Yes, this is something i replied in a different thread, but i felt for the good of mankind it deserved its own thread.

DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, NO MATTER HOW TEMPTING, PURCHASE ANYTHING MADE BY E-MACHINES OR GATEWAY.

Go find the consumer product something web page and search for emachine. Read the horror stories. I speak to you as someone, who was constrained by a budget, and made the foolish mistake of purchasing a emachine. I paid for it. For 600 bucks for just the tower, i got a machine with a 1 yr warranty. It did not have the stated amount of RAM. After 11 months to the day, My computer crashed HARD do to a hardware failure. Enduring emachine's customer service is a nightmare, a nightmare you pay for since THEY DON;T EVEN HAVE A TOLL FREE NUMBER!!. You will be on hold for over an hour. Your call will mysteriously discontenct repeatedly. You will deal with rude, ignorant, impolite, beligerent people. Their tech support have No computer knowledge and read from index cards in third world countries. They will fight to keep you form getting your computer fixed. Eventually, they gave in and replaced my motherboard and modem, and sent it back. most people are not that lucky, they get the wrong computer or an unfixed computer back, or nothing at all. 4 days after i got it back, my hard drive crashed and they refused, despite still being under warranty, to repair it, but would only offer to send me a replacement for 75 dollars.

DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, NO MATTER HOW TEMPTING, PURCHASE ANYTHING MADE BY E-MACHINES OR GATEWAY.

besides my own personal nightmare (which ended when i sold it for 200 bucks, while still under warranty) here is a short list of reason not to ever consider doing business with this company:

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/emachine.htm
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/emachine_power.html
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/emachine_ram.html
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/e...ne_rebates.html
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/emachine_other.html
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/emachine_worm.html
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/e...ne_defects.html
http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/8829/128485.html
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic62782-2.html
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Emachines
http://www.habboforum.com/hardware-periphe...hines-suck.html
http://www.computing.net/cpus/wwwboard/forum/745.html

I could go on, but let me tell you, i wish someone would have given ME this information before i went out computer shopping.

again,

DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, NO MATTER HOW TEMPTING, PURCHASE ANYTHING MADE BY E-MACHINES OR GATEWAY.

They do seem like a scumbag company , i'd heard before you posted this they were no good . If you can do it, build your own PC . It's not really that difficult and costs far less than these shark companies sell for .

I bought an e-machine about two months ago and returned it the next day. It was garbage.
I'll stick with my Dell or Compaq puters. Good advice HDB..

Okay enlighten me all lol. What is an e-machine?

I've had an e-machine for 6 years with no problems, I've increased it's RAM, changed it's hard drive, and my son even changed the operating system to Linux, never had a problem.

I will admit that E-machines have gotten better but that is not saying much. Like most other big box retailers they use proprietary parts that oftentimes have to be replaced only by their parts as they are not a standard size. 7-8 years ago I was working for an Internet technical support company and half the calls we got with modem related problems were from people with E-machines. The modems they were using at the time were pure crap. They were using the cheapest winmodem available then and back then the CPUs weren't as fast as they are today to help compensate. They have since fixed that problem but they will never change my opinion. They are right at the top of the worst along with AOL in my book.

I got an eMachine about 5 years years ago. It really wasn't that bad, but it failed constantly after awhile (mostly due to me abusing it more than it could handle). It crapped out completely last year, and I got a newer model for Christmas, and it works fine. It also wasn't really that expensive. There's nothing really wrong with these computers. There definately are better ones, but these work pretty well.

Too late. I have a "emachines computer" & right now it's a lot better then what I used to have. :3 Too bad.

Hey MoonPrincess, can you tell me what an emachine is, is it EiSystems or something else?

This is from Lotus Flower who is very naive in the area of emachine things lol

Lotus flower, it is a company in the usa thats sells you complete pc systems, you are in the uk so luckily you are not liable to be in contact with them

I don't even know of "emachines." Until I got my new computer for Christmas one time. :/ I don't know much about it, Lotus.

