I was reading an old post, when I noticed a load of manure about eMachines! Andrew Ordo, if you still post to this board, tell me which model eMachines were built by Elitegroup Computer Systems, or used ECS parts! Every eMachine I have ever known, (about every one made) has been made by TriGem Computer, 1055 Shingil-Dong, Ansan-Si Kyunggi-Do 425-120, South Korea using TriGem Motherboards. My computer is an eTower 533id, as I said before, no plastic washers, hot glue, ECS parts, bad batteries, flaky PS'es, faulty WD HDDs OR bad DIMM slots. Read the site http://e4all.freeservers.com/ It will tell everything. Also, will be posting scanned pages from eMachine manual! DF

check this out www.emachinessuck.com good luck with your emachine!!!

Thank you for pointing out that Emachines was so worthless. I knew that the machines were biult cheaply, but I had no idea that it was this bad. Now I know why my machine only cost me $150.00. Poor crafsmanship and poor support. I could have gotten a higher quality machine if i would have fished one out of the dumpster! I noticed that the website had several references to bad modems and power supplies. Now that I know of this problem I will replace them. In paticular, what issues do the 633ids series have? what will I have to replace to actually have a decent machine? I am not worried about violating the warrenty, because it is so worthless anyhow. Here is what I have upgraded so far: Hard drive RAM CD burner I did not purchase these replacement parts from Emachines, I replaced it with Office Depot. I opened my case and noticed that I only have a 120W power supply. I know this is severly underpowered for running 5 devices plus the MOBO. Where can I get a power supply that will fit in my Emachine? I wish to make this system as stable and reliable as possible (without rebiulding the whole unit). Do you know any issues that the 633ids has? Thank you.

Unfortunately, there has been some confusion over manufacturer names and it's my own fault for getting them mixed up. The eMachines are not actually built by ECS and they don't (at least most of them--there have apparently been some exceptions) use ECS brand motherboards. (None of the current models use ECS brand motherboards.) All current models do use TriGem motherboards. In addition, virtually every eMachine ever made has used TriGem boards--or at least bear the TriGem logo. About four or five years ago, I discovered that a motherboard pulled from an eMachine was IDENTICAL to an ECS board used in some PowerSpec models. These boards didn't just look identical, they were in fact identical in every respect, right down to the BIOS and firmware revision. I do know that the "PowerSpec" motherboard shipped from ECS and bore an Elitegroup label. I don't remember whether I looked to see who allegedly made the eMachine board. I may have assumed that it was also an ECS board. It is possible that the eMachine board bore a TriGem label and may have even shipped from a TriGem warehouse! These were the exact same part, however. It could be that there had been a mixup in a warehouse or maybe something got mislabelled somehow. It could also be that ECS, for whatever reason, was buying boards from TriGem and re-labelling them--or vice versa. It could even be that the eMachine had been previously serviced and had the motherboard replaced (a VERY common procedure for eMachines, I assure you!) with a part intended for a PowerSpec system (this sort of thing happens far more often than it should when hardware support is outsourced). Another possibility: It is not uncommon for manufacturers to sell parts that they didn't actually make and even put their own labels on them. It is also not uncommon for vendors to put different names on the same parts. For example, IBM fabricated motherboards for other manufacturers. These boards bore a different name, but they were actually made by IBM, although the IBM logo did not appear on the boards. The "My Favorite PC" line of computers (yes, that is--or was--a brand of computer) was manufactured by FIC, although FIC (wisely) didn't put their name on it! In fact, neither the FIC name nor logo was anywhere to be found on the My Favorite PC or in the accompanying documentation. Everything indicated that the manufacturer was in fact a company called "My favorite PC". To this day, I don't know if My Favorite PC, Inc. was really a separate business entity that contracted FIC to build computers for them or whether it was simply created by FIC to sell their own brand of computer. A lot of "IBM" label keyboards were really made by Lexmark or some other company (although Lexmark was actually IBM's printer and keyboard division at one time), such as Unicomp. Names, labels, documentation, and customer service reps can be very misleading and sometimes it's just about impossible to find out who really made what. Many people got pissed off when they discovered that their $99 Creative Sound Blaster PCI64 was actually an old $49 Ensoniq AudioPCI! Creative went out of their way to cover this up and even issued official statements that the cards were completely different products, but they were the same. They just had a Creative Labs sticker carefully placed over the Ensoniq logo. This happens so often with appliances like dish washers, refridgerators, television sets, and VCRs, it isn't even funny. My "Admiral" television set is actually an RCA model. It could be that some ECS boards I saw were actually made by TriGem, that some TriGem boards were made by ECS, or that some third party actually made the boards, which were stamped with the name of whomever was buying them. Please note that this is specualtion on my part; I don't actually know that this has happened. I do know that those eMachine and PowerSpec boards were exactly the same and the eMachines often exhibited some of the same problems as many Elitegroup systems (just not as frequently). Then again, all cheaply made systems tend to have a few common problems regardless of the manufacturer. Back to your original question: I really don't remember which model(s) had the boards that were the same as the board allegedly made by ECS, but quite honestly, I would avoid any model of eMachine. Some of the better eMachines are generally better than most ECS systems, but that's not saying much. Some eMachine users have reported no problems at all with their systems, but I have to wonder how long they've had their systems, what they're doing with them, and whether or not they're writing off the occassional crash, lockup, or glitch as something that "just happens". Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to try to straighten out a few things I had incorrectly stated in the previous post.

