*HP EliteBook 8540w Owners Lounge!*

I have the caddy already (the one from newmodeus), and I am waiting on my laptop...I will take pictures and maybe a video + review on monday/tuesday (I should receive my laptop on Monday, from their I will install caddy and windows 7 64bit, drivers, etc then if I have time I'll post some pictures).

If you want I can post some pictures of just the caddy itself with a drive installed...

In terms of build quality though, it is pretty well built. Also a plus in my opinion is that since the screws used for the installation are small, they give you around 2x the needed amount of screws ...(p.s. the screws require the super small screwdrivers not your normal philips or flathead).

 

If you could that would be awesome.

I'm interested in picking one up but I want to make sure the quality is good and it matches the laptop.

The HP model with the hard drive installed is very pricey compared to this one.

I should be seeing my laptop in a day or two. I ordered from tigerdirect.

Thank you!

 

I got my 8540p, yesterday.

I have noticed the fan rattles easily. It has no uniform noise.
(Der Lüfter hat keine gleichmäßige Bewegung. Es hat ein leichtes rattern.)
Can anyone confirm this ?


@me7
I had this problem with a Lenovo T410,too.
The Power Adapter and the notebook was frying inside.
I could hear the noise from 1 meter distance. Nothing helped me to resolve this problem.
My 8540p with SSD has this noise, too. But its very very quit. I can hear the noise only in nearest distance.
So if you hear the frying at 1 meter distance than its not normal.

 

Well, the USB mouse problem is worse than I thought. If I'm moving the mouse while Windows is booting up, it freezes (at the beginning of the logo animation). I think it's a quite serious BIOS bug, which should be reported to HP, but first, I would like to make sure this is not an isolated case. 8540w/p users, could you please check this out? Thanks!

 

When you say your booting up your computer and it freezes does it freeze during the first stage of bootup (aka when the screen of the hp logo comes up) or does it freeze when you see the windows logo/login screen.

Does it happen with all the mice or is it all mice

Did you install any drivers for the mice????? or did windows automatically find the driver.

If it freezes when you see the windows logo/login screen you might have a driver issue or something like that so maybe (hate to say it) you might want to reinstall windows.....or locate a bad driver.

 

Mine is not an AUO, its ID is LGD0258. The angles are maybe worse than yours, but I can tell you the display is not grainy (it is only a little depending on the angle of vision, but I don't think it's caused by the antiglare filter, but to the film).
And I second your hapiness with the resolution. At 96 DPI it's the perfect compromise between comfort and space.

 

sounds good. its scores just like the 9700 gts. i know this cos i was chatting to some1 on youtube about hes benchmarks etc for resident evil.
im looking 4ward to gta iv marks. i would like to know what is the max res u can use and maintain over 30 fps. ideally around 1440+x900+ and above with out it throttling.

 

Here are the pictures of the NewmodeUs caddy for the elitebook.

Sorry for the somewhat mediocre picture quality, I snapped them with my iphone.

http://popegame.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=127&Itemid=1

 

It freezes right at the beginning of the Windows logo animation. I did not install any drivers, but it's not a driver related issue, because moving the mouse (or typing on a USB keyboard) also freezes memory diagnostic programs (or produces memory errors!), which run outside any OS. I've tried this with two different mouses. Check out my previous post for a more detailed description of this problem.

 

my 8540w fhd i7-720 1800fx arrived right now installing windows ...

 

Yup, but to be honest I think it would be more useful to say that to HP directly than us
All business notebooks I have had, had flaws. Maybe not as evident as this one, but that's my first HP anyway. And it's an all new architecture, we had to be expecting issues to happen. I think they've done not so bad considering that fact.
Now I love my machine anyway. But HP really has got to fix these problems! (at least the fan, but the VT bug would be very appreciable too, and for the mid click and somewhat "strange" USB implementation, I guess they can't do anything).

 

When you plug your mouse and keyboard in what USB ports are you using. The USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 (or an ESATA/USB combo port if the elitebook has that one).

If you are using the USB 3.0 ports try plugging it into a USB 2.0 port.

Or if you are already in a USB 2.0 port go to USB 3.0 (and try it with different usb ports). This will test if its a USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 issue, or if its an issue with specific ports.

