Integrated VS Stereo Receiver?

[slipperybidness]

Most desktop pc's built in sound chips within the last 10 years or so have had capable DACs and noise shielding, at least with the mid grade and up motherboards. In the case of the new HP I have, they even make mention of the noise shielding in the specs somewhere. I have been able to plug the headphone jack to RCA on older, and newer amps without so much as a hiss.

Audio quality has been competitive with pc's for quite some time now. Unless it is some bare bones, bulk buy, office box, or some bargain from an import ridden, box store, the sound chip contained on the board should be adequate.

Simply look up the sound chip on your computer's specs and research it.

Features

• 
  Hardware Features
• DACs with 95dB SNR (A-weighting), ADCs with 90dB SNR (A-weighting)
• Ten DAC channels support 16/20/24-bit PCM format for 7.1 channel sound playback, plus 2 channels of concurrent independent stereo sound output (multiple streaming) through the front panel output
• Two stereo ADCs support 16/20/24-bit PCM format, multiple stereo recording
• All DACs supports 44.1k/48k/96k/192kHz sample rate
• All ADCs supports 44.1k/48k/96k/192kHz sample rate
• Primary 16/20/24-bit SPDIF-OUT supports 32k/44.1k/48k/88.2k/96k/192kHz sample rate
• Secondary 16/20/24-bit SPDIF-OUT supports 32k/44.1k/48k/88.2k/96k/192kHz sample rate

The chip isn't the problem, the digital signal is typically immune to the problem, as you state. The problem often pops up AFTER the DAC, when you have an analog signal in a non-ideal environment.

You may be right, that the problem is not as bad and ubiquitous as it used to be. When I had my issues on an entry level Dell about 10 years ago, I solved my problem and I vowed to continue to use those methods from that day forward.

In general, HP PCs are the top of the junk heap, I would never consider that brand for my personal use.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

Agree completely on HP computers. I would include their printers in there as well, although they are decent when they work. HP Support is the world's biggest nightmare.

 

[MrBoat]

Agree completely on HP computers. I would include their printers in there as well, although they are decent when they work. HP Support is the world's biggest nightmare.

HP is just another brand. It's the MB and processor that makes it good or bad, really. I judge computers on two merits. MB warranty returns, and if I can work on them or not. Power supplies, disk drives, etc mean nada. I remember when Dell was the most hated brand among hardware folks, which is kind of odd being that most of Dell's problems were software/virus issues at the click-happy user end. Yet I had two that would not die. I have had similar service from Acer, Gateway and some generics I cannot recall the name of.

At some point, regardless of the brand, it always ends up as my personal Frankenputer and typically well after the warranty has run out. I can keep just about any machine going well beyond it's obsolete state. Since 1992, I have yet to own a bad PC. Just good, and better in the grand scheme of things. I have no brand preference.

Also, I have yet to use any company's tech support. I know that going in that I will not put myself through it. By the time you have figured the time on the phone with a typical tech support, you could have earned enough money to replace anything that is wrong with it with an upgrade at that.

 

[slipperybidness]

HP is just another brand. It's the MB and processor that makes it good or bad, really. I judge computers on two merits. MB warranty returns, and if I can work on them or not. Power supplies, disk drives, etc mean nada. I remember when Dell was the most hated brand among hardware folks, which is kind of odd being that most of Dell's problems were software/virus issues at the click-happy user end. Yet I had two that would not die. I have had similar service from Acer, Gateway and some generics I cannot recall the name of.

At some point, regardless of the brand, it always ends up as my personal Frankenputer and typically well after the warranty has run out. I can keep just about any machine going well beyond it's obsolete state. Since 1992, I have yet to own a bad PC. Just good, and better in the grand scheme of things. I have no brand preference.

Also, I have yet to use any company's tech support. I know that going in that I will not put myself through it. By the time you have figured the time on the phone with a typical tech support, you could have earned enough money to replace anything that is wrong with it with an upgrade at that.

I have personally had issues with low end Dells and HP (I consider any HP computer as low end). The Dell ticked me off b/c the Mobo was not made by Dell. The OEM would not support the Mobo, and Dell told me to contact the OEM for support.

Personally, I stick with Asus or Dell Latitude (or higher). Neither of those has ever let me down. I am not exactly a power user, but I also do a lot more work than simple web browsing and playing media files.

