Are emachines good computers?

[MournSanity]

I had an Emachines 566i2 with Windows ME. Gave me hell. Installed Windows 2000 Pro and it has been perfect for my sister so far. Of course, I personally wouldn't touch any factory built PC with a ten foot pole, I guess they aren't bad for people that like to mess with their computer's innards.

 

[MrRobercik]

i have e-machine in my office. It's running WinXP on 128 megs of ram, so other than being slow this thing is pretty reliable

 

[Johnbear007]

Emachines are fine around here.

These guys are just fanatics. an Emachine will be fine for your sister.

 

[OverVolt]

the nly thing that bothers me is that the OS is tied to th Hardware, so i don't like to pay the full price of a WindowsXP key, which i should be able to legally transfer over to another rig so long as i uninstall it from the old one, but for some reason they tie the OS to the hardware, it's so stupid.

 

[Johnbear007]

Originally posted by: JimRaynor
Yeah, get one of those cheapie Dells. If you are worried about the possibility of it breaking down, I wouldn't buy an emachine. I would be very scared.

only because you are ignorant. Emachines warranty service is just fine.

 

[aka1nas]

The new ones may be better, but every e-machine I've ever used has had problems, especially the P3 era models. They also tend to use some pretty shoddy supporting parts like PSU's, RAM, etc. I'd recommend a cheapie Dell or a homebuilt rig for her. If she's not a gamer you could build her a tower for around the same as a Dell or emachine even counting the OS. I'd steer you towards Newegg's refurb motherboards section. You can usually get a perfectly good modern Athlon board for around $30. Add another $50 for a midrange AthlonXP, Another $50 to $85 for RAM(256 may be plenty if she isn't doing much with the system), A hard drive on sale for ~$50AR from the hot deals forum, The cheapest video card you can get your hands on(Or just find a nforce2 board n newegg). Grab that lite-On cd burner on sale at newegg and maybe the DVD-Rom as well and you have optical drives. Finally add a cheap case from compgeeks for around $40 or $50.
Grand Total:

$30 motherboard
$50 CPU
$50 RAM
$50 Hard Drive
$35 CD Burner
$30 DVD-ROM
$50 Case + PSU
total: ~$300
+ Copy of XP $200 or better if you get an OEM copy

So you're looking at about $500ish for a minimum-spec tower with OS, adding a monitor will probably get you to about the price of the dell and emachine, but will probably be a better system, with more upgradability for the future and slightly better components(mainly RAM and mobo).

 

[Budmantom]

Dell

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Budmantom
Dell

 

[justly]

I find it quite amusing that so many people put down current Emachines. All most all the complaints are based on designs that contain Intel hardware (celeron, P III) or are regurgitated stories from years ago, yet I have not heard anyone complain about the current AMD based Emachines (with the possible exception of OverVolts comment that the OS is tied to the Hardware).

 

[Macro2]

The AMD ones are fine now.

They even have a 250W power supply. That's enough and they have tested it thoroughly.

Their keyboards are nice too.

Mac

 

[Macro2]

RE:"At one time E-machines may not have been too hot but these days they're pretty good.
For $600 dollars you get:
Case ENlight Corporation NexGen 2
Motherboard FIC AU31
CPU AMD XP 2800+
Memory 512MB DDR PC2700 DIMM
Power Supply Bestec ATX-250 250 Watt
Video nVidia GeForce 4 MX (Integrated) AGP
Audio nVidia nForce 6-Channel Audio
Hard Disk Drive 120 GB Western Digital
Primary Optical Drive 48X / 24X / 48X /Lite-On
Secondary Optical Drive 16x DVD / JVC
Floppy Disk Drive Generic 3.5
Modem PCI Conexant 56 K v.90
Network Interface Card RealTek 8101L 10/100 PCI
For the price thats not really all that bad, and it compares well to Dell's low end."


Actually that's pretty impressive. Pretty much a standard build around here. A gamer might add a faster video card.

