e-machine repair

[lancec2c30]

ya I wasnt going to find an exact replacement. Just something cheap and reliable.

 

[krazefinn]

okay I have said this like three times. nothing happpens, no fans come on, no hard drive spins up, no cdrom drives spin up. The power supply doesnt come on. You hit the on button or try to turn the computer on manually and it does nothing. Absolutley nothing!!

No need to get in a huff, only trying to help sharing some anecdotal experiences ;\

Did you bother to try any of the possibilities such as hitting the reset button after power? Remove all the cards and drives?? Reseat all connctions, wiggle the 20 pin, check board grounds??? Try plug it into another power circuit? There's a myriad of possibilities which might mimic a burned mobo. Often something as mundane as a disconnected/damaged pc speaker or cpu hs-fan can prevent boot.

We know nothing happens when you hit the power switch, which is why the other suggestions were proferred. Why not try them systematically? I wouldnt automatically assume anything without trying to pinpoint the diagnosis.

As previously mentioned, I've encountered 2 situations where boot only worked with BOTH reset and power buttons pushed. Cant explain it, but it worked: power switch only, and exactly same response as yours. Also one case where a fried modem would prevent boot-simple removal of each card might show something. Even remove the vga.

Something as simple as power surge or brownout may have damaged any component (phone lines notoriously dirty can hurt a modem and you'd never know it), and until you remove the bad one, you'll never know which one may be at fault. Removal of memory, cpu should elicit bios beeps, as should vga removal. Failure of beeps, and certainty it is not a ground or psu problem, usually indicates bad motherboard. If removal of memory results in beep, its the ram. If removal of cpu beeps, its the chip. If removal of vga beeps, its probably the card or agp slot. You've got to try one by one logically. Run memtest on the ram, put the cpu in a test mobo, take the board to a mom-n-pop shop for test (a local shop here charges $10 to test carry-in board/cpu)

Good luck.

 

[lancec2c30]

ok, I wasnt getting all worked up, just saw that a lot of people were trying to diagnose the wrong problem. Anyway The computer doesnt have a reset button, the only way I could do that is to try and connect the power on pins and the reset pins on the mobo.

I guess I will start the almighty porccess of determing the problem.

 

[lancec2c30]

well so far I have; taken out the modem tryed it, reset the ram, taken out the ram, unpluged all usb and audio, unpluged all cd rom drives, unpluged everything and reset it, reset the cpu.


Now after all this I am still on the conclusion that the motherboard is bad.

 

[lancec2c30]

Now if I were to get a new motherboard for it I would most likely have to get a new copy of windows. Because the e machine only has the recovery disc and, can you do a repair install with the recovery?

 

[krazefinn]

If it is an identical, proprietary REPLACEMENT mobo, should be able to install the included OS back on it. If it is a aftermarket "normal" board-probably wont fit, AND will need new OS. Course, if the new mobo happened to have the same chipset as original, it "might" work. Couldnt hurt to try it.]


Legally on the other hand, if it is a NEW, aftermarket mobo, I believe it violates the eula..if it works at all. I wouldnt spend much $ or time on it... cause even when finished, its still old slow junk!~ jkg (kind of)

I'd not bother with a repair install, REFORMAT and start over. It surely is infested with spyware etc...and thats also huge performance drain.

If ya HAVE to fix it (or like me, want to to prove you can fix ANYTHING) then search for an identical unit. They cant be much over $25 or $50 by now, even operational! Maybe even more as parts...(insert weak attempt at little humor.very little humor. For some reason, wry humor does not convey in this medium...)

 

[lancec2c30]

Well this isnt my computer. I would never own a pile of junk like it in my life. It is my grandparents and I am trying to make it operational again as cheap as possible.

I found a aftermarket motherboard for it that is ~$50 w/ shipping brand new from newegg. I am assuming I will need a copy of windows. another $90. $140, that is $10 under what they wanted to spend because they thought about just buying a new $200 computer.

 

[lancec2c30]

Okay well I got the new mobo in, and turned on the pc. It came "alive" you could say. But the monitor doesnt display a picture OR give a no signal message.

I cant figure out why it won't display anything.

 

[networkgeek]

Okay well I got the new mobo in, and turned on the pc. It came "alive" you could say. But the monitor doesnt display a picture OR give a no signal message.

I cant figure out why it won't display anything.

ummm is the monitor dead? tried the power cord in another outlet or surge protector?

 

[lancec2c30]

It isnt the monitor, because when I plug my folding computer back into it everything works fine.