I have a e-machine about 5 years old and the power supply just went out on it as the computer would just reboot over and over after a short time of being powered up. Replaced the power supply as the old one had a brown spot on the circuit board. This new ATX power supply is slightly larger 450W compared to the 300W I had. When I tried to boot up the system it said missing system file, but now it won't even get that far. It stays stuck at the same screen for the menu selection of (safe mode, last known good, start normally) after pressing the enter key. I have also tried using the system disk with no avail as well as using Winternals ERD. I cannot even boot with bootable discs. It gets to the point where the loading bar across the bottom shows progress and then exactly when it is at 100%, the system restarts. Do you think other items in my system got fried too when the power supply was causing multiple reboots? Is my motherboard bad now too as I cannot boot from a DVD which has an ENTIRE operating system on it (Winternals ERD 2005). Please advise...suggestions.

EMachines are notorious for having cheap power supplies in them. When they fail, they almost always take out other components, in particular the motherboard. The RAM, CPU, hard drives and optical drives are usually ok, but these aren't immune to being damaged either. WinSimple Software CompTIA A+ Certified

look at the motherboard and, see if you can find any bad capacitors. http://www.badcaps.net/ larry

I had a spare system (Dell Optiplex GX270) and hard drive and put a fresh o/s on there to test first and then I took same hard drive and installed a fresh copy on my W2925 e-machine. When I booted up for the first time after using the restore CD, it hung. The first time it hung just after the spash screen for Windows XP went black. When trying safe mode, it displays all of the files it is loading and just hangs there. So I am guessing the motherboard has something wrong with it. On google, I've seen the price of the motherboard for anywhere from $80 to $180 for the FIC VC37GV motherboard. Not sure where they part number 102093 is found as I don't see it on my computer as I am trying to match the BIOS. The link below has 3 motherboards for my computer, but only the last one I am 100% certain it is an identical match to what I have based upon the number listed after the BIOS in the description on that site. http://www.pinnaclemicro.com/comput... With these symptoms any idea what part on the motherboard has exactly failed?

"When I booted up for the first time after using the restore CD, it hung." When you say restore CD, do you mean a Windows XP OS install disc or a recovery disc? If it's a recovery disc, which one was it for, the GX270 or the emachines? Did you try a different IDE cable in the emachines? Does the motherboard have any bulging/leaking caps? WinSimple Software CompTIA A+ Certified

When I mentioned Restore CD I mean the one which came with e-machines system. The restore CD has some embedded self-executing ghost image (.gho) restore built-in and basically wipes the hard drive and copies the Windows XP Home operating system and all applications to it. It doesn't load it, just copies them on as an image does. That seems to be the way e-machines does their "recovery/restore". I have tried a different IDE cable and there are no leaking or bulging capacitors on the motherboard. I am thinking it is the motherboard, which something vital got fried as when I put the hard drive in another computer it comes back with the standard 0x0000007B Microsoft BSOD on the Dell GX270. I discovered you MUST have the exact or a version of the motherboard with little differences in order for the system to come back up without having to reload each and every program. With having tried a spare hard drive and running the e-machines restore cd and it still not working, it leads me to believe the motherboard must be replaced no matter what. So what do you think?

Do you have another stick of RAM you could try that's the same type as what's in the EMachines now? If there are 2 sticks installed in the EMachines, remove the one in the second slot. If you still have problems, remove the one in the first slot and install the one that was in the second slot into the first slot. To eliminate as much as possible, remove all PCI cards and unplug all USB devices. You are right, in order to move a hard drive from one computer to another, the hardware of the second computer must be about the same. The errors you've seen on the Dell are pretty much meaningless. WinSimple Software CompTIA A+ Certified