Hello everyone. First time here. I wanted to get a few opinions on an issue with my friend's eMachine that's approx. 3-4 yrs old. Apparently, the last 3-4 days the PC will not boot up. I looked at it yesterday briefly and all plugged in wires were good, power chord was seated properly, surge protector working (as were other items on that surge) but the PC has _zero_ juice. I'm wondering if it's just the power supply or if it's more, maybe the mboard? I really haven't looked it at enough & I hardly ever work on eMachines so I'm not familiar w/their components or their track record, but it piqued my interest and I wanted to see what a few of you thought. Hopefully, I'll get a chance today to look at it and see how the insides look and get some info on the PS. Thanks in advance. Rasp Why not?

It's probably the power supply. If it has failed completely there is a strong chance the PS failing fried the mboard. emachine computers are well known to use el-cheapo power supplies that tend to malfunction and eventually fail completely a lot more often than average, and when they do fail completely they are a lot more likely to damage other components than average, most often the mboard. This is especially likely if the PS is a BESTEC model. If the PS still partially works, e.g. if fans spin, and/or hard drives spin up, the chances are very good replacing the PS is all you need to do. Fairly recent emachines desktop systems can usually use a standard ATX PS of a standard PS/2 size, unless the case is smaller, in which case you may need a smaller proprietary size that has standard ATX wiring. If you supply the emachines model number I can determine that for you, and, probably, which mboard it has. (You could open up your case and check yourself - you may need to remove it - remove the 4 screws at the rear of the casewhere the PS fan is, and possibly one or two inside the case on the other end... Standard PS/2 size - 86mm high, 150mm wide, 140mm deep, or 3 3/8" h x 5 7/8" w x 5 1/2" d , or very close to that, though the depth can be more or less for some PSs.) If the PS is not working at all, there's a strong chance your mboard may be damaged. In that case used emachines mboards can often be bought for a reasonable price on the web, and that is usually the only thing that was damaged. You must buy the same mboard model with an emachines bios version, or possibly another model in a small group that were installed on emachines systems at about the same time with an emachines bios version, in order to be able to use a Recovery CD or a set of them to restore your original emachines software installation. I've seen no firm evidence the mboard in a emachines system is any more likely to fail than the mboard in other computers - in fact in most more recent emachines systems, they (TriGem) did not make the mboard - it was made by a major mboard manufacturer and supplied to them, and usually is no differenrt from the retail mboard manufacturer's model except for the emachines specific bios version. Check your PS. See response 4 in this: http://www.computing.net/hardware/w...

eMachines are notorious for using crappy Bestec power supplies. Unplug the power cord & open the case. Unplug the PSU plugs from ALL the devices including the motherboard. Then try this: - fashion a paperclip into a "U-shape". - take the ATX main plug (probably 20-pin) & insert one end of the paperclip into the pin that corresponds to the green wire, & the other end into any pin with a black wire. Like so: http://www.motherboards.org/images/... - plug in the power cord. If the cooling fan in PSU doesn't spin up, the unit is most likely fried. "And that's the fishing line, because Sharkboy said so!"

Thanks for the info, it's appreciated. I'll be looking at it tomorrow. It's an eMachine T3958. I assumed it was the PS but the owner was ready to junk it and buy a new one so I offered to look at it and see if maybe they can avoid a whole new setup. One question - anything unusual involved in transferring an eMachine HD to a new PC? Rasp Why not?

" ...anything unusual involved in transferring an eMachine HD to a new PC?" The hard drive itself will work fine and boot fine if you connect it properly and the bios setup settings are correct BUT - if the main chipset on the destination mboard is more than a little different, XP often cannot deal with that and will not load Windows. What you typically see is the first bit of Windows graphics then a black screen with a blinking cursor top left. I know of no way you can fix that when the hartd drive has a brand name supplied software installation on it. You could try booting with a regular XP CD to see if you have the second Repair option available that is necessary to run a Repair Setup procedure (often called a Repair install, but what you're actually dong is running Setup again), but according to my limited experience with brand name software installations, the second Repair choice is not there. - you cannot use a single Recovery CD that uses the intact original contents of the second partition on the hard drive, or a Recovery CD set, to reload C or reload the entire drive, because the recoveru procedure will quit when it doesn't find the mboard model it expects, and, probably, an emachines bios version on it. - eventually Genuine Windows Advantage will find your Windows installation is invalid because info stored on the hard drive for Validation does not match the hardware on the computer the drive is on. You will be nagged to validate your Windows and be given a specific short time to do that in, after which you can't use Windows, or you will be nagged to remedy the situation and be allowed to put that off, in whicj case you can use Windows indefinately. In both cases, Automatic Update will still work, but you can't use Microsoft Update manually, and many things you can get elsewhere on the Microsoft web site will refuse to install or be downloaded until your Windows installation passes the Genuine Windows Advantage test.

You are much better off to try another PS. If you don't want to take the risk of buying a new PS, if you have a used one available in another computer you can borrow temporarily, any standard ATX PS of 250watts capacity or more will do. As I said above, if the PS is partially working at all, that will probably be all you need to replace. See the info in this about the wiring, but almost all PSs these days use standard wiring: See response 4 in this: http://www.computing.net/hardware/w... You can merely prop up another PS beside the case and connect it for testing purposes. ........ eMachines T3958 emachines web site support info for it. There is a MANUAL here that tells you how to install or un-install the power supply, and the mboard, etc.: http://www.emachines.com/support/pr... A search on the web finds your model often comes with a BESTEC ATX-250-12E. The 250 stands for 250 watts of capacity. I checked that out - it is a standard PS/2 size and has standard ATX wiring to it's connectors. You can replace it with any standard sized ATX PS that has 250 watts or greater capacity (you will probably never need more than 350 watts even if you fully load up youyr system). DO NOT buy a BESTEC PS! DO NOT buy one the of cheapest PSs you can find, or you are a lot more likely to have the same problem again in the future - it should cost you at least $35 or so, or more. Look at the manufacturer's info for the model, not just the info in an ad. It should have at least a 1 year warranty - better still 3 years, or more. Most recent PSs have a combo main connector that can be used for either a 20 or 24 "pin" connector on the mboard, so you don't necessarily need one with a 20 "pin" connector only. Your mboard has the Intel® 845GV chipset. I can dig up which actual brand and model it is, if you like, if you connect another PS and the computer still won't boot, and possibly find you places on web that have it for sale. There's usually nothing wrong with all the other components, and it's extremely unlikely on emachines systems when the computer won't boot normally the mboard is no good and the PS is okay.

I've owned two e-machines firts oneis i400 or something like that; power supply died several years ago. Replaced with new power supply I got from newegg, and still working fine. second was T2742 and same thing... Computer quit one day after about four years. Tried same...new PSU from newegg. No workee. Scrapped it. Should have had the old PSU tested before splurging on anew one/ Good Luck.