I think you are confusing beta testers for Quality Assurance personal.

Beta testers are there to help cover all the testing, where as the QA personal would be the ones that have guidelines on what and how to test.

As a beta tester, we do try to cover as many of the new features as we possibly can, but we are also not paid, and have time limits of our own to work within.  Our main purpose is to test the software on as many different setups and platforms as possible, not to catch every possible issue in the program.

 - Noel  

There are so many new features to work out, that no one tester can test everything. that's why they employ a team of testers.

For instance, supose no one used the rigging features, because they were playing round with the new content collections, and something broke in rigging?

I've had poser for years, and never used some of the features it has.. and I can't imagine anyone (except mybe Dr. Geep) saying they literally have used every feature in poser.

Same with Lightwave, and Hexagon 2.. I was a beta tester on both applications.. some people excell at layout in lightwave, some in modeler, and some beat the hell out of the new node material setup.  I know I had at least 30 support reports in the P7 teseing, and I'm pretty sure every single one was addressed.

Now multiply that by 50 testers, all with different computers, and different hardware configurations, testing all sorts of differnt content looking for bugs. it's pretty staggering.

And when you do get a bug and they are working on it, you might get 15 replies in one day asking you to try this, that or the other thing to work it out.  Not a lot of time to play with all the new toys when you are actually a "working tester". (I've seen some people join beta tests just to get the "new toy" first, but that wasn; my goal.. my goal was to make sure if I foudn issues, that EF knew about it, and could address them for release.

And I found and they squashed my share of the critters.. LOL!

Quote - not to catch every possible issue in the program.

Yes.....that part comes after the product is released.  It sort of can't be helped.  There's only so much that beta testers can do.  With the nearly infinite variety of possible equipment combinations to be found in PC's around the world -- even the most thorough beta testing program is likely to miss something.

Someone out there will probably attempt to run P7 on a Windows 98 machine.

Quote - "not to catch every possible issue in the program."

Yep.. there's only so much testing and fixing you can do before a Gold stamp can be put on something, and it gets kicked out in the real world for REAL testing.  No one can guess every configuration and work situation that will be put to use, and that's where odd bugs are discovered in every program. 

EF's already shown with P6 that we'll see service releases on a semi regular basis, and I'm sure they are lookin gat new hardware advancements like dual processor, video card advances, and 64 bit systems, and probably have some code in place already to take advantage of them, if exploiting them becomes possible.

After seeing them work out issues very quickly, I'm VERY confidant poser is in good hands, and had I not been a part of the testing process, I might not have that opinion. Glad I do though.

for what it's worth. 

the poser team is basically the same developers who've been on it since p5, some since much earlier.  the company has changed name over the years (I've been with the company for over 5 years).  

The poser engineering team is a dedicated and hard working bunch.

-Ry

Knowing the issues I had with P5 and I purchased it with SR 3 in place, This does not reassure me.

Quote - for what it's worth. 

the poser team is basically the same developers who've been on it since p5, some since much earlier.  the company has changed name over the years (I've been with the company for over 5 years).  

The poser engineering team is a dedicated and hard working bunch.

-Ry

p5's issues were not related to the development team.

and that was released over 4 years ago.  remeber there's a p6 between p5 and p7.  still the same people.

sorry to dissapoint you.

"That's one small step for Poser, one giant leap for Poserkind."

Well, after reading back over all seven reasons, it seems to me that the EF people were paying close attention to people's wishlists. They certainly gave me alot of mine.
I'm looking forward to getting my new toy :)

Quote - Knowing the issues I had with P5 and I purchased it with SR 3 in place, This does not reassure me.

Quote - for what it's worth. 

the poser team is basically the same developers who've been on it since p5, some since much earlier.  the company has changed name over the years (I've been with the company for over 5 years).  

The poser engineering team is a dedicated and hard working bunch.

-Ry

I find it reassuring. I have found (at least in my industry) that changing teams on a project is the most detramental thing you can do to the deadlines, budget and quality.

Poser history seems to bear that out.... it sems there was a change in developers between 4 and 5 and (i think most agree that at least at launch) p5 sucked. then P6 with most if not all of the same team was much better... and p7 looks like it will be even better.

