Avoid Emachines!

Yes, I know their parts dept. will sell you a $35 board for $160.

I did find a couple of links where someone replaced their boards successfully and still used their original restore discs.

Thank you

Your CD will work on any ECS or PCChips mobo, provided they are using a VIA chipset. I just bought a 200GB HD (Maxtor) for the one I mentioned above, that the kids are using at their house. Wanting the eMachines OS already installed when I gave it to him, I installed it on my system which is running a Core2 Dual E6400 and a VIA P4M800-M chipset. I stopped the install just before the last reboot, then installed and let it finish on his, which is using an Athlon 2000XP and an ECS L7VMM mobo. No problems. Unlike some makers, notably Compaq, the install of the OS is not dependent on info on the BIOS chip, so you don't need an "official" eMachines mobo for it to work.

What is consistent between eMachines and Sony VAIO is that their parts prices are high, and very difficult to get. Next to the old Packard Bell, they are the two worst manufactures of computer components... not because of the failures, but because they know they will fail and do nothing to alert the buyers.
The Sony VAIO laptop is a greater disaster than the old Compaqs. The eMachines laptops are now showing how failure prone they can be.
Quality is not important. Marketing is. IBM/Lenova, the upper third of Gateway, the upper third of Dell, and the upper half of HP are OK for reliability. Not many other are.
They could all learn from the IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad, Netvista, Intellistation models for excellence.

Sorry I have to disagree with you. At least how it relates to mine. Nothing in the system was proprietary. The power supply can be replaced by a standard ATX PSU, the mobos can be replaced by any ECS or PCChips board. The hard drive was a seagate. The only ting I considered crappy were the speakers. The keyboard and mouse were OK, and I'm still using the monitor.

Packard Bells suck. I have an old L197 Multimedia one from about '98

True.
Only the power switches, the motherboard, the power supply, the network interface, and the warranty were defective. The modem, memory, and hard drive remained good... well at least until the electrical shorts in the motherboard ruined the hard drive and the CPU and the Memory, then you still had the hard drive... which you could not access because you no longer had a way to use the eMachines restore discs, to you had to put the drive in another machin with another version of Windows XP.
But that was minor... you still had the hard drive and the case.
Yes that was only a minor inconvenience.... NO OTHER COMPUTER MANUFACTURER HAS HAD SO MANY TOTALLY DESTRUCTIVE FAILURES. None.
So disagree all you want, but provide better evidence.
The motherboard, because of the tattoo, is proprietary. You cannot access your information except at considerable expense... you cannot replace the board except by purchasing another from eMachines (which will also eventually fail) for $159.95 to $221.95, plus shipping.
The hard drives in the eMachine are NOT all Seagates. Most are Tri-Gems, some are Fujitsu, some are Samsung, some are Maxtor, and a few are Western Digital.
The speakers are not bad compared to how totally the rest of the system fails.
For the average person who is not a computer tech, this is a disaster... some spend $150 to find out it can never be fixed... can never work again.
It sounds as if you eMachines experience is very limited, and you have not seen these poor people on a budget see their dreams dashed by an incompetent or crooked vendor.

Emachines computers are not proprietary by any means. They are just made from "below standard" power supplies and crippled motherboards. I never worry about replacing a motherboard. All that needs to be considered, is if the motherboard will run the old CPU and memory. A fresh OS install works fine

How can you say that when you yourself have provided no evidence whatsoever to back up your statements.

Don't get me wrong, i am not defending emachines at all! But i would like to see what evidence you can produce in the way of links to back your claims up with.

The tattoo on the motherboard makes it proprietary. The motherboard, as configured, is available nowhere else. Look up your standards for proprietary. It cannot be duplicated by any other manufacturer without the code for the EPROM in that machine. Without the "proprietary" motherboard, the Windows XP that came with it is unavailable and unusable. That makes that model one of a kind.

Maybe the power switches get defective after awhile. I don't know. The
T2080 at my kids house got turned off after 15 months when they just moved. I guess if you are a computer repair guy you just get jaded after awhile. I can only comment on the one I have. It's rock solid and at just under $500US after the rebates, with monitor speakers keyboard and mouse 512MBs DDR2700 80GB HDD and Athlon XP 2000+ was a heck of a good deal back in late '02. And you are dead wrong about the "tatoo" I have run the OS that came with the system on a L7VMM, P4VXASD2+, P4M500Pro-M all ECS and a M952 PCChips board. All bought retail except for the L7 which came with the original system. That being said I only run ABIT on my personal system. The key is the chipset. It has to be VIA for the OS to install.

Edit: Oh ya they threw in a HP printer too.
Edit2: The ECS mobos are pure crap performance wise. Don't get me wrong about that. But except for a bad LAN on one, they are still running. I mean even my ABIT IC7 had a dead USB port when I bought it. $#@* happens.

