EMachines My eMachines PC is a lemon Irvine Internet

I know it is an old thread but being a very old (qualified) technician with over 30 years technical experience I would suggest that anyone that has an emachine or any other brand of PC that exhibits the problems defined by Ramon, that you simply replace the ram. The gentleman who has bought a "lemon" although identical to his sons emachine would probably find that a $30 stick of ram would make his emachine perform as well as his sons.
Forget the good driver, bad driver garbage. No manufacturer deliberately designs a piece of software to fail when used with their hardware. Certainly update drivers when available but I would bet the house that this particular problem was faulty ram.

Not that I disagree with the technical responses.
However it does appear that eMachines produces a lot of lemons. Such is my case, it failed within a month, hangs a BIOS, won't POST, BSD, etc. My son has the same machine and it runs great. Looks like you get a good one or you get a lemon. If you get a lemon, well don't expect anything but excuses from eMachimes.

I am by no means a computer techi, just an ordinary person who has used computers since the "stone ages" of Commodore 64.

Ramon, the others posting here are absolutely correct. There is a lot to learn about computers. I am still learning. Maybe I can help explain some of it in very basic language. I do know that Windows itself takes up a certain amount of hard drive space and shared ram is just that - shared. Therefore, if you have an 8gig hard drive, you not be starting out with 8gig. Drivers are what makes different components play well with your computer. Drivers are not the same as drives. Drivers are not physical components, but software. The manufacturers are always coming out with new ones. Just because you have an Emachines computer, it does not mean the various components are made by Emachines. The sound card may be Turtle Beach, Sound Blaster, etc. The same with the video cards - NVidea, etc. To update, you go to their websites and download. Ram is important. The more the better. Almost all computers today are upgradeable in terms of Ram. What you do is find out the maximum amount of Ram for your particular computer. There are slots in your case for the ram. It may be in various configurations - e.g. 4 slots (2 containing blank ram (to be used for upgrades), 2 slots of 128m each for a total of 256 or any other configurations. Remember, Windows itself uses Ram so 256 is not totally available for games. Also, if your video card has "shared" ram, it also takes a piece of the 256. You upgrade this by swaping and/or adding the modules. Just be sure you are using the correct type of Ram for your computer - there are a lot of different types out there. Also, remember when buying a game, there are sometimes both minimum and recommended requirements. To get the best experience be well within the recommended requirements.

Technology is evolving so fast that it seems like you can buy a "state of the art" product only to find it is a dinosaur by the time it's delivered. In the computer field, two years is a long time. I remember when my Win95, 64mg ram and 333 processor could run anything out there. Now, I have to be careful because my 1.2gig processor and 512 Ram may not be enough.

Like the others suggested, take a course on computers. If you cannot do this, read, read, read. Good luck with your computer.

Again your stupidity has proven my points again!! SO he SCREWED you and bought you a new case, which wasn't needed, and probably a new motherboard which wasn't needed......What did you do with the old motherboard might I ask?

If you gave it to your 17 yr old techie then again he screwed you he has probably put it in a new case and built another computer around it. So you buy a crap a*s video card even by 2 years ago standards and the come on here crying about it, dude you are too much!

No E-machines doesn't ordered machines with out dated drivers, what happens is your machine may sit on the shelf for a few months and new drivers do come out in that time and they expect you to be smart enough to read and go out and download the new drivers and install them, but then again reading is hard for some people and you have proven that time and time again in this thread!

Like we SAID he parted out your old computer and all he did was charge you $200.00 to put it in a nice new shiny case, I guarantee he laughed all the way to the bank!!

Again brainwave, can some person really be this d**n stupid? You go and buy and bigger hard drive and you will see that there is a difference in the size rating because it's easier for people to say 1000mb equals a gig even thought it's not actually a gig; the TRUE rating for a gig is 1024 mb.

So you start doing the math and then also you have to remember that the hard drive will take space to put the MBR. You sir are a retard and a complete idiot.

Stop posting while your ahead, all I will do now is make you look like an idiot for paying $200.00 for a case when you could have gotten one for 30 bucks at most 50 bucks and it would have been all nice and pretty for ya.

You not having any problems with your "NEW" machine proves my points the parts that were in your e-machine didn't need to be replaced, just updated! You sir are the disgrace, retard and rip off.

Again your stupidity has proven my points again!! SO he SCREWED you and bought you a new case, which wasn't needed, and probably a new motherboard which wasn't needed......What did you do with the old motherboard might I ask?

If you gave it to your 17 yr old techie then again he screwed you he has probably put it in a new case and built another computer around it. So you buy a crap a*s video card even by 2 years ago standards and the come on here crying about it, dude you are too much!

