HP 5330M thoughts tweaks and more

Hello,

Over the years I've owned a whole heap of laptops and the single, most fantastic one, the only one that's latest more than two years, has been the Envy 13. Sure, although it's old, the battery life and screen quality are fantastic. After looking for a suitable replacement I gave up and settled for a 5330m that doesn't have anywhere near the same batterty life or screen quality.

Onto the 5330m: Straight out of the box, 98 running services! Ninety eight. No wonder the battery life is so very, very poor.

Windows score:
6.4 cpu (Core i3-2310m)
5.5 Ram (Only 2Gb right now)
4.5 GPU
6.0 Gaming
5.9 Hard d

Normally I would tweak the machine for maximum out of the box peformance, remove bloat, applications, but 98 running services means that I have one path and that's a clean install.

Next week: Crucial C300 256Gb SSD, another 4Gb ram, major tweaking but not vlite levels.

The machine:
It's quite nice and far thinner than the 8640p & Elitebook/Probook range currently available but will leave the 'fan damn well always on' test after tweaking. (Last week I had the 8640p and that fan was always on). The backlit keyboard is very nice.

 

New machine:
48 seconds boot to desktop then left for five minutes
98 processes
1.01GB ram usage


Bloatware removed: (I'm not being picky just removing most things)
Arcsoft Camera Suite
ArcSoft Webcam Sharing manager
Bing Bar
Cisco EAP-Fast Module/LEAP Module/PEAP Module
Energy Star Digital Logo
All protect tools (Depends on if you require them)
HP Day starter
HP Documentation
HP Power assistant
HP QuickWeb
HP Softpaq Download manager
HP Support assistant
HP Wallpaper
Intel Identity protection
PDF Complete special edition
VIP Access SDK

Windows Key+R, MSCONFIG: (Removed tick from)
File Sanitizer
Broadcom 802.11 wirel.. tray applet
IAStorIcon
Intel Common User interface x3
HPCMDDelayStart Application
Bluetooth Software

36 Seconds boot to desktop then left for five minutes
53 processes
721MB ram usage



Hibernation turned off
System restore turned off
Virtual memory turned off
Aero effects turned off


34 Seconds boot to desktop then left for five minutes
51 processes
668MB ram usage




Services that I have or can be Disabled: (If you're not on a domain. List copied from my Acer W500 and Asus EP121 tweak)
- Adaptive Brightness (Set to manual but I've disabled)
- Any Bluetooth services
- Desktop Windows Manager Session manager (Will disable Aero)
- Diagnostic System Host
- Diagnostic Service Host
- Distributed Link tracking Client
- Function Discovery Resource Publication
- HP AUto
- Intel management & Security Application User Notification service
- Intel management & Security Application LocalNotification service
- IP Helper
- IKE and AuthIP Ipsec keying modules
- All three Intel Services
- Memory clean (Thats a new one!?)
- Microsoft .Net framework NGEN V4.0 etc X64
- Microsoft .Net framework NGEN V4.0 etc X32
- Offline files
- Portable Device Enumerator Service
- Print Spooler (If you print, don't disable this one)
- Shell Hardware Detection
- SSDP Discovery
- Superfetch (Should grab back some memory from cached events)
- Themes (Probably better to leave this alone as things look horrible)
- Windows defender (Open WIn Defender first, Options, Don't use this)
- UPnP device host
- Validity VCS Fingerprint Service
- Windows Defender
- Windows Font Cache Service
- Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service
- Windows Presentation Foundation Font Cache 3.0.0.0
- Windows Search
- WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service

Other: (These are all set to manual and are not running)
- Disk Defragmenter
- Fax
- HomeGroup Listener
- HomeGroup Provider
- Remote Registry
- Smart Cards
- Volume Shadow Copy
- Windows Cardspace
- Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
- Windows Media Center Receiver Service
- Windows Media Center Scheduler Service

There are a few other HP services that can also be installed.

Probably needs a damn good defrag at this stage as there's no performance gain with a rotational drive at this stage.

50 seconds boot to desktop then left for five minutes
42 Services
506MB ram usage


I've never seen a machine reduce in boot time after tweaking but there's always a first time.




Conclussion:

It's a fast machine that will benefit from tweaking but what this machine REALLY needs is an SSD to really push the performance to another level. The services list above is my generic list and I'd suggest trial and put back to automatic on some of the HP services. Keep the framework service enabled. It will be interesting to see how the SSD performs with a clean install next week.


Thank you for reading.

 

CLEAN INSTALL:


Still a bit puzzled as to why Hp shipped this thing with 98 running processes but either way a clean install should improve matters considerably. The Crucial C300 256Gb SSD arrived today and here we go: (Home Prem 7 x64 with sp1 installed) I won't bother going into removing a whole load of Scheduled tasks as I'm sure that no-one's bothered.

Clean install: (After booting a couple of times)
15! seconds boot to desktop then left for five minutes
31 running processes
666Mb ram usage (Scary)

All Windows updates installed, hibernation turned off, no virtual memory, no sys restore, drivers below installed:
18 seconds boot to desktop then left for five minutes
41 running processes
829Mb ram usage

A ruck of services disabled and only the MSCONFIG 'startup tab' options below ticked:
16 seconds boot to desktop then left for five minutes
35 running processes
788Mb ram usage
Cpu at a stable and consistent 0%

Done.

