HP Pavilion Elite Quad Core Desktop w/1TB HDD, 8GB RAM & Blu-Ray

I would have to say you got the better system, I am slightly jealous of that one. O well I will have to just settle with the quad core I built recently…

Thanks for the replies. I’ll buy an internal bluray later :smiley:

Careful with these. I picked this one up last time it was up and ended up with a bad motherboard. Normally I don’t mind refurbs, but the HP and debranded HP items (read: FamousMaker) have been somewhat problematic in my experience. This one specifically is almost exactly worth its cost in parts, but don’t buy it to replace your main PC.

The power supply is garbage, and the case is so cramped that I ran into a lot of issues trying to swap out any of the internals. As an example, if you have a full-size graphics card, the SATA ports will get in the way and there’s no room at all for ventilation as the PCI-E port is inches away from the PSU. Again, worth its cost in parts (8GB DDR3 RAM, 1TB HDD, 3GHz CPU, Blu-ray drive) but not much more.

About the graphics:

AMD page

TechSpot review

Tom’s Hardware

Previous woot on 10/20/10

On another note – be careful uninstalling the bloatware on this. There is NO free Blu-ray playing software for PC, so if you expect to play BD discs or images on this, you’ll want to keep the Cyberlink software that comes pre-loaded.

Good deals will always come along - I can faithfully say when you’re in a better spot you’ll be happy you didn’t get in on the HP “deal”.

Video Review

Data Sheet

Here’s a very strange video of it…

Some more info on the processor:

AMD page

AMD Phenom X4 945 and 955BE processor review|test

AMD Phenom II X4 955 and 945 benchmarked to high heaven

That is unfortunately accurate. I’ve read forum posts where people claim to have gotten Media Player Classic to play blu-ray, but I haven’t been successful myself there; and I haven’t found ANY free software for it anywhere. Kind of odd. I’m sure they’ll be coming along soon, but until then yeah, be careful not to remove the included player.

I have a similar model (same processor, same HD, same RAM type & qty). I think the major difference is that mine has a TV tuner in it.

I love all the USB ports; the HD spins plenty fast enough for my use (heavy Excel and Access and Photoshop use; some video rendering). It’s very quiet. Had it about 18 months and only complaint is that the card reader is flaky; sometimes it just doesn’t read my cards - same cards I’ve been using since day 1. Other than that, I’ve been happy with it. Mine retailed new for about $850

links to motherboard reviews

Front panel 15-in-1 memory card reader:

" SmartMedia, xD, MMC, SD, Mini SD, CF I & II, IBM Microdrive, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro/DUO/Pro Duo, RSMMC, MMC Mobile, MMC+"

Can anyone name how many of these are still extant, and what they are used for?..

Answers will be accepted until 24:00 28.11.10…

Since when are gamers ever out in the sun? heck, they should all be taking 5,000 IU of vitamin D every day just to get their blood level to 55 nG/dL (see SnipURL.com/DLinks for info).

but then our keyboards would need to be in the sun! which in turn means WE would be in the sun! that is unacceptable.

You guys were probably joking but for anyone wondering, that new “solar” keyboard works with indoor artificial light too. It’s just like a pocket calculator – you don’t actually need sunlight for “solar power”.

I bought one of these last month from Woot for $10 more. Love it. I immediately added a 64gb SSD and cloned the OS from the HD. So my total investment is $675. It boots up and runs crazy fast and I have a full tb drive for storage. I mostly use it for surfing and downloading & creating cd’s & dvd’s. Couldn’t be happier.

I’m not very happy with HP these days… I ordered a similar HP Refurbished unit a couple of weeks ago and it arrived FULL OF DUST! The heat-sink was 90% clogged with dust and there were large dustballs all in the case! How can HP call these refurbished? What else do they miss when ‘re-certifying’ these units? So much for quality control.

I wrote an article about it on my webpage with some pictures for those who may think I am just an HP hater (which I am, but for valid reasons)…
Refurbished HP came with dust clogging heatsink!

Huh. I am not seeing it. The next closest one I noticed was like $100 more. And their website took longer than 15 seconds to pull up, so I did not see what the shipping charges were.

Two Words:

PHENOMENAL DEAL

End of discussion. Let’s move on… please…