Lenovo IdeaCentre K430 3109-1NU Desktop PC - 3rd generation Intel Core i7-3770 3.40GHz, 8GB DDR3, 2TB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 620 1GB, DVDRW, Keyboard/Mouse, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bitItem#: T71-12002  |  Model#: 3109-1NU

Con1 - which PCIe controller card did you buy?

Have discovered that could not add second hard drive because no open SATA plug. Con1 - which PCIe controller card did you buy to enable adding a second hard drive? Am finding mixed reviews online of many cards, with lots of device and system conflicts and failures. Thanks.

Great value for a power user

I bought this PC for home video editing and general IT power user functionality. Some of the other reviews were pretty critical but I have been pleasantly surprised with the performance of this unit for the price. It has a decent mid level video card that works for everything but hardcore gaming and the processor is fast! Only negative is the limited SATA ports on the motherboard. Had to buy a PCIe controller card to add on a blu-ray and another hard drive. Other than that I am very pleased with this purchase.

Performance

Does not perform as advertised. Very unhappy with overall performance. Price too high for the product. Would not buy another Lenovo product. Not very upgradable. Needs to have an eject button on drive. Would not recommend this product.

Pretty nice out of box, limited upgradability

This PC is very capable out of the box. However, both manufacturer and seller advertise it as being flexible for upgrades, and while attempting to do so I discovered some nasty things about this box that severely limit its upgrade potential. It is advertised as upgradable to 32GB ram. It is true that it physically fits 4x8GB sticks, but the OS home premium that it ships with only utilizes 16GB of ram max, so without upgrading the OS you will not be able to reach the 32GB advertised potential. After upgrading ram to 2x8GB 1600mhz the ram speed was mysteriously reduced to 1333mhz within the bios. There are no options to tweak this and a call to manufacturer tech support was unhelpful, other than to confirm that the very limited options do not allow you to modify memory settings beyond what is automatically chosen. After trying a simple memory upgrade and encountering two issues, my long term hopes for this box are diminished.

Good value and performer

This is my fifth Lenovo computer, although the first I have at home for personal and business use. I have had no problems with any of them and this one performed just fine out of the box. Fast, although I am not an exteme gamer I do have some processor hungry work programs that it handles with ease. I'm not sure I understand the power supply criticism in one of the reviews because this has a 450 watt supply. I think this is a fine all around machine with a reasonable price point. If you want more permformance, the K430 1MU has an upgraded video card.

Lacking of the performance that I looking for

The 280 Power Supply will burn out shortly; should be 500-700W min. Looks good on paper, but it didnt work correctly right out of the box. After RECOVERING the system 3 times, once with tech support's instructions and the 3rd time with them on the phone, they are sending a tech to examine the beast. It seems to feature cheap components set up incorrectly and offered to consumers. I might return it and get a systemax PC.

Good PC, Poor support

I have this PC for a week now. It is fast as expected from this class of PC's. The manual, as is the case with most manuals these days is limited and inaccurate. In addition to the turbo switch, there is a small button next to the power button that I have yet to figure out its role, despite 2 calls to Lenovo. Once they told me that it had to do with system installation, and once they told me that it is inactive in Windows 7. This is typical of their support - one gets through quickly, but the ''technicians'' know limited English, it takes several tries to explain the problem, and then you get an unreliable answer. As another example, I couldn't find the button to eject the DVD. When I called them, I was told that there is no button, but they will send me a new optical drive with a button. Of course, there IS a button. Hardware wise, an additional MB SATA socket would be useful, to add a disk or optical drive!