Customer Reviews

HP Pavilion A6330F Desktop PC (AMD Athlon 64 X 2 Dual Core 5600+ Processor, 3 GB RAM, 500 GB Hard Drive, Vista Premium)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Wow! I usually build my own systems, last being 2.4 Pentium with PATA. Cost of newer tech was higher since I had nothing to switch over. I got this because of room to grow and processor. E2180 has half L2 cache of $700-1000 systems but only takes a 4% performance hit. HP impressed with great BTX style case, no tools needed to install DVD burners, and very tidy cabling. Mobo has 2 extra SATA plus an IDE connector; harddrive is Hitachi; generic 250W power supply. Added another DVD burner and 2nd harddrive. Later I can add graphics card, bigger power supply, and 4 gigs of Ram. Very quiet with great multitasking! This PC is the sleeper of the year! Lose the dial-up card for free PCI slot. Harddrive has molex AND SATA power connectors. Power supply has 2 extra molex plugs so you might need some molex to SATA adapters to upgrade. Hope that's helpful!

I own this desktop for a month now and I am very happy for the generous specs for the price.I think this is the only one in its price range that has 2 GB of RAM installed and can be upgraded to 4, which matters to me because from what I've read Vista needs at least 2 GB of RAM at minimum. This also has a generous HD of 500 GB with an rpm of 7200.I like the DVI outlet at the back where I attached my Hanns monitor and this gives a sharper image. HP has very good technical support, waiting period is short and the person I talked to is very nice and knowledgable and speaks very clear and articulate.

The first thing was the shipping - I received the A6300F in one day and the shipping was free. What a deal!! Since this was an upgrade for me, I was skeptical about Vista. To my surprise, Vista was very easy to use and the graphics are great. The dual core A6300F is unbelievably fast and comes with lots of goodies. From the box to my desk was about 20 minutes to set-up. Burning DVDs takes minutes compared to 2.5 hrs with my old system. Multi-tasking is a breeze with this processor. This computer is really a joy to use. I buy from Amazon because I trust them and they provide great customer service.

Bought this computer on February 25 using the free shipping (estimated 5-7 days) and it arrived on February 27! Overall, no complaints. But there's a few things you should know. The computer isn't as quiet as the specs claim; the fan emits an audible hum. Still, it's a far cry from the roar of the AMD Duron Athlon I had custom made in 2000 and upgraded from. However, said roar is perfectly duplicated by this system when a DVD is burned or initially read-accessed. At times I can also hear metallic clicks (sounds kinda like when you crinkle foil) indicating that the computer is processing something. While noticeable, they're not loud.

CDs take quite a few seconds to auto read; my old PC detected them almost instantly by comparison. About the hard drive size, I confess that I was ignorant to the fact that video cards and other internal components can consume 35 or more GB of space. This was what the HP rep told me when I called asking the reason that my A6330F was showing 465 GB and not the 500 GB as advertised. I know, I know, it's still a huge hard drive---I'm not complaining. I just like to know upfront exactly what I'm getting and paying for is all.

Unlike what I read in the first review here, the back of my PC did not come with a DVI port, but I figure I can buy a VGA-DVI adapter and a DVI cable to compensate.

Giving Vista the benefit of the doubt, I tried it out for a few minutes and boy was everyone right. You ARE better off downgrading this computer to XP and I was oblivious to how I should go about doing this. When I stupidly installed XP Pro SP2 Lite I was thinking that it would autodetect all components during installation like it did on all of the PCs I ever put it on. It did NOT and I had no internet because the network card wasn't being recognized. I'm going off the topic here I know but I thought it best to share this part of my experience because I wasted quite a few hours before I was able to enjoy this purchase, completely ruining my excitement over finally replacing my 8 year old computer.

Since nothing in the paperwork you get says this, I thought I'd let you know: calling HP and letting them know that you overwrote Vista will completely void your warranty. I found this out in a pretty bad way too. I call them all alarmed that the crucial hardware isn't being recognized and as soon as I told them that I attempted to downgrade from Vista the rep unceremoniously transferred me to technical support and that guy coldly said as though addressing a felon, "There is nothing I can do for you. You have just permanently voided your warranty." I fell silent, shocked and expecting him to elaborate or apologize but he eerily kept quiet. Sorry to digress further but I must add that some people forget that their failure to help their fellow man in sheer loyalty to the multi-billion dollar corporation that likely pays them all of $6-7/ hour isn't gonna get them a raise, bonus or any kind of award. I'm sure HP didn't promote that rep. for being so calloused. Sheesh, would it have killed him to mutter, "You can get the drivers free on the internet at the HP site, don't worry, it's gonna be okay"?

