Volvo Repair: 1996 volvo 850 2.3L turbo ignition, distributer cap, lab scope

Question
my 96 850 turbo will not start when cold, when it is warm it satrts and runs great...trying to find the problem I noticed that the distributer cap was cracked so I replaced that and the rotor...still wont start. have hooked up a timing light to the spark plugs and no spark. so I am thinking the coil is bad.however I found on a different website a way to check the coil with an ohm meter and it checks out good. but I have no spark off the coil. do you know if there is a way to check the coil or any other sugestions that might be going on?

Answer
 David, yes. Use a test lite on the small side post on the coil. One will be ground, one will be batt. voltage. Hold the light on the batt. voltage side and have someone crank the vehicle. It should flash. If it doesn't flash steadily while cranking. You have either a bad hall sensor in the distributor(or bad wires bad connection) or the ignition module is bad. 50/50 chance of either. If you have a lab scope, you can check for hall signature to the ignition module and rule out the sensor and the wires. There is no test for the ignition module that is reliable, other than to replace with known good unit and retry. Sorry :(

Mark