Customer Reviews

HP Pavilion M8430F Desktop PC (2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Processor, 4 GB RAM, 750 GB Hard Drive, DVD Drive, Vista Premium)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The biggest seller of this PC to me was the price of a quad-core and that it is scary quiet. The only noise you will ever hear from this PC is the CD drive and maybe the hard drive if you're in a very very quiet room.

Multitasking is amazing. I've never used a computer as fast as this.

I've had Dell's, Alienware's, and Gateway's. This blows them all away. Dell has great customer service, but HP's CS isn't bad at all. Everyone else is asking so much more and offering less than what HP is offering. Dell was offering a computer simular to this one without a TV Tuner and a smaller hard drive for over $500 dollers more. That's just crazy.

HP honestly is a little more cheap when it comes to parts than Dell. But if you take good care of your PC you shouldn't have any problems. I had to return the first one of these computers I bought due to a broken front power button. Besides that, I haven't had any trouble at all.

I'm a huge multitasker. I have had 7 Mp3's downloading, Playing Crysis and Listening to music (WMP) and this computer didn't even think about slowing down at all. Also all of the office 2007 (not included) programs run amazingly quick and very very smoothly.

Vista is awesome. I've had Vista on three computers so far, and Vista on this computer runs the best. I have had a few little problems with the 64-Bit OS. Over-all it works great, but there are a few seperate folders for 32-bit programs and 64-bit programs. There are two Internet Explorers (32-bit and 64-bit). Not all web pages work in 64-bit. But all in all, what works in 64-bit runs much smoother and a bit quicker. None of the little tiny problems I've had with the 64-bit OS are worth talking about and would never stop me from buying this PC again.

There are way more than enough ports for me. Lots of USB and the media card reader in the front is great. An optical audio port would have been really nice, but I picked up a cheap external optical sound card and it works great. The HDMI output is a nice touch, but I found the DVI to VGA adaptor to hook it up to my 52'' LCD worked much better.

All in all, this is a perfect machine. Fast and super super quiet. A must buy if you are looking for the perfect media machine.

So, I buy a new desktop every five years or so, and my old XP with 1G was running pretty slow, so I figured time to switch machines. I looked around at the 'build your own' part of the HP and Dell sites, and they were a little expensive for what I wanted (quad processor, 4G RAM), and was prepared to plunk down $1300+ for the HP m9160f. Then I noticed this machine at Best Buy for $400 less, went on-line, checked out the reviews and made my purchase on Amazon (which was about $100 less than Best Buy).

This is a fantastic computer, fast and quiet. I'm not a gamer, but do like to download/play music and videos I find online while listening to radio, surf around, use business applications, etc. I've had this for three weeks, and it's done it all without breaking a sweat. Vista takes a little getting used to, but the transition wasn't as painful as I feared. Nor was transferring my files over, I just put them on my external hard drive and copied them back onto this machine. All XP hardware for the old computer (wireless keyboard and mouse, old Canon MP390 printer) hooked up fine, I just plugged the stuff in, along with my broadband cable, and it was ready to go. I also picked up a new HP w2207 monitor with the deal for $250.

This is simply an incredible upgrade for an incredible price, I'd recommend anyone looking for a state-of-the-art machine pick this up.

I am an IT professional, so I usually tend to prefer building my own machines. Nothing I could build could come close to touching this box. It is silent, fast, feature-rich, and very affordable considering the specs. Most importantly, everything works the way it should.

The one negative is the inevitable crap-ware they load up on it. It's going to take you some time to remove all the garbage (Wild Tangent games, etc...). Uggh. But this is easy to do even for a non-technical person, and every manufacturer loads this garbage up on their machines.

Specific features that shine:

-Digital TV Tuner works great... I didn't think I would use it but I am.

-750 GB Removable HD option is fantastic (go ahead and spring for it, worth every penny)

-Case is a little cheesy-looking but is DEAD SILENT

-Remote actually useful in living room situation

-Wireless configured in seconds

-Vista is ACTUALLY WORKING WELL AND IS EASY TO USE

I highly recommend this system for anyone but the most demanding user, and you really can't beat the price for what you're getting.

Enjoy!

Needed a replacement for my Acer laptop that has had media buffering problems since the day I bought it.

Was going for a Quad Core with 3GB I saw at Costco, but after a couple of days of research it was gone. Found this at Best Buy just in to replace the previous model I was eyeballing.

I knew that in the windows world 4GB = 64bit OS that gave me a little bit of pause but I always want leading edge in my computers so they last a couple of years.