 

The ID of my panel is AUO 01EE. Maybe the ws get the LG and the ps get the AUO. The angles are better than most consumer laptop LCD's I've seen, but are obviously worse than my 24" S-PVA monitor's (HP LP2465). My AUO's angles look pretty much the same as MentatYP's.

 

EDIT: I've tried with different USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports and Windows freezes only if you plug the mouse into a USB 2.0 port, but the memory diagnostic tools still detect problems or freeze if you plug it into a USB 3.0 port.

 

I do not have such problems with my Logitech cordless mouse plugged in USB2

The only issue i had was with my usb sound card plugged in the USB3, the sound stopped after a little time, i plugged out then in and worked again (much better than with Vista who had problems switching to external soundcard).

Now that the sound card is plugged on USB2 i don't have any more problems.

For now my 8540w works perfect!!!

P.S: Did you ordered one without OS?

 

Well, if you're not moving the mouse (plug it into any USB 2 port) continuously right before and during the Windows booting process, it will probably not freeze. Is this the way you've tested this? Also, do you get memory problems if you run the Windows Memory Diagnostic and you move the mouse during testing?

By the way, my laptop (WD921EA) came pre-installed with Windows 7 Professional 32-bit, but a 64-bit (and a 32-bit too) installation DVD was included, and I've used that to reinstall the system. I didn't have to enter a key, it was automatically activated.

 

I'll retry to move continously my mouse when booting. But i'm used to move my mouse waiting the log in screen and did not experience any freeze nor crash.

I'll try on later tests.

 

Thanks for the mini review.

+rep


p.s. Let us know how the fitment and color matching goes when you machine. Thanks again.

 

I've noticed that when I close my laptop to a 45 degree angle it treats it as if I have closed the lid and it goes into sleep/hibernation (whichever you have it set at). Anybody know how to keep it from doing this? I close it to 45 degrees often but I want it to stay on. Ideally I wouldn't want it to sleep/hibernate unless I close it completely.

 

I played around with Crysis on my 1800M/720qm. On 720p in DX9 mode with no AA and everything set to high except for shaders, which were set to medium, I got an average 33 fps in the GPU benchmark. The benchmark is supposed to stress the GPU more then the actual singleplayer campaign.
I also played a multiplayer map alone in a LAN game with said settings, fps were usually between 30 and 40. The biggest fps drop I was able to reproduce was to 27 when standing before a lot of grass that had shadows from trees on it. Very playable.

 

thats tight. i cant really imagine the m5800 been better than it. prob the same. unless they are tuning it to be better than this before releasing it.

 

But I was pushing the system's limits. If there were other players on the map and explosions going on the framerate could drop too low. Also consider that "high" isn't the highest setting, there's still "very high".

Coming up next...GTA IV (installing it right now).

 

It doesn't sound that great to me. I at least hoped it performes as a 9800GT. A 9700 GTS ist a bit disappointing (72 vs 48 almost double the shaders and GDDR5 instead of GDDR3 so it should boost the 128bit bus to act like a 256bit bus with GDDR3).

Here are some pics of the hdd caddy, also in comparison with a thinkpad caddy.
I placed my Intel SSD in it to show that there's also enough place to fit larger 12,7mm drives as the new 750GB oder 1000GB drives by WD.

 

GTA IV Benchmark at 1440x900 with most settings set to "high" including vsync and a draw distance of 40/100 (console versions use 21/100).

I drove around the city with a fairly fast car and it didn't feel sluggish at any point but it's very possible that it went below 30fps from time to time. I already played the X360 version and the 8540w at that settings felt smoother to me.

I wasn't able to use the newest patch (update 6) since the game just didn't want to run after I installed it (I run the exe, some loading happens in Windows, then Windows goes back to idle, no error message - just silence). The benchmark was done with update 5, which worked fine.

 

Was thinking the same thing, have they used lower frequencies to keep the heat in check or something, the cooling pipe layout doesn't look very efficient on this model looking at the online manual drawings, one large shared heatpipe going from the GPU over the cpu also, with the cpu having another tiny heatpipe of it's own....the M4500 looks to have a far more substantial cooling setup....but no GDDR5.

Good info on the opt drive bay thanks.

