*HP EliteBook 8540w Owners Lounge!*

Hi Kgmadia
I use an hitachi 320gb on my 8540w.I did formatted my hard disk.And now!I want use HP quick web.But when i install Hp quick web,it require an HP_Tools Partition.I click accept and it display something like dos command,after load some minutes.A message box display:"Can not find target location",so Hp quick web is not installed.I try install HP System Diagnostic UEFI to create HP_Tool Partition and it is display message same when install HP quick web.
My hard disk:C,D,E.All of it is primary partition.How to install HP quick web pls?
And to use HP quick web,I only touch on HP quick web light above keyboard like on/off wifi;on/of touchpad or hold power button and touch HP quick web ligh?
Sorry because my english isn't good.I from Viet Nam.Wait for your response.Thank you so much

 

Hi, sorry but I have never started from the beginning. Do you have the HP recovery disk? I would guess that it would set all the partitions as needed.

I found this which talks about installing the partition manually, so it seems like it is possible without the recovery CD.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...ebook-8540w-owners-lounge-65.html#post6185242

I also found people with other model HPs who talk about re-installing quickweb. Try google and see if anything helpful pops up.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-compaq/499803-clean-install-quickweb.html

Sorry I can't be of more help. Let us know if you get further.

 

Hi Kgamadia!Because my hard disk have 3 primary partition.I merge 2 of them and install quickweb successfully.So lucky to make friend with you .

 

I have an 8740w and posted this there, but I suspect if this below is due to the Bios update 8540w owners would see this too...

To everyone that updated to F.20 ... is your built-in front card reader still working properly? No matter how many times I push a SD card in & out, the card isn't recognized and mounted; no 'bong' sound either. I've tried this now with 4 different SD cards; one freshly formatted.

...here's the thing. When I plug-in a USB card reader on the side, or plug-in a digital camera via a USB cable, not only is that SD card recognized by either method, but the SD card I have pushed-in in the built-in front card reader is then also recognized and mounted [!!!] And when I dis-connect the camera or USB card reader, the internal SD card is then lost.

Am I the only one? Hoping not actually so I can point at the Bios as being the problem. Unfortunately I don't recall exactly when this started, so not sure if I can do that just now.

Thanx.

 

Hello again! I finally replaced my rubber feet with a sort of improvisation, like the one described in my last post (quote above). Someone at my work place managed to make me the rubber feet i needed by punching them out from a piece of rubber with a hole punch for leather. I stuck them on with double sided sticky tape, after removing the white plastic parts. For now they seem to be holding on well. Will keep you posted on how they last. Maybe if you can find a leather shop they could help you.

 

Hi, Kinda new here so hope this is the write places;
I got a 8540W laptop also, but planning to buy a Docking station that I can configure to do dual display,

So far I have found two docking stations for this generation of laptops;
HP Docking Station (VB043AA)
HP Advanced Docking Station (NZ223AA).

Although the NZ223AA is designed for dual-display setups.
However can the VB043AA Dock support two monitors, (1x VGA, 1x DVI/DP) even though the VB043AA has VGA, DVI and DP. I suspect I could drive two displays.

Has anyone tried this?

 

Hey guys, another brand new owner of the EliteBook 8540w here.
My configuration is:
2.8ghz Intel Core i7-640M Dual Core processor
8gb DDR3 memory
1 TB hard drive
NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M 1GB.

However, I've a slight problem. dxdiag is showing that the Quadro FX GPU only has 474mb of memory. It should be 1GB, right? I'm thinking that possibly the CPU's internal GPU is turned on, and its using that as the basis for the memory, when it should be using the Quadro. Anyone else had a similar problem, anyone else know how to fix this?

 

Hi,
I have the the same graphic card and in dxdiag it says 474mb, it is nothing to worry about, it is a known windows bug.

 

Hi, good work!

 

Hi m8o, thanks for the heads up as you can't install a prior version after upgrading. I had considered updating as I learnt about it from the forum post which called it a critical update, but looking at the notes, I am confused as to why:
- Provides improved security for the BIOS flashing process.
- Provides the Secure Erase option.

Do I understand right that the (possibly last for this machine) bios update released simply makes it more reliable to update the bios?? And adds the ability to securely reset the bios to factory settings? Or is the secure erase option something else?

Anyway, if it isn't the bios update, then it could be a coincidental hardware failure, or device driver file corruption. Does your device manager register the device or show an error?

