*HP EliteBook 8730w Owners Lounge*

So, any other things strange besides the low AVG???

 

you have a newer vbios, I have an older one. but I don't think it can make so much difference. In worse!
you tried atitool 0.26 while I use 027beta4
you could try to use this one instead. but then again I'm not sure it can make so much difference.
What about the power supply? what wattage do you have?

EDIT: I just tried 0.26 and I get a bit different values than 0.27b4 so please give it a try.

EDIT 2: well there's something strange! Gpu load is at 68% almost constant and memory is 36%. While I run the test GPU load is 90% and memory more than 50%. Looks like your card can't go full speed for some reason. rerun the test with 0.27b4 and post you results!

 

power supply is 150w

 

3DMark06 Score is 10924, what it should be, I think?

 

this score is perfect for the quadro 3700m. the only doubt I still have is that 3d mark isn't long enough to show up overheating. I never had any problem with the 3700m in 3dmark even with single heatpipe (as you have!)
the problems came from playing something for a longer time.

the power supply is fine too.

you could play a game that you know usually make the card crash and leave GPUZ monitoring and logging in background. So that we can check what happens when you play.

ps: could you please upload your vbios here? you just simply have to press the small green arrow next to the bios version in gpuz and click save to file. thanks a lot in advance!

 

can you read it? What can you do with it?

 

here are more of my experiences:

I am no big gamer, the 2700 was enough for me and even with the older drivers (179.72) did a good job (until it broke ) I only play native (WUXGA) but do not care to max the settings, and no newer games

I have only experience with HalfLife 2, Call Of Duty 2 and TrackMania Nations Forever.

None of the problems I have with the 3700 I had with the 2700. Sure, a few glitches but no big problems.


Currently I have these freezes (10-20 seconds) and after that a discolored display, but only with the newer (newest BETA) drivers. Older drivers mean longer freezes or even a reboot because the graphic card is no longer recognized.

These freezes happen in HL2 a lot and in TMNF often but only in full screen mode (you can run TMNF in a window). Until now no freeze in COD2.


With the old 179.72 driver I played HL2 until it crashed, Windows says something with "endless loop" and the resolution was wrong, I had to reboot.

GPU-Z (last log) measured temperature 70 degree and GPU load 99% (maybe it is unable to show 100% load but it could be some kind of endless loop)
However, the temperature was a few seconds about 70 degree and this was the max value (and it has risen from 41 continuously) --> could also mean a heat problem


Then I installed the 195.81 and played a little COD2 without problems. GPU-Z measured more than a minute about 80 degree --> this means buggy driver or HL2 uses something COD2 does not use but no heat problem


Maybe the NVIDIA driver has a problem with the bigger RAM or something else of the 3700?


Sotton

 

Sotton trust me it's not a matter of drivers. It's just a problem with overheating. I tried all the drivers and different vbios (mine and yours, thanks for it!) and even tried to mod the vbios to use a lower voltage on gpu: there's no hope to get a stable gameplay.
If you put a 12cm fan on top of the heatsink (see picture attached sorry for quality I took it with my mobile) everything work fine and you can play as long as you want.
If you want to give it a try I'll be glad and I'm sure everything will get right.

Heatsink with fan

The problem IS related to what game and what setting you play at. Older games with low settings won't make the card get hot enough, newer games with high settings will make the card overheat and crash.

 

ok, I understand, sad thing, but I am still hoping for a "cheap" solution and a lot of questions left

1. How many users have heat problems with their 8730w and 3700?

it seems, using XP, there are only two... but there may be more not reading this forum...

2. could the driver some how compensate over heating without freezing the game?

3. Dell users have also some problems with the 3700, right?

4. is the cooling system that bad?

It must be cause my 2700 broke but it did not show the problems of the 3700, strange


and so on...


What to do? Hoping to get ATI with the 8740w of course but that will be expensive, I guess, and requires new money...


Sotton

 

well I'll try to answer your points, but all this is IMHO!

1) I'm sure there are many others with 8730w and 3700m but MAYBE they haven't ever stressed the card enough to see this problems. I don't think many out there use this laptop for gaming. CAD modeling can be a heavy load but maybe real load on the vga doesn't last all the time like a game can be. I mean, you move your item then edit it, then move it back again to edit another. There are pauses that let the card cool down a bit so imho it could be less demanding.

2) the driver could compensate overheating by lowering frequencies. It means less FPS but less heat and no more freezes. we can easily do it with ATITOOL lowering core and memory to (let's say) 500 and 700 instead of 550 and 800. I'll try this later and let you know. So basically you'll get less power (maybe a bit more than the 2700m but way less than a "real" 3700m but you'll be able to play games with no risk at all.

