*HP 2510p Owners Lounge*

Congratulations on your purchase. 2510P = a great bang-per-buck runaround with excellent usability.

1066Mhz DDR2 RAM is hard to find which makes me think they have mistakenly advertised desktop DDR2 RAM, especially at that very low price. The rest of the specs are right "DDR2, SODIMM, 4GB".

Cheapest way to get the correct 4GB SODIMM for the 2510P would otherwise be as a US-import for 39 pounds delivered: ebay 4GB SODIMM DDR2

A 60GB Renice K3VLAR-E ZIF SSD goes for $117.60 pounds (inc VAT) From Futurestorage-UK. A 2.5" sata SSD based on a Indilinx, SF1200 or Intel controller via an optical bay caddy will cost less.

 

hi nando, I ordered a mx-nano today just for playing a bit around .. but I think I lost this blue rubber frame .. do I need it or is it fine without it?

 

Congratulations on the mx-nano. Another low-power, high performance EWS720-based ZIF SSD.

The SSD doesn't need the blue rubber frame since it's more hardy to bumps than a mechnical HDD. I had mine running a few times without it using just the plate to secure the drive in place as shown below. It was OK, but admittedly I didn't jiggle the system around. It does look like the drive could do with a few mm of padding just to firmly pin it in place. Or perhaps the plastic HDD cover does a good enough job to hold it down?

 

Thx for your help, I saw the picture but I didn't know if you really used it or if it was just for the picture.

I also found some "reports" that MX-Nano can do trim on windows 7 (but I think they are wrong, since it is nowhere else mentioned). On your SSD list all EWS720-based SSDs are listed as no trim. I will check if it does trim under Linux as soon as it arrives here

My Vertex 2 has died after a shutdown (don't know if it was because of the china-caddy)- wasn't recognized anymore -> it was replaced by OCZ. Now I can tell that even a new 25nm Vertex 2 with newest FW(1.33) is incompatible with the NewModeUS caddy under linux with kernel > 2.6.32. But it works very nice with a 2.5 hdd.

 

Unfortunately the Eastwho EWS720 controller cannot process TRIM commands, so any SSDs using it do not have TRIM support. Those reports on the MX-Nano are incorrect. Not really a problem. Just let GC clean the SSD. Can help it along by scheduling a task to scrub free space by writing 0xFF to free space.

With your MX-Nano you'll lose a bit of speed over your Vertex2, not noticable unless you do a lot of sequential writes AND/or heavy multitasking, but will increase your battery life and will now have the optical drive bay free for an optical drive or caddy + 2.5" HDD.

 

And hopefully no problems with compatibility etc. anymore

Nando, du you know any good(=cheap) source for the dvd drive for 2510p?

(Should be Panasonic / Mata UJ-842 if I remember right)

 

There's a couple of NC2400/2510P units on ebay. Starting from 22 euro delivered to Germany. The original HP optical drive will be firmware set to run as slave.

 

Ah you searched for Multibay I did always use "UJ-842"

thx.. maybe I buy one.

Is this somehow bad? Or do you just mean that I have to get a original hp one? I am not sure what you want to tell me

 

Picture Time:



The ZIF Cable is not slanting - light just makes it look like.

You see the zif cable is turned around. Like it is described here.(thx to withanee67 for this info, i was really confused with the info that pin one has to be on the other side than normal. First I really thought: ...mhh...How should that work? )

As you see I don't have that blue rubber thing anymore, two pieces from the package faom replaced it very well.

Funny thing: mx-nano is packaged same style(other design for sure) as OCZ Vertex 2 and has same style of warranty/serial stickers. Is it manufactured by OCZ?

Just one last question: Did i insert it right? Is it normal that the metal thing presses the ssd/hdd against the foam below the ssd/hdd?
(and nando don't forget to tell me what you meant with "hp optical drive will be set to slave" )

Thx 4 all your help!

Edit: Changed the Picture, forgot to pixelate barcode

 

Creative use of the mx-nano packaging there. I have however never had to flip the drive upside down before. As long as the foam pins it down to prevent movement AND the drive is registered and works then it's OK.

