*HP EliteBook 8730w Owners Lounge*

if it is a compatible model I see no problem

 

Any ideas what could be a compatible model? Ty

 

I was thinking of one that is used by HP itself for the more expensive 8730w laptops but I don't know any model number... I remember that one from LG was used for a few models (maybe all)

But if you find out which one is used it should fit all 8730w (that was was I meant.)


I don't think the high end 8730w with Blu Ray are very common so I am afraid no one reading here has one

You may search the net to find a review of a 8730w with Blu Ray because a few reviews list all hardware in detail.


However, I have also checked the driver page and it seems no driver is available because all is handled by Windows itself (so, no special drivers are needed)



I am no expert but now I think if you can get one that physically fits (and are able to clip on the bezel) and is SATA and 12,5mm high, all should work.

Maybe worth a try but these Blu Rays aren't cheap?

 

hi, does dreamcolor screen require 150w power adapter? thx

 

8730W: overclocking the ICS9LPRS397 PLL?

8730W schematic is available indicating it's using a ICS9LPRS397 PLL, same as my 2530P. Anybody want to overclock their system by doing a TME-unlock PLL pinmod, exactly as performed on my 2530P here?

Before doing this it's worth noting that HP interchange the use of SLG and ICS PLLs on the 2730P, so can use the procedure here to confirm you do have an ICS PLL before opening up the hood. If you have an SLG PLL then only a 266Mhz to 300Mhz (likely OK) or 333Mhz (probably won't work) PLL pinmod is possible.

 

Has anyone resolved the quadcore in dualcore mobo running at 25% load idle yet?

I just got a working 8730w today (my existing one is dead - long story), and so I poped in my pinmod undervolted QX9200 out of a 8530w. It all worked fine, and ran way cooler in the 8730 than in the 8530 thats for sure, like 15 degrees C lower. but it was stuck at 25% load - one core fully loaded 100% (but SMP spreads that load over all cores). So effectively making it a 3 core (and a battery hog). Benchmarks confirmed the throughput deficit, and idle temps are much higher than they should be.

I also tried a bit of overclocking, but I think I have broken it, because now it won't boot anything. Its really weird. It POSTs fine and I can get into the BIOS and run diagnostics etc etc all good. but try to boot from anything (HDD, CDROM, USB, LAN, anything) and it just stits there after POST on a blank screen. Arrrrghh! I've even done a CMOS hard reset.

I've only just got it! I was really really lovin the dreamcolor screen while it lasted.

So anyway, I will have to get it fixed, but I wonder if its worth pursuing the quadcore aspect again. I really need quadcore, more than I need deramcolor, and the qx9200 is working fine in the 8530w @2.8GHz 1.2V.

Hopefully someone has some news on the 25% load thing? I know there is a different part for the quad mobo (same as there is for 8530w) but with the 8530 the dual core board can run an undervolted quad just fine. So it seems like a bug rather than by HP design.

 

Got it working again, phew. I reset the TPM in the BIOS and it is working again.

So, back to the topic at hand.... Has anyone been able to fix the quadcore on dualcore constant 25% load issue?

 

I've done a bit of tinkering with throttle stop, and man this thing is so much better for overclocking than the 8530w.

I've got my qx9200 @3.5GHz 1.375V. The 8730 can put out much higher voltage than the 8530, (which I can only get around 1.2V stable, any more and its instant BSOD), which limits me to 2.8GHz on the same CPU in that laptop - even with the proper quad setup.

I could go even higher on the 8730w but I'm only on the dual core board and heatsink so I will stay here for now. Who wouldn't be happy with a solid 14GHz of core2 throughput lol !!!!! Even the new new i7 based models could be shown a thing or two by this beast.

Which leads me to want to get this 25% load thing sorted out. It seems it is the ACPI.sys driver which is hogging.

Is this new ground, or has it all been gone over before?

I really want to get the quad working properly now that I know what its capable of. I need to look into some ACPI hacking.

 

I've fixed the 25% quad core bug!!!!!
Just install HWiNFO and run it, BAM, 0.3% CPU idle.

Check this out...

 

Its almost almost 100% there... Quadcore on Dualcore 8730w. I'm really loving the speed boost over the 8530w quad, and the dreamcolor, oh yes the dreamcolor.

