old pc - no video - need help

Hi,

I previously posted about adding a video card to a Compaq Presario 972 CDS
Pentium 75MHz pc.
It has Cirrus Logic 5434 1MB RAM video.

I purchased an VGA ATI Rage XPERT 8MB video card to improve the refresh
rate.

When the ATI arrived, I removed the cover from the pc and realized the CL
5434 was an onboard video adapter and there were two PCI slots already
populated. One with an Ethernet card and the other with a card having two
USB ports.

There wasn't a way into the BIOS to disable the onboard video (F10, didn't
work). After removing Cirrus Logic from 'Device Manager', it was again
recognized and reloaded upon bootup. So, I downloaded a Compaq diagnostic
application that provided a basic BIOS in MSDOS.

The Compaq app finally appeared to recognize the new ATI card. I disabled
the onboard Cirrus Logic and enabled the ATI.

That is when I messed things up.

When a message appeared that the ATI had the same address as another device,
did I want to use it, I anxiously went ahead an hit 'YES'.

No video. Nothing would make the video come back (removed the ATI). I
ruined the pc my brother gave my mom. I told him I would make it right and
took it to a computer shop, yesterday. The Tech, said just take out the
CMOS battery for a few hours and place it back and the BIOS will revert to
its default settings. Wonderful, I thought. However, I didn't trust myself
to do this and asked him would he do that and configure the new video card.

I just got a call from the Tech, and he said the pc is too old and he isn't
able to fix it. From what I understand, he doesn't know if it is the power
supply or the RAM or something. I'm guessing, he isn't able to get any
video, so there is no way to remedy the situation.

The pc was working until I set up a conflict in a 'memory address'.
I need to make things right (Which means trying to replace the computer)
even if resources are low right now.

Any help, suggestions, from the folks here, are gratefully received.
Thanks.

Cosmo