Need help with an eMachine T1840

[ekline51]

Hello everyone,

A friend of mine has an eMachine T1840. It began to malfunction (he didn't give me details), and he was told by "someone" that he needed a new power supply. He had a Dynex DX-PS350W installed. That didn't fix it. He was told (by the same resource...) that it needed a new hard drive. He had a Western Digital WD800JB hard drive installed. THAT didn't fix it. He was told (you guessed it, by the SAME resource...) that the MOTHERBOARD was bad & needed to be replaced. Instead, he asked me to look at it.

I hooked everything up, and here is what I observed:

The power light comes on as soon as you plug it in & only goes out when you unplug it.
The initial "beep" doesn't happen.
NOTHING appears on the monitor.
The hard drive light doesn't light up.
The DVD-ROM light flashes, non-stop.

I inserted the restore disk in the DVD-ROM drive, shut the computer off & restarted it. Nothing different happened. I tried going to the BIOS to make the DVD-ROM drive boot first, but the startup never really happens, as NOTHING shows up on the monitor. I've tried 2 different monitors & got the same results.

I'm at a loss, as I'm NOT educated in computer repair, but I'm confident that someone in the community can point me in the right direction. Thank you, in advance, for all helpful info.

Please re-post to the correct board, as necessary.

Best regards,
Rick

 

[dmill89]

unfortunately bad Powersupplies and motherboards are a verry common problem in E-machines. It is almost certainly a bad motherboard which will need replaced. You will also likely have to fromat the harddrive and install a clean copy of windows as the original E-machines windows instaliation as well as the restore discs will only work with the original motherboard. post your ram and CPU socket type and we should be able to recomend a sutible replacement. What ever you do don't buy a replacement board from E-machines they are extremly low quality and overpriced.

 

[dmill89]

Ok according to E-machines sity you have a socket 478 1.8ghz celeron and PC 2100 ram (only 128 mb unless you upgraded)
I personally recomend a either a cpu and motherboard upgrade or a new system altogether.

Here are som motherboards that will fit your current CPU and case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138262
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130519
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131573
Here are some recomended motherboard/CPU upgrades.
Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136143
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819104245
or if you wan't even more power
Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131035
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103537
If you haven't already upgraded your ram I recomend the following:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141436
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145026
or if you want 1GB:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141307
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145505


A new motherboard will get you up and running again but One of the motherboard/Cpu sets I recomended will signifigently improve preformance especially if you decide to upgrade to vista. Regardless If you still only have the stock 128mb ram you really should upgrade the ram, 128 mb is extremely low for XP and it won't run vista at all.

 

[ekline51]

Many thanks. I'll give it a try to swap out the Motherboard/CPU & see what happens. I'll keep you updated, although it won't be for a few weeks.

 

[StalkedWhisper]

Emachines T1840 problem please help.

Is there someone here that can help me with an emachines T1840? I replaced the motherboard (IMPERIAL GL-VE 20020906 replaced with IMPERIAL GL-VE 20020930) and power supply but I cannot get it to work. The power button just keeps blinking and nothing works. Does anyone have step by step instructions so I can try and figure out the problem?? Thank You.