Early 2000's eMachines! Teardown and test.
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- Опубликовано: 4 июл 2024
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Thank you so much!
This was a nostalgia trigger that I would have found unthinkable back in the day... eMachines? Really?? Never thought it would happen, but here we are...
0:00 Intro
0:23 System 1 Tour - eMachines eTower 633id
3:53 S1 Disassembly and inspection
7:36 S1 Refresh
10:03 S1 Drives
12:50 S1 PSU test and case clean-up
14:30 S1 Testing
23:07 S1 Verdict
23:32 System 2 Tour - eMachines T3624
24:33 S2 Disassembly and inspection
27:40 S2 Refresh
30:09 S2 Drives, PSU test case clean-up
31:22 S2 Testing
42:25 S2 Verdict
43:02 Outro
The second emachine was 100% rebuilt. That model was famous for the Bestec power supply that would kill the motherboard and it's probably what happened here because the board and power supply are not original. When those Bestec power supplies would blow up they would even kill the mouse and keyboard
Mine took out my wife's ipod. My first and last emachines product.
@@WillDough Yeah i think that power supply was called Bestec 12Z if i remember right. 5V rail would go nuts and kill the motherboard and everything connected to the usb ports. Worst part is,that thing literally catches fire so if you would leave it running and go away from home you'd risk burning your house down lol
Killer eMachines!? I guess the T-series towers stood for ‘terminator’. At least Robocop only took out bad guys…
@@miketech1024 Yeah you just got a piece of history right there. They were notorious for power supply failures. I looked it up online again and it's the Bestec ATX 250 12E which is known as the "motherboard killer" so if you ever come across one of them,DO NOT use them even if they work or test ok because they literally blow up and catch fire
@@miketech1024 Yeah i just lookd it up again and it's the Bestec ATX25012E which is known as the "motherboard killer". Even if you ever come across one that works,do not use it otherwise it could kill your system at any time and it can catch fire too
That first HDD was only power cycled 377 times in 6+ years, it was on and spinning most of it's life
Interesting, I'm guessing this could have been used as a server.
Sounds like my and my dad's desktops, lol. I inherited his habit of leaving the computer on at all times, without sleep mode...
That Quantum Fireball must have been through "Hellaron" and seen some "Cave Monsters" along the way!
Hey! 3.2GB from my first build '97 - still alive!
I love their tagline of "Never Obsolete"... Then said machine became obsolete like 2 years later!
These days it's a matter of weeks before a higher spec of any part of the pc comes of the one you've just saved up for and bought.
@@RobTheSquire True, but at least your system will still last you for many years! Especially if you do not need the latest and the greatest.
I found one of those "robocop" systems on the curb like 15 years ago, completely working. Turned out the previous owner had the same first name I do so I got a bit of a shock when it greeted me by name.
I took it apart and boxed up the innards for space, I've been thinking about putting it back together with a replacement case and boot drive with a graphics card for a window 98 retro system.
Ahh yes, the old eMachines system. For all the grandparents out there.
..don't even know what eMachines are...
@@dallesamllhals9161 you sound young
The serial number in 150 pt font is a giveaway lol
@@BenState Or mayhaps i stuck to my Socket 7 until Thunderbird in late '01?
@@dallesamllhals9161 What's that got to do with your ignorance? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMachines
Always a pleasure watching a new video on your channel, Mike! You have instantly become one of my favorite tech RUclipsrs.
I must admit, I envy both your ever growing retro PC collection and... biceps, dude! 😅 Rock on!🤘
That exact eMachine was my first computer! I believe the program was dead before my grandparents could ever upgrade.
I’d love to know how long this program lasted. Do you recall what year you discovered it was dead? The internet is scant for details on it (or are really hard to find).
@@miketech1024Man, that was forever ago, had to be around 2004 to maybe 2006? I don’t think they knew they had to be subscribed to the eMachine Network service for two years straight. I wish they were still around to ask.
Andy had (has?) a cool taste in music. Yo La Tengo, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes, Sigur Ros, Guided by Voices...jeez.
29:36 a common misconception. Celerons actually don't produce any heat at all. They just transfer the heat using their integrated portal straight to the depths of hell.
YES! New MikeTech video to watch before heading into work. 🥳
I call the celerons celery.
I love how you take the time to test the PSUs before powering them on, so many other channels I watch just fire em up without any testing.
