Computer won't turn on

kaimera

Hey folks,

Herself has an emachines desktop, 2.6 Celeron, 512Ram, 80gig hdd, 250w generic psu.

Three days ago it hung after coming out of standby. When I did get it turned off [hard turn off] it hung when turned on again.

It eventually just fixed itself really.

The next day after turning it off and coming back to use it, the pc just wouldn't turn on. I unplugged all extra crap into the case and switched power sockets.
The two lights on the front flashed when I plugged the power cable into the second socket.

Machine wouldn't turn on at all. No lights, no psu fan, not a kick.

Seemed like no power going to it at all.

Bought a 450w antec psu yesterday and installed it today.

Nada. Nothing at all. There's an on/off switch on the psu and after a turn it off I can hear the psu give a little whine as if it's powering down yet the fan isn't running and my computer isn't on.

I unplugged everything bar the mobo connections and nothing either.

I've doubled and trible checked all the power connections in the case and they are fine yet the machine refuses to turn over on the power on button push.

I don't have a spare machine to test any of the parts with and from googling it's not an uncommon problem.

Ideas welcome.

Anti

Sounds like your motherboard could have blown, BEst thing to do is if you have two memory sticks, is take one out. and try to boot with one.. if it dosent boot again ty to boot with the other. if it still dosent work , you can rule out the memory.

What you should do at this stage is clear the cmos by removing the batter from the motherboard, Its about the size of a 1euro coin and is silver, Take it out while the pc ic completly unplugged. And leave it out for a hour.

Put it back in. And boot up again with the side of the case off. And look for any flicking leds. And actually check a led comes on, on the motherboard, it should be near the battery you took out earlier. If this still dosent boot at all. It is your motherboard that is gone. And the cances that it took some other ocmponents to the scrap heap in the sky with it are failry high.

If i were you i would take the pc to a pc repair shop. As they can check the components in other machines. like ram, cpu ect ect.

Try this for me and post back with your results.

kaimera

There's no damn led lights on the mobo. First thing I looked for when I took the case off.

And only 1 stick of ram but I'll swap ram slots.

I'll try the battery.

kaimera

Swapped ram slots, nothing.

Removed cmos battery for an hour, nothing.

I think I can return the psu but I'd rather keep a good quality one than have the pos one go kaput soon.

stoopid motherboard.

Anti

dead board then so

Horrible feeling isnt it

kaimera

sickening. I can't think of a reason for the board to die.

I know there's been thunder storms lately with Ernesto due in the next day or two but the pc is connected to a surge adapter.

It's rarely turned off, rather left on standby 98% of the time.

techie

Don't scrap the mainboard yet, if the power supply is making a small noise it might be that something is shorting out underneath the mainboard, take the mainboard out of the case and try it outside the case and see if it works then take it from there.

Stephen P

I had almost the exact same system as your girlfriend - emachines, 2.4ghz, 80GB HDD & 200GB HDD, 512MB RAM. 2 weeks ago it just shut down on me one evening wouldn't come back on. I replaced the PSU and the power worked again but system would turn on, I tried taking out all devices but no joy. Left it in to get looked at last week and the motherboard is gone so I got the shop to build me a new machine which I got tonight. It sounds like to me the motherboard is gone but not too sure.

Anti

its the mobo 100%

techie

Make sure any fans on mainboard are working as I had similar issue before with an Abit mainboard, would not even power on, plugged out Northbridge fan and it worked then.

kmb

Reseat the cpu and retry.Had to this before with a systemwhen repairng and its still going 6 months later for a friend.

Thats what i recommend and also check if any of the capacitors are leaking/burst.

regards

kieran

Ruu_Old

kmb wrote:

Reseat the cpu and retry.Had to this before with a systemwhen repairng and its still going 6 months later for a friend.

Thats what i recommend and also check if any of the capacitors are leaking/burst.

regards

kieran

Yep, I'd do this also and check the motherboard for any burn marks that may have been caused by the surge. If theres been lightning no surge protector will save it from that.

kaimera

I'm not comfortable enough with pc internals to attempt touching the cpu

Looks like her Dad is gonna take the pc for his own use and shes looking at a new pc.

p4 3ghz, 1gig ram or amd64 3500+, 512ram?

She does a lot of graphics work and video editing.

I said the p4 as the ram is more important for what she does.

Occidental

eMachines main boards seem very prone to electrical damage and other spurious faults as they age. I've seen at least five with roughly the same problem and at this stage I've given up wasting time trying to diagnose them and just swap the system board out.

The P4/1Gb would make the better sense for graphical work.

Pat

generalmiaow

I'm currently repairing an eMachines computer for someone which has a similar spec, and the power supply exploded on me. Wasn't the mobo, and I'm sure it's not the PSU in your case but those emachines sure like exploding.

kaimera

Thanks for the help guys.

She's got her heart set on a new pc now so troubleshooting any further is a tad pointless.

kaimera

Ended up with a x2 3800+, 1gig ram and a 250gig hdd chosen over a p4 630 3Ghz HT, 1gig ram.

Pretty happy