Country Fried Kingston...
Hey everybody...you were all correct in that it was not a bad flash...the flash worked, but the ram was what was crapping out. I got Peeved-off and started stripping my tower to check the hardware...and to see what I could sell for a good price...when I noticed that my Kingston ValueRAM KVR-PC100/128 CE was missing the #1 (front) and #84 (back) gold connections. replaced the chip with an older chip that I know works well, assembled the necessary ingredients outside the case, powered-up and got it to post. Got rid of the HP splash screen to where I could see the POST, and everything passed. The only problem I'm running into now is my VIA bus master IDE drivers...I get the "found new hardware wizard" every time I reboot, and windows can't find the drivers online. I fould the drivers for my chip (the VIA VT82C686A) but it has a note that says that if an XP user screws this up, the only way to fix it is a complete format...that wouldn't be too bad if I had my XP Pro disks...but I bought the compy with XP pre-programmed on the system, and it didn't come with the disks. Should I go ahead and risk the install, or is there an easier way to work around this?
Sorry for the long explanation/story, just wanted to make sure I got everything in there.
I also found out that my fans are about to fry...my compy sounds like a small RC car running on half power. when I'm playing a graphically intensive game like GTA3, GTA VC, or NFSU2, the inside of the case gets pretty warm (I took the side of the case off to check the temp while in-game). I have a large box fan that barely fits under the desk that works wonders for cooling. but I get the dry-throat feeling due to the dust from the case and the constant airflow. any idea of some cheap yet effective fans on the market? I'm tempted to pirate a fan from my old compy, but its larger than the fan that I have. can I swap the motor out? or would it be less of a hassle to go to a local discount computer store and buy one? (the closest Best Buy or other large store that carries computer parts other than sound and video cards is about 95 miles away.) hmm...ebay sounds good about now...