*HP EliteBook 8730w Owners Lounge*

just out of curiosity, is this machine basically a bigger version of the 8530w/p? as in similar design and build materials? dtwn, you may be the best to answer this... I'm trying to have a list of computer to start buying when they get cheap. eg. when 16:9 takes over and the price of these things drops like a rock I'll snap one up. so maybe in a year or so, i'll buy one of these on the cheap as it will likely be one of the last 16:10 machines made.


thanks so much

 

I hope the soon coming 8740w is still 16:10 1920x1200 and I don't think the price will drop a lot of the 8730w...

And basically it is a bigger version of the 8530w, however, I think the cooling system is better And you only get the high end graphics with the 17" version besides a few other differences.

Sotton

 

LOL, I still mourn the demise of 4:3 and my old 21 inch Sony Trinitron with which I could, at 2048x1536, work on full page word processing with no eye strain and full picture resolution with my old Fujifilm s602...

Why can't manufacturers build laptops with decent resolution? While camera makers easily passed the 10MP mark, we are still stuck with LCDs that hardly break the 2MP barrier! And don't tell me it's impossible, If they can make 2.8 inch VGA screens on phones on which users can appreciate the increase in resolution (from QVGA), there is no technological reason they cannot scale that to 17 inch (which would be something like 3840 x 2880 or 'extended QUXGA )

 

Yep. I managed to get my friend to get a 8530p before I got my 8730w. The 8530 is a bit thinner, and has the night light. I think the touchpad buttons on the 8730w are far superior though. Ports are in different places of course.

 

cool! sounds good... Honestly 4:3 was great, I could live with 16:10 has me chocked... no more! I really home my 8530p lasts at least 3 years...

 

Don't worry. This is already confirmed

 

And the 8530 has a second mini-PCIe slot, antennae, and SIM slot for WWAN.

I have both, and I reckon if you don't need the ultra fast GPU options, big screen &| dreamcolor, then the 8530 actually provides the same performance but with more features and in a much lighter and more portable package.

 

I have no experience with docking stations but just got one cheap without manuals which also do not seem to be available on hp.com

It works so far but I have a few questions:

Do I have to switch the 8730w off to connect it to the docking station?

Or is it possible to put it into the dock during the 8730w is in hibernation and then start it?

And what is if the 8730w is in Standby, is it allowed to put it into the dock?

thank you

Sotton

 

I just ran some experiments and though your mileage may vary, everything worked as expected.

My setup: 8730w w/DreamColor screen and HP 2008 180W Advanced Docking Station. [Note that HP seems to suggest that the DreamColor version needs a docking station with 180w power.] I am also running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.

Here's what I did:

1. Start up on battery, not in dock
2. Put to sleep mode and close cover.
3. Put in dock, press button to wake from sleep
4. Everything seems to come back ok including recognizing external display/keyboard
5. While still in dock, put machine back into sleep mode
6. Remove from dock, open cover, press power button to wake from sleep.
7. Place machine into hibernate mode. Close cover. Put back in dock.
8. Press power button on dock to resume from hibernate.
9. System resumes including recognizing external display/keyboard

So, for me, all of these combinations worked. Thanks for asking. I had wondered about this, too, but hadn't actually tried the combinations until just now.

- J -

 

thanks for your tests.

Sotton

 

Hey, didn't see this post till today. I actually just ordered another 8730w. It has a small dent, but I got a great price as a result.

Build quality wise, both of them are definitely very good, I didn't try bending either over my knee, but no flex for either machine. The 8730w's screen felt a little more flexible, due to its larger size, but that's normal.

The HP Elitebooks do seem to drop in value fairly drastically. Just look at the previous 8510/8710 prices.

 

I'm also a 'proud' owner of a HP 8730w Elitebook with Dreamcolor display. I bought this notebook 3 months ago and since then I'm traveling through the complete HP support chain finding someone who replaces my display

After one week of usage I recognized a red distortion in the bottom left corner, as it was mentioned many times in this thread. So I contacted HP through a preferred HP partner. After 3 months of waiting for the display to be in stock it finally got replaced by a "new' one and guess what - the new display hast EXACTLY the same red distortion in the bottom left corner as the old one. The technician who replaced the part directly noted it as DOA (dead on arrival) and I will get a new one this week but I don't have much hope.

For those of you who had the problem: was it solved by HP? And if yes, how did they solve it?

Thanks,
Novaris

 

I only have the normal WUXGA display and it is by far not perfect (light leakage, uneven black and so on). But it is ok for me (however, even my 8730w was expensive, if you ask me).

