T40 2373 bad mobo or what - need advice

[longfellow6-6]

Thanks in advance for all the help.
This group is the best.
I have ruled out the inverter based on other recent posts in this forum.

I bought this T40 basically for the HDD.
That went into the T23 for my daughter

The person who sold the T40 to me said that he only got windows to boot once or twice recently
Most of the time there would just be a black screen.

Occasionally it would post but have a strange message to push the blue "Access IBM" button . All it does now is display a black screen.

On power up the HDD led flashes once for a split second
The CD drive spins up every time.

I have tried an external monitor to no avail.

Suggestions on what the problem is? Where do I start
I didn't think the CD drive would spin up if the system board was dead.

Thanks again,