T2385 Croaked! Help!

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I forgot one thing. I have seen where the power switch can cause problems as well, so you might want to unhook the power switch where it connects at the mobo and simply use the flat end of a screwdriver and touch the 2 pins you just made bare when you unhooked the front power switch. If the switch is bad the pc will start.
It does happen. These atx front power switches are not really even switches, all they do is cause a momentary surge of power, enough to cause the power supply to start itself up and then they are bypassed. However, if the switch is bad it will stick in the "on" position and cause the power supply not to start. So you can test to see if the pc will start with the flat screwdriver and if so then the front power switch has to be replaced. Its not common but it does happen. Happened to me once on a customers pc, took me forever to find the problem, lol.
There are, of course, other things you can do, and there is one in particular i can think of, but from the sounds of the problem, i still believe its the power supply, so i would like to see you address that first, if possible.
 
Nork,
Thank you for all of your input. I got busy with other things last night, so didn't get back to the box, so don't have an update.
I did see the switch issue on another old eMachines box that we had. The button quit working, and my ex rigged it to work outside of the button. It worked that way for a couple of years, but eventually the mobo blew. I thought it was a ps issue then, but when we pulled the board out it was burnt on the back.

This system is not very old, maybe a couple of years at most....I hope I can fix it for them. Will let you know what comes of it.
 
hi all. fyi.. for less than $15 you can buy a ps tester. circuit city has a good one. if you plan an doing any pc troubleshooting it's needed.
i posted earlier with a t2385 with the same symptoms. check your ps first (leave at 115v). putting it at 230 won't harm anything, but nothing will work.
in my case it was the mobo. emachines no longer has the replacement for it and it is also proprietary. in my case if i replace the mobo it will not run the recovery cd's. so i would need to by the os. windows xp which at best is about $100 on ebay.
 
Not the Power Supply

Well guys, back to the drawing board. I went out to buy a power supply, and the guy at the shop put the tester to the one I have, and its getting full voltage from all connections. The motherboard doesn't look burned, but I guess I'll have to pull it and find out.
 
Well, I thought sure it was the hard drive, or at least a corrupt OS, but, no. I actually have both another hd from another eMachines that blew, and tried to boot with that...no...boot from both a win xp cd, the eMachines restore disk, and, because the drive is a Western Digital, a WD Diagnostics cd. It will just not boot. Both the cd drive spins and the hd is spinning (all that I tried), but nothing. I tested the drive in my other desktop and its just fine. So....guess it must be the motherboard. I'm still holding out that its the CPU fan (because it never spins up), but I honestly doubt it. Oh well, I'll pull the board tomorrow and take a look at the back of it.
 
How many pieces of ram are in that pc? Have you tried using just one stick of ram in the pc at a time and booting that way, just in case its a stick of ram causing the problem. I am likely reaching a bit here, but i have seen or heard of just about everything, so you never know.
And its a lot easier than pulling the mobo.

About the power supply, was it tested under load or did the guy just hook it up to a small, hand-held power tester that gives a green light?
If the latter then thats not good enough.
 
Not another Emachines post... Replaceing power supply, and motherboard with better components usually gets the wrecks running again...
 
wow this is messed

i just read this and belive it or not, i had the same problem 2 days ago, my t1840 emachines that i buaght in 2003 did the same thing... just right now the computer will not turn on at all. and my guess as long with the guy a futureshop was that it was the power supply, cuz its plugged in and no power is being put into my system. he grabbed another PSU and hooked it up, and the comp turned on, the CPU fan spun, and the HDD light was lit, but the problem was it was not responding. now, i dont remeber him plugging in the HDD, if you only plug in the board, will anything show up on the screen?? since all your info is on the HDD. im confused about that part, he said my power supply is gone.. and at the top of this page there is a sticky which refers to emachines power supplies. my mobo might be gone too :( anyone know?
 
Yes holyhit2,
your power supply and motherboard might both be bad. Is it time for a new computer?
 
CPTJACK - I will have to try and look at the MOBO someday and see if i can make something of it. I ended up replacing the MOBO w/ an bundle kit from www.tigerdidrect.com. it was an MSI board and intel cpu. they have really good deals. The E-Machine ran like a charm after i think the 70$ purchase considering the computer was free when it was about to be junked. I kept the MOBO and CPU trying to find out which is dead. Started out that i had just about the same symptons as ANENIGMATICONE
 
Try as I may, motherboard is dead

Hey Holyhit2,
I don't know, but if your CPU fan is turning on with a new PS, your MB may not be blown, at least not yet. There must be some power getting to the MB, or that CPU fan would not start. I, on the other hand, never did get the CPU fan to power on. I tested everything upside down and backwards, and, regardless of that board looking pristine -- there was absolutely no signs of it having been "blown" -- it was. I pulled it, tested it in and out of the box. Yes, I tried the RAM in every which configuration. I pulled the processor, cleaned the heatsink up, bought a new fan -- it did not work. I now realize that the reason the hard drives and CD drive spun up was because they receive direct power from the PS, and not the motherboard.

