My dads emachine w2040 It wouldnt power up at all one day. I replaced the power supply with the recomended upgrade from emachine. Now it powers up just fine, the fans are flowing, the cd drive opens and closes, but the HD lights up one time then thats it. Nothing is coming over the monitor nothing is happening as far as the boot up process. I suspect that lightning or power surge has damaged the psu but I dont think the MoBo was damaged. What should I check? Should I try the restore disk? Help?

Is the monitor on?

Have you tried a different monitor.

Yes the monitor is on and the lights work on the monitor as well the message that scrolls around asking you to check your monitor and plug in.. Something like. The HD blinks one time then the pc acts like it crashed or never booted up from the HD.

Go into Bios and see if it recognizes the HD.it may be your HD crashed.go to the HD's manufature site and get there util to test it.

I am having a simular problem with my daughter's T6420 E-Machine. I se the light flicker for the CD/DVD combo, HD activity indicator(?) light and the fan runs at a high rate. Then it just sits there like a bump-on-a-log! The PC will go into shut-down; however, it doesn't shut off completly.

I found that I can get it to boot by hitting the F8 key as-soon-as I see the HD activity light come on.

After that, it runs fine.

Summary - It appears that the start-up/shut-down process can't find what it is looking for ( I can relate!), e.g., Boot and/or shut-down instructions.

If it will run in Safe Mode then it sounds like a driver problem. But I seen where you posted somewhere else you D\L all the drivers. Did you go into BIOS and load system defaults? also seeing if there was a BIOS update and flashing it?

The PC runs in normal when I can get it to boot with the F8 key.

It seems to turn off everything except the PC its self during shut-down/Restart. Receive an immediate “No SYNC” on the monitor and no response from keyboard or mouse. Windows does go through its shut down procedures, at least. I then must push & hold the power button until it actually turns off the power.

I attempted to Flash it with BIOS update; however, it apparently is not reading the CD drive even though I can see that it recognizes it during boot. The monitor went crazy and had to back it (Restore) up after mom’s update.

The F8 key doesn’t always work. Some times, when I push the power button to start it, I get the “No SYNC” immediately. May just be a coincidence.

I tried selecting the NVIDIA Boot Agent (try anything) during boot-up and receive a message "No boot filename received". Does that have anything to do with the problem?

Go into your BIOS and change the boot order to just HDD.

The no sync see if there is a driver for the monitor.

Do you hear any 'beeps' when its failing to boot?

Cheers

No beeps. Just sits there like a bump on a log. I have tried to Flash with no success. I set the CD as first boot sys and it appears that the CD is poled during start-up.