HP Pavilion Elite M9510F Desktop PC (2.33 Reviews

Product Description

The hp Pavilion Elite delivers an amazing high-end home entertainment experience, DX10 3D Mainstream gaming, and power for the most demanding PC tasks. This premium PC's enhanced features and technology puts everything you need where you want it. The Intel Core 2 Quad processor is the latest in cutting edge processor technology for the desktop PC. Based on the new Intel Core microarchitecture, the Intel Core 2 Quad processor delivers four complete execution cores within a single processor, delivering unprecedented performance and responsiveness in multi-threaded and multi-tasking business and home use environments. If you want to do it all get the hp Pavilion Elite m9000f Desktop PC and you'll have the latest, high-performance computing experience. NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GS with 512MB Dedicated Graphics Memory LightScribe 16x DVD+-R/RW SATA Drive with Double Layer High Definition Audio, 8 speaker configurable Built-in 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN 10/100/1000 Base-T Ethernet LAN 15-in-1 card reader Front ports - 2 x USB, IEEE 1394, Headphone, Microphone Back ports - 4 x USB, IEEE 1394, 2 x PS2 ports (keyboard, mouse), Side speaker out, Center, Microphone/Line-in/Line-out, RJ-45 (LAN), DVI-I (Dual-Link), HDMI out Expansion slots - 1 x PCI (available), 2 x PCI Express x1 (available), PCI Express x16 (occupied) Drive bays - 2 x 5.25 (one available), 2 x 3.5 (one available), Personal Media Drive Monitor is not included

I've owned one of these computers (actually, an m9500y) for a couple months now. It's a decent PC and runs all the software I want to run (including software development tools and games, in addition to web & email, etc.); however, this computer has some bad enough quirks to make me not want to buy another one of these.

I'll start out with the good things about this computer:
- It's fast, and it has tons of RAM and hard drive space. Having a quad-core CPU really helps with multi-tasking and CPU-intensive software that can take advantage of more than 1 core (i.e., making use of multi-threading). Even if AMD may be falling behind Intel these days, I think they still make a very good CPU. Also, 8GB of RAM as standard is fairly rare these days in a desktop PC and is more than enough for what I need. The RAM is decently fast, too (DDR2-6400). The hard drive is also fairly large: 750GB is more than I would expect in a desktop PC at this price.
- The video card (Nvidia GeForce 9500) is decent for gaming. I'm fairly familiar with gaming video cards, and as far as Nvidia cards go, I'd have preferred a 9600 or 9800, but Nvidia's 9500 card is still fairly good and runs all the games I enjoy pretty smoothly. It's nice that it has 512MB of RAM, too. In addition, the video card has an HDMI output, which I think is a nice touch - from what I've seen, that is still fairly uncommon for desktop video cards.

Overall, I think the combination of the video card, quad-core CPU, RAM, and hard drive space is a very good value for the price of this PC.

Now, onto the bad stuff:
- The USB interfaces may be somewhat unstable in some circumstances. One time when I plugged my USB printer into one of the rear USB ports, the computer rebooted.
- The microphone inputs are unacceptable, in my opinion. I like to occasionally voice chat with people over the internet, and the microphone inputs are unsuitable for that. My voice is masked behind a lot of noise using the rear mic input, and if I use the front mic input, my voice isn't picked up at all. I also like to occasionally record music on my computer, so the audio inputs on this computer are definitely not adequate. For voice chat, I ended up buying an inexpensive USB audio adapter for its microphone input, and it works well (it's one of these: Syba SD-CM-UAUD USB Stereo Audio Adapter, C-Media Chipset, RoHS).
- After only 2 months, the video card fan in my PC started to vibrate loudly. This is something I find pretty annoying, and it's disappointing that it started to happen so soon.
- The motherboard's PCI Express is not the newer 2.0 standard. This could be a limiting factor if you ever decide to upgrade the video card. Many new video cards support the newer PCI Express 2.0 standard; they are backwards-compatible with PCI Express 1.0, so they would still work with this motherboard, but they would not be able to take advantage of the PCI Express 2.0 specs.

