Computer Guru's...I NEED MAJOR HELP!

MatrixModz said:
Have you called up eMachine? or whoever makes the pc? one of my clients had bought about 20 dells a couple of years ago and every single one has had a similiar problem. Dell sent a technican and replaced the motherboards.(as they broke...idiots lol)
i dont know about eMachines' repair policies but its worth a shot.
Definately give eMachines a call
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Bad advice.... His computer is a more then 2 years old. No computer company will offer to replace parts in your computer after the 1 year or 30 day warranty period is up. His computer is worth no more then $200, I think the best decision would be to just build a new computer.

Like I said reformat your computer, and see if that helps. If it doesn't you have hardware problems, and it's time to build a new computer.
 
Chris...send me your hard drive..I will try to get the pictures off and reformat it...I will hook it up to my spare server as a slave and grab what i can for you..burn it and send them back to you....you could have a trojan or just loaded with adware and they all try to run at startup diminishing your resources...256 meg on XP is the bare minumum..and it struggles at that...

Al
 
TexasTB said:
Yea....I give up. I tried everything mentioned, and the CPU shuts down the monitor. Fan still running and light still on, but there is nothing.

I even said screw what is on the hard drive and tried booting from the CD to wipe everything out, but it still powered itself down. It's like it has a friggen time limit.........


Thanks everyone for trying to help me out. I learned a few new things and added a few new gray hairs at the same time.
I guess I need to do some computer learning eventually. I'll just purchase a new one down the road.
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Yep, sounds like if you are shutting down even when you are trying to boot from CD then you've got a hardware failure. If you plan on getting a new PC I would like to make a few suggestions on a pc that will last you for a good while. If you are not a big gamer I would get a pc with one of the Intel dual core processors. I would get at least 1 gig of memory, but if you can afford it go ahead with 2 gigs. Also Make sure you get a video card that is running on PCI Express 16x, some of the features of the new Windows Vista that is coming out later this year are disabled if you don't have PCI Express. I found a pc at dell that has...
2.8 Ghz dual core processor
2 GB memory
160 GB Hdd
CD/DVD burner
19 inch flat screen monitor
128 Mb video card
for $1237, of course you can tweak it a bit and get it cheaper.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DE51F2&s=dhs
 
With regard to the shutting down issue... does the machine actually shut completely down, powered off, nothing at all running? Or does it just 'seem' like it shuts off, i.e., blank screen/shuts off the monitor only?

That particular symptom sounds like either a hardware failure of some sort or a heat issue. If the machine is powering all the way down, it leads me more toward heat.

A little easy troubleshooting: Open the case. Turn the machine on. Make sure every fan that you can see in there is spinning. If any of them are failed, that could be part, if not all, of your problem. Especially if it's the CPU fan, that would cause the shutdowns that you describe.

If I were local to you, I'd be more than happy to swing by... But it'd be about a 1200 mile trip.... :p
 
kaos said:
With regard to the shutting down issue... does the machine actually shut completely down, powered off, nothing at all running? Or does it just 'seem' like it shuts off, i.e., blank screen/shuts off the monitor only?

That particular symptom sounds like either a hardware failure of some sort or a heat issue. If the machine is powering all the way down, it leads me more toward heat.

A little easy troubleshooting: Open the case. Turn the machine on. Make sure every fan that you can see in there is spinning. If any of them are failed, that could be part, if not all, of your problem. Especially if it's the CPU fan, that would cause the shutdowns that you describe.

If I were local to you, I'd be more than happy to swing by... But it'd be about a 1200 mile trip.... :p
Click to expand...


It shuts the monitor off. The amber light stays on constant on the tower. All the fans come on. I unplugged the hard drive itself, and replugged it in. When I power on the Tower, the hard drive does not come on. I unplugged the "long" plug and power plug to the HD and then plugged in the power plug again, and it started to "whir", like it is suposed to. But, when I plug back in the "long" plug, nothing. Make any sense? The "long" plug as I call it, is attached to a WIDE wire and conects to the MotherBoard? Am I right? I am learning as I go I supose.

I'll try to turn the monitor back on, but I get a screen that shows the computer is off...like a screen where you can change screen resolution.....contrast....etc......



*****AL- Will you be able to do that? I mean.....if it is something to do with the Hard drive, will you be able to get on it still?
 
Chris..If the hard drive is not crashed...I should be able to hook it up as a slave on a system and open the drive files and copy them ..if the drive has crashed ..meaning head crash or component failure on drive assembly..it will be junk....if you know any computer geeks near you..have them hook it up as a slave and try to open the drive...if they can... burn what you need....even a tech school may do it..they love stuff like that...a teaching experience..lol..if you can not find any one ..let me know and you can send it to me..and I will see if it is good or bad and get what you need off it..I may have a good drive here for you also..may be a 20 gig..but free is free...lol

Al
 
TexasTB said:
It shuts the monitor off. The amber light stays on constant on the tower. All the fans come on. I unplugged the hard drive itself, and replugged it in. When I power on the Tower, the hard drive does not come on. I unplugged the "long" plug and power plug to the HD and then plugged in the power plug again, and it started to "whir", like it is suposed to. But, when I plug back in the "long" plug, nothing. Make any sense? The "long" plug as I call it, is attached to a WIDE wire and conects to the MotherBoard? Am I right? I am learning as I go I supose.

I'll try to turn the monitor back on, but I get a screen that shows the computer is off...like a screen where you can change screen resolution.....contrast....etc......



*****AL- Will you be able to do that? I mean.....if it is something to do with the Hard drive, will you be able to get on it still?
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Chris,

From your latest description, it sounds like you may have "lost" your drive controller (where the "WIDE wire" plugs into the motherboard). If that is the case, I'm pretty sure that the drive itself should still be functional, & it's a relatively good bet that your data may be retrievable.

Take Al up on his generous offer to pull your files from the hard drive, then think about shopping for a new machine with "standardized" PC components. e-Machines used to have pretty proprietary components, not so sure about yours.:( Anybody out there know??

Norah
 
E-Machines use to be like Bic lighters..when they break throw them out...yes they use proprietary components..they have video...sound...modem..all built on motherboard...with virtualy no expansion slots...if the drive controller on board is shot..you can get a plug in controller card..if you have any open slots....

Also one last shot to see if you may fix it at home...try replacing the battery on the board...it is the size of a quarter...get same number as on old one...and remember which way you took it out....it will reset your bios..but still should boot up...if you can get in your bios now...write everything down so you can set it back to normal after you install new battery....can get battery at wal mart in camera or watch dept...2.50...

see if that works

Al
 
what is sounds like is you don't have the right drivers installed - the wrong or missing drivers can make your life heck -

When you re-installed XP was it a recovery disk or something similar from e-machines? If not what did you use?

Base XP has a lot of drivers in it but not all - if you are seeing the XP logo screen and the little bar running across then it is loading up the OS, if the monitor goes out after that, then I would be drivers. (I had a video card that when I installed the drivers in Windows 2003 server it completely hosed the box I had to do a complete re-install and remove that card).

I would try a complete wipe and reinstall if you have the XP cd -
then once you get that installed and it's rebooted - go to the emachines web site (if it still exists I think they were bought by gateway) and see if you can download the drivers for your box (If your nic is working - if not you might have to get a friend with a high speed internet connection and a cd burner to get them for you).
 
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