EMachines and Compaq Presario and HP Pavilion computers often (always?) use the
same Bestec power supplies. In the past, they have all shared the same model of
motherboard and chassis, with cosmetic differences. On all three, when a power
supply fails for whatever reason (power spike, internal failure, etc), it often
takes the motherboard along with it... Ben Myers

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 06:19:17 GMT, "debm via HWKB.com" u39818@uwe wrote:

- Bobb - wrote:
my daughter has a compaq presario s4020wm system.it boots up to a black
screen,the green light comes on,the dvd rom tries to boot,the floppy
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
confirm
what is wrong.help....

Is it 'normal' on that Pc for it to access the floppy? ( has it always
done that?)
Or do you think the hard drive died, so THAT's why it's trying CD/floppy
?
If you put a floppy disk in the drive, does it TRY to boot from it ?
Anything onscreen - even an error message to try another floppy ?

For specific pc info
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/p...&lang=en&cc=us

If bad onboard video, might it be that it has booted ( disk activity) and
just can't see desktop ?
Does the boot sequence "appear normal" to her ? (other than no video )

Right after power on tap the F10 (5-10) times to see if you can get into
BIOS
On some models you then had to hit RETURN for ENglish, then you'd see a
menu. Ask her if she knows how hers looked. ( did she have to select
ENglish first or did it go right into menu ?) Try it both ways if failure.
(read manual at hp site)
anyway, where I'm going with this ....

If you do / think you ARE into the BIOS, look at this screenshot:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...=44904&lang=en

It looks to me like - if your video IS bad AND you want to change from
primary to PCI card, then once in BIOS, type the RIGHT arrow to get to
that ADVANCED menu ( even though you can't see the menu, the cpu should
still follow instructions), then DOWN ( to get to primary video adapter
option) then ENTER to select the menu, then DOWN again to select PCI.
Then ESC then right-right -right ( to EXIT) then ENTER.
I would imagine then a prompt to SAVE BIOS ? Y/N ? so type a Y then
ENTER, see if it reboots and then uses video card.

If it doesn't work the first time, try a few times varying/ watching your
keystrokes.
I have been in bios before,just was afraid to try it again with no monitor
picture,i ordered a post card from ebay,hopefully when it gets here,i can
test the motherboard,if all else fails,i'll definately try what you suggested,
thanks for all your help,i probably will have to get new motherboard,and the
thing you said about the power supply,i hope emachines dont go out,my
daughter just bought an emachine,lol...