I had a Robocop era Emachine with a Celeron D. It had a giant cone air intake on the processor that pulled air from outside the case through a circle of holes in the broad side of the case. I thought that was the coolest thing.
Maybe because it was the first computer I never had to share with anybody... well at least since my Commodore 64 days... and it never got loaded up with malware from my other users. And I bothered to upgrade the RAM. But it was my first *good* IBM compatible Windows PC thing. The first one I didn't hate or just see as an appliance to do work on. I ended up rebuilding it at some point, upgraded the motherboard and gave it to my dad... who loaded it up with malware and killed it.
I have thought about tracking another one down, but I figure I have good memories of it and revisiting it might make me hate it. People seem to unanimously hate Celeron Ds in general.
I think that "Cave Monsters"intro sounds just opened a gateway to hell.
Soulseek, bloody hell that takes me back!
It's still around. And sometimes I still use it for... retrieving important files from online....yeah...that's it. Let's go with that.
It's still going today.
Mike, you may have found some long lost audio media song on that last system - enquiring minds will want to know 😂 Another great vid bud !
You just have to love all those stickers. Buy an E-Machine a slow computer filled with trial software. Great video Thanks Mike
My Aunt had the dial-up service from MCI on one of the earliest "never obsolete" models. It may have been as low as a 333 MHz Celery with 32MB RAM. She was so proud of her purchase and pointed out the $99 every 2 years for a new machine every chance she got...briefly. I believe she was locked into that internet service for the first 2 years in order to get one of the rebates they touted. As far as I know the service was so terrible she abandoned it by the time the first year was up and went back to AOL. Never got to see what that upgraded PC might have been...
AOHELL OH NO!!
@@Arachnoid_of_the_underverse That's how unreliable MCI dial-up was...
“SoulSeek is corrupt. There’s some poetry somewhere in there.” Did I ever feel that one. Le sighhhhh
You can also evolve a Celeron into a Smelleron by removing the heatsink and fan while it runs Prime95
Oooh~ I had one of those infamous "Never obsolete" eMachines too. Sat in a shed for years before it was given to me. Didn't get very far with it, as the power supplies were infamous for failing and frying the motherboards. Guess what happened to that machine... >.>
I think I have a very similar machine to what your brother had. It's a T6003 with an Athlon 64 in it. Got it from the original owner, including the original monitor, keyboard, speakers and manuals/CDs. Took an image of the factory install, as the original drive was dying, and upgraded it with a SATA drive. The original DVD drive was dying too, had a SATA DVD-RW drive in my stash that happened to fit the original faceplate. Also swapped in an Athlon 64 X2 6400, maxed out the RAM, and was able to install a PCI-E graphics card to make it into a capable Windows XP era gaming machine. Still have it to this day, and it handles mid-2000s games like a champ!
1:53 "See we're sporting an Intel Hell-eron" 😂Perfect!
Honestly, it makes my day to see a new video from you!! And I also get a giggle along the way... "Hell-eron." 😂
So he DID say that 🤣 I thought it might have been my imagination plus my foreign ears making that up.
They got a lot of people online cheap and except for some funky power supplies were a perfectly decent utility machine.
My first home-built was from 2000.
Mike I think you should treat yourself to a shop-vac, fitted with a good filter, for those case and fan cleaning sessions 👍
I never thought I would lay eyes on an eMachines T3624 again..that was the PC of my childhood, I remember kicking the thing over one evening in frustration, leaving a dent and forever regreting doing so.
I love your videos!! Always excited when new videos are uploaded!!
Seeing that 20gb fireball reminds me of going to a pc shop to get some parts for one of my early 2000's systems and was looking for a 40gb drive only to have the guy that owned the shop try to tell me that i would never need more than 20gb 😂
I've still got my Mum & Dad's old eMachines computer from 2001. It an eMachines 566cd with an Intel Celeron 566MHz, 32MB RAM which instantly got upgraded to 128MB, and a 15GB HDD, and runs Windows ME. It done them well for a few years with a motherboard replacement in 2004 when it went wrong, but they had the extended warranty. I've not used it in over 10 years myself, so I might have to recap it at some point and check the PSU, and maybe do a few more upgrades and get it running like new again.
Also somewhere in my software collection I've still got the original factory CD it came with to restore the system.
My mother-in-law once unintentionally called the Celeron a "Sell-Ya-Wrong" when she and I were talking about her desktop PC nearly 20 years ago. It was the best and funniest mispronounciaton ever!
