Home > Consumer Reviews > HP Pavilion a320n Desktop PC (2.40-GHz Athlon XP 2800+, 512 MB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive)

I bought this computer Dec.28th 2003. It has a lot of great features and is fast.
My problems came when my monitor wouldn`t always come up the first try. I then called tech support twice and tried a few things with no help. I then purchased a nice graphics card which solved my problem reminding me that on board graphics aren`t always good.
I removed all the buy this and that stuff and then I have a very nice computer.
I also forgot to mention that Best Buy`s low price guarentee is a lie. I found the computer 100.00 cheaper at circuit city and they would only refund 50.00 even after they verified it.

I bought the a320n on the last day of the year for my business. Good thing I had a weeks worth of vacation and some slack time because this lemon became my new hobby! I got it all booted up and yes, uninstalled all of the HP "let's sell you something" software. I then tried to install my new HP printer (4110). CRASH, CRASH, CRASH. After 14 hours on customer support (OK, I'm tenacious) to Nova Scotia and India, I received 8 different reasons this might be happening. The last one was what made me bring it back and swear off HP products. Customer support told me that I had getten a virus from my Internet use. Ya know those viruses are REALLY tricky when you can get them without ever being able to connect to the net. I can laugh now but beware. I am writing from my new emachine. Easy set up, so far so good and with luck, I'll never get to know tech support.
One thing I can't get back is the tax break for '03.

I bought this PC as a replacement for a Compaq Pressario that burned out after a year.
It had the features I wanted for a sane amount of money,
namely CD/RW and DVD player. Also a hard drive big enough
for a small radio station worth of music files (My own,
thank you music industry lawyers!)
I can't see an appreciable difference in performance from
my old pentium 4.
It's quiet, generally smooth, runs my CD software and some
good sized games without difficulty.
All the drawbacks relate to Windows XP. It took a weekend to
locate and properly install drivers for printer and other
common items, and the machine was loaded with ads and spy-ware.
(I believe Microsoft's term for this is "clients".)
Once I got rid of all the Microsoft garbage, "free" (as in enter your credit card number just for fun) offers and put some
brakes on it's internet access (I swear, XP is worse than
having a teenager) everything seems to work well.
The memory card slots, front end audio jacks and 5 USB ports are a nice touch. It also comes with a real instruction manual
with step by step illustrated directions for upgrading the system.
I'd recommend it for the money- it was much cheaper than my Compaq- but I'm curious to see how it holds up.
My only other gripe is a lack of back-up software. It comes
pre-loaded on the hard drive (and can be copied and removed,
but only once). This strikes me as not terribly smart if
you can't get the PC booted right out of the box.

I bought two of these machines, one for me and one for my mother-in-law, because of the great deal. My machine worked great except for a little bit of intermittent "whirring" that I paid no attention to. The other machine had problems even burning a full set of the system recovery disks, however.

It turns out the 2nd machine had a power supply issue which made the CD-RW and hard drive work intermittently; not a good thing. I determined that the noise from the 1st machine was the same problem, though I experienced no performance issues.

Just to be safe, though, I'm returning both and upgrading to the 350. I wanted a DVD burner anyway and I'm eager to see what the "hyper-threading technology" can do for a processor. I'll probably review that one next week (1/04).

So, all-in-all, I didn't have the machine long but really liked it. If there are no problems, it's fast, quiet, runs mid-level games very well (didn't try anything real high-end), has very easy-to-use recording software, has lots of storage device ports and looks great. Perfect for the intermediate user. I guess it's just a matter of getting one with everything working (as I've found several problem-filled reviews on-line).

Note: A previous reviewer said that the PC doesn't come with any disks, which is true. If you've purchased any computers in the past 5 years however, you know that there is a trend towards pre-loaded everything without disks (cab files, etc.), including Windows. That is why you should create a set of system recovery disks when you first get the PC (finding out if the CD-RW works correctly while you're at it), though I'm not sure why they only allow you to do it once. Make copies of those disks, I guess! The rest of the disks you used to get with a PC was just useless software anyway. And there are multiple ways to "restore", including a Windows restore option. Read the manual.

The reviewer also mentioned the fact that there is a lot of "junk" "trial software" and that it wasn't listed in the control panel. Unless you build your own PC, they pretty much all come like this and the software is easily deleted. No, you can't do it from "Add/Remove Programs" but if you know your way around a PC a little bit, it's not a problem. (If not, don't worry; you have a 120GB hard drive after all!) The software companies aren't subsidizing the PC makers just so you can remove all their software as soon as you get the machine! You can argue that you didn't pay all that money to have to take stuff out, but in actuality you probably did, considering the comparatively low price.

Also at issue was the "HP Organizer". This isn't the type of program for me, but I can see it being handy to the novice PC user. There is a link right on the window for options, which allows you to tell it not to run at boot-up. Pretty simple. It only interferes with Windows as long as you keep it open. Just click the, "X". Again, pretty simple.

Whatever you do, however, don't buy a Dell. I'd go into the horror stories about the Dell users I know, but it's the holidays and you don't need that kind of carnage on your mind.

I bought this computer about a month ago and absolutly love it. The 7 in one media bay on the front is suprisingly handy for digital cameras, and the software seems to be flawless. Everything you could possibly need for your home computer is included. I would also like to add that this computer really includes just about any of the software you will need to use right out of the box. Except for installing a couple drivers, this computer is good to go the moment you plug it in. Everything seems to work extrememly smoothly.