Only thing left is to fix the shutdown/suspend/hibernate isuue (basically you can't do those things, it hangs on the very last step and keeps the laptop powered up, so you have to hard power-off reset by holding the power button every time - this screws up suspend and hibernate)

So I really need someone with a proper quadcore 8730w to export a registry key for me...

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\ACPI\DSDT\HPQOEM\30EC____\00000001

Note that on the proper quad it could be called something slightly different, like the model code could be something other than "30EC____", but there should be only one big binary key in the "DSDT" section so its all good.

That is the ACPI DSDT table, and that is where the problem is I reckon. I have decompiled my DSDT and it isn't pretty, so I really need to have a proper one to compare it to.

EDIT: I got hold of a proper quadcore 8730w system board and experted the DSDT myself. It is different to the DSDT when using a core2quad on the dualcore board. I have attached the proper quad DSDT for future reference. I won't have time to look at this any further until next week.

 

2nd hard drive Caddy For HP Upgrade Bay 8730w, 8740w - eBay (item 280642381666 end time Sep-06-11 09:40:48 PDT)

Works like a charm.

 

seems to be the cheapest solution?

Or what is HP charging for their bay (depends on country, I guess...)

 

What kind of overclocking have you used?

Is somehow possible to change FSB or multiplicator from BIOS?
Or can this be done by some SW from Windows?

thanks

 

You need an extreme or ES CPU with an unlocked multiplier. Then just use throttlestop software in windows to set the multiplier.

 

Ive got two laptops - one with X9100 and one with Q9000

there is no possibility to overclock in the BIOS right?

What software do you recommend? Would it be possible to overclock both cpus or just the extreme one?

thanks

 

I have exact same problem. Any updates?

 

Hi guys, first time poster here. I see there's alot of people here with good knowledge!

I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience with their GPU being exstensively hot? Mine is currently running at 76C in idle. I've had it replaced before because it died, and i bet it was because of the overheating. Somehow though i think it is hotter now than before it was replaced.. I'm thinking they might not have put any thermal paste on it at all to be honest. It's the 3700 btw, my qx9300 seems alot colder than the gpu, so im just thinking that somehow it got ed up when the repairguys switched it out.

Any thoughts?

 

I have only a T9600 CPU but my FX2700 was replaced (broke down, maybe overheated) and I got a FX3700, too.

However, there was a heat sink update for the 3700 which I did not got (the heat sink is still the one from the FX2700 I think and the new heat sink was introduced a little later than my exchange, 1,7 years ago, have a look at the Maintenance and Service Guide.pdf which can be found on the hp.com site)

But my 3700 idles during normal usage at 45-55 (room temperature 22 Celsius) with the old heat sink design.

So, something wrong with your set up, I am afraid.

 

Thanks for the reply! I was thinking of replacing the thermal paste to see if that helps, should ask if they replaced the HS or not! There's probably dust and stuff in the fan etc, but i dont think the GPU should be the only thing being that hot if it was only dust.. Anyone knows how much of an upgrade the *new* HS is compared to the old one? Unless they replaced it when they changed the GPU it has to be the old design, got the laptop in 2008/2009 if i recall correctly.

 

just lift the keyboard (videos for how doing that on the hp.com site)

if you have two pipes it is the newer one

 

Hi,does anyone know that the quad-core/45w CPU heatsink looks like? duo-pipe or just a thicker single pipe?

thank you very much

 

I don't know but you can check out the "HP EliteBook 8730w Mobile Workstation - Maintenance and Service Guide" (pdf). If it is not shown there you always can try to look up the part number (in that manual) and search for that part. (the manuals are there where you can download the drivers and so on at hp.com)

 

Thank you very much, Sotton.

But I hv tried everything including the service manual and a disassemble manual but no luck at all... since i saw many users in this thread switched their cpu from duo-core to quad-core, and i assume they upgraded the heatsink as well, so i may find someone could answer that

Thanks again

 

Or just order it and you will see how it looks

 

I looked up my heat sink (I took a picture sometimes ago because of the graphic card heat sink so that's why it is only partly visible). It is non quad core.



This heat sink here seems to be a little thicker.

Customer Self-Repair Steps (videos/animations)

 

Thank you very much for the pic and the line the link helped a LOT

 

Sorry for not replying sooner Sotton, thanks for your help! I basically took it to the company that does repairs and such and checked if it was still under warranty, and lo and behold Got it back the next day with clean fan and new thermal paste.. 30C lower idle temps

Just one thing i thought a bit odd.. I asked one of the repairguys or whatever what they used for thermalpaste. His answer didnt quite shock me, since ive seen the thermal pads in another HP laptop, but the fact that they use it in high end laptops that cost this much is just astounding.

