*HP EliteBook 8540w Owners Lounge!*

Are you kidding? Even my Intel integrated graficcard runs flip 3D smooth in WUXGA with lots of opened windows!

 

Guy's, I have read all posts on this thread and also on Dell M4500 owners lounge. I do have Dell E6400 - and it is not built as D630 was - I did had in hands 8530p and I was really impressed. Lately I had some time to test with 6930p. I am missing information like "is 8540w also built so sturdy despite weight?" "Can you grab it on the corner safely?" [I would forgot: some photos for size comparison 8540w seems big but I'm pretty sure it is not THAT big, I saw photos in this thread it would be nice if author put 14" laptop side to side to 8540w] .... and what about temperatures inside? Temps. of i7 , FX880 ..... idle, load... We really need thorough review! Please I'm more in HP camp right now but still a bit though to decide?!

 

That's what I said, mid-to-high range nVidia = intel integrated, because for desktop work that's a matter of fillrate. Also the Intel card won't feature FSAA in Aero like an nVidia card (this can have an impact).
If you take a low nVidia card, like my Quadro FX 350 in its time (based on GeForce 7300) you will get very poor results. For example, it was not even enough to blit a fullscreen image @ 60 fps on Vista. By now drivers are a little more optimized and you can get ~100 fps, but that's still very tight.
For a GPU it is really hard to draw a quad with a big texture attached, they are optimized for small triangles, and the performance diminishes exponentially with the size of the textures, notably because of cache issues.

 

Lol, FX880M is enough to run most current games at medium and above. My W510 (880M)can handle every game at max details so far. Only Crysis is pushed to medium. The card is quite powerful.

 

Try GTA 4 with shadows then. I can easily play it on 1440x900 with settings somewhere between medium and high (except for shadows) on my 1800M, but as soon as I turn shadows on performance drops by ~25%.

 

Is there an email I can contact you at to discuss this?

 

Will Intel's Core 2011 line-up be that much faster?

 

Sure.

knight427 at yahoo dot com

 

1) It's sturdy as a rock. Best built notebook I had so far! Corner grapping doesn't cause any flexinng or bending.

2) My temps (core i7-720QM and FX 1800) are (idle/load):
CPU 49-52°C / 82°C
GPU 50°C / 86°C

3) Here some pics of the inside of my 8540w (I planed to change the thermal grease so I opend the hole machine) and to compare the 8540w with a Thinkpad T510, T500 and X300. Don't be confused I changed the black trackstyk cover with a Thinkpad Trackpoint Dome.

 

Of course the performance will drop. GTA4, Crysis, and Metro2033 (maybe a few more) are tough even for my alien.
But the 95% will run smooth.

 

Hi. I got my 8540p (I'm sorry, there's no 8540p owners lounge - so I hope it's ok if I use this thread) Thursday and opened the package today. I am quite impressed by the sturdiness of the machine except for the bezel. I can significantly press into the bezel, especially on the left side and when pressing on the lower right part (just where the model number is) I can hear it creaking.
Did I have bad luck or do others also have that?

Thanks
archre

 

I also have a bezel that you can press into...i would say that it isnt that flimsy, but its not as sturdy as the rest of the computer (good 1-2mm of flex)...but i would say that they did this on purpose. Since, lets say that you drop the computer and the right corner of the bezel hits the ground...it would be able to have a shock impact buffer to take away some of the force from the screen. It is the same concept as throwing a ball and catching it without moving your hand (it might hurt)...now catch the ball while moving your hand back. This will slowly decrease the speed of the ball instead of an instantaneous stop. The monitor because of this flex is protected since if the bezel was hard...most of the force would be transferred to the screen (like a pendulum). So don't worry about the flex in the bezel Also about the creaking, I can hear a click type noise if i press hard enough...but nothing "Creaking". If it creeks under normal use (opening and closing lid) then I would be worried, but if it only creeks when u press into the bezel its probably nothing....but it never hurts to call hp support.

-My result for the creaking might not be the same since I have the 8540w

 

Is it just me or does the HP display seem more vivid than the T510's?

@ Intoxicate, what kinds of screens do you have on both machines? Can you comment on relative quality of the two?

Thanks

 

The displays on the HP are relatively "standard" colorwise. Except getting a little too far in the greens and a little less in blues. Reds are standard, though, giving natural oranges and pink tones, particularily good for skin.
So I don't know about the lenovo's but if they produce more natural greens they might seem less vivid as a side effect.
(But they might also just be not as good as the HPs... I'm just making suppositions)

 

Thanks INTOXICATE ! Those photos gave some perspective. It looks like HP 8540w is awsome machine. You also manage to "catch" real color of it! That's also nice to see. I'm a bit worried about load temps. They are quite high, aren't they?! In my Lenovo T60 (old 35 Watt C2D) it goes up to 55-65C but nowhere near 82C! Same in E6400 (even better) for C2D 8600 - 30C idle , 52 load (but this is 25W cpu so ... different story).
I'm now using a lot of VM's (for software testing purposes) and with 4GB RAM it is fine but not great (especially big Database Srv.) I can only imagine how would this 'fly' on i7 configured with SSD I suppose. Does anyone using VM's ?