My comment RE: HP NC2400/2510P optical drive. Those HP factory optical drives will be firmware set to run as slave. Any other third party 9.5mm PATA optical drive may deviate by defaulting to master and/or using the CSEL pin to set master/slave mode. So to work concurrently with the mx-nano you want the optical drive to default to slave. No fuss solution is to get the NC2400 or 2510P optical drive.

 

ah okay. I never thought of buying another one than the "original" optical drive.

But I got a problem with my ssd, i don't know if it is broken or if it is a software problem, but my archlinux does always destroy a partition when booting. I really don't know why it does that

 

PM sent. Likely the ZIF cable being a problem.

Consider updating to a 2530P?

The s/h price of 2530P is ~US$300 these days so it's worth doing the math to see if a 2510P+ZIF SSD may cost more than a 2530P. If so then it could be a good time to upgrade to get it's newer faster sata drive tech with cheaper SSDs, faster performance, lower running temps, 2 RAM slots and longer battery life. Might get a webcam too. You can even use the RAM, battery, keyboard and AC adapter and docking station from the 2510P with a 2530P.

Some cons about a 2540P or 2560P

The newer 2540P and 2560P gained 170g and 280g in weight respectively with the 2540P having a terrible keyboard. It also looks like an undervolted LV C2D in a 2530P may deliver the best battery life from the series. The 2560P uses a squat 1366x768 12.5" LCD.

A 1.45kg 12.5" Lenovo X220 or 1.59kg Dell E6220 are substantially lighter Sandy Bridge systems than a 1.92kg 12.5" HP 2560P. The Lenovo capable of doing a mSATA SSD + 2.5" HDD setup so doesn't need an optical bay caddy to do it. The Dell doesn't have an optical drive slot.

 

Hi Evilandi, Glad my description was helpful. Would be interesting to know how your mx-nano performs (benchmarks). My drive's performance as posted here is a little disappointing compared to the other benchmarks for the 120GB drive in this forum.#

Still hoping someone more knowledgable than me can offer some advice on this please?

 

I just replaced the stock hdd with a Kingston SSDNow V+100 SVP100S2/96G using the Fenvi caddy mentioned on this thread. The install was very simple, thanks to everyone on this thread, and I took out the stock hdd.

Sadly I did not do a benchmark prior to installation but you can see the new benchmarks. My boot time has dropped to an average of ~50 seconds from 124 seconds!

The drive was also very cheap from NewEggBusiness.com, after rebate, it came out to $82.

 

Nando I think there is a new Bios for 2510p?

HP Compaq 2510p Notebook PC- HPQFlash for HP Notebook System BIOS (68MSP) - Windows-based - HP Business Support Center

Current Version:
F.10
22 Apr 2011

But only the windows flasher was updatet, changelog just says updated pxe rom..

 

Hello all,

Have glanced across this thread previously, have owned my 2510p for about 3 or 4 years but have never needed to post (until now!). On the weekend I was replacing my bottom case and heatsink (making awful noises), and I put it all back together, it came on fine but then,... non system disk error.

So, assumed it was only going to be related to the hard drive, I REALLY dislike these ZIF things, feels like its going to break all the time (I think it has!). Took the hard drive out a few times, the cable seemed quite loose in fitting into the hard drive initially, so I was sure it was supposed to clip in, or feel like it was in further than I could get it in this time round, and I wasnt sure if the little catch thing was supposed to be up or down. Can someone please just tell me 100% definitely which way the connectors are supposed to go, and how far in it is supposed to go and do I put the ZIF into the HDD with the catch up or down... I think I have broken the connector, was trying to force it in quite hard if anyone can post a close up picture of how far in the connector should be that would be great!

I dont mind ordering another ZIF connector off ebay (only about 9 quid) but I don't want to have to spend money getting a new HDD as I have just spent a fortune on other computer bits I dont really need... it should be working fine as it was 100% functional before I took it apart... It is not recognising the HDD at all now, even in the BIOS things like HDD check are greyed out, so it really cannot see the drive.

Appreciate any help people can give me!

