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This is the first time I have been to this thread so please excuse me if I'm asking something that has been covered:

My old Emachines T1600 suffered death by motherboard recently and I used this as an excuse to buy myself a new notebook for Christmas. Unfortunately I didn't back up my files on my external hard-drive for the past 6 months and I am missing a lot of photos and stuff that I would like to keep. I would also like to have the desktop functional to keep my kids out of my new computer!

Would I be best to buy a new motherboard and attempt to make it work, OR buy a similar $75 computer and connect my old hard drive to it? Give it a motor and I have a decent chance of getting it running, but when it comes to fixing a computer I am a complete newb.....

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers,

High_side

The odds of being able to get an aftermarket motherboard into the emachines case is not good, let alone use the power supply which is most likley proprietary... so you may be better off with another used or new PC.

Another question, however, what leads you to believe the motherboard is dead?

MrShake wrote:The odds of being able to get an aftermarket motherboard into the emachines case is not good, let alone use the power supply which is most likley proprietary... so you may be better off with another used or new PC.

Another question, however, what leads you to believe the motherboard is dead?

It started to freeze up similar to the last time that it failed. I took it to the computer shop and they "suspected it was either the motherboard or the video card". Beyond that - that's as far as my troubleshooting has taken me

Now if I pick up another used PC should my old hard-drive plug in with relatively little trouble or is this just wishful thinking?

If you pickup another computer just install your old drive as a second drive.

High_Side wrote:This is the first time I have been to this thread so please excuse me if I'm asking something that has been covered:

My old Emachines T1600 suffered death by motherboard recently and I used this as an excuse to buy myself a new notebook for Christmas. Unfortunately I didn't back up my files on my external hard-drive for the past 6 months and I am missing a lot of photos and stuff that I would like to keep. I would also like to have the desktop functional to keep my kids out of my new computer!

Would I be best to buy a new motherboard and attempt to make it work, OR buy a similar $75 computer and connect my old hard drive to it? Give it a motor and I have a decent chance of getting it running, but when it comes to fixing a computer I am a complete newb.....

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers,

High_side

Easiest solution would be to grab the HD from the old machine and plunk it into an external enclosure, like this one. However before you buy one you will need to determine which kind of connection the HD uses. If it's a big gray cable with a two rows of connectors it's IDE. If it's a small skinny connector it's SATA. You can find photos of each online easily enough, but I'd wager the old drive is IDE.

Hard drive out of old machine, into enclosure, attach enclosure to your new machine via USB and grab your old files off. Cheapest solution.

Actually even cheaper still would be to see if you can put the old HD in the enclosure you already have. Free!

ofblong wrote:

as for deleting those e-mail address's from cache im not sure.

I found the solution. I went to one of the the links provided and found a discussion on the subject.

Open up the outlook. Click on new as if to make a new email. In the address bar, type the first letter and a drop down window opens with all the names that start with that letter. Use your arrow keys to go through them and when the one you don't want in there is highlighted, you simply hit the delete key.
I was able to get rid of a lot of old addresses that are no longer valid or that were mistakes or people I now despise.

Skier wrote: Easiest solution would be to grab the HD from the old machine and plunk it into an external enclosure, like this one. However before you buy one you will need to determine which kind of connection the HD uses. If it's a big gray cable with a two rows of connectors it's IDE. If it's a small skinny connector it's SATA. You can find photos of each online easily enough, but I'd wager the old drive is IDE.

Hard drive out of old machine, into enclosure, attach enclosure to your new machine via USB and grab your old files off. Cheapest solution.

Actually even cheaper still would be to see if you can put the old HD in the enclosure you already have. Free!

Thanks Matt, I'll give this one a bash.

Cheers,

Bruce

High_Side wrote:

MrShake wrote:The odds of being able to get an aftermarket motherboard into the emachines case is not good, let alone use the power supply which is most likley proprietary... so you may be better off with another used or new PC.

Another question, however, what leads you to believe the motherboard is dead?

It started to freeze up similar to the last time that it failed. I took it to the computer shop and they "suspected it was either the motherboard or the video card". Beyond that - that's as far as my troubleshooting has taken me

Now if I pick up another used PC should my old hard-drive plug in with relatively little trouble or is this just wishful thinking?

normally starting to freeze up is a PSU issue NOT a MB or Video card issue. UNLESS the fan on the video card and/or cpu is bad THEN it could be a video card issue/cpu issue. A fan for the video card is all of $5 and one for the cpu would be closer to $20 whereas a decent psu can run upwards of $120 but most likely one you would need would cost closer to $50. If I were you I would open up that case and blow all the dust out that is more than likely in it. what happens is the fans get dust in them and the cpu heatsink will get dust in it which will cause it to overheat and lock up. I bet if you blow all that dust out it will start working just fine again. If after blowing the dust out you see the fan on the cpu not spinning or the fan on the video card not spinning then I would say get a new fan or do what I did a while back and put a tabletop fan blowing into the case with the side of the case off . I cant remember if e-machines went fanless for the cpu's or not. If you dont feel comfortable trying that stuff then buy a new puter but im just trying to save ya some money .

also as for pluging in the old hard drive into a "newer" computer that depends on if it comes with eide slot and extra power connectors. Some store bought computers like dell dont have extra of any of those items. There are ways around that with either buying splitters and other connectors or doing as suggested above and buying a hard drive enclosure.

ofblong wrote:

High_Side wrote:

MrShake wrote:The odds of being able to get an aftermarket motherboard into the emachines case is not good, let alone use the power supply which is most likley proprietary... so you may be better off with another used or new PC.

Another question, however, what leads you to believe the motherboard is dead?

It started to freeze up similar to the last time that it failed. I took it to the computer shop and they "suspected it was either the motherboard or the video card". Beyond that - that's as far as my troubleshooting has taken me

Now if I pick up another used PC should my old hard-drive plug in with relatively little trouble or is this just wishful thinking?

normally starting to freeze up is a PSU issue NOT a MB or Video card issue. UNLESS the fan on the video card and/or cpu is bad THEN it could be a video card issue/cpu issue. A fan for the video card is all of $5 and one for the cpu would be closer to $20 whereas a decent psu can run upwards of $120 but most likely one you would need would cost closer to $50. If I were you I would open up that case and blow all the dust out that is more than likely in it. what happens is the fans get dust in them and the cpu heatsink will get dust in it which will cause it to overheat and lock up. I bet if you blow all that dust out it will start working just fine again. If after blowing the dust out you see the fan on the cpu not spinning or the fan on the video card not spinning then I would say get a new fan or do what I did a while back and put a tabletop fan blowing into the case with the side of the case off . I cant remember if e-machines went fanless for the cpu's or not. If you dont feel comfortable trying that stuff then buy a new puter but im just trying to save ya some money .

also as for pluging in the old hard drive into a "newer" computer that depends on if it comes with eide slot and extra power connectors. Some store bought computers like dell dont have extra of any of those items. There are ways around that with either buying splitters and other connectors or doing as suggested above and buying a hard drive enclosure.

Funny you should mention the dust Oblong as I had just opened it up and vacuumed it out prior to the issue starting(I should have mentioned this but had forgot as I had my computer out of service for a couple of weeks while I am renovating the place.). So it's been done, and may have been a contributor to the problem somehow. The fan has been running (it's always been a noisy fan), and the computer locks up immdiately after starting so I doubt that it is an overheating problem. I think I'll get up going with the external hard-drive idea and then pick-up the kids a cheaper older computer to keep them out of my nice new notebook!

Thanks.

that tells me IT IS overheating. The only other option is when you vacuumed you knocked the power plug loose from the mb.