The e-monster 700k has an MSI motherboard folks- It came with the MODEL: MS-6191 evision: 1.0/1.3 with BIOS version: A6191MS16. And it has a whopping 512k on the L2 baby. No tri gem here. Athy 698 mhz. Piece of crap as some above said???...hmmm. leme see- I bought it at fry's on 6-21-01 for $300.00. I can run ANY, And i mean ANY game flawlessly, Of course I added an extra fan- soft oc'ed my Processor-and g-force3 ti500. Ya...the pc100 Ram sucks- DDR is all the rage now- and I max at 512 (which i have). I also added a 300w PS (had to custom mod it though). My PC has given me NO problems- I use ram boost- and it helps. This (700k) was the best PC E-machines ever put out. Period. Poor power supply (150w)...yes. Bit it never failed- I added the 300w for the OC and extra fans- and vid card. Did a clean install of WInxp PRO yesterday- after Fdisk on w/98. Runs even btter now. E-machines does-did put out some junk- but this machine was a true gem

I was shocked and amazed when I found this thread. I am personally responsible for a fleet of about 100 PCs, 80 of which are eMachines, from the 500i to the T3100. Those machines are in 7 different branches, across 4 states, with only myself to support them. With one exception, we have never had to take an eMachine back to the shop to have it fixed. The only exception to that rule is the one machine that has a BIOS get corrupted while battling with the Klez.e worm. My machines are used in warehouse environments that cause the machines to become the biggest dust collection systems you've ever seen. They are also used in office environments where they are constantly kicked, and hit by chairs and vacuums. I have more problems with the CAT5 going into the back of the machines than I do with the machines themselves. We have used the machines for more than 2 years now, for a variety of purposes, with very little problems. The hand full of HP, Compaq and White boxes that we have give me more problems than our eMachines. I'm not saying that the machines are perfect. I would love to be able to stuff more than 512mb into one, but my Compaq will also only take 512, so what do you do? I did have one stick of factory memory die on me. Oh well. We do have glitches every so often, but 99% of the problems we have can be directly traced back to the branch manager who formats him hard drive because he can't read his email. Or the sales person who decides that her machine will run faster if she deletes all those files that she doesn't recognize. Or the accounting person who thinks that if one anti-virus program is good, two will be better. Or any of the hundreds of other end-user problems that we have all had some experience with. And, let's not even think about discussing the people who ignore the virus talks, and open every piece of email anyway, "because they might miss something good!" If you need more evidence that eMachines aren't the worst machines in the world, which is what part of this thread tries to make them out to be, check out the current issue of PC Magazine, where an eMachine was rated the same as a Dell, and above a Compaq, and something else (which I forget at the moment) The Dell takes the Editors choice award, but only because it's benchmarks were a little faster. Those people, who make their living, and stake their reputation on their reviews, obviously thought high enough of the eMachine to rate it quite high, in spite of the cheaper cost. I've seen them , and heard good things aobut them on The Screensavers TV show, where, again, people are staking their reputations on what they say and use. And when you take into account the TCO over a lifetime of only two years, it can still be cheaper than buying the more expensive machines that last a little longer. I'm sorry you have had some issues with eMachines, but you will never be able to convince me that the era machines that I have used so far, are decent, inexpensive machines that will do what I ask of them, when I ask it. After two years I continue to buy new ones, including a T4165 that I just ordered this morning. If they go south on me, fine, I'll switch to something else, but until then, I'll sit back, and keep going.

I bought an emachine about 3 yrs ago and it still works well.(400 celeron) The power supply was a piece of crap and died quickly but I figured out a good solution. Instead of trying to find a new power box to fit I just bought a new generic case with a 300 watt power supply and transfered all my parts over. Problem solved! No more dealing with limited space and power. I did also upgrade to 256meg ram so it runs as fast it can. MY ONLY WARNING IS ABOUT THEIR REBATE PROGRAM. I have heard of many people that did not get their rebate, me included. All correct information was sent in but they denied processing because some info was supposedly "missing". I had photocopied everything sent in and nothing was absent. I reapplied but was denied because time frame was expired for rebate.