 

See Installing the ZIF cable and purchasing a replacement 2510P-specific ZIF cable.

 

I am looking to upgrade from the Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AG to an Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250 that I pulled from my M11x R3.

Edit - Just tried to install it and upon boot, it says it's unsupported. I might install the 6200 like Mike60.

 

You need the no_whitelist 2510P modded_bios or otherwise will get an "104-unsupported" bios halting error. Might even require putting cellophane over pin20 to turn the radio on.

INFO: +2USB - add 2 extra USB ports via a US$10-delivered PCMCIA card

I noticed a 2510P sold for ebay for $212. This model had an extra 2 USB ports. This is considerably more than the ~$150 they go for usually.

A PC card to add an extra 2 USB ports to a 2510P costs only $10-delivered and sits perfectly flush in the system as shown below.

 

Hi guys

just bought one of these lovely little notebooks for £90

however have noticed that running vista 64 with 1gb ram is a troubling experience as you can imagine.

hard drive it seems is active all the time! i take it this is too do with the 1gb of ram!
i have turn off a few vista features superfetch and search index and tuned it for performance rather than looks to try and make it a more pleasurable experience to use this laptop but it's not made a great deal of difference.

so have decided to upgrade the ram to 4gb as i'm told it takes a 4gb module

the question is will a ddr2 800 rather than a ddr2 667 work ???

(as i might want to overclock in future and the price difference of the 2 speed of modules is negligible)

i assume it will and the notebook will just underclock the 800mhz ram to 667mhz but wanted to ask you experienced guys in here before making the purchase

heres the ram i was going to buy

ORIGINAL Hynix 4GB DDR2 800-4 GB PC2-6400 SO-DIMM RAM | eBay

 

Congratulations on the purchase. A nice bargain

Yes. DDR2-800 will work fine. I even flashed my DDR2-667 to 800Mhz speed here. One thing that DDR2-800 did was increase my X3100 core render clock from 400Mhz to 500Mhz. It sounds impressive but didn't register any significant changes in Win7 WEI or other benchmarks.

If you do want faster disk performance then I'd prioritize a SSD HDD either via an optical bay caddy or as a 1.8" ZIF SSD over a RAM upgrade. Plenty of examples on the first page.

 

Hi,

Can anyone help me with my problem.. I have 2510p U7600 and i had to change the cooler fan and after that I couldnt get the computer recognize my hard drive..

The drive is working, I tested it with a external caddy in a different computer.

I also bought a new zif connector because the connector's a piece of crap.
And it doesnt work with the new connector either....

When the computer starts it says: "media test failure, check cable"
It says the same thing with another hard disk too..

So I must have broke something or..?
Has anyone got any suggestions what else could or can be wrong with my laptop than the zif connector?

By the way this forum is awesome and has helped me to solve many problems so many thanks to all of you!

 

Thanks! Just installed the 6250 and it works like a charm.



Also, ordered the PCMCIA 2 port usb card. Currently I am forced to use a usb hub so I can plug in my adapter for my mouse, usb barcode scanner, usb hasp key, and a serial to usb converter.

EDIT -

Just installed the PCMCIA card and it truly is a great addition. It's great not having to use a hub.

 

I'd also emphasize the SSD, I started with 1GB and SSD, and didn't note a significant performance improvement moving to 4GB at 800Mhz. I'm also running Win7 64bit.

 

Other than the SSD, the inexpensive way of getting more performance is doing a 200Mhz BCLK overclock hardmod to improve RAM+X3100 iGPU performance (which can then also have a software CPU overclock added) OR doing just a software overclock. There are pros and cons of each overclock method. The 200Mhz BCLK method giving greatest possible X3100 graphics performance on this platform.

 

Yeah i should have went for a hd first though i dont think i'll go for the expensive ssd option

Am i right in thinking a normal 2.5 sata2 hd could be used with one of the caddys mentioned in this thread instead ?
Bringing the cost down somewhat ! I haven't got money much to spend

but it seems to me to be quicker

before while using the 1gb and just after logging in to win7 it would still be accessing the hard drive over 5 minutes later

this is now down to 2 minutes

what were they thinking when the put this crap hard drive in the system ?

