Well, I've had trouble with it on and off for a good while, so first, I moved all the parts to another machine that I have that's got a similar motherboard. Everything worked again! Hey!
Then, I tried pulling the RAM from the dead machine, since I could then have 1.5 gig of ram. Things got bad real fast! Oh! the RAM is bad.
Long story short, I moved everything BACK into my studio machine, including the RAM from the backup box. So I'm back in action with my original setup.
Which just goes to show, I guess, that RAM can pass the startup scan and still ruin your day.
But I still have the old machine, only now without ram. Anyone have a gig of spare 184 pin DDR simms they want to give up cheap?