*HP EliteBook 8730w Owners Lounge*

Does Softimage, Nuke and Combustion count? If so ... man, I happy that I didn t buy the SONY ... only thing is ... I want a q9100 instead of my T9600 ... you can never have enough rendering power

 

Thank you for your enlightment 83bj60 !

I'll try to see one before buying^^

It is strange that the DC screen has so many problems, provided the Dell has exactly the same one !

I could understand this screen is on backorder, maybe the new batch will be finally OK. It is totally unacceptable for such a screen to have imperfections.

 

OK Folks, I have a real aggravating problem with the Touchpad.

The pointer movement on this laptop is way too slow!

On my Toshiba running at 1400x900, one swipe gets me accross the screen.
On the 8730w, I need at least 2 at the fastest speed settings!

How can anyone live with such aggravation? I haven't been able to find anything online, everyone is basically saying "it can't be done, it's a limitation of hardware."

And yes, I have tried everything I was able to find using Gopogle in the past several days including editing the registry directly and it does nothing at all: my settings are maxed out already, and this thing is still dreadfully slow.

You would think that Windows would have a speed setting taking into account high resolution monitors and that HP would have recognized this obvious issue and put out a utility for its WUXGA laptops to correct for this glaring omission.

Is this a limitation of the Touchpad on this laptop? Is my only option is to use the Trackpoint, which offers greatly enhanced speed but which I have, after three years of using the Touchpad on my Toshiba, totally lost proficiency in?

What do you guys do as a work-around? Does anyone know of a utility that sort of pre-amplifies the mouse speed based on screen resolution to a useful level? As it is, I just can't work any extended amount of time with it.

Thanks for your suggestions!

 

yes, 2 at the fastest setting but this is not such a big problem for me.

It could be a little faster but with edge motion activated this is not such a problem (however, even edge motion could move a little faster)

Do you use TouchPad Driver 15.0.10 (HP sp47750) ? (this is the latest, I think)

 

Well, I found an obscure tweak that apparently used to be easily accessible in Windows 2000 but was removed by the geniuses at Redmond with the coming out of XP, that now involves convoluted hex editing in the registry of these two values: SmoothMouseXCurve and SmoothMouseYCurve on this japanese site, which I have saved for future use (nowhere else on the web is it so well explained, with so many examples): How to Adjust the Speed of the Mouse Pointer. It's a Google translation from this original page in Japanese characters

Keep this info preciously, folks, this is the result of many hours of search!

Essentially, the idea is to manipulate the curve of the standard, hidden Windows "Mouse Pointer Ballistics" curve Microsoft has decided, following its long established "Dumb-It-Down" ways, to " Remove the Advanced button and design a unified acceleration and velocity slider to simplify the user interface in the Mouse Properties dialog box", I'm not kinding, this is a textual quote from Microsoft itself!!!

[Rant Mode ON]

When I insist, after more than 25 years using computers from all types and sizes, that modern OSes are getting worse and worse (remember how easy it was to setup Windows 3.11 for Workgroups to perfom and how fast and stable it could be made? I DO!!!), most people, who have never known the freedoms we used to enjoy, refuse to believe me... Ha!, here's another proof, folks!!!

Can you imagine spending your weekend to find ways to adjust the friggin mouse pointer?! M$ as usual makes it deliberately difficult for users to do what they want with their hardware, and so more and more! Of course their pretext is that users are idiots (I meant to say, "not knowledgeable"; ), that need to be protected from themselves...

[Rant Mode OFF]

Anyway, the hard working author of this page published many separate curves, a couple of which I have tried with marked improvement. The only drawback is, since it writes to the registry, a restart of the computer is needed for each tweak testing. I wish there was a way to force reloading these values by the mouse driver (there probably is), but I haven't found any.

Now my mouse pointer finally moves at a reasonable speed. I still have to tweak some parameters, find a a way to translate decimal values into sets of 8 hexadecimal pairs and find a way for the mouse driver to read registry values on the fly (maybe start and stop the mouse service, if there is such a thing?), but for now I'll leave that to someone else as work beckons...

 

If you go to the original Japanese site, he's published a sample excel sheet to help calculate the settings for you (you need the Analysis Tool Pack Add-On installed with your Excel install) then you just need to pick the hexadecimal calculated values and insert them into the proper SmoothMouseXcurve and SmoothMouseYcurve registry values.

