tyswizzles wrote:Same here.

Agreed. I had bought one of these slimlines about 2 years ago. First its power supply was way under powered (the one in my machine was like 150 watts). It got hot like a toaster oven. You could add a slim line Video card, but the power supply was barely adequate to power the PC alone- let alone anything else. I was hoping to use this as a poor mans media center, but instead parted out all of the components, finally realizing that the culprit was a defective motherboard. HP support sucks but at least Indian people are courteous and can speak English.

to jxbwoot: there are a lot less expense ways to do that such as a Blu-Ray player. Or, you could spend about the same and get a Wii.

Pikeman wrote:That's not even necessary anymore. Just upgrade the wii firmware to the current version, and download the netflix channel, no disk required.

The Wii doesn't support HD.

I laughed my butt off, as I am sure anyone who has tried to use a template in Pages (C in circle) did.

jxbwoot wrote:Would this be any good as a "dummy" terminal just to stream movies from Netflix onto our big screen TV? Does it have (or need) an HDMI connection? Does it have a wireless connection or is that something that I'd have to buy (we don't have hardwire connection near the TV).

Thanks.

You would probably be better off with an xbox 360 with wireless then this. It doesn't say anything about a HDMI port so if your big screen is HD which I'm assuming you would have to buy a card to throw into this unit.

jxbwoot wrote:Would this be any good as a "dummy" terminal just to stream movies from Netflix onto our big screen TV? Does it have (or need) an HDMI connection? Does it have a wireless connection or is that something that I'd have to buy (we don't have hardwire connection near the TV).

Thanks.

You would probably be better off with an xbox 360 with wireless then this. It doesn't say anything about a HDMI port so if your big screen is HD which I'm assuming you would have to buy a card to throw into this unit.

Langly1 wrote:Anyone know if this takes normal cards or low profile ones?

Slimline = Low Profile cards

bdsisme wrote:I know that this won't surprise anyone, but it's cheaper than it is here!

Dude this is a refurb and the one in NE is new. You are comparing oranges and apples.

vivianrollins wrote:Dude this is a refurb and the one in NE is new. You are comparing oranges and apples.

Not necessarily. My wife bought the household a Familyroom puter for Fathers' Day from the Woot. I set it up in a couple of minutes. if it was ever used by anyone there was no evidence of it. It was shiny brand new and works quite well. We had to get used to Windows live mail instead of Windows mail that we had on Vista or XP puters. There was nothing extra installed on the puter that shouldn't of been. I'm close to 100% sure it was simply reboxed in a plainer brown box then what we've bought in BestBuy. Maybe it was returned before the buyer opened the box. Every refurb item she's bought has had the same appearance.

You might be pleasantly surprised.

I'm sorry, how is this a good deal?

No HDMI
No eSATA
No USB 3.0
No Wireless
No Bluetooth
No Bluray
Small HD in today's world of 3TB drives

It's refurbished for that price?!

When a $600 1 year old laptop almost has the same specs, but has HDMI, wifi, eSATA, etc, makes you wonder...

Get a Sony PS3, does Netflix, Bluray, etc and almost everything else but record TV for you, which this PC doesn't have a TV tuner so you don't even have that.
Go buy a similar mini-PC with better specs, HDMI, USB 3.0, eSATA, wifi. I've seen them for around the same price and a much smaller footprint.

milesobrien wrote:The best you will ever get is 2.1 audio. 5.1 audio requires a connector and cable not supplied and impossible to get.

Not necessarily true.

If your TV has HDMI, just do as Zelgadis123 suggested: Get a $20 video card with HDMI and built-in audio.

He's using the ATI 4550, I'm using the ATI 4350. Either way, it has HDMI audio built-in (RealTek chipset, which will easily do 5.1 channels).

For my htpc (not too different from this one), I also threw in a Blu-Ray drive. The HDMI easily carries 5.1/DTS audio.

Amizonius ignoramia wefooledum ?

Gendreavus wrote:If you've got $300 to blow and all you really want out of it is a way to stream Netflix to your TV, a PS3 or an Xbox 360 is the better way to go; the PS3 in particular thanks to its ability to play blu-ray movies, giving you two extra movie watching options in one box.

Oh yeah, and you'll get a gaming system with that too. Funny thing, that...

That's what I thought so I bought a PS3 late last year. I am very dissatisfied with the PS3 as a media center of any type. I do not like the fact that it will not play half the video files that a PC would play. Of the half it does play about a 3rd of those will not play sound.

jxbwoot wrote:Would this be any good as a "dummy" terminal just to stream movies from Netflix onto our big screen TV? Does it have (or need) an HDMI connection? Does it have a wireless connection or is that something that I'd have to buy (we don't have hardwire connection near the TV).