I know they use it because of the big space between chip and HS, but you'd think they'd manage to get some heatsinks that actually fit right?

 

nice to hear that your problem is solved however it should have been fixed the first time...

the other thing you asked is beyond my knowledge, I am far from being a hardware guru

 

Hi,

Been following this thread for a while but just registered today

I have my 8730w Elitebook for more than 2 years now and to introduce myself I'll give you an insight on my configuration.

When I bought it was configured like this:

- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo P8400
- MEM: 4 Gb RAM PC2-6400 800-Mhz DDR2 (2 x 2048 Gb)
- DISPLAY: 17.0 inch WXGA+ AntiGlare
- HD: 250 Gb SATA 7200 RPM
- OPTICAL: DVD/CD/RW
- KEYBOARD: AZERTY (BEL)
- GFX: ATI Mobility FireGL v5725 + single pipe GPU heatsink
- OS: Windows Vista Business

I use my laptop mainly for game development and 3D applications so in recent
time I made some upgrades and this is my configuration now:

- CPU: Intel Core 2 Extreme quad-core QX9300
- MEM: 8 Gb RAM PC2-6400 800-Mhz DDR2 (4 x 2048 Gb)
- DISPLAY: 17.0 inch WXGA+ AntiGlare
- 2 HD: 500 Gb Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid + 120 Gb OCZ Vertex 3 SSD
- OPTICAL: Because of 2nd HD drive I now have an external USB 2.0 DVD/CD/RW
- KEYBOARD: QWERTY (US)
- GFX: nVidia Quadro FX 3700M + dual pipe GPU heatsink
- OS: Windows 7 Ultimate
Oh yeah and I also pluged in a brand new battery

I bought all my components (with exception of the battery) from eBay and did all the upgrades myself. For directions on the upgrades I mainly used the HP EliteBook 8730w Mobile Workstation Maintenance and Service Guide and just to be sure I took a look at the official HP Replacement videos.

So far everything worked out but I have 2 issues:

- If I don't run HWiNFO64 at startup my CPU will idle at 25%
- Windows doesn't cut the power on shutdown

Maybe I can help out people with their upgrades and vice versa.
Happy Hollidays and a lot of peace and understanding
Cheers,
BrutalCykx

 

You need the proper quadcore mobo brutal. There is something different in the acpi that causes the dual core board to Max out one of the quads cores (unless u run hwinfo). But there is nothing you can do about shutdown/suspend etc. that I have tried.

Also about the heatsinks... the CPU heatsink has a thicker heatpipe on the quad/extreme version.

 

Haha, I just had to reply.

Did something similar, bought standard spec 8730 mostly for its capability to be quite modular. Obviously for the MXM3 capability.

- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo P8600
- MEM: 2 Gb RAM PC2-6400 800-Mhz DDR2 (1 x 2048 Mb)
- DISPLAY: 17.0 inch WXGA+ AntiGlare
- HD: 250 Gb SATA 7200 RPM
- OPTICAL: DVD/CD/RW
- KEYBOARD: ENGLISH (UK)
- GFX: ATI Mobility FireGL v5725 + single pipe GPU heatsink
- OS: Windows Vista Business

Been plowing through ebay at work late at night, ended up buying a lot of stuff.

- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8335 SLGEB EO (Basically a T9600)
- MEM: 8 Gb RAM PC2-6400 800-Mhz DDR2 (2 x 4096 Mb)
- DISPLAY(for IM and such): 17.0 inch WSXGA+ AntiGlare
- DISPLAY-> DVI(main display): 30.0 inch 2560x1600 Dell 3007WRP.
- HD: Corsair Nova 128Gb SSD, 2x eSATA drives (2x2Tb)
- OPTICAL: Second HDD bay. (unused atm)
- KEYBOARD: ENGLISH (UK)
- GFX: nVidia Quadro FX 3700M + dual pipe GPU heatsink
- OS: Windows 7 Ultimate
- DOCK: Advanced Dock 180W

Now also using the PCI Express slot in the laptop for another dual eSATA controller. And the second free PCI Express slot in the dock for a adapter to an external PCI Express slot.

