Minimum "system" for testing

[William W. Plummer]

I have a bunch of old parts and need to figure out which are good. Should
I be able to connect a motherboard, power supply, power switch, speaker, 2
memory DIMMs (compatible with the MBs), a video card (AGP and/or ISA), CPU
and fan? No floppy, CD, Hard disk, etc. I expect this to at least
"beep" and go into BIOS setup.
Once I can find a set that works, then I can swap parts to weed out the bad
or incompatible ones. Thanks.

 

[philo]

I have a bunch of old parts and need to figure out which are good. Should
I be able to connect a motherboard, power supply, power switch, speaker, 2
memory DIMMs (compatible with the MBs), a video card (AGP and/or ISA), CPU
and fan? No floppy, CD, Hard disk, etc. I expect this to at least
"beep" and go into BIOS setup.
Once I can find a set that works, then I can swap parts to weed out the bad
or incompatible ones. Thanks.

That should be fine

 

[Alan W. Blackmon]

Good plan. I do this quite often myself.

Alan in Boise

 

[Hackworth]

I have a bunch of old parts and need to figure out which are good. Should
I be able to connect a motherboard, power supply, power switch, speaker, 2
memory DIMMs (compatible with the MBs), a video card (AGP and/or ISA), CPU
and fan? No floppy, CD, Hard disk, etc. I expect this to at least
"beep" and go into BIOS setup.
Once I can find a set that works, then I can swap parts to weed out the bad
or incompatible ones. Thanks.

Yes, definitely. In fact, as true computer geeks, I think that pretty much
everyone who frequents this ng should have such a test bed. You may find
it helpful to also connect a floppy drive and at least an old hard disk,
just for the sake of convenience. Basically, it's almost a complete system,
sans case... but it sure comes in handy when you're trying to troublesoot
suspect parts from other "real" systems.