Hardware Analysis - Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

Re: Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

Tim Ritt — 2008-07-18T12:43:29-05:00

You can try crossflashing it to a TS-H552U before trashing the drive. Do a search on Cd freaks to get the directions on crossflashing it. I did mine long ago, and have great luck with US07 firmware. US08 or US09 is the latest fw I believe but I haven't tried it yet, as my drive is fine and I don't believe the update was that important.

Re: Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

john albrich — 2008-03-18T06:06:49-05:00

Hans Moleman said:

I stay away from NEC drives....

I recommended a specific model...the NEC3550A. In the 3550A NEC appears to have done an outstanding job with stability, and the adaptive optics and laser power control programming over all speed ranges (hence its ability to burn reliable disks well above their rated speeds).

As for LiteOn drives in general, I've seen good drives and bad drives...just as with NEC in general.

Re: Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

Hans Moleman — 2008-03-18T05:23:35-05:00

I stay away from NEC drives. Of the three I've owned one was DOA, one lasted 4 months, and the last lasted 1 year so I couldn't exchange it for a replacement with Newegg like the first two. I know they're popular, but I stick with what's worked better for me. I've done well with Liteon drives and two of the computers in my house have Asus DVD burners which have worked very well and came with Nero even though they were OEM drives.

Re: Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

Ryan Evans — 2008-03-15T22:46:58-05:00

troy k said:

Well I had to use my restore disc finally. 1 thing I have to tell you is you might have to remove some things you have added such as a video card. The restore disc just would not work properly till I unplugged my video card then it worked fine. I tried and tried but found this was the only way it would finish loading up. Just wanted to save everyone else the hassle.

Thanks for this comment! I was having the exact same problem until I read your post. I almost wasted $20 ordering the recovery discs from emachines because they told me I probably had corrupted CD's. Luckily I was able to cancel the order before it was too late. Now everything is running smoothly.
Has anyone ever noticed how quickly the computer boots up after the factory restore especially compared to restarting it after just a few new program installations? This happened on my T6520 as well.

Re: Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

john albrich — 2008-02-28T14:38:14-05:00

It is an IDE drive.

However, I would recommend an NEC3550A if you can get one. LiteOns are good, but I am very impressed with the NEC drive's ability to burn media that even LiteOns can't make usable. I recommend not buying a used or open-box DVD burner, however.

Actually, the problem may be your media. Some brands just don't work well in some standalone DVD players, especially if you burn really long shows that burn all the way out to the very edge of the DVD, and sometimes even just because the discs age while they are being stored unburned/unused. (e.g. a package of a brand that worked 1 year ago might stop working reliably simply because it has aged)

BTW, if you ever want to turn an IDE drive into a SATA connecting drive, you can buy a ~US$12 adapter that will do so very effectively. It can eliminate a bulky PATA cable.

edit to add-and of course, if you've changed the media, then it could be the disc format. Some standalone players easily handle DVD+R discs, but are unreliable with DVD-R discs, and vice-versa.

It can also depend on burning speed. I generally burn discs at 4X even when they are rated higher. The higher vibration in the drive at the higher RPMs can produce a disc that is closer to 'out-of-spec' than a disc burned at lower RPMs. If you want, you can find more information about that by reading up on "adaptive optics" in CD and DVD drives.

Also, dust inside the player becomes a more critical issue with certain types of discs, and is a problem in general.

Re: Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

Shannon Peters — 2008-02-28T14:17:09-05:00

Hey guys! Been a loooong time since I posted. My t6522 is still running and doing mostly what I want it to do but I have a small problem lately.

I have been trying to burn dvd's and when I put the burnt dvd into my dvd player in the bedroom the movie freezes and is unwatchable. I don't think its my software as I have tried 2 seperate burning programs.

This makes me think that is my dvd drive. I have heard great things about LITEON brand of drives so my get one to see if that fixes my problem. But what I need to know is if anyone knows if our original drive (TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H552B CDROM Drive) is IDE or SATA?

Re: Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

Andrew Chu — 2007-11-21T19:41:20-05:00

Thanks for the tips.

I actually bought an antec tricool 120mm fan ($20 at circuit city) and propped it up on the inside of the case cover with two paper clips. works like a charm!

now ambient temps are at a consistent 42c instead of 47c and no more audio hiccups. I know it's odd that these problems occur at a low temp, but i did replace the power supply with a pc power and cooling one a while back so maybe that has something to do with it.

Anyhow, cpu is back in action and with a cool blue led glow to boot!

Re: Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

john albrich — 2007-11-20T03:47:28-05:00

Andrew Chu said:

...So quick question, has anybody had a similar issue and/or replaced the stock heatsink and fan with a better one?....