 

My experience is that a SATA-II HDD does improve performance but by nowhere near the amounts a SSD does. The PATA interface lacks NCQ so the 4kB reads on a 2.5" HDD via sata-to-pata optical bay caddy tend to be about half of what you get on a AHCI interface.

Yes.. 4GB will have improved your 5min->2min startup. That's because there is less need to access the swap file.

The 'crap HDD' was a low power device at the time that was also used by several other vendors. Interestingly, the 2510P circuitboard did have some prelim work done to wire SATA to the 1.8" drive bay instead. In hindsight I'm sure the 2510P designers would gone SATA instead. A 2530P uses SATA for the 1.8" and optical bay drives -> a good reason to upgrade to one.

The good value upgrade is to use a ebay sata-to-pata caddy with an inexpensive 2.5" SATA-II SSD. Costs can be recouped by selling the 1.8" ZIF HDD or the ZIF HDD can be jumpered as slave and provide an additional (slow) storage repository.

 

Hello everyone,
I just bought an HP 2510p and I have a problem:
the touchpad does not work and I can not enable or disable it with the LED button.
Thank you for your advice.
bb97

 

Congratulations on your purchase. A 2510P available at very s/h prices yet very portable and quite capable when 'tweaked'.

Does your touchstyk work? There's a setting in the Synaptics control panel that can enable/disable the touchpad. If it's enabled then either the touchpad is faulty or the cable that connects the touchpad to the systemboard is loose or faulty. The good thing is if you remove the top cover and keyboard, the cable that runs to the touchstk can be disconnected and swapped over to connect the touchpad to test it or leave connected if indeed the touchpad cable is faulty.

 

The touchstick does not work either.

 

Mine doesn't work either, even if it's enabled.

nando4, why did you buy the 2530p over the 2540p? I just bought a brand new one with i7 and 250gb. I was reading on the 2540p Owner's lounge that you were interested in buying one to replace the 2510p but you went with the 2530p.

 

Congratulations on your purchase. The 2540P the last of the great HP ultraportables imho.

2530P is incredibly good value

Why did I get a 2530P over a 2540P? Price of course. If a 2540P was 20-40% more rather than 100-150% more than a 2530P then I would have got a 2540P. The LV 2540P = pricey, the full-powered i5 model with worse battery life than the 2530P. An overclocked 2530P not that far behind a i7-LV's performance either.

Then there's also some the advantages a 2530P offers over the 2540P: unwhitelisted bios, lower weight, better keyboard, overclocking cpu + pci-e bus. Overall, a 2530P at < US$300 on ebay with remaining balance of 3yr onsite global warranty is great bang-per-buck.

Since I purchased mine, the Lenovo X220 has been released and I'd be defecting to one of those with an IPS LCD and mSATA SSD over a 2540P/2560P. US folks being able to snag i5 X220 units for b/w $600-$700 during sales. Another great bargain.

So the upgrade path I'd recommend for 2510P owner's to consider is: HP 2510P -> HP 2530P -> Lenovo X220. A 2510P still a capable, bargain runaround. If it does the job then there's no need to upgrade.

 

I initially bought the 2510p because I needed a lightweight semi-powerful 32-bit OS laptop for my stores because I use a proprietary software. After using the laptop the past few months, I fell in love with it. I added a few mods to it, thanks to everyone on this thread , and I found myself taking it everywhere I go. I do find it lacking in terms of power so I initially thought about going to the 2530p but I ultimately decided to make the jump to the 2540p for the Core i7. I bought it on eBay for $629 including shipping and I thought it was a bargain. Now, with the 2540p, I can take that everywhere and leave the m11x at home.

I was actually thinking of an X201 but even that was much more expensive than the 2540p.

 

I'll elaborate further on my previous post for the sake of other readers who might be contemplating an upgrade of their 2510P.