Anyway, got a new motherboard yesterday to install. With that and the new PS and fan, I think they'll have a pretty nice machine that will last them a good long time for $120.00.

Good Luck!
BTW - when you boot with no hd in, the BIOS/CMOS holds certain boot information that will at least load the board and POST.
 
Always change the motherboard and the power supply at the same time in a "dead" Emachines. Power supplies have many output voltages. Emachines parts are substandard and of questionable quality. This makes many Emachines failures predictable to experienced technicians. Many times the power supplies loose just one voltage. This loss, may trick many to think the power supply is good because the fans run, or some lights work. In actuality the power supply is bad
 
:blackeye: Well, judging by the dates of the responses to this thread, my response may be a day late and a dollar short; still, better late than never...
I also own a T2385 using the same motherboard, with the same chipset & specs as the O.P. had; I too, had the exact same problem happen to mine only two or three days ago, with the front HDD power light just fluttering when I'd plug it in, and no POST up, no nothing else...(except for the ever-so faint smell you get from an electrical/ electronics circuit that's overheating, of course, lol!) In my case, it was definitely the OEM power supply; Upon inspecting the original motherboard, everything looked fine, no capacitors or resistors were either burnt, swollen or oozing, and my CPU was fine too...BUT, the Intel 845GL chipset looked like it might have gotten toasted a little....and as you know, it don't take much; a little is enough! (Sandstoneco, if you still have the original blown mobo laying around, take a look at that Intel chipset on it and I'll bet that you'll see one or two slight burn/ heat marks on its outer heat spreader.) I was lucky enough to have a PC buddy who happened to have a couple of the same motherboard which my PC uses laying around unused, so we experimented a little. Funny thing is though, I have a PS tester, and when I hooked it up to my old PS, the green LED light on the tester lit which implied that it was still a good power supply---except that it wasn't, of course!:knock:
 
TechSpot Debating Team.....In Session!...

There is a flourishing debate on this site as to whether the motherboard destroys the PSU or vice versa. The consensus is that you should change both at once. can't hurt, right?

Here is a link for a program download called System Information fo Windows or as is cool in computerese, SIW https://www.techspot.com/downloads/155-siw-system-info.html

This is a small executable file and it will tell you everything you've always wanted to know about your computer squared.

You can use it to trace the OEM manufacturer of you board and hopefuly get the manual in this way.

This is an really good little piece of freeware and I always install it.

The Emachines "era" of board & PSU problems correlates to the year of your box.

A failed supply may run fans or a drive, sometimes only 1 voltage rail fails. Then the lights are on but nobodys home, so to speak.

Tmagic has mentioned the PSU & Board issue and I concur.

I realize if you can't get the beast booted you can't get the file installed, but when you're up and running,give it a shot, If nothing else it's a good read.
 
KarmicApexIntel said:
Funny thing is though, I have a PS tester, and when I hooked it up to my old PS, the green LED light on the tester lit which implied that it was still a good power supply---except that it wasn't, of course!:knock:
Click to expand...

Intel offeres "IDU lite" (Intel desktop utilities for their older boards). It reads all the supply voltages. These would be under load situations, probably a better gauge. I don't know that a "power supply tester" loads the supply to the same degree as the computer.
 
After reading this my eMachines T2385 did the same thing the night before KB wasn't responding and it was making a bunch of beeps, it finally froze. So I unplugged the power cord and the next day I plugged it in and a ticking noise began but the power LED the one with the "E" was blinking, so is my MOBO fried? cause I really hope it's just the PSU....
 
rob313 said:
After reading this my eMachines T2385 did the same thing the night before KB wasn't responding and it was making a bunch of beeps, it finally froze. So I unplugged the power cord and the next day I plugged it in and a ticking noise began but the power LED the one with the "E" was blinking, so is my MOBO fried? cause I really hope it's just the PSU....
Click to expand...


If the power supply in your T2385 happens to be the cheap (and now notorious) Bestec 250W one like mine was, (you know, the one without any overvoltage protection, shorting protection or anything else, lol), then what's likely happened is that your PSU has blown and when it did, I'm afraid it probably took both your motherboard and your keyboard with it on its 'journey to the afterlife'...But if that's the case, then the silver lining on this dark cloud, is that when those 250W Bestecs blow, they usually leave your CPU, all of your RAM memory, and your hard drive intact...Of course, with overvoltage protection, it would've left yourmotherboard intact as well! Grrrr, that made me mad when I found that out the hard way myself
 
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