A co-worker gave me an emachine T2042 identical to the one I currently use. I have had zero problems with mine for about 5 years now. Anyway his stopped working a few months ago so he gave it to me yesterday. I have a feeling it's something simple. The power button on the front blinks constantly and the button will not make it turn on or off. You have to pull the power plug out of the back. The keyboard does not beep at startup and all three lights will flash intermittantly. I opened it up and can see the cpu fan running but not the hard drive or the fan on the rear. When I plug it in the monitor has a little box that says NO SIGNAL then goes blank. Any ideas for me to look into?. I know the machine isn't worth more than $100 but I'd like to get it going as a spare. Thanks

Here is the support website for your T2042: http://www.emachines.com/support/product_support.html?cat=Desktops&subcat=T-Series&model=T2042

Those are some really good descriptions on what is happening. You should get one beep from the computer on boot - With no beeping, first thing I would look at would be the power supply. Could possibly be a bad video card or a baid processor (CPU), usually because the unit got hit by lightning and the owner was a complete retard and didn't have a surge supressor for the computer power cord...it could be anything, though ;). Most likely the power supply, IMHO.

Power supply is cheap ($20-40), it's easy to replace and often blows up with the eMachines (they're pieces of crap).

For info on how to disassemble the case, read the user guide: http://downloads.emachines.com/userguides/Desktop_UG_Nexgen2_3_en.pdf

Check out Chapter 4 "Installing and Removing Drives" for instructions on how to remove and replace the cover to get to the wires.

I would pull the old power supply - take pictures of where all the wires go before you to this, and/or label each connector with tape before you unplug things so you can compare and replace later with the new one.

Normally four screws hold the power supply in, they're around the perimeter of the power button, sort of. Here, look at this - see the four holes around the perimeter of this power supply?:

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/power-supply1.jpg

Take the power supply specifically to the CompUSA in Towson (address below) and have one of the people there help you find the cheapest possible store brand to buy (CompUSA has someone make "CompUSA" branded power supplies) that's close to the same wattage (should be around 250w) and same physical size. Be sure to jot down the salesperson's name just in case it doesn't fit and you need to bring it back.

If you need any help with this, let me know. Should be pretty easy.

BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING, remove the side cover. See a lot of dust in there? Maybe that is the problem. Try getting compressed air and shoot it all out of every nook and cranny. People who smoke cigarettes around the computer or don't clean much often kill their computer this way. Cigarette tar not only kills you, your family and everyone in proximity of you, but it seriously destroys computer internals.

Cool, thanks Shifty!!!. One other thing I forgot to mention is that the Cd player and DVD player power buttons do not work either. Would this be another indicator of your hunch about the power supply?.

Yes. If the power cables are attached to the back of the CDROM and DVD ROM drives, and the CD try will not pop in and out when the power is on, and the blinking LEDs don't light up when the computer is booting, then I would say your power supply is bad.

You might take the side of the case and make sure all of the wires are routed from the PSU to the motherboard and driveS! Maybe someone (a kid, maybe?) got into the computer and removed some stuff. You never know!

If you look at the back of the computer where the power supply is, and there happens to be an LED on near where the power plug is inserted, there are ways to troubleshoot if the power supply is faulty using that power supply....but I have only seen this on some of the HP Pavilion desktops, never on an eMachine.

I seriously blew at least 3 power supplies on one of the two eMachines we had here at the office 5-6 years ago. They go quickly and easily.

If you need any other help or guidance through the process of swapping out the PSU (power supply unit), let me know. This is the kind of stuff I can do in my sleep - and your user guide won't tell you explicitly how to do it.

Basic outline:

Remove side of case

Label the wires going from the power supply into the board, floppy, CDROM drives and write where they go (or take a lot of digital camera pics and make sure they are high quality before removing anything!)

Pull only the wires going from the power supply into various items in the computer.

Unscrew the four screws on the back of the case holding the power supply in.

Look for a label on the power supply giving the wattage output.

Go to the CompUSA. Find a store-brand repalcement of the same size. Ask someone for help, just so you can cover your ass in case you get the wrong one!!

