40Gb Western Digital hard drive

[mike]

Hi,

Hoping to benefit from the collective wisdom of the group with regard
to computer systems. So far over a period of about 2 years I've
brought home from the scrapyard three different E-machine computers,
all of which had a blown-up power supply made by Bestec - I get the
feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and run the other
way, once you see the 'Bestec' name, since out of those three systems,
the only thing that was still usable that I have found was one 128Mb
stick of ram. Until the other day...

I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard
and landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard
drive, and once again got a bunch of grief from it, until I put a WD
utilities disk in the floppy drive, just to run the mfg's utilities on
it before tossing it. I selected for the program "install EZbios" -
just because I hadn't done that before, ya know? Next, I told it to
restore track 0 (zero), which it seemed happy enough to do. Long
story short, this drive which I couldn't even complete any kind of
diagnostic test on previously, I was now able to load Ubuntu on, and I
used it for 3 days in a row for my usual news-gathering activities.
Then, this morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain-
dead on me.

Of course, the first thing I suspect is the HD. I shut the system
down and let it sit for 15 or 20 minutes, then checked to make sure
there's no lose connectors or the like, nothing is unusually warm, and
then unplug and replug everything (possibly the stick of ram wasn't
quite seated right, everything else seemed OK) and started it back up
- booted into Ubuntu 8.04 fine, I let it idle awhile then shut it down
for the day. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow may bring 8^).

Just wondering if any one had any info or thoughts on why the HD was
seemingly revived by the 'install EZbios' and 'restore track zero'
moves that I put on it, and also what I might do to make a more
effective repair to this drive, or at least a diagnostic that will
tell me if something's wrong with it - I really think it would benefit
from a low-level format but I don't have a program for that at the
moment. The Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error-
free.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[D Yuniskis]

Hi Mike,

mike wrote:

Hoping to benefit from the collective wisdom of the group with regard
to computer systems. So far over a period of about 2 years I've
brought home from the scrapyard three different E-machine computers,
all of which had a blown-up power supply made by Bestec - I get the
feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and run the other
way, once you see the 'Bestec' name, since out of those three systems,
the only thing that was still usable that I have found was one 128Mb
stick of ram. Until the other day...

eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/

I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard
and landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard
drive, and once again got a bunch of grief from it, until I put a WD
utilities disk in the floppy drive, just to run the mfg's utilities on
it before tossing it. I selected for the program "install EZbios" -
just because I hadn't done that before, ya know? Next, I told it to
restore track 0 (zero), which it seemed happy enough to do. Long
story short, this drive which I couldn't even complete any kind of
diagnostic test on previously, I was now able to load Ubuntu on, and I
used it for 3 days in a row for my usual news-gathering activities.
Then, this morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain-
dead on me.

What machine did ou have this running in?

I think drive manufacturers cite something like 40% (? more?)
of drive returns have "No defect found". (something to keep in
mind).

The first thing I would do is move the drive to a known
*reliable* machine (perhaps on the secondary controller
or as a slave, etc.) and see how well it runs. You
may discover that the machine you were having problems
with was the problem! (bad caps, bad power supply, etc.)

Of course, the first thing I suspect is the HD. I shut the system
down and let it sit for 15 or 20 minutes, then checked to make sure
there's no lose connectors or the like, nothing is unusually warm, and
then unplug and replug everything (possibly the stick of ram wasn't
quite seated right, everything else seemed OK) and started it back up
- booted into Ubuntu 8.04 fine, I let it idle awhile then shut it down
for the day. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow may bring 8^).

Just wondering if any one had any info or thoughts on why the HD was
seemingly revived by the 'install EZbios' and 'restore track zero'
moves that I put on it, and also what I might do to make a more
effective repair to this drive, or at least a diagnostic that will
tell me if something's wrong with it - I really think it would benefit
from a low-level format but I don't have a program for that at the
moment. The Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error-
free.