Good luck.

 

Hi, check out Ironbow's results:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...book-8540w-owners-lounge-216.html#post7672325

If you want to see how it started and follow it through, here you go:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...book-8540w-owners-lounge-212.html#post7536672

Cheers.

 

This is a copy of my post over on the 8740w lounge. The new driver supports both 8740w and 8540w AMD cards:

There's a new AMD graphics driver update over at AMD Graphics Drivers & Software ? Download the latest drivers for your graphics products .
(Guess I was off-base recently when I conjectured that updates for our HP pro-mobile cards may only become available every 6 months . . . mea culpa.)

New features in the update include:

 10‐bit deep pixel depth support in CCC‐LE (Linux)
 OpenCL Runtime Integration
 Windows Installer supports S2008
 OpenSUSE 11.4 Support
 RHEL 5.6 Support

There are also a number of fixes, including for Maya 2012, Softimage 2012 and Showcase 2012. The release notes are here
http://www2.ati.com/drivers/firepro/workstation8.85.7.2.pdf

Will report back once I've had a chance to put the driver through its paces, though that may not be for a few days.

 

i just got my 8540w last week and now im mad i didn't get the optional camera. is there anyway to add this feature. i looked on ebay and usually find a new bezal and camera for under 100 but could not find it for this model. anyone know if this is possible to find the parts?

 

To first question, I think so. To second question, no. Secure Erase is a special (and very fast) sector erase method for modern ATA hard disk drives. This method is entirely performed by internal features of the drive itself, not by any software (i.e., the BIOS does not erase the drive, just "calls" the builtin method), and erases drive sectors much faster than other methods (PIO mode, Windows API, BIOS Int13h extensions...) As far I know, in order to run the secure erase, a master or user password for the drive must be set previously. Once you've started the erase, you cannot stop it. If you reboot or power off your computer, the erase will continue until you unlock the drive with the known password. There are low-level software tools which lock/unlock the drive, set/unset the password and can "call" the secure erase method, such as MHDD, Victoria and HDDErase.

 

I think the Secure Erase concept is more relevant toward SSDs (especially Intel SSDs) compared to traditional hard drives.

For example, the recently released Intel Solid State Drive Toolbox has the ability to run the Secure Erase feature on a secondary Intel SSD.

 

The Secure Erase Unit command exists on hard disk drives manufactured after 2001. It's a standard feature of the ATA command set, therefore is not new. You can use this method in any modern ATA drive (solid or not). It's possible this feature is included in SSDs too, but the main purpose is to offer a fast and reliable method from the manufacturer for erasing a fixed disk drive in an unrecoverable way.

On a side note, this function even overwrites bad sectors transparently replaced with spare sectors by the drive firmware, so if you clean the G-List (also known as Grown Defects List) in the Service Area of the firmware, in theory you could recover those bad sectors if they are in good condition after running the erase. There are special hardware and software tools which are able to do this.

You can learn more about Secure Erase by reading this FAQ from the Center for Magnetic Recording Research home page (you can download there the mentioned HDDErase tool too).

 

Hi guys, thanks for the info on the Secure Erase feature. Interesting info, and timely too, especially about this command being part of the ATA command set. At work we have soem old machines we need to wipe.

Cheers.

 

Hi, new 8540w owner here

I'ts a company pc, with a XP 32-bit system that i can't remove. But I want to use it for personal things to, without compromise my business setup. Also a 32-bit OS on this kind of hardware is a bit of a disgrace

So I've ordered a FORCE3 120GB SSD and a uppgrade bay from newmodeUS and will install Win 7 x64 on it when it arrives so that i can dual-bot it.

My question is: Will the uppgrade bay support the same speeds as the internal harddrive bay? If not, what kind of speed? (I know that I wont get the 6 Gb/s speed that i supported from the FORCE3)

Thanks in advance I've been looking everywhere, but I know to little about sata transfer speeds and interfaces and would really appreciate an answer

 

I have a 64bit Windows 7 installed on my 8540w with i7 Processor.
Used to have HP integrated Bluetooth by broadcom.

From today, the bluetooth module doesn't find bluetooth devices anymore.

1. My Dell BT travel mouse is in discover mode, so is my android mobile phone
2. I checked that bluetooth service started in Computer management/services
3. I downloaded latest drivers from broadcom website (broadcom 2070) and installed (it solved the bluetooth peripheral device driver issues I had earlier, but my pc still doesn't find the bluetooth devices around)

Any suggestions/help is greatly appreciated.

