It was the motherboard.  I took it back to the shop and got a replacement.  Now everything is fine...I'd forgotten about this thread - thanks people for all your suggestions!

I've not been able to get it to work since I bought it in the shop.    Problem is, I've had it over a month now, so they might get a little tetchy about giving me an exchange especially since there's a perfectly good cpu attached to it...if the problem isn't solved then I guess I will have to take it back but hopefully asrock can give me some help.  Thanks anyway  

Thanks...the guy who started the post suggested that the mobo is AMI bios, I checked out the code and it suggested something like 64k ram failure?  They suggest reseating the memory and if it doesn't work still, try replacing the memory.  I've done that already and its STILL beeping so I have no clue what it's problem is.  However, I don't even know if AMI is the board's bios - the asrock site is as useful as a chocolate tea kettle as far as I can see, and I have no idea of discovering what the bios actually is because I can't get a display.

 However, just a quick question - the memory I bought is 333mhz, on the box my mobo came in it says something like '2 ddr 266 slots' - please don't tell me my memory's too fast or something...I used the crucial.com memory guide and it said the memory was definately compatible with the K7VT2 board so that can't be it...can it?

Well I'm not sure what the psu was in the old case I tried the asrock mobo in, but I've tried it in a new case with a 300w supply and I'm still getting the same beepcode.  I thought it might be the memory, so I bought some new memory from crucial.com, using their memory help guide so I know the memory is definately compatible with the board.  Anyway, I've emailed ASrock with the problem, so hopefully they should get back to me soon...

Hi, I'm having exactly the same problem as detailed here - I recently bought an Asrock K7VT2 with an athlon xp cpu and every time I try and start it up I'm getting no screen and three short beeps.  However, I don't think the problem with mine is a faulty power supply because when I put my old board back in the case it works fine with the same psu.  The guy who sold me the board (who is a friend) told me he suspected it might be a video card issue, but the video card I have, a creative geforce 3 should surely work fine?  I've tried putting different memory in aswell and it seems that nothing works.  I've tried the asrock site for finding out what the beep code means, but they're pretty useless and the manual that came with the motherboard is no better.  Some people say the beeps mean a keyboard error, others memory and others video problems but I really haven't a clue.  Is it possible that the PSU in my case isn't strong enough or something?  Any help is appreciated, thanks for your time!