taierone wrote:How does this compare to the ZT Affinity from Costco? Sorry for the noobish broad question.

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11622756&search=zt+affinity&Mo=8&cm_re=1_en-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&lang=en-US&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Sp=S&N=5000043&whse=BC&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntk=Text_Search&Dr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ne=4000000&D=zt+affinity&Ntt=zt+affinity&No=1&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Nty=1&topnav=&s=1

Can't be absolutely sure without looking at the gutz (Costco could be cheaping out in various way) but from what is published, the Costco system is far superior.

More RAM, bigger PSU, bigger HD and assembled and serviced in the US of A.

btflorey wrote:Recommendation on Graphics upgrade:

If you are thinking about getting this to add a larger graphics card and PSU don't do it! Yes, it is totally possible to do (I did it) but you will be left with a graphics card that gets hot with no way to cool it. The HP stock cases suck for cooling. They only have one fan port in the back and its for an exhaust fan. You have no way to add intake fans to the system nor can you add liquid cooling. I regret not buying my own case with sufficient cooling terribly bad. I can't even overclock my 9800 GT to half of what is possible due to the lack of cooling in my system. My card reaches near 99 F when playing games.

To second what btflorey's saying:

I did the same thing with the very similar HP that showed up on here a year ago. First try was a fanless ATI that fit within the power envelope, but started regularly overheating the drive controller (which is conveniently right above the video card slot, with no venting). Later upgraded the power supply and got one of the IceQ cooled ATIs, computer still overheats regularly, but at least now only does so while gaming, not while at the desktop.

So, yeah, don't buy one of these expecting to upgrade the video card, the case is really not up to the additional heat load, and you'll just end up with a totally unreliable machine like I did.

hkinney2011 wrote:Found the same version (refurb) on Amazon for ~$100 more. Link for that is Right Here!

Woot IS Amazon since last spring.

Can I get these specs in a laptop form with 15.6 inch screen for the same price? Please

renglish02 wrote:Can anybody find which version of PCI slots it has? It doesn't designate 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, etc, and I don't know what they consider "standard" anymore.

No regular PCI, only PCI-e 1x (3) and 16x (1)...

Link to mobo image...
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c02560084&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&site=null&key=null&product=4299992

250W power supply? Integrated graphics.......forget gaming.....

The point of a cheap computer is it does not cost much. To the suggestions of video cards, power supplies, memory upgrades and BD players I agree that they are doable by almost anyone but you will be better off finding a computer with the features that you want and buying that 'cause things add up and take fiddling time.
I have this machine from previous Woot and it has been fine, not silent but it is pretty quiet an important thing you cannot find in specs. Win7 rates the video 3.9 which is not much worse than a cheap video card (and you will need a new power supply for a drop in card).

What's with 3 sticks of memory? Would not 2 or 4 be faster?

rvrguyd wrote:I bought this unit retail last year and paid about $999. The unit serves me well as I use it mostly for gaming but be warned,to play the higher end games like Call of Duty 2 you will need to upgrade the graphics card which can be done for under $100. If you install a new card the unit will recognise it but you must change the graphic card setting in the bios to use the new card exclusively since the graphics card is actually part of the mother board. There are card slots on the front to download pictures and two usb ports on the front

$999! live and learn.

Goosenuts wrote:Consider what you're saying for a moment: if the size of your motherboard has nothing to do with its performance, then why aren't laptops as fast as desktops? Or why are the gaming laptops always twice the size of a standard laptop? Without going into a bunch of techno-babble I'll just say that it's always a good rule of thumb that a full ATX motherboard will always perform better than a micro-ATX motherboard in which both motherboards have similar specs on paper. If you still don't believe me, I encourage you to do a little research. I've been building and fixing computers since the 90s. You can trust what I say.

Hey Goose,

Can you spec me out a PC with around a $400-550 budget. Not a huge gamer but do a lot of Adobe and CAD work.


Thanks!
Gary

Does anyone know if this has virtualization support. I want to run ESXi as the main OS?

zoinks6022 wrote:Beware. The one thing that you don't get (that turned out to be somewhat important when I purchased a similar machine off of Moofi): the actual OS source software. Kinda makes it hard to reinstall Windows 7, if needed. Learning things the hard way isn't fun.

