I couldn't pass this one up at Sam's club this week:

P4, 540, 250GB 7200RPM HD, TV card, Radio card, 19" flat screen monitor ...... too many cool things to mention till I test drive it.
It has a cool "swappable" USB drive bay in front and provisions to dock and HP camera right on top of the unit!

I'm giving one of my laptops to Dad to take to Florida, and this one will replace my office setup. I'll report more after I set it up. This looks like a cool PC. It burns plus and minus DVD's as well as CDs. Wireless kb and mouse too.

I'm pumped.

Sounds cool, looks cool... how many $$$?

Something like $1698 I think.

Hi Uncle Dave, I was wondering what you thought about your new hp pc. I'am thinking about buying one. Just wanted to know if it seemed like a stable and dependable system. Just left Sams I was very tempted but wanted another opinion first. Thanks

It's still in the box. I'm all backed up on a CD project this month and have no time to even set it up. I'm living between the studio and stage with NO time for anything else. Yawn............. I need 2 more weeks - then I might get a break!

I bought the M1195C from Sam's Club on Nov 13. It went back on Nov 20. It had a problem freezing, up to 10 seconds twice or more a minute. I went online to HP Help and they tried a couple of things. But, the system comes with 512 memory, apparently not nearly enough to operate the system. I'm not going to pull the 512 and go out and buy a Gig of memory, that may or may not fix the problem. When I returned it, the return desk said even their demo froze at time to time. I'd love to have it on my desk, but...
If someone knows any other "fix" let me know and I'll consider buying another and trying it. But, I hear Sony has a good Media Center.
Ron

Hmmmmmm.... Mine is still in the box. Maybe I should go back to Sam's and play with the display unit again b4 I open mine up.
I have no problem adding 1GB of memory ... I planned to anyway.

Sorry that this is a little off of the subject of the forum. Ron, I have the same unit (HP m1195c) and it has a freezing problem as well. It had a bad DVD-RW drive at first, I got that replaced and upgraded to 1Gb of Ram but it still freezes a few times every hour. Makes it hard to get any practical use out of all the DVR hardware. There is also a post about one on the MS forums about it, but it doesn't solve the problem. It may be related to the USB components from what I've read on other sites. I have yet to call HP about it though, perhaps they have a solution by now.

Yikes !

They should call it a "HEADACHE CENTER"

It may be just a problem with the M1195C...that HP decided to dump them off ASAP by using SAM's CLUB.

PC Magazine rates the M1050Y as an Editors Choice. www.pcmag.com/editorschoice. I've also read a lot of great reviews for this one. www.hp.com gives a "build it" choice for this. It's a bit more than the M1195C at Sam's-if you give it the 1GB memory and monitor is extra. But, it is compatible with Dell, Sony, at least in price for Media Center.

I'm not sure what I want to do, but will replace this old HP Pavilion XT858 sometime tween now and January/February.

But, not going to risk trying another M1195C, unless HP can guarantee non-freeze. I loved the machine...just not the problems.

Dave, What did you decide about the HP m1195c from Sam's? I just bought one tonight and after finding NOTHING on the web about it except your exchange I'm afraid to take it out of the box!
Jim

Ron did you ever learn whether your m1195c was unusual or if they were all that way?

I can't find anything on the web about them so the number must be peculiar to the Sam's Club item.

Jim

Well.....I returned my pc before ever opening it. There were too many negative opinions for me to take a chance. It lloked great on paper, but fell short in practice.

Kinda like my sad, tired Phillies this year!

I am returning mine as well. It's already a "discontinued item" at BJ's.

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Lee Tibbett

Whew ..... close call. Thanx for all the replies! You saved me a lot of headaches!

WOW! I am amazed by all this.

I bought my M1195c just before Christmas, and LOVE it. I have not experienced the freeze problems discussed here (sound of knocking wood). I bought it at BJ's wholesale club for $1549. It was the last one they had.

I am, however, going to up the RAM to a Gig when I have the chance.

This system is cherry!

(Crossing fingers for you)
Good luck with it - I just couldn't go through with it after the negative comments. Maybe the RAM is all it needs!

I highly recommend going to the DELL outlet store and buying a high performance reconditioned PC from their site. They are Cheap, warrantied, and they perform at the top of their class.
http://outlet.us.dell.com/Dispatcher?target=InventoryPage&action=page&pageNo=7&lob=DIM&sessionID=1Np7dGQD!-2069891079!-701670513!1057843515291&tgtSeg=I

I've purchased my last 5 PC for myself, family, and friends there and each one was a price/performance winner.

just a thought....

Just purchased a Media Center from UBID remanufacturered at 650. Hope the freezing problems have been aleived I do nknow with the media center xp software and the 250 hard drive 512 mb and the dvd writer reader dual I got a great deal will update when I see if its as good as it sounds Maybe they fixed the problem

Dear Uncle Dave;

I know my statement has nothing to do with this thread, but I thought that you may have missed my question. So I though I might bring it to your attention. Would you be able to answer my question under the thread "pre-amp your PAS". Its about 20 lines under this thread.

