*HP EliteBook 8540w Owners Lounge!*

I monitored with Core Temp, and it shows the CPU speed isn't boosting up to turbo speeds while it's heating up like it is. The temps just go up for no apparent reason--just came out of sleep, no CPU activity--and never go down.

Today I discovered another piece to the puzzle. Simply left on for prolonged periods without activity and auto-sleep disabled in Windows power options, the laptop will heat up and the fan will crank without ever being able to get the temps back down. At boot time temps of the 2 cores are 50s and 60s respectively (the temp difference makes me think maybe the heatsink isn't set properly), and after a few hours powered on without using it at all the temps seem to stabilize in the 70s and 80s on the 2 cores and the fan stays cranked up. The laptop still feels cool to the touch with only the CPU area feeling very slightly warm, but those temps are worrying. Is there something wrong with my 8540w? Come on guys, hurry up and get yours so you can tell me if this is normal

 

That's a mighty bright deduction - and I hope its plausible (heatsink improperly seated); it'd be the quickest.. but! EFF those s! Make them roll a tech out! AND! Hopefully, micromanage what the tech does so you can report any physical changes made. If its not the heatsink... you know, there are applications that run in the BG that taskmanager doesn't show. You might have to get a program that shows ALL the processes running -- its possible there's something.. but, that's very low-likelihood, and even IF true, reflects poorly on the heat managing ability of the cooling because CPU utilization is low. If low usage over heats it, what happens when I leave it for 4 hours to encode a video? Have my sprinkler system hose my apartment down? that'd suck. Either way, sounds like the first guy to get it gets to test their warranty service immediately thereafter. Nice HP... Nice.

 

Those temps sure are not normal. 50-60 are rather high for no load anyway, the 70-80 are enough to use your three year on-site warranty.

 

Anybody know if I order 8540w now, about when will the notebook get shipped?

 

Sorry for the false alarm on the high temps. I'm an idiot. When I crank the CPU up to 100% utilization with Prime95, the temps go down into the 30s for both cores according to Core Temp. Uh... wrong? I downloaded Real Temp and it says idle temps are in the 40s sometimes dipping into the 30s, and at 100% CPU usage temps are at 65-72 depending on which core. That sounds more like it. So I went back to Core Temp and noticed that it's not showing temp but rather distance to TjMax. So yeah, duh, I'm an idiot. I totally read it backwards. Real Temp is easier to read for me since they display actual temp instead of just distance to TjMax.

Still, there's that weird full-throttle-fan-after-waking-from-sleep deal, and the full-throttle-fan-after-idle-for-a-few-hours deal. Will do some more experiments with it. At least now I'll know what temps I'm really getting There's a BIOS setting "fan always on when AC power" or something like that, which by default is on. When I turned it off the fan never went to full blast but the hand rest and keyboard got warmer to the touch than before. Not sure that's a good trade-off for the fan not being loud. Like I said, will do some more experiments to see what's up, and when people start getting theirs in I'd love to hear what they have to say about theirs.

 

According to the website, if you order now, April 6th. Whether or not that gets changed, who knows.

EDIT : I was speaking of the pre-configured deal that includes the free docking station.

http://h71016.www7.hp.com/MiddleFra...N095UTSC2/heasmith&oi=E9CED&BEID=19701&SBLID=

 

Don't believe that date, it just automatically shows one week ahead. I ordered my pre-config deal last Monday and the rep said it would be at least two weeks to ship. When I check online now it says mid-May, so I don't know what to believe.

 

anyone who ordered back in February get theirs yet?

 

Mine is supposed to ship tomorrow (according to HP CS), but so far the production status hasn't changed.

I'll update later if I get a tracking #.

 

mine has arrived at my company. though, i have not received yet as they are still configuring and will then ship to me.

 

Last notice I got was that shipping would be today (I ordered Feb 5).
Also received an extra $160 discount for the delay. Hope it was worth it.

 

I ordered on the 5th also. I ended up canceling, I didn't think it would go through, and I was supposed to get a confirmation in the email, never happened, I was surprised considering how HP pulled the "we can't cancel it because its in the production phase" before and was actually looking to get some sort of a discount for being lied to for 2 months.

 

Mine has arrived today, but I missed it -_-
Tomorrow this jewel will be mine, once and for all! Muahahahahahaha... hem. Anyway I'm happy that it has finally arrived. I'm anxious about the display quality, even if it seems excellent according to the photos posted by MentatYP

 

Hello, I just came from the Dell Website and was very disappointed with the Precision M4500 configuration options and price, and made a final decision to go with the HP 8540w. I know that there is a 24% off coupon on HP's site, but are there any other savings that I do not know about? Would a student discount also apply to HP?

Another thing, I have heard about the BIOS for HP Elitebooks being restricted, as it will not boot up with non-HP branded devices, such as wireless LAN cards and graphics cards. Is this true? If so, does the restriction apply to other hardware?

