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6 out of 6 people found this review helpful
2.0 stars
"Very disappointed by lack of stability, and Windows Media Center"
Pros: It is a very powerful machine, quiet operation, and looks really cool
Cons: It feels like I been transported back to Windows 95 in terms of stability
Summary: I'm not sure whether my problems with stability are specific to this machine or with the Windows Vista operating system. Either way I am very disappointed.
The machine keeps suffering from "unexpected restarts" particularly when it goes into sleep mode. The hot fix that Vista identifies as being required to address it (see KB938194) will not install (it says that "update does not apply to your system"). The most recent restart resulted in Vista going through its "Startup Repair" process. So this really disappoints me as I decided to buy rather than build a new machine specifically to avoid this sort of nonsense. I'm not even sure I can trust this PC with documents and spreadsheets I am working on.
There are several other annoyances that are more to do with Vista
- Windows media center's TV guide does not support broadcast digital TV sub-channels (even though its TV guide provider does. This, along with the instability problems, makes it a useless DVR for me . . . . So that was a waste of $100 or so on the TV receiver card.
- Added Bluetooth capability and a set of Bluetooth headphones to the configuration I purchased from Dell. Using the headphones is a real pain. There is way too much fiddling about in the control panel and audio properties before they can be used. I still can't get some of types of audio to be delivered by the headphones. This should not be so difficult. . . and I feel I wasted more money on these options.
I have had the machine a couple of weeks now and have spend many hours installing software and transferring data from my old (but stable) PC. I don't want to start again with another PC. So I am hoping that Windows updates will eventually fix the stability problems.
In summary, I am disappointed by this machine and the operating system that comes with it. To give you some idea of how disappointed I am you should know that this is the first time I have ever taken the time to submit a review for any product.
