NO picture on monitor

If I might be permitted to add a postscipt to this thread and the fault finding methodologies.

1. The fundamental question is am I doing this for FREE or for PAYMENT The "rules of engagement" are quite different. An old box isn't worth very much so a systematic approach may well not be appropriate?

In the case of a for payment job you look at the easy to check, obvious, cheap to fix first. If that doesn't pan out, you tell the customer that the machine is beyond economic repair.

In this case, a dead or damaged MoBo is a no-no.....................PII = AT form factor, not ATX. You salvage what you can and move on.

2. Don't overlook the obvious but usually forgotten.

Examples would be: the power supply cable (remember that it probably has a $0.15 fuse in it) and video cable.

The CMOS battery (Nice one Undies~ )

3. Look First ..................

Charring, bulging capacitors, broken pins, cracked dry joints etc.......... AND COMPATIBILITY of the various components. In this case the PSU, but there are others, a lot of components won't run on less than a P200 or less than Windows 98SE

4. Don't forget safe mode (assuming you can get that far) that frequently shows driver or conflict problems.

5. If you are charging, don't use second user components ......................you are guaranteeing them. :eek:

6. A good cleanout and re-seating often works wonders :D

BIOS

Some are better than others with their diagnostics, Phoenix BIOS had over 100 beep codes, most have only around a half-dozen.

Aspman made an interesting comment The simpler BIOSes treat video RAM and system RAM pari passu. So, if you hear two beeps, you know the first move should be to clean and re-seat them.

Multimeters?....................useful, but for troubleshooting a PSU, all they will tell you if there is an obvious problem, as you are not testing the unit under full operating load?

Just a few thoughts :)