The only real headache so far has been that Zone Alarm is not ready for a 64bit world, so I went with Trend Micro. Took a lot of tweaking to get the machine not to respond to pings (if Zone Alarm can make it so easy why cant everyone else). Once Security was up it was all good.

My default browser is Firefox and so far it's doing fine, on this box.

I have widgets setup to watch CPU, Ram, and network traffic and I have yet to really see this machine stress.

Multiple downloads from different sites, running Call of Duty 4 with a bunch of other stuff going on all no problem.

You want some power that will not be outdated tomorrow? Here it is.

The HP Pavilion M8430F Desktop PC I purchased from amazon.com arrived within 2 days of the order. Perfect timing. Initial setup was easy and the documentation, though minimal, was adequate. After several days of working with the unit the DVD recorder/player stopped working. I immediately called HP's toll free customer support and after turning the unit over to their control on-line, the technician edited the registry and solved the problem. I was impressed to say the least. The unit is fast at rendering video clips, which is the main reason I chose this computer in the first place. However, that said, not all of my video/audio editing software has installed successfully. The software in question was updated to work with Vista but apparently only works with Vista's 32 bit version. From what I can glean from user forums the software really doesn't like any version of Vista. So, now I am at a crossroad. I'd like to go back to Windows XP Pro in order to get ALL of my software to work, but in so doing I will apparently lose the use of that 4th gig of ram and possibly all of the Windows Media Center capability that the unit has to offer. Decisions, decisions. I like the computer - but I don't like the operating system.

I purchased this computer to replace a Gateway laptop whose internal HD failed after less than 2 years. The HP is GREAT. MUCH faster than the laptop (a Duo Core, 2GB Ram). I really like the Personal Media Drive option, although I was not sure I would like it when I purchased the HP. Very convienent to just slide in a big HD, useful both for backing up and archiving important data. I did not have much problem with installing my existing software on the new 64 bit version of Windows Vista Home Premimum although I did need to get a few new drivers for external devices (ie a Sypder Pro 2 monitor calibration device). Only one program did not either run on the 64 Bit Vista or did not have a 64 bit version that I could download (that program was DxO Optics Pro Version 5. A good program, but if it won't load, it's not much use...).

This PC can do it all. I am a big gamer and that is the reason i purchased this PC. Just to test it out I had a game running, music playing, downloading off the internet AND ran a PC scan and the game NEVER slowed down. Amazing. If you don't like the Norton's it comes with, just uninstall and get a free anti-virus program off the internet and your all set. It comes with so many PC diagnostics and auto updates you barely have to do anything to keep it up to date on drivers and BIOS. Many people say they don't like Vista and their is some validity to this. However, you can go into control panel and select "classic xp" under themes and it will look and act just like XP, set your PC up and when you are ready, switch to Vista theme. For the price you cannot beat this machine. get it now before energy prices make everything more expensive. Very satisfied.

This review is for the 'non' computer type people who are still window shoping and really don't understand the 'hype' behind the product discription and the reviews below it. This entire review is basically pros and cons covering the first three days and nights. 'What you, a non computer person, is going to go through'. BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE...make an emergency backup/startup disk. Do this BEFORE you install or update anything.

PROS:

1. Yes, it will multitask (single core computers usually only do 'single' things at a time...this is a quad core--it can do 3 or 4 things at time time without slowing down)

2. Yes, it does seem to run a lot smoother when compaired to a single core--no freezing up, shuttering, studdering, crashing, etc..

3. Yes, it has Vista (that isn't a big thing to me)

4. Yes, this is probably the best 'bang per buck' computer you'll find--that's why I got it and that's why I gave it five stars.

5. All in all, when compared with my Hp Media Center (single core) with one gigabyte of ram...........this quad core is twice the computer. My single core always shuttered, single frame, freeze up and occasionally crashed back to desktop. (Crashed back to desktop means the program I was running--stopped running).

CONS:

1. For the price, there really isn't much in the way of CONS.

2. I'd like to know, 'what lame brain' designed a black keyboard with white letters and numbers? You know, after a life time of going to school, reading books, and writing some of those books--I can honestly say...I can read and write pretty easy simple because I always used white paper to write and read on, and black pencil and ink to write with or read.............THEN, some idiot comes out with a keyboard that's black with white letters and numbers--instead of a white keyboard with black letters and numbers. Do they actually think this is better? It's hard to see and read like that.

