e-Machines........ any good?

[BARNEY]

Don't get me wrong though. I do think Asus and Abit, Gigabyte, MSI are a cut above these less expensive boards Especially Abit and Asus.

[racerbrownn]

boy, i have never believed in the importance of a solid brand power supply like i do now.

does anybody have any experience with the bestec 250 watt psu in my emachine build?

i have to believe it's low end but that is one thing that i may want to "upgrade" for insurance after what i've read here.

'course it does have a wd hdd and samsung ram so there is hope that it has improved a little from the earlier days of junk.

[HAL9000]

Originally posted by BARNEY Don't get me wrong though. I do think Asus and Abit, Gigabyte, MSI are a cut above these less expensive boards Especially Abit and Asus.

Its more than "hearing" dude... I put MSI on the low ranks as well. I did wholesale and sold many MSI motherboards and when 1 outta 6 fails right outta the box.... to me it's junk.... but the impression I'm getting outta this thread is that instead of listening to a voice of experience from mass production and wholesale, you guys would rather take the opinion of a small handful of machines... so be it.... I still call it junk.

[racerbrownn]

i know this will sound odd but i still agree with hal and the other moderators.
they respond to problems in this site all the time as well as in the field fixing pc's and i value their opinions.

like the god and free will thing....we don't always do whats best for us even when we are told the best way.

i already stated that i would not reccomend this brand to my friends when a better brand is a hundred or so more.

however, that few hundred would have put me into a bracket where building it would be feasible. being that i didn't want a power box for my current needs, i thought i would try my luck.

if it lasts till out of warr, hdwe will have improved and i will have to see whats a good choice then for my needs.

on the down side, if everything was built well, alot of us wouldn't have a job so god bless each and everyone of those manufacturers that help us keep our respective jobs secure.

[RayH]

What's good depends upon how much you have to spend. When an eMachine is priced low enough, like for the cost of the OS, what they hey?

I would never recommend one at retail!

I have a lot of friends scrambling to send their children to community college. Not everyone is enjoying economic recovery.

Maybe the best they can do is the on sale eMachine running Open Office!

[BARNEY]

Well, whatever the board you choose. May it run well for you.

[BARNEY]

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....&type=category



Now using 7200 RPM drives. ATI 9600. A-64 bit AMD

[BARNEY]

Do you think this might qualify it as being as advanced as some of the power user machines in here?

[nocturnx]

Not bad for an emachine, they have definatley stepped up their quality from the past.

racerbrownn: yes that is odd...

I know hal and the mods probly, no not probly, do have alot more pc experience than I do, but I have never had a problem with an emachine, nor has anyone in my family (they are all less than a year old, so maybe they are the quality ones), ive upgraded (mostly video card, ram) a couple but never had to repair one. I take their advice and opinions into great consideration but by personal experience i have never had a problem and neither has the other dozen or so people who have posted here.

Also I love my MSI mobo, the most stable board ive owned. And I definatley put it right up there with Asus and Abit.

[Joeberg]

I respect people's experiences with different brands, but when I've heard so many stories told about some brands (E.g. eMachines) or had exprtience with bad brands (e.g. ECS Mobos) I try not to tempt the hand of faith ...

[BARNEY]

I do see a problem with that unit though. It has no expansion slots. Im sure a real gamer or anyone who needs expansion might want to put in a PCi card or two. I know i would probably put in a Fortissimo 3 or Audigy 2. For that reason alone I would pass up the eMachine 64 bit job. No PCI slots.

[nocturnx]

The point is the "horror storys" are mostly from before emachines changed management, and that they are more quality than they were before, im not saying top quality, just better than before and their old reputation still hangs over them, read links i provided in first post.

Barney: I believe the computer does come with empty pci slots, but the amount was not provided by the manufacturer so they just did not list them.

[jimmyrules712]

right now in my mind emachines is right along side other compies like compaq, HP, etc.

actually im going to rait it above those companies for PC's. I believe that now their quality is just as good, and they have better prices.

of course Dell is still in first, maybe gateway second, but after that for a PC, who knows

[tyoung]

Racerbrown,


I, along with only Hal, take offense to your statement about the number of posts made.

You will notice, that I don't make alot of posts that is no representation of what a person knows. Frequently I, along with others I am sure, could post messages that completely duplicate the responses by other such as Hal. Duplicate responses would be a pointless waste of both the poster and the readers time.

[racerbrownn]

tyoung...........you missed my point...........entirely.

i noticed that several replys had comments like "emachines are crap" and these came from people with relatively low posting experience.
did they describe what experiences they had to form this attitude, no.
did they mention certain hdwe that was known to be flawed in the pc, no.

they just like to talk sh*t.

i also commended a user with low posts who was a professional pc repairman. how did i know he was a pro with valid experience, his post was very specific about problems he had fixed in the time this post ran.

sharing real world experiences with pc,s and their many problems helps us all learn about what to keep an eye on when buying some hdwe.

if you had experienced something that was pertinent to the discussion, then sharing the specifics of it would not be a duplication and it would be of benefit to all.

and to wrap up this reply to tyoung, i saw your post shortly after i commented about some vague replys and you mentioned nothing about your "offense"...........so after alot of replys, why now?

i can't believe this post is running 4 pages and 104 replys, but there's alot to learn here without needing to agree with each other.

pcmech rules.

