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BOOT:

Note:  This is a continuation of Building a new (old) PC – Part 1

This process brought back a lot of memories.  Not all of them were good.  I was expecting some warm and fuzzies.  The “Getting Ready to Start Windows for the First Time!” kind of warm and fuzzies.  What I got were lots of cuts on my hands, a few hours worth of research, incompatibilities, hardware failures…and the satisfaction of a job well done.

I built the board/CPU/RAM and video on my test bench first.  To begin, I inserted the processor into the slot, tightening the retaining screws.  Then came RAM (it was exactly like modern RAM).  Finally, I plugged in the RIVA TNT and hooked up power and keyboard/mouse.  A quick short of the jumpers and everything came alive.  So far, so good?

Nope.

For whatever reason, the system didn’t like the PS/2 keyboard I had plugged in.  It didn’t throw a keyboard error, but I couldn’t use it to get into the BIOS.  It wouldn’t even light up.  I tried another and I had the same results.  I finally switched to a USB keyboard (thankfully the 440BX has USB ports) and had no further issues.  The mouse worked fine in the PS/2 port, so I guess it’s probably just a bad keyboard port.

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