I wasn't sure what to think of this. We have two 4-5 year old e-Machines that have worked perfectly, no problems at all. We've added a few upgrades over the years, I'm on one now I use as an internet computer and occasionally for Photoshop and Everquest, they are not top of the line but for their age they do great. I looked it up and the two companies merged somewhere in early 2004, so ours are pre-merger.

We don't get much of a chance to deal with "tech support" at work, but today I had a simple task to do - order a notebook keyboard for a gateway laptop just over 1 year old. I started out on the website and asked a sales agent on online chat. She directed me to a toll free number. Easy enough! I called and the fellow on the phone told me they only supply e-Machine parts, and to talk to sales on the website and they will tell me who to contact. I told him they gave me this number. He sighed and said.. these exact words, "those people over there are incompetent!" Then something to the effect of go again and nag them until they give you the right number. So I go back, they try to give me the same number. I tell them, "I called them, they told me they don't supply gateway notebook parts, and they also called gateway sales incompetent". I get a pause... a long, long pause. Hello?? They give me another "tech support" chat line to talk to. So I go to the url, give them all kinds of personal information I don't want to give out, and he spends 20 minutes figuring out that they "no longer stock the part" (that's just over 1 year old!). He tells me I will have to call Corporate Headquarters of all places, I asked him if I would have to talk to the "President of Gateway". He didn't laugh. So I call the number, after the automated voice tells me I'll be on hold for a "minimum of 15 minutes", I check the "801" number online. It's not toll free, it's an area code in Utah, they can take their long distance charges and shove them where the keyboards aren't stocked - which is apparently any location associated with Gateway. So, I will probably end up going through a third party or ebay.

I do have to give the e-Machines parts guy credit though, he came straight out and told me how worthless they were on the Gateway website. No hold times, so if you have a laptop part for an e-Machine not under warranty it should be easy to get a replacement.

As far as building one yourself being cheaper, not necessarily true. We worked with a dell sales agent to get exactly what we wanted. This was after I spent a few months watching prices for parts I wanted from online sites (newegg mostly) and our wholesale parts supplier at work. Dell ended up being cheaper, but you must work with them, check your components carefully and make sure you're getting what you want. Then when you have it all figured out, complain about the price and they'll usually send you a mail in rebate (ours was $50). Plus we got an upgrade to Vista for $10. Not going to use it yet, but at least I don't have to pay a lot when we decide to make the move. Having the warranty all in one place helps too, when our laptop dvd burner went out we had a new one at our door in 3 days.

yeah they come with vista now, i cant even play diablo two on the damn thing

meh, I use Dell Outlet, as cheap, refurbished machines, but ive had no issues what so ever with dells yet..

I'm using an Emachine right now. The only words that could describe it are on this sites no no list however. It's managed to live about 2-3 years now!

I have had an eMachine for about 3 years now and I haven't had any problems with it, except a capacitor fell off in the power supply and I'm having a bit of a problem installing a new one. But besides that, I like it. I bought a HP because I was needing a PCI Express slot and I needed a monitor and I wanted to get it before Vista came out. I had to exchange the HP because it wasn't displaying any red color. So I already have a strike against HP but eMachines hasn't been bad at all.

U know whats funny? If you buy an emachine from Best buy ,, the Geek squad will try to charge u 100 bux to get rid of all the unwanted software on it... lol and then when you tel them Youve been an IT professional for well over 12 years, they look at you funny and try to tell you that your waranty will be void if you do it yer self.. grrr man o man.. whut a bunch..

My point? 100 flippen bux to uninstall cr@pware !100!!!!! OMG, talk about "Ill scratch your back you scratch mine" meh!!

p.s Not my buy
Sister bought one on limited budget
I would never buy emachine.. get one for free? yes why not,, spend money on one? nopes

I cant help but to stick up for GATEWAY. I have a GT5056 PC from GATEWAY and it's lasted for longer then a year now without anything bad happening to it. In fact i remember a call i made to gateway and the guy i talked to was polite, direct and to the point. Im not calling you a liar HotDog im just describing my gateway experience so far.

