Build your own. It's often the cheapest way. It's also the only way to get everything you want, and nothing you don't. PM me if you want my help. I've built a lot of computers and it's not that hard. I can help you get something configured.

Mike

Edit: Every OEM is proprietary. Dell is one of the worst. (Although the best overall OEM) They use proprietary PSUs, mobos, connections, everything they can. About the only things that aren't are the drives and CPU. Pretty much every OEM is like that.

 

So far mines been chuggin along just fine for three or four years, the only thing I did was upgrade the memory a while back cuz it only came with 32 megs. I also had to wipe and reinstall stuff becasue of a virus that was slowly causing things to dissapear.
-Chris

 

I have been using an eMachine PIII 600 10gig 128RAM for the past four years for mostly business and some online gaming.

Living in SW rural Arizona without any A/C in the office, Swamp Cooler only (Evaporative cooling) it has lasted through three Summers of intense heat comparatively speaking. It can get into the 90s during the Summer despite the evaporative cooling during the day and in the high 70s/low 80s at time. This is when it can be in the Teens outside. I just learned to use it mostly at night and during the cooler mornings. Turn it off during the hotter part of the day. Fortunately, my friend installed a couple of extra fans to help keep the heat inside down. So it runs with three.

Another problem is dust and dirt as I do live in the desert. The office is right next to my husband's blacksmith shop and I cannot keep all the coal smoke out when he cranks up the forge to "cook" the coal into coke. There is no way I can keep static electricity away from it either. Occasionally, my husband will take the tower case off and gently blow the collected dust out with his oxygen torch. The monitor is over six years old and was used with my former eMachine 433 and my HP120 before that.

We get some bad Desert thunderstorms out here and it has survived several unexpected power outtages from lightening hitting close by if not at home. At home, I just unplug the powercord and modem. I do have a computer cover when the dust storms hit.

A friend got this one, wiped clean, from an online Surplus Computer store in mid 2001. He had to install all the software (Win98se, Corel, Adobe, et.c.). It came with 32 RAM that he upgraded to 96. A year later installed extra RAM so I could play some of the better games coming out at the time. The only big problem I ever had was the CD ROM finally died in early 2004 and it was replaced with a CD Burner so I could burn backup files for whenever I change over to another computer. This one replaced the former eMachine 433 that was finally going out on me. But I had that one for awhile too. I am still using the original keyboard with all the extra bind keys eMachine offerred at the time this was new. My original mouse finally died last year and have an optical one now. The only thing I dont like is if the power goes out, and the computer is plugged in the wall, it will boot itself.

My fear has been when the power tries to come back on briefly a few times this is hard on the computer. Comng on and shutting off so much, so quickly. So if there is ever a threatening storm coming close and I cant be home...it stays unplugged from the wall. It does have a heavy duty office surge protector though.

A friend of mine sent my son a Dell 1.2 gig without the harddrive (he kept that) and a new one was installed by a computer tech friend. As these are propriatory, he managed to fool the Dell into accepting the new harddrive so it will run. Has 256RAM and 100 Gigs to do whatever he wants with. The only problem my son had with it was a memory degradation problem that was finally fixed. Originally the browser was WinME but it was changed over to WinXP. My son still prefers the Win2000/ME but has learned to work with the WinXP.

The eMachine was bought out by HP and it has been a decent comp for beginners or where low end costs/economics are a concern. Originally it was the "low priced Computer for the Common man". It is not a quiet machine compared to the Dell and it does not have all of the perks the higher priced ones have. But the newer ones/high end are upgradable and have improved compared to what they were in the past. Unless you really need all the speed/RAM for games or anything else....the eMachine will do as a "working horse".

 

Write software for a meager living, but kept being asked where can they get upgraded computers in the 80's and 90's to run it on...
SO started moving hardware... easy at first and profitable... but when the market got to where 3% markup was good... it wasn't worth my time to continue...