I have two questions.  1. Does anybody know if these universal poses will also work with animated poses?  2.  How well will it work with Vue, including Vue 6 Infinite about to be released?  I realize that no one can really answer from experience yet, but has anybody heard how well the 2 companies have coordinated (if at all) on the releases of Poser 7 and Vue 6?  Ok, so that's 3 questions.  :)

Both EF and Eon have stated they are working together,  so I'm sure they are also looking at how well P7 works with V6I. (Kinda makes sense)

Universal poses should apply poses. if you apply them to a timeframe, then they animate. Vue imports Poser's scenes, so if you add that all up together, then yes, they should work well with animation purposes, and vue.

I don't think I've seen any of th new features that would not work with V6I... course it's a hard call on that, since neither program is even released yet.

Shakes Magic 8 Ball<

Ask Again later.

How about with Walk Designer?  Will all of those walk cycles magically work perfectly now on any bipedal figure?

I don't think it's a good idea for people who say they're beta testers or with the company to be talking about poser 7 at this point. AFAIK there have been some very significant personnel changes since the time P5 was first released as a paid beta for windows users, and I don't think it's a good idea to gloss over that, either. but I reckon e-frontier is the one to make those judgements.

PAID? I COULDA GOTTEN PAID? Dang! ;)
 

Quote - p5's issues were not related to the development team.

and that was released over 4 years ago.  remeber there's a p6 between p5 and p7.  still the same people.

sorry to dissapoint you.

I am very hopeful about P7. IMO P5 ignored all the things that were wrong with P4 and added a bunch of cool, but mostly ill conceived features. (Except for the material room, which is fantastic)

P6 fixed the things that needed fixing in P4 and P5, but P7 now really looks like it will be a major step forward.

When you were speccing and prioritising P7 features, did you trawl through the forums and made a list of the complaints and requests?

Garree, can I ask what kind of system specs you're running? I'm very happy to hear it's running at increased speed for you but I'm wondering if I need to start thinking about upgrading my machine...

groan Wouldn't you know it, I just bought the bi/quadruped app from content paradise early last month. Oh well, I guess the quadruped part is still good for something. ...still... I hate when that happens. Hopefully this integrated pose thingy will be a bit easier to use now. Isn't anybody gushing about the Library COLLECTIONS yet? I have been panting for that little feature for some time - the ability to group things the way I want and not separated by library category type. And again, wouldn't you know, but I just got my ginormous library organized in such a way that I can find everything?! So, it'll be back to the drawing board for me - but in a good way I suppose. I feel like that old Mervyns department store commerical - me with my nose to the monitor "OPEN OPEN OPEN" - I wanna download Poser 7 already, LOL!!!!

I'd gush about library collections.... if i knew more about them.... i mean the brief description sounds good, but i want to know how it works.

as for PuppetMaster biped..... i hope they add a universal pose modual so i can batch convert to universal poses, which, i am under the impression are a diffrent kind of pose.

Sure Karen. My current system is:
athlon 3600+
xp pro
2 gigs ram, 320 gig hd, ati radeon x700 pro 128 meg.

(With this card, I can display preview opengl with a max of 2048x2048 textures.)

Of course, I'm going down to pick up my NEW system today:

athlon dual core 5000+
xp pro
320 gig hd
2 gigs ram
ati radeon x1950 pro 256 meg (twice the video ram of my current card.)

I'm not sure i it comes with windowsxp 44, or just windowsxp 64, but it does qualify for a free upgrade to vista when it ships.

Should be a nice little speed increase. ;)
 

Hi Gareee sounds like a great system your new one. I just built an Athlon dual core, 250gig HD 2 gigs dual ram and an Nvidia 7300GT 256MB on winXP and it's great. I can hardly wait to see how P7 will run on this.

Quote - Both EF and Eon have stated they are working together,  so I'm sure they are also looking at how well P7 works with V6I. (Kinda makes sense)

Universal poses should apply poses. if you apply them to a timeframe, then they animate. Vue imports Poser's scenes, so if you add that all up together, then yes, they should work well with animation purposes, and vue.

I don't think I've seen any of th new features that would not work with V6I... course it's a hard call on that, since neither program is even released yet.

Shakes Magic 8 Ball<

Ask Again later.

Um V6i is technically out for those that preordered.

It lists options for Poser 7 import separate from Poser 6.

You always could use poses from different figures. I regularly use Posette poses with Vicky3. Usually they only require slight modification, except maybe to the hands - but applying a stock hand pose corrects that.

Gareee
*"Sure Karen. My current system is:
athlon 3600+
xp pro
2 gigs ram, 320 gig hd, ati radeon x700 pro 128 meg.