I usually change the 'balanced' power profile for max battery at this point. Max cpu will be 10% etc



Drivers installed/Other:
(WebCam, Fingerprint, other disabled in Bios)
All Initial updates and drivers from Windows update
Intel 82579LM and 82579V Gigabit Ethernet Driver for Microsoft Windows
HP Framework
HP Backlit Keyboard Controls
JMicron Media Card Reader Driver
Installed the remaining updates which includes ie9
Visited Intel.com to use their auto update feature. (Please put your ie security settings back to high after)
HP Hotkey support
Synaptics touchpad driver
Broadcom Wireless driver (You may have a different one than mine)
HP Audio driver

The following have ticks placed next to them within MSCONFIGs startup tab:
QLBController
Nothing else

The above can be applied to the entire Elitebook/probook range.


16 Seconds from off to desktop and all enabled standard functions work with zero problems


Battery life & Conclusion: (Tomorrow)

 

Windows Experience index:
CPU: 6.4
Ram: 7.3 (6Gb now but will be 8Gb tomorrow)
Graphics: 4.8
Gaming: 6.3
HD: 7.9


Battery Life:
Cycle count: 1 (Only charged once so far and now on its second charge)
Battery age: 68 Days
Design capacity: 2800mAh
Full charge capacity: 2661mAh

Charge capacity: 95% (Great! Out of the box the battery has lost 5% of its possible charge.)





Battery Life Results:
I played 'The Abyss' non-stop from ripped vobs on the desktop at the lowest brightness, no wireless, audio via headphones and standing on my head: (Balanced power scheme, all set to max battery & cpu at 10% max)

Just over 3 hours

Not exactly the best battery time in the world. (The ACer W500 tablet manages 4hrs20mins)

 

Good news... the fan does stay off so this is a near silent machine. If HP decided to do so they could release an extended battery tomorrow but they won't. Compared to an 8640p the 5330m looks a whoke lot better but with battery life that won't impress anyone.

Shame as this is a very nice machine.

The back-light keyboard, virtually silent fan and speed are all worth the price of entry but the battery life really, REALLY needs to be resolved by HP. I wonder if anyone is listening over there or are they still trying with WebOS? Oh well.

 

I've now passed the 5330m onto my partner as she really likes the look of the thing and I've ordered a ProBook 6460b along with the CC09 extended battery; I will really miss the keyboard light but I'm sure I'll be ok. I just hope that the fan is also silent as the 8640p wasn't.

 

I liked the 5320M, but not this new design. I'll try with the 4X30s series, but I expect them to come without keyboard backlight.

 

We have a couple of that type of model here and one 17" version and they are very nice and I especially like the keyboard. The pictures of the 5330m don't really do it justice. Shame that the 5330 doesn't have a 6-cell battery like the 5320m

 

Temperature:
The machine is sitting in a reasonable UK room that's 26c.

Idle temp on tweaked balance power profile: 40c
Idle temp on high power power profile: 44c
Prime95 'oh heck I'm gonna explode blend' test: 79c

I didn't run the Prime test for too long as I'll NEVER use the machine in this fashion even while using for VM work. It's really a breath of fresh air to hear the fan fall back to nothing as soon as I stopped prime and changed to the balanced power profile. (Fan is now off)

 

Update: My girlfriend is absolutely LOVING this machine. She's not that concerned with battery life as she's used to laptops only having 1.5 ish hours anyway.

She adores the design and you can tell that the back-lit keyboard is heaven for her (Touch typist but it's SHINY). All in all she's a happy bunny which means I'm happy.

The fan also stays off pretty much 100% of the time (Unlike the other probook i5 models)


I've moved onto a Dell Vostro 131 as that has all of the above with the back-lit keyboard

 

I've been playing around with my new HP 5330m (Core i3, German keyboard layout) for about a week or so. I followed excalibur's above-mentioned instructions and removed all crapware as well as all preinstalled software I don't use.

I usually run the notebook with the power cord plugged in and the battery removed. In BIOS I disabled "fan always on when power cord plugged in".

Given this configuration, unfortunately, I cannot confirm that the fan "stays off pretty much 100% of the time".

What I can report is that the fan spins up to maximum rotation for 2 or so seconds (which is quite loud) once or twice a minute. Then, fan speed decreases immediately and the fan remains silent.

When I open a new tab in firefox or switch to thunderbird to check my emails (these tasks do not cause much CPU load), for instance, I almost always hear the fan spinning up immediately to maximum speed again.

Excalibur, did you have similar fan speed issues?

Regards

 

I'll check with my partner as she's now using the thing while I only tweaked, tested, did a few usual things but I don't recall the fan spinning up and then down twice every minute (I do have the SSD in mine though)

..However, I did SELL my Envy 14 due to the exact same thing. Every 10/20 or so seconds the fan would spin up (like it was about to take off) and then literally the next second go back to normal. A whole load of people have the same issue but put up with it.

I'm currently testing a Dell Vostro 131 against the 5330m so will have a chance to use the 5330m later on

 

Been using the 5330m now for 40 minutes and the fan hasn't turned on once :/

 

Thanks a lot for letting me know! However, I decided to send the notebook back to the online shop where I ordered it. Fortunately I have a 14-day right of revocation... I'm used to my very silent 2009 mac mini. That's probably why I found the probook's fan running way too loud...