Is this a decent computer?

[django1]

http://www.futureshop.ca/marketing/clearance/EN/proddetailpc.asp?sku_id=0665000FS10129067&catid=24137&PCName=Clearance&logon=&langid=EN

Bear in mind this is Canada and we pay more for everything. I don't think I really need a quad core but there it is. I often do two or three things at the same time and I do a lot of photoshop stuff. The price seems pretty good and they will upgrade the OS to windows 7. It seems like a pretty good price to me although I'm not entirely clear on what a "refurbished" computer is. And the nomenclature for the processors is utterly confusing. The best I could find to sort of compare processors is this http://www.cpubenchmark.net/common_cpus.html

My present processor is a slightly overclocked amd Athlon 2200 ghz .

[Sysden]

To me it looks like may be a reasonable deal Although I am not familiar with pricing in Canada and what the differential should be. My only concerns include: DVI,no HDMI output if you are considering using this as a video server, and the limited ninety day warranty instead of the typical factory warranties.

I buy a lot of "factory furbished" components and have not had many problems. Refurbished items can be any device that cannot be sold as new. They can be returned, items that did not pass factory quality assurance, or devices that were repaired due to component failure or damage in transit.

The questions that I have from the description are: was the system refurbished by HP or a third party, and is the ninety day warranty an HP warranty or a dealer warranty. Good luck.

[myaudiocd]

Django, I did a very similar deal from FS last year about this time. It worked out ok, but there was a reason it was a refurb, and I had to deal with that- in this case a faulty vid card that I had to remove the fan from. HP was impossible to deal with. Otherwise, not bad, I'm content with the deal. I've been seeing some tempting deals lately at RedFlag, from NCIX, newegg, etc. I'd check there, too.

[django1]

Django, I did a very similar deal from FS last year about this time. It worked out ok, but there was a reason it was a refurb, and I had to deal with that- in this case a faulty vid card that I had to remove the fan from. HP was impossible to deal with. Otherwise, not bad, I'm content with the deal. I've been seeing some tempting deals lately at RedFlag, from NCIX, newegg, etc. I'd check there, too.

Thanks, I didn't realize that those three companies operated in Canada. Interesting. Thanks.

Anybody know what kind of a speed improvement I get with one of these new cpus over my old athlon 2.4 ghz?

[etcarroll]

Some history...

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3344

[django1]

I went for this one instead http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/prodde...04&catid=20217
Pro reviews are so so. User reviews are fantastic...

[Sandbagger]

I went for this one instead http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/prodde...04&catid=20217
Pro reviews are so so. User reviews are fantastic...

Looks like a much better deal.:greedy:

[django1]

Well I got the computer. But something is a smelly POS: OS or hardware. I'm running Vista right now with the latest updates and this thing is buggy and has frozen more times in one weekend than my xp computer did in years. Many things are incompatible and I lose Firefox all the time. I should be getting the free Win7 upgrade this week. I hope that covers the problems otherwise this thing gets the boot. Will Win7 clear things up?

[Stereodude]

Will Win7 clear things up?

Maybe, maybe not. The hardware could just be buggy crap.

[JazzySmooth]

Well I got the computer. But something is a smelly POS: OS or hardware. I'm running Vista right now with the latest updates and this thing is buggy and has frozen more times in one weekend than my xp computer did in years. Many things are incompatible and I lose Firefox all the time. I should be getting the free Win7 upgrade this week. I hope that covers the problems otherwise this thing gets the boot. Will Win7 clear things up?

If your HP is anything like the refurb one I bought a few years ago, you need to wipe the hard drive and reinstall clean. HP and Dell have become notorious for having so much garbage software on their base load images that they run horribly, even to the point of blue screening / freezing up (as you noticed.) All the problems / slowness I was seeing on mine went away once I did a clean install.

[Sandbagger]

If your HP is anything like the refurb one I bought a few years ago, you need to wipe the hard drive and reinstall clean. HP and Dell have become notorious for having so much garbage software on their base load images that they run horribly, even to the point of blue screening / freezing up (as you noticed.) All the problems / slowness I was seeing on mine went away once I did a clean install.

Key word is CLEAN. I would recommend a fresh install. DO NOT do an install over the top without a format of the hard drive or you will still have the original garbage install hanging around in small bits and pieces that will haunt you for a long time.

Back in the windows 98,98SE, Millennium days(and all the betas that went with each) I would go about 3-6months at a max without doing a format and reload just so windows would run crash free. Starting with XP I actually could run without a reload so long I had a motherboard go before it was needed. I will be loading 7 this week having thankfully completely skipped the buggy Vista OS.

[woofersus]

Vista isn't all that buggy at this point, as many of the issues have been fixed, but Win7 is still a significant step up. I've been using the release candidate on my desktop pc for 6 months now and really like it.

Reinstalls were very necessary on a frequent basis back in the win9x days like you say. XP was much better, and my Vista install is still fine after a year. The biggest issue with a new oem pc, as mentioned above, is the giant load of crap they install on it for you. Much of it duplicates stuff already built into windows but they want you to use one with an HP logo on it or something. In the worst cases, I recommend reinstalling windows without all of that junk right off the bat. I've seen some OEM's that aren't as bad, and you can just remove the unnecessary stuff. Also, the image they used to prep the computer may have been made several months ago and could need updates. After removing anything you don't really need, you should run windows update AND check for updated drivers. The OEM's site will have drivers, but often they are far behind the manufacturer, so you should go directly to intel/amd/nvidia/marvel/realtek/ect. and do it that way. The most driver revisions and bug fixes happen early in the hardware's lifecycle, so this is even more important with more cutting edge hardware.

Also, don't bother spending money on bloated, overpriced antivirus software. Microsoft Security Essentials is free and available for all OS's XP and newer. It tests out very well in effectiveness and has a much smaller footprint than most commercial antivirus packages. I'd uninstall you're free trial of whatever and install that right away.

[django1]

I did a restore of the system to the factory settings but I didn't get a cd with the OS on it, it restores from the image on the hd. How would I do an install without all the crap in this situation? I did try to remove some of the bloatware, I don't know if this contributed to my problems.

Window computers are so unpleasant to buy and set up. You go from excitement to wtf is this pile of crap...

[Stereodude]

You need to obtain a OEM Vista DVD that matches the flavor that came with your PC. You can then use HP's Vista Home Premium OEM SLP key (Google for it) and copy the activation information to a thumbdrive from the current install to the new one, or alternatively use the key stuck to the machine and activate that online.

[woofersus]

With Vista you only have to worry about 32-bit or 64-bit. All the versions are on the same disc. I suspect you could use a friend's disc with your HP provided key regardless of version, unless it was a 64-bit disc. XP was a huge pain in this regard, because you had to have the exact version that was on the disc or it wouldn't work. (i.e. home retail, pro retail, home oem, pro oem, special dell oem disc early on then they ditched it, and special HP oem disc later on)

Frustrating, I know, but everything will work better with a clean install. It's a shame that companies like HP, Dell, Gateway, and others do this to customers. I'm honestly a bit surprised that Microsoft doesn't try to crack down on this stuff via their OEM liscensing agreements. It really gives Windows a bad name when OEM's load pc's down with crap that isn't part of windows and make it seem like a buggy, slow OS when it isn't - then they don't provide the $0.35 disc needed to reinstall it. You can probably call HP and get the disc, but it will probably include all the HP crap on it still. They'll probably charge you like $10 for it too. (although if you can convince them it was a defective installation to start with they might wave that cost)