What is neat about this Excel sheet is that it includes several curves, so you can actually see for yourself how your changes affect the mouse pointer ballistics... For the 8730w, I simply halved the X values to increase the slope of the curve by a factor of 1.6, but I guess other values could be tested as well, and one could also change the curvature as well by varying the ratio between each set point.

As I've unfortunately backed up tons of work since I got the 8730w and the clients are clamoring for their reports, I won't have much time in the coming weeks to look into it so if anyone has an idea on how to reload the mouse parameters without requiring a full reboot, I'd appreciate your input!

 

Today received my 8730w after display replacement. Although the new display is DreamColor (LP171WU5-TBL1) which is quite good, I cannot close and lock notebook lid. I don't remember clearly but lid locking pins look a little longer than on my old display.

Can this be true?
Any opinion/experience?

 

Are you saying you upgraded from the standard to the DC panel? if so I have a few Q's for you, would you care to comment?

As for the lid, if the studs are longer now, it should close but maybe be a bit loose. How is the latch?

Hope you're not the victim of some careless tech . Where did you have your unit serviced?

 

No. There was DreamColor logo sticker in the top right corner of my original display, which had incorrectly directed webcam (to much to the right). Unfortunately I don't remember the display name. Replaced display doesn't have any DreamColor logo, but its model, according to HP Mobile Display Assistant is LP171WU5-TBL1.
Anyway, I'm ready to take your questions.

What do you mean under latch? How can I check it?

The service has been done by official service center at Moscow, Russian Federation.

 

Did you notice any slight red color tinge on the bottom left corner, and perhaps a bit of bluish tinge on the bottom right? It's only visible on white or light grey backgrounds... Is your panel manufacturing date "week 22, 2008" in the HP information page like most of them seem to be?

The metal latch on the base of the laptop, I mean the rectangular metallic button: how does it feel? It should have a good spring to it. That's how it locks the lid pins. Press the small plastic covers with a pen or screwdriver and depress the latch. You should see it move out of the hole when you press it. It could be stuck on these little plastic covers.

Hmmm... My service was done TWICE at the service center in Canada and I can tell you, quality of workmanship wasn't great... It's really unacceptable considering the high cost of these "flagship" models. I even had to screw back a bottom cover screw that was lose when I received my laptop back.

How is the front cover of the screen? Notice any bending of the platic bezel around the screws? And did you notice whether the switch cover is deformed? Mine sure was after the first intervention!

 

I also had not so good experience with the repair center (service center for Europe, I think it is in Poland for whole Europe)

Repair was done fine but a part from the HP logo of the cover was missing after repair. I called them to send me a new logo so I can glue it myself but that was not possible, only changing the whole cover with display... (so I got the logo myself from ebay and fixed it, BTW).

Service could be improved

 

If I look at wide angle to the bottom left corner of my display I see red color tingle, but I cannot find any bluish tinge on the bottom right or top corners.
According to HP Mobile Display Assistant manufacturing date of the panel is "Week 21, 2008".

At present when I close the lid itself doesn't get locked in the holes. But if I press a latch a bit and try to close the lid it gets locked. When I push the latch for the second time the lid opens but grey plastic pins stay in pressed down position. And after I push the latch one more time plastic pins return to the normal released position with click. This is the way it works now.

I totally concur with you. Service quality is unacceptable. I just noticed that metal basement near LCD panel rectangular metal stands is scratched with a sharp tool (likely screwdriver).
As of now I would not consider HP as me next notebook PC.

 

After my first LCD replacement it was pretty much like that. The little grey hole covers would stick a bit. It got loose after a little while; I don't know what they did at the second LCD replacement, but it closes well now. *Maybe* use a wee bit of silicone (plastic compatible) lubricant? I say maybe because I'd worry about collecting dust...

They left some tape (presumably to avoid what you experienced), but forgot to remove it when they replaced the switch cover. result: part of the tape got stuck

My old Toshiba, although it is a 'consumer' laptop, gave me much less trouble (apart from the Vista aggravations - I wish I could run Windows 98 on ALL my computers). Anyway, the bottom line is, my impression is that they are way overpriced and I would definitely never buy one at the asking price. Even for what I paid ($1200 with a Dreamcolor is not bad market wise), I believe it wasn't a bargain. Of course, we'll see as it goes. I wasn't too hot about the Toshiba either, and it turned out to be quite sturdy considering how cheap it was new (it's a P-205 series, about 3 years old, a core2 duo at 1.5 Ghz, 2GB RAM, integrated video card, 160GB, 1400x900 CCFL lit screen (much more even color wise than the DC but way more dull) and it cost $750 at the time. Not great by any means but totally usable and, best of all, it never gave me any hardware issues ( I had a bad sector, but it turned out to be software induced, repaired it with Spinrite), and it got bumped and it even fell once from a couple of feet. basically, it's earned it's keep.

