It sounds like that the video card or on board video may be bad.

When you start pay attention to the 2 lights on the tower itself. One - the power LED - should be lit constantly, the other should flicker as the hard drive works. Does this happen? also listen for the POST beep. If you hear the beep your computer has passed the POST - power on self test.

If this has been idle for some time you might consider removing the left side and see if the fan ovr the CPU spins. If it is stuck then switch off and give it a spin with your finger to hopefully release it. If that works you may want to invest in a new CPU fan. Mostly they come with the heatsink attached, try to avoid changing the heatsink if possible to make life easy.

One of my old computers, that has no case cover on it... i always have to reset one of the cards that has come loose from flexing the case while moving it around, or one of the hard drive cable connectors has loosened or pop the CMOS battery in and out before it will boot the first time after a long hiatus.

There's always something that fixes it that you usually can't tell what it was. Its the win 98 original edition that has had many motherboard/cpu combo's in it.. last one was AMD 450, I think.

Actually for browsing and downloading its just as fast as anything,, maybe faster as it has an expensive video card(for its day) and nice fast hard drive. Web pages/graphics paint instantly.

I had my old one do something similar, definitely check that cmos battery if it has been sitting a long time could be dead, they are cheap. But mine was the hard drive it just sat too long and would start trying then give it up, I just gave it up too LOL.
Try another monitor on it or try that monitor on another pc to rule out just a monitor issue but I kinda doubt that.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I will try them sometime this week and will report back if I have any luck.

have you opened up the side panel from the tower and run it with it open so you can more accurately determine where exactl y the noise is coming from to see if it is indeed the hard drive? that might help you nail it down. and would be a good time to get those dust bunnies out of there.

I wanted to post an update since so many offered suggestions for this problem. I looked at everything suggested, including replacing the battery, but nothing has worked. The second light does not come on at all during startup, I don't see any loose connections, etc. As I said above, this one is on the way to recycling anyway; I will remove the hard drive this weekend for security purposes. Thanks for the help.

Thanks for posting back Steve, always nice to hear the final result even if it is sad news.

You're welcome; it irritates me when someone posts a question, gets answers and then disappears!

Yes Steve, thank you.

Did you try booting up in Safe Mode? I don't think it will make a difference, but I don't see where it was tried.

Also, disconnect the monitor from the computer and inspect the connector pins to make sure they are straight. Just another idea.

Did you check to make sure there are no old disks in any of the drives? Getting desperate here for suggestions.

DA

DA: Thanks, but the short answer to all is yes, and it still doesn't start. Safe mode doesn't work because there's nothing on the screen. I really don't think it's getting to that point. Not a big deal, anything that was on this computer, we've done without for several years. Time to move on (and I have, with an iMac since last Sept!) Thanks again to all, Steve