*HP EliteBook 8540w Owners Lounge!*

Ok, so the replacement hard drive just arrived. They replaced the WD scorpio black with a seagate. The packaging was not too good, sandwiched between two thin sheets of foam, but it had lots of space to slide around in the box. They shipped next day air. No software at all.

I called HP for a XP recovery CD, they want $10 plus tax. I told them it was not my fault that the drive crashed and should get one for free. He told me that when I received the laptop it should have asked me to make a recovery CD. Does anyone remember doing this?

 

That's affirmative. One needs to explicitly request and pay HP on purchase for recovery media.

 

If I have an XP cd from another HP laptop can I use that?

 

Why don't you just get an iso image of Windows 7 Professional off the internet? You already have the key.

http://techpp.com/2009/11/11/download-windows-7-iso-official-direct-download-links/

 

I can't really say. I don't know if what you have is a private labeled version of regular 'ol XP, or if there's some hardware dependency. You'll have to tell us. But what subheight says seems perfectly sound logic too.

 

It works. It just has xp. You have to install all the drives.

 

... pay 10 bucks like the rest of us! (I know, I know, you need it now)

 

I think HP only charged me $5 for the recovery disc, I went ahead and ordered it with my 8740w.

 

Hey guys.
I'm going to buy one of these laptops soon and I was wondering if anybody could tell me how to replace the HDD by a another HDD and if you can help me with the software part too because I just changed from a MAC and I don't know what to do after putting the HDD in.Do I just turn it on?What do I do?
Thanks in advance.

 

Putting in a new hard drive should be easy. Just unscrew the access panel and stick in the new HD (If you need reference look up the Elitebook 8540w service manual).

Then stick in your windows CD and boot from the CD, there should be a option for that when you start up the computer. The BIOS, the stuff you always see before windows boots, I believe is stored on the motherboard rather than the hard drive so your computer still has functionality even without a hard drive. If you have Ubuntu you can even stick in the ubuntu CD with no hard drive and browse the internet or whatever you want.

When you boot from the Windows CD, it will go through the installer and install windows on your new HD. After that, install all the drivers and other software and you should be good to go.

 

here is a link to the Maintenance and Service Guide : http://goo.gl/DMa0P
anthony

 

Where are people buying their notebooks?

Mine came with....get this

Recover disk and drivers

Windows 7 Pro
Windows 7 Pro X64
Windows XP Pro
Windows XP Pro X64

That was in both my 8740w and 8540w

 

I think you're an exception from the norm actually, if you bought it directly from HP ... that begs the question where you bought yours from? ... not that there are many options. But if I knew the country you were in it would tell a lot about the options regarding how you can get it.

As a side note, I think every member of Pentax forums -- my most frequented forum -- provides their location on the globe. I could never understand why location isn't mandatory on this discussion board where where you are located in the world has a significant bearing on what product you can buy, how you buy it, what service you can get, and how you get it.

 

Live in Northern Virgina and purchased mine through CDW, and PCConnection.
I do the orders for work. Both are off the shelf type and every one we have ordered from either location (we are talking close to 300 now) 8540p, 8440p, 8440w, 8540w, 2540p and one 8740w, all came with the CD's
so not rare by any means.
none are special order models that i know of.

So if you order from HP make sure you check off the box for the CD's.
otherwise ordering from a retailer is fine to as it seems they come with the cds's

 

My ProBook 5310m came with the driver and OS recovery CDs for both XP and 7 (which is kind of strange since it doesn't have an optical drive). It was a preconfigured model from a verified HP reseller.

When I ordered my 8740w my sales rep said it did not come with the CDs by default so I bought them.

 

I would guess that the resellers all request the CDs since they probably know that most buyers expect to see them in the box.

 

Yup, my thoughts too.

And my "... not that there are many options" comment stands corrected. Thanx willard; I was mistaken. I honestly thought the places the 8#40w could be sourced was very limited. Dunno why, just thought it was a specialty product that needed to be sourced from HP or authorized re-sellers when outside of the US for some reason. Thanx for the correction.