One thing has to be said about laptops nowadays: they have become consumer goods. I never paid more than $1,200 for a laptop, but the Thinkpad I got for about that price back in 94 (It was lot of money then) and the Toshiba I got in 4 years later were orders of magnitudes tougher in terms of construction than my two current machines. I mean, come on, how could HP charge to[p dollar fro a laptop with an LCD that has color issues at the bottom corners and an LCD front bezel so flimsy it bends when you screw it in a bit too tight?

Like I said, I have to reserve my final judgment, but the the case design and the ergonomic is, IMO, very poor. Keyboards should have high contrast lettering and full keyboards should have standard key placement just like on regular desktop keyboards. Not doing so when it is possible to do so is plain idiotic. Touchpads should have mouse parameters set for the resolution of the LCD from the factory. Having to modify the mouse pointer ballistics by hand in the registry is a pain! And touchpads should be flush with the palm rest, Anything else collects junk.

I'll stop there, because I have work to do. I'll design my own computer some other time. Maybe I'll go back to a Thinkpad... If it's good enough to go on the International Space Station, it should be good enough for me

 

..................

 

Love this thread, so much good information re: the 8730W. I don't game a ton anymore with my PC but hope to revitalize this with Starcraft 2. Will the 8730W run this game problem free?

HP ELITEBOOK 8730W
INTEL CORE DUO PROCESSOR P8600
2.40 GHZ
2 GB 800 MHZ DDR SD RAM
nvidia quadro fx 2700m

 

Hey all -

Quick question:

I have the Dreamcolor, P8600 (but eventually an x9100) and the fx3700, stock hard drive, but eventually an SSD....and I push an extra monitor when docked.

Currently I am using a 150w PS but finding out that I am under powered, so the question is, do I go all the way to the 230w? Or will the 180 be sufficient? Actually I KNOW that the 180w will be sufficient, but will I see a performance jump with the 230w thats worthy of 100.00 extra bones?

Thanks guys.

PS has anyone tried to replace a DC screen lately? Wondering what experience anyone has had with that RECENTLY. I read this entire thread, so I know that many have replaced and had some luck, even after 2 or 3 tries in some cases. Just curious if anyone has had good luck with it in the last few months. My warranty expires in 2012, but I am worried that if I wait to long there will be no replacement stock....

 

Hey how about this? Anyone think that the DC2 screen would be compatible with 8730? only requirement I have seen so far is an Nvidia Quadro...... which I have.

 

..................................................

does anyone have a 230w PSU?

 

Not sure about Starcraft 2 but my son (who has 'adopted' my 8730w for his use at college) plays World or Warcraft on it as much time as he can squeeze into the day (and night). He has no problems and found that it's graphics card (1GB) was a big improvement over the somewhat lame dekstop system he was using at home (which had, I think only a 128MG or 256MB graphics card).

Hope this helps.

- J -

 

I think the power supply that came with my 8730w is 230W. Is there something about it that you want me to check?

- J -

 

isn't 180W max which comes with a 8730w ? (mine is only 150W but I don't have the biggest processor )

input is 100V - 240V

but you can never have enough Watts of course so you can drive also the biggest docking station...

 

For those looking to upgrade their 8730w. I have the following for sale;

-New DreamColor display.
-Display cable, specific for DC display.
Link to DreamColor Screen and Display Cable.
-Intel C2D T9800 2.93GHz OEM.
-Nvidia FX3700M Graphics Card.

Send me PM if interested.

 

I would like to free myself from my grey normlight workingplace, at least from time to time.
Here my question: does the DVI implementation support hardware calibration for my NEC Reference 21? Will I be able to run the NEC via DVI and the Artisan via VGA both at 1600x1200? I will certainly go for NN270EA + advanced dockingstation.
jan

 

Wow - That would be really nice for you if you got such an expensive PSU with your unit, I believe this power supply is typically reserved for use with the Advanced Docking stations or NAS 3-1.