3) I read it somewhere. I'll try to find it back and link the thread here

4) first of all you (well, the smart hp technician) are trying to use the cooler designed for the 2700m in a 3700m and that can't be good at all! that's why your card get so hot. I have the bigger cooler so I SHOULDN'T have problems but I still have, and this i the strangest part.

I had for some time the 2700m and a friend of mine still has it up and running perfectly. Your card could be defective since the beginning and waiting to die a day or another (it happens....). Maybe it hasn't been fault of the cooler.

8740w with the newer ati is going to be really expensive! We have to try to solve this first.

 

In fact running at these frequencies I've been able to run a couple of races at DIRT without any issue. Maybe you could have to lower it a bit more because of your hetsink.

here are a couple of threads about the dell 6400m with nvidia 3700m and overheating issues. They solved like I did, underclocking :-(

Link 1

Link 2

 

thanks for the infos

what was the max temperature you reached with the reduced values?

Because I got no problems playing COD2 at 80 but HL2 crashed at 70 (measured by GPU-Z)

Sotton

 

this is exactly what makes me think that problems don't come by the GPU itself but by memories. the kind of error you get and I get is a typical memory chip overheating.
I get crashes at different gpu temps as you do. gpu can be 80 or 70 it doesn't matter. what matter is the temp of memory chips and that is not available.
but the fact that if I put a fan on top of the heatsink all errors are gone easily makes me think about overheating.
avoid playing games with stock frequencies as overheating could damage permanently memory chips. try lowering the values and see what happens.

cod2 is older and maybe hasn't heavy textures. hl2 is newer and maybe is heavier on textures. so it stresses more memory chips.

 

I am afraid you are right

I got most (or all) of the problems in the evening after a day of work when the whole machine is hotter than in the morning (currently I am testing a little in the morning)

Since the 2700 has half the memory maybe another reason why the errors only show up with the 3700

This also means, since I do not play much, sooner or later the 3700 could break... In 1 year I can tell or maybe sooner who knows (good to have 3 year warranty...)


I will try under clocking, too...


BTW, is the dual heat pipe normally for usage with the ATI-VGA ?


Sotton

 

Hi , i have the same setup and i dont do all these steps.
I put my 8730w on directly on the 2008 Docking station and everything works great immediately . Only the supply status changes from battery to Ac.

Best regards
Chris

 

Get definitly an 180wAC power adapter for fx3700 . It is better than 150w which is at the limite .
I have 2 extra 180w and the 180w of the 2008 docking station . I only can say my 8730w is working perfectly with more than 150 processes on the go and playing games also the same time .
Go for it .

About the dreamcolor issue i can tell you that it is a lottery if you get one with no problems . I was lucky because mine is without any issue .
I only have the battery drain problem but i can live with it as i have a 12 cell and 4 Ac adapters .
You can try out to have it replaced but than you risk to have your laptop scratched and who knows what else or even get another dreamcolor problem .

Best regards
Chris

 

Hi there Chris! What kind of games have you been playing on your unit? I've been discussing with Sotton in the previous posts about problems with 3700m and games.
Could you play some stressing game like DIRT or HL2? These are the games that give us big troubles.
Could you heck if you have the dual heatpipe heatsink or the single one?
Thanks in advance

 

I dont see any problems with my fx3700 .
I play all of COD , Prototype , Impire total war , Left for dead 2 , fear 2 ecc.
I dont have any freeze problems or heat problems .Max temperature of the
graphic card is 70-75 c . Fan is set on demand and not always on . .
I use core temp to control the temperature and riva tuner .
The laptop is always on Ac power at home and connected to my 2008 docking station . So there is an amount of space under the laptop for better cooling .
I dont know if i have the dual or single heatpipe but i think the single because my processore is not extreme it is the 2.8ghz.
I dont know how to check it .

I can only say with one phrase : my workstation is without any problem under any condition and i am running constantly more than 150 processes
I have always 30 -40 browsing tabs open and a variety of other programs running and the sidebar is always on .

 

to check what kind of heat pipe you have you have to unscrew the keyboard and look... check out a few posts back how it looks in my 8730w and a little more back how to unscrew it. It was easy but I had doubts first to do it

What OS are you running and which driver version? We are both using XP.

What are the tweaks you have done with riva tuner?

Sotton

 

Chris thanks for the infos!
If you have time and will you could check what heatsink you have. As Sotton says it's really easy, I've explained him how to do it a couple of posts before.
I'd like to know even what drivers you have and if you could post a screenshot of GPUZ to see some infos about you card.
I have the 150w power supply and Sotton too. You have the 180w. Could it be the right hint?

 

BTW, rcboyit, have you tried NVIDIA NTune to test the card?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/ntune_5.05.54.00.html


Maybe there are (faulty) cards which are already overclocked using only the default max values?