Do the reverse of above - screw in the new PSU before unbundling anything. If it fits, start plugging the wires into the motherboard as appropriate (use old one as reference - note which wires have tape on them), then plug into the floppy and CDROM drives. Don't forget the cooling fans, if applicable.

Look on the back of the new PSU - is there a rocker switch with a | and a 0 on it? If so, look in the PSU manual to note which is "ON" and which is "OFF". Turn it to OFF, then plug the power cord into the back of hte PSU, then turn the PSU rocker switch to ON and push the power in front. CDROM drives should work, computer should boot up.

It's possible a bad PSU can short out anything on the board though, so don't get your hopes up. It's worth a shot, no matter what. I am 90% sure the PSU would be the culprit though.

I really appreciate all the detailed info here Shifty!. Thanks. I'll keep you posted. :metal:

Update- I went to CompUSA last night and got the power supply but it didn't get the computer fixed. The fan spins when you flip the rocker switch on the back and the internal fan will spin also. The CD and DVD will not open though. The light on the front of the tower and the keyboard still flash rapidly.

Ok, that's got me stumped, then.

I seriously wonder if the computer got hit by lightning and the previous owner was ignorant of the need to use a surge suppressor - or the computer got hit through the modem jack via the telephone line (if they used dialup).

Can you explain in better detail about the lights flashing on the front? Like, frequency of flashing, color of the LED's, etc.?

Normally the hard drive activity LED is amber. Power is often green. Sometimes either can be substituted for blue.

Let's examine inside the case. Does it smell burnt inside? Do you see any brown spots on the board around the components (I assume the mobo is green) that look like melt spots? Look at the capacitors around the CPU and other places. Do they look swollen or leaky? Pics of what I mean: http://www.badcaps.net/ident/ (Click the pictures) *or* http://monkey.org/~blandoon/gfx/caps/

There are additional tests we can do here....One way to find out if the CPU is nuked or just not doing anything would be to see if any code execution is occuring in BIOS. Remove the RAM/Memory sticks from the computer - all of them. This is done by pushing the clamps on either side of the stick outward. Once the RAM is out, turn on the computer. Do you hear any beeps? You should.

PS : I just want to add - the two major suggestions up there that are of merit are removing the RAM and trying to boot - listen for beeps. Should hear a continuos long beep, IIRC.

The other is checking the motherboard for swollen caps and you should do this before removing the RAM. I found this on another tech/support site (experts exchange), and it had additional information - I just wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy. I know the T2042 is well known problems with bad power supplies (hence the first suggestion), but apparently it had more probs than just that:

Your motherboard is a Trigem Imperial-GL and (according to some posts in other forums) it has a history of bad capacitors. Especially the ones near the CPU and chipset.

Here is what you are looking for:
http://www.badcaps.net/ident/

All is not lost. CompUSA should take the PSU back - they will often ding you for 15% on restock fee, and I really apologize if that's the case. I was convinced that would have been the problem - I should have asked you to check the board for swollen/burnt stuff first. :(

Anyways - like I said, all is not lost. You could always take the power supply back to CompUSA and trade it for a USB hard drive case, then take the hard drive out of the eMachine and use it for an external USB drive. You can always charge your buddy for the data of his you'll end up recovering for him, which should cover gas and the restock fee :)

As long as the hard drive isn't clicking on boot, it should be fine.

The inside has no bulging or oozing. The capacitors/caps all look new. He was using Comcast high speed cable for sure. I removed the 2 sticks of RAM and got no beeps or changes. The amber light on the front flashes rapidly. The 3 green lights on the key board blink at the same time every so often. When you first plug the cord in the speakers make a loud ticking noise that gets a little quieter but stays constant. I don't think that is the hard drive because it's not even spinning. The monitor still says NO SIGNAL.

Just my $.02....could it possibly be the hard drive itself? If it's not spinning at all, could it be seized or something? Also, pull the expansion cards one at a time and try booting, see if that makes any difference. Just a few things to try as last-ditch efforts.

