Well, I have an RFM that I brought to a show, and it survived perfectly fine. I finally got around to reassembling it today (the first time I have done anything with it since bringing it back from the show), but was surprised that it didn't boot.

The computer has a brand new power supply, and the motherboard caps have already been replaced.

I can hear the monitor turn on. The computer fans turn on. The prism card LED locks on instead of blinking. The fuses on the driver board are all good.

I took out the prism card hoping to see the computers POST screen, but got some unreadable static/garbage on the screen once like there was a connection issue with the VGA cable, but the cable was secure at both ends. I was not able to get that screen a second time, and the monitor has continued to be blank.

I disconnected everything and reconnected everything, but there has been no change.

Any ideas?

Right, with RFM, it uses single continuous cables without connectors in the middle.

Well, I connected and disconnected, and screwed them down tight, so I don't think that's the issue. I also made sure all the ribbon cables inside the PC were plugged in all the way too, and those seemed to be fine.

I hooked up a spare LCD monitor to the computer without the prism card, and no output.

The power supply has 12v and 5v.

I re-seated the RAM already. Didn't touch the CPU.

I've been digging around for a PC speaker to see if the computer is throwing any beep codes.

Found a speaker, but there were no beeps from the computer. Sigh.

Well, I think I've scraped the bottom of my bag of tricks on this one. Any ideas?

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Well, that actually lead me somewhere--thanks

I tried another stick of RAM, and the PC booted

So, I cleaned off the contacts on the RAM that was installed, and the PC booted. I threw in the prisim card, and the game boot and was playing.

The PC should be throwing POST beep code errors with bad or missing RAM, so I'm confused as to why it didn't (and yes, I tried booting the PC without RAM to see if I could actually get a missing RAM beep code out of it).

So, I'll try it again tomorrow and see if it boots normally, or if it goes back into its problem state.

Well, big surprise, it wouldn't boot this morning.

Same symptoms as before--PC fans spin up, prisim card has a locked on LED, monitor turns on, and no POST beep.

I'm not sure what changed in the past few hours.

I'm starting to think that could be a possibility. I'll swap it out again tonight.

It's been default feature for the BIOS since at least the early 90s.

The puzzling thing is that it only gives a beep on a successful boot (which is expected). But doesn't give any beeps on unsuccessful boots (which is unexpected).

I had a cyrix PC back in the 90s--it beeped.

There was no option to disable that feature, as far as I'm aware.

A speaker was an optional part. Back then, it was generally a standard 1-2" speaker. It wasn't a critical component, so half the time it was left out to save money, I imagine. Today it's just a small (and inexpensive) piezoelectric speaker.

I pulled everything out of the case before the last show and inspected it thoroughly, and everything seemed fine. It was having booting issues back then, but I thought I fixed it with a new power supply and replacing the 5 motherboard caps.

Hey are the same caps I use for various pinball repairs. Usually get them from GPE, mouser, digikey, etc.

Then they only would have had about a week of use total. I don't think they're dead yet, and I didn't notice any buldging/leaking, but I'll double check.

Back before there were memes, there were plenty of joke photos of people putting an aluminum foil bowl on a cpu without a heat sink and cooking an egg.

I verified that the motherboard caps look fine.

Swapping RAM didn't change anything.

So, I turned the game on, and let it sit for about 2 minutes. Then the computer suddenly booted on its own without reseting the computer.

Started a game, and it played fine.

Turned it off for 30 seconds, turned it back on, and the PC booted immediately like it was doing last night.

So, that seems to indicate that there could be heat issue on the motherboard where could be a broken trace or cracked solder joint, or a leaky cap that isn't getting charged up quickly enough from a cold boot.

Are there any other caps on this motherboard that are typically replaced?

No, I haven't. I'm not sure if messing with that will introduce a new problem or not.

No. It looks like it was replaced by a previous owner, though. It was giving the correct voltage.

In any case, the PC boot issue happens with or without the prism card. I think it's safe to say that I can rule out the prism card as being a part of the issue.

Same for that battery. Voltage was good, but I went ahead and replaced that one anyway yesterday, but there was no change.

I installed nichicon caps.

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Maybe, maybe not.

Either way, I'm still hesitant to pull it since I'm bringing it to a show in a couple days. I'd rather not risk breaking the pins or something--then I'd really be SOL. After the show, I may give it a try if that really is the general concensus since I would have more time to deal with a potential mishap then.

It seems to work as long as I give it time to warm up from a cold boot. After that, it seems to play like a champ.

Nope, I didn't get those. I just used the standard caps I had in stock. When I was reading about replacing the caps, I didn't see that mentioned anywhere.

I'll be sure to look into that.

I do get caps from GPE, I just didnt get the ones specifically labeled for pin2000 since I wasn't aware of them.

The body is no problem. The backbox....ugh.