 

[Meat Plow]

On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700, mike wrote:

Hi,

Hoping to benefit from the collective wisdom of the group with regard to
computer systems. So far over a period of about 2 years I've brought
home from the scrapyard three different E-machine computers, all of
which had a blown-up power supply made by Bestec - I get the feeling
that that is reason enough to turn around and run the other way, once
you see the 'Bestec' name, since out of those three systems, the only
thing that was still usable that I have found was one 128Mb stick of
ram. Until the other day...

I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard and
landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard
drive, and once again got a bunch of grief from it, until I put a WD
utilities disk in the floppy drive, just to run the mfg's utilities on
it before tossing it. I selected for the program "install EZbios" -
just because I hadn't done that before, ya know? Next, I told it to
restore track 0 (zero), which it seemed happy enough to do. Long story
short, this drive which I couldn't even complete any kind of diagnostic
test on previously, I was now able to load Ubuntu on, and I used it for
3 days in a row for my usual news-gathering activities. Then, this
morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain- dead on me.

Of course, the first thing I suspect is the HD. I shut the system down
and let it sit for 15 or 20 minutes, then checked to make sure there's
no lose connectors or the like, nothing is unusually warm, and then
unplug and replug everything (possibly the stick of ram wasn't quite
seated right, everything else seemed OK) and started it back up - booted
into Ubuntu 8.04 fine, I let it idle awhile then shut it down for the
day. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow may bring 8^).

Just wondering if any one had any info or thoughts on why the HD was
seemingly revived by the 'install EZbios' and 'restore track zero' moves
that I put on it, and also what I might do to make a more effective
repair to this drive, or at least a diagnostic that will tell me if
something's wrong with it - I really think it would benefit from a
low-level format but I don't have a program for that at the moment. The
Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error- free.

Thanks,
Mike

The problems and solutions may be coincidental. There isn't much you can
do to make the repair more reliable nor are there consumer grade
diagnostics that can pinpoint problems.
I revived a 120 gig Maxtor a week ago by swapping the electronics with
an exact twin I had in the scrap box. The drive just quit. Made no noise,
platters didn't spin. Replaced the electronics board, problem solved
and friend didn't lose his OS or data.

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700 (PDT), mike
<mlightner@survivormail.com> wrote:

brought home from the scrapyard three different E-machine computers,
all of which had a blown-up power supply made by Bestec

e-Machines are not the best quality. The power supplies and fans are
the first to go. CDROM and floppy are next. After that, the
motherboard.

I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard
and landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard
drive,

Model number? Series?
The Protege series were tolerable. Protoge would last about 4 years
and blow up. The Caviar series would last perhaps 2 years and blow
up. About 1/3 of the pile is WD, mostly 40GB but some 80 and 120GB.
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/disk-drives.jpg>
(New drives, boxed drives, and SCSI arrays are buried elsewhere).

Then, this morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain-
dead on me.

What does that mean? Did the drive fail, or was there some other
problem? It's highly likely that the drive failed.

- booted into Ubuntu 8.04 fine,

Ummmm.... Ubuntu 10.04 is the current version.

The Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error-
free.

The WD diagnostics will pronounce a failing drive to be good. What
did you expect? Fire up SmartMonTools in Ubuntu and extract the
S.M.A.R.T. statistics. You'll find one of three possible results,
depending on WD drive model:
1. Lots of errors and pronouncement of imminent failure. This is
what you get with the later drives. I don't think any of the 40GB
drives are late enough to produce an honest result.
2. Absolutely perfect drive with no errors. This is what I usually
see. WD lies on its S.M.A.R.T. stats.
3. Can't obtain S.M.A.R.T. That's what I see when someone has
juggled controller cards. I also see that when there's a controller
failure.


--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558
# http://802.11junk.com jeffl@cruzio.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

 

[spamtrap1888]

On May 28, 3:16 pm, D Yuniskis <not.going.to...@seen.com> wrote:

Hi Mike,

mike wrote:
Hoping to benefit from the collective wisdom of the group with regard
to computer systems. So far over a period of about 2 years I've
brought home from the scrapyard three different E-machine computers,
all of which had a blown-up power supply made by Bestec - I get the
feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and run the other
way, once you see the 'Bestec' name, since out of those three systems,
the only thing that was still usable that I have found was one 128Mb
stick of ram.  Until the other day...

eMachines are... well, we won't go there!  :-/

They are made to sell at a low price point, like the Yugo.

