Member Avatar for BILL S

I recently inherited a newer eMachine that basically looks to me like the victim of a virus that disabled the HDD and caused damage to the main system board as well as powersupply. It is a T2482 and looking that up, noted some user problems somewhat similar...but as I swapped the WD 80gig drive to my Compaq with 370 socket and tried to boot, I was treated to white on black screen text advising of a boot error...after a second attempt, another error message indicated board problems that may have been referred to as 'terminal', though I forget, they seemed worded alarming enough for me to quickly pull the power plug, likely AFTER I held the power button to force a shut down.
A good power supply from my Compaq Presario to the eMachine board and drives coaxed drive lights and fans, but the screen remained in standby.
Anyway, no real help from GeekSquad was suggested when I asked, though that may not be surprising... I await word from experts here..
...also with my original eMachine, it won't read or activate the floppy and Device Manager says it's in MS DOS mode, referring to updating drivers... I never had that problem before and can ascertain when it took place... I have swapped around 3 HDDs into the computer to format and setup with programs though...it mated well to my book PC after drivers for video and phone/fax were addressed for that...the bke630e
BILL

  • 2 Contributors
  • 2 Replies
  • 129 Views
  • 1 Month Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by BILL S

Dani AI

Generated

Echoing : start simple and isolate components before buying parts. A short, methodical checklist will save time and money and will help decide whether the problem is the power supply, motherboard, or a drive.

  • Do a visual inspection first. Look for bulging or leaking electrolytic capacitors and scorched areas on the motherboard; that era of low-cost PCs commonly shows failing caps (Capacitor plague). Replace only if you can source correct parts or a known-good board.
  • Minimal-boot POST: unplug everything nonessential (HDD, floppy, CD, extra cards), leave CPU, one stick of RAM, video, speaker and PSU. Listen for POST beeps and check for any video output. If there is no POST at all, suspect motherboard or PSU.
  • Test the PSU voltages before swapping boards blindly. An inexpensive PSU tester or a multimeter can check +12V, +5V and +3.3V rails (). Unstable rails will cause random drive/board failures.
  • Drive checks: boot from a diagnostic CD/USB and run vendor diagnostics (Surface/SMART tests) — SeaTools or the Ultimate Boot CD are useful for offline HDD testing (SeaTools , Ultimate Boot CD).
  • Floppy-specific: confirm ribbon orientation and BIOS floppy type (3.5" 1.44MB), try a different cable or drive, and test the drive on a known-good machine to separate hardware vs driver/OS issues.
  • When transplanting a motherboard into a different case (as did), verify standoff alignment, I/O shield fit, front-panel header pin mapping and that the PSU provides required connectors (main ATX and CPU power). Small mismatches can cause shorting or no-POST conditions.

Caution: back up any salvageable data before running destructive tests. If uncertainty remains after these steps, post BIOS POST codes/beeps and exact voltages read — those details make targeted diagnosis possible.

Recommended Answers

All 2 Replies

Member Avatar for guest

Download your motherboard manual and make sure all the jumpers are in place. if that doesn't work, go into the bios and set everything to defualt, if that doesn't work, turn on the computer with only the power pack, motherboard, vidoe card, and keyboard, it'll help narrow down the problem.

Member Avatar for BILL S

Been awhile but to update, I moved a Compaq Deskpro PC into the smaller eMachine T2482 case....works great, even pairing up the front connections which I imagine halt alot of branded case swaps. I like the miniATX format, but realize for a full featured modern PC, I'll need the full ATX expansio slots. I bid on aBit's VA-10 mobo to replace the aged eMachine and give it's CPU and mem a mobo with A Socket to support AGP 8x gfx and hopefully do some HDTV, though at 2GHz, it's not the normal recommendation for that. I hope this will be a nice way to try AMD's CPUs out anyway. My 340 Celeron Presario has no gaming card slots, a real bummer!
I bought a Radeon 9200 (not SE) to use in it for better performance I hope
BILL

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.