Bernie you can indeed change the boot order in the BIOS, remember to press F10 when you exit to save the settings. After you can return to the BIOS and reset it to the original drive if you wish. Your video card is likely built into the motherboard, very few mass produced computers have separate video cards now. If you have access to a monitor there should be a spot to connect it to the computer to verify that the video card is working or not. You might Google 'video card stability test' and select a program to download and test the card, there are plenty of them out there. You mention that the problem computer is old. Perhaps the vents and fan are bunged up with dust bunnies creating a heat issue? Have you tried clearing this out? If you made note of the hard drive you could visit the manufacturers site and run some tests on it perhaps.

Any sounds? Nothing on the screen indicates a problem not related to Windows because you're not even getting past the POST. Likely hardware related - could be lots of stuff - motherboard, video card, memory. You might try pulling the battery (and disconnecting it from the wall charger) and letting it sit for 30 minutes or so. If that doesn't work, try pulling the coin cell (CMOS battery) - it's and a small access door on the back of the machine and also (again) the main battery. Let it sit again. Maybe you get lucky.

Nope, don't have to press the start button. Just plug it in. We were thinking it might be a problem with the start button. The computer has sat for a while. But I think it was because of the problems it is having now. To my knowledge, I'm the only one to have been in the case. I checked all the cable connections. Everything is tight. There is a strange problem with the video signal. With the monitor cable unplugged, if I turn the monitor on, I get a message on the screen saying "No Signal." But if I plug the monitor into the computer and turn it all on, I just get a black screen. I mite try a different video card. I'll fiddle with it some more this evening. Pooh Bear

The last I heard was it takes $100 to fix a monitor no matter what is wrong. With today's lower prices on better monitors it might be wise to buy a new one and get a full warranty. You would have it ready for when you decided to buy a new tower too.