A computer should be able to execute the code in BIOS without having a hard drive installed. Typically, if I understand things properly after working with embedded systems for so long, this is the general process:

You press power.
Power is distributed to the mainboard.
CPU is powered up, and immediately hits a memory address on the BIOS chip to execute code.
The code in BIOS is executed and the POST process is started (POST = Power On Self Test).
During the POST process, the system checks first for RAM and video, keyboard presence and other problems.
If one is not present, a beep code ensues to let you know the problem.
If a successful POST occurs, you will hear a single beep and the system will boot up.

In the case of this computer, the video is built into the motherboard. You can't really remove the AGP card You could remove the RAM and when the sticks are removed, you should get a continuous beep code of several long beeps. The fact that the beeps are not occuring would indicate that the POST stage is never happening, which would suggest either the motherboard is not getting power, something is fried on the motherboard, the CPU is bad, or the BIOS chip is fried.

I could be completely wrong, but this would be my trian of thought based on what I know about how systems boot up.

If you really want to test this theory, there are ways.

Remove power from the CDROM drives and hard drives. Take the RAM out of the system. Remove any existing PCI expansion cards that may be installed on the machine. Basically, all you should be left with is:

Data cables from CDROM and floppy drives to mainboard.
Data cables from hard drive to mainboard.
Power cables from fan to mainboard.
Power cables from power supply to mainboard.
CPU and its respective fan.

Try to boot up with that configuration - no PCI cards and now power cables attached to floppy/CDROM/Hard drive, and no RAM installed. If you do not receive any beeps, I would say it is 90% or greater chance that the mainboard or CPU is fried. CPU's don't die often...so I'd lean towards the mainboard.

I don't have any P4 Celeron processors, only some P3's and P2's, so I can't send anything to help you out with that one.

After a ton of digging I finally, finally found out more info about your mainboard and have a link to a website which you can find specialized attention for your problem.

www.emachine-upgraders.info

Now, look here:

http://www.emachine-upgraders.info/dir1/motherboards/socket478/imperial.shtml

This is your mainboard, or it should be. Can you confirm?

Can you confirm which one looks the most like yours? The telltale signs are as follows: Look at where the main power plugs into the board. If it plugs into the middle, compare the little metal boxes on the left hand side for the USB and sound ports. If there is a card slot staggered in the place of where the power is on the two nearly matching boards, then you know it's the Imperial-G which is drawn out with no picture.

I want to know which you have so I can figure out where your "clear CMOS" jumper is, so we can make sure nobody went into BIOS and caused any problems.

Next and last post I will make.

http://www.emachine-upgraders.info/dir1/motherboards/socket478/imperial_jumpers.shtml

Look at that page. In the location shown (it's the same on all of them) you should see some jumpers labelled J1-J4 or more.

There should be jumpers on all of them with three pins per row. These pins will be labelled 1, 2 and 3 respectively.

For jumper "J4", you will want to jump pins 2 and 3 together (default will have 1-2 jumped together). Remove the jumper from 1 and 2 and put on 2 and 3. Power up the system with this configuration. CMOS will be cleared, thus setting the BIOS settings back to "fail safe" defaults.

It's killing me not being able to walk over and help you with all of this stuff :D I love trying to figure out crap like this!!

Shifty- I'm at work now but will check tonight to see if it's the GL, GV or GLVE. I saw a sticker/diagram showing the jumper settings inside the case. I can take a pic and post it if you need it. How exactly do you "jump" pins together???. Am I supposed to try jumping this with the computer hooked up as-is OR after all the cable stuff is diconnected??. Thanks for all your help!

Read this site, then read what I'm typing below. It should make sense, but if not, I will try another way to explain: http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/Jumperdipsw.htm

About jumpers:

Most jumpers on a motherboard will typically have a 3 pins per jumper block, usually numbered 1, 2 and 3. As you can see, the plastic/metal "jumper" piece itself will bridge two of those pins together. So, it's like a toggle. If you jump 1-2 pins together, you get one setting. Jump 2-3 together you get another setting. Remove the jumper entirely, you might get a third setting.

