*HP EliteBook 8540w Owners Lounge!*

That's a shame.

I like to have all the screen real estate I can get, and that seems like a step backward for the "next generation" of the 8500 series.

-DR

 

I agree, 16:9 is ridiculous on a 15" screen. This is _not_ progress.

 

Unfortunately companies think about cost first and the main panel suppliers to HP have been switching production to 16:9.

 

Scary thing is that even desktop monitors have largely moved away from 16:10 as well . . . and TONS of them are selling 1080p as WUXGA, making life more difficult on the searching side.

 

It's the same thing as for laptops. Just like computer memory, most of the parts you find are from the same few manufacturers just rebadged under a different ODM.

 

hey guys, can anyone link me to pictures of the interior of this laptop? im curious if these newer graphics cards are still on the MXM 2.1 interface

edit:
ahh it looks to be mxm 3.0a http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/globalciti...iCountry/disassembly_notebo_2009122901017.pdf

maybe it will be easier to hack past that whitelisting huh?

 

Yah, I was just really hoping that there was more remaining demand in the desktop market, where people often want *larger* screens, portability isn't a concern, and there are more high-powered systems. Seems this is not particularly the case.

Wonder when we'll see ridiculous-dot-pitch 2560x1600 notebooks . . . actually @ half the dpi of a current smartphone, you could get that in 17" . . .

 

I have another problem with my 8540w
I can hear high pitch/buzzing noise comming from the bottom of the laptop (where RAM slots are located)
it's not very loud, but since I noticed it I can now hear it all the time and it's pretty annoying
Does anyone else having the same problem?

 

I have 1800m. Yes and no.. sometimes gpu is loaded to ~80% sometimes nothing..(see attachment) I think we will have to wait for direct support. Adobe do not have this gpu on support list, so you must add it in "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro CS5\cuda_supported_cards.txt". You can test support with "GPUSniffer.exe" in same directory. Output must be something like this:

Code:

Device: 00000000001B4488 has video RAM(MB): 1024
Vendor string:    NVIDIA Corporation
Renderer string:  Quadro FX 1800M/PCI/SSE2
Version string:   3.0.0

OpenGL version as determined by Extensionator...
OpenGL Version 3.0
Supports shaders!
Supports BGRA -> BGRA Shader
Supports VUYA Shader -> BGRA
Supports UYVY/YUYV ->BGRA Shader
Supports YUV 4:2:0 -> BGRA Shader
Testing for CUDA support...
   Found 1 devices supporting CUDA.
   CUDA Device # 0 properties -
   CUDA device details:
      Name: Quadro FX 1800M      Compute capability: 1.2
      Total Video Memory: 986MB
   CUDA driver version: 3010
CUDA Device # 0 supported.
Completed shader test!
Internal return value: 7

 

Any information on the Dreamcolor 2 Panel that was supposed to be released?..

I was hoping to look up the panel number and switch my Envy's panel out as they are both 15.6" and LED backlit..

 

Isn't the DC2 panel only in the 17" 8740w?

 

Hmm, if you google it, it shows that 8540w also has a planned release date for the dreamcolor 2 panel.

 

Thanks, much appreciated. I'll be getting it soon.

 

I'm using 8540w laptop for more then week now so I would like to sum up my up to date experience with it. Some of the issues I already mentioned here in the forum.

My configuration is i7 620m, 8GB, nVidia 880M, Vertex 128GB, FHD.
My previous machine was HP 6710b (C2D 2.2GHz, 4GB, Intel GM965, Vertex 128GB, WSXGA+) which I was very happy with and I was using it for more then 3 years.

My laptop came already with F08 firmware so I don't have any problems with the fan issue.

Some of the things mentioned here are very subjective so do not take them as some dealbraker, it's always individual.

