$349.99 for a Athlon XP 3000+ nForce system.... AR

[freshspace]

Upon my recommendation, a friend bought this. It is very very quiet. The only thing you hear is the CD drive spinning. If there's no CD, you can't even tell if it is on. If I didn't have 8 computers, I would jump on this NOW! Oh, the 256mb system memory is shared with the video (64mb). It would be a good idea to get a stick of ram. Only 2 total slots. My friend bought 512mb pc2700 ram. The machine works quite well.

 

[ActuaryTm]

Originally posted by: AmitPatel
For all those who bought this computer: What's the noise level on this computer, compared with the dell 400SC, somebody asked before but it didnt get answered...

Have experienced both. Would say the 400SC offers a bit more in the way of silent operation. That is not to say however that the Presario SR1XXXX series are noisy. Would compare their operational noise level (both the AMD and Intel based SR1XXXX machines) to that of the Dell 2400 series, or most other entry level machines.

 

[unclebud]

"I searched the bios for a way to disable the onboard video, but there was no need.
When you plug in your AGP card, the next boot disable the onboard and frees the RAM.
The bios has 2 options
1. PCI
2. AGP/Onboard
With an fx5900 installed, the bios automatically sets the option lebeled as PCI."
good info. thanks for posting and welcome to to the forum.

 

[chuck2002]

I got mine in. Nice rig. I used DBAN to get rid of the diagnostic partition garbage and write zeros to the hdd, then installed my ATI AIW card and setup XP Pro using a copy I had lying around.

XP installed without a hitch and booted up the first time after install to nothing. It is stuck in a rebooting loop. The only thing I added was the AIW Radeon 8500 card and did a clean OS install.
It did boot the first time I took it out of the box without installing my AIW, but when I saw that it was bogged down with 150 megs of RAM used on a clean boot, I decided that I wanted all the extra junk gone.
I emailed their tech support about weather there is an incompatibility with the 8500 card, but since I didn't have the serial number hande (I'm at work now) I didn't get a definate answer.

Google doesn't turn up anything on a search for this compaq model number nor the ASUS model number, so I am hoping I have an isolated issue.

 

[Thump553]

chuck2002:

Did you back up the diagnostic partition first? I hate to throw away the operating system, etc. that I paid for as part of this system. I'm not sure why you went through the clean install process you did. I deleted the things I didn't want, installed the stuff I want, ran adaware and spybot and everything was fine.

I put a Radeon 9600 in mine and it worked great right off the bat, no BIOS settings needed changing. Very good video card from Newegg-ECS brand and cost was $65-68 (may be OOS now). As I recall, doesn't the 8500 draw a lot of power? Back when they came out I was very interested in them until I found out they had a lot of compatibility problems with the Abit motherboard I had back then.

I'd buy a second system in a heartbeat if the rebates applied to that.

 

[silverbullet555]

Haven't put another video card in the one I picked up yet, but this little rig seems to do great for what it is intended for. told my parents as they were looking for a new computer as well. I might thow in an Elsa Gladiac Geforce 2 GTS card that I have lying around. Might as well get some use from it.

 

[chuck2002]

Thump:
Naa I erased everything. I was going to burn the OS and stuff to CD, but according to the manual, it gives you all the stuff- OS, drivers, and all the software, so I decided I didn't want all that mess and erased all of it with the DBAN.
I have a copy XP, so no sweat there.
I am going to try messing with it some more tonight including seeing what options the BIOS gives me and seeing if maybe disabling the onboard video in device manager nets me any results.
Compaq tech support was very responsive to my question about this card issue though. I had an answer in like 1 hour.

I just wanted to start fresh without any compaq junk or dlls or anything else that I don't need on the system, hence the full on erase and build from scratch. That stuff takes up a good amount of space on the drive and is a waste. If I need a system restore, I will format and start over.

 

[imported_krypt0]

I've been very happy with this machine, although I did have to return the first machine I received because of problems with the on-board firewire. Basically, Device Manager showed the firewire controller in an error state (yellow exclamation point) and despite my very best efforts - including a complete system restore - nothing would fix it. I contacted Compaq support (which was provided from India) and after an hour on the phone with them, they too were stumped. I contacted Radio Shack the next day and they were very accommodating about exchanging the machine out for a new one. Fortunately, I hadn't submitted any of my rebates yet, so this made the exchange process easier.