So, since the sound card in the 8730w makes balls of music - I built a "case" for a Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD which turned out very well.
Had to get the whitelist removed from the BIOS, since it would not boot with the external PCI Express sound card otherwise. It apparently, and by mistake detects the Sound Blaster as a WLAN card. Which will halt the computer at POST.
Hot swapping in Windows was possible at first without BIOS modification, but I knew that would eventually end up killing either my dock, motherboard or sound card.

After the whitelist was removed, everything works as it should.
Cannot do reboots however, it ends up giving me blue screens upon boot. Have to do a complete power cycle.
This has to do with the PCI Express adaptor that waits some 10 seconds after power-on, and thus making it past the checks at boot.

Obviously, I cannot do hot undock/dock while using the Sound Blaster card.
And yes, amazingly, no pop/crackle-sounds as we are used to from Creative products nowadays.

Ended up buying a few things here and there.
Suddenly I had parts for putting together two complete elitebooks.
And one, missing the screen and keyboard. Using that as a backup incase my main one fails. Works perfectly without monitor and keyboard when put into the docking station.

I have now ran out of holes in the laptop to connect more things. Hm.

Well, what I meant to say is that I love these machines.


Anyway, had a question there.

Just ordered a quad mobo today as well, going to look into which Quad CPU gives the best bang for the buck. The QX9300 is still too expensive, even the Engineering Sample versions.

There is one thing I haven't figured out yet;
Is there any physical difference between the heat sinks for the Dual and Quad core processors? These have different part numbers, but I have not found any pictures for comparison. Then again, the TDP for the Dual cores are 25-35W, and 45W for Quad. So there is probably a difference.

Would assume that since the Quad has double the Die-size, the Die might overlap some of those carvings in the copper for excess paste I remember seeing.

Internet highfive anyways!

 

what are the temperatures of your 3700 during gaming?

 

90+ Celcius. And no, it does not work out.
I cannot have dual screens going during games, since it raises the temperature by about 5-6 celcius at idle running the card at 2560x1600 and 1680x1050.

It will work for a while, maybe half an hour before it starts flickering and eventually blue screening or just hang.

My first remedy to this problem was to use hwinfo, and manually set the fan to 100% before doing any gaming. But, that seemed not to be enough always.
Depending on the load on the graphics engines' load on the shader, it could work for hours or just for a few minutes.
Downclocking GPU, Memory and Shader some 50MHz made it possible to play.
However, playing in the native 2560x1600 resolution requires everything to be maxed out for decent fps, so the solution is simply to remove the 8730 keyboard which seems to help enough to keep it running.

Wish HP actually stress tested these components properly before release.
I have been thinking of asking you guys for a modified nVIDIA BIOS, as I seen some have done previously to permanently remedy this issue, even though it cripples performance a bit.

Anyways, removing the keyboard will keep the card around 70-85 C, when having the fan at 100%. High, yes, but within the thermal limit. My ambient temperature never goes higher than 20C by the way.

 

>> You need the proper quadcore mobo brutal.

I had been thinking of replacing the motherboard also but I still believe the problem can be solved
by software. If starting up HWiNFO is enough to fix it, then there must be a software solution to it.
Too bad I don't have the HWiNFO or Win 7 debug symbols. If I did I could attach to it and watch for
the code that triggers the 25% CPU freefall.

>> But there is nothing you can do about shutdown/suspend etc. that I have tried.

I don't have enough time to investigate in this a lot but have you tried running Windows in Safe Mode?
After I do this I can shut it down properly! So IMHO I think this failure can also be fixed through software.
Before I upgraded my GFX card and CPU my computer also booted much faster.
Startup performance most definately took a hit because of some timeout / driver issues that take way too long
now and maybe this issue is related to the fact that power doesn't get cut on shutdown.

>> what are the temperatures of your 3700 during gaming?

80 to 85 degrees celcius in the UDK (same engine used for Gears Of War etc...). But I don't really play
a lot of AAA games on my laptop. I bought it because I needed a solid machine which could take an
occasional hit ( I move it around a lot ), was MXM compliant, and which had good overal quality components.
Later on I realized that quality had nothing to do with the ATI Mobility FireGL v5725 driver. HP probably drowned
or shot the engineer that came up with the idea to package that pile of .... with such a good laptop.
3 crashes a day with my ATI...during a good day.