Nowdays many package deals are easier to get than build your own (and "building your own is easy" - is a RELATIVE statment quantum physics is easy....... to some )

because it takes LONG enough to reinstall all my software, I don't like to spend the time configuring the hardware as well...

check the Sunday paper there are big box store sales all the time... my wife HAD to have a laptop for the back bedroom to check her email... found a Compaq 1.3Ghz with everythign she could EVER need, added a wireless card and for less than $450 with all the software - it's solid !
************************
Viking Babe -
while the surge protector HELPS....
do you know they degrade over time ? sorta like my face after being hit a few times... those next ones hurt worse

get a UPS or at least battery backup to "soften" those power spikes...
Get a few 300 Watt battery backups for less than $30 per and with just your CPU box plugged into it will keep it protected when those V's are bouncing up and down..
(protect your data, your monitor can usually "take it" )

and is CHEAP a bad thing...
if something GOOD cost $100 with a 2 year warranty and an expected service life of 4 years...
and something CHEAP cost $20 with a two year warranty and expected life of 1 year... even if cheap fails 4 times your still ahead....

and MOST computers are obsolete as soon as you buy them, so I don't care for them to last 10 years...
I've got 10 cpu carcasses in the garage

 

E-Machines. Junk. You'd be better off with a low end Dell or HP/Compaq.

 

thats what i did....i got 128K video card, 3 gig prossesor, combination of 3 hard drives adding up to about 360 gigs, and about a gig of memory....paid about $1600 but it was totally worth it....you couldnt even get an alienware for that price with the stuff i have

 

So far I've had a good experience with emachines. My wife and I bought a laptop last year and right now it is our daily computer. It has worked extremely well. It got a good workout for our wedding (we bought it shortly before) when we burned about 100 CD's for wedding favors. I don't know much about their desktop pc's, but the laptops are pretty good. Not to mention, at the time they were one of the few that had a video card compatible with directX 9 at a good price.

 

After initially buying top of the line stuff and watching it almost instantly become outdated and obsolete I changed my buying practices to something like this:

Where many brand names can be equated with excellence I use the e-Machine brand in the reverse. I start at the most expensive computer in the lineup and walk down the line until I find an e-Machine. I then go one or two units backward until I find a name I recognize, point at it and say, "I'll take this one without the monitor."

 

I've been using an emachine for 3 yrs now. Replaced the CD burner and upgraded memory, no other problems. They were bought out by Gateway last yr or the yr before.

 

the problem with buying a dell or gateway or something of the like, is that with some models if something goes out its almost imposible to find the part to replace it. my friend has a gateway and he smoked the processor, opened it up for him, everything is custom to gateway. the only thing he could use out of it was the hdd and cdrom. we couldnt find another motherboard that would work in the case and the p s was modular and wouldnt work anywhere else. id say build your own, then you know how to fix it.

 

Well I got to say again I like mine, It was the lowest of the low when we bought it years ago and its still kickin as previously stated. The thing I like most about it is that it was chaeap and I got it for about the same price as building one on my own but I didnt have to any of the setup work involved. basically it gave me a nice platform to upgrade from which I could do easily and have started to do.
-Chris

 

jdadamsjr

Thanks for the tip!

And yeah, it was Gateway that bought out eMachine.

 

check with www.spoofee.com or www.passwird.com and wait for them to find out when the next dell deals are you can get the computer you want with an lcd screen for about 500 bucks shipped; probably going to be 499 or so.

 

I use New Egg .com for all my parts. I support all my extended family's and friends home workstations. It was a nightmare. Now I order all the pieces parts and put em together. Costs a little more than a e-machine, but you have quality parts, and you get the drivers / software with every componet. Putting a pc together is way easy, especially comparied to quantum physics. The mother board manual will just about give you step by step instructions. When that fails feel free to pm me.

For stability and ungradability building your own is the best. You have more options and you know whats inside. You'll be able to upgrade one componet or add memory whenever you desire. I'd highly recommend taking the plunge. Take your time and work thru it step by step.
Good luck!

 

My e-machine has been OK. I have had a few problems, but I am pretty sure those have been caused by the brother in law and his adult site habbit (never had the problems before). Watch around. When I bought mine I paid $599 for it and then got a $400 instant rebate from MSN and a $150 rebate from E-machine. At that price I couldn't go wrong (that was 4 year ago)