[PaulBDL320]

just the name emachies sounds crappy anyways.

I got a VPR matrix from best buy about a year ago. no major problems, i installed a DVD-RW myself about a week ago too. The the MOBO has onbord RAID. Also it has a 300 Watt power supply so i can get a radeon 9800 graphics card when i can. Came with 512mb of DDR memory, i might upgrade that to a gig too. The case is also relatively large so you can see what ur doing when you work in there. My next computer i will proally build.

My mom has an HP. One word.... crappy. emachines is the same. If you getting a comp. get a VPR matrix from best buy or build your own. DO NOT get HP to replace the e-maches, proally just as bad or worse. They come with lots of crap spyware *cauguh**caugh* programs/software.

But really, the company that makes you comp doens't matter, what matters is what they put into it. if they put crap you will get crap, if they put good hardware iyou will get good perfromcene/value

[jimmyrules712]

ya i have a new emachines, and a friend has a new HP that he paid at least 2 or 3 hundred more for, and i wouldnt trade with him if he payed me. HP in my opinion is def worse.

[tyoung]

racerbrown,

I didn't reply earlier because, I have a job that preempts me from being on here 24 hours a day.

As for not being repetitive, anytime you are telling somebody the same thing the person before you is saying that in my definition represents repetition.

As for being a professional, not everybody who posts on here are "professional" repairman, as the term goes. There are alot of people who are not "professionals" as you refer to them that I wouldn't turn my PC on let alone work on. As for myself I have numerous certifications, including A+, Cisco, Novel, MSCE, etc. Not sure if that qualifies me as a "professional".

As for the people talking sh_t, I am not one to bad mouth other peoples products in general.

If you read my post pertaining to EMachines, I say they are decent machines if used for what they were made to do.

[racerbrownn]

i agree with your post that this pc may be ok for the average user who doesn't need a power box. some of the hdwe has improved so the reliability is a little better than the old junkers.

[still, i wouldn't recommend it to someone who is not at all experienced in repairing one.]

from your earlier replys, i can see that you don't talk crap, but some people do without providing specific reasons to back up their opinion. that's what annoys me.

have any opinion you want, just prove out your decision a little so i can understand the specifics.

a reply doesn't have to come from a "professional" to be valid.
i simply choose a reply with a small history of posts to show the how the info that was presented was of value. [he took the time to spell out certain problems which we can all learn from.]

if you had one and a certain brand of hdd or ram or psu or mb failed, that would be worth noting for future purchases of hdwe from other members.

last but not least, your job did not prevent you from replying to my thread even before hal did [approx the third reply afer i mentioned the small history posts and no specific basis provided for the opinion.]

and you mentioned no such "offense"

now, you make this statement after i have provided several expanded replys to explain my point of view according to what i am seeing in this thread.

since we are about 60 replys away from the origional statement i made and about 57 replys away from your earlier reply right after it, i am just curious what prompted you to speak now about you offense?

everybody have a great day and don't take this post to serious. it's all about learning and sharing different opinions and experiences.

[tyoung]

Racerbrown,

My response to you was a PM, it is far more fitting than the continued inappropriate back and forth posting.

As for eMachines, as I said earlier, they along with other "Boxed" brands of computers have their purposes. Most are not designed for the "Power" users. Most use proprietary equipment, such as Dell's power supplies. They also use cheaper parts in general, whatever is available at the best price is what goes in the machine. I have seen 2 of the same model computers with different brands of hard drives in them right out of the box.

When buying a computer, people should talk to people who know about computers, or do some reading to find out what they actually need. Suggest to anybody they know is looking for a new PC, to come to forums such as this and ask questions. I am sure within an hour they will have more than enough information to give them a good idea of what they actually need.

Thank you,

tyoung

[racerbrownn]

tyoung, please look forward to your pm from me.

it's great to have differences of opinion and attempt to have a meeting of the minds so that both parties can better understand each other.

like i have said before and i say it again, i consider everyones point of view as long as they are willing to explain why they feel that way so i can understand their point of view.
i do my best to explain my point of view but a few sentences makes it tough to condense....

even with the improvements that i have have noticed with hardware in my pc, i can't recommend it to anybody with no experience in dealing with pc's as pc's can be very challenging and frustrating.

the moderators have alot of valuable experience to share and i thank them for taking the time to do so.

this is truly a great site so let's all read on. thankx,ray.

[edfair]

This is a comment to tyoung's last post,
I can handle 2 different hard drives. Not that big a deal.
Back in the late 8088s, I had a customer buy 3 identical samsung computers off the floor at compusa. Got a call requesting help in setup. 3 different M/Bs involved, only 2 of which I could set up. All the documentation was the same and didn't reflect any of the 3. So the problems with building them cheap aren't new.

[fudtone]

I think this has changed to a "who should be giving advice" post... anyone care to start a string in general discussion?