 

[Franc Zabkar]

On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700 (PDT), mike
<mlightner@survivormail.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:

I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard
and landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard
drive, and once again got a bunch of grief from it, until I put a WD
utilities disk in the floppy drive, just to run the mfg's utilities on
it before tossing it. I selected for the program "install EZbios" -
just because I hadn't done that before, ya know? Next, I told it to
restore track 0 (zero), which it seemed happy enough to do.

You can use MHDD to test each sector:
http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

AIUI, MHDD measures the time required to retrieve data from each block
of sectors. Any bad or weak sector will require one or more retries.
Each retry requires an additional revolution. At the end of the test
MHDD reports the number of 5ms, 15ms, 50ms, 150ms, 500ms and >500ms
blocks.

Here is a screenshot:
http://www.techmaniacs.net/files/tank_mhdd/mhdd_3.jpg

MHDD Documentation:
http://www.bandwidthco.com/whitepapers/compforensics/danalysis/MHDD%20Manual.pdf

EZ-bios is a disk drive overlay (DDO) which loads a small TSR program
into memory to allow a PC to overcome lack of BIOS support for LBA
mode. It was used to overcome BIOS limitations such as 528MB and
28-bit LBA (128GiB / 137GB).

EZ-bios works by overwriting the boot code in sector 0 of your HD with
its own MBR code. The remainder of the TSR code is stored within track
0.

I suspect that by restoring track 0, you actually overwrote the
EZ-bios code, which would have left you where you started.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

mike wrote:

D Yuniskis wrote:


eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/

I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are
usually still intact.

With all the HP computers that were built with the same motherboards
and power supplies?

What machine did ou have this running in?

A Franken-machine, with an Asus MB that I recently replaced some bad
caps in; all the other components have been sitting around, salvaged
from other broken systems for long enough that I no longer know what
their origin is.

I think drive manufacturers cite something like 40% (? more?)
of drive returns have "No defect found". (something to keep in
mind).

The first thing I would do is move the drive to a known
*reliable* machine (perhaps on the secondary controller
or as a slave, etc.) and see how well it runs. You
may discover that the machine you were having problems
with was the problem! (bad caps, bad power supply, etc.)

Yeah, definitely a possibility...

Thanks,
Mike

--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 

[mike]

D Yuniskis wrote:

eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/

I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are
usually still intact.

What machine did ou have this running in?

A Franken-machine, with an Asus MB that I recently replaced some bad

caps in; all the other components have been sitting around, salvaged
from other broken systems for long enough that I no longer know what
their origin is.

I think drive manufacturers cite something like 40% (? more?)
of drive returns have "No defect found". (something to keep in
mind).

The first thing I would do is move the drive to a known
*reliable* machine (perhaps on the secondary controller
or as a slave, etc.) and see how well it runs. You
may discover that the machine you were having problems
with was the problem! (bad caps, bad power supply, etc.)

Yeah, definitely a possibility...

Thanks,
Mike
>

 

[Allodoxaphobia]

On Sat, 29 May 2010 04:29:35 -0700 (PDT), mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
mike wrote:
D Yuniskis wrote:

eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/

I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are
usually still intact.

With all the HP computers that were built with the same motherboards
and power supplies?

HP's used Bestec too? damn, that's too bad. Back in the eighties when
I worked on medical gear it seemed that HP's equipment was some of the
most robust (but of course, usually more expensive, too).

That was what is now Agilent. <www.agilent.com>
They still adhere to the _original_ HP principles.

Jonesy

 

[mike]

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700 (PDT), mike
mlightner@survivormail.com> wrote:


e-Machines are not the best quality. The power supplies and fans are
the first to go. CDROM and floppy are next. After that, the
motherboard.

