[->Trevor]

More seriously though, is the 12V ATX auxillary plug necessary on your motherboard? I forgot to plug it in once and the board would act really strange and not power up properly but the fans would spin.

You mean the little square one with the 4 pins? I don't think so. During the several times it did successfully POST and boot up, I didn't have it connected. In fact I didn't even know what it did until you just mentioned it and I looked it up. According to the manual, attaching it is "optional," which begs the question why anyone would attach something that's optional. I have never known of such a connector, and my old case doesn't even have a plug for it (though my new one does, strangely.)

I guess I'll try connecting it just for fun.

[->Greg]

When you say it doesn't POST, does it at least beep once? As in, it works but it's just that the video has gone dead? Either way, might try a different video card, or a PCI one or something.

As I said, no video, no beeps. Video card is just fine, using it right now with the old motherboard and Duron processor.

It DOESN'T beep at you when you turn it on with a missing video card or RAM? Seems like it should. See what BIOS type is in it (Phoenix or Award probably) and their sites will list beep codes and their meanings. But you don't get anyhing, that makes no sense!

Right. That's what I'm sayin'.

All BIOS options to "failsafe"?

Well, they're set to factory defaults, since I cleared the CMOS, but I have no way to view them, since there's no video, and I can't get into the BIOS screen.

Your chip may work int hat other board. It will physically fit - and even though it won't run full speed, the board that the Duron is in right now may (I'd say "should") at least take the info off the chip regarding the multiplier, etc. and make something of it. Perhaps run at 100 instead of 133, or something similar. That's been my experiences anyways - a new XP chip won't go full speed but will POST.

Hm, okay, I may try the AthlonXP in my current board, then, just to see what's going on. For some reason I thought the newer generation Athlons wouldn't run at all on an older board.

I've owned an Abit, and I returned it, it was so flaky when I was putting that particular machine together. Traded it for a Gigabyte which worked great, immediatley. Myself - I'd never buy another Abit. My point is - it really could be the board...

Well, I've never had a problem with any of the ABit's I owned (TX-5, BP-6, KT7-RAID) so this is new to me. I guess I just want to know that it's the board before I ship it out for a return.

Anyway thanks for the help, guys, I'll probably try to swap chips/etc. tonight when I get home to see what's going on. Let's hope I don't damage my current setup in the process. I seem to have the "reverse Midas touch" lately.