Could you maybe upload a picture of your problem ( http://imageshack.us/ or something free) ?

I wonder what "problem" Dreamcolor you get in all those renewed 8730w which are around...


And will there be a "Dreamcolor 2" for the new 8740w? (I have heard there is a Dreamcolor 2 option for the new 8540w but only FullHD)

Sotton

 

Hey Sotton, are you using the SEC3448 screen?

 

yes, it is the Samsung SEC3448, however, the screen of my older HP is worse, so I call this still an improvement

I hope I will have the money for a Dreamcolor 8740w version but then I want of course a flawless screen, too.

Sotton

 

In this case I suggest you to wait. I got my third display today and it has the same errors as the former two. The following two links are two videos i took during working on my dreamcolor HP 8730w.

Not only there is a red distortion on it, it also seems to have a weird backlight draining problem when sun or any other stronger light source is emitting light at the top right corner. See here:

http://oberion.de/8730w/Dreamcolor_LED_Backlight_Sun.avi
The display becomes complete green or even deactivates itself completely when sun is shining on the top right corner approximately 4cm below the right hook of the display. You can see in the reflection of the screen that I only raise up my hands to block the sunlight and the display is getting white again. as soon as I lower my hand again the fun is going on. Afterwards I switched on the light sensor which is limiting the effect but still you see a slightly green color. I tested this on all three Dreamcolor Displays I got till now and each one had this problem - I would suggest everyone who ownes a HP 8730w with a dreamcolor panel to try this. Switch the light sensor off, take a lamp and move it in a distance of about 4-5cm over the display.

And even in normal operation you see the rumored red distortion. Also here a video of this:
http://oberion.de/8730w/Dreamcolor_LED_Red_Distortion.avi
I moved the camera over the complete white display and you see the red color tint as I move it over to the bottom left corner.

I will contact the HP Support Hotline again tomorrow maybe I get finally an answer...

Maybe also a funny fact: during one of the service repairs my motherboard was damaged so also this was replaced. So the backlight error can not depend on the mainboard.

PS: In order to open the videos the VLC Player is needed...

 

thank you, VLC works, that does really look weird.

I wonder if there is anyone with a fully working Dreamcolor at all?

Is there any other manufacturer (Dell, e. g.) who uses this display also or is it only HP? (maybe Dell calls it Ultra Sharp... )

Sotton

 

Dell calls it the RGBLED screen. I believe a number of posters here have working Dreamcolor screens.

There was a problem with battery drain previously, but that's supposedly been fixed.

 

I hope so, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense for me to wait for a working one.

 

Two questions:

1. Power Adaptors: What is the real benefit in having more wattage in the power supply? My unit shipped with the 150w. I am thinking of getting a second adapter and just curious should I go for one of the higher wattage versions. I understand that in a DOCKING STATION, you would want more power for additional drives etc, but do I need more power for the laptop? Do they only offer the higher wattage to be used with docking stations? If I use a higher wattage will my battery charge faster or something? Is the 150w adapter limiting my performance?

2. Dreamcolor screen - I know this has been talked to death but..... I have the small red bit in the lower left, and who knows if I have the battery drain problem, i dont think I do but how can I tell? Is it so drastic that I would definitely know if I did? My real question is, I have some warranty left, should I ask for a replacement? I have heard some horror stories here about people sending in multiple times and still having problems or worse..... is it worth it? I am willing to live with the pink area if it;s going to be a problem. Then again, is there any chance that the red area will grow over time? get larger? I imagine with the 8740 coming out, there will be plenty of these LCD's to go around - maybe even upgraded ones.....

I will summarize:

1. Should I get a 180w or 230w adapter?

2. Should I worry about a warranty claim on my dreamcolor screen with red area in lower left, which to me is barely noticeable, but perhaps I
have the battery drain and dont even know it.


Thanks!

 

If there is a red shadow there will probably also be the backlight error present. Check this by chance. Take a lamp and move it over your display, if it turns green or dimms the color, its the case.
Nevertheless I would claim warranty due to the red shadow. The HP document about dead pixels mentions pixels where one color is dead. For me, since the dreamcolor display is meant to be "true color" a red shadow is not acceptable. the red shadow means that even more than 40 pixels are NOT showing the right color. And, by chance, have a close look at the bottom right corner too. I noticed on my panels that everyone had the red color on the left and a slightly blue one on the right. Check it, and CLAIM!