That tatoo is a motherboard manufacturers logo. There also should be numbers on it that can be used to find the exact model number. I was surprized to find an MSI motherboard in a recent Emachines repair. Of course, it was a stripped down (Bios) version board

I thought the tatoo he was referring to was the E-machines splash screen that pops at the beginning of the post. That screen is tied to the recovery disk and not the CMOS chip, like it is with Compaqs, which I consider proprietary. Let me add that things may be different with eMachines after the Gateway takeover. I can only speak for my system.

The tattoo is NOT a motherboard manufacturers logo.
The Tattoo is a software burned into an EPROM on the motherboard that identifies that particular computer, model number, serial number in some cases, and other identifying information. It can be removed by somebody who knows how to program EPROMS but hardly anybody does.
The EPROM is NOT a LOGO, and I cannot imaging how you got that idea.
This code on the EPROM is located by the Recovery/Install discs at startup. If the disc or Windows does not find the correct EPROM code, the computer will not allow the install the "Proprietary" version of Windows that was authorized for that machine.
They call it a Tattoo because it is coded into the EPROM and cannot be erased, damaged or manipulated by software geeks.
Somebody VERY GOOD at performing a cold solder on a flat chip without pins, can remove the EPROM, and replace it, but still CANNOT change the tattoo unless they know how to program EPROM chips.
A new Tattoo can be coded into a new EPROM that has no tattoo using a specific software install disc for that task... once on there, it is there for good, or until an EPROM programmer comes along to change it.

My bad,

Damn keyboard... Where's my Jack Daniels

Raybay must be a little snowbound...

The EEprom is the bios or CMOS chip. It is probably Award or a few other types. This EEprom is programmed for each motherboard's chipset. I guess you could say it is proprietary. If I change the motherboard, I change this EEprom too. Some motherboard manufacturers allow you to update the bios or program the CMOS with or without a logo or splash screen on boot up.

"They call it a Tattoo because it is coded into the EPROM and cannot be erased, damaged or manipulated by software geeks".

We called this an "EEprom Program"...

raybay, would you please take a look at my post #27.

sigh.....this thread is taking a weird turn. You guys can argue tattoo semantics. etc. all you want. All I'm saying is I can take my proprietary recovery disks from eMachine, and load the whole XP plus bundles package on a non eMachine system provided the mobo has a VIA chipset, and is made by ECS or PC Chips. No reprograming anything and no changes to the disks themselves. Just set the boot to CDROM, fire it up, and let it run. I didn't hear this or read this. I've done it. With 3 different mobos.

Ok, you win the prize for baloney. Except you have to give the model numbers to get the trophy. As we will attempt to duplicate you feat. We have several ECS and PC Chips motherboards here with the VIA chipset... and we have 24 different eMachines recovery disc sets to test. Cash award comes with a report on the motherboard model numbers. Since we can buy the PCChips motherboards for $44 and the ECS motherboards for 51, we can save computers for a lot of poor old people who shop at Wal-Mart and Best Buy so they can get back online, and so they can type their important papers once more.

Well that's fine ray. If you think I'm a liar, you should at least have the decency to read all of my posts. Especially post #29 that has all the information you seem to be daring me to give you. I'm surprised that seeing as how the T2080 came out in 2002, if you were as good a tech guy as you seem to be implying, that you would have figured this out by now. Since I have the OS running on two boards presently, the L7VMM, and the
M952, I'm almost tempted to download AIDA32 and post screen shots of the system stats and the matching activation keys. But then i do have paint shop and photo shop that could doctor the info so why bother. I sure got nothing that needs to be proved to you. I was just posting what I know for the original poster. I'm too old to be making stuff up. I don't have the time, and it's not my style.

Edit:The L7VMM has the VT8375 KM266 No. Br. and VT8233 So. Br. The original T2080 that I'm typing this on right now.
The M952 has a PT800 No. Br. and VT8237 So. br.
Those are the 2 currently running.
If you want chipset info on the other two, I'll let you do your own homework.

No, I don't think you are a liar. I just want to replicate your efforts as I deal with the elderly, and handicapped. If we can fix these machines, we can make a lot of people happy.
Our team has tried what you suggest for two years... and we cannot get any of them to do what you report. We have two good engineers working on it.
Just give me information so I can make some of these people happy. I have their dead units here on hand.
You information will also be useful for the class action as well.

The P952 is running a P4 1.8A with a Seagate 80 GB HD that came out of the T2080

The P4VXASD2+ was using the 1.8A with a Maxtor DM Plus 9 120GB, but now is just retired to the closet as a back up.

The P4M500Pro-M is running a Core2 Dual E6400 with Maxtor DM10 200GB

They were all loaded with eMachines T2080 v.1.1 XP Home Recovery disk (2 disc set).

The original T2080 now has a 30GB Quantum Fireball (that came out of an old Compaq 5100US), and Athlon XP 2000+

PM me if you need my snail mail address to send the prize money to. I'll be looking forward to receiving it, right after my $21 class action award from MS gets here! <g>