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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 1444102" data-attributes="member: 259">My own experience: Last August, I bought an e-machine from Circuit City, based on the following:* Circuit City has a beautiful no-questions-asked return policy.* The e-machine gave me the most bang for my buck, compared to the other prefabs at CC.* My experiences building my own machines have been less than pleasant:  I'm only middling-good with computers, and building your own machine can be a magnificent hassle.* The e-machine's on-board video card sucked, but it had an AGP slot into which I could install my own GeForce card. So I get it home, and try to install my video card.  No luck:  the machine absolutely won't recognize it. So I read the motherboard's instructions on how to change the BIOS:  it tells me to go into the BIOS and change default video from on-board to AGP.  Problem is, there's no such setting in the BIOS. So I go online and research, and discover that this is a common problem folks have, and you have to flash your bios with an upgrade in order to get the setting that the computer's manual tells you to use.  I do that and get the setting.  It still doesn't work. So I get on the phone with tech support, who assume I'm an idiot and tell me to do things like disable video from device manager.  Uh, hello?  I just told you that I'd already done that, you fool!  Then they tell me to change settings in device manager that don't exist.  And they argue with me when I describe to them the screen I'm looking at, so certain are they that I must be seeing something else.  I have this same conversation (with minor variations) several times by phone and by email, in which they ignore what i've told them I've tried and just give me the same obvious and/or useless advice repeatedly. Finally they tell me to make a setting change that completely disables video, such that I'm not able to even see the initial bootup screen.  Another call to support later, they tell me that I can remove the computer's battery for an hour to reset all settings.  I do that.  And I write a very angry letter to tech support telling them that if I can't get some useful advice within 48 hours, I'm returning their computer to the store and spreading word about how horrible their computers are. Four days later, nary a word from tech support (except for an automated email promising a response within 24 hours), I return the computer to the store and buy a Hewlett Packard. Three weeks later, tech support writes me a letter telling me that because I'd installed a different operating system on the computer, they weren't obligated to help me with my problem, but good luck, and thanks for choosing e-machines! My HP has worked beautifully.  I did have a problem a few months ago when I upgraded my video card, but the problem was my own fault this time, and a single call to the video card manufacturer's tech support sorted everything out very quickly. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND AGAINST E-MACHINES!  I have never had so much trouble doing a basic customization on a computer, and other than BellSouth (a whole other saga), I have never had such a lousy experience with tech support. Daniel</blockquote>

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