 

I'm trying to decide between an open-box 8540W or brand new 8540W...
What do you guys think?

open box:
- i5 520m
- 2gb DDR3
- NVIDIA fx880m
- $959

brand new:
- i5 560m
- 4gb DDR3
- ATI m5800
- $1422

 

I'm not sure what the warranty implications are for open box vs brand new but based on the specs you listed, i'd go for the open box one and look at upgrading the ram and video card myself. Note that the nvidia processor is less powerful but more expensive than the ati one.

 

I believe the open-box has a little less than 3 years of warranty left, so it's not really a big deal.

I'm not too worried about the difference in RAM, since I'm gonna reuse the 4gb stick I currently have in my 8540P (which is going back to HP)

I understand the ATI is more powerful than the fx880m and nvs 5100m (at least for gaming), which is why I'm interested in the brand new, preconfigured unit. It's just a matter of justifying the difference in price. However, upgrading the GPU down the road doesn't seem very logical... it'd be nearly impossible to find a used one, buying it from HP would cancel the price difference, and I'm sure if I sold a used NVIDIA, it wouldn't sell for more than what I would have to pay for a new ATI.

Anyhow, the price for the brand new 8540W has just dropped another $86... so the total difference in price is now $377. I think < $400 is my breaking point to justify the new one (brand new / better GPU / more RAM)

 

If you buy from Newegg you'll get the computer at $1320.

 

That's a steal. I wish they had a DC2 option.

 

Thanks, saw that but I live in ca and would pay tax. Right now, amazon is the cheapest

 

I wonder if the warranty stays the same as if buying from HP directly?

 

Just received my Elitebook 8540w with Firepro M5800, i5-560M. Seems like HP threw in a free Windows CD for me just for the heck of it!

Pros:

- Adequate gaming performance, 80+ average FPS in Team Fortress 2 at 1600x900, high settings. No slowdowns or large framerate drops.

- Tons of extra little features. Night light, touchstick/touchpad, volume control buttons, etc.

- Feels pretty sturdy, decent build quality.

- Bloatware is minimal

- Headphone out works great

- Keyboard feels great.

Cons:

- Viewing angles worse than my old XPS m1530 monitor

- DVD drive is loud, rattles and is cheap looking.

- The touchstick primary button is very sensitive and I click it all the time when I'm typing. A little annoying.

In comparison to my old Dell M1530, there are good and bad aspects. There are some little features that I miss, like the automatic disabling of the touchpad when you plug in a mouse. Other components like the numeric keypad, fingerprint scanner, and multimedia keys are much nicer. And hopfully, unlike my old Dell, this computer won't have an annoying tendency to overheat and down-throttle.

Also, I have some questions. Anybody know how to adjust what the buttons at the top do, say the calculator/ little globe, etc buttons? It would be nice to se them to do what I want.


Also, is everybody else's DVD drive extremely loud or is it just mine?

 

Sent my refurb 8540P back and ordered the 8540W XT903UT from Amazon.
Hopefully a brand new W will not have the same problems I had on the P (loose battery / squeaky keyboard / crappy trackpoint left click button) and I'm hoping the W will have the AUO screen, rather than the LG, which is still better than most.

Subheight, did you check to see which display panel your 8540W XT903UT has? How about 3dmark06?
Did you have an RGB screen on your Dell? Assuming you do, because if you have the AUO panel 1600x900, it's supposed to be really good... comparable to the HP Envy 14 Radiance's brightness/contrast/black level/display angles/etc. except for RGB accuracy.
To answer your question about the DVD drive, I only used mine once and it wasn't any louder than the other dozen laptops I've owned, but reasonable sound levels.

 

I cannot figure out how to use the "Quick Launch Buttons" menu thing... Either my software is different for some reason from every one else's or I'm a complete idiot...