Sometimes, jumper blocks will only have 2 pins - again, same concept - no jumper bridging those pins is one setting. With a jumper bridging the two pins, it's another setting. Kind of like "on" and "off", depending whether the jumper is brdging the pins or not. Need an example? Every CDROM drive and hard drive has a jumper like this on the back - that's how you tell the computer if the drive will be "master", "slave" or "cable select".

All a jumper does is configure your hardware in a specific way BEFORE it's turned on.

As stated on your motherboard , you will have a pin setup like this:

. . . . 3
. . . . 2
. . . . 1
J J J J
1 2 34

There will be a little plastic piece jumping some of the 1 & 2 pins together already. All you do is move that plastic piece so it's jumping the other two pins together. The plastic jumper is on there already. If the jumper is connecting the 1 and 2 numbered pins together, you can pull it off and put it on the 2 and 3 pins, and this will change a specific configuration on the motherboard.

In the case of the "J4" pins, if pins 1 and 2 are jumped together, the BIOS settings will always be saved. If you remove the jumper from 1 and 2 to stick it on 2 and 3 instead, all of the settings in BIOS will be erased.

NEVER work on jumpers while a computer is powered up. Always touch the metal part of your case before touching any internal components - a static discharge (shocking the board) can fry any number of components. If possible, lean your bare arm agains the outside of the case while touching things inside.

I am asking you to swap the J4 jumper on your board, THEN power up the computer, and power it back down. If it refuses to turn off, hold in the power button for 5 seconds and the machine should force a shutdown.

Hope this makes sense.

This makes perfect sense now. I'll try this tonight. Thanks

Just make sure you jump the right jumper :)

The settings are here:

http://www.emachine-upgraders.info/dir1/motherboards/socket478/imperial_jumpers.shtml

Look at the table:
J1 jumper disables the FDD (Floppy Disk Drive)
J2 jumper toggles the password set (probably for BIOS/BOOT password)
J3 jumper toggles "CMOS SETUP set" (no clue what it does)
J4 jumper sets the CMOS (BIOS settings) to either keep or clear them.

Notice that all of these jumpers are set to 1-2 jumped by default. You're only going to need to set J4 to "clear" position to clear CMOS (2-3 jumped).

Turning on should ensure the CMOS will clear. Sometimes the on-board battery will be enough, but I usualy power up for good measure. If you leave the J4 jumper in "clear" position, the box will never boot up/boot up fully.

If any jumpers are missing, this could be the root of your problem. Highly unlikely though.

Setting jumpers is very common practice on very old boards. Most mainboards now are sold as "jumper-free". Only jumpers on the board are to clear CMOS settings in case you mess something up :D

Shifty- I did the jumper trick but it made no change whatsoever. My board is the GLVE. Should I put the jumper back to the factory setting and start disconnecting everything to try that or is there something else I should try?

Put the jumper back to the factory setting for J1-J4. Before disconnecting anything, lets check other things that could be screwed up:

http://satellitehead.com/uploads/42321_IMPERIAL-GLVE.jpg

This is a picture of your motherboard, if it's the GLVE. I circled five items on it in pink, orange and green.

The 4-pin connector in Orange towards the center is a power connector which is required for all Pentium4 systems. If it is not hooked up, your system usually won't boot.

The three items circled in green are "fan headers". The one in the top left or the bottom left corner is probably silkscreened with "cpu fan" or "psu fan" or similar. More often than not, if there is no working fan hooked up to the 'cpu fan' header, the system will not boot...this is to prevent cooking the chip. Normally, the CPU fan and heatsink will be hooked to the fan header labelled "cpu fan" - verify that this is true right now. If the power supply you bought has a fan header to hook up to something, hook it to the fan header marked "psu" or "power" if available. The fan header on your middle right is normally a "chassis fan" or "Case fan" header. This is normally hooked up to a fan somewhere inside the case, but it is usually not required. Just there for your convenience.