The first one I owned had been a neighbor's that got blown up when
their incoming power lost the
nuetra at about age 3 - I replaced the PSU and the modem and used it
for another 3 years, Prior to it failing I'd noticed that some of the
caps on the MB were starting to bulge, and about six months or so
later it finally just wouldn't start one day. I'm glad to hear that
about the cd drives, I've got plenty of spares, I think even a burner
or two. Floppies in working condition are becoming much less
prevalent these days (my source always being the scrapyard, of
course

Model number? Series?

Caviar, can't get a look at the model # right at the moment, but if it
quits again I'll write it down.

The Protege series were tolerable. Protoge would last about 4 years
and blow up. The Caviar series would last perhaps 2 years and blow
up. About 1/3 of the pile is WD, mostly 40GB but some 80 and 120GB.
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/disk-drives.jpg

Wow, nice collection!

(New drives, boxed drives, and SCSI arrays are buried elsewhere).

Then, this morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain-
dead on me.

What does that mean? Did the drive fail, or was there some other
problem? It's highly likely that the drive failed.

Well, I had several browser windows open and of a sudden the bowser
was stuck viewing the last one I'd been looking at - the mouse cursor
would still move around as it should but clicking on stuff had no
effect. Couldn't close any browser windows, couldn't start up any
other programs, couldn't shutdown the machine, except by pushing and
holding down the power button.

- booted into Ubuntu 8.04 fine,

Ummmm.... Ubuntu 10.04 is the current version.

I haven't tried anything newer than 9.10, after I tried and failed to
figure how to get my modem working with it I went back to 8.04, which
seems much more intuitive to me.

The Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error-
free.

The WD diagnostics will pronounce a failing drive to be good. What
did you expect? Fire up SmartMonTools in Ubuntu and extract the
S.M.A.R.T. statistics. You'll find one of three possible results,
depending on WD drive model:
1. Lots of errors and pronouncement of imminent failure. This is
what you get with the later drives. I don't think any of the 40GB
drives are late enough to produce an honest result.
2. Absolutely perfect drive with no errors. This is what I usually
see. WD lies on its S.M.A.R.T. stats.
3. Can't obtain S.M.A.R.T. That's what I see when someone has
juggled controller cards. I also see that when there's a controller
failure.

Thanks, I'll have to see if I can get this SmartMonTools in 8.04.

 

[mike]

Franc Zabkar wrote:

On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700 (PDT), mike
mlightner@survivormail.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:


You can use MHDD to test each sector:
http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

All right, that definitely looks like a keeper...

AIUI, MHDD measures the time required to retrieve data from each block
of sectors. Any bad or weak sector will require one or more retries.
Each retry requires an additional revolution. At the end of the test
MHDD reports the number of 5ms, 15ms, 50ms, 150ms, 500ms and >500ms
blocks.

Here is a screenshot:
http://www.techmaniacs.net/files/tank_mhdd/mhdd_3.jpg

MHDD Documentation:
http://www.bandwidthco.com/whitepapers/compforensics/danalysis/MHDD%20Manual.pdf

Thanks, I'll be spending some time with it in the near future.

EZ-bios is a disk drive overlay (DDO) which loads a small TSR program
into memory to allow a PC to overcome lack of BIOS support for LBA
mode. It was used to overcome BIOS limitations such as 528MB and
28-bit LBA (128GiB / 137GB).

EZ-bios works by overwriting the boot code in sector 0 of your HD with
its own MBR code. The remainder of the TSR code is stored within track
0.

I suspect that by restoring track 0, you actually overwrote the
EZ-bios code, which would have left you where you started.

- Franc Zabkar
Thanks for the explanation - so, I guess maybe some part of the info

on the drive was corrupted and I just basically refreshed things -
wonder if I should try installing EZ-bios again (just kidding, at
least while it's still working).

Mike

 

[mike]

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

mike wrote:

D Yuniskis wrote:


eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/

I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are
usually still intact.


With all the HP computers that were built with the same motherboards
and power supplies?

