*HP EliteBook 8730w Owners Lounge*

it's actually quite bad. there was an china engineer, who blatantly insisted that the regular TFT is the same part number as dreamcolor. and when i demanded his supervisor, he said he himself is the supervisor. only when i went to the service centre that i found out that he wasnt the supervisor.

he had the cheek to question me how did i had the knowledge of the dream color part number.
i remember my dreamcolor part number is 494015-001 and he replaced it with 494017-001.

I have lost trust in HP engineers esp china ones. so ever since when i send in the laptops/whatever, i remove all my HDD. when i sent in my NC4400, i removed the HDD, when they said that they need a HDD to start an OS. i told them, "aw shucks, that's something u have to figure out on your own."

no way in hell am i gonna leave my SSD in their hands. for all i know they might swap my 250Gb SSD for a regular 250Gb 7200.3

they should be lucky that i decided to leave my ram in the laptop. else they have to figure that out themselves also.

 

Hi i have a T9600 and i would like to change for this quad core .
But what else must i change ? If i am not wrong the motherboard and that's it ?

Best regards
Chris

 

fritz, the heatsink for qx9300 is different also, it's wider

 

1) anyone with 2008 adv docking station tried booting up from the DVD drive IN the docking station?

I cant seem to boot memtest86+ from the DVD drive that is in the docking station.

2) also anyone here swapped out the DVD drive for 2nd HDD and realized that when docked, it has problems resuming from sleep properly?

mine resumes from sleep without problems when undocked.
but when waking up when docked in, it just goes blank screen and never goes back to vista. have to do the 4s power cycle to reboot and the HSF just spins at full power with alot of hot air.

however IF i remove the 2nd hdd from the 8730w multibay before going to sleep, it has no problems waking up when docked.

still wondering what's happening.

3) anyway i did the most insane thing. i drilled a finger size hole on the AK868UT(upgrade HDD bay) bezel so that i can remove it without having to use a screwdriver to slide it out and swap it to optical in field. i miss the old days where the upgrade bay is a push to eject system, like the expresscard




4) I realised that when i slot in the optical drive into the docking station, it's auto detect. but when i slot in the HDD into the laptop bay, it doesnt detect. if i boot vista without the 2nd HDD, i have to reboot to get it detected.

 

You do not need to drill a hole to achieve this. Could have just tied a thread around the hard drive screw and there is enough clearance between the bay and the chassis for the thread to pass through. A slight tug on the thread will loosen the drive. The reason the spring loaded mechanism is not present is because the drive is not hot-swappable, as I mentioned here in my 6930p review.

 

The motherboard part confuses me. There is a separate motherboard that accodomates the quad processors, but I'm not sure if you actually need it. It costs a bomb though, so you could try buying the processor and see if it works with your existing motherboard.

The most economical option to upgrade is to configure the 8730w with Q9000 when you order. This costs about the same as a unit with T9800 (so it is reasonably cheap because the Q9000 is reasonably priced) and it would come with everything supporting quad processors, so a Q9100/Q9200/Q9300 upgrade is just a step away.

 

well, technically if it's AHCI configuration, it's hotswappable.

 

I can not configure and order one because i have already one 6 monthes now .
Before buying the processore i have to know which will be the final cost if i have to change processore , motherboard , headsink and after that i can try to buy only the processor .

 

So i need the processore qx9300 - over 600 $
the new headsink ???? $
the new motherboard ???? $
and paying HP for the upgrade service ???? $

I think i have to pay for another 8730w.
I am sure that it will cost me about 1500 $ .
Maybe it is not worth paying all this money for having a quadcore.
I am not doing videoprocessing where the quadcore is the best .
For everything else ( photoshop , cad , ecc ) i think maybe my T9600 is OK ?
What do you think about all this ?

 

I have a 2008 Docking station and everything is booting perfectly
I have a 2nd wd 320 gb black scorpion in the bay and it is always detected.

If i am not wrong there is an upgrade software for your 2008 docking station
i think it is about the connection between the Docking station and the 8730 look on the hp software download . I did the upgrade months ago and everything is ok

 

is it the HP USB 2.0 Docking Station Driver ?

 

Yes this is the one i downloaded immediately after buying the Docking station .

 

Do you run multiple VMs and/or do a lot of software development with large compiles and/or run engineering applications performing complex calculations in multiple instances? Having a Quad will help in those instances.

