Debranded Presario Desktop Reviewed

Debranded Presario Desktop Reviewed
===================================

1. The box:

The box is a debranded Presario desktop, sold with model number TS-XN0102RS,
the last part being the model number of the branded desktop backwards. It
comes with a Sempron 3400+ processor (1.8GHz), 512 M -- athough the onboard
video seems to eat some of that, 120 G SATA drive, CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, ps/2
keyboard and mouse. The bay will hold another SATA drive, a floppy drive,
and another IDE optical drive. You will need cables for a floppy drive, if
you chouse to install one, ditto the SATA drive. You will also need a
four-pin to SATA power cable adapter (just like the one used for the
installed SATA drive). This box is widely available at about $200 on the
low side and ridiculous on the high side. The box has 3 PCI slots, one of
which is occupied by the useless modem and one PCI-E slot. The box is sold
sans-OS.

On the box: 4 USB 2.0 ports, two front, two back. Ethernet port (back).
15-pin video connector. PS/2 keyboard, PS/2 mouse connectors. Small
headphone jack (front). Mic, audio in, audio out -- all on back. The
stinking, useless modem card has line in only. Note: no parallel port, no
serial port, no S-video port for the onboard video. This box lacks a true,
everything totally off power switch. The box comes with a black keyboard
and mouse.

2. FreeBSDability of the Box

The box has no serial ports and no ISA slot, and of course the installed
modem is junk. So for dial-up connectivity a PCI contoller modem is
required. USRobotics USR5610C ($80 and up) was found to work. I believe
there is a Zoom card that will also work, but it was not investigated or
tested. (If you do not already know that you cannot cheap out on the modem,
you probably do not have the FreeBSD skill to adapt this box.) The main
thing is neither your ISA card nor your external serial modem will work. As
there are USB2 ports, perhaps usb modems can be made to work, but this was
not invesigated.

Surprisingly the onboard video is not total crap. It is nVidia and it works
with the FreeBSD-native X drivers. The nVidia drivers configure themselves
(and xorg) in an instant. Looking for something to do, I adjusted Horz Sync
and Vert Refresh figures from the very conservative ones that were
configured, but I do not know that this made any difference. The mplayer
nVidia drivers do not work with cvidix in mplayer so if you want mplayer on
the console, you are stuck with VESA (although I have not actually proven
that VESA will work yet). Neither does the NV3 chipset in libvga, so it is
plain vga or vesa for just about any kind of console graphics. I rate this
as workstation acceptable, even workstation good. If you are about video,
you probably have a card that is better in your junk box.

The onboard sound is crap -- meaning it cannot be identified and I cannot
make it operational. Drop a card in. Of course that is sort of a waste of
the nice headphone jack on the front.

3. Workability of the box

This box is exceptionally easy to work with, but it is worthwhile to
download the servicing and upgrading pdf for the branded box before you
break one of the convenient access features. The CPU fan is exceedingly
easy to foul if you work with this box on its side, so mind your cables and
your tools. There is a rear grill that cries out for a large case fan, and
well, this is an AMD processor, so I would stick one on if you have it.

4. Overall

If you are over the age of 9, this will never be your home media center, but
it is a reasonable workhorse for the price.


--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/> <http://myspace.com/larseighner>
Countdown: 525 days to go.
What do you do when you're debranded?
.

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