I might put it up on ebay - there seems to be one or two on there now and again.

It's a packard bell iGo 2000/4000
I do have all the serial numbers if they're any use to you.

Well it's the same power adaptor as has always been used with it, so it should be fine shouldn't it?

The power socket is in pristine condition.

I did look at selling the parts on ebay but...

I've pulled the whole thing to pieces and the power board was separate to the motherboard. The sparks only occur when the power board is connected to the motherboard, so either the motherboard is...

it was after I tried the original suggestion that it started sparking visibly.
I couldn't find a reset switch on it though, but I'll look again.
Since the psu appears to be giving a normal output...

Well when I plugged the power adaptor plug into the laptop motherboard, it came from that join.
Power adaptor appears to be giving out the proper voltage on a multimeter.
So is that the motherboard...

it's now started sparking when you insert the plug...
The guy said that it was working, but recently he tried it and nothing happened, so he sent it round to me.

I have been given a laptop, which does absolutely nothing at all - no lights on it, no fans, nothing.
The delta power adaptor has a green light on it.
As soon as it is connected to the laptop, it...

I had this recently in a midi tower and the graphics card was overheating because it didn't have enough airflow.
Have your fans clogged up with dust? or slowed down because of it?

Generally a pc without ram just beeps, but it probably depends on your rig.

I don't know whether you're UK or US based, but it might be a good idea to go to ebay and pick up a cheap post code...

Well you could visit the manufacturer: http://www.pcg.fic.com.tw/marketing/

This is the only reference I can find to a cedar model though:...

Is the system set to autodetect hard drives on boot, or do you have to enter the bios to tell it to autodetect?
Usually if you only have one drive you can't go too far wrong with the jumpers.

It appears to be related to your adsl modem.
http://startup.iamnotageek.com/srch-rundll32%20amecsa.cpl,%20RUN_DLL.html
Do you have one? lol

You can either try reinstalling the modem software, or...

check your msconfig (that is, go to run on the start menu and type msconfig) startup - see if you have anything stray in there.

Beyond that, is the pc excessively hot? have you run scandisk?

can you finish reformatting it? what are you using to reformat it?

what make and model are the drives? some fail in odd ways

sounds like the bios isn't taking your changes properly... try updating your bios by downloading the latest version from your mobo manufacturer.

sounds like you haven't changed your bios settings to reflect the new hard drive arrangements. Have you?

unplug one cdrom, one hard drive, one floppy, - basically make it so there's only the motherboard and the hard drive, together with the devices that you will need to see if it's working.

Try a few...

So did they use to work together, have they suddenly stopped working, or is this the first time you've tried them in this system?
What happens if you disconnect the power and data cables from...