Thanks.

MORE than enough power for something like that.
However, there is no wireless and no HDMI.
If you just want to stream netflix over wireless, just get a new blue ray player with a wireless connection.

DO NOT BUY !

These things are worthless, and will buttafuoco on you withing a year.

I have went through 4 of these.
Good
The look is nice and its relatively fast.
Bad
They heat up and one of 2 things happened:
1. Most common is the power supply goes. These things take a special, shape and size, power supply that costs an arm and a leg, and the minute you replace it, the computer becomes a real bad bargain.
Try to get a power supply, also not cheap, on ebay for it and it will be a refurb, or might also be not compatible. (as in the cables and not the correct length, and these are a pain to route because of the internal size)
2. Also due to heat I've seen a motherboard buttafuocoure...
Again due to size and power supply inside, the best you can add to it is a WIFI USB dongle, the minute you add any cards inside you change the airflo, and the power requirements: you are asking for it to buttafuoco.

I know the person who went through 3 of these as they wanted something that was "elegant" on the desk with same final results. I've replaced power supplies on 2. The third I just ebayed with a bad power supply. On mine I've put in better graphics card and that killed it withing a month. I bought mine for the entertainment center, and for good webbrowser on TV...

Buy it ONLY if you plan to change nothing inside, and it will not be in the hot spot during the summer. In general I would avoid this like a plague.

Roostalee wrote:Yes, the PS3 is HDMI out. But also I believe some of the newer Blu-Ray players (not gaming systems) can stream Netflix and have wireless networking connections. So if you're avoiding a gaming console, try that.

Woot had a Philips refurb Bluray not long ago that streams Netflix. Works great. I also have Xbox 360 that does Netflix and has a HDMI no Blu-Ray though

what does anyone know about dual monitor capacity on this bad-boy? I don't see that it has DVI out or dual VGA?

Roostalee wrote:Yes, the PS3 is HDMI out. But also I believe some of the newer Blu-Ray players (not gaming systems) can stream Netflix and have wireless networking connections. So if you're avoiding a gaming console, try that.

Yep, Costco has a $149 Vizio VBR231 BluRay player w/built-in wireless WiFi streaming that's working great for us; NetFlix and Pandora and other apps too.

I've had good luck w/HP komputers. YMMV.

I hate to be that guy, but does anybody know about Ubuntu incompatibilites with this system? There's a couple of great Ubuntu flavors that make for a great settop/HTPC OS, but I wouldn't want to put down the money for something with known issues. A quick Google search didn't reveal much except for a couple of 2+ year old threads, so any intimate experience would be great.

Save $25 but lose 9 months of warranty protection. No deal woot.

Today only, Woot.com offers the refurbished HP Pavilion Slimline s5510f Athlon II 2.8GHz Desktop PC, model no. BQ466AA#ABA, for $319 plus $5 for shipping. That's $25 under our mention of a new one from a month ago and $26 below the lowest total price we could find for a new one today. It features an AMD Athlon II 2.8GHz dual-core processor, 3GB RAM, 640GB 7200 rpm hard drive, dual layer DVD burner, media card reader, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
Info from dealnews dot com

LastApeMan wrote:Oh yeah

64 bit also allows you to set almost all your old software in a cabinet and get new stuff.

barely anything from 32 bit will xp pro will work.

so get ready for that.

The Board will NOT allow me to dissable the onboard video. even if i put a card in - the onboard still takes up memory. no way to dissable it. Funny hu?

When I migrated to Windows 7/64 bit, every one of my 32-bit programs worked just fine. I have several computers, and have tested over 100 programs.

The only programs that ran on my XP machines, but not on 64-bit, were a freeware 16-bit checkers program, and an old DOS program I use for my business (which I now run under DOXbox).

Oh, and one of my favorite old games is 32-bit but uses a 16-bit installer, but I was able to install it manually.

Chumbuh1 wrote:I'm guessing this means that it comes with DDR2 memory, but it supports up to DDR3

The HP specs page says DDR2 for both.

From 2005 review by PCSTATS
At first glance, the Asus A8N-VM CSM looked like it could challenge the Gigabyte GA-K8N51PVMT-9 as the perfect Athlon64/HTPC motherboard, but unfortunately the A8N-VM CSM does not include a TV/Component output bracket. According to the user's manual, one can be purchased separately, although finding a place that sells something so specific seems a pretty difficult task for end users. System integrators are a different story, and we would expect new person that I welcome warmly to Woot! PCs built on this Asus motherboard to feature a TV/Component Output Considering how hard the computer industry is pushing digital home entertainment, Asus should definitely include the TV-Output bracket in the retail box.
There aren't too many quirks with a Micro-ATX motherboard as simple as this, but we did note that the nForce4 430 Southbridge does not come with a heatsink though there are two mounting holes around the chipset for a passive cooler.
(NO HEAT SINK, Other wooters have had system buttafuocoures because of heat)

Note however that the DVI-D output is note quite the same as a DVI output. The DVI-D standard lacks four pins, and as such will not function with that spare DVI-to-analog converter you might have kicking around. If you plan to use dual monitors, one display must use an analog cable, and the other digital.