Another fun fact: I found out that the Mobile Display Manager shows the manufacturing date of the panel. My new, replaced one (!) has a manufacturing date of week 12, 2008! And on the LG Homepage I found a press release telling that the production of these panels started in Q1, 2008, so I got for replacement a panel which is already 2 years old and has been one of the first they built.

 

Thanks -

I don't seem to notice this green back light issue, and to be clear, this notebook has been a dream. I just feel like I paid enough for it, that before my warranty expires, I should get the screen replaced. Also, my headphone jack is kinda "jacked".

My question about the screen at this point is.... would it be better to wait till closer to the end of my warranty period to call this in? It expires in about a year. With what I have read here, the replacement screens dont seem to be coming from a very good pool. Perhaps I will be better to wait 8 months or so and then claim it. Who knows, I might have another issue by then and can get several things looked at with one claim....


Thoughts?

 

What is your performance rating (Windows Experience Index) of 8730w in Window 7? I have 5.8 because of HDD poor performance.

 

@mkvoran:
glad you don't have the issue. It seems like there is maybe also some hope for mine then Well I would claim this as soon as possible. Even if there is a poor spare part pool. If the new one has the same errors, they will have to replace it again. Sure this can take a while then. But you have paid for a fully functional real color display, dont' you want one?

Also, when waiting too long, HP may starts to ask you why you didn't notice it earlier or blaims you to be responsible for the error to be occured. But this is a personal feeling.

 

@AKazak -

My score is similar. I think the only way to get that hard disk score up is to go to a Solid State Disk. I believe thats whay Windows is looking for to get the highest score, which is 7 right now, I think. You might be able to get it up by replacing your disk with another standard hard drive, but one with higher performance, although I think the 7200rpm drives in the HP machines are pretty decent. I wouldn't stress to much over the WEI numbers. You have a beast of a machine. Are you actually running into any performance issues?

 

@mkvoran:
Which GPU is used in your system? Is it the Nvida 2700 or 3700?

 

@AKazak -

My Specs:

2.4 C2D
3700
4gb RAM
250mb HD 7200RPM

I score:

Processor: 6.0
Memory: 5.9
Graphics: 6.8 (for both graphics and "gaming graphics")
Hard Drive: 5.9

If I add 4gb (which I will soon as price comes down) and an SSD (same story) I would have a pretty high score. but this works for now.

 

I just realized my FX3700M unit shipped with a 120W. It's also underperforming, with 3dmark06 scores of about 5.4K. Could the lower rated adapter be the issue?

 

I have a new problem. First I thought it was a single event but then it happened again

I remove the power cord and work on battery an hour or so. Then I put back the power cord and the notebook freezes right after plugging in (Windows XP)

It happened one week ago and then everything was fine a few times. Now it did freeze again.

Any ideas?

Sotton

 

Hi to everybody!
I'm on my second 8730w as I sold the first one to a friend of mine.
This unit has:
- a quadro 3700m original hp part with latest bios bought on ebay to replace the original 2700m
- the dual heatpipes vga heatsink (bought off ebay too).

I bought the dual heatpipes heatsink as the single one was overheating with the powerful 3700m. But even with the dual heatpipes the vga card gets too hot and have problems. If you remove the keyboard and put a fan on top of the heatsink everything work fine and stable so I'm sure it's a heat issue.

Whenever I ran gpu demanding applications after a few minutes I get errors (texture errors, and that makes me think it's related to the memory chips getting too hot) or BSOD.

I'd like to know if anybody out there is willing to test his 3700m with atitool and run the "furry cube test" just to know how hot the gpu gets. Mine reaches 80 celsius and more. And I don't think it's a good temp!

I was thinking about modding the vbios with nbitior to lower the vga voltage hoping to lower temperatures too. Latest build of nibitor fully support quadro 3700m but since hp has a strange bios that works only with some vga cards I'm afraid I could break the card.

If you have any advice I'd be glad to read it, if you can test your card with atitool than it woulde be even better! (please make sure to run the test for at least 15 minutes if it's stable!)

Last but not least, I already put AS5 on the gpu core and even between thermal pads and memory chips.

PS: how can hp think they can dissipate 75w (the TDP of the quadro 3700m) with some copper and a bunch of alluminium when clevo and others have full copper coolers and twice or more the fans and they still get hot????

 

check with atitool or GPUZ or rivatuner if the card reaches the full 3d speed (core 550mhz and memory 800mhz, shader 1400mhz) while running 3dmark. if it doesn't than yes, it's probably because of the power supply

 

I had that problem too and had to send the unit to repair. check with a linux live cd if it happens on another OS or if it's windows related. if it happens whatever OS you are running then I'm afraid it's time for servicing your laptop.

you can even try while on bios setup to plug and un-plug the power cord and see what happen.