Improving cooling was discussed earlier in this thread. One thing mentioned was that a very cheap way to substantially reduce the CPU temp is to simply add a case fan to the existing side inlet grill. Install the fan to draw cooler room-air into the computer (if memory serves, it will blow this cool air almost directly over the CPU)

However, your temp is still well below the max temp for the type 3500+ used in the T6522. You can use CBID (Central Brain Identifier (majorgeeks.com) to verify the "OPN" of your specific CPU, then compare it to this easy-to-use chart:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/143/9

or AMD's charts (a bit more complicated)
http://www.amdcompare.com/us-en/desktop/Default.aspx

Re: Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

Andrew Chu — 2007-11-19T18:04:44-05:00

Hey folks!

Been a while, glad to see everyone's t6522's are still running well, mine is doin ok except for the fact that my idle cpu temps are running a bit high these days at 47c. I'm getting some weird side effects as a result in particular my soundblaster live gets all choppy (i know it's not the sound card b/c i've taken it out and the onboard sound does the same).

So quick question, has anybody had a similar issue and/or replaced the stock heatsink and fan with a better one?

Thanks!

(Great info on the x2 upgrade process as well, if i can sort out this heat thing, may do that eventually although can't seem to find that deal for the 4400+ on TigerDirect anymore =( )

Re: Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

Tim Ritt — 2007-11-09T03:27:40-05:00

Ive had a t6522 since the day they were sold and updated my emachines bios to MSI bios using the f switch (force upgrade) without a problem (I found the exact way to do it just can't remember where from, though I think I saved it somewhere to a text file). I read on other forums where people have had no problem running dual core on the 6522 but I haven't installed an x2 on mine yet. There is also a cpu compat site you can check to see if the stepping and numbers match and are compat.

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=prodcpusupport&pro...3_no=#menu

(I'm new here hopefully I haven't broken any rules by sharing this link)

Re: Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

Byron Donald — 2007-11-05T00:16:14-05:00

I hope this is the last time I post anything on here for a long time. I installed the AMD driver, the hotfix, edited the registry, and then installed the AMD optimizer tonight. Instructions for ths proces are on page 27 of this forum.

I played BFME2 for about 20 minutes. Prior to installing the optimizer the sound was a bit skippy during game play. After the optimizer if was perfect. My wife is going to play BFME2 tonight for a few hours. But I think everything will be fine.

Thanks everybody for all the advice and help. Feel free to write me and ask me any questions if you decide to upgrade.

The only thing I might add to the machine now is a new power supply. I'll keep in touch.

Re: Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

john albrich — 2007-11-03T15:28:11-05:00

Al-CID said:

i know, i just feel like doing it.

Just what the world needs...another Dick Cheney

Re: Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

Al-CID — 2007-11-03T13:28:00-05:00

i know, i just feel like doing it.

Re: Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

Butch Searle-spratt — 2007-11-02T22:12:24-05:00

Al-CID said:

John W said:

Everyone keeps telling me that Emachines are garbage, but there's a new Emachines T6522 at Circuit City that has awesome specs. CHECK IT OUT YOURSELF

AMD 64 Athlon Processor +3500
1 GB of DDR DIMM RAM
ATI Radeon 200 XPress 128mb Graphics
TV Tuner (unspecified)
XP Media Center
4 DDR DIMM RAM slots
7 USB ports
3 PCI and 1 PCI Xpress expansion slots

NOW CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS, CHECK 4 URSELF

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/eMachines-Desktop-Media-Center-...tDetail.do

the problem is:
AMD 64 Athlon Processor +3500 (AMD 64 ATHLON X2 IS AVAILABLE )
1 GB of DDR DIMM RAM (WHY NOT 2 GB OF DDR2 RAM)
ATI Radeon 200 XPress 128mb Graphics(ITS MEDIOCRE, USE HD2900XT OR 8800SERIES)
TV Tuner (unspecified)
XP Media Center (USE VISTA)
4 DDR DIMM RAM slots(DDR2 SLOT WOULD BE BETTER)
7 USB ports (USUALLY MOTHERBOARD HAVE 10)
3 PCI and 1 PCI Xpress expansion slots(DOESNT SUPPORT MULTI GRAPHIC ADAPTOR)

Wake up dude. That post was in August of 2005. Some of your recommendations were not ever available then. Doh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Byron, good going. You give us hope man. Sounds like maybe an install of the dual core, then a complete restore and bingo. Am I oversimplifying things?

Butch

Re: Emachines T6522 Desktop: is it good?

john albrich — 2007-11-02T19:52:46-05:00

That's great Byron!

After restoring the system disk to off-the-shelf condition, did you then first install any other special software (the optimizing driver, the hotfix, etc) before you tried doing anything?

e.g. are you running this:

BIOS3.9 + eMachWinMCE2005*

or this:

BIOS3.9 + eMachWinMCE2005 + OptimizingDriver + AnyOther Patches/Fixes/etc

*By the way...Microsoft says that a system sold as:
"WinMCE" is WinXP Home SP2 + MCE layer
"WinMCE2005" is WinXP Pro SP2 + MCE layer