My father purchased the eMachines T5212 for me a few years back, and I really wish he'd consulted me beforehand.  He bought it because he thought the price was reasonable, and could find no fault with the features - I am forced to disagree.   The T5212 came with an IDE hard drive to begin with, but with SATA compatibility.  Inevitably, I upgraded to SATA as soon as I could.  However, after a few months my hard drive suddenly stopped working.  It only took a little poking around to figure out why: the 4-pin power cable had broken.  Because of how the computer was put together, every time I opened and closed the case - which I have to do often to clean the thing out, it is an inexplicable dust-magnet - it wiggled the power cable around, which eventually wore the cable out and broke it.  I have since had to replace the 4-pin cable about three times.  After reinstalling the OS, I found that I was incapable of reinstalling the drivers for the integrated soundcard.  I still have no idea why this is, and have had to use USB speakers for about a year now.  Intermittently the PS/2 connector would simply stop working.  I would boot up my computer, and for no apparent reason at all my keyboard would not work until I rebooted.  I have had not problems since switching to a USB keyboard.  The SD card reader is also not the deal my father thought it would be.  I tried using it once, and the SD card actually became stuck in the computer - I had to pull it out with pliers, and have not risked it since.  Another issue: this computer is only capable of handling 2GB of RAM.  That is hardly acceptable for a computer that claims to be Vista-compatible.  hropmeThis is the second eMachines PC I have owned, and the second to give me nothing but problems.  If you are thinking about purchasing an eMachines PC - please, for your own sake, think twice.

CocoaNibs

Murrieta, CA