Customer Reviews

HP Pavilion A450n Desktop PC (3.0 GHz Pentium 4 Hyper-threading, 512MB RAM, 160GB Hard Drive)

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

 

 

I purchased this computer about two months ago and had CompUSA add another stick of 512mb memory (it now has 1Gig) and I installed the top Geforce FX Nvidia 5950 Ultra video card. I'm playing one of the most graphic intense software titles currently out, FAR CRY, and after hours of play on almost all of the highest graphic and sound settings it hasn't faltered. Oh yes, I failed to mention that I placed a Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer sound card in it as well.

Don't understand why HP is indicating that it can't have a memory upgrade.

It's true that with it's mini board there aren't many PCI ports but after all I've placed in it I can't imagine needing anything else for a while to come. It rocks also with my Klipsch Ultra Pro 5.1 speakers and 20" Viewsonic CRT monitor. Not mentioning these items to boast or brag but to relate that it is possible to upgrade in some areas and is powerful enough to handle some pretty high-end peripherals and software.

I still can't believe how quiet this machine is. It's no Mac, but it makes my two-year old Pavilion sound like a positive racket. Nice and fast, too. One warning, and the reason for the missing star: this machine is not currently upgradeable. The earliest release of compatible RAM is scheduled for May. I was VERY disappointed to hear this. HP support (very fast, very nice) will tell you that you cannot upgrade the machine. This panicked me, since it is not what the documentation says, but, technically they're correct. You'll have to wait to upgrade the RAM on this puppy. Until the upgrades are available, this is a serious problem.

I bought this back in July 2004 and have found it to be very fast and a great machine. I put a second hard drive in it and a creative audigy card along with ATI AIW 9800 video card and where the card called for a 350 watt or better I put the 350 watts in and really find no fault with this. The software is limited as is on most machines but no problem with that. Others who think the machine is limited in ungradability is wrong. I even added 512 ram making it 1024 ram now.

I ahave been using this computer for a week and really love it! It replaced an Acer computer with a 20 G hard drive and a Celeron processor running at 850 Mhz. As others have said, it is really fast. It turns on almost instantly. Ms Word and IE pop up quickly and web pages snap open. I bought this computer in desperation after the Acer's power suppoly and system board shorted out on the same day and only after 3.5 years of ownership. The Logitech sound system is nice too and sounds
The downsides have already been described. There doesn't seem to be room for additional storage drives. However, with a 160 G HD four USB 1.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports and an IEEE 1394 connector the designers of this machine certainly believe the future to be external and don't anticipate end users needing to crack open their box and install components. The same can be said of the small system board and small number of PSI slots. The HP engineerers see the future with connectable de devices and not with circut cards. However, with all that is on this machine, it is not likely that I and most end users will need to add much for a long time.

The other reason I d didn't give this five stars is because the i first machine I brought home from the computer store was defective. When I turned it on the fan made a loud super charged noice and stayed this way for more than an hour until I shut it off. HP tech support in India couldn't fix it so I took it back to the store, Micro Center, where they exchanged the machine with no hassle. The only problem was that they were out of stock and I had to wait four days for a new shipment to arrive. Apparently, the computer is this popular!
much beter than the SB Live card I was using.

Recently purchased the above mentioned hp desktop. It has worked fine for me the processor is fast. It's quiet. It's not incredibly well loaded software wise and your going to want to get viral and spamware protection but all around a good bang for the buck.

this computer is a piece of junk, fist the 250 watt power supply is not enough for the system , I have replaced everything in this unit since day one power supply twice (which was under warranty) disk drives , cd rom , floppy etc and of course the motherboard , which has to be tatu and you cant just get a motherboard with out buying a new operating system, dont waste your time on this unit ! hp used to be the best for gods sake dont buy this computer!

I bought this computer not too long and noticed that it wasn't bad and that it worked well. Then when I tried to play a pretty high end game (Farcry) it didn't really work other then at the low settings. Seeing that I knew it was the video card that was suspect I bought an ATI 9800 Pro to upgrade it along w/ another 512MB of RAM and that's where it all started to go south as ever since then I've had nothing but problems w/ cooling and such as no matter what kind of upgrades (cooling-wise) I use it will always lock up which can get really irritating after you've had to restart your computer several times because it crashed.

And also since the time I first bought this computer it is not an HP anymore since in all my efforts I've tried to put everything into a larger case in hopes of better air circulation along w/ 5 fans as well and another upgrade too (480 watt power supply) and still has yet to resolve the major issue.

So overall this computer is not bad as long as you're not trying to run any high end games on it or upgrade very much at all, but in the end when a computer is incapable of achieving what at least should be achievable you may realize that perhaps it was not the wisest choice when it came to purchasing a comp.