I'm using FILO as a payload, not a kernel directly -- does the size of the kernel still matter? Would a payload/kernel issue really cause this kind of problem? I'd expect more than 0.5 seconds of life from the system anyway, I'd be happy if it gave me a prompt or similar.
FILO doesn't have the drivers necessary to control the SATA drives on the NVIDIA CK804 chipset. That's why you need a tiny kernel.
I ran into the same problem and ended up adding an IDE drive to the system so that I could boot, at least until I could get a tiny kernel into the ROM.
My symptoms were different, though. My machine came up to a prompt and then couldn't find the drive. The fact that your machine is beeping seems weird to me. I haven't seen LinuxBIOS beeping for failures. Have you looked up the code to see if your factory BIOS can explain the beep codes?
Myles
Thanks! Daniel