Is there the possibility to install the heat pipe and cooling system wrong or with the wrong thermal compound?

Sotton

 

Just curious, but does anyone here play Modern Warfare 2 on their 8730w? I mean sure, I use it to CAD stuff too, but when no one's looking, a little SPAS 12 pwnage can't hurt...

... except I have video issues online. Whenever I play online, I always skip forward every few seconds, making it seem as if I'm lagging. But everyone else plays fine on my connection, which makes me unsure about it being a network issue. At the same time, it plays perfectly fine in single player, so I have troubles believing it's a video issue.

 

WLAN?

Have you some kind of virus checking for your online connection?

How fast is your connection, I man ping time to the server?

And so on, just a few ideas but I am no expert with online gaming...

 

Tried both wireless, and direct connect to the modem, different connections (on cable right now, average ping on pingtest.net is 18ms, MW2 doesn't give you pings, unfortauntely). Scanned for viruses before, nothing.

 

I am sorry but i dont have any intention to open my laptop.
I have paid for 4 years next BD + 1 year bring in and i dont want any annoyances from hp if they see the screws touched .
About the other things i am on vista business 64 bit with 8 gb ram and cpu 2.8ghz.
I have undervolted my processore a lot with rightmark cpu clock utility and set performance on demand . So my cpu stresses only when necessary .
And fan set on demand too for the whole system . Of course when playing games it kickes in as soon i arrive at 65 c
riva tuner is only for controlling the temps when playing on screen .
my drivers i use are 179.72 from hp website.

Best regards
Chris

 

thanks for the information

so, changing from 2700 to 3700 using XP could be the problem (driver, OS)
if someone has the 3700 from the beginning there might be no problem?
(a clean install or installing Vista is too much work just to try it out for me if the problem is the changing itself...)

or

faulty 3700, not enough cooling or wrong installed cooling system

 

I am sure this is the reason .If soemone buy a laptop it is better if he spends
more money and buy it directly with the parts he wants then upgrading alone later . It is like a car . if you get a car with 150 horsepower and want to upgrade it will never be relieble as the factory one .It is not the OS . It is some part you can not immagine because you are not an expert as no one from us is like the factory robots who assembly the parts .

Regards
Chris

 

Sotton I've got great news!
I had an empty hard drive laying around and decided to give it a try with different os. I put on windows 7 and now I can play DIRT and other games as long as I want, no errors whatsoever!
BUT there is bad news...3dmark06 is way lower, 9800 with seven and 10500 under xp. I don't know if it can depend on the hard drive that is much slower (old 5400 against one of the fastest 7200) but at least now we know that the problems depend on temperature but that drivers can in some way solve it.

Chris: sorry but I totally disagree. I've seen much worse laptop coming directly from factories than laptop tricked and changed and upgraded by good users, and if you give a look around here in NBR forums you'll see what I'm talking about. It's up to you to make a good work and have time, will and knowledge to get it.

 

Ok .It is your right to disagree. But it is another thing upgrading a laptop with ram , better hd or even an other cpu and another thing is changing internal parts such as graphic cards and heatsinks ecc.

Best regards
Chris

 

Chris could you please post a screenshot of GPU-Z to see your card's specs?
Thanks a lot in advance!

 

to dl gpu-z http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/


Could it be that old game settings are a problem, too?

I remember that COD2 (I had no problems with after the change to the 3700) switched to default (very bad settings) after the change and meant something like "new hardware detected" and I did set the values again.

Yeah, I know, 3700 is better than 2700 but who knows?

Have you installed a game from scratch since the change?


Also, after deleting drivers and installing them again I did not had a short freeze with discoloration like before but only a long freeze without it. Maybe there was still also a driver installation problem (for me)


This under clocking works until now but is kind of unsatisfying...

Sotton

 

Here it is



chris

 

thanks, nothing unusual... you have not PhysX activated with the NVIDIA control panel or is it not possible with the old drivers?

OpenCL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opencl is also activated with my drivers. Hm.

I don't know but I don't think these options are responsible for the freezing problems but who knows

Sotton

 

It depends on vbios and drivers. you have newer vbios (and now it's available to everybody thanks to you!) and newer drivers.
he has drivers available on hp site and older vbios.
with w7 and newer vbios all of those options are selected. and everything works for me in w7 so I wouldn't be sure these are responsible for something.

 

From the moment everything works great and perfect i see no reason to change any driver and setting . This is a mistake a lot of people do . The always change to newer drivers and experimental settings and in a glance their laptop work like crap .Stick to that one which really work and dont look further .

Regards
Chris

 

To all of you who have qx9300 or x9100

Is it possible to change cpu miltiplier with CRYSTAL CPU ID?

Or with any other software?