 

Tried this? http://mysite.verizon.net/kaakoon/hotswap/index_enu.htm

 

I dont run VMs and no software developments.
I do a lot of photoshop - pictures editing and some CAD but i have open a lot of simple other applications at the same time : Office + photoshop + 15-20 web sites on firefox and Chrome and another 100 processes of the computer .
The processes are about 160 . My CPU is running always at min 30% to 70%.
I think using a quadcore the 4 processore will run more effeciente and at under 30% for all this stuff i do . Is it so ??

 

i just found out from HP site that one has to set to RAID in order for dock bay to show up as bootable. zzzz

as a means for more secure hotswap, i uninstall the drive before pulling it out.

 

If you set to Raid you lose everthing and have to format .

 

Having a Quad will technically still help, when you run many tabs in a browser and have many applications open and running at the same time, i.e. not idle. A usage scenario in your case could be browser tabs downloading stuff, lots of flash videos playing in browser, CAD rendering running, working on 2 or more instances of Photoshop and having Excel or Matlab running some statistics/macros for computation in the background, etc. This will typically make good use of Quad Core CPUs.

For the effort and cost of ugrading, I believe you will make a better investment with an Intel G2 SSD (in RAID0 if possible) and 8GB of RAM.

 

sigh. i give up. I cant figure out why when the laptop sleeps undock, it wakes up fine. but when it's docked it does the sleep of death.
it just goes blank screen.


the last time any desktop i had that had sleeping issues was because of nvidia. now wondering if it's nvidia's drivers again.

 

i just got my mainboard swapped recently.

and it stated "machine is not in committed state"

the engineer gave me a file cpqamt.exe that is HP confidential internal app.

qns now is i cant disable VPro. or aka AMT. sigh.

the plus point is that it came with F.0C and it solved the power leak problem so far. 1 day and less and 5% drained.

I believe that the reason why the power drain is because of the AMT. was reading on it. it allows access even when laptop is shutdown via RJ45.
IF i can totally shut AMT off, i believe i can kill the power drain completely.

btw, for those wondering, before i got my board swapped. AMT option wasn't available in BIOS. with the new board. there is a AMT option in bios now.

anyway after running CPQAMT.exe

it says
VPro enabled
descriptor Locked
intel ME Enabled
flash override disabled.

well for the fact that is HP confidential tool i doubt anyone has got access to it and knows what i am talking about. just ranting away.

 

he is already on 8Gb.
honestly i think you are better off with X series rather than Q series. i run CADA2009 and PSCS4 and i dont really see my quad sustaining high usage. most of the time i see apps that are single threaded. and my CPU always hover @ 25% eg, SVCHOST.exe that occastionally does that. another thing is most apps aren't design for quad.. the most is dual. so that creates another problem..
but with the event of IE8 where every TAB = iexplore.exe, it allows IE8 to be multi-threaded highly.

given his case. the new intel 320Gb SSD would be a better worth of money then switching to quad. not to mention the spare change compared to quad.



slightly off topic. i just spoke to a HP supervisor, he's an indian! for a moment i thought i was still talking to customer care officer.

 

well i got an official hp renew so it was a fair bit cheaper than rrp! more than 2k less than 2.5k

i bought the ram seperately as hp were charging a premium for it.

The upgrade bay should be arriving tomorrow or the next day so i will have benchmarks up by the weekend.

 

It's just an application that Intel distributes to motherboard manufacturers to enable/disable the Intel AMT option. This feature costs $5 or so and is usually enabled in the factory on units configured with AMT. Since the motherboards are all the same, the internal flashing tool allows engineers to "initialise" a motherboard with specific information, including turning the AMT option on/off.

 

still waiting for the upgrade bay to arrive..... although i have to say that it is super snappy at loading apps with the single ssd, cant wait to see what it is like in raid 0!

 

did a quick 3dmark06 last night with the latest drivers from the nvidia site

11052

which i didnt think was bad especially as i am using vista 64

gonna try a few tweaks to get the best i can before the upgrade bay arrives.

 

Got an HP 8730W, QX9100, 8GB ram, FX3700, Blu-Ray WUXGA Dreamcolor WVA.

Installed the Official Windows 7 Ultimate (MS Technet Plus) today after running the RC for months. To my suprise after install was finished my Quadro FX3700 is not recognized by the final version of WIndows 7, the RC detected the FX3700 perfectly but now Im stuck with a standard VGA adapter... HP technical support ofcourse plays stupid (I have to contact MS lol) and MS will send me to HP... let's hope HP will release the Windows 7 drivers for this card ASAP.

