New tech here...need help please..

[tngreg]

As some may know, I'm new to working on consumer pc's as I'm a corp desktop support guy by day.

Got a customer who has an 2006 T6534 emachine with AMD Athlon 64 that I recently reloaded and upgraded ram. Ran great!
Well, after about 2 weeks the pc MB seems to have went bad. The customer noticed the video did some crazy twist and now no video, no post..no nothing except power to all devices.
My troublshooting steps.
-Power supply tests good
_Used a generic pci video card to test video and no luck.
-RAM test good
-Hard Drive test good
Can I just get an ATX board that supports this processor and reload XP on it?

Any suggestions or help would be much apprciated.

tngreg

 

[reesk92]

ok first ill sya exactley what others will say are you absouloutley ready for this in terms of what to do when you **** up eg insurance waivers

now onto your problem have you checked if the cpu has burnt out and as long as the new mobo supports every piece of hardware you have it will run fine althougn xp willl probably have you reactivate as there has been a hardware change

 

[seedubya]

This seems like one of those unfortunate coincidences. The liklihood is that this is nothing to do with the work you did on this machine but you may find that the customer blames you anyway. Emachines are known for their unreliability and all you can do is try to explain that to them

Technically you probably can just buy compatible board and install it. However, you've no way of testing the cpu in advance so you're taking a slight risk. That being said I reckon I've seen less than .01% of bad cpus ever.

As far as installing xp goes, you would be breaching the licence if you installed on a different type of board. The only way you can legally re-use the licence is to use the exact same part again or a part sanctioned by the OEM. In practice, most likely you can install on the new board and will be able to successfully activate xp by phone

 

[reesk92]

i said cpu because it was the only thing he didnt test he could test it my either replacing with a test cpu or putting that cpu in a test rig

 

[tngreg]

Yeah they were pretty bummed.
The PC was recently moved cross country and was in the hands of another family member (techy) LOL...for two weeks who downloaded music etc...
Visually all looked fine, was clean inside case and nothing looked disturbed.

I bascially just added another stick of ram (exact make) of what was already there (another512mb) and reloaded XP.

Where can I get a board for this box T6534 emachine. I see a few of these on ebay with bad video etc..My Luck...geeze

I'm not setup with any wholesalers? Sometimes ebay if the seller has good history. Wholesaler references.
I usually just use newegg as I'm setup with my resale license with them. The OEM board is an red MS-7207

Thanks Guys! If you were close I'd buy you pint!

 

[purple_minion]

Have you removed your memory stick and tried to see if it posts? Do you have a POST card you could insert? They are cheap and might tell you something, might not too though. If it's been moved I would reseat all cables, power connectors, cards, in case they got loose. You can try completely different ram in the MB or test the ram on another computer in case you zapped it with static or got a faulty module. If they freely admitted it was in the hands of cousin george who knows computers I would think hard about whether you will do this for free as that "techy" who downloads crap may have done something to the computer and broke it themselves. Perhaps you aren't even considering that but worth thinking about anyway. Also PS testers AFAIK don't test under load, which can drag the rails down when connected. I've thought about making my own as it seems there isn't one on the market that doesn't cost your first born child. Ideally it would test the PS out of the PC and also have a piggy back connector between the MB/Hard drives/Graphics etc and the PS to also see if the peripheral is faulty and perhaps shorting the PS out.

 

[tngreg]

Have you removed your memory stick and tried to see if it posts? Do you have a POST card you could insert? They are cheap and might tell you something, might not too though. If it's been moved I would reseat all cables, power connectors, cards, in case they got loose. You can try completely different ram in the MB or test the ram on another computer in case you zapped it with static or got a faulty module. If they freely admitted it was in the hands of cousin george who knows computers I would think hard about whether you will do this for free as that "techy" who downloads crap may have done something to the computer and broke it themselves. Perhaps you aren't even considering that but worth thinking about anyway. Also PS testers AFAIK don't test under load, which can drag the rails down when connected. I've thought about making my own as it seems there isn't one on the market that doesn't cost your first born child. Ideally it would test the PS out of the PC and also have a piggy back connector between the MB/Hard drives/Graphics etc and the PS to also see if the peripheral is faulty and perhaps shorting the PS out.

“Have you removed your memory stick and tried to see if it posts”
Yep…no post.
“You can try completely different ram in the MB or test the ram on another computer”
Yep…ram works.
“I've thought about making my own”
Please do with good price point and it will sell for sure!

emachines=CR@P as I'm quicky learning..especially when using Bestec PSU's as from my research all over the net...when they go bad, so does the MB or vis versus.

 

[purple_minion]

“Have you removed your memory stick and tried to see if it posts”
Yep…no post.
“You can try completely different ram in the MB or test the ram on another computer”
Yep…ram works.
“I've thought about making my own”
Please do with good price point and it will sell for sure!

emachines=CR@P as I'm quicky learning..especially when using Bestec PSU's as from my research all over the net...when they go bad, so does the MB or vis versus.

Yeah, eMachines are crap. I've always believed you get what you pay for... you can either pay once, or pay twice when the first one comes up short. As for my PS tester I was thinking either an active load controlled by a mosfet or a dumb load with simply a large resistor, most likely need a hefty heatsink and would have to program a PIC to read the voltages. Wouldn't be too hard, but you know how you think something takes an hour, when really it took you 5 hours!

From what you've said certainly seems the guy is SOL and can either get another crappy OEM board or just go with a decent OEM computer or a custom built one. From what I've heard and read on here I would steer them toward an OEM so you don't have to deal with low profit margins and headaches with a custom build.

Either way hope you keep us posted on the outcome.

 

[vontreigo]

-Power supply tests good

try a new one anyways. emachines PSU suck. it may have a low power but still test out fine on typical power tester.