A Great HTPC Platform
Written: Apr 01 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Small and Quiet
Cons: Not a lot of expansion room, small power supply
The Bottom Line: This computer would work nicely anywhere a small, fast and quiet computer is needed.
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| rbinck's Full Review: Hewlett Packard Compaq Evo D51S (268900999B6) PC D... |
Introduction
About two months ago I decided I wanted to get a computer to build a High Definition DVR and wound up getting one of these computers on eBay. What is a DVR? It stands for digital video recorder. My unit is used to record high definition broadcasts received by my over the air digital tuner card. This type of computer is also called a Home Theater PC, or HTPC.
Variations
Compaq/Hewlett-Packard made several different versions of the EVO desktop computers. Some are tower type design and others are the low profile design. My particular model is a 51S which is the low profile version. If you are considering one of these units, be sure you know which version you are getting.
Specifications
The unit I bought is a P4 Pentium CPU running at 2.2 Ghz. They offered units from 1.8 to 2.8 Ghz, I believe. My unit also has 512 Mb of ram, a 40 GB hard drive, an internal Ethernet connection, a floppy, on motherboard sound card, and a CD ROM. It also has two empty PCI card slots and 4 USB connections, 2 in the rear and 2 in front.
Another handy thing is it has duplicate audio in and out jacks in the front of the unit. This is handy to connect the audio to a sound system (or computer speakers) out of the rear jacks and plug in headphones for private listening in the front jacks.
Operation
The computer is very fast and quiet. Quiet was a prerequisite for the use I had intended for it. Nothing to disturb a good TV show like a roaring computer! My unit came with Windows 2000, which was just fine for the HTPC operations required of it.
Modifications
In order to operate as a HTPC a couple of modification had to be made to the unit. First the 40 gb hard drive was swapped out for a 300 GB drive. There is really not any place in the case to house another internal drive, so this seemed like the best option to get enough storage space for my videos. Next the CD drive was swapped out for a DVD burner. Finally a MyHD MDP-130 HD tuner card was installed. That’s about all that can be done internally due to both space limitations as well as the rather low 175 watt power supply capacity.
Conclusion
So far I have been very pleased with this unit even though it would be better to be able to add some more storage. I guess when the time arrives, I’ll just have to go with an external drive. Also bear in mind when you see the price paid, it was bought used on eBay.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 200
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: over 1000
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-ROM
Hard Drive (GB): 41-50
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Epinions.com ID:
rbinck
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 - Top 500 |
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Member: Richard Binckley
Location: Houston, Texas
Reviews written: 125
Trusted by: 26 members
About Me:
Retired A/V professional, likes Hawaii and Classic Cars
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