Advice on a PeeCee

[Holley]

Remove the video card and switch it on, if the built in speaker on the motherboard beeps at you, it's not all dead.  Same if you try without any memory, too.

[Holley]

If it's an ATX PSU the default behaviour is to shut down after you've been holding down the power button for 4 or 5 seconds.

A regular Win95 boot floppy is useless unless someone's put a CDRom driver on and configured it!  Of course you could install Win95 from floppy (13 dmf format disks, or 22 regular ones).  Win98 or up will boot from the CD itself on any machine new enough for an ATX PSU connector to fit ... provided it's configured to in the BIOS ...

Old PCs get very complicated very quickly!

[Holley]

A Packard Bell wouldn't even work if you used it as a doorstop.  The floppy, hard disk and PSU (if it's a proper ATX one) should swap into something else, throw the rest in an incinerator.

Many Packard Bells use non-standard motherboards, and REALLY bad components (advertising slogan - Packard Bell, 30% slower for free).

You can get 2nd hand reconditioned 200MHz units for under £40 complete, barebones new 2400MHz (equivalent) systems for £100, both without having to open the case.  Find a PC friend to get their old Windows CDs from and you're away ;-)

It's more complex than getting an old Amiga because of the myriad of companies churning out PC gear, and Windows can be a PITA to install if you're unfamiliar with how Windows works on the inside (not like installing OS 3.5!) - no worries about sounding dumb when talking about PCs!

This message was brought to you by South Humberside Information Technology :-)

[Holley]

How often do you see a bios chip without a motherboard attached?!  If it won't boot at all you can't re-flash easily (it's more than likely surface mounted - look for an 'Award' hologram on PBs).

If you had an A4000T that wasn't booting you'd bother with that kind of attention, it'd be like having a vintage Ferrari with a blown engine - if you had a rusty Fiat Uno with a blown engine would you do a ground up restoration?

[Holley]

Do get a new case, though you'll then have a spare PSU ;-)

A K6-2 300 is worth about £2.50, provided it's not glued in.  Like I said, strip the drives & new PSU and bin the rest.  £50 is worthwile for a working PC, because then you can use UAE and AROS :-) on a Pentium 200 UAE can go A500 speed.

[Holley]

Yes, an ATX will switch off after 4 or 5 seconds of holding the button down, unless the Bios tells it otherwise (as your bios appears to be kaputski I guess the PSU just doesn't get the message).  The motherboard speaker is just a mini-piezo device, so you'd know if it was working ;-)

PLEASE save yourself! Packard Bells really are the {bleep}roach of the computer world!  If another motherboard fits then fair enough, but the cases really are worse than the cheapest Taiwanese made recycled Fiat case (as you'll find out if you have it apart a couple of times).

EDIT: ok, on any other ATX motherboard than a PB the speaker will be a piezo device mounted on the board itself.  Your PB may well have an old AT type speaker, which would be a small regular cone speaker mounted to the inside of the case, and uses a jumper type plug on the motherboard.
If you don't get any bios info on the monitor then resetting the Bios flash area won't make a difference, I'm afraid.
The bleep above was me describing a certain kind of insect that can survive nuclear explosions ;-)

[Holley]

@MikeyMike - please read page 1 ;-)

@JaxAnim - if you get stuck with the new MB and can't get sorted feel free to PM me :-)

[Holley]

Let us know how you get on ;-)

PCs cause stress because instead of a Guru meditation they have a General Protection Fault, or in Linux a Kernel Panic ... I'm convinced it's a military conspiracy.