 

Quick question: Will SATA III SSDs work in this unit? I understand that it's SATA II, but if I grab a SATA III drive, and then I upgrade the laptop at a later date, I can use the drive in a new one.

Thanks - M

 

Hi, just to get something back to you, I did some research (I am by no means certain about this technology.) The Specs tab on this item shows that it is backwards compatible,
OCZ Vertex 3 SATA III 2.5" SSD - OCZ

but this link (and other sources) states that there could be data corruption if a jumper isn't set to indicate that a speed slowdown is needed.
Serial ATA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Probably best to find out what the manufacturer states. Perhaps now they test for what SATA h/w version you have and adjust without a jumper??

Good luck.

 

Sorry if this has been asked before, but it takes hours to sort through 200+ pages of replies.

How does this laptop's screen compare to that of a macbook pro (15 inch)?

I'm looking at purchasing a 8540p with a HD+ (1600x900) screen.

The resolution is higher than the MBP and the contrast is higher (8540p has a 300:1 contrast).

Only thing is, this laptop comes with a matte screen while the MBP comes with a glossy screen.

Basically, will the matte screen really "dampen" the picture quality THAT much? Will the higher resolution + better contrast still allow the 8540p to deliver a more vivid/clear picture than the MBP?

Also, in the event that I were to purchase the 8540p anyways, what settings would you guys recommend to optimize picture/screen quality on the 8540p?

Thank you for any replies!

 

Hi there, not to worry - even if you read all the pages, how much can you be expected to remember?

I have the DC2 panel in my 840W so I do not have 1st hand knowledge of the HD+ panel, but from reviews and pictures I've seen in the past, I think they are a very good panel.

AnandTech - MacBook Pro 2011 Refresh: Specs and Details
MBPs do not use IPS panels, and the second post down confirms the impression I was under regarding a comparison b/w the HP and MBPs. I think that you can get an upgrade to 1680x1050 for the 15" MBP, btw.

Macbook Pro 15-inch 2011 (2.2ghz, 6750m) Review
Check the "Display" section about half way down. The images show a fairly decent TN panel performance at the various angles. HP could be quite similar. Check for some Elitebook 8540W / 8540P reviews (I believe they are essentially the same machine) for similar images of an HD+ screen to get some kind of comparison.

Glossy vs Matte. Glossy certainly gives a nice look to images, but reflections are horrific at times. I think the matte screens are anti-reflective. You find matte screens on the top Elitebook panels and on the top Thinkpad workstations, so you can rest assured that they do not adversely affect the image. If you're thinking of the difference between a glossy photo and a matte, there is a difference there because they are not backlit like monitors (think slide vs film...) I do not have a decent glossy IPS comparison to put against my HP to really judge, but my matte IPS panel looks better than any other panel I've put beside it so far. And my desktop monitor is a matte IPS panel.

Finally, regarding the settings, for best results always use the native resolution. If you have the options of colour space, then the decision to use one over the other depends on your use.

Hope this helps, good luck.

 

That was an AMAZING answer. Thanks a ton!

 

Wait, so the 8540p has an IPS panel? I can't seem to find that on machine's spec sheet on HP's site.

EDIT: Nvm, dreamcolour = IPS, right? So that means the 8540p won't have an IPS since it's not dreamcolour. hmmmm

 

and you won´t find the ips panel in the 8540p. Remember the ips-panel is a 10-bit panel. 10-bit is currently only supported by the Ati/Amd Firepro-Series and the Nvidia-Quadro-Series.The Nvs in the 8540p is called " professional", but i have not seen any improvement in 2D and 3D-OpenGl-Performance. I merely think this card is using vendor-tested drivers to provide stability in certain applications. I am not 100% sure, but afaik the NVS 5100m does not support 10-color, and won´t be able to drive the 10-bit ips panel.

basicly all the mobile cards and the desktop cards carry all the hardware acceleration for professional Opengl-Apps and 10 bit support. The graphics cards driver decides if the professional features of the card are used or not.

So if you can hack the driver of the nvidia card you should be able to fit in the Ips-Panel in your 8540p. But be aware that HP only sells the the complete screen 8540w with bezel/ wlan antenna / camera etc... for quite a lot of dough. You would need to get the IPS-LED Screen from LG and the needed cables from HP to fit this in your screen housing.

