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5 out of 6 people found this review helpful
2.0 stars
"The most unreliable PC I've ever owned (20+ years)"
Pros: The widescreen flat panel monitor I bought seperately
Cons: I don't know where to begin
Summary: I have been building my own computers since I was about 16, and for a few reasons for the first time in my life I decided to just buy an out-of-the-box system. Very big mistake.
I first bought an HP Media Center PC that was below this model (a refurbished one), as I didn't really need it to be a super power system since it wasn't going to be for everyday use. After having problem after problem with the refurbished system I brought it back to Best Buy and exchanged it for another one of the same model (except a brand new one). Surprise! Same problems over and over.
The 2nd time I went to exchange the PC I was told that literally all they had left were refurbished HP Media Center PCs, except for their top of the line one (nice and convenient considering they had 8 different HPMC systems there). That's a Best Buy thing though, nothing to do with HP.
So anyways, I figured what the heck, I might as well get a brand new top of the line system and then I just won't have to worry about problems. HAH!
The *DAY* after I was still eligible to return the system to Best Buy, all the exact same problems started happening again.
You know what, this is just going to be too long and boring, so I'll just summarize the bad parts:
- System freezes randomly
- System freezes not-so-randomly (at least once a day when I use the REPLAY and SKIP buttons on the remote while watching a video the entire system freezes.
- When the system freezes while it's recording, and you have to reboot, sometimes you'll lose everything that's been recorded, and other times it will continue recording (in 2 parts) after you reboot your computer. So far I've missed the last 10-40 minutes of over 10 movies due to this happening.
- Although the hard drive space *sounds* impressive, don't plan on recording and saving a whole lot of TV. Record, watch, delete. 2 recorded movies took up 25 gigs.
There are actually a whole lot more problems with this system, but typing this is making me feel worse about my purchase (and the fact that I can't return it), so I'm just going to summarize with this...
Don't buy this system.
*TIP*
If your HP Media Center PC completely freezes on you for no reason, and you're watching TV at the time (but it still keeps playing), try pressing pause. I've found that if you can pause the TV when the computer crashes, you can press CONTROL-ALT-DEL to bring up the task manager, and that will unfreeze the system. And no, you don't have to do anything once you open the task manager, you simply have to open it (fun problem, right?).
If you press pause and it DOESN'T work, there's nothing you can do but reboot.Updated
In the past couple days I've had 5 TV recordings just stop recording for no reason at all. 2 of the programs were series finale episodes, so it's just further solidified my disappointment with this computer.
The bottom line is that if you're looking for a TV, buy a TV. If you're looking for a computer, but a computer. Don't think you're going to get a perfect all-in-one solution if you buy one of these HP Media Center PCs, because that's simply not what you're going to get. How many times does your VCR stop recording for no reason and your TV crash? Exactly.Updated
I can't believe how much my opinion of this system changed after I removed the pre-installed Norton suite (anti-virus, firewall, etc.)
It's seriously like a completely different computer now, and I'd recommend this system to ANYONE. Also, the Nvidia Desktop manager causes some problems with the rare application, but it can be turned off very easily.
- 2 replies to this review
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This system is the worse I ever had. I just cannot run Chessmaster 10000 (it freezes constantly), Word 2003 works not the same way as other PCs, my Jasc Paint Shop Pro just got wrong with that machine (the application freezes on the splash screen). I did not try to turn off the NVIDIA Desktop Manager. How is it done? I feel despair not being able to play chess with that so-called super bomb machine...
Thank you -
I'm considering this computer system but will not be utilizing the TV features, i.e. recording and playback. You don't mention how the system does as "just a computer". Any problems with other applications or just with the TV recording feature?
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