Hi. A newbie here, so apologies in advance for my ignorance or breaks with Forum protocol.
I have an Emachines T2865 purchased in 2003 that just died on me. No power at all.
I removed and tested the PSU with a Multimeter and it was dead (as far as I could tell).
I replaced it with a 500W PSU via eBay. On receipt, I tested with the multimeter and got power. However, after installing the PSU and powering it up, it hung half way through the boot cycle so I rebooted ( I didnt note the beep sequence on the boot). This reboot killed the replacement PSU i.e. tested with the multimeter and it's dead.
Also note that I have several other machines on the same UPS powerline, so this ruled out bad power at source (I think).
At this point I started researching online and discovered that these types of issues are common with Emachine PSUs and mobos.
After reading a thread on this site, I thought it was the mobo, so I purchased a new mobo and yet another new PSU thru newegg.
"MB ECS 741GX-M+XPM 2400+CPU 462 "
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813135015
and a 350W PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103934
With the new mobo and PSU installed, on the first try, after getting through the CMOS setup on the new MB, (basically looking around and setting the clock), I got a untrappable flashing blue screen and it went into a boot cycle. I tried in vain to capture the blue screen, but it happened too quickly. The screen appeared 7 seconds after it checked the disks on the boot cycle.
As I could not break from the cycle, I rebooted again, and this blew my new (third) PSU
So I am really at a loss on what is causing this or how to proceed.
1. could it still be the PSU, mobo or CPU?
2. could it be a virus?
3. Could it be that XP wouldnt boot because of the new mobo? (note I hadnt tried booting from an XP disk and now that the 3rd PSU is dead, I dont have that option.
4. when PSUs go bad, is that it?? i.e. is there any way to rescue the new PSU or do these types of problems damage the h/w beyond recovery?
On another site (there are a lot of posts on Emachine problems) I read that this could be a really nasty boot-sector virus (I recently allowed my visiting niece to check her internet email on my computer, and I think that this is where it came from)
If its a virus, I had a few questions on the best way to proceed
1) What is the best way to clean the virus from the boot sector?
2) could I place the main drive in another pc as a slave, recover the fimprtant files and clean it there? Or would this risk blowing up the other PC also?
Its pretty frustrating to buy two new PSUs and watch them blow up one after the other.
I now have three dead PSUs, a new mobo, no PC and a wife who is wondering where I am spending all this time
However I am reluctant to give up on this and let this piece of Cr%$ Emachine get the better of me.
Maybe I am doing something fundemantally wrong, or stupid, that I would be grateful if someone could point out.
Any guidance on how to proceed would be gratefully appreciated.
Thanks
I have an Emachines T2865 purchased in 2003 that just died on me. No power at all.
I removed and tested the PSU with a Multimeter and it was dead (as far as I could tell).
I replaced it with a 500W PSU via eBay. On receipt, I tested with the multimeter and got power. However, after installing the PSU and powering it up, it hung half way through the boot cycle so I rebooted ( I didnt note the beep sequence on the boot). This reboot killed the replacement PSU i.e. tested with the multimeter and it's dead.
Also note that I have several other machines on the same UPS powerline, so this ruled out bad power at source (I think).
At this point I started researching online and discovered that these types of issues are common with Emachine PSUs and mobos.
After reading a thread on this site, I thought it was the mobo, so I purchased a new mobo and yet another new PSU thru newegg.
"MB ECS 741GX-M+XPM 2400+CPU 462 "
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813135015
and a 350W PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103934
With the new mobo and PSU installed, on the first try, after getting through the CMOS setup on the new MB, (basically looking around and setting the clock), I got a untrappable flashing blue screen and it went into a boot cycle. I tried in vain to capture the blue screen, but it happened too quickly. The screen appeared 7 seconds after it checked the disks on the boot cycle.
As I could not break from the cycle, I rebooted again, and this blew my new (third) PSU
So I am really at a loss on what is causing this or how to proceed.
1. could it still be the PSU, mobo or CPU?
2. could it be a virus?
3. Could it be that XP wouldnt boot because of the new mobo? (note I hadnt tried booting from an XP disk and now that the 3rd PSU is dead, I dont have that option.
4. when PSUs go bad, is that it?? i.e. is there any way to rescue the new PSU or do these types of problems damage the h/w beyond recovery?
On another site (there are a lot of posts on Emachine problems) I read that this could be a really nasty boot-sector virus (I recently allowed my visiting niece to check her internet email on my computer, and I think that this is where it came from)
If its a virus, I had a few questions on the best way to proceed
1) What is the best way to clean the virus from the boot sector?
2) could I place the main drive in another pc as a slave, recover the fimprtant files and clean it there? Or would this risk blowing up the other PC also?
Its pretty frustrating to buy two new PSUs and watch them blow up one after the other.
I now have three dead PSUs, a new mobo, no PC and a wife who is wondering where I am spending all this time
However I am reluctant to give up on this and let this piece of Cr%$ Emachine get the better of me.
Maybe I am doing something fundemantally wrong, or stupid, that I would be grateful if someone could point out.
Any guidance on how to proceed would be gratefully appreciated.
Thanks