I will start with the issues that borders me most.
The thing I don't like the most is the screen. From the very beginning I could see that the color of the screen is really into blue. I tried to setup each channel independetly in nVidia control panel and although I get a better result I can still feel that colors are strange to what I was used to see on my previous laptop or with Dell 2407WFP. My intention is to buy some kind of calibration hardware to fix thing up a bit. Another story is the 16:9 aspect ratio which, as was already discussed, is very unpleasant for every day work. Nothing can be done here so I have to get used to it.
Second thing, which I also already mentioned here on the forum is the tiny buzzing noise comming from the bottom of the laptop. This noise is similar to those when you have too much white color on some screens. It seems like some circuit is overloaded.
Next is keyboard, it looks pretty good but some keys (eg. Enter) are not that smooth as I would expect from the laptop of such price. If you don't hit it at the right place you can even end up in not pushing it at all. Arrow keys and also Enter could be a bit bigger and I could hapilly live without numpad. I would rather have a centered keyboard with well handled ins, del, home, end, pgup, pgdown keys. Except these issues I like to write on the keyboard although I have to get use to it. Yeah and I would really prefer backlit keyboard over LED light on top.
Touchpad is really tiny and sometimes I have problems with doing proper scrolling. Also surface seems to be a bit rough comparead to my old 6710b. Anyway I have a mouse, so this is not a big problem and it's probably metter of time to get use to it.
Another thing I noticed is the high temperature of the bottom of the laptop. I was just browsing some pages and I had to put it on a desk, because it was not very pleasant to have it on my lap. On the other hand I have to admit, that we have some high temperatures here in Czech right now.
Probably the last hardware thing that borders me is the placement of the ethernet connector. It's not very good to have this connector on the right because this is a place where the mouse usualy is.

Regarding software. I usualy don't like to use third party software which is a bit problematic because finger print reader is not functional without HP Protect Tools. Also I didn't find a way how to make light sensor work without HP Power Assistant.

Well these are probably all cons I can think off right now.
Don't get me wrong, this is a great and powerful laptop of superb built in quality which I really like to have, I just want to share those issues I have.

Thanks for the reading

 

Is there any way to turn off the light of touch-sensitive buttons? (Browser, Wireless, Touch-Pad etc.)

 

I've had my 8540w for a week as well. After getting the Win 7 x64 disc (pretty quick service btw) from HP and reinstalling everything I did get to use it a bit.

The most obvious problem I've found is that off balance quality of the built in speakers. The right speakers are loader and sound sharper than the left speakers. The left speakers seems somewhat muffled. This balance problem isn't present with headphones, just the built in speakers.

About it's screen (I have the HD+), it's nice and even compared to my CCFL backlit FHD MBP. As for the colour it is slightly cooler than the my MBP, but that's possible due to the WLED. The most major issue is that the screen's gamma is set a bit high causing it to look somewhat washed out appear in default settings.

As for keyboard, I find it fairly good. The key feel is not as stable and firm as the pre unibody MBP I'm currently typing on, but it has more key travel than both the pre unibody and unibody MBP keyboard. But I agree, a backlit keyboard would definitely be nice, but the screen mount LED is handy as it let's you read the paper in the dark, something that a backlit keyboard can't help with.

About the numberpad, it's definitely nice not have to carry around a separate USB number pad. When you're entering lots of numbers into a spreadsheet you can't really beat a real number pad. But it would be nice if there was a bit more delimination between the keyboard and the number pad.

A minor con with the 8540w is the strip of aqua and blue control/status lights on top of the keyboard. HP can learn a thing or two from Apple about a clean design. Personally, they aren't useful for me, even the volume control isn't very responsive, there's some lag between a tap and the volume change. As for the key locks status lights, HP should do what some other manufacturers do and integrate the lock lights under the key itself. It's a lot easier to notice and looks much nicer.

As for issue with the finger print reader, the reason that HP Protect Tools is required for it to work is that the Validity VFS451 sensor that the 8540w uses doesn't have a WBF (Windows Biometric Framework) compliant drivers. A WBF driver is required for Win 7 to access the sensor without a third party app like HP Protect Tools or digitalPersona.

 

Yeah, I tried to change balance of the speakers and for me it seems like right speaker is used for bass tones (although not very well done) and left for mid and high tones so the sound comming from it is more clear and sharp. But if they are in balance, I think it's pretty OK although flat.

