> 
> Unfortunately, this system has never run anything else, so I'm not sure if
> there is a hardware problem, or a software problem, or just a configuration
> problem.

Despite the fact that it's truly revolting for many reasons, MS-DOS can make
a decent diagnostic tool. Most PC hardware manufacturers have a web site so
an easy way of testing hardware can be to grab a DOS driver for it and an
MS-DOS boot disk and see if it all works.

	- Joel