 

hm, that sounds not so good. The problem is because it happens not all the time I unplug/plug they will not find any error at the repair center (will not search anyway...)

If it is no hardware problem (switching from using battery to charging it) the reason should be the BIOS, I guess, now I have F.11 installed.

I normally use hibernation instead of shutdown but I think if you often reboot anyway you will have less problems? What do you think?

Sotton

 

which NVIDIA driver do you use?

However, I have no experience with stress tests but my card got replaced because the 2700 broke (too much heat?) and it was replaced by the repair center some time ago, now I have a 3700. I don't know what else was replaced...

But it seems that the old card with the old drivers (179.72) worked better with the few games I play from time to time. And the 3700 works only with the newest beta drivers 195.81 ok but not without problems (short freezes)

80 degree is not too much but high, I think 95 is very high and 115 is too much (critical)

Sotton

 

If it happens only form time to time you should try to note if there's any kind of recurrency. I mean, maybe it happens only when batteries are lower than a given value, or when cpu is under load or whatever.

I don't think hibernation instead of powering off could make any difference.

Bios version could be the cause, you are right. Did it began to happen once you upgraded the bios? If yes try an older one. F11 is the latest, right?

 

I tried both the latest stable 195.62 and the hp one 179.72 and it's always the same.

If you have glitches while playing then overheating maybe the cause for you too. Could you please test the 3700m with atitool as I described in my other post? I've read on other forums that the 3700m in the dell m6400 throttle down its speed when it reaches 80c so it might be a security function put by nvidia in the chip itself.

Do you have the dual heatpipes heatsink? It's easy to check, just un-screw the 4 screws under the laptop where there's a keyborad simbol the slowly lift the keyboard from the upper side (where the fn keys are). The heatsink is just under the keyboard.

 

yeah, I am logging it already, at least the battery usage. F11 is the latest and it happened last time with F10, but this does not mean it is cured if the BIOS is/was the reason (several times it worked with F10 also and then it happened again and I am using F11 only a few days now).

 

I am using XP, BTW, and I don't know this atitool (does it work with XP, 32 BIT?) but I have several NVIDIA programs installed (Nalu e. g.)

Overheating would be bad news of course but nevertheless a good explanation for glitches because it makes sense: it overheats, freezes, cools down, works some time freezes again and so on ( I only have freezes for 15 seconds after that the colors etc are wrong, I have to switch to Windows and back to get the right colors again). However, as far as I remember one of the games was still working without problems (last time I checked, COD2, yes, it is old ). I hope to find time to check it out again this evening...

I also will first think about this heat sink checking before I unscrew anything...

Sotton

 

Thanks Sotton for all this info!

You have exactly my problem! Wrong colors after a 10/15 seconds freeze. Then you go back to windows, load the game again and it works fine for a short time then same problem again. With older games it could not show as gpu is not stressed that much.

Atitool is a stressing utility for videocards. Just download it from here Atitool then click the "show 3d button" in the lower left corner. A window with a rotating cube will appear on the left. In the upper right corner you'll see frequencies going up (550 for cpu and 800 for memory) and the temperatures will start to go up till.....well this is what we need to know! Remember to keep the cube window selected and don't do other things while testing or results won't be correct.

If you have some time to do this test it would be great!

For what concerns the heatsink the only way to check which one you have is to remove the keyboard. It's super easy so don't be afraid.
Here is a link to the pdf manual hp has on their site to disassemble the laptop. Service manual Scroll down to "Service and maintenance information" and you'll find it.

I'm on xp 32bit too!

 

I still hope that the color/freeze problems are a driver problem and not a overheating problem... because with older drivers I had more fatal errors than with newer ones and always seems the problem some kind of endless loop. But newer drivers are also not available... I wonder if anyone has these problems with Windows 7?


The atitool works so far but I am afraid of damaging anything because it is some kind of overclocking tool?

What I notice is that the temperature goes up but the fan not. How long does it have to run? Is there a full screen mode? (this would stress the card...)

Sotton

 

Atitool CAN overclock if you use it to overclock. otherwise it will only stress the card. So don't be afraid at all!

The temp should go up to 75 before you can easily ear the fan kicking in. You can let it go for as long as you want but keep an eye on it. Mine reaches 80c and more and I don't want to go further so I manually stop it.