I just got Rickrolled by you guys! What's up with that? I think you owe me a coupon for subjecting me to that video.

tracibf wrote:what does anyone know about dual monitor capacity on this bad-boy? I don't see that it has DVI out or dual VGA?

You would need to add a graphics card. That may also necessitate a power supply upgrade.

jxbwoot wrote:Would this be any good as a "dummy" terminal just to stream movies from Netflix onto our big screen TV? Does it have (or need) an HDMI connection? Does it have a wireless connection or is that something that I'd have to buy (we don't have hardwire connection near the TV).

Thanks.

You're better off buying a Wii (which is wireless) for $200 to use for netflix streaming. That's what we did and it works great. Plus it takes up less room.

garychen wrote:The graphics card is disappointing.

Compared to most HP PCs unloaded onto Woot, this one actually has the best graphics card I think there has ever been.

Since there have been several posts about upgrading components, here's the Upgrading and Servicing Guide.

albuquerquemat wrote:Let me guess. Went to a Jesuit high school?

More likely went to design school or otherwise has a vocation in which one knows what lorem ipsum is and does not assume (incorrectly) that it's Latin.

bruisedquasar wrote:Reminds me of people who wanted a laptop offered at a good price but passed it up because it lacked something. They didn't bother to look into a USB adaptor possibilities. They could have purchased a tiny one for a few dollars.
Then there was the guy who passed up a free
company Thinkpad because the audio lacked stereo,never looking into a $20 USB 10 channel stereo adapter!

How about installing an HDMI card??

so as someone who is looking for a cheap media pc/browser who doesn't have much experience tinkering with the components, is installing an HDMI card in a slim pc like this pretty straightforward (and inexpensive)?

Dud wrote:That's what I thought so I bought a PS3 late last year. I am very dissatisfied with the PS3 as a media center of any type. I do not like the fact that it will not play half the video files that a PC would play. Of the half it does play about a 3rd of those will not play sound.

Which file types? I know the PS3 can be picky in the way things are organized...

Here are some links pertaining to the motherboard:

HP page

ASUS forum

Unlocking a M2N68-LA mobo

Retrevo links

links to additional forums at Tom's Hardware

lots of specs here

DO NOT get this is you're just going to use it as a media center and/or Netflix streamer. These things heat up when outputting video at high resolutions, and you're spending way too much for what you want.

If you only want to stream Netflix, just get a $60 Roku. It's cheap, easy to use, and streams HD Netflix flawlessly.

If you want media center options beyond Netflix, wait a week and pick up a Boxee Box for $199, which does just about everything, and is also HD.

NightGhost wrote:Oh, and one of my favorite old games is 32-bit but uses a 16-bit installer, but I was able to install it manually.

Pong?

Prices have gone up since the buyout bought a great desktop right before the buyout cheaper than this. none of this slim-line crap either.

ssmith34 wrote:If you want do that, then get a Nintendo Wii, or xbox 360 or a PS3!

Get the Roku instead. It is the adult way to watch Netflix since you don't have a gaming console sitting with your components making you look like a useless part of society. Roku makes an HD version of its streaming hardware. See the Netflix site for more details. I have been extremely happy with it.

md72272 wrote:Get the Roku instead. It is the adult way to watch Netflix since you don't have a gaming console sitting with your components making you look like a useless part of society. Roku makes an HD version of its streaming hardware. See the Netflix site for more details. I have been extremely happy with it.

Really? Seems useless to me to buy a device that is limited to that one thing just because you have image issues...

jxbwoot wrote:Would this be any good as a "dummy" terminal just to stream movies from Netflix onto our big screen TV? Does it have (or need) an HDMI connection? Does it have a wireless connection or is that something that I'd have to buy (we don't have hardwire connection near the TV).

Thanks.

Buy a new model Apple TV from Apple for $99 and do that!

Lorem Pavilionum dolor sit amet, desktopetur adipiscing Slimlinet.

Hillarious!!!

(From Latin: Hilaris - Very Funny)

dreader wrote:Lorem Pavilionum dolor sit amet, desktopetur adipiscing Slimlinet.

Hillarious!!!

(From Latin: Hilaris - Very Funny)

Hilaris Clintonus?

(couldn't resist)