My son has a Dell OptiPlex GX1 with Win98SE. We were trying to resolve a
sound problem, when the beast decided it wouldn't boot anymore. When it is
shutdown and restarted, the opening Dell screen appears, but it then goes to
a black screen with just a blinking cursor in the upper LH corner. There is
no disk activity beyond the initial noises heard when the power is applied,
there are no messages of any sort, nor are any beeps heard. Attempts to enter
the BIOS using the F2 key give the same result.

Background: He lost the sound when the machine was relocated about a month
ago, and we were attempting to restore it. As part of the process, we entered
the BIOS and found that the onboard sound had been disabled; this setting was
changed and the system booted without any problem, but still no sound. So we
downloaded a driver from the Cirrus site, and installed them. The booting
problem occurred immediately after that.

Other stuff: He reinstalled Win98SE several months ago; all seemed
to work well. Cable access was installed by Time Warner shortly after the
system was relocated; again, no problem other than the missing sound. A
firewall (not sure if it was Norton or McAfee) earlier this week. The box
itself is about 3-1/2 years old.

Regards,
Carroll Grigsby

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