I'm on my 3rd Dell Latitude from work, just that it finally got time to upgrade, not b/c the laptop was having problems. And, that is because I skipped an upgrade cycle b/c my old Latitude was a work horse.

Asus has been absolutely rock-solid for me, for every single piece gear that I own! Router, PC Mobo, Laptop, 2x Tablets, seems like there may be another item or 2 from them that I own. At this point, if Asus is an option, then that is the brand that I prefer.

 

[MrBoat]

I have personally had issues with low end Dells and HP (I consider any HP computer as low end). The Dell ticked me off b/c the Mobo was not made by Dell. The OEM would not support the Mobo, and Dell told me to contact the OEM for support.

Personally, I stick with Asus or Dell Latitude (or higher). Neither of those has ever let me down. I am not exactly a power user, but I also do a lot more work than simple web browsing and playing media files.

I'm on my 3rd Dell Latitude from work, just that it finally got time to upgrade, not b/c the laptop was having problems. And, that is because I skipped an upgrade cycle b/c my old Latitude was a work horse.

Asus has been absolutely rock-solid for me, for every single piece gear that I own! Router, PC Mobo, Laptop, 2x Tablets, seems like there may be another item or 2 from them that I own. At this point, if Asus is an option, then that is the brand that I prefer.

Not disagreeing with you, just that I find that most mass produced pc's in some way to be "low end." Just for the fact of how fast they become obsolete. I expect to just get my money's worth from any of them. In this regard, they last a little too long. My mid range Dell is over 10 years old and is still working satisfactorily (including the audio) with Linux on it.

The i7 processor and perhaps the RAM, are what is the two most future proof items in this box. I was going to have to buy those anyway if I built my own which is where I was at when I got it.

I am essentially right at where I would be had I bought these parts. So, in my worst case scenario and the other HP parts are crap, really no skin off my back. I don't mind building another pc. It's fun to build pc's.

 

[slipperybidness]

Not disagreeing with you, just that I find that most mass produced pc's in some way to be "low end." Just for the fact of how fast they become obsolete. I expect to just get my money's worth from any of them. In this regard, they last a little too long. My mid range Dell is over 10 years old and is still working satisfactorily (including the audio) with Linux on it.

The i7 processor and perhaps the RAM, are what is the two most future proof items in this box. I was going to have to buy those anyway if I built my own which is where I was at when I got it.

I am essentially right at where I would be had I bought these parts. So, in my worst case scenario and the other HP parts are crap, really no skin off my back. I don't mind building another pc. It's fun to build pc's.

OK, fair enough, and we are pretty much in agreement. I will buy a laptop for obvious reasons, but for a tower PC I go custom build all the way. And, I build my PCs to last 10 years. Well, TBH, my bro-in-law specs my PCs to last 10 years
I usually purchase what he says to purchase, then we build it. I can do it, but that is his day job so he is better/faster than me.

Yeah, I'm telling you, it's tough for me to plop down $300 for a processor! I see complete laptops for $300, surely those are a better value, right? Haha, right, I know better. But, dang, it's still a lot of $ for a single chip.

 

[panteragstk]

Think about HP and Dell this way. They sell a ton of computers so if you work on PCs then it's likely that you will run into ones that have broken. A lot of them.

I've personally had crappy PCs of every brand so I personally think all the pre-built are crap compared to what I can do on my own. For cheap.

I think the only PC I've ever bought was my Asus laptop. It's great.

 

[everettT]

HPs have serious bloatware. With the current state of upgrades pushed, the cause serious resource overload FWIW. I've wiped over 20 units in the last year, and reloaded win7 or lunix and have had not a single call back

 

[slipperybidness]

HPs have serious bloatware. With the current state of upgrades pushed, the cause serious resource overload FWIW. I've wiped over 20 units in the last year, and reloaded win7 or lunix and have had not a single call back

You may be onto something there. I try to avoid HP, so I'm not the best to tell you WHY my experience with HP sucks, but I can tell you HOW bad it sucked

 

[speakerman39]

HPs have serious bloatware. With the current state of upgrades pushed, the cause serious resource overload FWIW. I've wiped over 20 units in the last year, and reloaded win7 or lunix and have had not a single call back

I notice that my new Dell has a lot of bloatware. How do I get this garbage off of it? Any suggestions? Webroot is showing me over 150 processes. That was after a rather large update. Prior to it was around 95-96. I assume then that the large update was mostly more bloatware, no?


