Question : Problem: rapid beeping, gigabyte mobo, system paralyzed

Recently my faithful servant since 2002 started giving me a rapid continous high pitched beep code with no video.
I have a gigabyte 8IEXP mobo in a chassis with the following hardware:
(2) 40GB hard drives on the raid circuit
40GB boot drive
20GB drive
110GB work drive
Radeon video card with standard (big) power pinouts
New 1GB memory chip to accompany the existing 512 mb chip (3 weeks old)
Firewire card
Thermaltake fan I installed on my 2000mhz p4 CPU on assembly in 2002
Original (?) power supply,  a 180 watt job that has been incredibly handling all this, although I have always had a problem of drives not getting juice from problematic loose power plugs.
The mobo seems to always have done a good job of watching the CPU temperature.
When I went to unplug the video card, I snapped the power socket off of the card traces&  resoldering was unsuccessful so I put in a radeon 9700 with the smaller power pin sockets. At that point the system booted and updated the drivers for the new vid card.
Then it booted with the rapid beeping again, so I shuffled the memory,  determining that the system booted ok with the new 1GB memory in the original chips slot by itself.
Then&  nothing.  No power, alternated by rapid beeping.
I tried hooking up a NIB power supply I got from a rummage sale& still no power  (must be a DOA, that one).  Not installed in the chassis, mind you, just sitting on it with the new connectors plugged in properly. Nothing.
I researched beep codes and determined a continous beep can mean a fried CPU or bad fan on the award bios.  Also there is the issue of video not coming through when it beeps.
This is where I stand&  a stable system that suddenly has decided to fail volatile-wise.
Any ideas?  CPU?  Power Supply?  Cable crawl?

Answer : Problem: rapid beeping, gigabyte mobo, system paralyzed

If it's 7 years old, I would not be surprised that something has failed - capacitors can dry out, power surges can take their toll, and dust can build up with overheating following.  Many people act surprised that a stable system suddenly stops working, but electronic parts do get old and become less effective.

Check out the RAM and the video card on another system, but I think your motherboard has finally given up the ghost.  You should try it with another power supply, though.