Mission Successful: HP MediaSmart brains beefed up

I wanted to upgrade the parts dangling around in my HP MediaSmart (v1) for quite some time now. Today, thankfully, I had some downtime so I green lighted the mission. Coincidentally, HP announced their new stance on upgrading the RAM in these machines today. Funny, I only get emails from the MediaSmart team when I post something bad about this product... Whatever.

For parts, I chose/received the following:

• Socket AM2 (940) AMD Athlon 64 LE-1640 45w [0$, thanks AMD!]
• PNY Optima MD2048SD2-667 PC-5300 2GB DDR2 [$30, Microcenter (after rebate)]

Rather than re-invent the wheel, I will conveniently link you to Microsoft MVP Donavon West’s very nice set of instructions on upgrading both the RAM and processor components within your server. I wouldn’t worry about the virtual memory tuning step he added, however, as it’s not accurate or necessary.

WARNING: The itty bitty screws holding the front grill (you’ll know what I’m talking about) are very very soft so make absolutely sure you get the correct (#00 Phillips) screwdriver to remove them or you’ll strip them and scream. Ahem, like I did.

Like Ed Bott, I’m not a fan of synthetic benchmarks or a slew of numbers/graphs. I will say, however, the enormous boost in performance can be felt across the board from networking performance to Remote Desktop without measurement. You’d be silly not to upgrade folks.

Update: Official HP statement is now available on their site.