HP's used Bestec too? damn, that's too bad. Back in the eighties when
I worked on medical gear it seemed that HP's equipment was some of the
most robust (but of course, usually more expensive, too).
Thanks,
Mike

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sat, 29 May 2010 03:52:45 -0700 (PDT), mike
<mlightner@survivormail.com> wrote:

The Protege series were tolerable. Protoge would last about 4 years
and blow up. The Caviar series would last perhaps 2 years and blow
up. About 1/3 of the pile is WD, mostly 40GB but some 80 and 120GB.
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/disk-drives.jpg

Wow, nice collection!

I buy piles of them from the local recyclers. Those are the ones that
work. You should see the piles and piles that didn't.

Well, I had several browser windows open and of a sudden the bowser
was stuck viewing the last one I'd been looking at - the mouse cursor
would still move around as it should but clicking on stuff had no
effect. Couldn't close any browser windows, couldn't start up any
other programs, couldn't shutdown the machine, except by pushing and
holding down the power button.

Basically, the operating system got lost. That could be anything. Bad
motherboard, flakey IDE device, flakey plug in card, or even a bad
keyboard/mouse can hang the machine. However, it also can be a bad
sector on the HD. If you can get it to boot, try scanning the HD for
bad sectors and disallocating them. Then, keep track of the number of
bad sectors on the drive. Any increase, and it's eWaste.

I haven't tried anything newer than 9.10, after I tried and failed to
figure how to get my modem working with it I went back to 8.04, which
seems much more intuitive to me.

What's a modem? Is that like dialup? I use those when desperate or
visting stone age retro enthusiasts.

Thanks, I'll have to see if I can get this SmartMonTools in 8.04.

<http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/smartmontools>

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[mike]

Allodoxaphobia wrote:

HP's used Bestec too? damn, that's too bad. Back in the eighties when
I worked on medical gear it seemed that HP's equipment was some of the
most robust (but of course, usually more expensive, too).

That was what is now Agilent. <www.agilent.com
They still adhere to the _original_ HP principles.

Jonesy
Very interesting, thanks!

Mike

 

[ʍoןd ʇɐǝɯ]

On Sat, 29 May 2010 03:18:18 -0700, mike ǝʇoɹʍ:

D Yuniskis wrote:


eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/

I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are
usually still intact.

I own a 2005 eMachine, 2.0 ghz AMD Athalon64. It's now a Windows 7
machine and does its job flawlessly. Just like any other brand you need
to know what you are buying within the brand name. Being semi-retired
from the IT world now since 2008 I've seen plenty of junk out there
with Compac, HP, Sony, Toshiba badges on them. One thing you need to
understand is not many if any make 100% of their own components. So you
should not make global statements condemning the badge name without this
knowledge.

 

[ʍoןd ʇɐǝɯ]

On Fri, 28 May 2010 19:04:22 -0700, Jeff Liebermann ǝʇoɹʍ:

e-Machines are not the best quality. The power supplies and fans are
the first to go. CDROM and floppy are next. After that, the
motherboard.

Geez you've just described about every computer out there.

2005 emachines T6216

Original power supply, Check!
Original mainboard, Check!
Original fans, Check!

LiteOn DVDRW failed year number 2. So did it's LiteOn replacement last
year.

Now have 16x16 Pioneer DVRW I bought in 2004. Still works well.

Moral of story, if you buy cheap stuff it will fail. Too bad that's
pretty much what you will find OEM-wise in this throw-away world.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
mike wrote:

D Yuniskis wrote:


eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/

I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are
usually still intact.


With all the HP computers that were built with the same motherboards
and power supplies?

HP's used Bestec too? damn, that's too bad. Back in the eighties when
I worked on medical gear it seemed that HP's equipment was some of the
most robust (but of course, usually more expensive, too).

I had someone bragging about how much better his HP computer was,
than the eMachines computer sitting by my bench. I opened both. They
were both shipped with the same motherboard and power supply. The same
brand of CD-ROM drive and amount of RAM. Both had a 3.5" floppy drive.
Neither were cheap crap. He paid over twice the price of the emachines
computer for the same hardware.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sat, 29 May 2010 14:27:24 -0700 (PDT), mike
<mlightner@survivormail.com> wrote:

Hmm, you must work on 'puters alot!

I try to avoid computahs whenever possible. However, they do pay for
my decadent and lavish lifestyle, so they're difficult to avoid.