Evn if it's only a window and not full screen it stress the card at all. Trust me!

I'm 100% sure the problem I have (and at this point I'm afraid you have the same, sorry to say) is related to overheating, not to drivers. As I said if I leave a fan on top of the heatsink (with keyboard removed) there are no crashes at all.

So finally thanks a lot for trying this for me. you are really kind! let atitool run till 75/80c and you won't damage anything. when you play games you easily rech those temp as you said! let me know if it get's stable or not and what temp it reaches.

 

ok, I will check it out. In the meantime here is a picture of my cooling system

 

A few messages ago, it was asked:

>>> I wonder if anyone has these problems with Windows 7?

Well, I don't have an 8730w that's been manually upgraded from the 512GB video memory to the 1GB video memory. But I do have a 'stock' 8730w with the 1GB video RAM in it running Windows 7.

My son uses it a lot (and I mean a lot) to play World of Warcraft - sometimes with 2 or 3 windows/accounts playing at a time and we've never had a problem like the one described (screen temporarily freezing, excessive overheating, etc.).

I'm not sure if WoW taxes the GPU as much as what you're running but wanted to throw in my 2 cents in case it helps.

- J -

 

hm, I should/will try W7... but for now have to keep XP

thank you anyway for your input


BTW, I have the T9600 CPU and tried this atitool for about 15 minutes. Yes, after a few minutes the fan kicks in but only to keep it about 70 degree (69 in the first 10 minutes, maximum 71)

466 FPS AVG, no errors found


How long should this run to reach higher temperatures?

 

Strangely enough, GPU-Z shows the clocks at 550, 800 and 1400, there's no downclocking on that front at least.

Drivers from the 18X and 19X series both show the 5K+ scores.

Edit:Strangely enough, ran it one more time just to see what happened and came up with 9.7K.

Will be keeping an eye on it.

 

Whoah, how did you get an upgrade in the process?

My FX2700M has also been heating up lately, much more than usual and I haven't touched the drivers. I may have to change the thermal grease and check it soon when I get the time.

 

maybe the 2700 was no longer available or it would break again and it is cheaper to replace once the card with a more stable one than twice the other?

Or maybe they wanted not to work on the repair for weeks (waiting until another spare 2700 would have been arrived).


However, the 2700 worked better for me as long as I remember (but the fan turned higher, too), still have problems with games... And if it is really over heating, nothing won


Keep cleaning the air flow openings from time to time... (and don't play games resting the laptop on the lap... )


Sotton

 

Sotton: you have the single heatpipe cooler (only one copper tube as you can see). I can't understand how you can get only 466 FPS as I get more than 700 (734 to be precise) with the 3700m. I get that score with a 2700m so there's something wrong with your system.
W7 made no difference at all to me regarding my issues so I don't think it's yours is a windows problem.
15 minutes running atitool is fine, you'll see real usage temps.

JEA152: could you please ask your son to monitor temps while playing with rivatuner or GPU-Z? those apps can save a log of gpu load and temps and I'd be curious to have a look at it. If he can run 3 WOW games a time he'll surely be able to do this! ;-)

dtwn: I can get 10.5k - 11.0k with 3dmark06 (and the 3700m) so I'm not sure your system is running fine. what power supply do you have? check with GPUZ graph or log if the frequencies never get lower. I mean, you could have high values while exiting the 3dmark but not while running it.

chrixx: sotton is absolutely right! clean the vents and never play a game while keeping the laptop on you lap!

to everybody: thanks for showing up and trying to solve the temps issue! this laptop is great and f***ing expensive, I can't accept there are so many issues with it

 

it makes kind of sense... since the cooling system and so on are more for usage with a 2700

However, do I have a 2700 which wants to be a 3700 or do I have a 3700 which runs at half throttle (but how?) ?

I have tried very short the old 179.72 drivers from HP and I get only a little more FPS AVG in the atitool but the temperature rises more and seems to go over 80 degree. I stopped...


This could mean that with newer drivers NVIDIA cares more about heat and really throttles something?

But I have to test more...

 

run latest version of GPUZ and post a screenshot here. we'll try to sort it out. could you even keep gpuz running while atitool is testing? select on the second tab of gpuz to continue updating graphs while not on top so that you can check if the card from time to time lower it's frequencies.

Have you kept the "floating cube" window selected (blue title screen and not grey) otherwise that could leave to different results. Last but not least what power supply do you have? Did you run it while on ac power or while on battery?

I get the same temps and fps whatever driver I use. really strange you get 10c difference between one driver and another.