My sister's e-machine computer is having some issues....First, out of nowhere her keyboard stopped working...now her fans seem to run, but the computer won't start up and the monitor light keeps flashing....any ideas on what this might be? I read on the net some problems with the power supplies for emachines, but I would think then it wouldn't run at all if that is the case....any ideas?

Cheap keyboards die pretty easily . If the monitor light is flashing it isnt getting a signal from the video card. It could easily be a combination of things like a bad power supply and bad video card. Hopefully the video isnt onboard.

Check the pci/agp cards to make sure they are all seated well. Then take everything out except the video card. This can help to isolate your problem.

Usually when motherboards have problems they let out beeps, it is possible your speaker died. These beeps are pretty helpful in figuring out your problem. You may want to check and/or replace the speaker to get the beeps working.

Lots of other things to check , but I cant remember right now.

Early-on eMachines had tons of power supply failures. If this is an older machine, that's the first thing I would check and usually easy and inexpensive to replace.

If the power supply failed, would the fan still turn on? or are there degrees of failure when it comes to power supplies?

It could I suppose. I'm just letting you know the first thing I would try being an emachine.

EDIT: I've had a customer once tell me there were sparks shooting out the back of their Dell power supply while the computer was still functioning fine. I would say that's a certain degree of failure...

Are you in the UK? I've probably got a spare PSU i can mail you to see if that's the problem.

Thanks epwc, but I don't... i live in america.....i will try to pick one up in the next few days and see what happens....now the keyboard on my computer doesn't work (I had tried to hook it up to hers when hers wouldn't work...) what would cause that? could it be a power surge from the power supply (if it's bad?)

I had the same problem a few years ago. When I called customer support, they had me power down the machine and plug in a different mouse that I had lying around. My first thought was,
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!
But it worked. As weird as it sounds, I would at least try a different mouse and keyboard, it's a simple test. Make sure you power it down, apparently someone did not on the machine I was working on.

Thanks for the suggestion...unfortunately, it didn't work.....does anyone have any other suggestions?

I had this on a Dell server recently and basically the m/b was fried.

Is it a PS/2 or a USB keyboard? If it is a PS/2 keyboard, has anybody been hotplugging it?

P/S 2. what do you mean by hotplugging? plugging it on while the computer is running? yeah...i guess I did that....

Yeah. Plugging in whilst it's on. You're not actually supposed to do that with a PS/2 keyboard or mouse for that matter. It's possible to blow the fuse on the PS/2 port if you do it on a desktop.

Without the keyboard at all does it get any further?

No...unfortunately...i unplugged everything and it still doesn't work...i even took out the modem. The weird thing is the light on the front stays on even when the computer is shut off (which it didn't do before.) My sister got the computer to work when she held in the button and computer shut off and then the button light shut off. Then when she turned it on again, the computer worked fine....very bizarre...

Lots of motherboards support using a keystroke to power up the PC which might explain why the keyboard and PC went odd.

I have been out of town for the last two days, but now I find out that the power light that was constantly on before, now went out. and now the computer won't start at all....

what do the batteries do on the motherboard? if one went bad, what would that cause it to do? i assume it wouldn't do anything except not save settings or the time, but i thought it might possibly prevent it from starting up...

Depending on the motherboard, you might also lose BIOS settings.