 

1) Temps seem to be high at a first look. But realizing that the core i7 also have the controller built in those temps seems to be quiet good. The memory conroller etc. should cause around 10W (don't have the link to the intel statement at hand) so the 35/45W are comparable to 25/35W last gen cpus.
On my Precision M4400 i got the same CPU temps and even higher GPU temps (around 90°C). And I meassured the load temps under extreme load (furmark + 3DMark06 at the same time).

2) For VMs the 8540w is great. I have 8GB and 4 cores together with a second hdd, even with 2 VMs runnning tasks I can normal work with the 8540w. I think VMs are a main advantage for the i7-720 (4cores and 4 SO-Dimms) compared to the much higher clocked dual core i7-620.

The T510 came with a LG display, the 8540w came with a AUO screen.
The difference are comparable with former LG vs Samsung screens. The LG panels have a lot more blue. Without any adjustments the LG looks a bit brighter, colder and the AUO has a little more grain, due to the more mate surface of the screen. The LG looks very clear almost glossy clear, that's why I first changed the panels. What I didn't like about the LG is the weaker contrast. Pictures looks a bit blurry and text is not as sharp as on the AUO. While the colors looks more vivid, they seem to be off. So you need to calibrate the LG screen. The AUO comes out of the box with more acurate colors.

After tweaking the screens both screens improved a lot. I unfortunately don't have my spyder 3 tools anymore, so I just can eyeball the tweaking comparing the screen with my Dell U2410. In combinating with my U2410 the AUO is the better match. I finally ended up replacing the panels again. So I have the 8540w with the AUO screen and the T510 with the LG screen. I will keep the 8540w. I made some additional photo of the screens. This time the 8540w has the AUO the T510 has the LG. To me the AUO is a bit more natural, the LG is a bit clearer (almost glossy like).
I forget my camera-cable, but will post some pics of the tweaked screens soon.

After all I'd say they're on par. Interesting for me was the difference I saw when I changed the LG screen from the T510 (Intel) to the 8540w (NVidia) and saw that the screen looked different. So it's not only the panel itself, it also depends on the panel-graficcard-combination. So after all that changing, tweaking you're going to get nuts. Any combination seems to have it's advantages so I decided to get back to stock to not loose the guaranty.

The good news: Panel swapping is very easy. You just need to take of the bezel and loose the screws that hold the panel to the display cover. Then carefully unplug the display connector on the back, done. The last swap took me around 10min. So if the dreamcolor 2 screen will be available and not too expansive you can easily upgrade.

 

Thank you very much
Do you think the AUO has better viewing angles?

 

Well, I cannot compare the AUO with the LG, but my AUO came with quite inaccurate colors (with a lot of blue, like other WLED screens I've seen). So I've calibrated it with my Spyder3Pro, and it made a tremendous difference! Now it has great colors, and I can also confirm that it has good contrast/blacks, text looks very sharp and photos are definitely not washed out. I strongly recommend to calibrate the screen, it's really worth it!

 

No, they're on par. Both don't have the best viewing angles, you get the best image when sitting in perfekt position in front of the screen. Changing position reduces brightness but doesn't change color as much as old screens.

Yes, after tweaking the screen definately lost the slightly washed out look. Could you please post your Spyder icc profile for your AUO screen! I've looked all forums for a profile but didn't find anything yet.

 

Thanks for your comment. Actually it is more a clicking than a creaking...

 

Btw. As i'm gonna use the machine for mobile music production I'm currently testing the DPC latency.
In idle I have occasional spikes going up to 2ms, but when running Ableton Live (haven't install Cubase yet, which I will do later) with Asio4All drivers I get latency values well below 1ms, mostly even below 200ums which is nice.

 

It would be great if you could upload your Spyder icc profile for AUO!

 

The problem is that we have different panels. I have a 1600x900 AUO panel and I see that you have a 1920x1080 one. Intoxicate, what about you? With that cute config, I'm pretty sure you have Full HD

 

Assuming this is accurate and the M5800 is definitely based on the Radeon 58xx series, then the M5800 has to be at least as good as a 5830 with DDR3 memory, correct?

Does anyone have the Elitebook with the M5800 yet?

 

I choose the HD+ screen and got the AUO too, that's why I asked for the profile!

120DPI seems to be small enough for me. Well if I could choose the dreamcolor 2 ips panel I'd live with even 140 DPI (or use the win 7 scaling). A normal FHD screen on 15,6" seems to me way to fine (I hardly liked WUXGA on a 17" screen or WSXGA+ on a 15,4" screen).

