**Official eMachines M68xx Thread**

[gweilo8888]

Originally posted by: Irish80122
I have had this thread emailed to me for over a month now with debating if I want to get a Emachines or not, and I am still not sure. I am debating over getting a m6811 or a HP, Compaq or Toshiba. I love the Emachines, and I love all that they give you, but I am not sure with a lot that I have seen on this board. While the cosmetic crack isn't a huge deal, it worries me. Also, I am not sure with all of the problems you are having if I should go for the m6811 or if I should go for a different brand and probably end up with a Pentium 4 instead (that alone kills me, I am an AMD guy most of the time). If you had it all to do over again, would you get this laptop? Would you recommend something like this to me, or a Toshiba or HP? Thanks for your help!

I've been very happy with the laptop, and for the money I don't see anything else that comes close to it. I've had it for around 5 months, and there's no hint of any cracking on the hinge thus far. The LCD is perfectly clear and bright, not a single stuck pixel. The only thing I'd like to see change is that eMachines need to improve their facilities for offering drivers and BIOS updates, which are thus far essentially non-existent. That, and I'd like to see a more functional BIOS that offers the ability to do things you can do in most other laptop BIOSes these days.

But to answer your question, even though I never received one of my two mail-in rebates, I've been very happy with the laptop indeed, and would definitely purchase it again (and I use this thing almost all day, every day).

 

[Irish80122]

Awesome! I think that it is going to be the m6811 then, now the only question is where to buy. I think I heard someone say that at Best Buy you could have them open it up to see if there are any stuck pixels, is that true? Also, is there any reason to get the warrenty from wherever I buy it from? Thanks!

 

[ChuaChua]

Watch for the cracked hinge problem.
Are they structural or just cosmetic? I've noticed that the left hinge (with the biggest crack) is a bit misaligned.
Structural meaning the screen will fall off because of the crack.
Cosmetic meaning just the plastic casing of the hinge is cracked.

 

[TeejayV]

Hello everyone!

I purchased my 6807 back in early June, and i must say, I've been very very pleased with this product so far. I do have a couple things that I would like to do the notebook though. Mainly, I use it as a gaming system, and I for sure would want to get the best performance that I can from it. I haven't even bothered to OC it yet, so it's still running at its stock ratios. I haven't had a notebook before, and I am not sure if they are as easily OC'ed as desktop computers are. Being cautious about damaging any of the parts due to OC'ing has kept me away from that field. So I guess i have a couple questions that I must ask:

1) If I am to Overclock the Video memory and core using ATI tools, do i put it directly from 300/200 to 400/220? or do I raise it up in smaller increments?

2) Regarding adding more RAM. I am aware from reading all the previous posts in this thread that a good 1GB stick to buy would be the Transcend 333 stick off of Newegg. The thing is, I live in Canada, and I am not sure if newegg ships outside the USA. Also, prices are quite steep for a 1GB bar of ram. I am thinking instead of putting in another 512 in the easy-to-reach slot, and just leaving the 256 bar inside. What would the performance difference be between a rig that runs 768 MB of ram compared to 1GB? (Let's say I was running DOOM3 or Half Life 2 or even Warcraft 3; would it make a huge peformance difference if i only had 768mb?)

3) Regarding the cracked hinges. I didn't even notice till a poster brought it up on this forum, that these laptops were susceptible to cracked hinges. When I arrived home from work after reading about the aforementioned hinges, I inspected my own notebook and much to my dismay, both of the hinges are cracked. What can I do about the hinges? I hope that this doesn't lead to a major problem, and I am quite afraid of even moving it from my desk now. I didn't purchase an extend warranty from where I bought the notebook from, so it's basically just under the E-machines 1 year warranty. If anyone knows what I can do about this damage, I would be grateful for any advice.

4) And finally, I am also going to replace the 4200 RPM 60 GB HDD of this notebook to at least a 5400 RPM one. Would I somehow still be able to use the stock harddrive with the laptop through means of an external connection or something? I'm not sure how that would work, but I would hate to see a 60 GB harddrive go to waste.

Thanks in advance to all the people who will reply, and in short, I am very happy with this purchase. it is a reliable machine and has served me well so far.

