Best Buy, an eMachine and my friend ... - Page 3

ShawnD1 · 08-31-2003, 02:11 AM

There's no way of knowing what the mobo is. My emachines manual never mentions what motherboard it has. Sisoft Sandra can't figure out what the motherboard is and the Emachines website doesn't say. Since I don't know the mobo, I can't get drivers. Since I have no drivers, I have no AGP acceleration, no advanced power management like hibernation, no wake on lan, no proper drivers for the integrated sound and I can't use that feature where you connect the sound card (integrated) to the CD rom and listen to music through the CD rom.

Prebuilt computers suck

DRIVER J.R. · 08-31-2003, 02:23 AM

I have hibernation on my eMachines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wanna see a screenshot?

Omardeth · 08-31-2003, 03:57 AM

for what they are . they aren't bad . if you just surfing no real gaming and doing bus apps . they are pretty good .

it is kinda like ketchup . hienz is the best and taste best , but store brand is cheap and it works .

pinoy87 · 09-01-2003, 02:30 PM

I was able to find out the mobo in my compaq presario 5WV254. Its a FIC KT133A. Forgot the model number. Started with an A then another letter then two numbers.

RedFury · 09-01-2003, 05:36 PM

I would see if you can't find similar but cheaper parts to trim off some of the fat on the custom built machine to make him feel more at ease. I just built a system for my friend minus keyboard, mouse, OS, and monitor for less than $500. Considering how cheap you can get a mouse, keyboard and monitors these days....you could likely get him built for $650 and still have better quality than the Emachines.

I would point out to him that if he wants to game, he's going to need a seperate video card anyway, and onboard video really doesn't get the job done...not to mention the fact that it sucks away system resources.

Sounds similar to a friend of mine trying to sell his Harley. The guy wants it, has the money, the wife likes it, but is afraid of Harley's after getting a ride on a larger bike ( crotch rocket ) and a driver that...well, isn't the best person to give a good first impression. She knows her husband can ride it, but she's afraid to be a passenger. How do you convince her that just because it is a bigger bike, it isn't more dangerous?

This is just an example folks, lets not get off topic and start talking motorcycles here

ShawnD1 · 09-01-2003, 07:09 PM

Another reason why prebuilt computers suck is because the integrated video. If you change the operating system, you no longer have any video!

My emachnines came with Windows98 so of course the drivers on the CD are for Win98. I upgraded to Windows XP after putting a PCI video card into the computer (because it has no AGP slot even!) and it worked ok. I wanted to take my card out and put it into another computer. Surprise surprise, I can't! Since there are no motherboard drivers, it doesn't detect the integrated video card and I can't use the thing at any higher than 800x600 or higher than 256 colors!

The Real Bingo · 09-01-2003, 10:16 PM

LMAO..A thread about Emachines, which is what I'm on now. It has crashed oh, about 4 times, the first 2 times the recovery disc worked, but the last two my friend had to work his computer magic to get it working. The last time it crashed he put XP pro on it, ever since then its been fine, and I added another 256mb of ram for 515, and upgraded the vid card to a Radeon 9100 128mb. The only complaint I have is that it restarts out of nowhere when I'm in the middle of doing something. I dunno whats wrong, maybe it gets overheated or something, but I do know Emachines are not worth getting just because they are cheap.

RedFury · 09-01-2003, 10:59 PM

Probably a power supply problem if it just reboots for no reason. You should see if you can monitor your voltages and temps with a hardware monitoring program. My Brother in law had that problem and it ended up being a bad PS.