emachines

[chas]

Hi, i have an emachines 8210 running win XP home. 3 years old. When i powered it on the other day, it started to load and then shut down. Left it until next morning and found pc was on, when i say on the power light and the hdd light was on and the fans running, but screen was dead. It would not power off with the power switch, so had to unplug from mains. Every time i plug the mains in, the lights come on and fans run, without touching front power on switch. Any help would be Appreciated.

[danzil]

the first thing i would check is the psu (power supply unit)...pick one up from a shop or borow a friends,and retest it......may also be worth removing your CMOS battery (lithium battery on the mother board, its a bit bigger then a 20 pence piece,,usually near the power,hd led etc connections)leave it out for 30 mins then pop it back in and try powering the pc on....

give them a go then post back

regards

danzil

[chas]

Will do, thanks. Will let you know the outcome.

[danzil]

i will keep checking on this

regards

danzil

[chas]

Hi Danzil,

I have done as you suggest, removed the cmos battery for about an hour. Replaced battery fitted a working power supply. Power on and nothing, the HDD light comes on and stays on, but no noise from HDD. Also power light comes on, CPU fan and case fan runs but nothing else. I have removed/disconnected graphics card, floppy drive, card reader, usb connectors and cd/dvd drive. All that is connected is RAM and HDD. Still nothing, not even the post bleep.

Thanks for your help.

[danzil]

hi chas

unfortunatly my friend this is not sounding good...

do you have a spare cpu to test...(saying that most boards will still beep without cpu)....

unfortunatly i believe the motherboard is at fault.......

i dont think we can really test to much else.

can you pick up another board....can you test your cpu in another machine...

Will the company you bought it from repair it at a reasonable price.....you can get a decent board delivered to your door for £35...fit it then do a repair install

unfortuantly i can not suggest anything else..

if i can help anymore though please post back

regards

danzil

[chas]

Hi Danzil,

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately I do not have a spare CPU or main board. The emachines pc was my main pc. I have pulled out my old celeron 500, win98 to access the Internet. If get a replacement main board, can I use my old hard drive with the new board? I only have the rescue disks that came with the pc, and not a full copy of XP. I have read that if the hard drive does not recognise the main board it will not run. I guess the power supply has blown the main board! Is it possible the CPU has gone as well? If I fit the original CPU to a new main board, and it is faulty will it blow the new board, or just not work.

Thanks for your help.

[danzil]

highly unlikely the cpu willl blow your new motherboard..........shame you cant check your cpu in another machine.........i doubt the cpu is faulty though ,i say that out of how many machine i have repaired and found the psu to have taken out the board ,but leave the cpc still working...but i cant say it will be 100% safe and working.

you wrote I" have done as you suggest, removed the cmos battery for about an hour. Replaced battery fitted a working power supply. Power on and nothing, the HDD light comes on and stays on, but no noise from HDD" that doesnt sound to good either,,,hopefully the power isnt getting to it or,the psu or motherboard dying may have damaged your drive......

hopefully that isnt the case if so

yes you will be able to use the same hard drive,BUT getting xp to run with a new board is a bit different,,,,,,xp will blue screen like mad if the board is too different.

so the options i can see is A to get the exact same board (mmmmm unlikely if its an emachine i think but cant say for sure).or

B get a board with VERY similar spec.ie chipset,audio,graphics chips....

there is a more complicated way of getting it working but you will lose all of your programmes......you could check out this http://www.howtohaven.com/system/createwindowssetupdisk. this will show you how to make an xp cd out of your i386 directory on your hard drive......

most likely your drive is formatted NTFS so 98 will not read it,,,,you will need a computer with a NTFS format to read the drive to

pull of you i386 direcctory..you will also need your xp cd key,this should be on your case,if not i can give you a link to a tool that will show you.

also your rescue cd may possibly have the i386 directory,,,this is usually on a seperate partition but you may be lucky.

well im really tired tonight long shift today fixing a couple of servers.....so i am gonna look in again when im refreshed and can throw a few more ideas at ya....

kind regards

danzil

[chas]

Hi Danzil,

I have yesterday ordered a replacement main board, an Asrock P4i65G Socket 478 Motherboard at what I thought was a very reasonable cost of £28.94 including p&p. I do not know whether it is any good or not, but the write up seems ok and it seems similar to my old main board. I will use my original cpu Pentium 4 3.0ghz, same ram and graphics card. Hopefully! I will try as you suggest and make an xp cd from the i386 directory; the xp key is on the rear of the casing. But will worry about that when I receive new main board.

