Is this computer broken and done for? Green light on motherboard, can't power on.

L

LordJezo

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 18, 2003
Messages
471
Here's the deal, I am working on someone's eMachine pc, an old pretty junky piece of hardware, and I am trying to get it running again.

Symptoms: Won't turn on. Person says it just stopped working one day. The mother board is getting power as the green light on it is on indicating there is something going on.

I first though it was a PSU problem so I hooked up another one to it. Same result. Power button did nothing while the green light was on.

Next I took off the power button connection and tried simply touching the two metal jumpers together with a piece of metal to simulate pressing the button to see if it was a button issue. Nothing worked. Next I took everything out of the mother board to see if it was a ram issue or if one of the connections was causing the thing not to turn on and repeated trying to turn it on, still nothing.

So is this thing simply shot? Motherboard hosed perhaps?
 
If the motherboard status light is lighting up, it would seem to be either...
1. A problem with the power button jumpers (seems you ruled that out)
2. A problem supplying power to the whole system.
If there's an external video card take that out, use only one stick of RAM, unlplug other HDDS/optical drives, etc.
If it boots up then, you know the PS is not supplying enough power for the system.
 
And if it doesn't boot up?

Dead system?

I wonder why the light would go on though...
 
The majority of eMachines that go bad are due to low quality PSUs killing the motherboards. So, its most likely a faulty mobo, due to the crappy PSU.

I've repaired about a dozen eMachines from fam/friends, most of which had that same notorious problem.
 
enginurd said:
The majority of eMachines that go bad are due to low quality PSUs killing the motherboards. So, its most likely a faulty mobo, due to the crappy PSU.

I've repaired about a dozen eMachines from fam/friends, most of which had that same notorious problem.
Click to expand...

This is what I determined it to be, I searched around a bit and found that people were even trying to get a class action lawsuit going against them for the amount of people that were having this problem. Told the person their best bet is to get something new and put the hard drive into an external enclosure.

How did you end up fixing the eMachines? Did you go as far as getting a new motherboard for them?
 
any fans that work?
beep codes
4 light led that would show error code.
DRT
 
enginurd said:
The majority of eMachines that go bad are due to low quality PSUs killing the motherboards. So, its most likely a faulty mobo, due to the crappy PSU.

I've repaired about a dozen eMachines from fam/friends, most of which had that same notorious problem.
Click to expand...

QFT

I have seen a couple Emachines with the same symptoms you describe, and could not get them to POST for my life, they ended up needing new mobos+PSUs.:rolleyes: Obviously not worth repairing.

Yep, like you said, pull their drive and transfer everything to a new computer.
 
Wow, see my thread not posted long ago! exact same issue, although on a BRAND new pc built together by moi. The green light led_pwr is ON, I have a feeling it is NOT the mobo. Could it be just the CPU? also no beeps or anything (already taken out all the components to rule them out as variable)

See the thread here:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1397547
 
LordJezo said:
How did you end up fixing the eMachines? Did you go as far as getting a new motherboard for them?
Click to expand...

Well with the few eMachines PCs I've had to work on, I just ended up convincing them that the PC was not worth fixing and that it would've been more cost effective to just buy a new PC altogether. When the PSU kills the RAM, mobo and hard drive, it's really not worth "fixing".

However in the cases where only the PSU and mobo died, I just picked up a cheap compatible mobo (Usually ECS) from Fry's and ran with that.
 
Its dead. The power and mobo are dead and will need to be replaced. I see at least 1-2 of these a week and its almost always the same thing.
 
I had the some problem with an old dell motherboard I was using for a server build and my old gaming rig. I went to start my rig up one day and it fired for about 15 seconds and then shut down. the server never even posted. Even though the light was on, it wouldn't boot up. It ended up being a bad CPU. I would check it if you can, but if it is as old as you say it is, you might not want to put the money into it.
 
Danny Bui said:
Well with the few eMachines PCs I've had to work on, I just ended up convincing them that the PC was not worth fixing and that it would've been more cost effective to just buy a new PC altogether. When the PSU kills the RAM, mobo and hard drive, it's really not worth "fixing".

However in the cases where only the PSU and mobo died, I just picked up a cheap compatible mobo (Usually ECS) from Fry's and ran with that.
Click to expand...

Same here. :eek:
 
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