It depends on the clocks. The new MacBook Pros grafics uses GeForce 330 GTs and due to their limited clockspeeds they are slower than other 330GTs.

But the 8540w can handle a FX 1800m so the 5830 should be no problem at all. Regarding to the power consumption of the M5800 is should even be faster as a 5830.

 

Looks like my 8740W plans are going up in smoke with their dropping the DreamColor screens.

So, I'm looking at the 8540W. I don't want 17" without DreamColor; does the 8540W's FHD have a 95% gamut like the W510?

 

Would be interested in an answer to that question, too.

 

Same here sir!

 

95% of which gamut?
Adobe RGB no, sRGB probably, even the HD+ screen has a better color gamut than most consumer notebooks (--> notebookcheck.com) but if you want full Adobe RGB color gamut you will have to wait for the dreamcolor 2 screen which will blow away any other screen in notebooks today!

 

Except that the DC2 is apparently discontinued!

 

OK, here's the ICC profile for my 1600x900 AUO with native white point. The panel has 82% sRGB and 58% Adobe RGB gamut.

 

Whatever gamut Lenovo was advertising for their W510. I was rather happy with its screen after calibration, and its brightness was great.

Yes, I'd rather have a DreamColor 2. In fact, that's what I have ordered with my 8740W, but if you check the last page of the 8740W owners lounge, you'll notice that HP's canceling orders right now for early purchasers of the 8740W + DC2 panel.

So, since it appears I can't have DC2, I'm wanting to know if the 8540W's 1080p panel is as good as the W510's was. If not, I will sell off the 8GB RAM, docking station, and hdd/optical bay adapter I bought, give HP the same finger I gave Lenovo when they screwed up the W510, and just stick with the X201 until the next generation of laptop comes out.

 

Hi,
I have hp 8540w with intel i5 processor and 4 gb ram, im planing on buying two Kingmax so-dimm ddr3 4gb 1066Mhz ram and replacing two existing HP ddr3 2gb 1333mhz rams, because my model has only 2 ram slots and intel i5 supports ram to max 1066mhz. So any experiences with kingmax ram?
P.S.
Kingmax rams are about 20% cheaper than HP ddr3 4bg 1333mh (AT913AA).

 

They're showing the FHD as being a 220 Nit screen. The W510's 95% Gamut was a 270 Nit.

My X201 is 200 nit.

I have a feeling I'm going to be better off simply abandoning everyone right now and skipping this generation of i7 CPUs.

 

Great news, so the panel is colorwise even a bit better than the latest MacBook Pro screens. Thanks for the profile, it improved the colors but seems a bit washed out. Which settings did you used for the calibration? I used the profil to eyeball the colors with the nvidia settings and got a similar result with darker colors. I will probably buy a spyder 3 tools for myself to get the best out of the screen.

 

Yeaaahhh! Just picked up my brand new 8540w Model WD929EA (Europe/Austria). 620M, 880FX, 1900something Display, 8GB. If anyone has specific questions, wants some pictures or any test run: feel free to ask.

 

Hey Audioworld, you could be the first with a full blown review In the meantime, I have a few questions:

1. Whats the real weight of the machine?
2. Comments and pics on the FHD display. Feel free to compare with other displays.
3. Some benchies and performance info of both CPU(trying to decide between 620M and 820QM) and GPU would be good. Real world usage like photoshop, etc if possible.
4. Battery life comments in variety of scenarios.
5. Comments on cooling and fan noise (and any other noises like CPU whine, etc).

Thanks in advance.

 

Hi Techanimal, glad you ask, let me give you some first impressions:

- the case feels solid and "technical", not as smooth as I thought (compared to a new VAIO which my wife just bought), more like metal...
- the screen is quite "Narrow" due to the 16:9 aspect ratio screen. I have to get used to this, was working on 16:10 for years. The frame around the screen is broader than I thought, especially on top, this adds to the "Narrow" feeling of the display. Not bad, but bot as impressive as I would have hoped for.
- The keys are not as wonderful as I read from the first reviews. the space bar is quite floppy, and the typing noise is much louder than on my old HP8220x.

- the keyboard layout is mhhhhh.. I have to get used to this, too... The Trackpad is out-of-center far to the left, which gives my hand/palm a pain after 10 minutes of usage. I ALWAYS use the trackpad as I do not have room for the mouse, and with this off-center placement.. mhh... gives me some pain.
- additionally, it is quite hard for me to hit the correct keys, also a matter of getting used to, especialy the Backspace/Return key, and Delete. I think I will NEVER use the numerical extension to the right of the keys, and feel sad about the wasted space and the off-center main keyboard.
--> additionally, this left-off-center-trackpad (I have to repeatr this) gives me a HARD time to hit the left mouse button! it is very smal compared to my previous one, and I often often often hit the middle mouse button. damn!