Status lights are a bit bright and they could be definittely handled differently, but as you said, it's a minor issue.

I also thought something like this. So in the future this can be fixed?

 

Yes, the left right balance that's what I meant by speaker balance. If I were to just judge by acoustics, I would even say that the right speaker is placed closer the centre of the notebook while the left speaker is positioned closed to the edge. It's just poor design. It may be off balance to accommodate the optical drive bay, or that speakers aren't well sealed against the front grilles allowing the sound to reverberate inside and escape from the ports on the left side. Hard to tell without seeing the inside of the notebook (kind of difficult given that the speakers aren't under the keyboard).

As for the dynamic range, it seems ok. Lack of bass is pretty much expected, even notebooks with so called "sub-woofers" (they weren't much of a sub woofer anyways) don't do that well in the bass department. The speakers in the 8540w seems to value mid-ranges more than the two extreme, and that's just fine IMO for notebooks. Over all, volume is more than sufficient, and good thing is the 8540w's don't show much of any distortion at max volume. Though I do find they have touch of harshness compared to MBP's built in speakers (which IMO are one of the better notebook speakers).

It's possible if Validity or HP decides to release a WBF compliant driver for the VFS451. Whether that will happens is an entirely different story. Validity already have demo drivers for the VFS301 and VFS201 sensors, but the VFS451 seems to be a HP exclusive. Because of this, it's unlikely to get WBF drivers unless HP specifically wants them released (which IMO doesn't seem likely).

 

Trying to review this thread... search is lame for my subject so I am going to try to post for my issue...

I have an Elitebook 8540p (configured as Windows XP Pro, using the supplied disks to install the OS and drivers, etc) and the suggested Advanced Docking station (NZ222UT). However, when I place the laptop in the docking station and then power up the laptop it will Blue Screen EVERY TIME.

HP claims it isn't happening, so I video taped it and posted it to them and they still have no answer. I have tried three different docking stations, all the same. We have purchased 10 of these laptops for the company and all have the same issue.

...has anyone been able to use this laptop in the docking station?

 

Hey folks, any thoughts on this RAM? Price isn't too bad and it seems to be well reviewed...

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Laptop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBSQ

 

Good price and a reliable company. If you need 8GB, this is a good deal.

 

also this
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model F3-10600CL9D-8GBSQ
I got two of the latter.

There should be no difference, but it's $2 cheaper and for what it's worth, the RAM HP is using is 10600.

 

I couldn't find any information around the specifics of the DDR3 that HP was using, but since you were able to find it, I'm going to go with the above. $2 is no big deal, but I want to get as close to HP's as possible. Thanks!

 

The quad core i7s use DDR3-1333, while the dual core i3/5/7s use DDR3-1066.

 

hello to all

i have a question about the light sensor :

as i wanted to check how it worked, i pointed a flashlight towards the light sensor, expecting that the screen brightness would increase (my flashlight was supposed to simulate the action of direct sun in the sensor)

but i couldn't observe any effect (some might wonder, so i precise that the light sensor was switched on)

do you have any explanation for this ?
thanks a lot

anthony

 

Maybe the screen was already on maximum brightness or the flashlight was too dim or sensor is broken

 

thanks for your reply
the screen was not on max brightness, and i think the flashlight was powerful enough to simulate the sun ...
this sensor issue is not a crucial point, but from what you write, i think the next step should be to contact HP support ...
i'll see ..

anthony

 

When I put my finger on the sensor on my 8540w in a bright surrounding, the screen is dimming down SLOWLY in several steps. So you can try it this way!?

 

thanks for the tip, i'll give a try ..
anthony

 

Ah, true. I'm buying a quad-core 8740w, that's the main thing I checked.
He was already referring to 1333 though - within that there's the ridiculous 10600/10660/10666 thing.

Can't remember where I found it, but it was listed only in one place - possibly the expansion RAM options?

 

Same here, I am due my 8540w quad tomorrow. Thanks!

