We Set Up 1000 of These
Written: Apr 24 '01
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Pros: Decent computer, decent price
Cons: Not the fastest, most efficient, or stabile pc, long boot
The Bottom Line: A decent computer at a decent price; not my personal pick, but not the worst computer I have seen by far.
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| Turin's Full Review: AcerPower 8400 (8400-T667A) PC Desktop |
Where I work, we spent all of last summer setting up and networking 1000 new acer 8400's and 500 new hp printers.
Specs:
-600mhz pIII
-128megs ram pc100
-10gig 7200 rpm seagate udma2 hd
-ati xpert (rage2 based chipset i think) video card
-3com NIC
-onboard audio (crystalaudio I think)
Out of the box:
I was surprised, coming right out of the box all but 5 that i know of turned on and worked right away (well 4, a powersupply burnt out on one of them as it was turned on). Furthermore, there were only two others that i had to open and reseat any of the peripherals on. I was very impressed considering the number of these that we ordered and how well they survived transportation.
Performance:
They aren't the fastest p3 600's even with 128megs of ram, but what do you expect from acer? They are decent computers, and we got them for a good price. They take forever to boot, though not as bad as the acers we ordered last year (PowerS 6400's i believe). For the price we paid it's a good deal. They exceed the requirements for everything we need them to do, the only area it may be hurting is in the autocad class. But that's only 2d design i believe (autocad lt), so they should be fine. Likewise these would be adequate for any sort of home pc or home office pc.
Reliabilty:
We have had them for a year now, and it's been mostly a mixed bag. For the most part they have held up pretty well. However, we've had to replace many parts already. HD's, monitors (I was surprised by the number), power supplies, video cards, and a few motherboards all failed). While it seems like a lot, it's hard to judge when you have bought 1,000. I would estimate that atleast 5% of the machines had some part fail.
Last year's acers plauged us with stupid bugs (mostly involving the network card, booting problems, and some video problems). Don't expect too much from anyone's tech support service, including my experience with dell. Acer's no exception to that rule.
So far there have only been a few bugs with these. We still have a lot of trouble with some software titles, but they are of a junky nature themselves. Never the less, You tend to have to reboot several times each day when running those titles. Other than those junky titles, most systems run pretty smooth.
Another qualm i have with Acer is their website, several times they have had the wrong drivers categorized on their site, so that you would go to download the drivers for your system, and they would be for different hardware. Your best bet is to know what's in the pc and get the drivers from the manufacturer's site.
If you are looking for a decent computer for a decent price, Acer is not bad, but if you can afford it I would go with Dell or Micron. I would put this on par with Gateway, and choose it over Compaq.
Other Thoughts:
The memory shipped was only pc100, and they shipped a slot1 p3 600. While this means that you may upgrade to 850mhz, you may not be able to upgrade to 1ghz without running over spec on the memory and pci bus (I do not know which via chipset it is using to make a 100% positive statement). If you want to be able to upgrade your pc for larger gains later on, I would consider a different machine, or make sure you specify you want a socket motherboard and p3 with a 133mhz bus).
I chose not recommend to a friend on this computer, because I would only recommend a Dell or Micron to a friend if they want to buy a pc. If you need a more budget oriented system, this could be good for you.
*for those of you who have read this review before, I re submitted it because it has been sitting on the shelf now since august when I first wrote it, and despite several emails to Epinions over the last year, they have failed to place it in the proper category.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 800+
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 601-700
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: CD-ROM
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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Epinions.com ID:
Turin
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Reviews written: 77
Trusted by: 63 members
About Me:
23 year old Computer Technician/Network Admin into Games, Music, and of course Computers.
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