>> Been plowing through ebay at work late at night, ended up buying a lot of stuff.

Like I said I also bought my components from ebay but I would still like to warn other people to be cautious with eBay.
Pricewise I did some good deals (bought my Quadro FX 3700M for 168 dollars, incl shipping, coming from a broken Lenovo)
but I had so called 'Powersellers' sending my the wrong keyboard (Danish layout) completely bend between two lousy pieces
of cardboard that they call packaging. The most troublesome was my CPU heatsink. Another powerselling firm send
me the exact same heatsink I already had installed for my dualcore instead of the quadcore heatsink I ordered, and
also with the geometry twisted because it was packaged in a lousy envelope.
Some sellers don't bother doublechecking partnumbers. If it looks like a match, it's a match.
So to be honest, I run my QX9300 with the same heatsink I already had for my dualcore. The contact patch seemed
large enough and temperatures go from 44 degree celcius typing this message up to 68 degrees playing the deck map
in UDK (vertical sync set to true)

>> Is there any physical difference between the heat sinks for the Dual and Quad core processors?

Good question. I too found it very difficult to find good pictures of the components I needed. To make it
completely horrifying, I even had HP support agents sent me the 'wrong pictures'!
If you look up the partnumber for a Quadro FX 2700 M HEATSINK ( not the 3700 and not the card ) in the official HP service guide
and ask an HP sales rep to send you a picture of that out of their database you get a picture of the videocard... She even blamed me for sending
the wrong partnumber ...probably to disquise her absolute disinterest in whatever she was doing
It's especially hard to get good ( or any ) pictures from the 'bottom' side of a GPU or CPU heatsink, the side that actually
makes contact with the component you're trying to cool. Not a lot of people seem to grasp the importance of making a picture
of the side underneath a heatsink to have a double check that you're buying (or selling) the right thing.
So like I said I still use the 494010-001 heatsink that used to cool my dualcore and it works great.
Good thermal paste and a can of compressed air can do wonders.

 

There is probably a workaround, where it could work, it still feels wierd that HP would have separate part numbers for motherboards..
I have several revisions of the dual core board, dating back to the engineering sample. So I can upload photos for comparison.

Would assume the difference would be in the choice of voltage regulators or some other component nearby the CPU socket.

Thanks for the insight on the heatsink btw, did not want to spend another 40 EUR on something I might not even need.

Edit: Should be getting my Quad board in a week or so, i'll have a close look and also upload pictures.

 

I agree it is software. I think there is something in the ACPI that is causing ALL of those problems Brutal. I tried and failed to extract and rebuild the ACPI table from my proper quad 8730 into my DC 8730 with QUAD cpu installed. I uploaded the dumped proper quad acpi table a few pages back, but I quickly ran out of talent/knowledge when it didn't re-compile cleanly. I'm sure someone can get it working one day.

I had forgotten about the slow boot, but yes you are right, the quad takes ages to boot the DC board, again probably due to the ACPI handover during windows boot. That is also the thing that is stopping a clean shutdown.

So that one fix looks like it will fix all the issues.

Like I said I do have a retail quad 8730w in my quiver, so I can take some heatsink photos next time I'm in there, should be in a few weeks time as I have some tinkering to do.

 

Hi, can one of you HP owners reflash my FX3700m back to lenovo w700 62.92.6F.00.05/07. I reflashed my card to HP 62.92.6F.00.08 thinking it was an update, now my thinkpad W700 won't boot with the reflashed card. I checked the bios before I rebooted and the GPU card's bios showed 62.92.6F.00.08.

 

Just a thought, does it make any difference running a non-ACPI OS?

Think I will have try play around with this a bit when the Quad arrives.

All those of you who are running Quads on DC boards, are these production CPUs or Engineering Samples?

Is it true that for some, this isnt even a problem? That for some, it just works perfectly with a quad on a DC board.

I guess there is at least one HP engineer reading this giggling..

 

I've tried both retail and ES Quad CPUs, same problem.

In other news, I was taking one of my quads apart today and as promised I have some heatsink photos to share (these are from a full retail quad core 8730w)...

Below is quad core/extreme CPU heatsink (494210-001) vs Dual core CPU heatsink (494010-001). Notice the copper plate is much bigger and the heatpipe is twice as thick...

From Drop Box

The quad core heatsink installed, and yes it fits fine in the dual core base enclosure (unlike on the 8530w)...

