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hello everyone,
I have a problem with my emachine not turning on. i have a T2692 emachine and i think a storm may have damaged the pc. i came home from out of town and when i push the power, the front light blinks orange and i hear the fan and see it turn on, but nothing else turns on. the only way to turn off the pc is by unplugging it from the back power plug. rarely (1 out of about 10), when i unplug and turn the pc back on, it will boot, and i will see xp loading and get the logon screen, but then it turns off. i think it may turn off b/c i tried to plug the mouse PS/2 plug into the back b/c it was not on. now when i turn on the pc, it makes a constant noise with the blinking front yellow power light. its kinda soothing sounding ..hehehe...but it sux that i don't know what to do. i think it may be the power supply, but if the fan turns on and the light on the front blinks, doesn't it mean that there is power and its working, or does it mean that it is working somewhat? could anybody advise me on what to do w/o taking it to a repair shop which is super expensive. i did read some post and saw that i could unplug or remove the hd, memory (maybe) to see if i hear the beeps b/c it tells you that the motherboard is working, correct? how would i know which piece is working and which piece is not. i would like to do some test myself b4 trying to bring the pieces to a friends place b/c i don't know of many friends who have pc's that i can test out and swap parts with.
The pc is about 2 years old, i installed extra memory about 2 months ago and installed another hard drive. i don't know if this info is important.how do i fix this??? :(
hmmm. i will open up the back and see if there is anything wrong with the power supply unit...any help is greatly appreciated.
Your post would be easier to follow if you used standard capitalization and punctuation.
If electrical damage occurred, any part(s) could be damaged.
If it were my PC, I'd try to reset the BIOS first. Next, I would swap out the PSU.
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I had the SAME EXACT PROBLEM with my family's computer a month ago. I thought lightning hit it. But after coming in from being out of town, I pushed the button, nothing happened! I tried a different power cord, then the lights and fans came on, but no monitor signal.
I had another computer that my family was going to use to get online, since that other computer wasn't working. I took out the internal modem that was in the problem computer, installed it into that other computer that worked, and that computer did the SAME THING!
So, I left that modem out of both computers, and they both worked again.
So! Here's what I recommend for you to do:
Remove all ISA/PCI cards from your computer except the graphics card if you have one. Then, try to boot up. If that dosn't work, then your graphics card MAY be bad. Not exactly sure about it, but won't rule it out.
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Sorry about the bad capitalization and punctuation, I didn't mean to make it difficult to read. But anyhow, thanks for the replies! I will try to reset the BIOS 1st like you said Badboy, and if that doesn't work, I will go ahead and remove all ISA/PCI cards from the PC except the graphics card and test it out. ray96, my situation is exactly like yours, the monitor has no signal or doesn't show anything at all. Anyhow, I will try those things out tomorrow night, I have alot of work to do before then, but if there are any other suggestions, please send them my way! I really appreciate the replies, thanks a bunch :)
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Ok, I cleared the CMOS setting by switching the pin on the MOBO. Then turned on the PC, same problem occurred.
I couldn't remove the sound card and modem b/c they were integrated. There were NO PCI slots for them. There was 1 PCI slot which looks like an extra phone/wall jack for the internet, but I never used that. I just use the regular LAN and phone jacks that are also integrated to the MOBO.
Next I unplugged the HD's and plugged in the power cord, nothing, then removed RAM modules, and then I the PC sounded like it was booting up normally without the tick, tick, tick sound and flashing orange light on the front. When it was booting, I plugged in the monitor, but when I plugged in the keyboard and mouse, I still couldn't see anything on the screen. I think if I would've had the monitor, keyboard and mouse plugged in ahead of time, I would've been able to see something, maybe! But now, I try to recreate what I did, and the same problem appears, so I'm not sure what to do. I called Fry's and Best Buy and they said I could take my PC in for a Diagonstics test, but thats $59. I want to avoid doing that, but I may have to. Once again, the fan on the PSU turns on and the fan on the CPU turns on, but the front power on light flashes orange with the tick, tick, tick sound. It ticks about 5 times per second. The hard drive does not boot and nothing appears on the monitor. I can NOT push the power button to turn off the PC, I need to unplug it from the back.
Anyhow, I am assuming that the problem lies within the PSU, what do you all think? I'm not sure what else to do.
Anymore suggestions?Thanks,
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Oh, I forgot to mention that the past 2 weeks, some of the USB ports have not been working at all. My jump drives are detected but when I try to open up the drive, it says there is nothing there, and the only way to detect them was to turn off the PC, and then plug in the jump drive and then turn the PC back on. I can then open up the drive and use it, but once I unplug it and plug it back in, the USB icon shows on the bottom right taskbar, but shows nothing in the drive. So I guess this problem had something to do with the PSU? And now with the current problem I'm having, it seems like a good assumption!
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dbz, please don't think I'm being mean, but from what you've been saying, I don't think it's a good idea to plug in the monitor, mouse, or keyboard while the computer is running. I've heard that when doing so, it may send a electrical shock through the motherboard, causing your computer to be damaged. I've heard this several times. This isn't so for USB though.
I think the problem MAY be the PSU, but I have a weird feeling that it is not. But I don't know.
ray96
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Ok, try unplugging the hard drive only. Just unplug the power cord from the drive. Then boot up and see if you get to a BIOS post. This may sound kind of weird, but we must rule some things out before you go out and spend money on a PSU.