Thanks again for your help, I will let you know how I get on.

Regards

Chas

[danzil]

ok no probs..

just remember you will need another pc to access the i386 directory..or a bootable cd that shows you the hard drive files.....a linux distro will do this....

asrock are very good boards...i rate them up there with gigabyte there are only 5 boards i buy and they are my 2nd choice..great value for money....

can you gain any access to an xp cd.from a friend or colleage..we could then do arepair install thu saving your programmes and data.

regards

danzil

[chas]

Hi Danzil,

I have today received my my new main board. A slight problem, i put it all together, and the power supply does not turn on! So removed everything, and had the moin board and power supply only, still power supply will not come on. Bearing in mind this is a new power supply. So i connected the old main board, and the power supply starts up! Could the new main board be faulty? Or am i doing something wrong?

Regards

Chas

[danzil]

mmmm.have you made sure the power switch is conected in the right positoin on the board..

try putting the board on an anti sstatic workspace.....piece of cardboard will do....plug the power supply into it...both atx and p4 power.(big power connector and yellow black 12v supply)..then just touch the power on button with a flat bladed screw driver (be very carefull please)..if it powers on then there was a short in the case somewhere,,,,,

just coz the old board powers on doesnt mean the new board is dead,,,circuits will be different.

do you have yet another psu to test with to make sure...

right here goes how to build a pc danzils way

1)make sure no screws or motherboard stand offs are in the wrong position to your new board.

2)install i/o back panel

3)insert motherboard and fix in position(payin attention to step 1)

4)install cpu + heatsink n fan

5)install ram hard drive/cd drives. hard drives.

6)connect on board power hdd led,reset switch etc

7)connect audio header, usb header if needed

8)connect atx plus p4 12v trickle supply (yellow black 4 oin connector)

9) power on and test

follow these then post back

regards

danzil

[chas]

Hi Danzil,

I have just got in, and i have removed the new board from casing and placed it on a cardboard box, plugged in the power supply (big connector and the 4 pin cpu black and yellow wires) shorted for a second the power switch and still nothing. I have nothing connected to board, no ram and no cpu. The fans on the power supply do not run, but if i plug into my old baord the fans do run. I bought this board from ebay shop as new, but it is surprisingly dusty for a new board! I have not gone through the other suggestions you gave, as i thougt if it does not work on the box, it won't work when in casing.

Regards

Chas.

[danzil]

dusty mmmmm.i would ge that sent straight back and go to a different supplier...what a joke sending you a 2nd hand dead board fo rhte price of new...

get in contact with them and get it replaced.

regards

danzil

[chas]

I have just sent email to the seller regarding sending it back.

Thanks

Danzil

[danzil]

ok chas

well i hope they are honourable enough to replace it for you.

regards

danzil

[chas]

HI Danzil,

I now have new motherboard in and working, sort of! When i booted up with everything connected, all good, the only message i had from windows was to enter the COA and register my copy of XP, which i did, and windows started up ok. Other than that the only problem is my wireless mouse started working, then stopped, so had to plug in ps2 mouse instead. I am getting no sound, have loaded drivers that came with board, still no sound. Windows says everything is ok, so not sure what that is! The other strange thing is my mouse pointer, when hovering over some areas of screen, mostly writing i get a small black box appear to the roght of the arrow. When hovering over a http link it goes away, can't understand it. Anyway will keep playing and hope i get it sorted.

Thanks for all your help, much apperciated

Chas

[danzil]

the lack of sound,sounds like the on board audio header, if it isnt wired in then the sound the back is effected......there is a post on these forums that has a diagram (not great)that i did showig the wiring.check that out,.....

have you install the vga drivers,and directx etc.

regards

danzil

[chas]

Hi Danzil,

Have sorted out most of problems, you were right jumper not connected for sound, silly me. The only problem i have now is that i am not getting sound from left speaker, i know it works because of my old pc. But if that is my only problem i can live with it.

Thanks again

Regards

Chas

[danzil]

hi chas

check the left out n left return on the audio header is in the correct positon...

check out his post http://extremetechsupport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=755

shows the 2 most widely used audio header wiring.

regards

danzil