[HELP]Is my computer fried?

Computer Specs:
AMD XP2200+ (1.8 GHz)
ASRock K7VT2
512MB DDR PC2100
AOpen Geforce 2 MX400 64mb
Windows XP Pro

About a week ago I bought new RAM for my computer. I installed it, booted my computer and everything was fine. My computer was working well for 3 days and then something happened. I had just gotten out of a game of Halo and was going to my teams Forum to check some posts and the computer froze. There was a loud screaching static-like noise coming from my headphones. I panicked and hit the switch on my computer. When I attempted to start it back up it wouldn't come up. The power sould come on, all the fans would come on, the light in my case and the hard drive would come on, but the computer didn't even get to POST. I can't get to the BIOS or anything. The monitor turns on but it is just a flickering gray screen (no signal).

Now immediatley I started to troubleshoot it myself. First I switched out the RAM for RAM I knew that worked. No Go, same thing. I then tried the video card. I switched it out for a 3DFX Voodoo3 2000 and still nothing. Then I tried taking out the sound card. Still nothing. I unplugged the CD-ROM drives and the HDD and still nothing. Nothing seems to work. I took out the processor to see if there was any visible sign of burning and nothing was present.

Could my motherboard/processor be dead? It seems odd since the computer technically still "powers up." Aside from the RAM I have not changed any hardware setups. The voltage on my powersupply is set 115/120. Everything seems to be in place but this machine will not boot up. I like to think of myself pretty decent (slightly above your average idiot) when it comes to computers and this has me stumped. Is there something i'm missing or are one (or more) of my components fried?

Thanks in advance.

try resetting cmos, or perhaps getting a new battery for it, thats about all I can think of. To reset your cmos settings unplug the power supply, yank out the battery, and look in your mobo manual for which jumper to change to reset cmos to factory specs. Sounds like a hardware prob but I have never come across a fried mobo b4 so im not sure....

try resetting cmos, or perhaps getting a new battery for it, thats about all I can think of. To reset your cmos settings unplug the power supply, yank out the battery, and look in your mobo manual for which jumper to change to reset cmos to factory specs. Sounds like a hardware prob but I have never come across a fried mobo b4 so im not sure....

I took out my CMOS battery for about 5 minutes, and even put a paperclip in-between the solder points labeled CLRCMOS. The battery might be dead, so I suppose i'll go out and buy another one. Would that really stop the computer from booting?

I honestly don't know man, but if it was my board I would be testing the battery or maybe getting another just to give it a whirl out of hope that i wouldn't have to get a new one :(
one guy at work once had the battery die on his workstation and apparently couldn't get it to post. Not sure though as I didn't witness directly. Replacing the battery did however fix his problem whatever it was lol.

i do know that there isn't many reasons why a PC wont' post, the p/s, and teh mobo are big ones. If the processor, vid card, ram, or anything else is hooped they usually give an audible warning sound. Download the manual and have a look dude.

I honestly don't know man, but if it was my board I would be testing the battery or maybe getting another just to give it a whirl out of hope that i wouldn't have to get a new one :(
one guy at work once had the battery die on his workstation and apparently couldn't get it to post. Not sure though as I didn't witness directly. Replacing the battery did however fix his problem whatever it was lol.
Hmmm...Well thanks for responding, when I get a chance I will go out and buy a replacement and see if that cures my conundrum.

i do know that there isn't many reasons why a PC wont' post, the p/s, and teh mobo are big ones. If the processor, vid card, ram, or anything else is hooped they usually give an audible warning sound. Download the manual and have a look dude.
That's another thing I forgot to mention (it's always something). The computer DOES beep. Three times. Beep beep beep - pause - then 3 more beeps, etc etc. The beeps are about a second long and have a .5 second interval between the beeps.

Award or AMI bios?

If AMI:

3 short: Base 64K memory failure A memory failure has occurred in the first 64K of RAM. The RAM IC is probably bad

from http://www.bioscentral.com/beepcodes/amibeep.htm

Phoenix/Award:

4 sets of 3 beeps - Faulty motherboard or bad motherboard components

I'd start with the last thing you installed--the RAM. Did you try to overclock the RAM or run it out of spec? Also, after the first failure, did you ensure the system was unplugged (motherboard depowered) before moving the RAM around?

What's the power supply like? Turn it on, get a multimeter, and test the 12 and 5 V lines from a hard disk connector.

When I installed the RAM the PSU was set to off but it was still plugged in. I'm fairly sure it's an AMI BIOS, and the beeps are relatively long. I didn't try to OC the RAM or anything, fresh out of the box. 3 days later it was kaput after some weird crash as I detailed in my post.

make sure you read the manual dude, it will decode the beeps in there, keep us posted this one sounds interesting ;)

Sounds like your motherboard is broken, if you've already swapped in some known-to-be-good parts and it's not going still.