winnipeg its extreamly unreliable. Not only that but youre shareing with your neighbours so it could be bandwidth problems. I used to use Cable and swirched to DSL and the differance is unbelivable. I still get the odd dropout cause my router is a ******* but not like my friend on cable whose connection drops out every 10 min (no joke he even had a tech come to fix it and they didnt do a thing)

 

[chinaguy]

Make sure the mobo doesn't have any bad capacitors. Check to make sure none of the capacitors are bulging or leaking.

 

[teddyastuffed]

what if there are capacitors leaking... -_-. i noticed that before (that there were like 2-3 capacitors had dried up leakage), but i didnt think that was what was causing that beeping problem. the computer still works and everything, it just does that beeping at the beginning. what does a leaking capacitor mean? im assuming those r used as grounding tools, correct (if my electronics knowledge is correct)? i probably should upgrade her computer, but we really dont have the money to do that and like i said its working ;o.

i also tried installing a new stick of memory (kingston 512mb pc2700 valueram) and that did not fix the problem. i tried taking out he previous memory and putting this in, didnt work, tried both at the same time, tried it in different slots, nothing ! so i dont think thats the problem, unless its the slots that are causing problems.

thanks for the help!

EDIT: i also wanted to add that i found out the problem with the cpu fan. the reason it was not being detected is cuz it was running off of the sensor that i installed with it, and since the computer was cold in the morning and so forth, it wouldnt turn the cpu fan on (or at a very low voltage that the mobo couldnt recognize). i unplugged that and just set it to maximum power and its working fine. then recently i got a zalman fan controller (the cheap 5.99 one) and lowered the voltage to a speed that would be recognized by the mobo so that problem wouldnt arise but would still be quiet at the same time. so that problem is cured!

 

[chinaguy]

If the board has capacitors that are showing leakage, the board typically starts showing instability as the initial symptom, but it will only get worse. I had two boards with this problem, an Abit KA-7, and an MSI MS-6195. For more information about leaking caps, check out this website -> badcaps.net

 

[teddyastuffed]

yeah, i did some more research on that, and i told my mom that if she starts sensing instability problems that she needs to backup her documents asap and tell me. at that time ill either try desperately to solder new capacitors on or ill simply set her up with a new computer (a 754 setup or something -_- for around $200). theres no instability problems as of now, but i did make sure to tell her if any of those problems arise, be careful -_-.


one quick question about the capacitors that i couldnt find an answer to on that website... if the mobo does fail due to the capacitors, can that affect other components in the computer? for example: if the mobo finally completely fails to the point where it wont even boot, can that corrupt one's hard drive, memory, or video card?

thanks!

 

[chinaguy]

Neither board I had problems with damaged or caused any type of problem with any of the other components. However, I don't think it can be ruled out, depending on the function of the failed capacitor(s).