Sick Computer

:confused We have an older EMachine that has been excellent but today the CPU (pretty certain that is it), has gone kaput. My problem is because of how old it is they do not even list it in support on the site. It is W3107 and has an AMD Sempron processor. Can anyone tell me WHICH specific processor. Where I can get a manual for the specs so I know how high I can upgrade it if the CPU is the culprit...We got the thing used with nothing when I bought it several years ago...

what is it doing? Constant rebooting. It won't even go to the start up screen... we have blown out the dirt and checked all connections but that CPU looked pretty nasty with the build up and it could have overheated... everything else looked fine. It sat for about 6 months packed away in a box in our storage building. Now that we need it, well ....:cry It did run when first turned on last night...did all the upgrades that it needed...then this started today...

 

Based on the system constantly restarting, it's unlikely the CPU is to blame. The most common causes of this are a bad hard drive or bad motherboard.

A hard drive replacement (provided you have the Windows restore discs) will run at least $100 parts and labor. If the board is bad, the unit will cost far more to fix than what it's worth.

If money is tight, your best bet is to find an "off lease" PC. A decent one with a warranty and genuine copy of Windows XP will run $100-$150 and provide performance equal to or better than your old PC.

Hope this helps.

 

As gman863 says it's unlikely to be the CPU but check the capacitors around the CPU for splits.
This could also be a failing power supply, could you try the PSU in another machine?

 

We are getting access to another XP system and it has the HD pulled but is a working system otherwise. Plan to try the HD in that and if they work then we can use them or backup what we need to and replace. There was a huge amount of dust under one of the RAM chips and the processor was horrible. The power supply is running fine as far as we can see. It powers up, the screen shows only a flash of the blue screen then goes into reboot again. We awere hoping it was NOT the motherboard. I agree the cost of fixing will probably exceed the value. Thank you both for your replies. On close examination there are no spilts on the capacitators or any evidence (visibly) of burned or over heated areas.

 

Yep have done that before and experienced it. I am mainly concerned is if it will even try to boot as right now it gets to the windows screen, then blue screen then reboots... before I try that I may put in another HD in this one to see if I get the same thing... even if giving me errors it will try to boot unless the motherboard is the culprit. So it is mainly a process of elimination. If we have to stay with the other system, it will be reformated and new install done. thank you for your response. You folks are great

 

It's also worth running http://www.memtest.org/ just download the ISO and create a boot disk, start the machine up from the disk it creates and leave it running for a while. Any errors found are unacceptable and would indicate faulty memory.

 

Thank you!...that would be good to keep on hand for diagnostics on other systems as well. Will have to do this...