Compaq Presario SR5710F Desktop PC Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This computer is a great value, I actually have purchased two. It has fit my needs exactly. I use them as Home Theater PC's connected to my 47" and 52" Flatscreens in different rooms of the house.

But potential buyers would probably appreciate knowing certain things ahead of time, so I would like to share some of those with you. A couple things I noticed, which are not things they neglect to include on spec sheets, were no extra Serial ATA connections on the mother board, thus no extra SATA Hard Drive, or Blu-ray Burner with SATA and things of that nature.

The good news is it does have two open IDE connections, which in my case worked out perfectly.. I had an old Seagate 250GB IDE, set the IDE as master on the jumper settings, connect it to the blue IDE connection on the mother board, boot the computer, enter bios, simply change the boot sequence in the BIOS because it will default to boot from the IDE Hard Drive when it is added(so if you get a OS not found message at first don't freak out).

Also, (this is stated on the spec sheets) there are only 1PCIx16 and three regular PCI slots.

So choose your upgrades wisely. Other than the added IDE HD, i've added the PNY - NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT 512MB PCI Express DDR3 for Graphics, and a Swann PCI DVR 4 Camera input security card with software. I plan on using the other PCI slot for possibly a sound card, or wireless card if the PC ever gets moved away from the router. I'm not saying the computer comes up short on any of the specs, just that some of the things that they don't mention, and you find out after you purchase it. Just thought I would share what i've noticed after buying a couple of them.
Sorry for the long review, but I figured the more the better in this case.
Cheers

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Product Description:
Whether you're e-mailing family and friends, balancing your online checkbook, or listening to your digital music collection, the newly restyled HP Compaq Presario SR5710F desktop PC offers a versatile, strong base for your home computing needs as well as easy-to-use multimedia features. Focusing on affordability, this desktop provides room to grow with the ability to add up to 4 GB of RAM, available PCI and expansion slots, and access to a wide variety of peripherals via its six USB 2.0. It's also chock-full of security and productivity software to get you going as soon as the PC's unpacked from its box, including Symantec Norton Internet Security 2009 and Microsoft Works 9. You can also easily burn your home video productions to DVD for friends and family with the 16x dual-layer, multi-format LightScribe DVD/CD burner, which enables you to store up to 8.5 GB of data on a DL disc.
Other features include a 2.3 GHz AMD Athlon X2 4450e+ dual-core processor, 250 GB hard drive, 3 GB of installed RAM (4 GB maximum), Nvidia GeForce 6150 SE video card with up to 1343 MB of allocated video memory, and 6-channels of surround sound audio. It comes preinstalled with Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (Service Pack 1), which includes all of the Windows Media Center capabilities for turning your PC into an all-in-one home entertainment center. In addition to easily playing your DVD movies and managing your digital audio library, you'll be able to record and watch your favorite TV shows (even HDTV). Vista also integrates new search tools throughout the operating system, includes new parental control features, and offers new tools that can warn you of impending hardware failures. Spec Check

2.3 GHz AMD Athlon X2 4450e+ dual-core processor
250 GB hard drive
3 GB RAM (4 GB maximum)
Dual-layer Lightscribe DVD