What the?

[TysonTY1]

I'm trying to get an older PC running to use as a client in my little home test network. I picked up the dinosaur from a friend. He swears it was working when he gave it to me. It's an AST Bravo Pro 6200 (if that really matters). Processor I believe is a Pentium ~300mhz, 3gig HD, 128 meg RAM. Any way the thing will not boot. I get no response from the Monitor when powered on. I put the video card and monitor in another system and it ran like a champ. The power comes on and the hard drive spins. The power light flashes (???). I tried all PCI slots with no luck. The dang monitor will not wake. Any one have any suggestions what to check next.....

[Blakhart]

Clear cmos, try diff mem, if ya have another cpu try that. You could also try all the parts in a known good rig. That may narrow it down some. Oh yeah, check every cable and connection.
Just some ideas.

[TysonTY1]

I know you can clear / reset the CMOS by either taking out the battery or using jumpers. Is there difference?

[glc]

Using jumpers is preferred - unplug the machine from the AC power and move the jumper for a few minutes.

[TysonTY1]

CMOS re-set. Still not working. I have 4 slots all full of them full, 2 banks by 2. Can I swittch the ram around or take some out to find bad ram?

[GaryRouth]

Theoretically, if your RAM or video card aren't seated/working properly, you should hear some diagnostic beep pattern from the Bios. Are you hearing any POST beep at all?

When you say "the power light flashes" - are you referring to the case power or the monitor's? And does it flash just once, and then stay lit?

If it's the monitor power light that's flashing, and if it then goes to amber, it's probably not getting a signal from the video card and then powering down to power save mode.

To rule out a short in the case, with the power off & unplugged - take the motherboard out & put it on a non-conductive surface (cardboard will do - NOT plastic). Have only one stick of ram in, the cpu, hs/fan, and video card. No drives attached, no mice, no keyboards. If you see no display at all, try reseating the cpu, ram, and video card. You should see Something on the monitor. Since you've tested the video card and monitor in another system - that points to the parts that are left = cpu, motherboard, memory, or power supply. You'll have to test them one at a time to see which is faulty (just like Blakhart mentioned).

And, assuming future visits to the forum will be happier: welcome to the PC Mechanic forums.
Best of luck,
. . . Gary

[p.s. you'd usually post a question like this in the PC hardware or Win95/98/ME forums]