3. What lame brain designed that keyboard with 'low profile' keys? I'm a touch typiest and half the time I use this keyboard I can't tell if my thumbs are on the spacebar or on the keyboard casing below.

NOW FOR VISTA

1. When you get this computer do only this--download, download,download, and .... more down loads. DON'T install anything until you have. That will take you about three days and nights.

2. There are a number of programs on this computer Vista doesn't reconize...you have to get downloads off the internet to get them to run properly. (If you don't have internet...don't ask me what you should do). I would think a program would not have been factory installed on a computer--unless it would run on that computer without any updates...or...wouldn't be installed on a computer that doesn't reconize it.

3. When I plugged my computer in, and the monitor displayed something asking me about 'set up', I clicked the button. The harddrive flashed it's yellow light for a minute and then stopped. I set there for half an hour--staring at the monitor--waiting for the computer to do something...anything...or tell me to do something...ANYTHING. Did it? Nope. I moved the cursor around the screen until I noticed an area at the top left 'seemed' to lighten its color some. I clicked on it and was taken to the normal desktop display on the monitor. This is something all you newbies need to remember--Vista does not 'always' tell you what to do, futher, a lot of the 'control' areas on the monitor (the places where you click on) are faded and hard to see.

4. Vista seems packed with pastel colors. (pastel colors are basically faded colors...most of them are several colors mixed together to make a third color.) Example: You remember that 'box of 8' crayons you had in school...you won't be seeing those colors on Vista. You remember that 'box of 48' crayons?...that's what you will see.

--this is another way of saying, the image is not sharp...it looks faded. For us people in low light levels--wearing glasses--this is hard to see. Even the written words appear faded and hard to read.

5. There is a lot of 'little' things I could list about these faded colors...but you get the idea--it's hard to see and read sometimes.

six. Another problem is the basic design of this program. Example: you remember on your last computer, when you defragged your system, you could actually 'see' it defraging the computer? It probably told you how much had been defragged, how much was left, maybe a visual repersentation of it actually doing the defragging? Well.....you can forget that. Now, you click 'defrag' and.........that's it! You don't know if its doing its job or not. It doesn't take you to another page to watch it working, it doesn't tell you how much has been done...nope. You are left there, staring at the screen, wondering--is this thing still running? Is it frozen? Is it about to blow up? Should I pray to GOD? The only indication I got was a little 'swirling' blue circle around the cursor. This suppose to tell me the program is running. THATS IT! That little blue swirl is you only proof some of the programs are still running. So, get use to it.

7. The blue screen of death. Yep, it's still with us. My second day of running this computer I saw it three times in twenty four hours. I had installed only one program. Yesterday I think I found out what was causing it. The soft modem needed an update. The reason for the update listed "...stops intermittent crashes and the blue screen..." Now, twenty four hours later, I haven't seen that blue screen of death yet. Maybe it's gone away?

8. Finally, you remember on all your older computers, you would have to sign up for internet using one program, set your dial up on another program, attach your modem with still another program (and update its drivers)? Well, that kind of problem is on Vista to. I know why they do it...I just wish they would do something to change it. It would have helped if they would give us a 'command key card' or some other 'basic' instruction sheet (not a manual type book) on how to find these things for the first week of operation. A lot of the problems caused in these computers is from us clicking on the wrong program or button to do something during the first week.

All in all, I like this computer, and I will adapt to Vista--I did give them five stars. If you are using a single core computer--this quad core is the best 'next' basic upgrade for all computers...but like all new computer systems you've owned--it brings its own problems you will overcome in about one week.

Everforward.

bye!

This wouldn't have been my first choice frankly, but it fit my budget. As it turns out, it's not a bad machine. It has handled most of what I've thrown at it, and in particular, it burns DVDs extremely quickly. It's much quieter than my old machine, which was very noisy. At times I've turned it off, thinking that I was turning it on. My biggest complaint is about Vista. I don't know how a brand new machine, with almost no software installed, can get the blue screen of death. But that's on MS, not HP.

There is the standard amount of software and come-ons, but that can be gutted. All in all, it's a nice buy particularly for the price.

This Pavilion and Windows Vista have been an awesome upgrade. It's amazingly quiet (dare I say "silent"?) when I am playing World of Warcraft, burning a DVD or using a high-memory program like Photoshop. In fact, I can do all three at once and this beast doesn't break a sweat. A great price for a quad-core with plenty of RAM and a good graphics card. I'll plan to add more RAM eventually, but so far the included 3 GB has been great.