- there is NO CPU WHINING whatsoever on my machine
- fan noise is acceptable during web browsing: one can hear it, but its soft. I did not use any apps with high CPU load so far.

- the screen is very good. I can compare it to my old HP8220xp and this was MUCH darker. The VAIO next to me is glossy and I hate it. The EIZO Flexscan 2231W screen on the desktop in the next room is still MUCH better, though. The balance of the brightness across the screen, viewing angle, the balance of colors, everything. So yes, it is bright and everything pops out on the 8540w, but it is not as balanced as a real Desktop screen in my opinion.
- the high resolution of 1920x1080 is really good, I was anxious to choose it over the 1600 resolution as I thought everyhing might be too small to read, but no, it is really good and I can recommend it.

about the weight: my human body scale does not register the weight, and I have no kitchen scale, so it is not easy to give you an answer to this at the moment. there was VERY good advice in this forum, though: I ordered the smaller model with the 880FX card instead of the 1800, and the power adapter is indeed the 90W type, which is very small and light. THANK YOU, forum!!!!!!

I will make a fresh Windows install later (now typing with the HP default), and will add some apps (Photoshop, Ableton Live, Wavelab, Sony VEGAS, Adobe After Effects etc...) over the next hours/days. CPU tests with the fresh OS, and also Battery tests later on.

 

Thanks a lot Audioworld. Given your concerns about the keyboard and the touchpad (and also your config) it seems you could have gone for the W510 Lenovo with the FHD screen (assuming they are available). I suspect that might have been more pleasing with regards to typing and touchpad control.

Looking forward to more info from you. Thanks again

 

TechAnimal: I was exactly torn between the W510 and the 8540w. for 5 weeks I decided the pros and cons. Both machines were not available here in my town, so it was just browsing the web. I decided for the HP because: 1) I have a HP8220nx in DAILY use since 4 years without ANY problem. 2) our company has good connections to HP (=good price, good support). 3) there are reports on the web that the USB and Firewire performance of the W510 is choppy for real-time media (I use Video+Audio INterfaces over USB and Firewire). 4) the W510 has a combined mic+heaphone jack, which is absolutely unusable for me (I work a LOT with sound, also onboard sound) and 5) it has no old-fashioned VGA port which I need often for simple beamers (and I always loose the adaptors..).

 

Well the W510 has a VGA port too!



That's said, I compared the Thinkpad with the Elitebook 1:1 and choose the Elitebook too

 

Could you elaborate on why you chose the Elitebook? I'm still torn apart between it and the W510. Though, audioworld confirmed my fear that the 8540w's input devices (keyboard, touchpad, trackpoint) are far inferior to those of the W510.

 

W510 has it's advantages. The keyboard and the trackpoint/trackpad are absolutely amazing and also the build is very solid. Decent cooling and so far very impressive performance.

Personally I'd pick HP only because it's metal and semi-rugged.

 

I also like the metal construction of the 8540w over the W510, though I'm not sure that one is any more rugged than the other --- and if you want an argument the other way, the W510 (5.9lb+) is a bit lighter than the 8540w (6.4lb+) as a result. I don't know about these specific models, but I've found the elitebook keyboards to be every bit as good as the thinkpads. And just to "help" your torn feelings some more, despite some deficiencies, I'm not sure that among the 15" mobile workstations I wouldn't take a Dell M4500 over either the W510 or the 8540w .

 

LOL @ Thecla. Thanks for nothing mate I'd sworn off Dell after my experiences with the Latitudes and Inspirons (typing this on an Inspiron 8200..lol) but looks like i'll take a closer look. Grrrr......

 

My job is done here.

 

LMAO. The dell came to 3000usd after instand discount for a slightly worse config than i'm looking at on the HP (2400usd). Dell has better screen but HP wins on graphics chip, memory banks, USB 3.0 and price.

 

Hi,
I had same problem like audioworld, i was deciding about a month between 8540w and w510 and went for 8540w because it has numeric keyboard (huge + for notebook) and it has 5 USB ports (3x2.0, 2x3.0) and did i mention it has superior build quality. Keyboard is something you need to get used to. Weight is just about right i don't see much difference between my old nc8430 and 8540w, though 8540w is definitely thicker.

 

A couple of requests here:

1. Could we have a recap of the issues observed with the 8540w and the fixes (if any)?
2. Has anyone received one with the Ati workstation card? Any confirmation on which variant (5830, 5850, 5870) its based on and any benchmarks, etc?
3. Comparisons of the FHD display to either the Lenovo FHD, Apple MBP or Dell M6500/XPS 16 or similar quality display.

Thanks loads in advance

 

sorry to jump right into it, but is there a fix for the fan issue yet?
greetz