eMachine does not boot past boot screen

I am working on a 2 year old eMachine. It does not boot past the boot screen, where it shows the big e and f key options.
I think it is a bad motherboard. Below is what I have tried....

-Replace battery
-disconnected everything but the CPU and Harddrive.
-Replaced Ram
-Replaced power supply.

-Motherboard beeps when power is turned on but then that is it.
-All fans are working
-Took ram out and motherboard has long beep.

Does anyone have suggestions?

 

When it gets to the splash screen, press ESC and (then) the Break/Pause key. You might need to be quick before it stalls. You should see the DOS type screens showing what is happening. See what it says when it stalls (the last line).

You might need to go into the BIOS and set it to defaults. You changed the battery, but it might not have reset the CMOS, for that, disconnect any power, remove the battery for maybe a few minutes and you can press the power-on button to dissipate any residual power.

You can disconnect the HDD as well and see if it says that there is no operating system present. If you want to try booting without the HDD, reconnect the CD/DVD and load it with a boot disk, get the HDD diagnostics boot disk from the manufacturer's website
ExcelStore

Hitachi/IBM

Samsung

Seagate, Maxtor, Quantum

Western Digital

If the CD boots, shut down, reconnect and try testing the HDD.

Matt

 

I tried the ESC and then Break/Pause Key. Nothing happen. Still just stays at the boot screen. I pressed the keys pretty quick.

I can't get to the BOIS since it is stopped at the boot screen, meaning where it displays the big "e" and F key options.

I disconnected the hard drive and started the computer. Same thing stops at the boot screen. Nothing that says "no operating system ". So I don't think it is a hard drive issue. I did run a chkdsk /r /f and found no errors.

Disconnected the hard drive and put a bootable CD in and nothing....same thing..stops at boot screen.

Any other suggestions?

 

Try holding down one of the keys from when you press the power button, it might throw you to the BIOS with a keyboard error.

Apart from getting into the BIOS, reset the CMOS.

You might try another keyboard and it shouldn't need the mouse connected.

 

Tried another keyboard, nothing different happen. Tried pressing and holding down the keys as soon as I press the power button still nothing.
I took out the CMOS battery, and disconnected the power cord. Waited a few minutes and put the battery back. Nothing different happened.

 

Sounds very strange. If you hear one beep, it says that BIOS has checked the hardware and then it looks for an operating system to boot to. I haven't worked on E-machines before though. I don't remember not being able to recover from your situation (on other machines).

Sorry, but I am fresh out of ideas. Go to this website
www.motherboards.org/forums
Search around and start a thread if you can't find any specific information. Tell them an old member sent you and they had better give you the best advice! See if they can tackle it.

Could your CPU have been damaged by overheating?

It doesn't start booting Windows, I thought about some sort of graphics adapter problem, but they won't arise until the last stages of the Windows boot.

You have changed the RAM.

You have taken it basically back to basics. It might need a "shock" to reset it, but you have given it all the shocks I know.

You are the person working on it, do you have any thoughts or suspicions as to what might be going wrong?

E-machines are made to be price competitive. Don't expect a terrible lot from it.

Matt

 

My client only paid $250 for this computer.

I have tried all the things that I mentioned and that you mentioned several times. I thought about the CPU. I am out of ideas.

Probably better off getting a new computer,,,one more than $250

 

I don't know if this will work. Did you check for chip creep. Especially the memory. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

 

Checked everything. OK.

I left the machine on for 10 minutes and after setting at the boot screen for ten minutes I heard a beep but nothing happened.