Thank-you
Regards;
BN

I too bought my M1195C a Sams in December of 2004. I put up with the pause/freeze for 2 years, until I found a forum with the fix. The DVD-ROM firware is incorrect. Go to the HP web site for M1195C Media Centers, download and install the firmware for the Philips 6116 DVD-ROM. You will need to burn a CD and reboot to install the firmware. Even if you are not using the DVD-ROM, it causes the system to hang about 10 seconds several times per hour. The fix worked for me. Also, download and install the new firmware for the DVD R/RW Drive. Check your Device Manager and see what type of DVD R/RW you have. Mine was an LG. If the firmware on the web site is for the DVD R/RW drive you have, install that too. When I tried to install that firmware, I got a message that the firmware was up-to-date. However, the firmware for the Philips 6116 DVD-ROM was not up-to-date.
Upon rebooting after the DVD-ROM firmware upgrade, I stopped having any freeze/pause problems. It was as if I bought a new computer. Good luck to all.

IMHO I would not buy a new PC or laptop until February 2007. Microsoft is on the verge of releasing Vista, it's new operating system. In the processor department I would not purchase a P4 processor. I'd lean toward a Interl Core 2 Duo. Benchmark tests on this processor are very impressive. Performace is something like 50% faster than even on the core duo. I don't have the exact numbers but that info is from a very credible source.

Qoute

"IMHO I would not buy a new PC or laptop until February 2007. Microsoft is on the verge of releasing Vista, it's new operating system. In the processor department I would not purchase a P4 processor. I'd lean toward a Interl Core 2 Duo"

Microsoft is going to offer free upgrades on PC's in the comming Xmas season. I did several installs and found it best to do a clean install instead of a upgrade.

I'm running Vista on a P4 3.4 HT and it runs pretty quick. The one place you want to be sure about is a lot of memory and a fast graphics card. I couldn't get the Eforce 6200 card to run with my rig so I put a ATI 1300 pro in and it runs like a champ.

Vista has lots of eye cand and its pretty darn Impressive.

Jerry

Jerry good point on the amount of memory that is an important factor Thanks for the info on a clean install good to know. I'm biased when on the processors, love the latest and greatest, but since I bought a laptop in May with a core duo, just not ready to upgrade to the core 2 duo.

[This message has been edited by Stephenm52 (edited 10-29-2006).]

The P4 HT 2.8 and above is pretty darn quick and still has some life left in it for a while.

Jerry

Last Week I bought this New HP computer and I am super pleased with it and no problems have turned up so far.

HP Pavilion Media Center m7570n
Intel Viiv Technology with an Intel Pentium D dual processor 2mb L2 cache, 2.80 GHz, 800 MHz FSB
CPU - Intel PentiumD 915 (2.8GHz)
Memory - 2GB DDR2-533 (PC2-4200)
Hard Drive - 320GB SATA 3G (3.0Gb/sec), 7200rpm
Optical Drive - 16X DVD (+/-)R/RW RAM (+/-)R DL LightScribe drive
Optical Drive - 16X Max DVD-ROM drive
Modem - 56K bps data/fax modem
Graphics - Integrated Intel 945G graphics
Television - TV tuner card with FM tuner
Sound/Audio - Integrated High Definition audio: Realtek ALC 882 chipset, Supports up to 8 audio channels, Dolby Pro Logic II compatible
Network - Integrated 10/100 Base-T networking interface
Memory card reader - Compact Flash I/II, SmartMedia, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital (SD), Micro Drive, XD Picture Card (xd= extreme digital)
External I/O ports (front) - 9-in-1(4-slot), 1 x 1394, 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x Headphone, 1 x Microphone, 1 x Audio L-R, 1 x S-video in, 1 x Composite video in
External I/O ports (back) - 2 x PS/2, 1 x Parallel, 1 x VGA, 4 x USB 2.0, 1 x 1394a, 1 x LAN, 1 x SPDIF out (coaxial), 1 x SPDIF in, 1 set of Surround Sound Audio Jacks
Expansion slots - 1 x PCI avaiable, 1 x PCI-E x16 available
Chassis Accessories - Camera dock lid
Keyboard and Mouse - HP multimedia keyboard, HP PS/2 optical scroller mouse
Remote Control - USB infrared remote and receiver
Operating System - Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 with Update Rollup 2 and Microsoft Service Pack 2
CD/DVD Software - CyberLink DVD Play, Sonic DigitalMedia Plus 7.04, Sonic MyDVD Plus 6.2, Roxio DigitalMedia Archive 2
Entertainment Software - Rhapsody, Real Player,
Photo Software - HP Photosmart Premier 6.5, HP Photosmart for media center 2.1, Muvee autoProducer 5, Muvee autoProducer unPlugged 2
Utility/Finance Software - Adobe Reader, Microsoft Works 8.0, Microsoft Office 2003 Student Teacher Edition Trial
Security Software - Norton Internet Security 2006 (60-day trial)
Maintenance Software - PC-Doctor 5 for Windows
Recovery Software - Microsoft system restore, HP Recovery Software Suite, Software Repair Wizard
There is a separate hard drive partition for each one of those 4 memory card readers.
Bebop

I will be replacing my PC too, but if I decide to go PC, I will get one that is Vista compatible/ready, just in case, but I am also considering the IMacs, you can also run Windows with certain option, and is not that far price wise, also, a customer that is an PC guru, told me that the dual core processor for PCs is very different in the way is made for the dual core for Macs......seems like they maybe more efficient for the Imacs, and no virus, pop ups, headaches. I will make up my mind later.
I will wait until after the holidays unless is a terrific sale that I can not pass it up.


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mdorantes