 

Don't know if this has been mentioned, but aside from fixing the fan-on-full-blast-after-waking-from-sleep bug, it seems the latest BIOS also fixed the long-delay-and-power-off-during-reboot issue. Since being able to put Windows 7 to sleep without the fan getting stuck at 100% after waking up, I haven't had to reboot at all for the past couple weeks or so (thank you, Windows 7 for being so stable ). When I had to reboot after a software install I noticed that there's no longer any delay on the BIOS splash screen during rebooting, and the laptop doesn't shut off and wait for a few seconds before turning back on like it did before. Yet another niggling issue bites the dust. This laptop keeps getting better.

 

Mine is supposed to show up tomorrow too.
Did yours arrive on time?

 

FedEx tried to drop it off yesterday but noone was home to sign for it. Signed the slip, and then they left it today. Booted it up, signed it on to the network, looks good initially. I'll be spending the weekend installing software and migrating stuff from old to new. Lookin forward to it!

 

DDR3-1333MHz is the PC 10600, DDR3-1066MHz is the PC8500.

 

Mine showed up at the office yesterday (but I'm stuck in Austin for at least another hour....grrrrrr)

I had my coworkers unbox it to get an image of the base install, in case HP pulls one of their nefarious instances of only including certain drivers/utils in the base image, and never putting them up on the driver site...I digress..

They both said the power brick was, literally a brick. So I started looking at HP's site to see if they had another power block that would work better living in my bag (and I can use the included block permanently on my desk - bonus)

HP's accessory finder *says* this 65w is compatible - but I'm having a hard time believing that.
What's the smallest (physical) adapter you guys have successfully used with the 8540w? (i7-820+M5800 here FWIW)

 

Odd...I'm trying to find the Recovery Manager so I can start the clean process as mentioned in the sticky, and I can't find it...mebbe I'm just not seeing it as I've not had my coffee yet...

Anyone else have a new 8540w build and not find the HP Recovery Manager? Thanks!

 

Yeah, this thing's a monster...definitely need to rethink the laptop bag situation...

 

Hi, i have same problem. It's annoying. Have anyone same problem? Or what can i do?

 

Are you using Windows 7? If so, you can just type it into the search bar and it should pop up.

 

Yeah, I'm on W7 and tried that but nothing. No big deal, I'll just deal w/the out of the box stuff.

Something else weird tho...just added another 8GB to the secondary memory slots (underside) and when I boot it up, the sustem properties show 16 GB installed, but only 7.93 GB usable.

I couldn't find any settings to resolve this, and I am on Windows 7 64-bit...

Any ideas folks? This is really bugging me know...

I do have the 820QM, so this is a quad-core that's supposed to go to 16 GB...

Thanks!

 

Does the BIOS read the correct amount? What does the Task Manager look like for memory?

 

Don't you know why the maximum brightness shows 88?

 

The HP BIOS shows the full 16, Task Manager shows what's available, and the Resource Manager shows installed/available. I'm trying to find out what hardware might be "reserving" the additional memory but not having luck there so far.

Any thoughts from anyone, or, if anyone's put in a full 16 GB in their quad-core and has insight, would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

Some people in the 8740w thread talks about reseating his memory to avoid crash. Seems like there's a possibility that the RAM slot is a bit finicky. Try reseat your RAM, pushing it in even after you get the sticks to go past the 'click' maybe?

I realize you mention that the BIOS sees all 16GB of RAM.

 

I am also using an 820qm with original 16 GB. Both the Task Manager and the Ressource Manager showing 16 GB.
The Task manager looks like this:

and the Ressource Manager:

 

The reseat helped a little, but it's not the full 16 GB...thoughts? This is really buggin moi...

 

Maybe your videocard is consuming some of the memory. I remember when I used onboard video on my desktop and it did the same thing. Now that I am running an ATI 5850, I have my full 4 gigs available. I don't know if this is your problem. Just telling you my experiences.

 

That's similar to what holmi posted above. The part that says verfugbar (accessible) is about the same, ~14GB.

 

I have a question to people in this forum. When nvidia announced a new Quadro card, how long does it take for HP to offer the new card on their Elitebook lineup? A few months? 6 months? 3 months?