 

[ThunderPC]

1) Check out the ATI Tool Readme, or do some digging around on the net. If you don't mind leaving it unattended, let ATI Tool find the best overclock for you. It has the ability to step up in increments and find the highest overclock with no artifacts for you on both mem and core. It takes quite some time for each though. You then may want to drop that back just a tick for peace of mind. I personally run mine at 425/227. I did not use ATI tool to find the highest overclock, but I did have it scan for artifacts for quite some time at this 430/230 and it ran flawlessly, so I left it at 425/227. All units are different though, so you may be able to do much better or worse. It will be one of those trial and error things.

2) It would definately make a performance difference, but how "huge" is relative to what you consider huge . Sorry to sound so vague. You stand to gain performance by having more data stored in ram, and less swap file usage. Obviously not as much as adding a 1GB stick, but it should still be a good boost in performance.

3)On another forum I am on (notebookforums.com), there is a long thread dedicated just to this. I have been lucky with my m6809 so far, but I anticipate them to crack at some time in the near future (pessimist, I know ). At any rate, most users over there report eMachines sending you a box for the RMA and fixing the problem with a simple phone call to customer service. Some are reporting a whole new LCD, some are reporting just getting the cracked piece replaced. I have not pulled my LCD apart, but it looks to me like replacing the whole LCD would be there easiest fix. One thing to worry about then would be the possibility of getting an LCD with dead pixels. Then you get to RMA again .

4)Yes. 2,5" external drive enclosures are sold at many online retailers for around $20 or less. You basically slap your drive in them and then plug it into either firewire or USB. I personally would suggest going with the Hitachi 7200RPM drive though. The price for the 60GB one is down to $182.50 at zipzoomfly.com. I don't know if they ship to Canada though and how much that would be. You stand a huge performance increase here also. Not only faster loading of OS, apps, levels, etc, but your whole machine will be faster due to the much, much faster swap file.

I hope some of this helped, and happy gaming!

 

[syarost]

I am havin problems with my USB ports actually working at USB 2.0. They fail to recognize a Belkin 2.0 USB hub, or recognize an external USB 2.0 HD I wanted to use for backup with Norton GHOST. See this thred http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=33330& and comment if you are having the same problem. Thanks!

 

[srodick]

I've had my 6809 for a couple months now. I'm a business user, not a gamer. At the time I bought this machine because it had the most bang for the buck at the time - especially considering the BestBuy/manufacturers rebates. (This was an upgrade from a several-year-old HP OmniBook that had too many problems over the years.)

I bought this machine for the hot processor and big hard drive. BUT, I don't understand why eMachines doesn't offer XP Pro. Or why they furnish a slow hard drive. You'd think that a machine that is the "ultimate in power, performance, graphics and connectivity" would come with a faster than 4200 rpm drive and at least offer XP Pro.

Otherwise, the machine is a dream. I've upgraded to XP Pro, and dropped in a bigger ram chip, which has improved performance.

FYI, I've noticed that BestBuy seems to rotate rebates among their various brands. I'd wait until they cycle to the eMachines rebate to buy.

 

[MDE]

They have a total of $250 in MIRs off the M6810 this week, so I'd bite if you've been waiting for rebates.

 

[jEnus]

I talked with Emachiens tech support regarding cracked hindges. They state they are recalling laptops with cracked hindges. They will be replacing the hindges and maybe the LCD, but he didn't know if they had to do that aswell. He states that he is unable to set up the RMA as of right now due to a back order of the replacement parts. He told me to call in 3 weeks.

 

[ThunderPC]

Originally posted by: jEnus
I talked with Emachiens tech support regarding cracked hindges. They state they are recalling laptops with cracked hindges. They will be replacing the hindges and maybe the LCD, but he didn't know if they had to do that aswell. He states that he is unable to set up the RMA as of right now due to a back order of the replacement parts. He told me to call in 3 weeks.

By recalling, did he mean they are actually issuing a recal to repair the problem and keep others from cracking or just accepting warranty returns on ones that already have cracked? I would love to get mine in if they actually have a fix for it now.

 

[TonyBerry]

Update on the RAM:

Here is the replacement Transcend SODIMM:

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

Picture 4

Yea!! Problem solved.

Carry on.

 

[ydgmms]

I'd just like to say how awesome E-Machines is.

