I was at Tiger today and there are great deals on re-certified Emachines. As low as 179$ before shipping and you have to mail in rebates. Shipping + taxes is anywhere from $30-$50. In most states Tiger doesn't collect tax
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?Sort=0&Nav=|c:6|m:305|&Recs=30
You walk into BestBuy and in my opinion the HPs, Emachines, Gateways Compaqs there all look very good and well built
In my research back then E's had small fans. They need a fan upgrade to be good machines. But that was three years ago.
The worst thing about dneap machines is not the hardware -- that cna be as reliable as more expensive stuff -- but the adware they put on the machine to get the selling price down. It would be better to spring for a clean copy of Windows and reformat the things before trying to use them.
I have had great success with Tiger.