Hare are some of my miscellaneous other thoughts:
- The flash card reader is a nice touch. I have a couple devices (digital camera and a music synthesizer) that use flash media, and it's nice to be able to plug the media into the reader in this PC to copy the files off. My digital camera uses only USB 1.1, so this PC's built-in card reader is faster.
- This PC has bays that support HP's Pocket Media and Media Drive technology. It looks like these are hot-swappable hard drives designed by HP, but I had never heard of them before I bought this PC. With USB hard drives and flash drives, I'm not likely to use HP's media/pocket drives, so these are insignificant to me.
- This PC lacks a reset button. I realize the same effect could probably be done using the power button or unplugging the PC, but it's nice having a reset button in case the computer ever freezes up and you need to do a hard reset. Besides, a reset button is standard on many PCs, so it just seems odd that HP would not include a reset button.
- The power supply lacks a hard power switch. Again, this is something that I think is nice to have and is included on many power supplies, so it seems odd not to have one.
- The DVD burner does not seem to work with TDK double-layer media. I have a spindle of TDK double-layer DVD+R media that I had used with my old PCs; however, the drive in this computer always gives burning errors with these discs. I've found that Verbatim double-layer DVDs work fine in it though.

Personally, I am disappointed in the negatives that I have pointed out. The video card fan vibration is particularly annoying. I give this PC a 3-star rating for its overall value (CPU, RAM, hard drive space, and choice of video card), but I can't give it more than that due to the negatives.

Normally I like to build my own PC, but I was in a bit of a financial bind, which is why I bought one of these. If you're in the market for a PC, I'd recommend you look elsewhere or build your own PC if you are savvy enough. Unfortunately, I think the reason many of these name-brand PCs have become as cheap as they are is that some of the components they use are cheap and are lacking in quality.


I postponed the purchase of a new desktop PC for far too long. I endured the sluggishness of a four year old computer beyond its useful life. My new HP Pavilion Elite runs Photoshop at least five times faster than my earlier PC. Most other applications are considerably faster.

MS Vista was a cause for some concern. My friends who purchased slower PCs complaied about Vista performance. With a quad processor, a 7200 RPM hard drive and 8 GB RAM, this HP runs plenty fast with Vista. I find some of the changes annoying that Microsoft made with Vista, but my overall experience with Vista has been good.


Pros:
This machine has plenty of power and memory to become my home media center. It has HDMI output so I can connect it directly to my HDTV. It has a Blu-ray disc reader so I don't have to use my PS3 anymore for HD movies. It has a remote control for Vista Media Center so I don't have to use the mouse and keyboard. It works pretty much like a DVR without the monthly subscription fees. It has Vista Premium 64-bit so it includes the Vista Media Center which is a great application to use because it's free and it has a free 14-day TV guide. VMC also can handle two TV tuners so you can record or watch two digital AND two analog signals. I have recorded all four signals at once and this system was able to do it with great audio and video quality.

Cons:
HP tech support is horrible. They don't know anything about the systems. They are only going by scripts.

The internal wireless card interferes with the TV tuner HVR-1290. When both are in the system, the video output for the HVR-1290 flickers. If I wanted to use the internal wireless card, I have to replace the HVR-1290 with a HVR-1800. If you plan on keeping the HVR-1290 in the system, you will need to get a USB wireless adapter.

Case is too small to be able to use all 6 SATA ports. I was able to fit two extra 1.5 TB Barracuda's. If I want to use the other two SATA ports, I will have to use an external eSATA drive.

The two HP personal drive USB bays are useless. You are better off buying an external USB drive. The bays are taking up space for more expansion.

Did I already say that HP tech support is horrible? Let me say it again. HP Tech support is horrible

Other thoughts:
I would have given this a five rating if it wasn't for HP's horrible tech support and that the wireless HP installed in the system didn't interfere with the TV tuner.

