emachines T2642 board killed by bestec 250

[joeryan]

it took me a while to nail it down that this had happened, but when I removed the PSU from the case, I could hear something rattling in there. When I tried the board with another PSU and the SOYO 80h card, all the PSU LED's would light up on it and give me FF on the LCD. PSU fans would work, but not CPU fan or anything else. I can hear clicking coming from the caps (rubycon 6.3v 2200uF) near the CPU when power is applied.

the board is an Imperial_GV 20030812 pictured below:




I have read similar cases in these forums about the bestec PSU's wrecking the board, just wondering if this is a case where I need to replace all the caps or just certain ones? None of the caps show physical signs of damage.

[Lance Thornton]

Re: emachines T2642 board killed by bestec 250

I have seen a few power supplies take out these and other E-machines boards. It is unfortunate.

[kc8adu]

Re: emachines T2642 board killed by bestec 250

the cpu may be dead.the clicking is the vrm trying to start into a short.
most dead imperial mobo's killed by bestec psu have burned up southbridge.

[Lance Thornton]

Re: emachines T2642 board killed by bestec 250

And welcome to the forums!

[skafiskafnjak]

Re: emachines T2642 board killed by bestec 250

I just have the same case on my bench.

These power supplies have problems with 100uF 25V and 220uF 25V capacitors in the primar circuit as well as with 22ohm SMD resistor from the other side of the board.

I fixed PS but motherboard does not start at all. It probably have some chip burned.

Is there a way to replace these southbridge's? I have hot air station but never tried it.....???

Also is the any REPLACEMENT MOTHERBOARD for these eMachines which will be compatible with eMachines Windows XP?

They have KIT that include new mobo, PS and software/drivers but its cost is $159. I need motherboard only because I fixed this PS!!

[redeye53]

Re: emachines T2642 board killed by bestec 250

I've had to replace the motherboard and PSU on more than a few of these EMachines and I just pick up whatever 845GL type Intel mATX board I can get my hands on(Dell even) and install a clean XP home with drivers for whatever board I'm using(Use the keycode from the EMachine case) and Microsoft always activates tho most times it requires a phone call.

[bgavin]

Re: emachines T2642 board killed by bestec 250

I just finished with a Bestec 250 trying to kill an eMachine T2660. Fortunately, it was replaced before doing permanent damage. The tipoff was the 3.3v line sitting at 2.85v in the BIOS display.

The symptoms was constantly logging of disk events for device timeouts and bad blocks. The machine was horribly slow, which was the customer complaint.

Surprisingly, there are no obvious damaged caps on the board. Vent tops are all intact, and no bulging.

[joeryan]

Re: emachines T2642 board killed by bestec 250

I don't think it's worth it to try and change out something like the southbridge. there are too many pins and too many things that could go wrong.

In case anyone wants to know more about finding a better quality and cheaper replacement, I used an Antec Smartpower 400 for the PSU and a MSI PM8M-V for the board. I also replaced the floppy ribbon with a longer one to reach the board, so be aware of that.

I did a repair install with an XP Home OEM cd before i booted the new system into windows for the first time and did not have to reactivate.

[Harvey]

Re: emachines T2642 board killed by bestec 250

I wouldn't trust a 'fixed' bestec PSU as far as I could throw it. In fact, that's exactly what I'd do - throw it.

Any PSU that lacks over voltage protection is more of a POS than a PSU.