At any rate, if you do have one, or if anyone has one - I would like to know what the part number is. (not the #aba, but the 9 digit replacement part number - would look something like: XXXXXX-XXX)

Does anyone have one they want to sell? I'm looking for a good deal on one and the best I can find is around 130.00

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

 

Oops. Those others who chimed in were right. I was thinking that my 8730w came with a 230w power supply but it did come with a 180w power supply.

Sorry about that. I'll look at all my power supplies (since I have had some HP docking stations over the years) to see if any are 230w.

- J -

 

No Worries! Thanks for the reply, but I ended up just buying direct from HP. I was hoping to use the replacement part # (which was surprisingly difficult to find) to find a dealer somewhere with a better price, but HP ended up having the best 'retail' price. 129.99 + 10.00 S/H Eeek. oh well.

 

Hi All

me again... about the gaming-issue, i read a lot about the hyperthreading-problem in some games.... now, somebody knows how disable hyperthreading or SMT in this notebook?

can't find something in the bios...

thanks
capo18

 

Hi i ve got a 8730w FU470ET wich come with a fx2700m and a t9600 and my screen is a LP171WU5 TL B1 .

What are the best update wich works well we can do on this laptop ?

I read that we can update the screen to a dream color one. Had someone experienced this ?

What is the best processor is it possible to update ?

And what about updating the graphic card with a Fx3700m ?

Thx

 

mine is upgraded to a 3700, so this should be no problem (I still have the single heat pipe system but better you use the dual pipe system which is also available and was used by other users)

 

.................................................

 

I thought there was also a thicker/thinner heatpipe model:
HP 8730W Elitebook Heatsink & Fan Kit Pulled Working - eBay (item 290452977218 end time Aug-09-10 05:55:34 PDT)
HP 8730P 8730W MOTHERBOARD VIDEO HEATSINK + FAN - eBay (item 230498338897 end time Aug-11-10 10:47:19 PDT)

they look pretty different to me at least. forgive me if this is old info. I actually came to this owners lounge to look for an 8730 or 8710 i could buy. does anybody have one??
I also want it with as low spec as possible and i'd be willing to trade my m1730. Is there even an 8710p owners lounge? that thing has 6 usb ports...
thanks

 

I was only referring to the graphic card heat pipe which is available in two versions. Of course there could / must be a different version for the extreme CPUs, so the CPU cooling part is also available in different versions

 

You missed my point. What I'm saying is that there are at least 3 versions of the graphic card heatsink because these 2 are different and both have a single heatpipe.
See the attached file. the vram heat spreader is obviously different, and I think the heatpipe is thinner.

So, maybe your single heatpipe heatsink can handle the fx 3700m but others cant. Its a pretty power hungry card.

I'd really like to get a hold of an 8710 or 8730 p/w to try and modify the cooling and other stuff... especially cause the fx 3700m works on the 8710p..

 

sorry, maybe I missed it or I thought it was more obvious

I checked out the new version of the manual

494011-001 for nVidia 2700
494211-001 for ATI
518096-001 for the 3700

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...support/SupportManual/c02188015/c02188015.pdf

would be nice to know which is which, though

 

easy!

494011-001 for nVidia 2700 (that's not the only one for the 2700m. there is even one with a bit bigger heatsink that covers vrms too. you can see it here under the pink fan as it's the one I have)

494211-001 for ATI

518096-001 for the 3700

this one is the real problem.....this should be the infamous dual heatpipe now present in the revised service manual... as you can see this one is in Italic in the manual....maybe hp finally noticed they were sometime replacing a 2700m with a 3700m without proper heatsink? (I remember someone round here got this problem too)

 

is it possible just to get a second heat pipe and glue it to the cooling system so I don't have to disassemble anything? Just an idea...

 

no, unluckily not... I already tried that too....
I tried to sold a similar heatpipe to the lower part of the heatsink and put another fan on the right where the dvd is placed. the problem is that heatpipes are filled with a liquid that evaporates when the copper gets hot. this is how heatpipes work. so if you try to sold those with a hot air gun you'll make evaporate the liquid that is inside that has enough strength to deform the copper heatpipe and make it round instead of flat so it's impossible to sold it back again. you could use a bicomponent heat transmissive glue but I don't think it's really effective. surfaces have to be smooth and plain enough to ensure good contact between the parts.
furthermore the original second heatpipe, as I already said, only goes closer to the fan, but it has no other fins so it's NOT effective at all. It might help spreading heat a bit but the whole cooler is so poorly designed that you can't get a 3700m to cool enough under stress with BOTH the single and double heatpipe. I had both so I know what I'm talking about. and sorry for who says that their 3700m never get so hot under stress. run furmark for 15 minutes then post a screenshot here. unless you work in a 10°C room you'll always get too high temps. just keep your 2700m or simply skip the 8730w and find something better.
IMHO this is the way to go and they way I went.

