Is it just me or is this a pretty good deal?

Hey everyone,

I was in Best Buy the other day killing time and found my way to the computer section. Now, I have built many computers in my time and would never consider buying a machine for myself from a store. However, my parents were talking about upgrading their dying desktop. Anyway, so I was perusing and came across this system. Now, I looked it over pretty carefully. First of all, eMachines, yuck, but what's in a name? It seemed like for what is inside of that box that is a pretty decent price: 3400+ Newcastle (presumably), 1Gb ram, 200Gb HD, DVD-DL burner, pci-e chipset, card reader and Windows for $649? To buy the CPU, mobo, ram, HD alone on Newegg costs about $500, and then you have the case, PSU, and software to think about.

So, is this a pretty good find or not? Someone convince me this isn't worth buying.

Thanks,

Odie

Well, for one, the mobo is prolly crap generic stuff, the gb of ram is prolly really crap generic stuff, and the DL burner doesn't say its speed
It'd be a good deal for gramma, but not as a useable PC.

The optical specs are this: 4x DVD+R DL; 16x8x16 DVD+RW; 16x6x16 DVD-RW; 40x24x40 CD-RW

I had my doubts about the ram too, but it isn't like it would be overclocked really.

Who knows about the motherboard. . .

It seems fine and emachines, IMHO, actually puts together a good system. It would not meet my needs but I know many people that would love to have all the stuff listed.

It looks OK I guess.

We sold quite a few eMachines PCs at work (we don't sell them any more, haven't done so since Easter time) and I have seen very few problems with them. All I can recall is two machines with faulty hard disks.

However, it may not have an AGP slot. The ones we sold didn't.

Well, the fact is that nobody can tell you that it is a bad deal. The fact is that we just can't get to the spec that we need to decide that. I can tell you that the brand is usually a sign that it is below what you would get from Dull or Grateway.

From what I have heard, e-machines can be good enough for many people for a good while. Which would bring us to the matter of will the hardware fail early? Again, nobody really knows.

Hardware is often rated for a MTBF (mean time before failure) which is only a statistical matter. Some hardware will die early and some will keep chugging along forever. I have a Maxtor 13GB in my comp that has been going since that was a great size to have. As far as I can tell, it is going to keep going forever. I have also had stuff fail the day after the one year warranty expired. Even though emachines in not considered great, you could win the statistical lottery.

i would say, its worth buying if the first thing you are willing to do is replace the $5.00 PSU. the rest of the machine is probably fine for the average needs of averge folks
the new PSU dosnt have to be expensive, just one that wont fry everything when it dies, or the power flickers slightly.

im fixing an emachines machine right now
psu died after 1.5yrs
250W in a celly 2.7 system

Hello

I think for his folks or beginer it would be a good machine.
the example restore disk, warranty, and works not too bad.

Fordman

Emachines is alright as far as quality is concerned. My dad has one (Celeron D 2.66GHz, 512MB RAM, 80GB hdd). His uses an Intel motherboard, Samsung ram, and a Seagate hdd. All of the wires are out of the way and not blocking airflow. Everything works fine, and he's had it for about a year now. It also was not too loaded with a bunch of stuff that you will never use. The only problems I have with it are:
1) Integrated graphics are really bad, as to be expected (845G chipset, IIRC)
2) No AGP slot, so gfx upgrade was limited to basic PCI cards, we ended up getting a Radeon 9200SE for it
3) It runs hot, about 60C under load. It would improve if the fans were on high all of the time, as they are barely on.
4) It only hit a little over 3.1GHz before it would freak (board only designed for up to 133FSB, I was running about 166 with no locks)

The first two shouldn't be an issue and neither should the third if it is going to be just for basic usage. The fourth definitely should not be a problem.

One of our customers had a newer emachine, i was suprised as hell to first notice a SATA hard drive, then a board with PCI-E slots. it had a decent sized HSF on it nad a ducted side panel. the psu was i think 300 watts, and seemed terribly small for the system, but emacines are always like that. i had a bad experience with my dads emachine, its mobo died, then its psu did after we had a new mobo in it. so now he has a 300 watt full siz psu sittin on top of his case with wires run into the opening in back. the samsung hard drive just died a few weeks ago, his cdrw is flaky on whether or not it decided to eject or read, but the CD rom is fine, aside from a broken bezel from the case bein stupid. the comp was an etower 667ir, celly 667, 64 megs of ram, 15 gig hard drive, and a cdrw and cd rom.

From working on prebuilt systems, I would just check to see how well cooled the hardrive is. A lot of the DELL's I have worked on have the hardrive right up front and rely on the PSU to pull air out the back of the case to get air circulation around the hardrives.

If theres no front fan, throw in one of them hardrive coolers with the twin fans on it.