The X201 prices are often higher than X220. Very unusual and I can only assume it's due to being older stock with an older price mindset. Consider what a X220 costs during sales:

$686 12.5" Lenovo X220 i5-2520M 2.5 4GB 320GB W7HP*expresscard slot*

Let's compare performance:

i5-2520M 2.5: cpumark=3581, Lenovo X220=$686
i7-620LM 2.13: cpumark=2176, ebay 2540P price=$629
[email protected]: cpumark=1925, ebay 2530P price=$250-$300
[email protected]: cpumark=760/960 ebay 2510P price=$150

We see that you could have got a X220 instead for a small price premium or a 2530P for less than half. A oveclocked L9600 2530P would even outbench a i7 2540P. Either represents great value and is where my cash would have gone if I was buying. X220 has a mSATA SSD option so can do SSD+HDD.

The X220's Sandy Bridge + Huron River chipset offers other features: significantly faster iGPU, SATA-III, pci-e 2.0 expresscard slots, more performance and lower power consumption.

Though if you need the optical drive then the 2540P is one of the rare 12" systems with one.

 

Hello folks,

I've changed jobs, and bought my old 2510p off from my prev one for more or less nothing.
I've immediately ordered SSD, hdd caddy and 4GB of ram.
I'm very pleased with the results - except that my graphic wei is only 2.4.
Previously I was using a lean XP system - so I cannot compare values - but I don't think this is caused by any of the recent modifications. Any idea what to look for?

I'm running Win7 Enterprise x64, all drivers installed (could not find the improved x3100 driver tho on the link), latest non-whitelisted bios.

Thanks
Oya

Running an SSD with approx 4 times the speed of the original toshiba disk is changing this baby from good to extremely good stuff for its price. I'm running a Mach Xtreme Technology Nano ZIF Series 1,8" PATA SSD - 60GB and using the old disk in a caddy for added storage.

 

Hello,
The touchpad and touchstick not work even with drivers installed.
Motherboard problem?

 

Congratulations on your purchase and EWS720-based MX-Nano upgrade. A sweet SSD that no only increases disk performance 3-4 times but also improves battery life.

Doing a Window's Update will get you a newer X3100 driver with better baseline WEI performance. Then it's a matter of doing a dual-IDA, setFSB and/or BCLK pinmod to overclock. The highest X3100 desktop WEI I managed to get doing these was of 3.5 [200Mhz BCLK + setFSB overclock (240Mhz x 6)]. Doing just dual-IDA + setfsb overclock (160x10) resulted in a score of 3.1. Overclocking is extensively covered from the links on the first page.

I would suggest reseating and/or replacing the ZIF cable between the systemboard and touchpad/touchstyk first and test again. If no go, then would indicate systemboard fault. Could also boot Linux install media and test the mouse just to make sure your OS isn't blocking the mouse driver for whatever reason.

 

x220 for $686 is a great price! I wish the deal was active. The cheapest I can find presently is roughly $950.

Edit - New deal brings the X220 to $860 for AmEx card holders

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3203646

 

Hi,

I have the same issue,

I bought the replacement part for the DVD as of ATA hoster,
and I purchased an SSD HD, installed in the hoster and connect it, in place of the DVD

the machine starts, but give a message that no OS is installed,
but I want to keep the master HD as is, and make this as the slave/secondary one

if I install the hoster without the HD, the LED keeps on,
if I install the hoster with the HD, the LED on when booting, then goes off,
both cases, the machine gives the message that no OS installed,

is it an issue with the hoster, or the laptop itself,

please help

 

If you bought the caddy from newmodeus, then there is a master/slave jumper. It must be set to slave to work concurrently with the existing 1.8" HDD. If you bought a caddy off ebay then it will always want to be master with the option of (i) jumpering the 1.8" HDD as slave or (ii) modifying the caddy to run as master to allow the 1.8" HDD + caddy to work concurrently. Details of how to do this are covered from the links on the first page.

Did you install an operating system on your SSD you've placed in the caddy? If not, then it will give the error as you've noted.

 

yes, you are right, it does not have an OS

 

Hi,

the strange thing, is when booting, it should give me in the options of booting, asking to boot from the old hard drive or the new one,

where the moment i install the caddy, it only shows possibility to boot from network

is this normal, and with the caddy that support being a slave, this issue will get resolved?