The final item circled in pink, over on the right, is the CMOS/BIOS battery. Make a note of which way it is facing, OR look at the motherboard and see if they silkscreened a (+) or (-) symbol on either side of it. Pull that sucker out after you know exactly how to put it back in. Electronics shops and camera shops like Radio Shack or Wolf Camera usually sell these batteries. Try buying a new one - shold be less than $2. Replace it the one that's in there. If you want to call ahead and ask if the battery is available, the battery type is listed on the flat (+) side and is usually 4-digits. Example: CR 2032, CR 2016, CR 2024. These are three common ones used in automobile remotes and garage door openers :)

Give those three a shot.

As a last and final thing to try, if you haven't tried the steps I outlined above (diconnecting power to CDROM, hard drive & floppy, removing PCI cards, memory sticks) then give that a shot next. Try to boot up with the J1-J4 jumpers in the factory position and those devices unhooked. Let me know if you hear any beeps.

Finally, if none of that does anything or nets any results, I would honestly say that either the motherboard is shot, or the CPU is fried. If I really wanted the system, I would probably break down and either:

A) Buy a used off eBay - you can score some sweet deals, and the hardware usually works. check the sellers feedback first. CHECK THIS OUT (http://cgi.ebay.com/CPU-2GHz-Intel-Celeron-256MB-RAM-from-eMachines-T2042_W0QQitemZ290070796793QQihZ019QQcategoryZ16180QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem). Or Get a used combo like this HERE (http://cgi.ebay.com/EMACHINES-MOTHER-BOARD-W-CELERON-D-PROCESSOR-1-8-GHZ_W0QQitemZ260074259302QQihZ016QQcategoryZ1244QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem). You supply heatsink and fan - and this one looks like the Imperial you're using!

B) Buy a new CPU and heatsink (it's really easy to replace!! Don't be shy!). This CPU will work - you need to look for 'socket 478' and '400MHz FSB': http://compuvest.com/Description.jsp?iid=180401 That's the 1.8gHz Celeron version. Yours came with the 2.0ghz. $60 for the Celeron then you gotta buy a fan. Personally, I would get a non-celeron CPU (full blown pentium). Here is a 1.6GHz *with* a fan and heatsink for around $40: http://compuvest.com/Description.jsp?iid=264061 It will fit in the motherboard, and according to HP's site it *should* boot up and work fine (assuming motherboard is good, but because I'm taking the info from HP's website, I won't guarantee that it will work :)

C) Pick up a new motherboard. May need to go with a refurb off eBay like this : LINK (http://cgi.ebay.com/eMachines-TriGem-Imperial-GV-Socket-478-Motherboard_W0QQitemZ230075545601QQihZ013QQcategoryZ44943QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem).

Before you go with options A, B or C though - ask yourself if it's worth it. If you've gone this far and are willing to drop $100 into this computer....is it worth it to you? What happens if you just can't figure it out? You could scavenge what's in the machine, spend $30 on a USB hard drive case, remove the hard drive from it and get your buddy's data back, then have a USB external hard drive to store files and backups! There's a lot of options.

Hope this helps more than confuses :)

Shifty- I really appreciate your efforts with this. I'll give these things a shot tomorrow and let you know what happens and what I decide to do. I don't mind tinkering with it since it was free:lol: . Right now I have to get ready for the Ravens game!:metal: Thanks again!

Well....I tried the new 3 volt battery last night to no avail. Oh well, at least I tried a few things and was hoping I would get lucky. Since I just need a spare computer, I'm going to look on ebay at some of the computer dealers on there. I have seen some pretty good buys. Thanks again for trying to help me out Shifty!.

If you don't want that thing and you're going to toss it, I would pay to have it shipped here, I think. Not sure if there's anything in it you'd want to keep.

Since it's identical to my other computer, I'm going to keep it just in case I would need any spare parts.

No worries, as long as you aren't throwing it away. Two things drive me nuts about people throwing computers away: 1) There is so much potentiall toxic crap inside, it's really bad, and I want to keep our woodlands and soil clean so I can continue to enjoy the outdoors and so can my kids, and 2) They are normally easily recycled - lots of places to call - most people will pick them right up :)