Weve got two dell laptops.. No issues been at least 1.5 years since we got my wife's and mine is about 6 month old.. Mine's a cheapy 130b Inspiron that I got refurb from dell for 350 bux.. its awsome though for the price and my usage.. 40 gb hd, wifi(a/b/g) 1gb ram, 1.3g I think, cant rememmber on thhe speed (not on it right now) .. Only peeve... I need a 6 cell batery, cuz I set it to not dim when disconnected so battery lasts about 45 minutes.. with diming it lasts about 1.5 hrs.. 6 cell I would immagine would at least last me 1.5 without dimming :-p

I have a OLD emachine... haha It has worked just fine... so far it's a older version althought. Bought it off a friend for $250....

im a little late to this thread but the OP is full of it. Ive had my emachines computer for about 5 years now...no problems at all, it started with windows xp and now is running vista....no issues, no disabled features due to lack of hardware either.

What it all comes down to is whether or not you know how to use a computer or not..if you know how to use a computer you wont have any problems with a lesser expensive brand...if you dont know how to use a computer save the extra couple hundred bucks and get a computer that will do most of the thinking for you and also come with support....simple reality

LOL they dont use parts of unstandard sizes, and AOL is the number one ISP in the world for a reason....

at least know a little something before making a comment about LMAO

Read above quote. Yours isn't garbage because yours is pre-gateway merger. Now they're still better than gateway, but they are no longer the machines that they used to be. Tech support has gone downhill and so have the quality of parts.


I'd advise you to do the same. AOL is number one because they had good marketing and were simple to use (until they bogged the machine so bad it wouldn't run any longer, then you were on your own as they claim it's a problem with the computer and it ends up in the shop). Marketing is the only reason they were popular! Take a look at half the older dial up computers I see every day, and you'll find between 3-5 copies of AOL. Why would a good ISP install this many copies of software on a machine instead of upgrading the current version? Why would good software put over 1500 entries in the registry and bog down older machines so badly they can barely move? Got viruses and malware, you either had nothing, didn't bother to do your updates, or actually trusted AOL with protecting your computer! (hint: AOL has the worst safety record of any mass marketed av/amal protection out there) Maybe that's why they now offer all the content and email addresses for free.

(link not allowed - search existing link for aol.com) Here is a list of unsafe AOL "hometown" pages set up either specifically to infect computers or hacked into later, AOL hasn't done a very good job and allowed likely thousands and maybe even millions of computers to become infected by this unsafe practice. Not that the users would know if they're running AOL av/amal protection... Until their computers can't move that is.

AOL was even accused of being "badware" themselves with release 9.0:

Continue reading here

Conclusion: Aol is very very bad software.

my emachine has a pretty cool monitor.....

HA, I'm on an e-machine right now.

Maybe they don't now but they did. AOL is only number one because a lot of people don't know any better. For example, a lot of people don't know that they can get the "exclusive" AOL content elsewhere for free and access to the internet far cheaper.

At least know a little something before making a comment.

Buying an Emachine should be about as comfortable as hopping on a flight with Valu-Jet.

E-machines are alive and doing well in the UK presently (mainly because they got their foot in the door with one of the large electrical retail outlets). The machines now that are now available since the Gateway merger are significantly better than the older ones and that is fact. The older E-machines used proprietory components such as power supplies that could not be replaced with generic off the shelf models due to the unique dimensions of the chassis's they used to use. The components in the newer machines are of a higher specification than the older ones as well with a lot of the newer systems using MSI motherboards (which although not the best but a lot better than the very cheap ECS made boards that a lot of other OEMs use).

