[JLmusic99]

Hi,

My Gateway GT5058 won't boot up .

Everything was fairly fine...then a couple of times the screen became completely scrambled and the computer froze...I rebooted, and everything came back.

3rd time, nothing came back. The computer revs up, the orange light lights up, then goes out, no signal to the monitor, no beeps.

So I've been surfing around trying to find out what the problem may be. Could be the video on the motherboard is bad, so I bought a video card...no good. Tried pulling the memory and testing one by one...no good.

I've seen a number of posts about the Foxconn C51U01G motherboard being known to fail, and expensive to replace. Over $200, hardly seems worth it.

There's a place on Ebay that will attempt to fix the motherboard for $60.

Is it most likely the motherboard?

Any thoughts or help greatly appreciated.

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It could be a MOBO issue or just the onboard video is failing.
IMHO Foxconn mOBO's have been having alot of issues lately.
Gateway systems are not as proprietary as they use to be and you should be able to replace the MOBO along with a newer cpu and memory for what they want just for the MOBO.

Go HERE to see what you can buy for a MOBO and CPU combo. Starting with a retail cpu and Asus mobo for about 125 dollars.
Go HERE
to see that 2 gigs of memory for the above would start at about 34.00 dollars.
That would be 160 plus shipping. Total cost would be less then 200 dollars.

[rshaffer61]

It could be a MOBO issue or just the onboard video is failing.
IMHO Foxconn mOBO's have been having alot of issues lately.
Gateway systems are not as proprietary as they use to be and you should be able to replace the MOBO along with a newer cpu and memory for what they want just for the MOBO.

Go HERE to see what you can buy for a MOBO and CPU combo. Starting with a retail cpu and Asus mobo for about 125 dollars.
Go HERE
to see that 2 gigs of memory for the above would start at about 34.00 dollars.
That would be 160 plus shipping. Total cost would be less then 200 dollars.

[JLmusic99]

So these other motherboards would work? Other people with this same Foxconn were saying something about it being a weird fit, backwards or something, that they couldn't find another motherboard that would work. It's a BTX form factor or something.

Geeks To Go thread about it

Also, if I get another motherboard, or even if I get this same one fixed, will I be able to use the same hard drive with Windows on it without having to do anything or re-install anything? I was in the middle of a project, and this hard drive had all my programs and tons of plugins and everything all configured...

Thanks very much.

[rshaffer61]

The best thing to do honestly is to take a pic of the back of the system showing the layout of the connections.
Then take the measurements of the motherboard.
If I'm not mistaken it should be something like 10.5 by 11

[JLmusic99]

From what I understand, this is a BTX, or micro BTX.

I guess a possible replacement could be an Fic KTBC51G, which is still around $150.

Is it at all possible that it's just the power supply? I've seen posts where people say that even though the computer powers on and everything, doesn't mean the power supply is necessarily working properly.

Are power supplies all interchangeable? I have an old PC that works, maybe I could try putting that power supply in the Gateway??

[rshaffer61]

Power supplies usually will interchange.
Just make sure the one you want to use is at least the same wattage if not more then the one you want to replace.
If not it may not pwer up correctly.
Also since the board is a btz or micro btx then any board should work.
FIC is one that I have seen others replace the Foxconn with and successfully fic their problem.

[JLmusic99]

FIC is one that I have seen others replace the Foxconn with and successfully fic their problem.

I may be able to get a used Gateway that is a different model but has the FIC motherboard.

So it should it then be possible to either put my CPU and RAM and harddrives in that one, or take the motherboard from that one and put it in mine, right?

And my OS would work without any reinstalling or anything, correct?

Thanks very much.

[rshaffer61]

Wrong. The Motherboard would have to support your cpu and ram.
The OS will probably have to be reactivated since in the eyes of Microsoft you will have anew system.
Was your OS installed on the system when you bought it or did you buy the OS separately from the system?

[JLmusic99]

The OS was installed when I bought it.

I thought if the motherboard was the same Foxconn GATEWAY C51GU01 (or the FIC KTBC51G) then it would support the CPU and Ram. Not true?

If I found the exact same GT5058, would I be able to put the old hard drive in and not have to re-install everything (OS and software)?

Thanks very much.

[rshaffer61]

If the motherboard is the exact same one then everything should switch over.
If a different motherboard but it will accept your cpu and memory then you would still have to reactivate XP.