eMachines M5105 laptop dead.

Got a emachines M5105, celeron 2.4 that will not power on. Last time I used it was several months ago and it worked fine. I just pulled it out of the bag to use it and it will not power on. When I plug in the AC adapter the blue light comes on, and when I hit the power switch the hard drive light flashes but nothing else happens. If I leave it plugged in after a minute or so the fan will come on and some really hot air is exhausted. Then the fan turns off and after a couple minutes it turns back on again. It will continue this cycle, I guess indefinitely...not really sure as I haven't left it plugged in to find out, but if I pull the AC it will also continue until I pull the battery. So I guess the battery is charging.

I pulled the keyboard to access the cpu. If I leave the battery out and plug in the AC adapter the cpu immediately begins to heat up, and gets hot enough to burn my fingers when I touch it. I pulled the heatsink and found no heatsink compound on it...just a piece of foil. Haven't seen this type installation before, but I went ahead and put some AC5 on it just for the heck of it, but it still did the same thing.

So, my question is do you think the problem is the cpu or has the motherboard gone bad and probably fried the cpu?

I'd say that it's definitely a faulty mobo, there shouldn't be any current to the CPU at all until the PC is turned on. I'd be surprised if the CPU has survived the ordeal either.

Kind of what I was thinking, Nick. Didn't make sense that there would be power to the cpu without pushing the power button first, but I'm not a motherboard designer so who knows what they make things do on these boards. Probably just a diode or transistor somewhere that went bad...something switching when it shouldn't be. Too bad. This was a good laptop for four years. Probably not worth repairing.

Thanks for confirming it, Nick.

Randy