Desktops forum: Best Buy's HP m7470n a good deal or not?

...build one yourself. It's not very hard, and there are multiple guides online. Just Google it, and you'll have more information than you ever could imagine.

I wouldn't recommend an HP to anyone, and here's why: My current machine is an HP, and whoever built it didn't put enough thermal grease between the CPU and the heatsink. This made the CPU run very hot, which wasn't helped by the badly designed case which had terrible airflow.

After about 6 months of use, the thing started shutting down at random. I put a new CPU cooler, reapplied the thermal grease which was all vaporized, and put the thing in a new case, but the problem persisted.

I gave it to a geek that I know, he tried his chip in the board, and it still shut down. He tried my chip in his board, and he couldn't even finish installing Windows.

So now I'm paying $300-400 for a new CPU and board, and another $50-100 for a new power supply.

About adding a video card: HP uses crappy power supplies that supply just enough power to run the system. If you were to add a powerful video card, you would need a new power supply, which probably wouldn't fit in the case, so you'd need a new case... you get the message.

If you give me your budget, I can put together some components on newegg. Hope this helps

-Nathan

...so I'll post those specs tomorrow after school. At like 3:00PM Eastern time.

So do you think the power supply would be okay....to upgrade the video card? This seem like a reasonable machine for someone who is not a hard core gamer?

With the $h!tty HP case and power supply. HP also installs a lot of bloatware which uses your hard drive space, and runs in the background, sucking up your system resources. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If you care 1% about PC performance, build; don't buy.

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And it's not very hard to assemble a PC; Corsair (the RAM company) has a great guide here:

http://sysbuild.corsairmemory.com/report.aspx?id=2

I'll have those specs up soon.

Circuit City has HUGE deal on a system with it this week. You get a 17" LCD monitor, combo printer/scanner, and the computer, and there is a 300 rebate. My total, for ALL THREE THINGS, after the rebate, was 1150 plus tax! Heck even if you don't want the printer or monitor, you can sell them!

I am extremely pleased with this computer. It is FAST. I do mostly heavy 2D graphics work, so the graphics card in the machine is fine for now, and it is so nice having a fast processor and lots of memory so nothing gets bogged down. Multitasking is a whole new world on it too.

Think carefully before building your own computer if you have never done it before. Fiddling with everything and getting it all to work together is a royal pain in the rear. Been there, done that, won't do it again

Good luck!

opinion.

If I were reading this thread, I wouldn't take anything you said seriously after that little outburst.

And, by the way, I use my computers professionally, and have been so doing since probably before you were born. I have had HP, Dell, my own build, IBM, Packard Bell (ugh),Compaq and NEC. I have replaced motherboards, power supplies, hard drives, memories, sound cards, video cards, processors....you get the drift. I would never build my own computer again because it a serious pain in the rear to get everything to cooperate with each other and there is no tech support to call if it DOESN'T. Since I get paid between $50 and $100 an hour when I bill my services out, the cost of building a computer would run me FAR more than the nice $1200 that this set up costs assembled, too.

You might want to think before you blast someone next time. Your age and inexperience are showing.

Thanks for taking the time on the list. From the original list I wondered if it would be wise to get an sli capable motherboard, not for today, but for the future. but I see with this list you included one.
I agree with you that a much more modest video card is what I need. thanks for your work.

Is a monitor included in this budget? Operating system?

I've locked this thread due to your attempt at "hiding" words that are in violation of forum palicies. This is a warning that further violations may result in a ban. There are better ways to express yourself.

and life goes on...

Jack