That's standard procedure these days - you create your own Windows backup disks.

Mediocre deal. I payed only $20 more for a very similar computer on a tiger direct sunday sale last month that had the 3ghz phenom chip, a 550w power supply (more upgradable for video), and a slightly better integrated graphics card. Much more lasting potential than this. Still not a bad deal either.

indranil1703 wrote:Umm... never mind. This does not have a hdmi port.

I bought close to the exact same computer on Woot a month ago and I used a simple HDMI to DVI adapter to accomplish this. Works perfectly.

I got a refurbed HP PC a couple years ago that has the same case. It has an Intel chip and Asus motherboard though. It's worked fine for me. I did upgrade the power supply to a 550 W one and installed a Nvidia 250 series card and recently upgraded to Win7. It's surprisingly good still. If this Woot had this in Intel it would be so much better I think.

indranil1703 wrote:I am very tempted to get this as a TV-side multimedia box, to stream Netflix movies, and watch DVDs. And, also, to have all the real estate to code. What do you think?

What you want is something like the Asrock ION-330HT or Zotac MAG.

JKrukoff wrote:To second what btflorey's saying:

I did the same thing with the very similar HP that showed up on here a year ago. First try was a fanless ATI that fit within the power envelope, but started regularly overheating the drive controller (which is conveniently right above the video card slot, with no venting). Later upgraded the power supply and got one of the IceQ cooled ATIs, computer still overheats regularly, but at least now only does so while gaming, not while at the desktop.

So, yeah, don't buy one of these expecting to upgrade the video card, the case is really not up to the additional heat load, and you'll just end up with a totally unreliable machine like I did.

I disagree.I'm running an Nvidia 250 in mine with a 550W psu and its both quiet and pretty cool. Of course bigger cases have more potential, but this is doable.

I'm needing a basic family computer that can support my husbands 32+ gb of music on iTunes, MS office suite for my school work, storage for digital pics, Netflix video streaming, and the occasional game from Big Fish. We don't do any serious PC gaming or edit videos. I just want a reliable PC that we can use to surf the web for entertainment and get basic school work done on.

Is this going to work for me?

Thanks in advance for you input

shadowplay1 wrote:That 250W power supply scares me...

No kidding, if you add a external usb drive that pulls power from the hub, I think it will fry the power supply.

bop13 wrote:AMD has been gaining much respect in the past year giving that studies from pentium processors are burning out much faster than AMD. Do some research you'll find AMDs last longer.

Please post a link showing these "studies" -- would make for a good read. Note that both AMD and Intel warranty their CPUs for 3 years. Also note that "Pentium" processors are 3 generations old (i3/5/7 is current, core 2 and core processors succeeded the Pentium line.)

I very much doubt that either brand is superior because when computers die, it is usually NOT the CPU (unless fried by careless overclocking, etc.) but something else that has gone wrong. In my experience (since the mid 80's) the most common problems are:
1) User issues (viruses / adware, careless fiddling in the BIOS, deleting system files, neglect, static zaps, bad driver installs, etc.)
2) failure of cooling fans
3) hard drive failure
4) failure of power supplies
5) bad video card
6) mother board failure, bad RAM, or other problems

Fixed LOTS of computers over the years, but I've never seen a bad (non abused) CPU yet. Could happen, but they're very likely the most reliable part of an entire system.

Goosenuts wrote:Not a chance. You'll need something around AT LEAST 500W.

"Decent" is very subjective....if their going to be high-end gaming...they wouldn't even be asking. For YouTube and Hulu or video streaming...a low-budget video card can be added with out needing to upgrade the power supply. Check out NEWEGG dot com if you want to see how much it would cost to build a system like this from scratch. It looks like it includes the WD black HD which is a great performer.

rxbike@gmail.com wrote:No kidding, if you add a external usb drive that pulls power from the hub, I think it will fry the power supply.

A single USB 2.0 port only offers 2.5W of power, so it's not a worry (as opposed to installing a graphics card, etc.).

