600x with 98SE and Linux Mint 8

Booted it up and all I got was the RAM (accurate) and the logo. Nothing else. I could hear the HD running.

Put the HD in a 600e and it started to boot so the HD is apparently OK.

Anything I can do to revive the 600x? Hate to see it go, old family friend and all that.

Don't know if you have tried the usual "nonsense" Pull the CMOS battery for a few minutes. Try the memory from other laptop. Disconnect the main battery. etc etc

Well shucks, I booted it up this morning to see if it had cured itself over night and being Sunday morning, it was absolutely quiet around the house, but the computer was not. A very faint chattering noise I had never heard before. Tracked it down to the memory banks. Pulled them and replaced them and the machine booted up.

Amazing what modern tech can do.

However, in the process of checking the disk in the 600e, I seem to have managed to screw up the 600x disk. All I get is a schematic diagram of the upper keyboard with a floppy disk with arrows pointing here and there. So I will try a startup disk and see what happens.

BTW, the 600e disk works perfectly well in the 600x. Another scientific mystery, no doubt.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions. As the screen showed the memory active, I would have never looked there.

OK, I got into the thing and convinced it to go for the HD first on bootup.

Works OK now, except the Display is screwed up. Script is fragmented and difficult to read.

Back to my 1000 pages of reference material and I bet it does not have a word to say about it.

I was half right. My 'formal' manuals were silent as I suspected. However, the Idiot's Guide had the answer. Amazing.

I appreciate your interest. I shall now go back for my next regularly scheduled screwup.

Chattering RAM? Who would have thunk it?

always the ram or the bios on these old babies.