Need dirt cheap mb/cpu recommendation

[beatle]

I was asked to check out a friend of a friend's emachine to see what's wrong with it. When plugged into the wall, the fans come on and the power flickers on and off a bit faster than 60-70 times per minute. I hooked up a known good PSU and it exhibits the same issue. If I disconnect the power switch from the mb and use a screwdriver to turn it on, it will exhibit the same symptoms until I unplug it. I'm guessing the CPU and/or motherboard is toast. It's a 2.6 Celeron with integrated video on a mATX board. If you agree it's likely part of the cpu/mb, what would you get as a replacement? The name of the game here is cheap. It just needs to have onboard video and sound. Any suggestions?

 

[Chinoman]

http://promotions.newegg.com/AMD/AMD_mobo/index.html

The First motherboard doesn't include an Onboard Video chip but the second and third motherboard do.
I'd say it's pretty cheap for what you're getting just make sure the ram fits into the DDR slots.

 

[acegazda]

if that is in fact the problem, you should get the Asus M2NPV-VM and the a64 3200+ am2. Together they cost $170. You can opt for the 3800+ for ~$25 more. Good luck!

 

[beatle]

Wow, that's cheap! Maybe I'll just give him my old 1700+ and pick up that Gigabyte combo for my media PC. 🙂 My old Biostar board supports both DDR and SDR ram so if he still has SDR he'll still be in business. Do you think it could be something other than the cpu/mb? I suppose his ram could be shot, but I've not seen bad ram give this kind of problem before.