Gateway DX4300 RS780M03G1 Boots But?

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I acquired a Gateway DX4300 that had been hit by a power surge. The original owner indicated it did work for a few months afterwards but required multiple presses of the power button to get it to boot. Eventually it would not turn on at all, so he removed the RAM, video card, hard drive, etc. I got it primarily to use the case but thought I would see if anything else was salvageable.

It has a RS780M03G1-8EKSMH motherboard (Foxconn I think), and AMD Athlon 7450 CPU. I discarded the FSP 300W power supply (not trusting that after a surge), and am using an old Startech 300W (20-pin) for debug. I have 2G of RAM (Dell) installed, and a Gateway PS2 keyboard and mouse (no hard drive attached). I have a digital multimeter available for voltage measurements.

When I turn the AC input to the power supply on, the CPU fan starts to spin and the keyboard lights flick. After a few seconds, the fan slows down, as if the power supply has turned off but then immediately kicks back up. The machine then goes through a boot sequence, and displays the Gateway logo plus a prompt to press DEL to enter setup or F12 for boot menu. The machine at first hung at this point.

By removing the CMOS battery, I was able to get further, and actually get into the bios setup menu. By changing the bios configuration, I can disable fast boot and display all the messages (bypassing the Gateway logo). In this mode I get a single beep from the keyboard (upon completion of RAM test), followed by three beeps (possibly indicating no boot device?). I then get a prompt indicating that no boot device is present, and to press any key to continue. This seemed reasonable. If I hold the power button for a few seconds, to turn the machine off, this does happen but the power supply immediately turns back on and the boot sequence repeats. I have to turn the power supply off to shut it down.

This sequence happens most of the time when I start the machine up. However, some times it just hangs with a message indicating that it is checking NVRAM. If I change the bios configuration to try and boot to a USB flash drive, it appears to not recognize this (light is on on USB flash drive) and gives me the same no boot device found message. Is there any hope for this motherboard, or am I likely wasting my time? At least I know the CPU is good, so that is a bonus. Thanks!

 

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UPDATE: I have been doing a little more work & tried a new power supply (Seasonic SS-300-ET). With the new power supply, I don't get the instant start-up when I turn the AC input on. I also hooked up an old ATA hard drive, which has a bootable version of Linux pre-installed. I tried the system with the CMOS backup battery removed and installed.

Battery Removed

1 Turn AC input to power supply on - OK.
2 Press power button, turns on - OK.
3 Displays Gateway logo & DEL/F12 message.
4 One beep.
5 Two beeps.
6 Displays AMI bios messages (sees hard drive).
7 Indicates CMOS checksum bad & press F1 to load defaults.
8 Press F1 key, indicates NVRAM update OK.
9 Hangs.

10 Hold power button, turns off but restarts immediately.
11 Displays Gateway logo & DEL/F12 message.
12 One beep.
13 Boots to Linux from hard drive.
14 Seems to run fine.
15 Shut down in Linux OK.

16 Press power button, turns on - OK.
17 Displays Gateway logo & DEL/F12 message.
18 One beep.
19 Hangs.

20 Hold power button, turns off but restarts immediately.
21 Displays Gateway logo & DEL/F12 message.
22 One beep.
23 Boots to Linux from hard drive.
24 Repeat of step 14 onward

Battery Installed

1 Turn AC input to power supply on - OK.
2 Press power button, turns on - OK.
3 Displays Gateway logo & DEL/F12 message.
4 One beep.
5 Two beeps.
6 Displays AMI bios messages.
7 Indicates CMOS checksum bad & press F1 to load defaults.
8 Press F1 key, indicates NVRAM update OK.
9 Hangs.

10 Hold power button, turns off.
11 Press power button, will not turn on (different to without battery).

12 Turn AC to power supply off.
13 Turn AC input to power supply on - OK.
14 Press power button, turns on - OK.
15 Repeat of step 3 onward

It looks like the motherboard is working some what. If anyone could provide more insight into the likely trouble spot, I would certainly appreciate it. Thanks!