HP DX5150

[MkII]

Eyeing up the various flavours of this desktop

 

[Athlon64 3200+/512/80sata/DVD]

 

Just wondered if anyone had any thoughts...?

 

Nathan has some of the small form factor version at his school. I was hesitant about these - smaller = noisier fans, half height graphics cards, diddy small PSUs = harder to replace cheaply.

 

The item price is currently £466 with 17" Acer TFTs and 4yr NBDOS warranty

[indiegirl]

I'm also considering these as a cheaper version of the small form factor DX7600s we have here at the school.

 

I can only speak from experience of the 7600s, but they aren't noisy in the slightest (the noisy ones I have had were reported to HP and new fans sent out).

 

They are going to be difficult to maintain once the HP warranty's up - also consider that you may well need a 'riser card' for the PCI slots to take full size PCI cards.

 

Personally, I haven't been that impressed with HP generally. We have a suite of Dells, which are two years old and I've had to make one callout this year about one machine. The HPs were installed in August, I've had 5 HDD failures and two fans go wrong. Also, with HP, it's a case of "we'll send you the part, you replace it and send the faulty one back to us". With Dell, as you will know, it's an on-the-spot engineer the next day. At one point in September HP couldn't even supply SATA HDDs - I had a 6 week wait for one!!!

 

As I say, I'm considering them, but only as a 'rival' to the NECs I'm looking at. The only good thing about the SFF HPs is that they will (probably) fit on the desktop workstation, allowing the machine to be mounted behind the monitor.

[MkII]

Thanks for that IG. Funny Nathan has the absolute oposite opinion - that Dells are problematic, and that HP come next day and replace parts too - although on the one machine he had go wrong he had to reason with the bloke to get him to do a proper job. Interesting.

 

I asked about mounting these but HP said they were too heavy - you had to use those others, they are the only ones/range that are mountable.

[OutToLunch]

I can recommend them - I've bought about 25 of them now, no problems at all so far - and as mentioned above virtually silent, making for a much nicer IT suite than the creaky old PCs/PSU's I had whirring away before. The flavour I've been buying is AMD Sempron 3000+ 64-Bit / 512MB RAM / 80GB HDD / CD-RW DVD-ROM Combo / XP Pro @ £328 inc VAT.

 

Standard PC layout inside - no need for riser cards, just low profile PCI if you want to add anything to it. Good build quality and tidy inside. The VGA & DVI output from onboard graphics was a pleasant suprise too.

 

Only gripe I've had so far is that they have (quite reasonable) built in speakers - there's no easy to disable them so it's a bit of thrashing around inside the case if you want them off...

[Norphy]

We've just bought 26. I've already sent my thoughts to Ric_ for inclusion in a newsletter sometime in the future.

 

Preview: They're good, I like them

 

As for the internal speaker, yes its a pain but you just have to pull out one wire. My major gripe with them is the fascia, I can see drive bay covers and power buttons breaking and going missing very soon

[john]

I don't bother with such high end ones anymore, I used to use the mid range stuff like DC5100, D530MTs etc... They are ok, HP support sucks badly, you pay for OSW, and unless you are in Manchester, Leeds or London, you are stuffed, its quicker to demand parts for you to fit, but do keep a stock of spares EG Hard Drives, Ram, Fans etc as HP are always "experiancing unexpected delays" on anything major, CPUs are another good one, you can get cases, PSUs and whole CPU coolers fairly quick, but major, basics are normally 4 days+ Its not good really.

 

Hence why I only recommend stuff from reputable Independant people like CCL as I know that they will support me with them, and that things will get sorted easily and that I can speak to the same person in Bradford each time about my problems, and if I ask to speak to a manger I get to speak to one. Also, When I quoted for my last batch of machines (which were HP in the end - not my choice at all) but CCL were £35 per machine cheaper than HP could do!

[MkII]

thanks very much for those guys. good point john - must check for that with my suppliers.

 

Link for CCL? Any more suppliers that do this?

[john]

CCL Computers LTD, Bradford - http://www.cclonline.com is the website - they do retail as well as Education.

Phone for education is 01274 471203. I deal with Lyndsey in the main, but also deal with Mark, both great people. Lyndsey is a MS certified Licence Specialist, so any Licencing Qs ask her, Mark is an MS certified in variuos MS Apps, so they know there stuff, and if they are stuck on something they will ask another member of staff there to try and help you. I find its all these little things that make the excellent relationship with a supplier, which is what you want and need!

 

If you wouldn't mind saying that John from the forums pointed you to them it would be much appreciated

[MkII]

CCL wouldn't quote me on HPs John - they said they only do thier own custom built machines

[Norphy]

Try Tangible Benefit on 020 7837 7737, ask for Muz on ext 302.

 

Tell him that Ian from Manshead gave you his details if you like, we got the EJ803ET for £289 ex VAT plus £43 for the 3 year warranty. If you want the tower it will probably be a similar price if you ask nicely

[OutToLunch]

The price I quoted was from Misco - tend to use them for most of our bigger laptop/PC purchases and CCL for smaller bits of hardware and spares.

 

Misco No.: 122071

Price: £279.99 ex VAT (£328.99 inc VAT)

 

http://www.misco.co.uk

 

Worth speaking to the education dept if you want to haggle about list prices, but £279 is pretty cheap for the spec IMHO.

[Guest]

Been buying these lately too. Same sort of prices as above for the Athlon64 versions with 17" Acer TFTs and Warrenty.

 

Have just purchsed some of the tower versions. If I had the time I would love to do a comparison of the 2 for the guys here. Maybe in half term...

[john]

CCL wouldn't quote me on HPs John - they said they only do thier own custom built machines

I know they won't I was meaning get a quote for there own custom built kit to show you that actually the big names are actually more expensive

[MkII]

I have a similar company nearby, I know the guys there very well, I have the personal mobiles of most of them. It used to be a no brainer sourcing from them, but they've now lost the Powys contract so we have less hold over them.

 

For the price they could do similar but the cases were a bit nasty and the TFTs were white box. If they cut corners, which is the temptation on a tight profit margin, we wouldn't easily tell: cheap fans; low grade ram etc.

 

Which is why this time, for the first time, i'm trying branded.

[john]

Fair enough, but I know for a fact that CCL don't cut corners as its not there style