Anyone with an E-Machines might want to read this

[dmill89]

Someone finally did a through test of the dreaded Bestec powersupply

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=154


Note to owners of E-machines with the Bestec Powersupply: Replace it ASAP Lack of overvoltage protection on the 5VSB rail will lead to a fried motherboard if one of the capacitors on that rail fails. (And with the cheap caps in this unit failure is rather likely)

 

[raybay]

We we not agree with this analysis. We, too, have had a team of independent experts analyse the eMachines Bestec Power supply.
First, the same Bestec power supplies work fine in the low end Gateway, Dell, HP, Compaq, and several Tiger computers without the high failures.
The problem with the eMachines units is the motherboards, which were designed by Intel and others, but then manufacturered in Korea under license to Tri-Gem. These motherboards are missing key components in the plastics of the board, and the circuitry... which allows them to shrink and curl. During the shrinkage and curling, the electrical circults are pulled and twisted by the force of the board curling or shrinking... creating short circuits that destroy the Bestec and other brands of power supplies that eMachines used from 2002 to 2007...
We have 700 eMachines computers stored in a barn awaiting action... because eMachines knew they were bad.
The thing eMachine owners need to know is that in excess of 60 percent of eMachines Desktops built and sold during that time have failed with no apologies nor compensation from eMachines
The problem is moot now, as eMachines, once owned by Gateway, and before that, by Tri-Gem, is now owned (as I understand the transaction) by another Korean company of famous name and note.

 

[dmill89]

From what I've seen It is a combination of the two. The tri-gem motherboards do have high failure rates and can fry powersupplies. However not all pre-gateway/acer e-machines used tri-gem boards some used ECS or FIC boards and these systems seem to fail more often from the powersupply frying the board(They also have a lower overall failure rate). As PSU manufactures go Bestec is a mixed bag I have seen decent units with decent caps (The best caps I have ever seen in a Bestec were Teapo [that PSU came out of a Dell insperon 530], not top of the line japanese electrolitics but not terrible either) I have also seen junk. The particular unit reviewed (the ATX-250-12E) is one of Bestec's poorer designs and reguardless of weather most e-machines failures start from the motherboard or PSU the fact that this PSU lacks protection on the 5 VSB rail means that if a cap does fail (again this PSU uses cheap failure prone caps) on this rail it will likely fry the motherboard. For that reason I would not trust that unit in any system. I've seen some of the better bestec's with protection circuits (The later 300w model that replaced the 250w in the later P4 machines) on all rails fail in e-machines and not take the motherboard with them so these PSUs defently do fail and the 250-12E's lack of protection on the 5VSB make it a prime canditate for frying boards.

 

[raybay]

There are many with great anecdotal information on a variety of eMachines. All our data is specific to board models and serial numbers, power supply models and serial numbers, UL numbers, and so on...
There are, of course, a number of failures that do not meet statistical parameters... Bestec power supplies are of such poor designs that they have failed frequently in HP, Compaq, and Gateway machines... But they rarely caused the destruction of the motherboard.
But there are very few cases where it can be proved that the Bestec power supply caused the motherboard to fail...
We have so many huge bins of power supplies and motherboards, that we hope we never see another darken our door.