First post, by StarquestMan
I recently bought a Dell 466/L computer as a project and it has turned into quite the headache. I had been wanting to get a 486 computer to tinker around on and play some dos games on and thought it might be fun to find one from the year I was born, 1994. Well I found this computer and it appeared to have all the features I wanted and as a funny bonus I saw the manufacture date was the day I was born which was cool. That's about the last good thing about the computer so far.
It was sent from the same state I live in, just a few hours drive, but that didn't stop the faceplate from getting broke off in transit since it was poorly packed. I opened the case and the thing was filthy filthy dirty and I noticed lots of corrosion from mice. I looked at the motherboard and all the smd caps had leaked on the board. At first I thought It would clean up ok and the faceplate seemed repairable so I asked for a partial refund for the damages and decided to keep it instead of having to deal with sending it back. I thoroughly cleaned the board and replaced all the caps but still nothing on the display and no beep. I checked all the voltages on the AT power supply and all of them are good. Next I ordered a POST card to check for any codes etc. After several tries and getting very erratic results I realized I was being an idiot and had the card installed backwards. once I figured this out i put the card in right and 7 of the 8 leds were lit up with the one light out being the reset line which would light up briefly when the reset button was pushed. there is a pin header labeled J1 and a button labeled sw1 but the instructions are very poorly written and don't include any info on what these are for. when I plug in a ps2 keyboard (the computer has ps2 connectors for both a keyboard and mouse) the lights on the keyboard stay on and I can't get it to beep by pressing or holding any keys.
This thing must have had a soundblaster installed in it since it has a creative cd drive but no card to control it and two of the three ISA slots are missing the block off plates. Im wondering if the bios is configured for an external video card but this doesn't explain the lack of beeps coming from the pc speaker or the lights on the keyboard being stuck. plus I jumpered the bios reset pin and the vga pins are jumpered for on board video and ive tried it both ways. I noticed in just about all pictures of these 466 and 433 machines online that there is a video ram daughterboard installed which I wondered if it was necessary but I then noticed that the lettering on the board says its an upgrade so I guess this isn't my problem.
Any Ideas? there are lots of holes in my knowledge so don't be afraid to point out anything obvious that I may have missed!