 

I doubt it. graphics cards maybe, but no for wireless or ram or hard disk/SSD...

my 8530 has an extra 2GB aftermarket ram and a intel 80GB SSD and it has no issues at all.

 

First impressions: Very beautiful machine. Certainly the best I have ever seen. The dark gray brushed finish is really sexy.
On the software side, Windows 7 recognizes nothing when installed by ourself:


The screen has great viewing angles for a TN panel, similar to the MacBook Pro. Like the MacBook Pro though the colors are wrong, the gamma seems too high, but it is still good to the eyes, and easily readable.
The AC adapter is way smaller than it used to be, in particular with the 8530p. I think we can say it's transportable again. The machine is quite heavy but you knew that from the specs. I'll do a more in-depth test once I've got my drivers installed, thanks to my Precision M65!

 

Hello did you buy by NEPTUN? is it the 8540w FHD with blueray with no OS?

 

Yup I ordered it from Neptun, however it's the "light" modell, so it's not Full HD, but it's okay for me. I used to have a 1920x1200 15''4 screen, and it was too small for efficient programming/browsing/etc. when working hard, so I was usually in 120 DPI which is prettier but useless because it brings back my resolution to an equivalent of 1536x960. So far 1600x900 seems to be a good compromise (and it's not that small), I just have to be used again to 96 DPI.
For now it seems to be quiet, once I have the drivers (the damn HP ftp is so sloooooow!) I'll try to put it in sleep mode to see if I get the same problem as MentaYP

 

If I was to buy the 8540w (model: FN095UT-SC2) how hard would it be to install windows 7 professional 64 bit. Because support at hp told me that model comes with xp pre-installed and they give you a windows 7 professional 32 bit disc.

Also to those who actually have the laptop what type of battery life can we expect to get with the 8cell. (like on balanced mode, and on power save mode with low brightness and wifi still on).

Thanks.

 

3 hours at nearly full screen brightness. Maybe less, maybe more once I installed the additional drivers.

 

BEWARE! This is just an indication, don't take my test as an authority because I still don't have installed the drivers!!! (the HP FTP is slow as hell)
Please wait for a real test! (maybe the estimation performed by the battery is wrong, btw)



For those who don't speak french, this simulates running one thread at maximum CPU frequency (high performance mode) with high screen brightness. As I'm typing, it's now indicating 3h30 left, which is far more reasonable. And maybe I'll get more when the drivers are installed (in particular, I remember that installing the NIC driver spared 2-3 precious watts on my M65 - which could improve autonomy by 30 minutes, because Dell disables it when on battery and no cable is connected). Also I forgot to remove the transceiver of my mouse when taking the laptop away (it may eat a watt or two).
(And for those who don't have Windows 7, appreciate the gayish backgrounds supplied by default )

 

that's not core i7, right? could you write the specs of this device since i don't know what the neptun light version specs exactly are...

 

It is a core i7 620M, and the Quadro 880M (which seems to do a big job about energy saving... don't know if it's worth it but anyway), and 1600x900 display. I think that's pretty much all what changed (except 4 Gio RAM instead of 8, but that shouldn't be important).
I didn't run a benchmark on it because it isn't relevant (I'll let that to someone who gets the quad core), but I fear that with 2 threads running we would do no more than 2 hours with the battery.
Based on the battery estimation, you can get up to 4 hours in energy saving.
No need to say that even this "lower-end" CPU is blazingly fast. Even in energy saving, locked to 45% CPU frequency (according to Windows) the system is extremely reactive and it is more than enough for most tasks like programming (i.e. it doesn't feel slow, like the C2D did).

 

hoping to get my laptop by the end of the week. anyone notice if HP Skyroom was pre-installed or if the media is available for it? my team works remotely, so the ability to communicate via skyroom is appealing.

just curious if anyone has seen or used..

thanks, rick..

 

Hi, Sorry for posting about 8440w model here.
I am using 8440w 1600x900 model and I think its display quality is not very good than I expected. Specifically, vertical viewing angle is very bad, when I look at the laptop screen, bottom side(about 20% of the screen) of screen is not black at all even some gray.

How about 8540 model having same problem ?

 

Does anyone know if calling HP will yield any additional discounts to the 24% coupon? Could I also use an educational discount?

 

I've got the same problem about fans going loud after resuming from sleep -_-

 

MentatYP already explained the cause:

You said that Windows does not recognize most of the hardware without additional drivers, what about LAN and WLAN?

 

I changed the option but it's still blowing at full blast when resuming from sleep mode... and it is REALLY going on my nerves.
Also, once you enable Virtualization, the PC will not reboot anymore: after you enabled it, each time you reboot it from Windows, it will turn off and on after a few seconds, then it will be stuck on the HP logo. Disabling Intel VT resolves the problem but cripples performance of course.
The middle click doesn't work. I don't know how to make it work, but these Synaptics drivers are BAD compared to the Alps I had. No option about an hypothetic middle click...
Everyone here who receive it, please test if these problems also exist for you, and call the HP support if it does. Maybe then they will fix these bugs ASAP.
If somebody is interested, the battery now indicates 5h11 left for 94%, with the energy saving plan, and reduced screen brightness.

