[mlwjackson]

I just returned from vacation and a computer that had operated without problems will not respond to the power button. I have been gone for a week. The computer was totally disconnected from both power and network cables so it could not have received any surges. When plugged in to the power, if I pull the cover i see a small green LED glowing on the mobo but nothing else. The power button does not light, the fans do not spin up...nothing but the one green LED glowing. My best guess is that the power source failed to adequately power up. The machine is a 4 or 5 year old eMachines (pre-gateway).

It would seem unlikely that the mobo would fail in this manner. My first incliniation is to try to switch out the power supply with one from another old machine that I have. Is there anything else I should try before this? What would be your prioritized listed of things to be checked in remeding this problem?

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E-Machines' power supplies fail often. You are actually lucky it didn't go out earlier. Unless you have another PSU you can try there won't be really any ways to check the other componants. The timing that it went out is odd, I agree. Because of the age and type of your computer I'm 95% certain that a new PSU will solve your problems.

Here is a power failure troubleshooting tree you can check out: Foner PSU Failure Diagnostics.

[Titan8990]

E-Machines' power supplies fail often. You are actually lucky it didn't go out earlier. Unless you have another PSU you can try there won't be really any ways to check the other componants. The timing that it went out is odd, I agree. Because of the age and type of your computer I'm 95% certain that a new PSU will solve your problems.

Here is a power failure troubleshooting tree you can check out: Foner PSU Failure Diagnostics.

[mlwjackson]

I ran the machine to CompUSA and they used a power supply tester to check and it indicated that the supply was functional. However, I have been told that the tester does not necessarily indicate that the power supply is really supplying full power.

However, the tech said that he suspected that it was the motherboard because a a series of capacitors (6 all in a row) along the side of the cpu that had rounded (bulging) tops. He said that those are always flat and the swelling or rounding of the tops of the capacitors indicated that they were bad.

I must admit that I have never seen a capacitor that did not have a flat top. However, it is odd that these six capacitors all in a row have 'failed' and no other capacitors show any such condition. What do you think?

[cmw2010]

We had some old IBM's at the school that I do volunteer tech support for, each one had multiple capacitor bulging problems. All of the capacitors were in the same area of the motherboard and all had the bulging tops on them. So , in my experience it wouldn't surprise me that six in a row would all go bad at once. They are all probably the same brand and have the same specs.