(With this card, I can display preview opengl with a max of 2048x2048 textures.)

Of course, I'm going down to pick up my NEW system today:

athlon dual core 5000+
xp pro
320 gig hd
2 gigs ram
ati radeon x1950 pro 256 meg (twice the video ram of my current card.)

I'm not sure i it comes with windowsxp 44, or just windowsxp 64, but it does qualify for a free upgrade to vista when it ships.

Should be a nice little speed increase. ;)"

*Does this mean my AMD3000+CPU, 1.280Gig RAM system is insufficient?  :blink:

hey gareee,

Speaking from experience - avoid win 64 unless you have a REAL good reason for it.

jp

Welll anything that can run 64 bit runs almost twice as fast.. the speed increases in Lightwave are amazing, and I'm sure Vue6 Infinite will run great in 64 bit mode.

I went to pick the pc up, buit they were accedently delivering it anyway, so I missed out picking it up.

But I passed a UPS truck on the way here, ands stopped JUST in case, and lo and behold, bmy packages were on the truck!

So I open th ebox, and the pc does a LOT more then I expected.. it has a remote control, has a tv tuner and can even handle cable and astilite, and even has a am/fm tuner built in!

I'm wonderng if I can leave the original card in there with the tv ability, and just use the video ability from the new ati card for my PC needs?

I'll probably run it this wayty fora few weeks, and then install win 64 if it looks like I'd need it. otherwise I'll just upgrade to vista 64 when it's released next year.

Hmmmm.....sounds like you've bought something very similar to my new one -- HP w/ Intel Core Duo 2 E6300, 2G RAM -- and yes, it has a remote control + hook-ups for cable TV & FM.  The 22" Widescreen LCD monitor is a gigantic plus.  It's got the Windows Media Center version of XP.  Supposedly, I'll be getting a voucher for a free upgrade to Vista.

This system makes my older PC look silly, speed-wise.  I can fly through things that used to take far longer to accomplish -- including in P6.

Frankly, I doubt that I'll be using the cable TV features very much, if at all.  But outside of buying a new video card (I'm not happy with the built-into-the-motherboard video adapter) -- this machine flies compared to what I'm used to.

My opinion -- get one.  These machines are fantastic.  It transforms a lot of 3D work from a tedious chore into a pleasure.

Oh, yeah....my older machine is a 2.53G P4 w/2G's of RAM.......and it doesn't come close to the new one, performance-wise.

Thanks Gareee. I think it's time I did an upgrade. I've only got 1gb RAM and my HDD is getting full. And my processor is only 2.4gb.

looks at bank statement

cries

Enjoy the new machine, Gareee.  :thumbupboth:

The system I just got is on Newegg for under $1000, and includes a free upgrade to windows vista. Best deal I could find on the web.

(I'm fireing it up now next to this one, registering it, and so forth...)

Quote - Thanks Gareee. I think it's time I did an upgrade. I've only got 1gb RAM and my HDD is getting full. And my processor is only 2.4gb.

looks at bank statement

cries

Looks at machine, and bank statement and tries not to flood out neighbors with my tears.

Quote - The system I just got is on Newegg for under $1000, and includes a free upgrade to windows vista. Best deal I could find on the web.

(I'm fireing it up now next to this one, registering it, and so forth...)

Newegg rocks! I buy all of my PC stuff from there.

I was lucky... we had nothing at all (well almost) on our credit cards, so we decided to splurge for Christmas.

Oh! and an update: Turn the pc on, and it worked fine. downloaded all the updates for windows, NP. (all 72! of them!!)

I call up HP JUST to make sure how I should add the video card, and of crouse Tech support is in India.. very pleasant, but not much help. He says to just pop the card in the pci express slot, and fire her up. Fine.

I do so, and when you turn the system on, you here "beep beep beep". The system doesn;t see the video card. >sigh<

So I reseat it, and make sure the connections are nice and tight. reboot... "Beep Beep Beeep"
(Yeah, that last beeeep seemed to be tauting me. So I call HP again, and this guy wants the serial number.. I have the box RIGHT in front of me, but he can;t tell me where it's at on the box. So I need a flashlight, and have to crawl behind the deskto read it off the back. (RRRRR!)

So I give him the number, and he tells me it isn't registered yet. I tell him I KNOW that, I JUST turned the thing on 5 minutes ago for the first time.