 

Not normal at all. If you disconnect the 1.8" ZIF HDD and get that result then there is something amiss with the caddy and/or the caddy+SSD. It should give you an option of "harddisk" or "optical disk drive" (slave) if detected and functioning OK, even if there is no OS on the SSD.

The newmodeus caddy you are referring to worked great for HDDs, but do note in the review that it failed to pass TRIM commands so TRIM needed to be disabled. That's a pretty big deal for SSD management so I preferred the TRIM-capable ebay caddy, even modding mine to give an option to run as slave. Performancewise the ebay caddy has a ever so slight advantage. Maybe 5%.

 

just a few questions about my 2510p =) :

1.)
what is faster on this 2510p compaq, xp or 7?
i use a 5400rpm 2,5" hdd with newmodeuscaddy, sata.
later i'll use ssd maybe mx nano 1,8".

2.)
is there any way of getting the 2510p quiet?
i applied 30% dst and later 40% dst tables.
i undervolt to ,85v with rmclock. throtelling is off.
EIST is active, IDA greyed out but patched bios is installed!
coretemp around 53/55°C @ 800mhz
discharge rate around 10/11 watt, bluetooth, wwan disabled in bios!

3.)
can i use any 9,5mm dvd-rw drive or must it be from hp? (master slave ?)

4.)
is there any simple app to make use of fingerprint in xp?
(i don't like hp's solution).

5.)
can i enable and disable wireless connections w/o hp wireless asistant.
(which is way faster then the connection manager showing similar
functions.)

6.)
can display brightness be set without hp wireless asistant
to load the hp osd service?
(when i disable "wa" autorun,osd doesnt show and keys are not working)

7.)
at the moment i use firefox, runs from sdcard, to prevent hdd usage for
temp files etc), my music is stored there too, does this consume less
power then running all from hdd?

thats it =) thank you for answering my questions!

 

Win7 runs great with a SSD and tweaks. XP's GUI looks ancient compared to W7.

Clean your fan and apply new Thermal paste. Recommend Shin-Etsu thicker paste. I do not recommend Artic Silver 5.

Not 100% sure other than a NC2400 or 2510P one will work since it runs as slave.

Tap the blue wireless icon on your touch control panel just above your keyboard.

Load HP Quicklaunch. Then you can use FN+Brightness keys to adjust the brightness.[/QUOTE]

If you want better battery life suggest getting a EWS720-based SSD or upgrade to a 2530P. A 2530P runs faster, cooler and when undervolted gives one of the longest battery life of any system out there.

 

how to clean the fan and how to replace thermal paste without dissasembling everything?

 

Applying new thermal paste will require disassembly which is rather easy. While at it consider a 200Mhz_bclk mod to increase X3100/RAM performance. If don't want to disassemble then the best you could do is could blow compressed air into the fan vents followed by vacuuming to dislodge fluff and dust.

 

is there a way to speeduo internal sdcard reader?

i get only 1,5mb/s out of my 4 or 6 class sdcards!

with my usb cardreader i get 15mb/s which is an old cheap hama device


can i exchange it? the internal reader or is the bus itself that slow?

i'm on xp =)

 

Hello, I have a strange problem with my 2510p
I have bought a Sandisk UATA 5000 64 GB to speed up things a little,
I installed it and it works but with my surprise I realized that the DVD/CD integrated drive is not recognized anymore not even by BIOS.
This happens only with the sandisk ssd drive installed, if i put back the normal toshiba 80gb drive the dvd drive shows up again ... in both BIOS and OS.
What could be the problem? What should I try to solve things?
I dont wanna use this SSD and sacrify my dvd-rw

I have F.0F original BIOS installed.

Please someone give me suggestions...
thanks in advance!

 

Isolate CSEL pin47 on the optical drive's JAE50 connector to force it to slave. Likely the Sandisk SSD is altering the CSEL signal such that the ODD is seeing a signal of 'set me as master'. Something that won't work with the SSD running as master as well. See photo here of how to do that.