To have a dreamcolor display in your 8540p you will have to spent quite some time, effort and money + the effort of hacking the graphics driver. Unless you like to tinker around with your computer you should probably buy a workstation model with dreamcolor option.

 

Heh, you're right. HP asks for a hell of a lotta dough for the complete package. Reason I'm even looking at the 8540p is that I saw quite a good deal on it. It's online though so I can't go and judge the screen for myself. Spec wise, the screen seems to better than that of a comparable MBP in terms of resolution + contrast, but there's more to screen quality than that and quite frankly I don't know much about this stuff. I do like the MBP screen though, and if the 8540p offers something similar in quality to the display seen even on the 1440x900 15' MBP I'll bite.

 

Yes, sorry - the 8540W comes with the option of a DC2 screen, which is a 10-bit IPS panel. I mentioned IPS just because it makes it hard for me to compare other screens with mine.

Regarding the MBP vs HP screens, the biggest thing, if you don't have specific technical needs, is probably personal preference. I have seen a Thinkpad T510 matte / non-IPS screen and it was quite vivid in colour, and had semi-decent viewing angles. The panels are supposed to be good in both models you're considering, so I would vernture that either would do very well, and if you did a side-by-side comparison, it would be personal preference which led to a "winner". And most panels out-of-the-box are uncalibrated and will perform better after using some hardware calibration. But if the deal you're getting is good enough, you may feel like taking a chance based on reviews you've checked and their pics of the screen (which is what I did, being a Canadian ordering a machine not available in Canada unless I ordered 50, which I was told once I was able to track down someone who knew what a DreamColor screen was.) Some do show good and large pics, though they will obviously be affected by the screen you're viewing it on.

I don't know too much about the technical aspects of the screens either, but if you were to look at specs, I guess some important ones would be the contrast ratio (which you've done), max brightness (even if you don't use your screen at full brightness) and the percentage of a colour gamut that the panel can show. E.g. 60% vs 80% of sRGB, or the wider AdobeRGB. Also, you may be able to find some details on which panels are used in each model you're considering (google), and then look up the specs of that panel E.g. something like my screen uses an LGD 0220 panel, so search for specs on it to see what it can do. Finally, some reviews show the variance in brightness across different parts of the screen. I don't know how consistent they are across all MBPs or all 8540Ps, but if there is significant variance, that would be another factor that would help in my decision.

Good luck in yours.

 

I just add two 4Gb memory to my 8540w (with i7 720Qm and 4 memory slots) and Windows 7 reports the old two 2Gb memory is hardware reserved. Does anyone know how to fix this? Thank you for any replies.

 

Hi, Microsoft has some suggestions here:
The usable memory may be less than the installed memory on Windows 7-based computers
- MSCOnfig, boot tab options
- update bios
- confirm bios settings

Also, this program may give you some hints. I can't comment as I don't actually show any h/w reserved usage in resource monitor.
RAMMap

Good luck.

 

Thank you for your reply. I have checked the boot tab options using msconfig, and my bios version is F20 (newest available in HP site). As for the bios setting, I didn't find any option related to "memory remapping".

I know someone's 8540w has installed 12Gb with same configurations (2*4Gb+2*2Gb), the only difference I could think of is memory brand.

Thanks anyway.

 

If you do think RAM was the cause, try removing a stick and see what happens. If you check my sig, it sounds like I have the same set up as you. I kept the 1x2GB (original HP) and added 2x4GB (G-skil) after the fact. What RAM brands do you have? My reserved hardware amount is 73MB at the moment.

I actually plan to just have the 2x4GB in a dual-channel config but haven't gotten around to it.

Good luck.

 

@leochencipher:

Did you check for matching SPD latency in all the RAM modules?
My Elitebook 8540W needs 9-9-9-24 for maximum performance, I believe.

Just a month ago, I installed these in my 8540w:

Corsair Memory ? 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 SODIMM Memory (CMSO8GX3M2A1333C9) - Notebook Memory Upgrades - Memory by Platform

It's working fine!

 

I also suspect that. Here is the CPU-Z tab on SPD. They are at the same speed right?

 

If you go left one to the Memory tab it will tell you what frequency it is running at as well as the RAs/Cas/etc timings. The SPD tab shows different possible speeds your DIMMS could run at. The HP 8540W does suport 1333MHz so you can bet they're both running at the "685" / 9-9-9-24.

