hp pavilion

[jdbic]

I can get a HP Pavilion x1848 ( that's what was on the label listing contents). for $800.
IT has 128 sdram, 17" monitor, 8x4x32cdrw, 48xcdrom, 40g hd, 16mb video ram integrated Nic Card, 850mhz athlon, agp tnt2 vanta Videeo, couple of empty slots (I got to look inside).
Was thinking this would be an ok machine for the wife and children to use for a little online use and not too fancy games, etc.
Any comments will be appreciated.

Bic

[S.D.Willie]

a 40 gig drive will be more than enough space for you, and the memory is a good enough amount. the video card is decent considering you arent going crazy with 3d gaming too. and as far as the processor goes, well a gig is the regular for these days and youre close enough. id have to say its very adequate for what you want to do.

SD

[Richard_Cranium72]

The HP builds an OK machine, as does Dell and several others.

My major complaint is the huge amount of background programs that you can NOT disable.

This slows them down terribly.

HP is also known to put motherboards into their machines that is made by a Major mfg, but to HP's specs, so if it goes bad, you have to get with HP and get a special "Tatoo" for the motherboard before it's gonna work.

Is there ANY way you could put together one ?

I had a Pentium 3 800mhz, Dell with 128 RAM, and every machine I've built from 400mhz and faster will outrun it in everyday use.

i.e.
Dell boot time, 120 seconds
Homebuilt, about 25 seconds

It goes that way on program opening also.

I'm way off subject for sure,
To answer directly, Yes it'll do.

But, for about the same or maybe less you can build one much, much faster and MORE stable..

DrVette

[This message has been edited by Richard_Cranium72 (edited 07-13-2001).]

[STBEL4]

I bought a brand new pavilion 4540 when it first came out(433 celeron) and for the first month or so it was nice, but when it came to doing tweaking, it doesn't allow much. I reformatted the HD and now it runs faster than it ever did

[jdbic]

Thanks for the replies,
Richard_Cranium72,
I have been toying with the idea of putting one together again, but "my wife" does'nt want to wait for me to get the parts and put it together. might take me a month or so. I get carried away looking to see whats best for less.
The one I'm using now I put together which is a 160 pentium. I was brave enough to change the jumpers to make it run 180.
This is a good place. I learn a lot from everyone here. Don't even have to ask ques. some time because the answers are here already. Thanks Bic

[boran_blok]

Well if your wife is against doing a selfbuilt .. just buy the one that you mentioned BUT format the drive and reinstall the OS before you really start using it ... those comps come mostly filled up with spyware and other "user friendly" software packages (notice the quotes)

[Rhino302]

Just Don't get a Compaq

[Richard_Cranium72]

jdbic
If the accountant says to get a certain brand, then I guess she holds the money http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif


Re-installing the software on my HP only re-installed the bloatware.

We can get ya pricing on all the components needed, including software(legally)to ease the pain.

I too did jumpers as a start, now I build super cutting edge, top notch, ultra fast machines.

Things like, Celeron 533, AMD K6-2 500, Cyrix 433's http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
j/k, but these are the machines I build.

I serve the low price user.

We can guide you, no kidding, to STABLE and inexpensive yet durable hardware.

DrVette

[jdbic]

Hello again,
Well I bought it. I can return it. It has the recovery disks, etc.
It has windows me.
Can I reformat, make partitions and install Win 98 ?
I have software that has been bought for the others that I can install afterwards.
But all I can say is that all the responses were right on the money before.
Bic


[This message has been edited by jdbic (edited 07-28-2001).]

[sharder8]

You paid a decent price, and yes, I'd suggest doing a full fdisk/format/clean install of W98SE!

I just picked up a new HP 7860, 733MHz PIII, 45GB HDD, DVD, otherwise, the same as yours for $280. (Staples clearanced it out! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif $300 - $20 store coupon.) That's my 11y.o. daugthers birthday present and all I need to get now is the monitor, desk, and 2 chairs (I still haven't gotten the 13y.o. a chair for hers.) I will hook it into the LAN in the house right after I do a clean install of W2000Pro (HP website says it's a W98SE ONLY machine, but I'll find out if they're correct!)

Harder

edited to add the DVD Drive http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[This message has been edited by sharder8 (edited 07-28-2001).]

[jdbic]

I have win98, no other letters in the title. but if I do the fdisk thing will the recovery disks still work?

[Ed_S]

On thing to do BEFORE reformatting the drive - indentify everything & write it down!

Go to HP's site & see if you can find the individual device drivers for it. Easier to do if you know exactly what you've got! And it's practically impossible to extract those from the "recovery" disk if you reload with "standard" W9x.
Look for things like sound, modem, vid, and their fancy keyboards. Also any MB drivers, like for that NIC.
---

BTW, I did similar a few years ago. Bought an HP P200 on clearance for the kids. (Hey, it was fairly current then http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif) Was a good move.
Consider leaving all HP's junk on it though. Yes, it bogs down a machine. BUT it's real easy to get it back up after the kids crash it! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif
Remember, the recovery disk reinstalls not just the OS, but all the drivers, settings, etc, in ONE quick operation!
And after a couple times of Dad doing that (with a smile) they learn that a crash means losing all their data & saved games. They figure out that when a problem occus, it's smarter to ask for help, rather than just ask Dad to "fix it" w/o their seeing HOW.


[This message has been edited by Ed_S (edited 07-28-2001).]

[Richard_Cranium72]

IF it's like my HP, yes you can install Win98 generic on it.

You'll need to do the who thing;

Get a generic 98 Boot Disc from www.bootdisk.com (http://www.bootdisk.com) or some other place

Cut it off, stick the boot disc in, and then the fun begins.

Someone here might have a link to the procedure as I'm short on time to type it all.

The ol HP outta run just fine when you do this, this and adding another sitck of 128 or 256 RAM http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

Not totally necessary but nice..

DrVette

[HerminTexas]

Purchased a H.P. Pavilion 9686C from Sam's..Been having problems with it since new. It's been in H.P. shop twice new and they have replaced the Hard Drive and a Cable. As new out of box: 700mgz Athlon, 128 meg pc-100 ram, 40 gig maxtor H.D.; Now same 700 mgz Athlon, 512 pc-133 Ram, maxtor 40 gig H.D. (diff. S/n). Way Too many problems for this generation, Seems that because the H.D. is more that 32 Gigs Win98SE cannot see it at all for virtual memory. Hence Low system resources and crashes. So far H.P. has not recognized this as a problem of theirs. However, Microsoft does and states there is a fix for this but to contact the Mfgr..( In this case H.P.)
As one could see I'm cought inbetween H.P. and M.S.
Ref http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q272/6/20.ASP
So if anyone is using a 32 or + H.D. and is having problems, this may be a fix.
Regards

[This message has been edited by HerminTexas (edited 08-02-2001).]

[sharder8]

Well, I've converted the HP 7860 to W2000Pro, and it's running sweet and stable! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

The only drivers that I had to find were for the Audio and Modem and I found them on Disk 3 of the Recovery set. (I had them also sitting on the network in case I couldn't find them on the Recovery set.)

YAHOO, now to try the same with the last computer on the network, my son's IBM Aptiva. I'll let ya'll know how that one goes.

Harder