The new machine has been flawless. I added an old Visiontek GeForce3 card I had lying around and I bought another 256mb of RAM at Newegg which is running in dual channel mode with the original 256mb of RAM. With the GeForce3 and the added RAM, this machine really flies! I'm *very* happy with the performance - especially considering the budget price! I should note that the machine is very quiet in it's stock configuration. The hard drive produced most of the audible emissions until I added my GeForce3 card which now dominates the audible output.

Here's a link to the RAM I bought --> http://tinyurl.com/4cnhg. I know there are probably better deals on RAM out there, but $41 isn't too bad IMO for a quality stick of RAM that I can report runs well in dual-channel mode.

A couple comments of possible interest: In the first machine I received, the exhaust fan on the rear of the case was not properly connected to the fan header on the motherboard. Therefore, the exhaust fan wasn't running. It was a simple fix (just plug the darn thing in correctly), but it's something that might go unnoticed without close inspection. The tip-off that clued me in to this problem was that the CPU fan (which seems to be a variable speed fan) kept kicking into high speed mode periodically. I checked the CPU temp in BIOS and it was hovering around 60-61 deg C. This seemed a bit hot to me, so I opened the case and discovered that the exhaust fan wasn't running. Once the exhaust fan was properly connected and running, the CPU temp dropped by 6 deg C. A few other things I'll quickly mention - the first machine I recieved had an older BIOS (v3.02), while the second machine had the latest BIOS (v3.03) already installed. The first machine came with a Lite-On CD-RW drive while the second came with a Sony. The first machine came with a CoolerMaster HSF, while the second came with a Taisol.

Well, that's about it. Like I said earlier, I'm extremely happy with this little beast. I didn't mean to ramble on so long, but I just thought I'd share my experience (it's a slow day at work).

-krypt0

 

[imported_krypt0]

Hmmm...the link to the RAM I provided in my previous post doesn't seem to be working, so let me try again:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-141-302&depa=0

 

[silverbullet555]

Do you have to enable dual channel mode, or does it enable itself when it detects to sticks of the same memory?

 

[imported_krypt0]

Originally posted by: silverbullet555
Do you have to enable dual channel mode, or does it enable itself when it detects to sticks of the same memory?

Dual channel mode is enabled automagically when it detects two sticks of identical memory (same size, same speed, same CAS level). I used a program called CPU-Z (available here at http://www.cpuid.org) to see if I was running in dual channel mode. Under the "Memory" tab in the "Channels #" field, you should see the word "Dual" if you're running in dual channel mode.

I don't know if dual channel mode is possible when using the on-board video. Since the on-board video uses 64mb of system RAM, the first memory slot would report 192mb of available RAM instead of 256mb and this assymetry might interfere with the possibility for dual channel mode. I'm not really sure what would happen, but I was wondering about this when I installed my RAM. I guess I could always remove my GeForce3 card and see what happens.

 

[MoSuaveA]

I had my mom get one for my sister as a college computer and I am still debating on whether or not to pick up one myself. Great deal

 

[chaonatic]

Thanks OP, picked one up the other night. Threw my 9800 XT in there cause eventually I'll be getting my PNY 6800 Ultra for my main rig. Ran 3DMark 03 and scored 6330, and that's with the 250W PSU and the 256MB RAM that came with it. This is one hell of a system, my bro's gonna pick one up too.

Now, is there really onboard TV out? If so, does anyone know how to access it?

 

[Thump553]

Originally posted by: MoSuaveA
I had my mom get one for my sister as a college computer and I am still debating on whether or not to pick up one myself. Great deal

Exactly what I was thinking. But look at the rebate forms-at least one of them says one rebate per household. Plus that would be a heck of a lot of money out on rebates.