I would also have given this a lower rating than four if it wasn't able to do what I needed it to do. Since I was able to resolve my issues and I was already planning on installing a second TV Tuner, the flicker issue was really a non-issue for me since the wireless card had to go anyways. The system only came with two PCI Express x1 slots.



Received as a Christmas gift and coming from a 2.4 ghz machine with 256 ram it is hard to make a fair comparison. The machine operates so fast that I have had no problems playing graphically intensive games for long periods while still operating 5 other programs in the background and little to no slowing.

Added a wireless HP printer and external hard drive and everything was plug and play accessible as was my ancient flash drive.

Now, making the switch from Windows XP to the 64 bit Vista I found many problems that mostly came about with Internet Explorer. Until Flash that is....

Currently there is no Flash 10 support for 64 bit systems. Firefox allows you to run flash applets and such in 32 bit mode and for me this is not a problem since Firefox is my browser of choice but for those of you who wish to used IE and run flash the ability to run IE in 32 bit mode is sketchy at best, often crashing the entire system.

Now, using the windows toolbar. Anything that requires Flash again requires you to run in 32 bit mode and to date for me all it does is crash.

So as far as the machine itself it is a resounding 5 stars, for the software included I would put it no higher than 2 stars.

There is more issues with programs and the 64 bit mode but they are many and often related to games and programs not keeping up with advancing technology.


I just wanted to give you a little feedback.

My M9550f came in a nice sturdy unmarked package. Everything was there. So far everything has worked flawlessly. I'm leaving it on to burn-in. It is very quiet and plenty fast for my main two applications (Adobe Lightroom and Canon DPP). My peripherals all work flawlessly with it - better than with my previous (xxx) computer. The included HP software works well and is helpful. I've used it for help a couple of times.

The only negative is the confusion caused by it assuming (on install) I don't have a service provider and its almost insistence on me selecting one. I think it should assume I have one and then provide suggestions if I don't.

Anyhow it's a great computer. I haven't seen anything out there nearly as nice for the money. I did see a review by "a reviewer" saying I should pay $600 more to buy a Dxxx that had nowhere near the features (just a faster CPU). The reason the reviewer gave was that you got 15 months of Norton vs 6 wks and it would read Blueray disks. The M9550f reads Blueray too! 15 months of Norton is a definite disadvantage (I prefer my own antivirus and don't way to prebuy) and writing to Blueray is not important to me. So, I wrote the reviewer off.

Addendum: A couple of weeks have past and the computer is still doing great. I added a 2nd internal hard drive. The drive cage was easy to access. The HD was easy to install and connect. The computer wiring was neat with everything in its place. No wiring mess at all - unlike the PCW reviewer claimed. Also, the DVD door has not hung once.


My review is mostly for Enthusiast/Professional Photographers...

I needed a new powerful desktop with 64-bit processing. My Sony Vaio desktop that once was cutting edge two years ago,is now not able to keep up with many of todays demands. Especially my updated versions of Photoshop CS, and Lightroom 2.3 which works native in 64-bit.

64-bit allows windows to accept, use and maximize a computer with 4+ gbs of RAM. The HP Pavilion Elite M9550F comes pre-installed with a maxed out 8gbs of ram.

So for a photographer using high end software, and downloading large amounts of files. This computer works swiftly and effortlessly.

On my older sony desktop, it took about 15 minutes to download 4gb off of a compact flashcard. I could not do any other task while it downloaded, or risked data loss or the download not completing.

It takes about a minute to download with the HP, and I listen to music and/or check emails with no detectable slow down in the system.

On my old desktop, if I changed modules in lightroom, or did any form of editing it took a few seconds to see the changes. I sometimes had to hit Ctrl+Z so I can see the before image. With my new HP,... It's so fast that I miss the changes if they are not drastic. The screen appears to blink, because it responds so fast to my commands.

The onboard 1TB of storage is another huge plus. There are still very few desktops on the market with an internal 1TB drive. I have purchased three 1TB external hardrives, with two mirroring the HP's internal drive. There is a bay available that can be used for an additional internal drive, and you can purchase a HP Media Drive up to 1TB to plug right into a special bay. No wires, or software is necessary.