 

Hi. A few weeks ago, I was asked:

>>> 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! ;-)

Sorry for the late reply and, after the recent discussion, perhaps it's not as relevant but... I had my son do his Friday night WoW 'raid' with GPU-Z running in the background. He was only running one WoW account at the time. I don't have the full data file with me (I forgot to bring it to work) but, as I recall, a quick glance showed that the temperature never got above 50C.

I should note (and was noted by a post last week, I think), we run the laptop in an HP 2008 Advanced Docking Station (with external keyboard and display) at home which raises it up at an angle and may let more air around it. So, this could help the temps stay lower than if it were directly on a table.

Anyway... I'll try to remember to post the data file soon but wanted to post this while I was thinking about it.

- J -

 

JEA152 you've been super kind!
If you have time to upload the file it would be great!
You should ask your son what resolution and what settings he was playing at and if windowed or full screen.
50c is a super low temp...gotta give it a look at the log!

 

I know he plays in Windowed mode but not sure which resolution but it's a setting a little smaller than 1680x1050 (since that's the monitor res. and it fills up most but not all of the screen). I'd have to check the WoW settings, too.

Anyway, here's the file he produced a few weeks ago after I got GPU-Z installed and had him run it for a bit while he was raiding. I'll have him do it again later this week if I remember.

See attached for the small data file/sample.

- J -

 

I have made same experience: running in a window is no problem and does not generate much heat and so on

 

JEA152 you should leave gpuz running while he plays. we need a log for all the 1 or 2 or 3 hours he plays not only before and after running the game but during gameplay.
fullscreen would be better but Sotton trust me that I've been able to get really high temps on windowed mode too!

 

I thought he had left it running more than shown in the log. However, I am somewhat certain that the data shown - though not a complete log - was gathered while he was playing WoW, not just before/after.

Next time, I'll watch him start it up and have it let it crank while he raids. We'll see how that goes.

- J -

 

Hi all

sorry, for asking but i have same issue descriped some days before...
very poor fps during call of duty.... only in online-mode... (PC with
same internet-connection is fine..) how did you solve the problem?
install new drivers? vbios is normal bios or something else?

could it also be the power-settings in windows 7? oder in Nvidia center?

thanks for your help

 

Hi guys (and gals?)

I have a question about docking stations. Is there any real difference between the actual docking stations other than the included power supply?

For example, what is the actual difference between the 150w Advanced Docking station and the 180w Advanced Docking station. Its just the power supply that's included right?

Also, what is the diff between the "Docking station" and the "Advanced Docking station"


I have been reviewing some stuff on HP.com but it's really hard to compare the 5 different docking stations that are compatible with the 8730w.

Just curious if anyone has any knowledge on these off hand...

thanks! This place is hands down the best resource for these notebooks.

 

yes the difference is only for the adapter supplied

have a look here for
"docking" basic one
"advanced docking" includes a dvd unit and express card slot
"nas docking" inlude dvd, express card and network shared hard drive

ignore the other docking as they don't work with the 8730w

 

sorry but I have no idea why this happen. I only played LFS online from time to time and had no problems. I've seen updated drivers for w7 available on the windows update function so you could try them, if you don't have already!

what card do you have? 2700m or 3700m? or ati one?

btw: vbios is a specific bios saved inside the videocard itself. bios is for the whole laptop, vbios is for the videocard only

 

DUDE. you are the man. this is exactly what I needed. I can't believe I didn't come across this already. Your description above is brilliant as well. short and to the point.

**IGNORE - IM AN IDIOT, you already addressed this.*** so just one question left then.... can I assume that if I buy one of these from ebay with a 135w PS, then I could just swap out my 150w that I already have right? HP markets them separately as 150w or 180w docking stations, but really that's just what PS they give you with it right? so all "Advanced Docks" are created equally....

THANKS!

 

no problem! I already stumbled upon this and had to make my own search!

buy the cheapest one and just plug the power supply you have. period! BUT you should buy the ones that have a metal finish (like the palmrest of your laptop and lcd top casing) as I'm not sure the older release that is all black plastick works too. I have the simple docking and it works flawlessly.

may I ask you what videocard you have? I'm trying to make a research about the quadro 3700m so if you have it let me know!

 

Yeah I was planning to just get a used or simple on in ebay and then plug in my higher wattage power supply! Perfect! Thanks again.


I do have the 3700 video card, but I am not very well versed in all the techno babble behind that. All I know is that I can frag away at full tilt, maximum everything on Moder Warfare 2.

I have 4gb RAM and the 2.4C2D with the FX3700

 

ok thanks!
may I ask you to just run gpu-z while you play and post a log of it here on the forum? a few post ago is described how to do it. it's really simple and you can pm me if you need help!
i'd really appreciate it as me and another user struggle to get a game working with that card and we'd like to find a solution. your help would be really appreciated!