Need help for an OLD computer

Hi everyone. I just bought an old computer for 5$. I need to know if the S3 Virge video card can work with LCD monitors? I have a 17inch Sharp monitor and an 19inch ACER monitor; but neither of them detect the computer even thought it runs well. You know, there's no 'BEEEEEEEEEEP'' sound. It purr the usual ''tut tut tut tut tut tut trrrrrrrrrrtut''.

Here's the components:
- Amptron PM-9600 Motherboard
http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/motherboards_d/Amptron/PM-9600/
- 2x S3 Virge 2MB PCI Video Cards
But i tried one at a time and switching with both plugged and still nothing
http://www.pacificgeek.com/product.asp?id=45612
- Sound Blaster 16 Sound Card
- Quantum Fireball ST Hard Drive
- CD-Rom Drive
- Floppy (3½) Drive
- 4x 16MB EDO RAM units (A pain to install i had to use a hammer to fix them)
- 2x 128MB SD-RAM units
- 1 USB 2.0 PCI Card (Gives me 5 usb ports)
- Internet and Telephone whatever cards
And blabla the usual ports are all there.

Anybody know how i can get it to work? Do i need to get an old big screen? If you're wondering why i'm toying with this it's just for nostalgia.

Thanks.

 

hi I wanted to ask which operating system do you use / if it is possible run it on puppy linux liveusb or cd because it is lightweight ubuntu would be to heavy for those specs if it runs you have your answer

 

All LCD's should display basic VGA modes for bootscreens and safe modes.

One of the biggest problems with motherboards over 10 years old now is the BIOS flash chips. People don't realize most flash memory has a listed data retention shelf life of 10 years. Some will last much longer but that's what they're rated for. 10 more years and pretty much all 90's motherboards will be dead except for those actually flash updated in the 2K's. You'll soon have better luck running 80's computers with burned ROMS, in fact a Commodore 64 should run fine 50 years from now while all our recent computers will be dead as bricks. Unless they get re-flashed every so often, so will your LCD screens and game consoles.

 

I took the 3GO HDD out and put it in an other computer and Windows 98 tried booting. I rebooted and went in my Windows 7. The HDD even if it works, make wierd noises and can't take a chkdsk. The software ''CrytsalDiskInfo'' says to be cautious about it. Well since the os on it do work the motherboard must be dead.

 

Hard Drive seems on the way of dying. The OS on it boot on another computer. If you mean by VGA those big old monitors then no.

 

For real? Well i don't worry about computers that much but game consoles will die at some point? Well my Atari 2600 works like a charm even now, so i don't have to worry about it or my ''newer'' systems like the NES to die i guess.

 

A pain to install i had to use a hammer to fix them -

are you sure you should have used these? also try taking out one type of RAM it could be that the board wont start up with both types

 

Most monitors use that 15 pin svga conector , I think it would just switch to a lower reslution . If it wont boot up I think you have another problem. You can load a distro of Linux as a live cd to see if it is a hard ware of soft ware problem . Hear are 3 distros that will run as a live cd . http://www.ubuntu.com/ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=dreamstudio http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mint

 

Thanks for the feedback guys, but i got rid of that pc tower a while ago. But, since i still want an old one to play around with, if i encounter a similar issue i will think about your advices. Thanks again.

 

Hello. Thought I'd chime in on this.
For the few that don't know I thought I let you know. When you turned it on and didn't beep, this being an older machine means that you should have heard something. chances are the Bios was damaged at some point likely when using the hammer. I know I always wanted to do that even for $5. The beep is normally after the bios is done loading and its ready to boot the cd-rom or hard drive etc.
The other noise is likely the hard drive trying to die. the good news is that its powering up meaning its not the power supply. Also with mixed memory some older computers either will not work or they need jumper settings changed. Love old setups on computers. Best idea would be to make sure to set the motherboard to read sdram only and use only one stick of memory that you knew worked. The other idea is to take out the battery for a week and replace with a new one. That computer is good for learning motherboard jumpers, but computers now dont have jumpers other than bios. VGA is vga meaning the port. LCD LED and CRT its all the same vga port.
Sorry for reviving an old post. Its just my two cents.
Hope this helps anyones curiousness. Sorry it didn't work for you.

 

try clearing all the ram banks then booting with only one ram module inserted, if doesn't work pull it out, insert the next one and boot again. however, it seems it's a video adapter problem, look at these error codes (you have AMI bios):

http://www.bioscentral.com/beepcodes/amibeep.htm

 

Thanks for the tips guys. Should i mess around with an old computer again i'll have more knowledge to go by to try and make things work.