I distribute CD's to models and clients often. The LightScribe technology that is part of the CD/DVD drive lets you etch custom labels and artwork right on a LightScribe-enabled CD or DVD. This allows you to look professional and a cut about the rest.

There are several ways to hook up a monitor, so I have the VGA attached to my old CRT monitor, and HDMI port attached to a 30inch flatscreen. Using dual displays is just a few clicks, and takes your image editing to another level.

There are a lot of features that I'm sure I missed, but these are the standout features to me, using it for photography.


This computer is a powerhouse! Fast & quiet with loads of HDD storage space. The media drive is a bit useless unless you don't mind spending more then an external drive would cost you. Typical HP attempts to lock in their customers at higher prices w/proprietary crap. The OS is ok being Vista and it's fairly easy to remove the crapware. I added it to my network and got it configured with the router and added all my favorite open source apps in a jiffy. I have yet to find anything to really complain about. It would be nicer to have two drives for backup or a true Raid array (it has a virtual Raid backup image. The backup disc creator failed repeatedly and I am working on that. All in all though, a decent upgrade to my older single CPU machines.


Lots of my software isn't compatible with this computer. I'm still working on getting my scanner and tablet to even work on this. Simple things like Google bookmarks aren't available in the toolbar. This only comes with 4 USB ports and 1 phone line. Issues with having to use a separate hub for more USB connections when main hardware wants to be directly connected. Lots of things I don't really need instead. But it's fast and other things are working. Almost too much trouble to return but considering it.


I bought it at Circuit City - specs looked awesome, price was great! Got it home and had problems straight out of the box. Fans were cranking at full speed, gotta be at least 40 dB all the time - and it took 3 solid days with 1 guy in India after another before they would authorize a return for evaluation. Took 2 weeks to turn that around, got it back, and immediately several fatal errors came up on screen. Reformattted the hard drive and started over...
It is now over a month - and a new cpu, a new video card, and all new fans - later, and I just setting up the replacement that HP finally agreed to send because the first was such a lemon... and the fans are going on this one too!!!
This MIGHT just last a year... but I doubt it.
Horrible experience, horrible product, horrible waste of time and money. This is the 3rd HP I have purchased, and they have just gotten worse and worse over time. Never again. Spare yourselves - Don't make the mistake I made. Don't buy HP.


Fast, Hi. cap. storage (I also added a 1 TB external)and 8 GB of RAM make this a steal of a deal. I have had zero issues with Vista, and wouldn't go back to XP. Period. I am a photo. editor and this is all the machine I need to run 64 bit Lightroom and 64 bit Photoshop.
I really haven't found a single thing bad to say about it yet. I bought it in about December.
I was going to build my own (again) until I researched this one. I couldn't get close to the specs. of this one for the same money.

About HP Pavilion Elite M9510F Desktop PC (2.33 Reviews detail

• Amazon Sales Rank: #418 in Personal Computers
• Brand: Hewlett-Packard
• Model: M9510F
• Dimensions: 15.51" h x 16.61" w x 7.00" l, 28.80 pounds

Features

• Top-of-the-line multimedia desktop featuring 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 with four lightning fast execution cores
• 750 GB hard drive, access to optional HP Pocket Media Drive, 8 GB RAM (max), LightScribe dual-layer DVD drive
• Draft-N Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n); Gigabit Ethernet; Nvidia GeForce 9500 GS graphics (512 MB dedicated)
• Connectivity: 6 USB, 2 FireWire, 1 VGA, 1 HDMI, 1 DVI, digital audio output, surround sound speaker output, 15-in-1 memory card reader
• Pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium with SP1 (64-bit version); includes keyboard and mouse

Read more HP Pavilion Elite M9510F Desktop PC (2.33 Reviews

Related Product

Source From SHOPPING MALL
Hope you guys had a great weekend
Cheers