posting problems. hang?

[PinchyCM]

cross posting... probably shoulda posted here in the first place

So I was swapping out video cards, as I prepare to give my a64 machine to my dear mom. My Radeon 8500LE was throwing fits at the moment (not sure why, but the DVI output doesn't work with my 2405FP). Anyway, I decided to keep my 6800 in there for the meantime.

I pulled out the card, and stuck the 6800 back in. Being the fool that I am, I forgot to plug in the extra 5V supply to power it. I powered up the machine, and it started howling at me. I'm guessing that's the board's way of saying, "you moron, plug the 5V in."

So I quickly powered down, and plugged it in. Powered up okay, booted to a CD and then started install windows where it froze. I looked inside the case and it looks like the HDD cable got jarred loose in the madness, so I reconnected and powered up.

Since then, it's been having problems posting. I sometimes get something like this:

click to see screen

Sometimes I won't get those === bars, and it'll just hang. I ripped everything out, reseated everything, and I got it to boot once. While it did, I had the crazy idea of powering everything down, turning off the PSU, and then starting over, and I'm back at those funny ===== and a hanging boot. thoughts?

Update: I put the Radeon8500LE back in there and it does the same thing... (Only this time, I'm using the analog output.)

So it's not the video card... Since it's outputting video, I don't think it's the AGP slot...

HAAALP

Did I just accidently fry my board somehow?

My specs:
epox Ep-8kda7i, a64 3200+, 2gb corsair value pc3200, geforce 6800

 

[TD77077]

Looks like it is not finding a master drive. If you go to setup does it see the hard drive? I'm guessing this prob is related to the hard drive cable that was knocked loose. Make sure it is seated right, oriented right (red stripe should be on the side towards the power connector), and make sure the HD is jumpered right. Sometimes there can be probs when the jumper is left in CS (cable select). I try to only use master or single drive settings.

TD

 

[PinchyCM]

I let the CMOS clear, and it came back. I could get into BIOS and move around okay. I decided to test it again by cold-powering it off, and then turning off the PSU. Restarted, and got the same resets..

The drives plugged in are SATA, so CS/MS shouldn't matter...

 

[TD77077]

I don't have much experisnce with SATA, but it has to load the SATA driver before it can go to windows. Maybe the SATA driver got corrupted so it can't get to the hard drive. Try booting with the floppy disk (or CD) used to load the SATA drivers following the same procedures as you would use if it was a brand new drive. This should reset up the SATA drivers.

TD

 

[PinchyCM]

That can't be it either...

I've even yanked all the HDDs.

Someone mentioned that it could be the PSU now... He was saying that inconsistencies usually point towards wiggy PSUs.