Oh that’s a good one. I’m stealing it! 🙂
I love how nobody ever bothered to peel off those stickers...
It's like cutting the tags off of pillows and blankets and such. It's illegal.
@@keithbrown7685LOL such an absolutely hilarious joke. It's so funny, because if you actually read it, it's only illegal for the reseller or manufacturer to remove them so you can make an informed purchase as to the flammability, care, and material composition for allergens. The consumer can do what they like.
So funny and definitely not lame and stale. Keep using it.
@@tim3172 See, for a long time, I didn't know the consumer was free to cut the tags. One of those urban myths maybe. There was a time when I actualy believed it! : )
I had a friend that had an e-Machine from the never obsolete era and he asked if I could check it out and do any tweaks on it. I found a model number on the motherboard on the Trigem website not even knowing who they were and flashed a newer bios on it. It removed the eMachine's logo and replaced it with a full screen of Korean characters in a logo at boot up. It still worked fine though.
Helleron. That's more clever than the nickname I came up with for Celerons; I call them "Celery".
That serial number label made me think I was having a stroke for a second.
I actually have one of those "Never Obsolete" cases, I have an i7 6th gen in it as a sleeper, mine just needs the decals (someone previously removed them unfortunately)
Great case for a sleeper system haha
Ahh, the true way to transcend obsolescence!
@@miketech1024 it seems to be the only way since e-machines is gone.
That said, I'm not one who came up with that - so it seems there are at least a few out there still able to function in today's world.
@@miketech1024I still swear by the old ChiefTec Dragon. Still upgrading from a Pentium 4. Built like a tank. Love your competence. Very reassuring to know that you and others like you exist out there.
Cheers Mike 👍🏻 Another great and informative Video. Keep em coming 🎉
That white emachine was literally my first pc. I still have my machine.
Upgrades I made years ago.
RAM 64MB to 320MB. I believe it could support 512MB despite what the sticker on the front says.
Changed the 20GB harddrive (Mine was Maxtor branded) to a higher capacity.
Changed the Celeron 633Mhz to a Tualatin 1.3GHz Celeron.
Also had a pci gpu which I can’t remember the model. But it was ATI based.
No friggin' way! I had the exact second system you showed! That was the only Windows XP machine we had in the house. It is fine for my needs at the time which was to only play CD-ROM games and study. Add that thing all the way until early 2009 until we sold it since I had my Acer Aspire laptop from 2007 at the time. I don't remember having any issues with it luckily. Weird they put that little ram in a Windows XP machine. I feel like it needs either 512 megs or 1 GB RAM for it to be a little bit more usable IMO but I could be wrong. This video definitely took me back! 😉👌
*cracks knuckles*
4:48 - Not carrying handles. Supports for the metal of the top of the chassis skin, which they were worried might buckle.
30:53 - Doesn't appear to be the original power supply. The "part number sticker" looks like something a mom and pop shop would have put on it back in the day.
35:20 - There was an open expansion bay cover when you first started working on the system. I'd hazard to guess they actually did have a MIDI-capable PCI card, and yanked it before decommissioning the system. Also, it doesn't appear this model was ever spec'ed with a factory floppy drive, so I suppose it's also possible that the gaping hole was part of the equipment.
My first two personal machines were eMachines, I still have the restore disk for the first, eTower 400i.. the second was like the one on the left, but had an Athlon XP 2200+ and came included with a Radeon 9700 Pro which was an absolute monster at the time. I loved that machine.
Well you've got yourself a nice little music jukebox with the Robocop system.
You're gonna have to use that Cave Monsters track for a Halloween video.
Mike your videos are a treat :) Your humor is the best! Thank you so much for making this great videos!
When you took off the case on the first eMachines computer, it reminded me of my original 566i2 model. I still have my 733i eMachines computer. It is still amazing and runs games like a champ. I even have the original restore cd that came with it... It even still has the Seagate HDD, and I still have the keyboard and mouse that came with it... Unfortunately, the speakers were always junk. lol
Soulseek was P2P filesharing, mostly used for music files.
And it still is
Y’arrr, that explains the extensive iTunes library.
I didn’t know thermal paste had the ability to yellow… fascinating!
Wow you must be a cheap date 😂
My Grandfather had the silver one,wow the memories.
33:00 ahh, yes the lovely emachines branded bliss wallpaper
35:39, this is how you end up summoning the deadites...
eMachines put those stickers that say "never obsolete". I had an eMachine like the white one on the right
I remember that. They were clogging up Best Buy’s and Circuit City’s.