Furthermore, an USB hard drive will draw it's power from an external AC power brick.

melissa8201 wrote:I'm needing a basic family computer that can support my husbands 32+ gb of music on iTunes, MS office suite for my school work, storage for digital pics, Netflix video streaming, and the occasional game from Big Fish. We don't do any serious PC gaming or edit videos. I just want a reliable PC that we can use to surf the web for entertainment and get basic school work done on.

Is this going to work for me?

Thanks in advance for you input

It should be good for what you describe, provided that the games you do play are light on the graphics.

Let me get this straight...buy this REFURB unit, upgrade the power supply, upgrade the video card and then you will have a decent unit? Doesn't make any sense to me. There are way too many shortcuts on this unit to make it worthwhile.

Why are there so many of these refurbished HP computers around? Should I consider that to be a red flag?

RetiredGuru wrote:Let me get this straight...buy this REFURB unit, upgrade the power supply, upgrade the video card and then you will have a decent unit? Doesn't make any sense to me. There are way too many shortcuts on this unit to make it worthwhile.

It's not for everyone, but it's a deal for others.

If you don't need the fancy graphics, you can use it as is.

If you do need the graphics card, but are loath to install the card and PS (or have someones else do it), it's not for you. Otherwise, it's still a good deal with the price of the components included.

Finally, everyone has to make up his mind on refurbs. Some actually prefer refurbs - they generally undergo more thorough testing that new products (and many refurbs were never damaged int the first place).

My own feeling is that I'd be leery of a refurbed laptop - many problems are with the display, and it's not easy to fix that. OTOH, I can swap out a bad component in a desktop in a heartbeat (although the mobo is a PITA).

I liked saying that last thing.

bostonblackey wrote:Why are there so many of these refurbished HP computers around? Should I consider that to be a red flag?

Certainly a major factor is that a ton of them are sold.

OTOH, reliability surveys are generally not favorable for HP:

2010 Reliability and Service Survey: Desktops

An exception: HP Named Overall Best Brand of Desktop Computing for Quality and Reliability

xrock wrote:This thing is expensive for used computer.

I built my own, a lot cheaper and it's not used.
Case 40.00
CPU 89.00 Phenom II x 2 BE 3.2GHZ revision 3
PSU 29.99 w/10.00 rebate 500W Cooler Master
RAM 39.99 w/10.00 rebate 2 x 2GB of Corsair XMS 3
DVD Rom 17.99 Asus 24X DVD burner
Hard drive 45.00 1 TB 7200 RPM w/32 cache Hitachi Deskstar
Micro ATX board 65.00 Biostar AMD 880G chipset [HDMI, DVI]

Total: 327.00 without rebate

The Phenom II x 2 can be unlock to Quad. A lot of success story. My CPU unlock to Quad. Run Prime 95 stable for 2 hours on stock heatsink.

Still, minus 2gb RAM and the Windows license, and the reliance on unlocking the 2 add'l cores with those endemic issues...

Your system is cheaper, but I still think this one offers more value.

Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 1GB Video Card for $30 after rebate + free shipping
SuperBiiz.com offers the Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 1GB DDR2 128-bit PCI Express 2.0 x16 Video Card, model no. 100254HDMI, for $29.99 with free shipping via the directions below. That's the lowest total price we could find by $8. This HDCP-ready card features a maximum resolution of 2560x1600, 600MHz core clock, 1GHz memory clock, CrossFireX and DirectX 10.1 support, HDMI, VGA, and DVI connectors, and more. Rebate ends February 28. To get this deal:
Add the Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 1GB Video Card to your cart for $49.99
apply coupon code "APPLE4705" to cut it to $44.99
redeem this $15 mail-in rebate to cut it to $29.99
Per dealnews.I don't know if it would work in this HP but seems like a good price if it does.

With some careful parts shopping you can build a better system with parts you KNOW the specs of for the same price.
Plus you can put in a much better graphics card and a better power supply for that price.

However, if you are not tech handy, this is a good deal on the listed specs, for a brand name computer.

Plus the return/warranty time on individual parts in a custom made system are better.

It depends on your skill level.
But off the shelf, this is a good deal.
You can always add better cooling, and better PS/video later if you want/need it and still not be paying as much as most brands want for a similar configuration.

stebrad wrote:According to the spec sheet, this cpu even has hardware support for virtualization. Nice.

