Hope you have keyboard & mouse in this time Steve.
Regards tinker.
USB mouse plugged in, PS2 keyboard plugged in, working vga card securely plugged in and monitor works, good RAM module in white slot furthest from CPU, CPU and HSF installed, beep speaker installed, both VGA power connectors on same rail of psu, both power connectors to the mobo (24 slot and 8 slot)... and..
nothing... same.... one very soft beep. I really think my psu has given up the ghost. We'll see after my new one gets here. I did your BIOS tip, Tinker, exactly as you stated it, also.
on edit: Actually the noise I heard was not the speaker beeping but probably a fan noise. During the very short bootup the speaker did not beep at all.