[Scgeeks] Re: Opinion wanted on new PC

[Twayne aka Pop]

indigo wrote:
> anyone have any trouble with HP Pavilion desktops?

My sister has one and I'm her "IT Guy" so I've done a 
lot with it, but nothing nitty-gritty.

  Lots of bloatware as others mentioned but it's easy 
to get off if you're half way savvy.  Forget the cpu 
brand but it's handling everything fine; no problems or 
issues hw or sw wise.  Connectors a little on the light 
side, too much dependency on the solder connections for 
my liking vs bolted to the case.

IMO, the most important thing with any machine is to 
get an OS CD and DRIVERS CDs!!!  Don't know about HP 
but Gateway, Dell & a couple others supply them if you 
ask.
   If you just must settle for on-disk backup 
crapware/storage, then be absolutely certain you have 
the means to immediately create an image of each and 
every partition on the drive/s, hidden partitions 
included.  Down the road you'll be very glad you did.
   Dunno about HP but the OS in a hidden partition I 
saw on one machine was just the CD, so making a CD 
wasn't too bad in that case.  Same for drivers CD. 
Might have been a Tiger Direct machine, not sure now.
   Add an ext USB hard drive, at least 4x the size of 
each of your largest drive, for holding compressed 
archives and images.  DVD burner for long term storage 
of major images.  Extra DVDs & cases.
   Count their com, lpt & usb ports; be sure there are 
enough of them. I have six and I'm maxxed out so will 
need a hub if I get more, heavens forbid!
   At least 7200 rpm disk drives.  Gig of RAM unless 
all you do is surf , mail and play.
   I suspect you already know not to buy it with Vista 
if you plan to back-rev it to XP; you might not have 
all the drivers available you need.  It's improving but 
there are still a lot of orphaned devices on new 
hardware out there for non-Vista.  Most everyone will 
supply XP yet but you have to ask.  Dell told me they 
can't advertise machines with XP due to their contracts 
with MS, but they can give it to you if you ask. That 
was a few months ago.  Didn't cost extra, but not no 
savings either.

But most important, I think, is to insist on CDs 
regardless of the on-disk provisions &  hidden 
partitions.

My 2 ¢ anyway

Pop`