No E-machines doesn't ordered machines with out dated drivers, what happens is your machine may sit on the shelf for a few months and new drivers do come out in that time and they expect you to be smart enough to read and go out and download the new drivers and install them, but then again reading is hard for some people and you have proven that time and time again in this thread!

Like we SAID he parted out your old computer and all he did was charge you $200.00 to put it in a nice new shiny case, I guarantee he laughed all the way to the bank!!

Again brainwave, can some person really be this d**n stupid? You go and buy and bigger hard drive and you will see that there is a difference in the size rating because it's easier for people to say 1000mb equals a gig even thought it's not actually a gig; the TRUE rating for a gig is 1024 mb.

So you start doing the math and then also you have to remember that the hard drive will take space to put the MBR. You sir are a retard and a complete idiot.

Stop posting while your ahead, all I will do now is make you look like an idiot for paying $200.00 for a case when you could have gotten one for 30 bucks at most 50 bucks and it would have been all nice and pretty for ya.

You not having any problems with your "NEW" machine proves my points the parts that were in your e-machine didn't need to be replaced, just updated! You sir are the disgrace, retard and rip off.

Again your stupidity has proven my points again!! SO he SCREWED you and bought you a new case, which wasn't needed, and probably a new motherboard which wasn't needed......What did you do with the old motherboard might I ask?

If you gave it to your 17 yr old techie then again he screwed you he has probably put it in a new case and built another computer around it. So you buy a crap a*s video card even by 2 years ago standards and the come on here crying about it, dude you are too much!

No E-machines doesn't ordered machines with out dated drivers, what happens is your machine may sit on the shelf for a few months and new drivers do come out in that time and they expect you to be smart enough to read and go out and download the new drivers and install them, but then again reading is hard for some people and you have proven that time and time again in this thread!

Like we SAID he parted out your old computer and all he did was charge you $200.00 to put it in a nice new shiny case, I guarantee he laughed all the way to the bank!!

Again brainwave, can some person really be this d**n stupid? You go and buy and bigger hard drive and you will see that there is a difference in the size rating because it's easier for people to say 1000mb equals a gig even thought it's not actually a gig; the TRUE rating for a gig is 1024 mb.

So you start doing the math and then also you have to remember that the hard drive will take space to put the MBR. You sir are a retard and a complete idiot.

Stop posting while your ahead, all I will do now is make you look like an idiot for paying $200.00 for a case when you could have gotten one for 30 bucks at most 50 bucks and it would have been all nice and pretty for ya.

You not having any problems with your "NEW" machine proves my points the parts that were in your e-machine didn't need to be replaced, just updated! You sir are the disgrace, retard and rip off.

Again your stupidity has proven my points again!! SO he SCREWED you and bought you a new case, which wasn't needed, and probably a new motherboard which wasn't needed......What did you do with the old motherboard might I ask?

If you gave it to your 17 yr old techie then again he screwed you he has probably put it in a new case and built another computer around it. So you buy a crap a*s video card even by 2 years ago standards and the come on here crying about it, dude you are too much!

No E-machines doesn't ordered machines with out dated drivers, what happens is your machine may sit on the shelf for a few months and new drivers do come out in that time and they expect you to be smart enough to read and go out and download the new drivers and install them, but then again reading is hard for some people and you have proven that time and time again in this thread!

Like we SAID he parted out your old computer and all he did was charge you $200.00 to put it in a nice new shiny case, I guarantee he laughed all the way to the bank!!

Again brainwave, can some person really be this d**n stupid? You go and buy and bigger hard drive and you will see that there is a difference in the size rating because it's easier for people to say 1000mb equals a gig even thought it's not actually a gig; the TRUE rating for a gig is 1024 mb.

So you start doing the math and then also you have to remember that the hard drive will take space to put the MBR. You sir are a retard and a complete idiot.

Stop posting while your ahead, all I will do now is make you look like an idiot for paying $200.00 for a case when you could have gotten one for 30 bucks at most 50 bucks and it would have been all nice and pretty for ya.

You not having any problems with your "NEW" machine proves my points the parts that were in your e-machine didn't need to be replaced, just updated! You sir are the disgrace, retard and rip off.

Ok Ramon I am going to use the web site that you listed and build you a middle of the road computer. I am going to use components that I would use if I were going to build a computer and sell it for around 500.00 for the system. Here are the prices and the specs.