From all the 1333MHz dimms I saw on the market when I was looking, they were all 9-9-9-24. I think there was supposed to be a Kingston HyperX option which ran at a faster 7 CL speed, but I never found it. So, I think that you're ok with speed.

Do you plan on removing the 2GB to see if the mix did cause the issue?
Certainly would be interesting to find out. By the way, also interesting to see that your 2GB stick from HP is a Hyundai and mine is an Elpida.

Cheers.

 

I have 32GB in my 8540w, and I'm only showing 84MB as hardware reserved.
That was after upgrading from a mix of the 2x4GB Hynix that came with it + 2x4GB Crucials that I purchased before 8GB sticks were "affordable"

I immediately thought it might be the variant of Windows 7 you're running, but after double-checking, only Home Basic is capped at 8GB
Windows 7 Memory Limits

This is a somewhat silly suggestion, but pull up your WEI details page, and see how much, if any RAM is being flagged as "Dedicated System Memory" for your graphics card, there could be a correlation there.

 

I have an 8540w with a non-dreamcolor display. Is it possible for me to upgrade to the dreamcolor display? I have one on my 8560w, and it's phenomenal.

 

I have an 8540w laptop that I use for AutoCAD work. It's been a good machine except for strange behaviour on keyboard input. It doesn't happen all the time but enough to drive me crazy so that I now use an external keyboard (an old Apple iMac keyboard, fyi):

- When I type a "/" or "." I get a context menu displayed.

- While typing the text will get highlighted and then written over with current input. A real pain when I'm typing an email for instance. If I notice right away I can undo the changes to get back to the last good state.

- Window loses focus and I have to click on the taskbar first and then re-click on window.

- While navigating a file dialog, a double-click on a selected item will not work. Instead a submenu appears and I have to select Open. To make double-click work again I have to click on the taskbar first.

- Without knowingly or consciously doing so, the keyboard gets switched to Canadian French. I notice this when a "/" displays as "é"

The laptop is about 9 months old and I first started seeing this behaviour about 6 months ago. Has anybody else had similar issues? Or point me towards a solution? I tried a search here but did not find anything, and I didn't want to read 220+ pages.

Note: I did manage to type this whole post on the laptop keyboard without any issues. Yay!

 

Hi everyone... I have a serious problem with my HP 8730W Elitebook MobileStation...
I think it has to do with the Graphics Card (I appologize... my computer knowledge isn't the best )

The problem is basically with the screen, whether I'm running youtube, any flash player required video or simply not doing anything, my screen gets a bad glitch: pixels go all crazy with white spots everywhere, freezes, turns back, and comes back... It then says that my display driver has failed but has recovered successfully. I tried looking into the solutions, none of them worked.

I even changed the driver for the one that was supposed to come with the computer back when I bought it. Still didn't do anything...

I have to admit, it happens more frequently when I'm on youtube then off youtube.

I'm running Windows 7 at the moment...

If that helps..

Any tips would be realllllyyy appreciated!!

Thanks!

 

Hi, what is about the Smart Card Reader on the 8540w? At Notebookcheck stands it was very dissapointet, only 1,7MB/sek.

Did somebody tested this with an SDHC?

THX.

 

Hi, I had to empty my PNY Optima SDHC card. It took 27s to transfer 440MB - a bunch of movie files about 50MB each. That is an average of about 16.3MB/s transfer rate.

Cheers.

 

Hi everyone, I just bought a lightly used 8740w last night. It has a 1920x1200 display (does this mean it's the "dream color"?), ATI Firepro GPU, i5 M-560, 4GB of ram and a 320 gb hard drive. I plan to order 8gb of ram and a 256gb C300 SSD from 'egg today, any reason not to? Any other upgrades you'd recommend for an impatient office user (I'll be mostly using spreadsheets, word, and web)?

I also need to be able to drive 3 external monitors (each at 1920x1080), ideally in addition to the laptop's own display. Can I do this with a VB043AA dock? Will the fact that the laptop's screen is a higher resolution than my external screens cause problems? If so, can I just run off the external screens? Four of them maybe?

Thanks!