He says, "Ah, well, lets walk youi through setting up your new system, and prceeds to try to hold me hand. I FINALLY manage to gt a word in edgewise, and tell him that''s NOT why I called, and explain the situation.

he smiles (I can HEAR him smile over the phone!) and tells me I just need to disable the onboard video first.  I smack my forehead thank him, and follow instructions, and boot up again...

Beep Beep Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!!

Ok, now I'm getting ticked! So I double check the insructions on the ati card instaation..
and IT says I need to,"Plug in the 12 volt 6 prong pci express power plug every pci express computer comes supplied with.

Slap forehead AGAIN (OUCH!) and start looking for the plug.

Hmmm.. no there... not THERE... not RRRRRRRRR ANYWHERE!

So I call HP back up again. (I swear I get the same guy's buddy sitting next to him, and his buddy is still smiling!) So fo rthe nesxt 30 minutes we play a game.

He tells me to plug the card into the PCI slot, and it'll boot up fine.
I tell him the manual says I need to plug the pci power plug into the card, and if I don;t te system just beeps at me.
He then VERY slowly tells me exactly where the pci express slot is, and to just plug the card into it, and boot up, and it will be fine. (And I can hear HIM smiling NOW!)
And I repeat to him yet AGAIN, and read from the manula the exact wording, and tell him I just need to find where the plug is tucked in at!
Next he tells me to unplug ALL th epower plugs, and pull the wiring out to see if I can find the plug. I told him I'm not gutting a brand new system.. can he tell me if there even IS a PCI power plug? he decided to finally dig up the manual on the system, and puts me on hold.

My cellphone's almost dead, so I just finally hang up on him.

 (Continued next post....)

Ok, so I get smart, know Best Buy has both th ecards and the system, and the Geek Squad will know what to do. After 2 calls with no one answering, and a 15 minute hold, I FINALLY get a geek with a clue!

The HPs come with onlya 300 wat power supply. New video cards draw more power, and need a bigger supply, so when he installs them, he also installs a bigger power supply, WITH A 6 PRONG PCI POWER PLUG!!!!!!!! and they have them in stock.

YAY! A hour trip there and back, and another hor carefully replacing the power supply and installing the video card, and no more Beep Beep BeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEeeeeeeep!

My wife calls, laughs at me as I'm recalling this for her, and I remind her of one of my favorite sayings:

NOTHING is EVER easy.

Ok, nuff said, the new system is sitting next to me, and it's beckoning me to install software on it!

How's THAT for a story?

I've had some problems getting my video adapter set up, too.

Quote - NOTHING is EVER easy.

Not in this world, it isn't.

And remember this cautionary tale, my children. Buy the parts yourself and build it yourself, and avoid all of this....and get a better system in the bargain. ;) Just be glad is wasn't a Dell, Gareee; several models have had the ATX connector 'customized'. Use an off the shelf PS, and smoooooooke....as well as voiding whatever warranty may have still existed. And check out the deals a newegg, Karen. AMD is getting ready to make socket 939 disappear, so if you don't mind having a not so bloody edged system, you should be able to pick up a board and X2 for a lowered price; I upgraded three of the boxes in my rendergarden over a few months to Athlon 64 3000+'s on an Abit A8N-VM microATX board with onboard video and a gig of Kingston Valueram for right at $250 a box. A little careful shopping and skimming of pricewatch.com can yield all sorts of gold if you can do it yourself.....

Newegg is a great place however they do not ship internationally :( Which stinks 'cause Karen is in Britannia.

Whatever you do don't deal with Misco.co.uk they are total rubbish and a real ripoff! Some of the other online places in the UK are not much better. You're most likely better off dealing with someone local if possible.

Pricewatch.com is a good source but be very careful with whom you deal with. I find this site www.resellerratings.com very helpful. They are an independent site that collects customer ratings from stores all over the US and some in the UK.

Best of luck finding a new kit!

I just built a new system from parts, from newegg - and still had problems. I had to return 2 hardrives and a video card before things were right (thanks newegg for a good return policy).
There is a quality control issue with pc parts, across the board - at least thats what I think.

My issue with win 64 was that I bought it OEM. Later I was told had I bought xp32 bit, I could have had a free upgrade- and a dual boot system. Now, if I want xp32 I have to buy it, or wait for Vista which i think will have both versions on the CD???