@@DerekWittJFC, learn how apostrophes work.
@@jefferyG499 whatever, grammar police.
always makes my day watching a cutie :3
oooh Emachines... they were crap at the time... but today they are retro
Hey mate love your videos, the nostalgia is almost too extreme sometimes haha but true story I worked for Trigem on their Sydney Australia production line. Was 2003 ish and HP and Compaq had just merged so they had both brands being assembled on the same line. It was my second job after moving to Australia from New Zealand and the HP video you did a while back gave me some serious flashbacks.. but mentioning Trigem i just had to comment
Ahh, it's been years since i last saw the old NTLDR missing error.. Takes me back that does.. The hours spent in frustrating troubleshooting.
Thank you for this fine video! ❤
thats the one you put beside you riding upfront when you got it at the storage locker, i can tell you have a soft spot for the never obsolete ! cool that it still has all the stickers intact i like reading them
My first computer was an eMachines, purchased on the recommendation of a programmer friend, but that was in 2002 It had a Pentium III and a Riva TNT2 graphics card. Had to put an FX5200 in it within a few months in order to play a particular game. My second was a Gateway in 2006, which looked a lot like your second one, but by then Gateway had purchased eMachines. The eMachines lasted for years passing between friends until it died.
Thank you for trying to resurrect the Windows install on the first machine. I admit I was a bit anxious when at first it seemed like you weren't going to. But you can't fight a bad drive, at least not without sacrificing some chickens over them and going insane in the process.
As far as "never obsolete" goes, I love maintaining the Q4OS install on my Intel Atom-based Samsung Netbook that I bought second-hand for $20 a while back. It makes an excellent Pi-hole, but I'm sure you have more lofty goals for your eMachines system. Thanks for another fun video. 🙂
I love that you said dollarydoos 😂
Yay an another pc video by my favourite pc RUclipsr 😊
Im glad to see you come around on them, they were budget but did what we wanted back then.. a system to play command and conquer in westwood online and listen to MP3s
Ah Celery processors, even a dunce edition one! In many respects an actual stick of celery would be of more use than a Celeron :)
Ha!
Bro, did you get even MORE jacked since last video!?!? Great work.
23:30. I had this machine in 2001 I think it was but all grey and bought it from Future Shop in Canada here
wow, memories. thank you
I had the T6420. Same chassis as your brothers but with the nForce 4 chipset, Athlon 3400+ socket 939, 1GB RAM, and onboard GeForce 6100 graphics. It was awesome. Came with XP Media Center Edition.
That was my dream setup back then. nForce4 (and Nvidia in general) had much better Linux support at the time.
My first ever PC that I could actually call my own was an eMachines T5088 with a single-core P4 641 and 512mb of ram. I still use that same PC today as a NAS server lol
Thanks for another interesting video about retro machines. Greetings from Poland . Dzięki za kolejny ciekawy filmik o retro maszynach . Pozdrawiam z Polski . 🤗🤔👍🤝
Had a eMachine like the one on the right for a few years. Linux was the only way to still keep it going it had around 384 meg of RAM. The crystal audio chip had terrible bus noise. So had to install an audio card. It was my 2nd computer that used that chip and both had the same problems. You do a great job with your videos!
Never Obsolete!
Been kinda curious, what happens to the machines after your done recording? Do you sell them off or just keep them in your collection?
I do keep some, but I have begun selling off a few. Currently selling exclusively to patrons (for now).
I'd so love to find an eMonster 1000. Dad had a Monstrr 566 I believe it was back in the day. My very first pc was a 466 iirc. These emachines have a place in my heart 😂
Back about the time I actually purchased my first tower PC these E Machines were everywhere. I had rented a PC to see what manner of things I needed for my interests at the time such as Abe's Odyssey, Jane's Longbow Gold, Need for Speed and so on. Wal Mart ran a special for $99 with a Pentium 233 w/MMX technology. There was a rebate form to get a full refund for sending in the serial code on the side of the box it came in. I tell you that the store was insane trying to get over to them. My daughter, in famous fashion, grabbed a foam sword from over in the toy section and started swinging at people and hollering to get out of the way.....and we managed to get one. The refund took something like 6+ weeks, but it was indeed a free computer.
hell
yeah
Quite the underrated creator, deserves more recognition. Love the work, keep it up!