As for the 'Geek Squad' saying that your warranty is void if you remove the software yourself, that is utter lies and is illegal. As long as you can prove that the removal of the software you do not want has not caused the problem then you are covered under warranty. No company will cover ANYTHING software related under warranty anyway as that is out of their hands so they are running a scam there regardless. The warranty is for the hardware and hardware only, and removing software will not cause irreversible damage to hardware components.

I bought an emachine a couple weeks ago and promptly returned it after I experienced Vista. I spent a couple days trying to downgrade it to XP Pro but couldn't get it to boot from the CD ROM.
I couldn't even downgrade to Win 95 (so I could upgrade to XP Pro).

Commercial name brand computers are just too restrictive when you upgrade almost ANYTHING!

I've used e-machine for 5 years, it never gave me any problems.

Emachines is the budget brand from Gateway computers. They're fine as far a low-end computers go.

Yea that's why I returned mine. VISTA SUCKS!!

It wouldn't even let me downgrade to win 95 so I could upgrade to XP...
As long as computers come with VISTA I want nothing to do with PC gaming.

Thanks VISTA for ruining my favorite hobby.

You can't successfully downgrade Vista, it really doesn't work (especially if it's the x64 version).

As far as Vista and games go, you're right, it doesnt' run well, but that's not precisely Vista's fault. The game makers haven't come out with their upgrades and patches to support their old software on the new Vista. Give the game makers another 6-9 months and you'll find that everything starts working well on Vista. Any new OS always has App Compat issues for about a year while everyone catches up to the new OS.

Trust me on this one.

My Dad got an e-machines (Athalon/winME) about 5 years ago. He's utterly technophobic, and entirely incapable of dealing with a problem on the computer.

I get called over once every couple of months because he's deleted an icon by accident, or 'lost' a document. (because he can't remember where he stored it). Apart from that, it's worked perfectly.

6 months ago, he bought my Mum an E-Machines (pentium 4/WinXP). Ditto. No hardware or software problems.

Mind you - we had to strip out a load of bundled software and unecessary 'free trial' icons first. But once set up... no problemo.

As for AOL. This is NOT software, this is a VIRUS.

If you install AOL, then you no longer own a computer. The computer belongs to AOL, and it will inform you of the correct method of doing everything. You will only use AOL sanctioned programs and methods. AOL knows best how you should use the computer, despite any recidivist independant idea's you may have. You WILL worship at the church of AOL.

Given the choice of installing AOL or eating Aubergines, I will always plumb for the latter, on the grounds that Aubergines are easier to uninstall. (I just stick a finger down my throat).

Meow Purr.

I had an Emachine 220 which I bought on the basis that it was only 200 quid from pc world(I knew the staff as I worked in a bar across the road at the time and they knocked 100 quid off it!). It did rather well for several years despite a fair bit of abuse.

Unfortunatly when I moved house i plugged it into the wrong 4 way extension, Plugging the tv and dvd into the surgemaster. Then we got a power surge during a storm! completly fried the whole thing and unfortnatly it wasnt covered, which came as a surprise to me! So I swapped the surgemaster over and bought a much higher spec eisystem (is that the same as Emachine?looks like it might be) PC for a mere 120 quid inc better graphics card worth 50quid, a pair of ram stick thingies that gave 4xram than the machine came with (probably another 80 quids worth) and the machine itself had been priced at around 250....so somehow I got a fair bit of discount:D
Im not quite so happy with it, it seems a bit more sluggish at times and doesnt like being asked to do too much at once, especially straight after start up, but overall its not bad pc, especially after all the upgrades have been added on!

Maybe Emachines are rubbish but I cant really tell, as my first computers were a spectrum sinclair console, and an Amstrad from the Neoloithic period that had to booted from those old 5"floppies cos it didnt have a hard drive. And games that had graphics beyond those of Rogue(the original pc adventure roleplay game!) just didnt get look in. Space invaders? No chance!