The E-Machines version of Groundhog Day?

[Atodini]

I've had a surreal last 10 days.......

10 days ago, customer brought in an E-machine, no boot. P4 2.8mhz, 256mb RAM, XP Home and just 3 months out of warranty. Probably just the power supply I thought (as I tend to get at least a couple of these every month).

Popped it on the bench & jump started it from my test supply, booted immediately, easy one I thought, - NOT!!! When I shut it down to install a new psu, it did not shut down at all correctly, pulsing on & off about twice a second!

Pulled the power to avoid blowing up my test supply, then carried out all the usual tests, jump started it again with a brand new (Antec) supply (to test my test supply), swapped out RAM, cpu, cleared BIOS, changed BIOS battery. No BIOS flash available (or anything else come to that) on the useless E-machines site, neither was any available on either the Trigem or "unnofficial" E-machines sites or I would have done that as well, all to no avail. Decided to replace the motherboard.

Of course this was not an easy option. I wouldn't begin to guess where to source an original board (Trigem Alaska3), plus the case being very much on the small side and micro ATX socket 478 boards not being that easy to find these days, also the moulded plugs that E-macines use for audio, usb etc. but I did find in my meagre stock of mobos an Asrock P4VM800 which would fit so I fitted it, along with a decent psu. Luckily the moulded plugs all fitted as they should despite the board being completely different!

A quick repair install later (Asrock = VIA chipset; Trigem = Intel) and all was well and customer satisfied, albeit £90 poorer (motherboard, 400w psu + labour). I ordered a replacement board.

Customer reports that it runs better now than it ever has!

Two days later an almost identical machine arrives, this time a 2.7 Celeron with 512mb RAM. Also only a few months out of warranty. The same Trigem Alaska3 board was fitted to this one. The machine exhibited exactly the same fault under test except that this one would not load Windows, rebooting at the splash screen.

When the replacement Asrock board arrived I repaired this one as above, ordered another 2 Asrocks, and after fdisking and a full reinstall of Windows (as the file system was so corrupted the XP disc would not recognise it to do a repair install), returned it to the customer....

B*gg*r me if another one did'nt arrive yesterday, you guessed it, exactly the same. (slightly older, Celeron 2.2 128mb RAM). This one too has the Trigem Alaska3 and fortunately did boot correctly (albeit slowly) on test. Customer has asked me to up the RAM to 512 whilst it's here.

The on / off pulsing on all these machines was so severe that I would not expect even a quality power supply to last for long, let alone a c*appy E-machines one. Unless the boards all failed because of the c*appy power supply. All 3 boards look fine, no bulging or leaking caps or burns anywhere.

What came first? the chicken or the egg? - your guess is as good as mine!

Anyone else seen this?

Getting the hang of these now..... When the new boards arrive Monday I'll repair this one.

I'm beginning to feel a little like Bill Murray!!!

John

[Magic Marker]

I think the moral of the story: Friends Don't Let Friends Buy E-Machines

[arch0nmyc0n]

yeah E-machines are certainly the slightly less competant cousin of other brands... but it happens everywhere... We used ECS motherboards for a while... the first batches are still going strong. The last batch was crap and ended up getting replaced in warranty... the second to last batch however, all pretty much decided to die at the same time, about 3 months out of warranty... Same with a batch of Gigabyte boards a few years back... it happens all over the place... it just happens to Emachines more often than not... I've seen batches of Dell towers too...

[jaarus]

Atondini - you are a lifesaver!

I have been frantically searching the net for the cause of my system problems for 4 days!!!!
.....and I just stumbled across this forum and BINGO - that is exactly what has happened/is happening to my machine...!!!

I like assumed it was PSU problems so replaced the PSU....then reinstalled practically every driver I could think of (as I also lost USB and Sound etc)



After reading your thread I have purchased the very same replacement mobo as you obviously had success with it!!

...and that Alaska3 mobo is the last emachines part in this god awful PC!

I have never changed a mobo...little worried hope I dont bugger the CPU but i am sure i can find a guide somewhere online

Thank you for posting this tale as it solved my infuriating situation (i hope)

[Atodini]

Jaarus,

I wish you luck in your upgrade, you will be surprised just how much better the computer is afterwards!!! No problem with the cpu, the Asrock automatically detects and installs.

You will need to do an XP repair install as the Asrock board has a via chipset as opposed to the intel one on the original board but you will notice an improvement in the way the machine works, it will be a lot faster.

John

[jaarus]

I am trying to get hold of a XP disk at the moment for when the new mobo arrives
...as the final eMachines insult is that you dont actually get an XP disk, you get it 'pre-installed' - got a CD key though on the back of the unit.

(eMachines).....(Me)
........

[NooNoo]

3 wireless networks, 3 different makes, 3 different setups - all 3 showing exactly the same symptoms - no connect to internet...
1 needed LSP fix
1 router had a fit and had to be hard reset (then they had to find the username/password which is a whole other can of worms)
1 nic needed reinstalling...
Why do they always come in threes?

[jaarus]

Me again lol....
Just been reading up on replacing my busted mobo - apparently if your are repairing one over 120 days from initial install microsoft tries to get you purchase another licence for XP?

Well that is something I really do want to avoid - so can I ask if this is the method you used to replace the mobo? (lots of differing techniques online....but I only get one shot at this and a little wary as not being a PC repairer by trade, I dont have access to OEM multi keys or whatever!)



To replace a failed motherboard with a new motherboard and to then reconfigure Windows to work with the new motherboard, do the following:
Turn off the computer.
Replace the existing motherboard with the new motherboard.
Insert your Windows CD in the CD-ROM drive or the DVD-ROM drive, and start the computer from the CD.
When you are prompted To set up Windows now, press ENTER, press ENTER.Setup looks for any previous installations of Windows XP on the hard disk and then displays a list of any previous installations that it finds.
Use the arrow keys to select the installation that you want to repair, and then press R to select the To repair the selected Windows installation, press R option. This will start the repair of your previous Windows XP installation.



Many thanks

[NooNoo]

Me again lol....
Just been reading up on replacing my busted mobo - apparently if your are repairing one over 120 days from initial install microsoft tries to get you purchase another licence for XP?

Who on earth told you that? It's complete rubbish. Wouldn't be someone who sells MS XP would it?

Do the repair install and have done with it.

[jaarus]

yes you are probably right about the MS ties...probably has in retrospect!



But is that the correct process 2 posts up?

[NooNoo]

Yup.. you do get an earlier repair option, don't take it, you want the one where it shows you the partitions on the hard drive and asks which partition you want to install XP on.

[jaarus]

great many thanks - mobo and mates copy of xp arrive tomorrow - so this weekend I will attempt it

many thanks to all on this thread for their assistance/encouragement