After my previous attempts at a DOS machine ended with somewhat of a conclusion that there was some subtle fault in the motherboard, I picked up this Gateway E3200 system.

When I got it, I noticed that it would power on as soon as I plugged the power cable in, the power button appeared not to work, and it complained about the CMOS battery. Oh, and there were reasons to suspect the primary IDE channel didn't work, but I didn't get to any kind of conclusion on that.

I naively figured, well, the CMOS battery is a CR2032, that's easy to replace. Except that, well, to reach the CR2032 on this more or less requires taking the motherboard out (actually, I now realize there was another way to reach it, but it's a month too late for that). It's a sliding mechanism that goes into the riser board that has the power and lots of other things. Okay, take motherboard out, replace CR2032, put it back in... and now it doesn't want to turn on. Okay, maybe now the setting for what to do after power loss has changed. And... power switch still seemed dead. It's also possible I haven't slid the motherboard fully in, it just feels like it isn't despite my many attempts.

Fast forward a few weeks, buy a replacement power switch/front LED/front fan assembly. Swap it in. And... well... after much fiddling with it, here is where things are at - if I plug in the power, the fan starts running, the power LED starts blinking, the power switch does nothing, no beeps, nothing.

These NLX systems are weird because all the power goes through the riser board, as do the front panel switches (and the IDE cables for that matter) and I can't find any good way to tell if the motherboard and the riser board have a good connection.

Thoughts? Am I just cursed when it comes to finding a late DOS system?