So I wait - truth is Poser works fine on xp64 - sure it doesn't use all 4gb of ram I have but oh well....Rendering is preety fast on my dual core that I have OC'd to 4.1ghz each!

Still, 64 has issues:
My copy of Z-brush won't even install. If I use MS system update it installs a patch that kills QuickTime.
My nice new DVD burner with lightscribe only works as a CD. No program can see it as a DVD.

And my Adobe production suite is glitcy ....

Imagine a system where POSER seems to be the most stable app!!!!!!!

JP

Quote - I

So I call HP back up again. (I swear I get the same guy's buddy sitting next to him, and his buddy is still smiling!) So fo rthe nesxt 30 minutes we play a game.

 (Continued next post....)

Actually, and I say this as a former employee of HP techsupport, you probably did.

They pack them together like rats.  They probably sat less than a foot away from each other.

Oh.....I had my own version of HP tech support fun on the phone.  I'd been able to successfully restructure my video adapter's resolution settings by uninstalling & then re-installing the video chipset driver.  It worked great -- temporarily.  Unfortunately, upon the very next re-boot the video driver reverted back to its old (incorrect for my monitor) settings.  So on a whim, I called up HP tech support.  I got a heavily Indian-accented woman on the phone.  She'd been very well trained with cookie-cutter solutions for any and all potential problems that might arise......and she was utterly unable to think outside of that box.  Frankly, I knew more than she did........outside of a couple of built-in tricks with this particular model of PC.  I wasted approx. 2 hours of time with her.

There was also a mistake in HP's online documentation.  The PDF manual for my model of PC said -- in brief -- that my machine had "numerous slots for add-in cards like AGP and PCI.  However: my PC actually has TWO (2) spare slots.  One PCI and one PCI Express.  Which is actually a good thing, video-wise.

They say that all's well that ends well.  I bought a new video card this morning.  I'm looking at the box as I type this.  It's an ATI Radeon 1650 Pro w/512M DDR2 RAM for PCI Express.  It just happened to be on special this week.  I think that I got the last one on the shelf.  So I've gotten a better card than I expected out of the deal.......although it did cost me some additional cash.

Of course, this hasn't exactly "ended" just yet.......I've got to install the card tonight.  I know whether or not I can relax after that.

BTW - my comments aren't a slam on HP -- from what I've seen, regardless of the company that you're dealing with (Dell, HP, Gateway, Newegg, whoever.....), your support experience is basically the luck of the draw.  It depends upon who you happen to get on the phone that day.  And just like 3D "experts"-- not all tech support personnel are created equal.

The new HP is great overall.  I'd recommend it to anyone who asked.

Lol...they hire anyone.  Even before they outsourced to India.

I remeber a girl...she could turn on the computer and get on AOL...that's it.  Only she called AOL, "the internet".   Can you imagine the frustration of people being told to get on the internet, which they do, only to get AOL only instructions?

And one guy...he'd promise any caller anything...just to get them off the phone.  He finally left to become an AOL rep...

The joke went that all bad HP reps went to AOL.

There are lots who try...and do it well.  Mostly without help...  I don't know how much has change since I was there but they had this knowledge base thing that was horrendus.  And even if the fix wasn't in there, we weren't supposed to give it out if it wasn't in the KB.  Despite the crazyness...it was a fun place to work.

Heh..Tirjasdyn..I've been calling HP tech support on a weekly basis (sometimes daily) for various problems for the last 14 years, so likely we've chatted..;) if you did printers that is..;)
I've heard many HP techs fixing other problems on the line while I play 'stump support'..;) Sad to say, it's getting easier...;)

They're all in Washington state and Canada now..a few left in Idaho..;) 

One thing I noticed last time I looked (or could afford to) at general parts and technologies; the motherboards, chips, etc., change at least on a quarterly basis, it's probably even faster now. It's hard to develop a mastery on technologies when everything changes that fast..;)

It's a job that I wouldn't want.  As in any job which involves dealing with the public on a regular basis -- there's another side to the coin.

Like the person who calls in wondering why they can't get their 3.5" diskettes to fit into the non-existent slot on their brand new machine -- or the jerk with an attitude problem who's mad at the world in general, and who's decided to take his personal anger out on the tech support rep today.

So....while un-knowledgeable tech reps are a hazard -- so are many members of the general public.  Ask any forum moderator.  The experience probably isn't too far different from that of a tech support rep.

