Fried mobo, processor, or PS?

I recently acquired a eMachine W1640 from my sister in law after it stopped working. The lights come on, the fans spin, the hard drive runs, and the DVD drive runs, spins, opens, closes, etc. Everything works fine except it won't turn on the monitor. I really don't think it's booting up because the hard drive doesn't click and clack in the way hard drives usually do at boot. I have the recovery disks that came with it but I don't think it's booting with those either, just spins the drive a little. Possible diagnoses are:

1. fried mobo
2. fried processor
3. fried power supply
4. video portion of the mobo not working which is really an extension of 1

I know the monitor is ok because it works with my P2. Ditto with the mouse and keyboard.
The processor is an AMD Athlon 1600+. The machine was purchased in 2002 or 2003.
How do I narrow the problem down to one of the above? Or am I overlooking another possible cause?

 

hmm i had the same problem some time ago, and i can say that it's definitely power supply unit. anyway if i were you, i'd better check the PSU at first, then MoBo. I don't think that it's processor or something else.

 

Yeh, this is a common power on problem that has quite a few possible scenerio's you could add to that list!

These are some of the questions i would want answered.

What initially caused the system to stop working when you aquired it from your sister in law? Any new software or hardware installed, just didn't boot up one day or, any heat related issues, even dropped it on the floor?....any clues you can gain here are valuable towards a successful diagnosis! (see what you can find out)

First things first, check all your seats and hardware cable connections!
Are your RAM modules seated correctly, PCI or AGP adapter cards all seated correctly? All cables and connections in order? CPU and Heatsink slotted nice and snug?

Do you hear any beeps or series of beeps from within when you power on?

Video on board or adapter card?

Any further pointers you can give us would be most helpful, because unfortunately, when the system wont even reach POST, diagnosis is extremely difficult without the need to start interchanging hardware, to get to the root of the cause......we can only guess what it may be!

Post back what you can find out and we will take it from there!

Regards....

 

Since there is some activity and the fans stay on the psu and motherboard are exchanging control signals so I would put these to the back of the testing queue. No life from the hard drive suggestest the processor is not active, as a dead Hd would not stop initialisation.

Nitecrawler is correct best scenario is that something worked loose in the move. When plugging stuff in and out of the motherboard remember the motherboard is partially live even when the system is powered down. Disconnect the mains. Take out all non essential cards from the motherboard in case one is shorting the PCI bus.

Studio T

 

I think that something on the motherboard is screwed. When I power it up no beeps, keyboard doesn't light up, nothing that should happen is happening.

Today I unhooked everything: both sticks of RAM, modem, HD, DVD, mouse, keyboard. Nothing.
Tried the RAM (256 and 512) one at a time. Nothing.
Swapped the PS with one from an old P3 IBM. Nothing.
Yanked the video card from my old Dell P2. Nothing.
Tried the recovery CD. Nothing.
Tried the HD with the CD unhooked. Nothing.
Tried another monitor, just on the off-chance. Guess what? Nothing.
This leaves the motherboard and processor. But I don't see anything burnt on it, and evidently it's alive enough to run the CPU fan and run the HD and CD-ROM. Is there any way to test the motherboard without trying another one?

 

I am sorry I misread your original post and thought the pc stopped working after a move.

This doesn't make my comments less relevant as components do work loose causing pcs to halt. You have done pretty well testing stuff out. I'm glad you did not try your Dell psu because it sounds like one from the era when Dell wiring was non standard and caused blue smoke if connected to the rest of the world.

Th one test you haven't described is taking the processor out, blow cleaning around the socket and carefully putting it back in again. Try it it may work and is a cheap fix.

From what you describe the power supply is generating 12volts for the fans and drives, 5volts for the control signals. The motherboard is returning the control signal to keep the psu on. You have the go switch correctly wired. just make sure both the large and small power connectors to the motherboard are firmly seated.

From all this I would suspect that the processor is not running. this could be either because it's dead, poorly seated or the PCI bus is shorted on the motherboard. One possible test method is substitution. Can you try it in another pc? or borrow one to try in yours? I don't think there is anything amiss to harm another processor.
Obviously you don't want to buy another processor without being sure. If you do decide to buy one look on EBAy there are always suitable ones going there.

You can also obtain post testing cards quite cheaply on Ebay. You plug one of these into a PCI slot and watch the readout at boot. The readout runs (quickly) through the processor instructions as it executes them. The readout instruction on the readout at failure is the one that could not be executed and identifies the fault. IF the readout remains blank the processor is not running.

Hope this helps

Studio T

 

I had this same problem on an older system. In my case it was an ECS MOBO that had gone bad. The fans and drives would work but no boot,beeps or video. I thought it was PS. So I bought a PS tester and it showed it was fine. Replacing the board fixed it.

 

I'm glad you told me about the Dell PS studiot because the only reason I didn't try this is the Dell is one of my only 2 working computers and I didn't want to have to take it apart and all that. I think I can probably come up with a way to test it.

How about this idea: I yank the processor out and take it to my local computer guy in town and pay him a few bucks to test it. Is there any chance of screwing up a good motherboard if my processor is wasted?

 

Sounds a good idea, he may do it for free if he thinks he could sell you a replacement, but his prices may be higher than you can get on Ebay.
I don't follow the second question. The damage has already been done. if your processor is dead, replace it. If not then it's the motherboard. Remember I said back of the queue. Repair costs should be in the £30 to £50 range (processor) £45 to £75 range (mobo) if done by your local store.

Good luck

Studio T