By the way, do you have another PSU you could swap into this computer? Does the PSU that is currently connected to the computer have any dust caked inside?
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thanks ray96,
i think i already tried unplugging the hard drive, but i'm not 100% sure. anyhow, i did pick up another PSU, ATX 320W, the one i had in the pc b4 was 250W. i installed it and it did the same thing. blinking light and fans are on, but nothing else. do you think getting a 320W is high enough or should i have gotten like a 350W or 400W? the PSU i had b4 did not have much dust action on it. i will try unplugging everything again tomorrow, but i'm tired of messing with it anymore. its super frustrating!!!
thanks,
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I know how you feel. I think you did OK on the wattage. If 250w used to work, then I don't see why 320w wouldn't work. Ok then, we are ruling things out.
The problem is NOT:
the hard drive (although you're not sure if you disconnected it or not to see, but you mentioned it in one of your earlier replies that you did)
Not The PSU (since you bought a new one and it didn't work either)
So, what else could it be I wonder?
Your cpu may have overheated. I really don't feel this is it either, but then again, maybe you should remove the heatsink, fan, and CPU. Look under the CPU for some possible dark areas. Is there dust caked in the heatsink and/or fan? Do you smell anything weird in the computer?
Also, it looks above in one of your posts that you took the RAM out, and still the same thing? What exactly have you done with the RAM?
You say too that the orange light on the front is blinking. Was it blinking orange when the computer was normal?
If you can answer those questions, then maybe we can get somewhere. :) They might sound like weird questions, especially to these other experts reading this, but I do things a little different than them, lol.
But anyway, keep me posted. I should be back on tommorrow night.
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hey ray,
my fiances dad upgraded the RAM from 256 to 768MB. He just added a 512 block of RAM. This was done back around march or april, and this was the time that he installed the extra hd as well. no problems since then until now. as far as the power light, it when it turns on, it glows green. the only time it turns orange is when it processing. darn, i sure hope the motherboard is not fried. i posted on another forum, and i'll see what results show up there as well...thanks
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Hey man,
I hate to tell you this, but I had the same problem, unresponsive on/off switch, constant running, and no monitor. the only way to turn it off was to unplugg it. When the plug was reinserted it automatically came on, and began running.
Long story short, it was my MOTHERBOARD. sorry.
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crappers....well, i will probably bring in the pc to get a diagonstics which is $59 at FRY's...hmmm, i'll try to find another mobo, hopefully i can so i can test it out, but darn those Emachines (fists shaking)..hehehe j/k.
any other ideas? thanks again for the replies.
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How about the CPU? Did you check for dust in the heatsink/fan?
So, the orange light blinks when it's processing something huh? When it worked ok, did the orange light especially blink when you opened a program?
Have you checked your graphics card, or is it integrated?
I'm beginning to think it's the motherboard too. That should confirm to be what it is if the CPU is OK. FYI, I've heard nothing but bad about emachines.
Also, you may try unplugging all of your CD/DVD Burners, as well just to be sure.
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i haven't really checked the CPU, i just dusted off the fan on top of the heat sink, but not too much b/c i didn't want the dust to fly everywhere on the mobo. yeah, i'm beginning to believe its the mobo as well. if only i could find a loose mobo to test out, but i think i might skip the diagonstics, maybe??? not quite sure yet!
i briefly read about updating the mobo and it should be a fun project for me to do. hmmm, can you all share some good online shops to buy mobos, cpus, heat sinks, fans, and cases. i do NOT really want any high end stuff, but i don't want anything crappy either. i would prefer AMD Athlon XP. i know i should go online to search, but i just wanted to see if there were any good deals or vendors out there, cheap and good...
thanks
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Hey, I've had the same problem. I bought a new case, that did not fix it. I brought it to fry's, where the technician noticed that my motherboard was screwed up. So, I bought a new motherboard and with a new Athlon 64 processor and the first time I booted it up, it turned on and loaded XP but 5 seconds later it died and the same problem kept happening. So, in my case it had nothing to do with the PSU, motherboard (since the new one still did it), CPU, HDD (i tested several), or RAM (brand new as well). I'll try unpluggin the PCI cards since other than them, it's a brand new computer. I'll post when I've tried that.
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i haven't really checked the CPU, i just dusted off the fan on top of the heat sink, but not too much b/c i didn't want the dust to fly everywhere on the mobo. yeah, i'm beginning to believe its the mobo as well. if only i could find a loose mobo to test out, but i think i might skip the diagonstics, maybe??? not quite sure yet!
i briefly read about updating the mobo and it should be a fun project for me to do. hmmm, can you all share some good online shops to buy mobos, cpus, heat sinks, fans, and cases. i do NOT really want any high end stuff, but i don't want anything crappy either. i would prefer AMD Athlon XP. i know i should go online to search, but i just wanted to see if there were any good deals or vendors out there, cheap and good...
thanks
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mike,
wow, that severly sucks...hmmm. the only thing that might be the problem is a stuck screw somewhere that my be grounding either the motherboard or the psu, other than the PCI cards, thats about the only thing i can think of, but i sure hope i don't have that problem. i hope you can figure out your dilema...
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Could be a screw under the motherboard.
But do you have a graphics card in the computer or is it integrated?
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There was 1 PCI slot which looks like an extra phone/wall jack for the internet, but I never used that.
Sounds like a modem. Did you try removing this thing? The fact that you "never used that" doesn't mean it is not causing any problems.
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