"Ben Myers" wrote in message
...
On 12/20/2010 7:59 PM, Von Fourche wrote:
A relative of mine needs a new tower PC and some other relatives are
chipping in to buy her a low priced one. We found
an E Machine. It comes with Windows 7. I'm on XP and know nothing of
anything beyond Windows 7. I know my Dell is rock solid.

It comes with an AMD Sempron 145 2.8GHz processor and 2GB of RAM.

Will my relative get decent performance from this kind of machine? All
she
does is surf the net, pay bills, and do email, and maybe watch video on
netflix. Her son does gaming on his x-box along with netflix.


This PC tower is going for around $295 at Wal Mart.

Thanks



From the usage I have had so far, 2GB should be fine for normal
run-of-the-mill use as you described. Only the Netflix video may tax the
memory. Not sure. I do not use Netflix.

I am less than thrilled with eMachines, which often use a crappy power
supply (same as HP Pavilions and Compaq Presarios). When the power supply
goes, it takes the motherboard with it, because it does not have
protective circuitry built in. The world is littered with dead eMachines
systems. I have tossed out a number of perfectly good eMachines cases,
after stripping the boards for the local electronic recycler. A shame,
too. The cases are generally well made out of sturdy sheet metal without
sharp edges to slice you up... Ben Myers

__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus
signature database 5728 (20101223) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com




Ben,
I have heard of this power supply/motherboard issue with eMachines. I
currently own 3 eMachines; a T3306 & 2 T5243's. The worst problem I have had
was the DVD burner self-destructed after a year on the T3306 which is almost
5 years old now. However, I have just purchased a docking station for my
daughter's Dell laptop & took over her T5243 (you don't want to know the age
of the Dell XPS it is replacing). It was dual-booting Vista & 7 but I
downgraded to XP & 7. Now I am concerned about the power supply. Is it a
standard PSU? Would a preemptive replacement with a new PSU prevent any
issues?

Also, on an off-topic note, I contacted eMachine by e-mail to ask what the
fastest processor this motherboard would support (MCP61PM-AM). They wanted
pay-per-call tech support to call me the answer. It currently has an AMD
Athlon 4000+ (2.1Ghz). I have figured out that this is a Brisbane core
running it at 65W. I think the 5600+ is the fastest at 65W but there are 95W
processors running up to 6000+. Would you know what the fastest processor
would be that would run natively on this board?

Any help appreciated.....Thanks.

Rich


__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5728 (20101223) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com