 

GTA 4 seems to be more CPU critically, so it's nice to see the i7 720 can handle that game. Could you do some other game like Dirt 2 or Call of Duty 6 (those games were often used to do some testings on notebookcheck and others).

My 8540w finally arrived (i7 720, Quadro FX 1800, HD+, Intel 80GB SSD + 500gB HDD, 4GB (will be upgraded to 8GB)) but I'm very busy next week so I will not get into testing soon

 

I don't have Dirt 2 but I will do CoD MW2.

 

I played some Modern Warfare 2 and checked the framerate with fraps. Playing at 720p, 2xAA and everything set to maximum delivered solid 30+ framerates for most outdoor parts. Lots of smoke/snow could cause a dip below 30 though. In the first real mission, you drive in a car with a mounted machine gun. As you enter the town the screen is filled with dust and the framerate is closer to 20 then 30. But before any enemies appear the dust settles and I got solid 30-45 fps for outdoor and sometimes 50+ indoor. Setting the resolution to 1440x900 didn't impact the framerate much, except for the dust part where it fell to ~15.

Since the game doesn't provide a benchmark tool I can't give you a performance figure, but it is very enjoyable at highest/close to highest settings.

 

well the 1800m performs exactly as i predicted which was same as 9700 gts/quadro 2700m.
To the guy that expected the performance to be around the 9800GT is a bit too hopeful. but could happen with overclock.
i think you should of checked on the nvidia website on it. it states its a midrange card. it would have to be a midrange card couple years from now to be the same or better perfomance to the 9800GT.

I think everyone sshould be happy with there 1800m cos if they had the quadro 880m then the perfomance is close to 20% less than the 1800m.

 

Well 48 vs 72 shaders and GDDR3 vs GDDR5 looked more like a 50% plus, but probably the cooling system made HP limit the Quadro FX1800m.

Could someone pull of the keyboard an take a photo of the cooling system. On the service manual it looks a bit like the old M4400 system. And Dell improved the M4500 cooling system a lot to get the i7 and FX1800 cooled (M4400 left, M4500 right larger fan, more heatpipes):

 

So I took off my wireless card slot cover on the bottom of my laptop and there is no card installed in the actual slot. Is it supposed to be like that?There is one loose wire hanging there and the other wire seems to be plugged in. Is this supposed to be like that. The think is my wirless seems to be working just fine.

Also, I installed windows 7 pro 64. I can't seem to find the bluetooth driver. Can any of you guys point me into the right direction?

 

Did you buy the fully equipped model with bluetooth + broadband + GPS + Wireless? If not, then it's no wonder that you have loose wires hanging there.

 

hi guys,

yesterday i recieved my 8540w and i noticed straight away a defective dot/pixel on the bottom right of the screen. i don't know if it's dead or stuck... it's redish on white background and blue on black backgrounds.
what do you think? should i send it back? it should be no problem within the 21 days right?

 

I purchased a pre configured model from tigerdirect. This is what the specs page says:
Communications Description: Integrated LAN
Integrated Modem
Integrated Wireless
Integrated Bluetooth

I know I have bluetooth, I saw it there in xp before I upgraded and it's in the slot on the bottom of the laptop.

I am still concerned about the wireless card slot being empty. Is it because it is "integrated" wirless?

 

Do these have a 21 day return policy like the hp home division?

 

hello guys

i'm really interested in the 8540w right now
but can you please tell me about the 1920x1080 screen ?
- is it glossy ?
- is it a pro or a con of the thing ?

thanks

anthony, from france

 

I'm pretty sure that slot is only for the GPS+Wireless Broadband (aka ATT, Verizon, or Sprint) card.

EDIT: Lolz it thinks that I live in Ni not USA....oh well.

 

I am pretty sure they have a 30 day return from the SMB (small, medium business) division, which sells the Elitebooks online. Can't say I read it, but a salesman from HP told me that. Check it out.

 

i don't think it does well with XP. I have another one with Win7 64 bit and its always fast! Need XP to run engineering software here at work so XP it is one one for another 6 months.