 

Careful of these laptops - all the elitebooks. The HP hinge problem continues and HP refuses to honor warranty fixes. The laughable part is that HP markets this machine as rugged and even touts how strong the hinges are. Not really. After hours and hours of calls to India and HP repair reps that are clearly told to try to make all issues 'customer damage', they wouldn't budge on honoring the warranty repair. They accused me of breaking the hinge (only the right one and not the left) without even saying how that could have happened. I still cannot figure out how that could have physically occurred without a flaw in the design and construction. I was shocked they would not honor the warranty. Especially on a part that they tout as being a key feature of this machine.

 

i hadn't heard of this "hinge problem" before.
it seems quite annoying
can you please post a photo of your damaged hinge, so we can see that ?
thanks
anthony

 

Well it looks like the software got changed for the new Elitebooks, for some reason they decided to take out that feature. Got too lazy I guess? Oh well it's not a big deal to have some useless buttons on the top, most laptop manufacturers are too lazy to make them useful.

 

Agreed. The only buttons I use are the volume control ones. Otherwise it's just easier to use a keyboard shortcut to launch programs (e.g. to launch a web browser I just press [Windows] + [1]).

 

Charles P nice I never knew about that little trick!

 

Yes it is a nifty trick in Windows 7. It works for any programs you have pinned to the Taskbar in Windows 7. [Windows] + [2] will launch the second program away from the Start orb and so on. You can also use the key combo to switch to that program if it is open.

Check this article for a bunch of other keyboard shortcuts:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=5462&review=Windows+PC+Optimization+Guide+Part+Two

 

Just ordered a cto 8540w. Thanks to you guys posting your buying experiences, I had an idea of what was available, and got 28% off (rep called it the "manager's discount"), and free shipping. Based on a lot of what I read on this thread, I went with:

820QM
M5800
Dreamcolor
2 GB ram (will add 6 GB more from Newegg)
160 GB SSD ($306 with the discount seemed reasonable)
Standard Docking Station

Went with the Next Business Day, onsite coverage, with Accidental Damage Protection, 4 years (which also extends the regular warranty from 3/3/3 to 4/4/4). Seemed like a steal at $239, which is less than I pay for smartphone insurance, plus smartphone insurance has a $90 deductible.

Thanks to Charles, Aikimox, and Knight427 for the PMs!

 

Need a little help from you guys.

After installing Windows XP Mode within the Windows Virtual Machine (all from the Windows 7 download site), I still can not get it to recognize my Canon EOS 5D, even though I've installed the proper WIA driver to the virtual machine (which worked fine under my old XP laptop). It appears that, even though I'm running in virtual XP window mode, when I plug the camera into a USB port, the port may not be recognized by XP, but only by WIN7 (which doesn't recognize the WIA driver).

I'd be a lot happier if Canon would update this camera for WIN7-64, but knowing Canon as I have for forty years, I won't hold my breath (the best equipment IMHO, but never the best support). The newer cameras may work fine, but for pure image quality they don't compare to the 5D and it's my "go to" camera. OK, rant over.

So, am I doing something wrong? Anybody have any experience in this area? Is it that the virtual machine can only run legacy programs, but not connect to legacy equipment? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

My camera-USB cable's connector failed years and years back. So I take the SD card out of the camera and stick it into the computer. If you don't need the cable to run in teathered mode, that's what I'd do.

 

I want to use it for tethered shooting, not necessarily for downloading pix (I use the Express Card reader). When working with younger (non-professional)subjects, it especially helps when they can see the results immediately on the screen and get into the shoot. Basically, that goes for grown-ups as well. And the 5D is a great portrait camera.

By the way, I do know that the cable works, as WIN7-64 recognizes the connection but doesn't support the hardware without proper drivers from Canon.

