First post, by TandySensation
Found two PCs in my uncles basement
One is the legendary FIC VA-503+ with a K6-2 in a big AT case. The other a Gigabyte Socket 462 with a Tbird 1Ghz
Tried different power supplies, CPUs, RAM, Video cards, clearing the bios, reseating the bios chip. Neither one will start. Could sitting in the basement for years cause them to fail? The circuit boards feel kind of grimy and dirty, not a light dust you can brush off easily. The cases, back plates, and screws have bits of rust and corrosion on the edges.
Found a couple of neat cards that do work, an 8-bit 56K ISA card and a Rage 128 Pro AIW with breakout box.
There was also a SB16 Value CT4770 and it worked for 5 minutes(In my one good SS7 Board) but then I took it out of the PC to try a different sound card (ALS120) but it sounded aweful so I put the SB 16 back in and now the computer doesn't see it, can't detect it so now I have no ISA sound cards and a pile of junk.
Did I fry the SB16 by just taking it out and putting in another? I've never had a card break on me by just swapping them around, it's invisible to the system now.
Should I throw this stuff away or do you think their is a way to get these to start? My bedroom is starting to look like an e-waste recycle center š