 

Finally there are two top-end preconfigured models available here in Austria, Europe: WD929EA and WD930EA. Both are almost identical (620M CPU, 8GB RAM, hi-res display, blue-ray drive), but the latter one is $250 more expensive because of:
NVIDIA1800M instead of 800M
Mobile Wireless (=UMTS in Europe)
GPS receiver

Would you pay $250 just for those three features?
Does the 1800M help for Video Editing (Adobe After Effects) compared to the 800M (I am not into gaming)???
Would one ever need a GPS receiver in a Laptop (inside a room most of the time)?
The UMTS modem can be easily replaced by a USB stick...

Thank you for helping me make my final purchase decision!

 

Now why can't the States get a couple pre-configured top-end machines, eh?

 

@audioworld: if you are not a gamer, then the 800M is a big advantage, since it has lower wattage.
Your laptop will work longer on battery.

 

yep i guess that solve that since you got another one that shows different perfomances with win7 installed.
cant u use that program in xp mode when u select the compatibilty mode thing for that that program?

 

I finally got my 8540w...YAY. I also have the standby issue were the fan runs at 100% after leaving standby on ac power. All I can say is it is the best laptop I have ever owned. With an ssd this thing is a beast. nuff said.

 

I also have the standby issue with the fan. It doesn't bother me much though.. Other than that one gripe, this laptop is just awesome. The build quality is excellent and solid.

 

Yeah...just as a simple overview of the laptop (i will have a better review near the end of the weak when I'm done with all my work :-( )

Build quality: Excellent, their is no flex anywhere in the laptop that I can detect, their is no flex on the palm, bottom, keyboard, number-pad...etc

Keyboard: Excellent as well...I would put it below or equal to thinkpad keyboards. The keys are springy (aka not mushy) but quiet. They feel very durable...like hard plastic. The keys also travel down just enough, and require the exact amount of force. If you were to go to best-buy and look at all the keyboards on the laptops their...this one would rank #1. Like I said, this is an amazing keyboard.

Mouse: above-average. The mouse touchpad is a bit small, but it is very responsive and will still cover the screen quite nicely. On top of that you have the "nipple" which works loads better than any dell nipple i have used, and performs just as well as the thinkpad's nipple. The mouse buttons on the keyboard are hinged (for the touchpad)...what I mean by that is they are connected like a door...the top part of the key does not move down at all, where as the farthest southern part of the key moves the most...this is not that much of a negative as much as something weird feeling...its kind of mushy but clicky at the same time...lol (im sure I'll get used to it).

Performance-fast, really fast (especially with an ssd)

Screen-average...nothing amazing but its def. good enough. Also its ANTI-GLARE (which is +1000 in my book)

Speakers/sound-average, the speakers are ok nothing to amazing, but not bad either...and the sound card in the laptop is the same. You will not be blown away by the highs and lows....etc but it will get the job done, while sounding pretty good.

Wireless-above average....better wireless than my old macbook pro

features-well the business card webcam software actually works...it will take a picture of a business card and pull the info from it (name, address, phone number, company, etc) with I would say anywhere from 100% to 85% accuracy. The fingerprint reader actually works too, unlike lenovo's. The nightlight is kind of cool I guess, maybe I 'might' use it on a plane???

yeah all in all, i would say the negatives in this laptop are only little nit picking details like my t-shirt has a loose thread type things. The standby issue is semi annoying but is not that big of a deal. I would give this laptop an A+ from my experience.

Oh yeah...and if you get it pre-installed with windows xp...and it gives you the 32bit disc, just get the iso for the 64bit professional (on the internet from digital river/microsoft) and install with the key your given...activate over the phone, and use the driver disc that hp gives you. Thats it.

 

hello
anyway, as far as longer battery life is concerned, i suppose that it's possible to switch between the 800M and the embedded Intel HD video ?

thanks for your reply

anthony

 

i5 and i7 have integrated graphic card.. but how you switch?

 

i suppose you can switch by right-clicking on the desktop, or smth like that ?
can an owner of the 8540w confirm that ?
thanks a lot
anthony

 

No !

You can't ! As Lenovo and Dell, HP didn't implemented NVidias Optimus technology, because it wasn't available when they designed their notebooks. So you can't switch between the graphic cards, unfortunately.

On the other hand, the Quadro FX only uses 3 watt on idle, it's not that bad!