On Sat, 29 Aug 2015, william degnan wrote:
often the card is the culprit, sometimes shorting out
the entire sytem.
Absolutely!
And, if the motherboard is set for CGA, instead of MDA, the board might
not come up. BUT, he did say that he had what the thought might be video
signals reaching the monitor.
In addition, VGA boards can be problematic in configuration. When
bringing up a PC of those vintages, I try to always start with a CGA board
and appropriate monitor. THEN, once that is working, THEN put the VGA in.