Hello, Jean.

 JP>         Right. But today, I will be in Orlando, I will not have time to
 JP>         drop in on you. I will be picking up my daughter at MCO. she is
 JP>         bringing a HDD and some ERDs for me.

Good.  I suspect that working HDD may fix it for you.

 JH> From this and your other posts to/from Matt, sounds like either the
 JH> HDD has died, or perhaps the first IDE channel has died on the
 JH> Mainboard.

 JP> After reading this last night, I went and just to make sure,
 JP> reconnected the ribbon to IDE secondary but still nothing out of
 JP> the BIOS. The thing is really dead, maybe the MoBo is gone.

Seems unlikely.

 JP> I am not sure where the CMOS is in the pipeline, is it on the CPU
 JP> or beside it on the MoBo. If the BIOS comes up, does this mean
 JP> that the CPU is good ?

The CMOS memory and BIOS chip are both on the board, separate from the
cpu chip.  If you get video and can get into BIOS SETUP, the cpu chip is
not dead.  It may have other problem - - if it got overheated somewhere
along the line, the on-chip L1 Cache may be damaged, and that can cause
a lot of problems, but AFAIR failure to recognize HDD is not one of the
symptoms of that.  My guess is that all remains OK except the HDD.

 JP>  This is a sorry unit. The front fan was seized. I WD40ed it into
 JP>  life again but the CPU fan is so noisy that I have doubt about
 JP>  its life span. This is a 1995 unit and was never shut down all
 JP>  this time. Speaks for its quality but we all have a term.

Likely time for a new cpu fan. Worth a few bucks, about the same as the
P166 chip which it is trying to protect.

 JH> You still thinking of coming to Orlando to see where I volunteer
 JH> sometime on this trip?  If so, you could bring the box with you and we
 JH> could look into it at the shop.  Even if your HDD or one of your IDE
 JH> channels is dead, we could probably find a used replacement for modest
 JH> cost.

 JP> Thanks for the invite. I will take you up on it in the next few
 JP> days. I would bring the sick unit if I have not garbaged it in
 JP> the mean time. Thsnkd for the help offer.

Noooo.  Please don't put it out in the trash.

Unless it has proprietary case, mainboard, PS etc. as some of the
Compaqs do, we can replace anything on it at shop where I volunteer.
Plz email ahead and try to give me a choice or two as to day and time,
since I still do some work-work during the week.  Morning and afternoon
rush hour traffic are bad in both Tampa and Orlando, so best try to
avoid those hours in coming and going.  As of now, late this coming week
or late in the week after look best for me.

- - -  JimH.

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