🚀 go-pugleaf

I was recently given an AST 386SX/16 that is broken and I need
suggestions on getting it repaired.  My brother-in-law, who is
not at all technical with computers, said that he had taken it somewhere
to be looked at and that the diagnosis was "the mother-board is broken".
What specific problem that encompasses I don't know.

The AST has its processor on a peripheral card that plugs into both the
AT-bus and another type of bus.  I believe that this is a "feature"
to allow users to easily upgrade the processor.  Does anyone know
if this card is what the repairman would refer to as the "motherboard" 
or does he mean the large board that contains the bus slots and built-in
disk controllers?  Any guesses as to how much a replacement AST386sx 
card (or better) costs these days?

The computer is also lacking any floppy disk drives and the monitor was
kept by the former owner.  I had someone here at work take a quick look
at the machine and we put a monitor and card into it to see
how far it gets during power up.  It successfully checks memory (1M) and
then it prints out: 
 
INSTALLING SYSTEM BIOS IN SHADOW RAM
 
and just sits there.  It never accesses the hard drive or the floppy that
we plugged in.  Anybody want to guess what is giving it problems?
We tried all the permutations of slots and cards and no difference.

If anyone can suggest a fix, diagnosis, or let me know if there is any
hope of this thing being resurrected, let me know.  Otherwise, I may
just part it out for pieces.  If I can get this thing to work I will be
in the market for a color monitor and controller card, and a floppy disk
drive or two.

This computer also came with no documentation.  If anyone has a copy
and would like to FAX me it, I would be eternally grateful.

Patiently wondering....

-- 
Bruce T. Hill @ Cray Research Superservers, Inc., San Diego, CA, USA
Email: bruceh@cray.com  Phone: (619) 625-3746  FAX: (619) 625-0641
Humorous quotation:  Nobody looks good wearing _brown_lipstick_. --Frank Zappa