Hewlett Packard Pavilion Elite m9250f (KJ382AA#ABA) PC Desktop

Pros: Quad Core Speed, 64bit Vista, 1TB Storage, 4GB Ram, NVIDIA 8600GT Card, RAID.
Cons: Wireless keyboard/mouse built nicely, yet impractical. 350w power supply not for major video card upgrade.

COST / COMPARISON I purchased this computer at “Best Buy” for $1,159 about 1 month ago. Hint: BestBuy Reward Zone members earn over 800 points for purchasing this pc, which takes exactly 32 days from purchase, per calling. This ...

Pros: Nice computer when it works but...
Cons: Spends most of the time in the shop getting repaired.

29 days into owning this PC the motherboard died. Took it back to BestBuy where the Geek Squad charged me $39 to diagnose the problem. After 15 days the motherboard got replaced. I got the computer home and it worked, except for the sound. I took it back to Best Buy who got the sound to work, but then the RAID controller wouldn't work. The drive would work in IDE mode but not RAID mode. Now it is expected to take two more weeks to get the problem fixed. Great computer HP!!! It spends more time out for repair than in my home. This is my third HP computer in a row... and my very last. And BestBuy won't return the computer and give me a new one. They say it's past their 14 day return policy. It's not like I'm returning it because I changed my mind. I'm returning it because it doesn't work!!! So I'm stuck with a $1000 brick.

I would stay away from the new HP computers. Cheap parts, lousy quality, and terrible support.

Pros: Quad Core
1TB RAID0
Wireless KB Mouse
Instant On
Cons: Had to set network adapter to not wake PC

I've been running this system for a few months now without any significant issues. I bought mine refurbished for around $635 (a deal I have not seen repeated).

The Quad Core is a great asset for video processing esp with codecs that are optimized fr 4 processors such as the H.264 codec I'm using.

When I got my system the 2 500GB HDDs were not linked to I confgured RAID 0 and used the recovery disks.

The TV tuner works great and I enjoy windows media center that comes included with Vista home premium

The other reviewer that had trouble with audio problems probably did not realize that the default audio out is digital and that you need to change it in the audio devices box. I have my headphones as my primary audio then my analog and then digital out (I don't have a digital audio device), that way I don't need to change the settings all the time when I use headphones. Running the HP hardware diagnostics will reset digital out. Most people still don't use digital out so be aware of this