One of my favorite places to hang
out up till a couple years ago was the local 'puter recycler

The local senior citizens group runs a recycling operation.
<http://www.californiagreybears.org>
<http://www.californiagreybears.org/images/computer.jpg>
The computer part was profitable when China was buying everything.
These days, it's borderline. There also was a recycling operation at
the local dump, but that went away about 3 years ago:
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/e-waste/index.html> (kinda old)
The problem is that I can't return anything for credit or refund. I
have to make an astute guess as to whether I can fix it, how much it
will cost to fix, who I could sell it to, and whether I can make a
profit on the repair. It's speculation at it's worst. My guess is
that I lose money on all the computer rebuilds, but do fairly well on
the HP printers and plotters.

OK, now I've got a couple new programs to learn,

MHDD is a good program for testing hard disks. That's one that I use
when I get a pile of drives to test. I use the "magic-boot" version.
The only catch is that I once wiped a drive by accident. Be careful
with live data.

Yeah, I know, I seem to keep slipping back into the stone age, been
that way since 1993, one step forward, etc.. There's DSL at work
so at least I'm getting a little familiar with that - kinda makes
surfing at home at 56K a bit of a drag though...

Locally, the monthly price of a DSL account is only slightly more than
a dialup. When I had the only DSL in the neighborhood, most of the
neighbors were "borrowing" my bandwidth (with my permission). You
might ask around to see who's got a cable modem (faster than DSL)
that's willing to share.

Thanks, I'll have to see if I can get this SmartMonTools in 8.04.
http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/smartmontools
Ah, thanks for the link!

The hard part was trying to remember the strange names of the various
distributions. 8.04 was Hardy Heron, a truly memorable name that I
can recall for about 10 minutes.


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

I had someone bragging about how much better his HP computer was,
than the eMachines computer sitting by my bench. I opened both. They
were both shipped with the same motherboard and power supply. The same
brand of CD-ROM drive and amount of RAM. Both had a 3.5" floppy drive.
Neither were cheap crap. He paid over twice the price of the emachines
computer for the same hardware.

Hmm, I wonder when they started doing that, that's good to know! What
kind of MB's do they have?

They were made by the company that started eMachines. I haven't seen
many newer HPs. (Not ones worth fixing) They similar designs were more
common between 2000-2005. I've seen more bad power supplies in HP
computers than any other brand I've worked on. When I get time, I will
log the brands and models in the 20 or so banana boxes of bad power
supplies I've pulled from computers over the last few years.




--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 

[mike]

ʍoןd ʇɐǝɯ wrote:

On Sat, 29 May 2010 03:18:18 -0700, mike ǝʇoɹʍ:

D Yuniskis wrote:


eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/

I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are
usually still intact.

I own a 2005 eMachine, 2.0 ghz AMD Athalon64. It's now a Windows 7
machine and does its job flawlessly. Just like any other brand you need
to know what you are buying within the brand name.

I've yet to buy new, so I'm always stuck with whatever is already
there. However, it always cheers me to find inside a MB made by Intel
and a PSU with a name like Astec or Antec, or even John Deere, I've
had pretty good
service out those.

I bought an LG dvd burner a couple years ago from a former IT guy and
it is really phenomenal at reading dvds even when they're covered with
finger prints and scratches (like a lot of the ones at the local
library have), whereas, none of my previous burners (grand total of 2)
would be able to read 'em, at least not error free.

Being semi-retired
from the IT world now since 2008 I've seen plenty of junk out there
with Compac, HP, Sony, Toshiba badges on them. One thing you need to
understand is not many if any make 100% of their own components. So you
should not make global statements condemning the badge name without this
knowledge.

I had pretty good service with a T1742 that a neighbor gave me, it had
an Intel MB, and didn't have a Bestec PSU.
The 3 I found at the scrapyard all had failed Bestec PSU's, which
became notorious for not having a crowbar circuit to shut down the
outputs if they went over-voltage. Maybe they started using a better
PSU, the last blown up one I found was a T2862 or something like that,
I suspect a few years older than your 2005 model.