Dead onboard graphics?

[chaksq]

My aunt recently gave me her old supposedly dead computer. It is a two year old eMachine. (Yes eMachine, get over it, I don't want to here anything about how bad they are, I have a question either make useful comments or don't post.)

She was told something along the line of something is dead that is part of the motherboard. I thought she meant the motherboard was dead, however before I stripped it of useful parts I set it up and tried booting. However it had absolutely no video. The motherboard had on board graphics. My question is is it possible that the onboard video processor could be dead but the rest of the motherboard still function? The board has a PCI express slot in which I could place a cheap eBay graphics card in to make the machine useable.

[calumc]

it would be worth a try before getting rid of it i suppose.
id suggest trying to just borrow 1 to test first though

[Spawn-Inc]

it would be worth a try before getting rid of it i suppose.
id suggest trying to just borrow 1 to test first though

yes i agree with above

[Quakken]

you could get a dirt cheap graphics card, i'm betting anything would be better than what it had on it originally, It could be put to better use than the junkyard if it works.

[moon111]

By the sounds of it, the system isn't the latest or greatest, so you could probably get a dirt cheap motherboard.

Another notion, make sure you're running the system bare-bones... no keyboard, mouse, expansion cards, optical or hard drives...etc. I've seen some weird things cause problems before.

As a newbie, I was told my 486 was toast and needed a new MB and CPU. I ended up pulling the removable BIOS chip out... which reset it. Don't be surprised if the place that told her it was dead did nothing, other then try to get money. Try pulling the battery out.

[Crazy Buddhist]

Very possible indeed that the onboard grahics has gone but also possible its something else - borrow anything that will fit (PCI/AGP) and throw it in to see if it will start like that. Are you getting Bios beeps? Can you hear the hard drive booting? Is the HDD light flashing as normal?

[alexanderH]

I am willing to bet that they are still working. I have in my day seen problems with bios turning off the onboard graphics. On later model motherboards, there is a conflict of port addresses when you have onboard video enabled and a proper video card. I suggest you look into the bios settings and find the chipset and PNP settings. You should be able to find onboard options there including everything from onbard sound, video, and networking.

Let me know if you have any luck! This would also help save the dollars spent on a card.

And emachines aint so bad. They are part of HP. Neat huh? Everyone things HP is great and emachines is ****. but they are the same crap.

[slytherock]

I am willing to bet that they are still working. I have in my day seen problems with bios turning off the onboard graphics. On later model motherboards, there is a conflict of port addresses when you have onboard video enabled and a proper video card. I suggest you look into the bios settings and find the chipset and PNP settings. You should be able to find onboard options there including everything from onbard sound, video, and networking.
I would also suggest that, but there's no vid out... :dead: Try to clear the CMOS first, it will reset your BIOS setting to default, witch should put the onboard vid at on
Let me know if you have any luck! This would also help save the dollars spent on a card.

And emachines aint so bad.
Yes they are...
They are part of HP. Neat huh? Everyone things HP is great and emachines is ****. but they are the same crap.

And ASUS make the ASRock baord, and MSI Build the ECS Ones... ASUS and MSI are nice but ASRock and ECS sucks...


As I said, start by reset your BIOS, then get a cheap vid card to test. If it don't work, Get it back for a refund :) I do this all the time :D

[lukeisthecoolest]

this is definitely the best way to fix any problem with an eMachine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ataiBFCKlw0

[lukeisthecoolest]

and if u didn't notice Bill Gates stands up and is like "damn it, that is the fifth one today! i thought Windows 98 would kick major ass :("

[FuzzyPlushroom]

If adding a real video card doesn't help, try replacing the power supply, as eMachines has never, as far as I can tell, used a decent unit in any of their computers - in fact, the 250w Bestec units in their ~2003 models (Athlon XP; Pentium 4 and Celeron) was notorious for failing and sending well over 12v down the 5v rail!

As Buddhist asked, are you getting a beep code? What exactly is the system doing? If it's at least beeping at you, the video card's worth a try. Either way, I'd reset CMOS, first by jumper and then, if that fails, by removing the battery for a few minutes, as said above.

Good luck with it!