Problem w/PSU, Mobo or both?

Hi,
My son's eMachine T2484 was on during a power surge and now will not boot up. The only thing that comes on, that I can tell, is the lighted power button. No signal to the monitor, no sound from the hd, fan or cd rom drives. After reading through the forums, it sounds like a PSU or Mobo problem. My question is (1) if the the power supply is bad, would the power button still light up? and (2) Assuming the power supply is bad, is there any way to tell if the mobo is bad before changing the psu?

Since it's a cheap computer, I'm trying to decide how deep to get into it.

Thanks

 

Not without changing out the psu,there is a way to check if the psu is bad without buying anything though I'll go into that later,first thing to try is to find the 120\240 switch on the back of the psu check if its still on the right voltage for your country surges can make them flick over,either way with the computer unplugged from the AC flick the switch over then nack to the right voltage for your country,if there isnt a switch the psu is switching so move onto the next step

again with the AC unplugged find the cmos battery small flat battery on your mobo looks like a coin,remove for 10 secs then replace dont try and boot withoput it installed,still no joy you have to remove components that could have been damgaed by the surge,modems,souncards,harddrives 'cdroms to a lesser extent,they're pretty tough'all can stop your computer booting

use only one stick of memory or try another stick from the computer your on now if its compatible,you can really test the cpu without putting it in another mobo and vice versa with the mobo you need a seperate cpu and setup

EDIT gotta disagree on buying a power supply just yet TIM Also check the emachines site for diagnostic solution from the power light being on on its own

 

Hi and thanks for your quick responses

I did have a surge protector and none of the other computers or hardware were affected.

I switched the voltage switch on the psu, removed/replaced the cmos battery, unplugged everything I could (sound & video are on-board) with no luck.

After switching pwr on and off a couple times, I noticed the pwr light flickered a couple times and then went off. After a couple more minutes (while I'm typing this message), it came back on by itself. A couple minutes later, the fans on heatsink and power supply came on. I don't have anything hooked up so not sure if it's working but sounds like it is. I heard a small "spark-like" sound just before the fans started running. Also, before anything was working, the psu was hot to the touch.

At this point I'm going to to try to boot attaching one thing at a time. If everything works, I'll head out and get a new power supply asap. Oh, btw, my wife said when it happened, she smelled something "electrical." This was the first time she'd mentioned that to me...I guess since I didn't ask, she didn't say anything .

Thanks guys for all your help and hopefully this will be my last post on this thread...I hope.

 

You make a good point! I'm on my way out the door to get a new one.

Thanks Tim!

 

Good point Tim dont risk it,the PSU can always be returned if it aint the prob