Best Buy, an eMachine and my friend ...

agathodaimon · July 25th, 2003, 02:43 PM

Ok, my friend decided recently that he REALLY wants to start playing EverQuest... So... He needs a computer.
He knows jack about computers, so he wanted me to build him one.
I explained everything to him that he needs to know, and came up with a list of parts and a price for a decent gaming rig.

I came up with a decent machine that ended up being around $800.00 or so...
He thought it was a bit expensive, and wanted to go to Best Buy to look around...

So, we go to Best Buy and browse around the computer department for a while looking at eMachines. He's like "WHOA these are SO CHEAP and they're the same thing that you built me, just half the price".
He found one there that costed $499.00 with no rebates, but it didn't include a monitor, video card (besides integrated) and it had half the ram he needed.
I DO NOT know what kind of motherboards these things use, but it had an Athlon XP2400 processor in it.
What is the deal with these eMachines? I've heard they are horrible from some people, but then I don't know much about them.

The machine I came up with for him had nothing but quality stuff in it, and after you add the monitor, ram and video card to the eMachine, the costs are roughly the same... But he's still kind of leaning towards the eMachine... I don't want him to get stuck with something that he isn't happy with, and that's why I want to build him one... Are the eMachines worth it?

He'd like it to be upgradeable too, but then I don't know how upgradeable an eMachine would be... We opened it up, and looked inside, but I couldn't tell what kind of mobo it had. It had an AGP 2x slot, 2 RAM dimms, and not much space for other drives.

Oh... By the way... I was actually IMPRESSED by the knowledge of the guy who was helping us who worked there... He never did answer my question though about what kind of chipset the mobo had... hmmm... was he hiding something? hehe

NeoStarO1 · July 25th, 2003, 02:50 PM

Emachines are not very upgradable and most of the stuff is propietry (sp?) and needing to get replacement parts from the emachines store as some of the other stuff won't fit. For example: take a look at the PSU, very small power and also the actual unit is smaller than a regular atx psu so if the psu ever goes bad you are stuck with purchasing from emachine store.

Most of those systems are not that upgradable. Really up to your friend, however if you laid it all down side by side, montior, computer, keyboard and tally up the price and show him the cost differences between yours and a full emachines setup, you might be able to persway him with a better machine for the same price or few bucks give or take. show him the differences of the amount of memory and such.

tobu · July 25th, 2003, 02:50 PM

We have emachines at work. In the lan cafe. only used for IM and IE. Dodgiest things i've ever seen.

agathodaimon · July 25th, 2003, 02:54 PM

yeah... it's hard explaining computers to someone who really has no clue what anything is... And especially when they see a computer with an 80-gig HD, Xp2400 processor, two CD drives & 256 megs of ram that costs a lot less than what you're trying build them, but has the same stuff.

I'm just trying to find reasons to persuade him NOT to buy one, and let me build him a machine.

sharder8 · July 25th, 2003, 03:45 PM

e-machine = Compaq

Compaq is now the rough equal to an e-machine, so take yer' pick!

Everyone has heard how bad a Compaq is . . . . e-machines aren't much better. And in some ways, the e-machine is worse.

Neo is right on the proprietary part though, the e-machine usually has a PSU that is 150W smaller than what it should be and then it isn't a standard size. So, when you burn out your PSU, you have to buy another one that is too small, directly from e-machine.

Send your friend here and have him ask us which is better!

Harder

ShawnD1 · July 25th, 2003, 04:34 PM

Emachines are just pure crap. I had one of them a few years ago (emonster celeron 650) and it's the wost computer I have ever had.
1. It had no AGP slot since the integrated video was on the AGP bus
2. It had only 2 PCI slots which I used for a video card and a NIC card
3. The power supplies SUCKS....only 120 watts!
4. It only had 2 ram slots and the manual said it could only handle 512mb in those 2 slots
5. The fan on the CPU burned out somehow within about 1 year of owning the computer
6. After changing the operating system to Windows 2000 I could no longer get half decent sound in any video games like Half-Life because the integrated sound drivers were part of the recover disk with windows 98!

AHHHHH I hate prebuilt computers, they suck. Prebuild computers are for people who don't need to upgrade. People who use their computers for things like email, internet, word processing and book keeping, nothing more. If he wants to use it for gaming or even something like having lots of data on his computer (more than 1 hard drive usualy), he NEEDS to get a custom made one.

Kruzin · July 25th, 2003, 07:40 PM

We have a bunch of Emachines at the school I work at.
Total garbage.
Power supplies die regularly, and while you can get them from other places (they are standard micro-ATX), it's cheaper to just replace the whole case with a real PS.
They are horrible for upgrading, as any new parts you put in will likely go over the limit of what their POS power supplies can handle.
Their sound and video are extremly difficult to make work right if you ever upgrade the OS to anything other than whats on the recovery disks. Forget ever updating drivers.
The comparison to Compaqs is an insult to Compaqs. While I hate those too, I'd take one any day over an Emachine.

They are buggy, unstable, slow, difficult to repair TRASH.
You get what you pay for...and when you pay the lowest price, you get the lowest quality.

Friends don't let friends buy Emachines

**RobRich** · July 25th, 2003, 07:47 PM

It likely has an SiS integrated motherboard chipset, as they are the cheapest currently available for integrated Athlon solutions.

And as with Kruzin, I would certainly tell a friend to buy a Compaq before ever mentioning eMachine. Take your friend to Walmart, then he can be "impressed" with pricing on a $199 Lindows system..... or perhaps tell him the truth in life: quality usually costs a few dollars more.

Honestly, print him a copy of this thread to see. Or search at google for "eMachine problems", then print the result page.

SPEEDO · July 25th, 2003, 07:49 PM

Quote:

Friends don't let friends buy Emachines

This is true but on the other hand if something goes wrong in say 13 months are you going to buy parts for the machine you built for him. It's hard building machines for friends and being able to warrantee it without getting into a hassle when it craps out.

Unless you get this all straightened out up front, But it's hard trust me.

Redwolf · July 25th, 2003, 08:09 PM

Emachines = pure CRAP. My 2 experiences with them were not fun. There is NO upgradablility (or very little, depending on if you see a shotgun-modded case as an upgrade

), second-rate components, and , well, the case does NOT go back on once you get it off (took me and another guy an hour (literally) to get one back on.) Don't do it!