My aunt mislabeled the envelope for the rebates.
The one that was supposed to go to Best Buy's center got sent to e-Machines.
They were nice enough to send me a letter saying that, and everything I sent them. Giving me a second chance to send it to the right address. I doubt many companies would take the time and money (31cents) to send that information back to me.

I've slagged on emachines for years. And I think everyone here has too. Those old PCs were, crap.
But my mom has a TI1600 desktop thats been running strong with NO problems since its purchase a year or two ago. And now a M6805 that is just great. But seeing those and especially after this rebate stuff, e-machines have certainly gained my respect.




ANYWAY On to the reason for this post.

Whoever has benchmarked their m6805 with or without overclocking, with or without upgrades. Can you post your various scores and what program you used to benchmark it? I'm doing that to mine now, and would like to see what others score. I know people have posted them, but seriously... 30+ pages.

 

[ChuaChua]

Originally posted by: jEnus
I talked with Emachiens tech support regarding cracked hindges. They state they are recalling laptops with cracked hindges. They will be replacing the hindges and maybe the LCD, but he didn't know if they had to do that aswell. He states that he is unable to set up the RMA as of right now due to a back order of the replacement parts. He told me to call in 3 weeks.

Can you give more information about the recall?
I live in Canada and I don't know if I my m6809 is being recalled.
The Best Buy guy in Portland, OR told me that Futureshops upholds Best Buy's warranty policy so that the extended warranty for the m6809 will work at Futureshop.

I can live with the cracked hinges as long as they are cosmetic, not structural.

 

[oldyellowcat]

Hey, I got 6809 two months ago and recently I am starting to notice an annoying keyboard problem: when I type, it would randomly move cursor to an unexpected place somewhere else in the document. I have to move the cursor back or my document will be screwed up.

It only happens with the build-in keyboard, not with USB keyboard. Does not matter which editor --- office, notepad...etc. Seems more often with MS Word though.

Actually when I type this message it happened 3 or 4 times.

Is there anyone else having the same problem? Or if you know it's a configuration issue?

Thanks!

 

[gweilo8888]

Sounds to me like you're bumping the touchpad with your hand...

 

[oldyellowcat]

Originally posted by: gweilo8888
Sounds to me like you're bumping the touchpad with your hand...

I meant the text cursor, not mouse cursor, which even moves by bumping touchpad, will not affect your typing. The text cursor is annoying because all the sudden the next word goes to somewhere else in the document...

 

[gweilo8888]

Remember that if you have tap-click enabled on the touchpad, that it can move the text cursor though...

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: gweilo8888
Remember that if you have tap-click enabled on the touchpad, that it can move the text cursor though...

You're bumping the touchpad, it happens to me sometimes.

 

[epi117]

"Short answer is to not let Windows manage your wireless connection. I unchecked the appropriate box in the configuration applet and have yet to lose my wireless connection."

great advice thanks, worked for me.

 

[ShellGuy]

Just go in to your properties tab and disable tap click and taht will fix ur problem.


Will

 

[PDJBoy]

Hello all,

I have been reading this thread for the past couple of hours and my fears of purchasing a eMachine product (d*mn that name brand stigma) have pretty much been quelled. Once school starts up again I am going to go ahead and get the M6811 or if they come out with a newer model, I'll get that one. Is there anything I should be concerned with or on the look out for before I get it though? And I hear a lot about benchmarking and overclocking (not sure what that is, but I'll read some more this morning to find out what that exactly means). For an average user, just looking for some business applications and the occasional recreational graphic/web design, is this something I really should be concerned with? Thanks for all help.

 

[ShellGuy]

PDJ Welcome to the thread and just make sure that you get the Extended warranty on anything you buy. It will save you massave headachs in the long run.




Will G

 

[PDJBoy]

Get the extended warranty through eMachines or Bestbuy? I've read different views saying that both were better than the other. But it seems that the general consensus is that the BestBuy warranty is better.

 

[MDE]

The Best Buy warranty is more expensive, but if they can't fix the problem you get a new laptop right then and there. The only downside it that it's expensive.

 

[PDJBoy]

Yeah, but I remember seeing that one person got BestBuy to pricematch the warranty eMachines offers. Has anyone else been successful with this? I will give it a try when I go and pick up mine.