 

Well that's good news and bad news for me. Good news because mine isn't individually faulty; bad news because perhaps all 8540w suffer this issue. I did some searching and found a NBR thread about the HP d4t experiencing similar issues, and it didn't seem like there was a BIOS update to fix it. Maybe they'll actually support the EliteBook and put out an update? Hope so.

Just to clarify for others, turning "fan always on" on/off in BIOS makes no difference. That only affects normal operation. When set to "on", the fan is on low and the laptop stays cooler. When "off", the fan is off unless needed and the system is warmer all-around--CPU temps as well as the feel of the handrest, keyboard, etc. Regardless of that setting though, when waking from sleep the fan goes to full blast and never slows back down. Really annoying.

 

I turned mine and and I can boot into Windows 7. Did you install the Intel chipset drivers? Honestly I don't know what VT does since I haven't been in the market to build my own desktop in a while and haven't kept a close eye on CPU developments, so I don't know if it's actually doing anything, but I turned on the option in BIOS and can still boot.

I don't usually use a middle mouse button, but I tried this one and in a browser it scrolls back up when I click it, so it does something for me.

 

Thank you ^^ Can you take a look if you have got the other issues I mentioned?
Also, has your USB controller done anything *strange*? Mine seems to not be very clean and sometimes it boots without a mouse or a keyboard, but maybe it's my mouse (it is really special, I experienced problems with my previous computer: when launching a VM, it would stop working).

 

Yes, but please, try selecting "Restart computer" from the start menu and look at what happens.
In my case, it turns off, waits like 5 seconds and then turns one again. After that you have to wait like 5 seconds for the HP logo to appear, and it won't get past this logo (at least it did only once).
The middle click is used for example to open a new tab when clicking on a link. Does this work for you?
Thank you for your time!

 

There have been long standing issues with the 8510w (and 8710w)and fan noise that can be researched in the main forum. At some point in the life of the laptop nvidia or HP decided to put the fan always on super high when it has an extra monitor plugged in. It took years to figure out what had happend.
I will be updating to an 8540w, but only when HP gets its fan noise issues totally bullet proof.

 

Great, one of those "it's not a bug - it's a feature" situations. I expected nVidia to fix the heat issues of the GeForce 8 and 9 series.

 

Does anyone know when the 24% coupon will expire?

 

No one here knows, but my guess is never.

 

For FREE SHIPPING call 800-888-0137. Free shipping
Special offers: Have it your way & Save up to 24% on select custom-configured HP business laptops via eCoupon
Offer ends 03/31/10

 

Damn... I was hoping that it would last at least another month. I hope a similar coupon starts tomorrow or that takes the 8540w out of my options, as the custom configs are really expensive.

 

I just got a tracking # from HP . My 8540w was ordered on February 9.

 

Don't be too eager. You'll probably fall in the same problems we had, and it's important we bomb HP so that they maybe fix those issues. I'm back on using my Dell for now :/
Also the VM on which I used to run OSX (that's needed for a school project and they don't supply us with a Mac -_-) doesn't run anymore on the i7.

 

Also got my tracking number today. Ordered Feb. 5

 

A suggestion...if the 24% does expire on 3/31
you can call in for a price reserve. the sales guy i spoke to sent me a emailed of $2300

 

Please post when you get a response from HP, I'm wondering if they take this seriously.

 

On mine if I restart it also turns off, waits for a few seconds, then turns back on. It lingers a long time on the HP BIOS splash screen (30 seconds? I didn't time it, but it was significant), but was then able to boot to Windows just fine. Did it a couple times with the same result. It didn't do any of that strangeness when powering up from being completely turned off--only did it when restarting from Windows, like you said. For me not a big deal since I don't need to restart Windows on a normal basis. Once all my apps and drivers are installed I seldom need to restart Windows.

I changed the middle button to mute the speaker volume and it was able to do that. My middle mouse button works.

 

Yes, notice how you are able to assign a lot of different actions to this middle button... but none of them is actually middle click!
In fact is your third button also detected as a "scroll up" button in the synaptics application? On a friend's 8530p it's detected as mid button, and works the way should by default. I tried his drivers and it doesn't solve the issue on mine.
This seems a weird hardware/TP firmware issue: why would a mid button report itself as a "scroll up"? This definitely is an error in the HID descriptor. A very DUMB error. Probably fixable by software, but too weird to be done cleanly by HP.

 

Finnaly got my 8540w FHD 8gb quadro fx1800m bluray re!!!!

Yeppe

 

GPU BENCHMARK!!!!!! NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
please

 

Also Run the DirectCompute/OpenCL Benches 2

 

Look again tomorrow, and let me know what the expiration date is.