 

Hi,
- 1920x1200 doesn't automatically make it a DC2 screen. Seeing a spiral rainbow sticker on your display's bezel would mean that it probably is a DC2 screen, and finally, running MonInfo and seeing taht it is an LG display with 10-bits per channel colour bit depth in the information would mean that it is a DC2 screen.
- 8GB should work well on your system - using it in a dual-channel configuration (4GB x2, I assume) would give you the most out of your RAM. Regarding the SSD, you'll definitely see a huge difference. One day I might too...
- Regarding the monitors, here is a guy who had tried to run multiple monitors unsuccessfully at first, but finally accomplished it. See this post and check the history if you want more details - we discussed docks somewhere in there too:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...book-8540w-owners-lounge-216.html#post7672325
- Your laptop's resolution won't impact the external displays. They should all be individually controlled.

Finally, there is an 8740W owner's lounge in case you'd like to be able to tap into first hand advice from 8740W owners.

Good luck.

 

Hi, I have an 8540w, 8gb, 64gb ssd, fx880.... I have owned it for almost two years with minimal trouble. But recently the performance has been decreasing, to a point where using word was frustrating. I don't have any viruses, spam, adware, totally clean system. I ran the tool latnecymon, and it shows that several of the drivers are causing the problem.

I decided to reinstall the OS, windows 7 64bit. Works great until the network and graphics drivers are installed, both the latest. And as I install more drivers it just gets worse. I contacted HP and they told me I need to replace the video card. Anyone have these issues before? I don’t want to lose my laptop for a week, especially if that’s not the problem.

Would it be better to bring it to a local service center or just send to central HP service?

 

Thanks very much! Sorry, I misread and thought I was in the 8740 lounge. I don't see a rainbow sticker so I guess its not a DC display. 8gb dual channel and a C300 SSD are on-order from the 'egg. I'll run moninfo for kicks. Whatever it is, the display is probably the best I've seen on a laptop so far, happily surprised.

I've got three displays working now, but can't get more than that yet, will keep working at it. up to 5 is supposed to be possible.

 

Yes, I've heard the non-DC2 screens are pretty good too. And yes, even the 8540Ws are supposed to be able to handle up to 5 displays. I can't help any more there, though, as I don't have external monitors at my disposal anymore. If you manage to do it, though, please feel free to share what you had to do or do differently.

Cheers.

 

The machines come with a 3-year NBD on-site warranty. Did they say it was too complex a task to do on-site? I'd first ask again since that was one of the draws to this model for me, but if they insisted it couldn't be done on-site, I guess I'd send it wherever they thought it would be best handled, or handled fastest. Sounds like a serious issues which is affecting your use of it.

My thoughts at least.

Cheers.

 

Hi, I don't suppose you have a spare drive with you? If so, you could swap drives, run a fresh install of Win7 and see if you get issues. If there are no issues, then you know there are a possible series of corrupt drivers / software on your other drive. If it still happens, then all your installed software, data, etc are all intact and it is probably a hardware issue. Once solved, your other drive might be quite usable still.

Hope that helps. Cheers.

 

Intersting. First point - Those 2 are neighbours to the key that triggers the R. context.
Second point - text can be highlighted by double clicking on a word. The pointing stick between G and H can be used to double click. Try going into the device settings and turn that off and see if it still occurs.
That could be the cause of the third point too, as a tap on that would move focus to wherever the mouse cursor is.
Fourth point - no thoughts.
Fifth point - there is a moderate population in Canada who might say that is an improvement. It may not be the keyboard switching. You could confirm that by checking what keyboard your settings show when this happens. If it is still your standard US English or whatever, then it might have been an ascii character that got triggered rather than a keyboard change.

I wonder if any of this could be related to a piece of something (cracker??) getting into the wrong spot in the keyboard and causing neighbouring keys or buttons to get triggered and give weird results. Perhaps take a brush and see if you can clean it out. The keyboard can also be lifted - it is a Customer approved activity - go to the HP site and somewhere under support you'll find video tutorials for it - as some 8540Ws (those with quad cores) house RAM slots under there. It may help if you can remove it, blow it out with compressed air (I don't know if that would make things worse - you'll have to see when you remove it) and reinstall it.

You're definitely under the on-site, NBD warranty, so DON'T RISK ANYTHING -changing the keyboard should certainly be something easy for their techs can do on-site. They should be able to check any connectors, etc. May want to give them a call or chat and see what they say.

Cheers.

 

I think you need a graphics card and power supply that can power it, then the DC2 panel, and maybe a bezel / casing that can hold it as I it might be different from a standard panel. There are some on here who deal with the hardware for their work and would know a lot better than my wild stab in the dark.

So what do you think of the 8560 vs 8540?

Cheers.