[Area 51]

I have an eMachine W3503 with XP Media Center Edition 2005. I left it on for a few hours and when I came back there was nothing on the monitor. It was working fine when I left. I plugged the monitor into another computer and it works. I shut it off and then tried it again and it still will not show anything. I shut it off with the power cord unplugged for a hour and then restarted it. It showed the big e and the menu options but then went black again, it never has showed that again since. I have restarted it several times using different monitors and still the same black screen.

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It has onboard graphics, ATi 200.

[Area 51]

It has onboard graphics, ATi 200.

[Area 51]

I left it unplugged all night and tried it again, still black screen. I didn't mention earlier but the CD/DVD drive continues to try and run and if I leave it on for however long it continues to do that. Any suggestions?

[Area 51]

It's a regular black screen. The monitor button stays orange, I have tried it on 2 different ones with the same result.

[Area 51]

But shouldn't I still be able to see the Option Menu to get to the BIOS?

[Fenor]

You stated that your DVD/CD-ROM drive continues to be active throughout the entire process when your computer is turned on. That being said, try disconnecting both the IDE ribbon cable and the power (4-pin molex) plug from it, and then try and boot up the computer.

[Area 51]

Still nothing.

[Fenor]

eMachines are notorious for their motherboards going bad. Hate to say it but you are better off getting a new machine, which isn't an eMachine. At my old job, we got about 5-10 of those in a week with the same problem. Any kind of power surge will render them useless since they are made with very bad parts, hence why they are so cheap.

[Fenor]

Have you tried using different cables for the monitor?

The monitor worked fine on another computer as stated in the initial post.

[Area 51]

I originally had it on a switch to run 2 computers, so I thought maybe my switch went bad so I got another monitor that I have and tried it. My other computer still works fine on the switch so I put another computer on the same lines from the switch and it works too.

Edited by Area 51, 05 June 2008 - 06:09 PM.