All AMD CPU's have had it since 2006.

ionman wrote:Fixed LOTS of computers over the years, but I've never seen a bad (non abused) CPU yet. Could happen, but they're very likely the most reliable part of an entire system.

It should be worth mentioning that laptop cpus have more of a tendency to fry or give up than their desktop counterparts. If you use your laptop without proper airflow/cooling, its a good bet you will lose your cpu over time. I had to replace a hp laptop from 2004's cpu when crashing/bluescreens were happening left and right.

Goosenuts wrote:Not a chance. You'll need something around AT LEAST 500W.

It's adequate. I bought an HP for my brother with the same specs. Same onboard video card. I replaced it with a xfx radeon hd 5750. It works perfectly. He does heavy gaming with it and has not run into any problems with it. He is also running with a 250 watt power supply. I called HP with my concern about the card. They said it should still run without problems. The card said the min. requirement for it to run is 460 watt power supply. It's been 2 months and he said says it's still working great.

vinithehat wrote:... there's nothing a pair of nippers and a dremel cant fix.

That is true of most anything in life ... really.

ew windows 7 home -.-

The only thing that really annoys me about the similar, previous woot of this machine that I bought for my mother... the machine will not boot if VGA is not connected, but won't display video to DVI until it is in the OS. I can't figure out a BIOS setting that will prevent this horrible "feature".

zannisvel wrote:I am an engin. student and use AutoCad, my laptop suffers. it has a 2.4 GH and 2 Gb DDR3. You think this machine could do it for me? Thanks in advance!!!! (is it cleared from all these hp preinstalled bs? pointless software)

AutoCad 2011 requirements from their website:

* Microsoft® Windows® 7 Enterprise, Ultimate, Professional, or Home Premium (compare Windows 7 versions); Microsoft® Windows Vista® Enterprise, Business, Ultimate, or Home Premium (SP1 or later) (compare Windows Vista versions); or Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional or Home edition (SP2 or later)
* For Windows Vista or Windows 7: Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® dual-core processor, 3.0 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology; for Windows XP: Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon dual-core processor, 1.6 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology
* 2 GB RAM
* 1.8 GB free disk space for installation
* 1,280 x 1,024 true color video display adapter 128 MB or greater, Microsoft® Direct3D®-capable workstation-class graphics card
* Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 7.0 or later
* Install from download or DVD

I bought this system about a year ago when it showed up on Woot, upgraded the graphics card to a GeForce GTX460: StarCraft 2 plays on the new "Extreme" setting without so much as a hiccup, can run multi-client MMOs while running music in the background, etc. This system is an absolute beast for the price.

At least this one has a network card. The Moofi deal they had a few weeks back (same machine, but a dual core instead of a quad core) didn't come with a network card. My advice--check the specs and inclusions carefully. Make sure the machine comes with everything you need. Otherwise, a good deal can turn into a money pit fast (as I'm now finding out).

fostytou wrote:The only thing that really annoys me about the similar, previous woot of this machine that I bought for my mother... the machine will not boot if VGA is not connected, but won't display video to DVI until it is in the OS. I can't figure out a BIOS setting that will prevent this horrible "feature".

That certainly should not happen. If you also hook up a VGA display, do both displays work?

dawgdave99 wrote:Pretty cheap to just grab another 2gb stick and fill the 4th slot.

Add more money to an already overpriced refurb.....a co-worker actually bought this exact computer with the 6gb of ram after talking to me about it I had him remove 1 of the 2gb ram sticks and guess what....it ran faster with 4gb running in dual channel than the 6gb running single channel.

So, it is indeed a total fail on HP's part even selling 6gb of ram in a computer with an AMD processor.

So this is a great deal for those that don't know how to build a computer on their own and don't have the time to take the 30 minutes or so it would take to learn to do so but, if you do buy it you should open it up and take out one of the ram sticks if you have no intention of adding one more stick.

I'd like to load VMware to virtualize the box it 2-3 machines so I can play around with a few OS (ubuntu, M$2008) and enterprise level s/w (Exchange/AD, etc...)
Is this a good machine to create a box like this?