I've got a little problem with my parent's computer. Two days ago I placed an ancient pc in my room at my parent's house because my regular desktop is at home and I sometimes need to do stuff when I'm at my parents. Because the computer is truly ancient (sporting a whooping 200 MHz processor and 98 MB RAM), I decided to ditch the Windows 2000 that was installed on it and was horribly slow and install Fluxbuntu (a lightweight Linux distro) on it. It runs pretty well (I'm posting this from it now), but in order to install it I had to borrow the floppy and cd-drive from a newer pc (they had died on the old one after 12 years). After finishing with the old crappy computer I put the drives back into the newer computer, attached everything and tried to boot the machine, which failed. The motherboard has power, but when I hit the start switch nothing happens. Even after removing the two drives and now almost everything that can be removed from the motherboard (excluding the CPU and one strip of RAM), it still won't do anything. I think it must be something short-circuiting, but I can't find out what.I also vacuum-cleaned the pc (which was very necessary), but without results. Any suggestions? It could off course be the motherboard that died, but it would be a huge coincidence to die now.

Coincidence it was. Seems like the switch to turn on the computer (that's the switch behind the case cover) died. It will still work once every hundred times I press it, but that's quite annoying so I wonder wether it can be replaced. I don't want to buy a new case for that machine, so I'm really only looking for a switch replacement. Is that a standardised component that can be bought seperately and fit on any case? If not, can I hook up just another switch (there seem to be only two cables coming out of it, so perhaps I can make those longer and use some standard light switch outside of the computer?)

I think the power switch is pretty simplistic. I don't really know... I'm pretty sure they're specific to their cases. I'm sure you could disassemble it and figure out what's wrong or hack it together. Just make sure the PC is unplugged, that's full wall-outlet power going through there I believe.

Some more fooling around it reveals the switch isn't to blame either. Short-circuiting the two cables coming from the switch (emulating the switch outside it) doesn't make the computer start either. So either it's the cable between the motherboard and the switch or the motherboard itself, which would rather suck, because the machine is too old to find a decent motherboard for it that fits with the rest of the 7-year old hardware. I'm afraid we'll have to buy mostly new parts and recycle a few parts from the old one (hard disc, disc drives and monitor). Let's hope it doesn't get too expensive, it's only needed for word processing and internet / e-mail use anyway.

you sure it's the motherboard and not the power supply? I could see the PS getting goofy too.

Regarding upgrading the box, good luck. With a machine that old, you'll probably have to buy pretty much everything new. Still, you can go with the cheapest parts you can find and still end up with a significantly better computer.

Personally, I have enough parts lying around to build at least one or more computers. Though I've started to get rid of stuff I'll never use.

Just buy a new case for coupla bucks in the antique computer shop. I know there is one here in Tallinn where you can get really old parts, i mean technically speaking so outdated that one would thing they were built in the stone age.

Ask around, someone is bound to know a shop that sells that kind of junk.

We ended up buying a new computer. There was a very decent offer for a machine without monitor and OS. My dad didn't want to buy old (and probably second-hand) parts with the risk of something else breaking within a year or so, so I think this was a good option. If nothing breaks he'll have a very decent computer for the next seven years or so. Plus I can maybe use some old parts of that computer for the ancient thing I described in my first post (at least the cd-writer).

that was probably a good choice. With a pc that old stuff will just start spontaneously failing on you anyway. :p Besides, you can get pretty decent computers now for less than $600.