$28.88 APEX SK337-A Black Computer Case - Retail
Steel ATX Mid Tower
USB, Audio Front Ports
350W Power Supply


$115.00 AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 333MHz FSB Socket A Processor - Retail
2.167GHz
0.13 m Barton
512KB L2 Cache


$11.99VANTEC SF12025L 120mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan - Retail
1500 rpm 53 cfm Air Flow
28 dBA Noise Level
Compatibility Case


$70.25ECS NFORCE4-A754 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Socket 754 Athlon 64/Sempron
NVIDIA nForce4
3x 184pin DDR


$42.00 CORSAIR ValueSelect 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM System Memory - Retail
DDR 400 (PC 3200)
Unbuffered
Cas Latency 2.5


$59.00
rebate -$2.00
$57.00 Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD 3.5" Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
80GB
7200 RPM 8MB Cache
Serial ATA150

eVGA 128-P1-NV94 Geforce4 MX4000 128MB DDR PCI Video Card - Retail
Core clock: 250MHz
D-SUB: 1
DirectX: DirectX 7
Max Resolution: 2048x1536@60Hz
Memory Clock: 400MHz
Memory Interface: 64-bit
OpenGL: OpenGL 1.3
TV Tuner: No
TV-Out: S-Video Out
VIVO: No
$49.00
The motherboard has an onboard sound card so none is needed

Total for the parts listed 376.12. Did you really fall for the old "part won't fit so you need a new case" line? What parts didn't fit the old case. The reason why I ask this is the computer I am using now is an emachine and I have added a dvd/cd burner, an 256 meg nvidia video card, (2) 512 ram chips, and a vantech all in one card reader and they all fit just fine. What parts did he replace other than the case for 200.00? Just from saying he showed you new parts and a case for 200.00 means that he used parts from your emachine. I said it before and it was backed up from another computer technician, Emachine does not write the drivers for the hardware so how can emachine have bad drivers? You have to update the driver every once in a while and windows XP can do that for you. Emachines also comes with a program called bigfix which updates drivers for emachines only. I never said that you have a compac. What I said was it does not matter if your buy a compac, emachine, or HP for that matter, they all run the same driver. You said it yourself, the reason why your games was shutting down was because of the s3 prosavage is not well for games. No kidding idiot. It has 32megs of shared ram. So you spent 200 for another idiot to rebuild your own system when all you needed was a video card that you could have bought and put in yourself for 49.00 (the card above) I did a little research on your system and the motherboard that you had did not have an agp slot you you would have had to use a pci card (which is the card listed above). The other "technician idiot" was probably trying to use an agp card and that is why he said the part would not fit. He probably swapped out your motherboard, reused your processor, put in an agp video card, charging you more and replacing what you did not need to replace.
You are calling somebody with 10 years IT experience (eric) and someone who has spent the last 8 years running his own business repairing, upgrading and building computers (me) retards? You might think that we are retards because we are proving you wrong, but at least we didn't get a*s raped without being talked dirty to first. Next time think before you speak and go out and take a basic computer course at any trade school or adult learning center. The money you save later just might be your own.

My eMachines have a brand of drivers that aren't reliable and upgrading parts is not well because the tower is too small for the upgrade. The technician orders parts to is for upgrading my old PC, but it can't fit so he showed parts and the new tower and the total is $200 plus tax. The only reason that the games I played on my eMachines C2160 keeps closing itself because the graphic card (S3 Pro Salvage) is not well for games. Maybe eMachines ordered parts from the driver manufacturer with outdated or used drivers. Plus, the technician didn't order used parts, he ordered it brand new from a website and he told about the mediocre drivers found in some eMachines PC. The box said that the hard drive disk is 60 GB but it showed only 55.8 GB is the other 4.2 GB used for drivers or its a scam. Stop hurting my feelings or the techie becuase y'all people are retards and stupid. He purchased it at newegg.com becuase the parts are cheaper and I have no problems with the drivers on my new system. You people are rip-offs, disgrace, and retards

Let me break a FEW THINGS down for Ramon.
1st- your e-machine does have 256 Megs of Ram; it shows 224 Megs because well if you would have PLAINLY read the box it CLEARLY states that your video is 32 Megs of SHARED RAM. Can I say again SHARED RAM, which means it shares the ram with the computer?

2nd- When trying to RUN ANY GAME OR APPLICATION it CLEARLY state on the package what's it's Minimum and optimum standards are, if your to STUPID to read then your getting EXACTLY what you deserve! You can't go and buy a game today and expect it to run on technology that was built 2 years ago. There have been MAJOR changes in not only graphics but space limitations also. That's like taking a Windows 95 machine and expecting MS Flight Sim 2004 to run it with no problem, it just doesn't work like that!

3rd- If you would have again CLEARLY read the documentation that was included with your e-machine you would have been able to reformat your computer on your own time and save you any money you may have spent. A stupid monkey can reformat an e-machine, what do you think the geek squad is a bunch of trained, and now rich thanks to people like you, monkeys!

