let me try this here:
over the past few weeks my puter has been loosing time and days - so, i know it was the battery - was just trying to get life out of it until i had time to go get another good one. well, over the past weekend, the kids kept playing thier neopets all through the "tropical pain in the butte" that we had here. I never lost power (one of the lucky ones), but did have a few surges. After the 2nd-3rd one, made the kids turn it off - just didn't want to fry anything.
when we went to boot up on Tuesday, I can't even get through a post test. turn it up and you can see the fan spinning and the PSU is fine. sometimes the HD even seems to start. once a day - i can manage to get past a post - once got into the bios but all settings looked fine - even though i changed out the battery - but then the screen garbled up and froze and couldn't get back in. the next day - my kid thought it was ok - booted up, even got to her neopets - but alas - the screen garbled up and froze.
I have unplugged things, plugged back in one at a time. tried a "working HD" in there, switched batteries, pulled the cmos jumper, pulled out various cards. so far - nothing. theory has it I may have fried something - but not sure what - does anyone have any ideas?