Through forum reading and driver searches made using the HP website (I spent hours pulling up the desktop models that came with XP and noting what drivers HP had for download; I trial-and-error installed some and thank God, even though the model numbers were different it worked as evidenced by the yellow question marks going away in Device Manager), NVIDIA website and freeware programs like Unknown Device Identifier and Everest Ultimate Edition v.4.20.1292 I not only got all of the drivers I needed but also discovered that you need to run XP MCE on this system unless you don't mind seeing "IEEE 1394 Controller" with a yellow question mark next to it in Device Manager. My PC was totally functional, no problems at all running XP Pro with the drivers I'd installed but for some reason, no matter what I did, I couldn't get rid of that one aberration in Device Manager is all. Switching to XP MCE (and installing the drivers I collected---yes you still have to install them) was the only thing that solved this.

In short, downgrading will cause the following items in Device Manager to have a yellow question mark next to it: Audio Device on High Definition Audio Bus; Other PCI Bridge Device; SM Bus Controller; Video Controller (VGA compatible); PCI Simple Communications Controller (and said IEEE item if you downgrade to XP Pro instead of MCE). I uploaded the required drivers here (I call it my Vista Downgrade Kit for HP A6330F: hxxp://xxx.megaupload.com/?d=HS7FX0Q3 Mirror: hxxp://momupload.com/files/84176/Vista_Downgrade_Kit_for_HP_A6330F.rar.html Mirror: hxxp://thefilehost.net/download.php?id=5A2955031 hxxp://momupload.com/files/84206/Win_XP_Pro_SP2_Lite.iso.html Mirror: hxxp://xxx.megaupload.com/?d=EYRFWHC4 For MCE try torrents (my upload to filedropper.com is taking longer than a week). If I can save just one person the stress and aggravation I went through, my pains will be worth it.

Great product. I normally build my computers but this was such a steal. I replaced the power supply and put a 8600 gts 512 mb. Probably a little strong of a vid card but it looks spectactular. You cannot beat this price. I did surprising see this comp at frys for 500.00 but amazons got a little better deal. got the comp in 4 days. Love amazon and hope its stock goes higher.

I have owned a few computers over the year, and this is by FAR the best of the lot. It's quick and wonderfully quiet -- I don't hear it at all.

I also should mention something about the Vista software since a lot of people are displeased with it. As my research prior to purchasing this unit indicated, it seems that your computer needs a certain amount of power to run Vista efficiently. And, while I'm no authority on computers, it seems that this figure would be about 2 GHz. Regardless, Vista runs beautifully in this unit and I love the new features.

I've had my HP for about a month and could not be happier. I recommend it highly.

The HP Pavilion a6300f is a nice computer, except for the graphics card. It is only a 128mb NVIDIA GeForce 7100. It has bare minimum specs for todays cards. Unless you are an avid computer gamer, this would be a nice home computer. I updated to a 512mb NVIDIA GeForce 8500 for $78, which was cheaper than buying a computer with the card already in it.

I bought this to replace an old Dell unit that served us well for almost 5 years. The price when I ordered it was under six hundred and purchased with the 19" monitor came to $719.00 out the door. So far we are very pleased with the unit. No problems at all. We did call HP support with a few simple questions we had and were very pleasantly surprised with the 24/7 availability. The agent was polite, patient and very eager to answer any questions we had. All in all, I highly recomment this item to anyone who needs a good, fast everyday desktop for surfing, mail, music, games etc. Shipping was free and fast- thanks, Amazon.

I bought this computer to replace a very old and dying Gateway tower. I couldn't believe the 500 GB hard drive, 2 GB memory and Dual Core CPU for the money. $480 was the price last week, free shipping and no tax. Ordered it last Friday..... recieved it this Wednesday, great service from Amazon. No way I could build an equivalent computer from componets at this price. If you need to replace a legacy computer. This is it.

This computer (and a Toshiba monitor) replaced my Gateway system. So far it does everything I need and it does them well. I was worried about Vista but the 2gb of memeory seems to be handling it. Great DVD setup, and the price is right.