 

[chuck2002]

Just wanted to update on my AIW 8500 not working. I have it working now without any problems. I just left it out when installing XP and then added the card in after XP was done installing.
One other thing I want to add is that if you are doing a fresh install of XP, watch that you don't get a funky drive letter for your OS. It seems that the memory card reader got installed as drive c: and a few others and XP installed itself on the I: drive, giving all the lower letters to cdrom, dvd and memory card reader drives.
What I did was unplug the memory card readers from the motherboard (pretty easy, just follow the cord and unplug in one place) before installing XP fresh and then plugged the memory card readers back into the motherboard after the OS was done installing.
Not sure why XP would install that way, but not a tough workaround. I'm happy with this rig otherwise now though now that my AIW is working good.
I also put some electrical tape over the green led in the front, as I have it located in my living room, and that was a little bright.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: chuck2002
Just wanted to update on my AIW 8500 not working. I have it working now without any problems. I just left it out when installing XP and then added the card in after XP was done installing.
One other thing I want to add is that if you are doing a fresh install of XP, watch that you don't get a funky drive letter for your OS. It seems that the memory card reader got installed as drive c: and a few others and XP installed itself on the I: drive, giving all the lower letters to cdrom, dvd and memory card reader drives.
What I did was unplug the memory card readers from the motherboard (pretty easy, just follow the cord and unplug in one place) before installing XP fresh and then plugged the memory card readers back into the motherboard after the OS was done installing.
Not sure why XP would install that way, but not a tough workaround. I'm happy with this rig otherwise now though now that my AIW is working good.
I also put some electrical tape over the green led in the front, as I have it located in my living room, and that was a little bright.

Good tips. I have run into some strange drive-letter assignment issues with XP in the past. That green LED is quite a little beacon, eh? I imagine my Dad (who I gave the system to) will have it on the floor, so no big deal.

 

[ArmyFCS]

Just picked this one up as well....one question on the PSU- anyone know if the 250w PSU is strong enough to support a 9800pro or should I change it out for a 350? Thanks!

 

[chaonatic]

I got the PSU running my 9800 XT without a hiccup. Don't think I'll be throwing another drive in there any time soon tho...

 

[MoSuaveA]

Exactly what I was thinking. But look at the rebate forms-at least one of them says one rebate per household. Plus that would be a heck of a lot of money out on rebates.

I don't live with my parents so that wouldn't be a problem. I would agree though, thats a boat load of money to have out on rebates. but if you got in on the 10% off charge on the Radio Shack card if they let you, at least its not money straight out of pocket

 

[mindless1]

Random comments;

1) This board will use dual-channel mode for the integral video when two modules are installed, that is the whole point of nForce2 IGP, it is much slower without 2nd module.

2) The audio DAC (650) is not an alternative to southbridge sound... indeed ALL southbridge sound solutions have an analog I/O codec, and this is no exception. The southbridge is the same nVidia sound hardware except IF/WHEN it has no dolby digital, that feature is missing. ALL boards with nVIdia southbridge have same core hardware for everything but the dolby digital. If you find the nVidia mixer missing and have drawn conclusions from that, perhaps Compaq has fiddled with the bios to mess up the hardware device IDs, but it would be same sound, perhaps fewer user-controlled parameters.

3) If you find the LEDs too bright, putting a resistor in series on their power lead should suitably dim them. You might try 10 Ohm but that's a wild guess, I don't know how hard this board drives 'em nor the spec on LEDs COmpaq used. TYpical 1/2 Watt resistor packs at Radio Shack would be fine, put two or more 10 Ohm in series if one isn't reducing brightness enough.

4) Asus (and most if not all other) nForce2 IGP boards are picky about memory, if might be more cost effective to buy a video card rather than spending a lot of $$$ on premium memory with the hopes of higher FSB speed towards increase of IGP performance... A Doom3 box it isn't, though it might make a passing attempt at 640x480 LQ.

 

[digital021]

Thanks OP for this great deal,

I got in on this deal with 10% credit card discount, so my total came out to 599.99-60.00(10%)=539.99*7.75(CA sales tax)=$581.84 not including the MIRs for $250. I just have a quick question about Windows XP Home OS license sticker. Can I remove the license sticker that is on the tower and sell it, or do I need to unregister with Microsoft?

 

[S4M33R]

wow not bad at all....

 

[slag]

I guess its no longer available. The link doesnt work anymore

 

[Macro2]

Is this still on...the link doesn't go to the right page anymore?

 

[Thump553]

I'm pretty sure it's dead now-I can't find the SR1012NX anywhere on Radio Shack's site. Too bad-I procrastinated forever whether I should buy another. If someone tracks it down, please post the info.

Special thanks to Marlin1975 (and the people at FW) for bringing one of the best hot deals I've seen to our attention.