There are total jerks to be found standing on both sides of the counter.  It must make things interesting when BOTH the customer and the tech rep are total jerks.  But there is this: in such a case -- they deserve each other.

I was in retail selling computers for about 8 years or so. it's a constant relearning process, and just when you think you know it all, everything turns 180 or you.

That's why I finally bailed from that career.. WAY too much after hours boning up one what''s new. I always prided myself by being "in the know", but unless you want a permamant seat in the Geek Squad, you have to let that go.

That said, I really expect a tech support person to be able to annswer a pretty basic questiohn about a current system. I have a very hard time believing that they'vce never gotten a question about putting a video card into a new system. That's pretty basic, and NOT knowing the systems don't come with the proper power supplies is pretty bad. I'll be emailing HPabout that today.

I don't care if they outsource (though I'd prefer they did NOT), and I don't care if a support person is in India or is from the Bronx, but they NEED to be able to actually offer support and anwswer questions.

If the guy at Best Buy knew immediately what the problem was, why didn't HP's tech support?

May I assume animated poses can be made "universal" also??

I was a Mac beta tester for Philc 's "Puppet Master" and therefore got it Free
 it allows me to to take a low res figure like poser Dork and animate him easliy and in real time with keyframing, BVH and or poser physics.

and then apply that animation to a heavy complex figure like sanctumart's
"alpha" or "Grim".
and store the animation data for re-use of course.

well see what the EF version Does  in regards to animated poses

Quote -
There are total jerks to be found standing on both sides of the counter.  It must make things interesting when BOTH the customer and the tech rep are total jerks.  But there is this: in such a case -- they deserve each other.

Lol, have I got stories.

My favorite by far had to be the black lady.  I'm not being racist, listen:

I was in discontinued support.  That meant they had to call a 1-900 to get to us.

So I answer the line...the lady immediatly screams:  I am a black woman!

I try really hard. "What type of printer are you using?"

She screams:  What printer is this cartidge for..

It goes on like that for a bit.  Basically this lady had been walking aroudn in staples, stopped by the printer cartidges and picked up a black one.  At that time the word for the color was printed in about 50 differnt languages on the side.

Can anyone give me the word for black in Spanish?

Yeah well, after I explained that it was not a racial slur she demanded that I change the Spanish language.  that's when I finally handed the call to my Mexican-American supervisor.

Quote -

That said, I really expect a tech support person to be able to annswer a pretty basic questiohn about a current system. I have a very hard time believing that they'vce never gotten a question about putting a video card into a new system. That's pretty basic, and NOT knowing the systems don't come with the proper power supplies is pretty bad. I'll be emailing HPabout that today.

I don't care if they outsource (though I'd prefer they did NOT), and I don't care if a support person is in India or is from the Bronx, but they NEED to be able to actually offer support and anwswer questions.

If the guy at Best Buy knew immediately what the problem was, why didn't HP's tech support?

Because they don't train them to know.  Not that Best Buy does either...you got lucky there...unless things changed since I last worked there...at best buy they only train people to read the little tags on the shelf.

But if your complaint gets heard Bravo... I hope they listen

I figure it can't hurt. ;) and at least I feel better venting at them.

As long as the new system works,  that's all I'm really concerned about.

@ Gareee --

I want to say thank you very much.  Your posting of your experience concerning the power supply issue vis-a-vis a PCI Express video card helped me to dodge the same bullet myself.  Forwarned is forarmed, as they say.

I'm putting a 450W power supply into my brand-new PC.  I figure that this should cover pretty much any future upgrade that I care to undertake.

After reading your comments on the issue, I did some checking over at HP's website.  Some of their literature mentions that the installation of a PCI Express video card might require a power supply upgrade.  But you have to do some reading through their on-line PDF's to find this information.

It strikes me as a bit odd that HP would provide an empty PCI Express slot on the motherboard -- and then provide inadequate power to actually use the slot for much.  I suppose that they are assuming that most end-users will merely stick with whatever the built-in motherboard video provides -- and not attempt an upgrade.  So HP only gives a power supply that has just enough omphh to do the job in their default configuration.

I'd point out to HP that the very first thing that a lot of gamers (not to mention the smaller 3D community) will do will be to install a high-end video card.  The fact that doing so will instantly require a power supply upgrade isn't a good thing.

I still like the machine a lot.  But I consider this little problem to be a design flaw.

Thanks again, man.  You saved me some trouble.