 

i think there are drivers on the nvidia site for windows 7

 

i just upgraded to windows 7 myself, i dont have a graphics issues, however i do have an issue that windows 7 doesnt appear to be able to power down the laptop when i shutdown/restart/hibernate if i hold down the power button its switches off and theb boots fine the next time i switch on which implies the OS has finished its shutdown, it just doesnt power down the machine.... most frustrating!

 

Well today I tried again to let windows update the drivers for the VGA card and this time it installed the FX3700 correctly!

I don't have the power down problems so I think that's something you can fix also.

I still have 2 Unknown Devices but that will prob be fixed in the coming days' weeks when HP releases the 7 drivers

 

In a brief survey, I got the impression that the battery drain problem was only evident for units with DreamColor display. I thought I got confirmation from folks on this thread that units without the DreamColor display did not have battery draining problems.

I assumed your unit was with DreamColor?

Are there any readers here on this thread without DreamColor display that have the battery draining problem? Please let us know.

thanks,
-K

 

Got my 8730w today after some quite hectic Fedex delays (hopeless delivery route and misscanned packages). Perfect build quality once again from Inventec, but the lid locking mechanism is too tight. Now awaiting Intel's SSDs....

 

yeah same here, waiting for the intel 320Gb SSD.

btw, i managed to find on ebay sata cradle for the optical disc. so that i can use the DVD drive when i have the upgrade bay being used by the 2nd HDD.

as for the battery, I just tried recently 2 days, 5% drop in battery. it isnt perfect, but hey it's better at least.

 

Haven't got the chance to test the battery yet and I didn't order mine with any optical drive. The Dreamcolor display is worth every penny now that I get a display that is at least close in color to my external monitor.

 

anyone here using nvidia 186.03 drivers for their FX3700m? do you have sleep problems? I realised that when nvidia drivers are uninstalled, it cant sleep. but when nvidia drivers are installed, the laptop is capable of sleeping, but only sleep of death. it cant wake up.
all indicators are on but the screen is blank. typical nvidia thingy. and occasionally BSOD on resuming.
I remember the early days of vista where nvidia drivers would cause wakeup/sleep problems. I am wondering if this is the case now. I am literally tearing my hair out. I tried switching from business to ultimate, SSD to HDD and it still has sleep problems. really at my wits end.

 

ah crap. was just reading from nvidia

Open Issues in Version 186.03
Quadro FX 3700M: When resuming from lid‐close activated Sleep mode, keyboard and mouse response is very sluggish. [521241]
GeForce 9700M GTS: The system does not resume from Standby/Sleep mode.

with this kind of drivers no wonder so many people are switching to ATI.

for a quadro, i expect it to be working near flawless

 

hmmm after abit more of testing. I reinstall vista again with SP1 and SP2 and nvidia. no problems. then i installed HP 3D driveguard. considering that I have got 2 hdd on this laptop, it's now having problems sleeping. gonna test this bare setup a few more times to confirm that it's 3D driveguard that's causing mine to have sleeping problems.

 

I have 2 hard drives on mine in a RAID0 configuration and I can sleep and wake up fine. I have Windows 7 installed on it though, but the set up should be similar.

 

Hi, I am a user of 8730w with a dreamcolor display and there is some problem with it. I am using this laptop with Autocad, which means black screen in the center and light icons on the sides. While using this program, zooming out and in, moving my eyes, I can see color (red, green, blue) stripes, near the icons. Its very anoying and I am not the only one person, who can see it. While trying out, why it doesnt work, I found out, that I generally experience the same issue, when the screen is dark ( black, blue…) and when there are light objects. I also tried to take a picture of it, but its not possible, on the other hand I see it even if one eye is closed. Otherwise I am a user of samsung LED display and I have never experienced something like this. Do you have any clue, why is it like this, have you noticed it on your screen? Thank you

 

Hello Chrixx , it is of topic but i dont have other solution to ask you about
your external monitor HP LP 2475w.
I want to buy the same one and connect it to my Docking station and i need your personal opinion about it .
How are the colors , the sharpnees , and gaming capabilities .
If you have a little time please tell me
Best regards
Chris

 

Colors are excellent to me, but may require some calibration if you're doing some professional work as the default settings are oversaturated (like the Dreamcolor displays).

 

This! And it should be a no brainer with ANY monitor screen--especially at this level.