Phil

 

[MrBoat]

I notice that my new Dell has a lot of bloatware. How do I get this garbage off of it? Any suggestions? Webroot is showing me over 150 processes. That was after a rather large update. Prior to it was around 95-96. I assume then that the large update was mostly more bloatware, no?


Phil

Just about every version of Windows has had some amount of bloatware or TSR's.

The bloatware is how pc manufacturers can include a Windows OS free with a computer. Otherwise, price a new copy of Windows 10, or any past version of Windows for that matter.

Windows 10 has the Powershell command prompt. There are tutorials online that tell you how, and possibly even what to remove easier than can be typed here. I recall typing powershell into the search bar at the start menu and signing on as admin to do it.

This is my first version of Windows since a brief run with XP. I've mostly used Linux for the last 2 decades or so.

Come to think of it, Windows Powershell is starting to look a bit like Linux syntax.

 

[speakerman39]

Just about every version of Windows has had some amount of bloatware or TSR's.

The bloatware is how pc manufacturers can include a Windows OS free with a computer. Otherwise, price a new copy of Windows 10, or any past version of Windows for that matter.

Windows 10 has the Powershell command prompt. There are tutorials online that tell you how, and possibly even what to remove easier than can be typed here. I recall typing powershell into the search bar at the start menu and signing on as admin to do it.

This is my first version of Windows since a brief run with XP. I've mostly used Linux for the last 2 decades or so.

Okay thanks. I will look into it. Bit spent right now as it has been a long day. Just got in over 13 lbs. of new cabling and still have a few more things coming tomorrow and/or Friday. Then it is time to get it all setup. Lots of work, but oh so worth it in the end. At least, that is my hope!


Cheers,

Phil

 

[panteragstk]

Yeah, the bloat is really bad on some pre-built PCs. Heck, Best Buy and other companies have a specific SKU for charging to remove it.

 

[speakerman39]

Yeah, the bloat is really bad on some pre-built PCs. Heck, Best Buy and other companies have a specific SKU for charging to remove it.

There is a ton of bloat on my new Dell. Just had a huge update and now there are over 150 processes whereas prior to there were 94-96. Keep having a little box flash up on my screen at various times and on various pages. It is only there for less than a second and literally holographic. Not sure what that is but between Webroot and Windows Defender my computer is fully protected. Everything is up to date as far as I can tell. Have any idea why the little box keeps popping up on my screen?


Cheers,

Phil

 

[Johnny2Bad]

HP is just another brand. It's the MB and processor that makes it good or bad, really. I judge computers on two merits. MB warranty returns, and if I can work on them or not. Power supplies, disk drives, etc mean nada. I remember when Dell was the most hated brand among hardware folks, which is kind of odd being that most of Dell's problems were software/virus issues at the click-happy user end. Yet I had two that would not die. I have had similar service from Acer, Gateway and some generics I cannot recall the name of.

At some point, regardless of the brand, it always ends up as my personal Frankenputer and typically well after the warranty has run out. I can keep just about any machine going well beyond it's obsolete state. Since 1992, I have yet to own a bad PC. Just good, and better in the grand scheme of things. I have no brand preference.

Also, I have yet to use any company's tech support. I know that going in that I will not put myself through it. By the time you have figured the time on the phone with a typical tech support, you could have earned enough money to replace anything that is wrong with it with an upgrade at that.

I have never used live support in more than 27 years as a computer user. But sometimes I need Technical Documentation to solve an issue. HP's online documentation is a colossal nightmare. It's as if they don't want anyone to actually use it.

In that regard, DELL is an order of magnitude more useful.

 

[speakerman39]

I have never used live support in more than 27 years as a computer user. But sometimes I need Technical Documentation to solve an issue. HP's online documentation is a colossal nightmare. It's as if they don't want anyone to actually use it.

In that regard, DELL is an order of magnitude more useful.

Glad to hear that Dell is more useful given that my new tower is a Dell. Have heard nightmare stories regarding their tech support though. Hope I never need to call them!


Phil