My New Streamer

This weekend I went yard sailing. About the forth stop their was this guy trying very hard to sell a five year old HP. So being a brave soul I asked what it would take to take it off his hands. First he had to attempt to make it sound important (failed), then he tried very hard to explain the workings of how great this five year old computer was (again failed). I then told him it wasn't worth much in today's world of high end computers, then finished off offering him $50.00. He surprise me by saying it is now yours.

Got home and first opened the case. . .not a smart move; should of done that outside. Thank the inventors of the world for air compressors, and vacuum cleaners.

Now for the specs: Pent 4 3.08 GHz processor, 3 gigs of ram (DDR2 4700) Realtek Audio HD sound, 2 HP DVD/CD/s both with Lightscribe, 6 2.0 USB ports 1 400 firewire port, smartcard port, built in VGA port, 2 HDD (1 160 and a 500). and a partridge in a pear tree.

Plug the puppy in and fired it up. It was running Win XP SP2. Decided it was time to make a trip to Staples (the only computer outlet without having to drive 100 miles. Purchased a PCI 512 video card, Windows 7 Utl, a Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse (didn't come with either). Also install a Intel X25 M 80 Gig SSD, and removed the very noisy 160 Gig HDD.

Got it cleaned up and loaded it up with all the goodie applications, Office 2010 beta, Firefox, Faststone imagine viewer, Photoshop CS4, Adobe Acrobat, and other various dumb stuff we geeks put on our computers

Next it was time to test it for the main purpose of buying it, and that was as streamer for video, photo viewing and enhancement, along with streaming video off the internet with Netflix. Hooked it up to my 52" Phillips 1920 - 1080, and WOW. I in love again.