From Drop Box

 

indeed you both are correct, the dual core motherboards do not have the microcodes for the quad core chips, and the quad core boards don't really handle ACPI right for the chips they are meant to fully support.

It can be rectified in a bios update, but it's very unlikely to happen now.

Sio

 

Greetings, dear users!

I need the installer of Intel® PROSet/Wireless version 13.5.0.6 for Windows 7 x64, that is not current.
Could you forward to an appropriate driver archive, if any, or upload the installer to a file share please?

P. S. I appreciate your clear reply.

 

what is so special about that version?

I guess you can download it from Intel

maybe it is this?
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det... (64-bit)*&DownloadType=Software Applications

 

Thank you! This is exactly what I was searching for.
How did you find this link?

 

I started here

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Default.aspx?lang=eng

in the search field just type 5300 (most 8730w use that Intel WiFi Link) and choose the 5300 entry on the bottom when it appears in the drop down box (if you type something in which makes sense the box appears )

Then you can choose your operating system and get a list of all drivers

 

Hi All,

I'm new to this forum, and looking for a bit of an assist.

I'm not much of a PC Gamer, most of the games I play are 5-10 (or more) years old, so when I got my laptop a few years ago, I got what I needed for development, and paid a little extra to soup it up for some basic gaming.

Basically I have an 8730w with 4GB Ram, a P8600 and a Quadro 3700M.

I recently got into playing the new Star Wars and am struggling a bit. I can't really afford to buy a top of the line gaming laptop, but I do have some cash to float into upgrading my current laptop.

I figure the Video card is as good as it will get, and I'm looking at upgrading to 8GB of Ram.

The Processor, however, mystifies me. I used to build my own desktops in the previous couple of decades, and am familiar with throwing parts together to make a computer but have never really looked at laptop internals before.

I've gone through the 8730w support manual, and have some questions.

I've noticed that there's native support for the QX9300, but reading the doc and this forum, that would require a pricey mobo upgrade, as well as (possibly?) a new heat sink.

I could potentially just stick to the T9900 which the manual has listed, but do I need to buy the 507434-001? Or will any T9900 do? I see them listed on Ebay quite cheap, made by Dell.

Also, poking through sources, I've seen that the T9900 may not run on this board, even though it's written in the manual. Any word on this? If so, would my best upgrade option be a T9600? If so, same question. Do I need an HP part or are they interchangeable?

And is there anything else I'll need to do aside from replacing the proc and reformatting? Bios Upgrades or anything?

Sorry for the long winded question but I really am a rookie at this but looking to try and upgrade to get the most bang for my buck.

 

FYI: Impact Computer in Florida has Quadcore Heatsink. $34.95 on sale. Select HP parts and chase the rabbit. So far I have paid $58.95 USD and another $30.00 USD for processing the order. Oh yeah! I now find they dont have the part in stock. They also have?????? the Dual Pipe FX 3700 Heatsink. Being 16 with 49 years experience, I should know better!! Have fun with this. There is Quad motherboards (3) on ebay for $109 an change, factory Refurbs with RTC and Thermal Pac. Just type in the Part# in computers and networking. The T9900 will only run on Standard 35 watt board. I have 8730w Optioned being delivered next week. Has T9900 3.06 processor which might be for sale if I can get my Quad parts.
Stumbler

 

I'd get a core2 extreme X9100 E0 stepping (retail or ES doesn't matter as long as its E0) off eBay. You don't need the HP part, any Penryn core2 cpu (socket P IIRC?) will work.

You can overclock them using throttlestop into the 4GHz range. But for gaming you should upgrade the CPU heatsink to the quadcore version in that case too.

The quads can only run to 3.4Ghz before throttling so they aren't worth it just for gaming, since you have to have the quad mobo as well if you want it stable.

 

Has anyone tried if the machine can run 2x 8GB ram? I know intel official not supported, but anyone tried before?

 

Did anyone get back to you on this?

I did a mod on my 8730w years ago, look for Panasonic UJ240 or better yet the new 260 will work, just swap the face plate, for blue ray drivers check out the 8460p/w download page, they have blue ray software for free, I used software from a desktop drive I had but the uj240 works like a champ in my 8730, thats what I have, putting a uj260 in my 8460w now, it can write up to 10gb if the disk prices ever drop enough to make it worth it.