Did you get a tricolor (RGB) dialog box on your monitor screen that said
something like "your monitor is working, check your cable or PC"?  If you
did not get that even when your computer won't do the "power on self-test"
(POST), your monitor could be gone.  Before you buy a new video card, either
plug your monitor into a friend's working computer or borrow a working
monitor to plug into your computer.  If the mobo won't do a POST screen on a
working monitor, it might be your video card, but to be sure, open your case
(power off and unplugged), and pop the video card out of its socket.  Power
up again and your mobo should beep (the beep pattern for a missing vcard is
in your owner's manual or on the manufacturer's web site), but if it doesn't
beep at all, your mobo is probably dead.  If you're still not sure, put the
vcard back and pop all the RAM out.  It should beep if it finds no RAM.  No
beep here, no beep with no vcard, you have a dead mobo unless it's not
getting power. You say the hard drives and fan are running, so it is highly
unlikely that your power supply is dead.  Does your mobo have an LED that
lights up directly on it, or does your sound card have one (most Creative
Lab cards do, and you can see it on the back of the computer).  If there is
power, then your mobo is history.



Greetings to All!

Trying to help my son with his computer and we ran into a problem. The
computer is a AmdK6-3, generic P.O.S. motherboard with a VX-two chipset, 48
mb of simm ram, and has a trio 64+4 vid card.
Turned it on this morning and all we got was the sound of the harddrive and
fan running. No bios screen, no nothin'. Going to try changing the vid card
since it starts up first, but seems to me like the chipset or bios is
history. If that's the case, any methods we can use to assure one way or the
other that it's not something else? For the sake of further input, he's
running Win98SE, and Linux v7.0.

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