Mac

 

[Macro2]

RE:"At one time E-machines may not have been too hot but these days they're pretty good.
For $600 dollars you get:
Case ENlight Corporation NexGen 2
Motherboard FIC AU31
CPU AMD XP 2800+
Memory 512MB DDR PC2700 DIMM
Power Supply Bestec ATX-250 250 Watt
Video nVidia GeForce 4 MX (Integrated) AGP
Audio nVidia nForce 6-Channel Audio
Hard Disk Drive 120 GB Western Digital
Primary Optical Drive 48X / 24X / 48X /Lite-On
Secondary Optical Drive 16x DVD / JVC
Floppy Disk Drive Generic 3.5
Modem PCI Conexant 56 K v.90
Network Interface Card RealTek 8101L 10/100 PCI
For the price thats not really all that bad, and it compares well to Dell's low end."


Actually that's pretty impressive. Pretty much a standard build around here. A gamer might add a faster video card.

Mac

 

[PCPunisher]

Hmmm Well I've had mine for one week and I can't get it to connect to the internet. The modem is crap. I can hook my laptop up to the same phone line as the new emachine and hook up, but emachine can't. After hours with ISP, emachine tech, and modem tech I say screw it. ISP says its a hardware problem(and I believe them since my other computer works) and emachine and smartlink say its a ISP problem. Typical. PC going back to Wal-mart for full refund within the 15 day grace period. Also A-drive for floppys is going out too. Says every other disk I put in it needs to be formatted even though they work fine in my laptop. I'm going to take the case from my old computer and take these guys advice and build my own. My emachine was the model w2785. Hope this helps.

 

[Macro2]

RE:"Says every other disk I put in it needs to be formatted even though they work fine in my laptop."

That may not be an e-machine problem but a problem with the calibration of the floopy drive you made the floppies on.

If you can build your own I'd say go for it. Why didn't you in the first place/

 

[Laffctx]

 

[Laffctx]

my son in college has had two of them in the last 6 years and both ran excellent for him. all he did was added a decent video card and that was it. he never had a bit of problems with them. I think I would be leary of the older ones but the new ones seem very stable.

Good luck,

Laffctx

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: PCPunisher
Hmmm Well I've had mine for one week and I can't get it to connect to the internet. The modem is crap. I can hook my laptop up to the same phone line as the new emachine and hook up, but emachine can't. After hours with ISP, emachine tech, and modem tech I say screw it. ISP says its a hardware problem(and I believe them since my other computer works) and emachine and smartlink say its a ISP problem. Typical. PC going back to Wal-mart for full refund within the 15 day grace period. Also A-drive for floppys is going out too. Says every other disk I put in it needs to be formatted even though they work fine in my laptop. I'm going to take the case from my old computer and take these guys advice and build my own. My emachine was the model w2785. Hope this helps.

The modem is probably crap. Call the tech support and tell them the modem is bad. BTW: what are you doing buying a computer at Wal-Mart?

 

[wetcat007]

Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress

Originally posted by: DopeFiend
I service the UK-model eMachines on a daily basis, but you know which manufacturer we have in more than them? Packard Bell. Sigh.

Anyway, they're not actually that bad, although I really can't stand the fact that most of them are Celerons

How is Packard Bell still in business? Those were some of the most craptastic computers ever.

Nec bought them for some reason, I dont think it technically exists anymore, I had one of their monitors go up in a smoke.

 

[OverVolt]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: Budmantom
Dell

This is why i refuse to buy stuff from Dell anymore, there using cheap tricks and cancelling peoples orders. It's just lame .

 

[nick1985]

no

 

[rickon66]

If you look at a $400-500 price point for a basic computer, all the manufactures (Dell,Gateway,HP,Compaq,Emachine) have more in common than they do in differences.

 

[tcsenter]

eMachines are hard to beat for the money. Of course, there isn't a high volume consumer electronics/computer manufacturer on the planet that doesn't have its share of defects. eMachines in no way could be said to have an 'unusual' percentage of failures or problems.

 

[alexruiz]

Thre new ones using NForce2 mobos with Athlon XP seem like good machines....

 

[Erasmus-X]

Speaking from over 10 years of PC repair experience, the quality of Dell machines and support has gone WAY downhill (I guess that's what happens when companies get really big). I get out-of-warranty Dell repairs all the time. Ironically enough, bad motherboards are the most common problem (doesn't Intel still manufacture Dell's motherboards?).

As far as eMachines go, the newer ones are actually pretty well-designed from what I can see. For the most part they seem to be using name-brand parts now. But more often than not, I still see a lot of nondescript modems slapped in them that generally don't have drivers for any other OS aside from the one that came with the machine. You would think by now motherboard manufacturers would start integrating V.92 modems into their products for those who are still on narrowband...