 

well thats silly...
...IMHO...

Cooling can always be improved. I really don't see how the fluid in ALL heatpipes would evaporate from the heat of a 15 watt soldering iron.
you have to get different wattage irons for different jobs... and try lead free solder as it has more silver which is more thermally conductive.

If there really isnt enough heat dissipation, then a line of copper ramsinks by the original heatsink would probably work well if you made space in the chassis.
Cooling systems are literally all about copper and surface area. Heatpipes move the heat but thats all. Most pentium M laptops dont have any heatpipes at all - but anyway, you can find thin pieces of copper to use as fins. Anything will improve cooling if it is implemented well enough.

 

well the heatpipe is only one. and it's closed on both sides so it's liquid will not evaporate but increase in volume deforming the original flat shape that ensure proper contact between the heatpipe and the heatsink. the heatpipe won't ever get hot enough with a 15w soldering iron. such a small solder is absolutely ineffective for this work. you need a hot air gun that is what I've used. maybe you have not seen the heatpipe in person so size and thickness of the materials are not that clear.

this would work if there was some more space. but unless you remove the keyboard and leave the laptop without there's not enough clearance for ramsinks. Already tried that too...

The problem is the same as before. There's no space at all for modding. Clevo are fat and bulky and allow for modding, this hp is really thin and nice, but forget whatever modding you might think of.

 

Hello members,
I am new to this forum.

Has anyone tried to use a 750gb harddrive with the 8730w? For this model HP only "supports" 7200mb/s HDs up to 320gb and 5400mb/s HDs up to 500gb. They do not say if a bigger HD is compatible as well.

I am interested in this 750gb model, but do not know if this could cause any problems.

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

 

Hi All,

Just like to check if the 8730w's RAID capabilities are implemented using software or hardware.

I'm thinking of getting two 500GB Seagate Momentus XT (hybrid ssd + hdd) and configure it as RAID 0, for speed. I have already installed the 2nd hard drive caddy which I got from eBay.

If any owners have configured RAID on the 8730w before, kindly share your experience.


Thank you!

 

I have not done it but I think you need the Intel Matrix Storage Manager Driver. If you cannot get any better help try that

 

a problem could be of course if it is incompatible with the BIOS. It should be not but this is one thing I can think of. Windows should handle the size without problem.

So, the BIOS power control functions and acoustic management and so on maybe do not work.

But this may cause no problem... So, get the latest BIOS and try it and if it does not work ask HP

 

Thanks for your feedback, Sotton.
I tried the 750gb disk yesterday but BIOS indeed appeared to dislike it and did not allow me to run a "format" on the disk. However, Windows had no probs with it.

I am not certain if the format problem was a result of the "oversized" disk, but I will not go higher than the HP-recommended 500gb anymore.

 

good to know, thank you for sharing your experience, it could be that BIOS and/or interface driver/hardware is incompatible and maybe HP does not want to or is unable to update it...

 

Intel® Core™2 Duo P8600 2.4GHz 3MB FSB1066MHz, 2048MB DDR2 800MHz, 250GB SATA 5400rpm, 17.1" WXGA 1440x900, ATI Mobility Radeon FireGL V5725 256MB DDR3

Is it worth 1000euro...
Screen is mine main doubt- did anybody seen this 1440x900 screen???

 

The deal sounds fine, but its not the greatest bargain.
You can get refurbished ones with a better processor, more RAM and a better display for a couple hundred Euros more. Just make sure to avoid the latest Intel processors, unless you like constant high pitch sounds.

 

I have never seen the 1440x900 screen but I like 1920x1200, so much space

 

Hi can someone enlighten me, some of the HP 8730w have a VQ prefix to the model number and some are FU ( UK models ) what is the difference ?

 

Regarding red and green light at the corners of DreamColor display:
HP Notebook PCs - Dreamcolor Panel Has Color Variance - c02492909 - HP Business Support Center