I audibly groaned when you said "Windows ME" lol I had that on my main pc back then...for a short time.
"never obsolete" we'll see about that. and that 35:48 is an audio to probably summon demons
What have I unleashed upon the world?
@@miketech1024I have some holy water and a few crucifixes that could be used to exorcise whatever those things are.
@@miketech1024- if you'd like a bit of history on eMachines, TriGem-CTC, feel free to reach out.
@@miketech1024Evil!
I installed thousands of those 3 com nics. I am a retired CATV tach. Back in the day the ISP I worked for supplied the nic when they subbed to our service.
u must of read my mind in the comments as i was thinking and dreaming of my old childhood PC emachines Gaming style Silver TT3624.
i used to open it up and i even took it apart fully and cleaned it and put it back together
wen i was around 9 or 10. brings back the memory of
when the Ram Slots smelt like Burnin FIRE "years later figured i put the ram in the wrongway"
and when i changed the Voltage on the back to a 110VOLT on a 220V Circuit in UK it was funny so i did it to my play centuries PC too
I loved the E-machine line simply because their hard drives weren't soaked in bloatware
I also thought those were junky back in the day but they have stood the test of time better than some others have. Am interested to see if you find some Trigen parts build by others in future videos.
The first PC I ever bought when I graduated high school was like the black one. Mine had a Pentium 4 though. It was a pretty good computer, didn't replace it until I built my own around 2006.
I had a full size e-machine tower growing up. When it was time for a new system me and my sister got to open up the system and keep parts for tinkering with. I recently found the old motherboard and hard drive, took a power supply from one of my other systems, hooked everything up and somehow it turned on and booted. Kind of a bummer the hard drive hanged trying to get past the user select screen and promptly died afterwards but it was nice to see the XP logo one last time.
That audio file was incredibly creepy
I have the exact same white speakers from your background. But they dont work anymore. The power circuit that transforms 9 volts is fried.
When I was a kid we had a emachines as the family computer. I remember it worked very well for the time on windows XP. I forget exactly which model sadly would be good to get the same one and restore it. The first pc I owned I still have its a dell dimension E521. Good old amd athlon
I have that etower sitting in the corner behind my tv. I've had it since the early 2000s.
I worked at Staples back then. We sold quite a few of the eMachine that was free with a MSN internet account. I don't think they were the never-obsolete models.
I have the "Robocop" case at the moment housing my Plex server running an AMD FM2 Athlon X4 on a gigabyte motherboard with 4Gb ram and a cheap Nvidia graphics card. I acquired the case years ago with the original hardware inside which I ripped out. And boy is it heavy! Certainly built to last. Mine has the 2 DVD drive bays and the card reader at the front.
I've got an eMachines eTower 633ids... Love it! I've upgraded it to a Pentium III 650MHz (6*100MHz), 512MB RAM, an 64GB SSD and a pair of VooDoo 2's in SLI! Too bad the OnBoard Audio cannot be fully disabled... Wanted to upgrade it's audio to a SBLive! but could not get it to play ball with the onboard audio... Still, a good machine!
That ASRock is not the original board for that eMachines... that chassis deserves a sleeper build in it!
i always thought that eMachines were made by Acer... don't know why. Awesome and funny video, Mike, as always. That soul seek joke was great :)
Kinda want one of them eMachines. Pretty neat.
thats a very nice and reliable asrock board in the 2nd pc, I really enjoy using it! great win98 retro board, its awesome for that os
Your videos are great. Where do you find all these older systems?
Thanks! They come from e-waste hauls, mostly.
My first desktop that I bought myself with my own money was like the grey one, with celeron 333.
24:43. My T3302 has a serial port but fewer USB ports. The impact of ongoing computer trends at that time.
The ASRock bios should have a "quiet fan" mode or something similar in the H/W monitor tab. For testing harddisks, consider using HDAT2 from a floppy drive. Very powerful tool, with multiple tests, bad sector recovery and even can be used to change how loud the HDD is while seeking (some drives are set to "silent" by default and we sure love those seeking noises)
Those mid 2000s eMachines PCs were surprisingly reliable. My grandparents had one for over 10 years running XP. It was extremely slow, but it never had issues otherwise. Definitely didn't feel cheaply made.
One of the drives still in active use in my main PC, a WD Green 2TB, has almost 100,000 hours on it now!
Yes, that thing looks like Robocop, especially wirh the missing floppy.😊