I inherited a Dell PII 450 Mhz (with Win98 first edition). When you initially turn on the computer, the video card detected is displayed. Then the screen goes black then the hardware detection/ram test screen comes up. The only problem is after it goes black and before the hardware detection/ram test screen this ugly blue Dell picture screen comes up. The only thing that makes it go away is if I hit the escape key or the ram test completes sat. I know it eventually goes away but it is annoying and very, very ugly. How do I make it go away?!? I've searched through the bios but can't find anything remotely related to it. Am I looking in the right place? Any advice would be greatly appreciated before I go insane.

That Dell screen is built into the bios code. What you need to do is hack the bios. Programs like cbrom will do it for an award bios.... http://www.tweakhardware.com/guide/start2004/ http://www.short-media.com/download.php?view.77 But I have no idea how you'd go about hacking a dell bios. This search will get you started. You are looking for a bios hacking program made for your Dell machine http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/search?q=hack+bios