 

Much obliged to you. Your advice led me to think about what else wasn't working in the VM, and then further to think about the installation. I had thought it strange that the first installation of Windows Virtual PC made me jump through hoops, having to go backwards even after reporting a step successfully completed. Figured this may be part of the problem, so I backed up to the Restore Point I created beforehand and started all over again. The second time, both steps went perfectly smooth (since our machines, when virtualization is turned on in the BIOS, don't need the third step). The second time, even Windows update initialized and downloaded 58 updates. That didn't happen the first time.

The upshot is, now I was able to load the WIA drivers and the Utility software properly, and when I attached the camera, the USB table displayed the option to attach it. YAY! It works. Now I just have to figure out how to control the VM timer that automatically turns off any attached device if there is no activity for "??" amount of time.

Thanks again. You sent me in the right direction.

 

Hi!

I need help to choose between two options :

HP 8540w : ci7 620M , FX880 , 6GB ram (is ci7 720QM also available?)
or
a PC + a cheap laptop ($500 higher and less mobile renderability(!) )

I want to know if this notebook can resist rendering in 3DSMAX vray, with about 20 renders a day (each upto 5 min) and occasional heavier (over 30min) renders. (I had a dell XPS which died after about ten 3min renders).

 

Anybody have a problem with typing you always hit the top mouse button for the touchstyck? Anyone know how to disable those buttons without disabling the touchpad buttons?

 

Hi, I have a question concerning my (new) notebook.
it has a i7 720m processor with nvidia 880m and 4gb ram. Is it normal that a 1080p .mkv video file does not run smoothly? I have updated my nvidia driver and run win 7 64-bit. Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

No that shouldn't be normal... I just watched a youtube 1080p movie with no problems. What kind of video player are you using? Sometimes VLC will have difficulties playing some kinds of files. I switch between VLC, media player classic, and windows media player as a last resort.

 

Hey all, does the 8540w's "matte" screen looking very mattish or grainy in any way? I'm used to glossy screens and thinking of buying the 8540w 1080 with Dreamcolor 2.

thanks

 

Even the base 1600x900 8540 series screens have spoiled me. Above average brightness, 4-5x better contrast than most laptops, better than average viewing angles, no graininess whatsoever. It has ruined my experience with my other laptops and is a big reason why I sold my Dell E4310, Acer Timeline X, and HP TM2. All of the above were noticeably grainy and had terrible viewing angles. I'm scared to even see how incredible the DC2 looks, otherwise I'll never be able to settle for less

Check out notebookcheck.net for reviews on the 1600x900 and 1920x1080 screens. They said they'll be reviewing a fourth 8540 series with the DC2 option in a few weeks.

 

Cool! That's great to know terrible lie. (Hope your name doesn't play any parts to your posts. ) =)

I'll check out the site you suggested.

 

Lol I realized my user name probably doesn't help when I try to sell stuff on the forum

 

Hi all, I am taking the plunge - 8540W with DC2. Anyone know about the screen calibration process? I have heard that a regular hardware calibrator puck won't work and that a special one is needed from HP. The sales rep didn't know much about it, but perhaps some photographers out there do?

Thanks.

 

Based on what I read from those who have done it, a regular one will work. You just won't be able to use HP's Mobile Display Assistant to switch between your custom calibrations; but you can use the MDA to switch back to preset calibrations. Doesn't seem like too big if any sort of limitation at all to me.

 

What I read had been about the MDA - it makes sense that it isn't the only option.

Thanks for clarifying, m80.

 

I'm proud owner of 8540w with i7-620M and Nvidia Quadro FX 1800M.
This laptop is supposed to have one of the best displays around, but I have a problem on it with Win7 - If I use it long time at night, my eyes start to hurt and contrast ratio is poor in comparison to my old ThinkPad R500. When using one gmail's theme, for example, that has some different gray lines in background - they are very distinctive on R500, but on 8540w I hardly differentiate them.

I have the latest drivers and stuff. does anybody have a clue what am I missing? Should I do some screen calibration or ? do you also have this problems?