 

Hi All,

I'm waiting delivery for my 8730w with DreamColor & fx2700m.

Just wish to know how do the professionals here check for a dead/stuck/bad pixels and the color accuracy of the panel. I'm don't have a trained eye for such details although my color perception is pretty good.

Not sure if there's an easy to use and free (as in free beer) color calibration tool available.

I'm a noob so any advice is greatly appreciated


Cheers,
romulanvox

 

I finally received my 8730w with Dreamcolor. Tried install Windows 7 RTM on it but ran into some software problems.

When I tried into install the HP Mobile Display Assistant (Vista 64bit version), the installation program said that my laptop isn't equipped with Dreamcolor. I recall that the while booted in the original WinXP SP2 32bit, the Mobile Display Assistant was working fine.

Would like to check the following:

1) How can I verify that my 8730w is indeed equipped with Dreamcolor?

2) Are there any known driver problems for 8730w in Windows 7? I'm still trying to download the latest nVidia drivers (ver 186.81).



Rgds,
romulanvox

 

The Mobile Display Assistant works fine on Windows 7. Download the latest version here.

 

Thx Chrixx! I downloaded the latest drivers from nVidia and installed the Mobile Display Assistant.

The native DVD playback using Windows Media Player is very bad. The quality of the playback looks like something out of a VCD, where the video is pixelated and the colors are not crisp and vivid I tried different movie DVDs and the lousy playback quality persisted. Is there something wrong with the nVidia drivers (ver 186.81)? I've even double checked that my DirectX is version 11.

Would a different DVD player program like PowerDVD or WinDVD give better playback quality? I've tried installing other free codecs for Windows 7 but it was of no help. Tuning the color settings via the nVidia control panel didn't work either. Am I using the wrong nVidia drivers?

BTW, I think I'm one of the lucky ones who got a good Dreamcolor panel. Didn't have that problem of the red shadow on the left bottom corner.

Other than this little problems which I encountered, the 8730w is a great laptop. My sister is even thinking of buying a smaller elitebook, of which new models will be released later this year.

 

Hi,

Like kaltmond (on page 41 of this forum) I have a problem with a FX 3700M.

I've just bought it to replace my fx2700M on the HP8730w and once mounted inside, the laptop starts (HDD and power leds are on), don't really seem to boot up and the screen remains off!

I uploaded and change for last motherboard bios, even video bios... nothing changes!

Someone told me that it won't work because of bios limitations made by HP...

Do you think it would be possible to get a bios of a 8730w with a 3700m originaly sold with it and flash mine with???

Thanks for helping!

NB: for information my actual Bios is 68PAD F.0E. and vbios is 62.94.7A.00.07.

 

Hi All,

I'm still facing movie playback quality problems. Just discovered that even movie files like WMV and AVI are played with very bad color rendering, just like the DVDs.

I've tried various combination of variables in the nvidia control panel, but yielded little improvement. It is just strange the graphic files are displayed brilliantly but movies are the exact opposite.

Would appreciate if anyone can advise what sort of nvidia drivers for the fx2700m (version, from nvidia or HP), settings (nvidia control panel) and perhaps even codecs to be used, so that I can get a decent movie playback.

Thanks in advance!

 

Anyone using an external hard drive connected via eSata?
I've tried this and had really bad data corruption during writes, so bad that Windows Explorer has hung and the whole drive becomes unstable. I've posted on the HP Business forum and others have had problems too.

I'm on Win XP.

Oh, and BTW there appears there may be a fix to the battery drain problem, it involves swapping a couple of wires from the Dreamcolor panel.

 

Need help here, I have a 8730W (model KS074UT) , HP recently replaced my dimmed dreamcolor LCD with a new one. Before the replacement, the dreamcolor assistant is running okay, however with the new panel the dreamcolor display assitant is not even installing, it says my panel is not a dreamcolor led display. I called up HP and after reviewing the service record of my laptop I was guaranteed that the replacement display is a dreamcolor panel. I was ask to re-install vista bus 32bit and update all drivers and bios, but still the same problem, display assistant doesnt run. I tried installing the latest version of dreamcolor display assitant but still the it doesnt work. My laptop display panel detected by HP Performance Tuning Framework is a LG- LP171WU3-TLB1. Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

First of all, does it look as good as a Dreamcolor display? You should be able to tell with a naked eye. If you can, then follow the link I provided earlier to download the mobile assistant update. Judging from your part number, it should be a DreamColor panel, but parts may be mislabeled.