4th- I would consider my self an expert because I've been in the IT field for about 10 years and have built my fair share of computers, hell I built all 4 that are in my house now. Every 2 years or so I will sell the ones I bought and re-build new ones at my house so I can stay up with technology and the things that are up to date!

You go ahead and believe that 17 yr old kid built you a GREAT machine for $200.00. Even if he didn't use some of your e-machines parts he HAD TO USE used parts. A half decent motherboard and processor will run you $150.00 and that's not the best processor out there. That's just a baseline middle of the road mobo and proc. Then you figure your case is anywhere from $30-50. So were up to $180-200. That's no Audio, Video, CD-Rom, Hard Drive, Floppy, Ram, and Network/Modem Card. You do the math and tell me where he came up with a $200.00 computer. Hell go out and look for yourself, you can't buy parts for a machine for under $350.00 and that's no labor to put it all together. Also if your e-machine is gone, where's it gone to? That 17 yr old Technician take it? If so I CAN GUARANTEE he re-formatted it and sold it to someone else. But any who for you to call someone else STUPID is the pot calling the kettle black, because every statement you've made here shows how stupid you really are! The Older e-machines were the craps ones, you couldn't get me to work on one of those machine 6 years ago and now they are putting out some of the best machines on the market, next to custom built of course. But like J stated you have to get better video and more ram and then the benefit of an e-machine pays off for years to come! Like J said e-machines doesn't make drivers, nor does Compaq, your video drivers are usually NVIDIA or ATI who makes you video card so they put out new drivers. Also if you were to stupid enough to NOT go out and get new drivers then again you deserve what you got.

I have had 2 eMachines since 2000 and have had absolutely no problems at all. Ran two versions of MS Flight Sim after upgrading the RAM. That is also the first thing I do after buying a new computer, put as much RAM in as possible. I don't upgrade the vidoe card as I do not do much gaming on my PC (oh how I love my PS2 on my 57-inch widescreen!).

Ramon, based on the information provided, I'd say you did something to totally screw up your system.

I am actually typing this on an EMachines T2778 that I purchased 1.5 years ago. You probably won't believe me, but I have NEVER had a problem with this machine, and I use it for everything from gaming to internet to burning cds and dvd's and loading my mp3 player. Mind you-- this is a system straight out of the box, with NO additions, other than a printer.

From what I read, you're complaining about a computer you purchased in 2003 NOW--in May 2005, which would make it over 2 years old--because it won't run current games??? Haven't you ever heard of UPGRADING your system every couple of years?? Even if you just upgrade what you have instead of buying a whole new machine?

I automatically load updates on all my drivers and Windows XP, and I have NEVER had a problem. The only reason I purchased this system is because the system I had previously was one that I had built myself and it was either replace the motherboard and all the drives(which I could have done, but it was $$$) or go out and buy a new computer that someone else made for $$. I got a great deal, and a system I'm more than happy with that does everything I want it to do and more.

Go have some cheese with that whine and realize that as technology changes, you have to upgrade sometimes--it's not the fault of the computer if you don't.

Dude, the technician knows everything about computers and he didn't part it out on my old PC and put it on the new PC. He ordered reliable parts and my new custom-build PC never crashes compared with my eMachines PC. Plus I didn't have a Compaq and the drivers for eMachines are probably outdated or unreliable and the technician charged us $200 for the new PC. Older eMachines PCs are reliable but newer models aren't reliable. Plus the technician did not put the parts from my old one and put it on the new case. The technician did not rip us off, the only rip-off around is you 'cause you are just plain stupid.

Well first I have to say that your are complaining about a 2 year old pc not being able to play NFS Underground. Your computer has probably a 32 meg video chip and only 256 megs of memory and you wonder why you couldn't play it. Read the specs and it says a 32 meg video card and 256 megs of memory but anyone who knows anything about computers knows that windows running by its self will eat up over 100 megs of memory alone. I have owned 5 emachines and the first thing I do every time is put in more memory and a bigger video card. You get what you pay for emachine are inexpensive because they have lower specs. The problem you have with having to restore it all the time could have been the hard drive. I want to know how much this 17 year old technician charged your mom for his "custom built pc" The fact that he said that emachines only last 2 years and have the worst drivers lead me to think that he probably should go back to school. The drivers are not written by emachines they are written by the manufacturer of the devices.

You spend 1200.00 for a compac and 400.00 for an emachine and they run the same drivers. And I have 2 emachines that my kids use that are over 5+ years old running windows 98 without any problem at all. This "technician" probably took your old emachine back to his "shop" and used most of those parts to create the custom computer that you now use.

The reason why I say that is because there are some "technicians" out there who do nothing more that swap the case (about 30.00), and change the hard drive (about 100.00), load on a clean copy of windows and drivers then turn around and resell you your computer for 500+.