*HP EliteBook 8730w Owners Lounge*

You are right about the backlight management triggering the problem as well! I test that on both of our laptops; I setup the power management to dim the screen after a minute. Once the dimming happens and you move your cursor the problem arises. I'm still thinking that the problem is related to the graphic driver mishandling the color palette (and the fact that these Dreamcolor displays seem to use custom palettes)

 

I believe, and that is borne from my testing two separate Dreamcolor screens on two separate laptops, that the problem is solely related to the 8730w's implemention of it. On the 8740w, there are no such issues with its Dreamcolor panel. Although HP never admitted it and Portrait Display's refusal to answer any questions about it, the Dreamcolor implementation on the 8730w, especially is startup phase, judging from the amount of issues it generates, was premature and a klutz at best.

 

I think I have some good news. I installed the last reference driver from the nvidia website (version 332.50) last week. I have been testing both our laptops for the issue and it seems to be gone. The only time the odd pixel coloring comes up is at the login screen after boot and only for a brief second after which the screen corrects itself. I think that is due to the Mobile Display Assistant kicking in and fixing the palette. I haven't reviewed the driver release notes or the changelog but I imagine that someone at nvidia noticed the problem with custom display palettes and ensured that those are loaded by the drivers after any power saving event. Please note that this issue was only happening on Dreamcolor displays with the Display Assistant installed and using the native palette.

 

After this update my coloured pixels looks gone. Thanks for your information but i still dont think is just a software fault. Few times, when my laptop was warm colour problem shows even in bios and logon screen.. bios as we know have nothing to do with the drivers

 

Glad to learn that the latest driver corrected your issue, George. But I agree with xtr that the Dreamcolor 1 was, technologically speaking, pretty much half-baked. I should know, I've had to replace the screen THREE times

Sent from my Note 2 - Text mostly by Google Voice, May Contain Weirdness ;-)

 

I have an 8730w Elitebook and an HP Advanced Docking Station. I'm trying to push to two dual monitors which are 2 x 48" LCD TV's with HDMI input. I have one HDMI/HDMI cable and one DVI/HDMI cable. Right now i have HDMI/HDMI going from laptop to 1st TV. I have DVI/HDMI going from docking station to 2nd TV. However, when teh laptop is open, it recognizes the laptop as Monitor 1 and the first TV as monitor 2. When I shut the laptop, everything goes away. Should dual monitors in this configuration be able to work on an 8730w with the Advanced Docking Station? If not, is there another option? Thanks in advance for your input!

 

Have you tried to power on with the closed lid? Maybe you first have to set the configuration right, shut down and close the lit and then start with the closed lit.

 

Sotton- I did shut the lid of the laptop. The issue is on the display manager, it only allows me to use the laptop as display 1 and the firs TV monitor as display 2. If I try to select TV 1 as display 1 and TV 2 as display 2, it won't let me. It does not show it as an option. I have an ATI Mobility FireGL V5725 with 256 MB graphics card. Is it possible that the laptop with this card does not support dual monitors or should all 8730w's support this dual monitor display, i.e. the laptop isn't being used, the dual display is pushed out to two different screens (in this case, two TV's)?

 

I have heard that the 8740w with the ATI M7820 can do what you want because the newer Advanced Docking station has 2 x HDMI, 2 x DVI (and 1 x VGA). It should even work with 4 monitors at one time.

With the 8730w I don't know and it seems you have tried already everything. I cannot try myself cause my 8730w is still broken (and has the FX3700 anyway). Maybe you can use S-VHS, and VGA or DVI from the docking but not both DVIs.

 

I need a new cable for my 8730w keyboard. Does anyone know where they can be found, preferably in Europe? Attached is a photo of the actual cable which seems to have 7 pins with one gap.

This is what's printed on my old cable "E118077 2896 80C VW 1 AWM"



Thanks a lot for any idea in advance!

 

check out HP "EliteBook 8730w Mobile Workstation - Maintenance and Service Guide" if you can find the part number and then you have to try out your HP part store of your country to get it or maybe try ebay with that part number.

 

Thanks, but HP only sell the entire keyboard, which is complete bs. I have now contacted the manufacturer of the cable in China to check if they can supply this thing.

 

Hello all,
posting this info in case it hasn't been specifically shared before.
Had an 8730W with the power drain issue(1% per hour when off/unplugged). Spoke with HP Elitebook Support -- even without an existing warranty they would at least talk which is/was very nice -- and the problem is known and documented on their end. The FIX part numbers they provide are: 494014-001 (LCD Screen/Display) & 494005-001 (LCD Cable)
Considering what has been read elsewhere, and that the LCD Screens cost $350 and upward, i tried the replace-LCD-Cable-only approach.
The cable (494005-001) costs only around $35(amazon), and it seems to have worked perfectly to resolve the power-drain issue.

-- only replaced the LCD-Cable, NOT the Screen.
-- part number: 494005-001

hopefully this helps someone.

 

If I understand correctly you are talking about the DreamColor panel? Any idea how to recognize an updated cable from an old one? Although I never had any issues with my own DC equipped 8730w, I got myself a used cable for my Dreamcolor conversion and wanted to check before installing it.

 

Not even the manufacturer of the cable (Ji Haw Industrial Company) are able to tell me where to buy this product or what the product code is. I sent them a picture of the broken cable but they are unable to relocate this particular item.

Is there noone here who ever replaced this part?

 

maybe you can purchase a broken keyboard with the cable still attached and working?

 

Could someone help me out with a modded vBIOS for the nVIDIA 3700M?

Remember reading some years back that someone had lowered the GPU/Memory clock to more acceptable levels for the cooling solution to handle. Sick of it overheating, and I am about to sell the 8730w now, so I want it to be stable for the next user. Been adjusting the clock thus far only in software, but I'd like a more permanent solution.
Do have the "updated" heat sink with two copper pipes if anyone wonders. Does not cope much better I am afraid.
Especially if doing any kind of rendering or long duration gaming, it give artifacts and crash. Even when fan forced to operate at 100% with hwinfo64.

If anyone could be so kind and share a link for a fixed VBIOS with lower clocks set for the 3700M.
If there is anything I can do in return, let me know.

Could probably have it modded myself, but instead of risking a bricked card..

 

I can not help, sorry, but somewhere earlier in this thread there have been a few postings of BIOS versions, but I cannot remember if they are the one you need or still available.

BTW, what temperatures reaches your card and do you get any freezes or what kind of crash? I wonder if it is related to overheating or just first signs of death.

 

Thanks Sutton, I'll have a look back in this thread and see if I find them.
GPU reaches around 95-100 degrees celsius, and fails randomly in say a few minutes or an hour or so for obvious reasons. Running the fan at 100% and the keyboard off is the only thing that keeps the temperature down.
the CPU is not far behind when doing video rendering, reaching almost 90 degrees as well. Using a Q9200 ES CPU with a TDP of 45W. Have the bigger quad heatsink for the CPU as well.
The ambient temperature was always between 15-20 C.

Edit:

Found some posts regarding this overheating issue, and I am going to attempt to update the vBIOS with the newest version available found around page 80 in this thread posted by yourself, Sutton.

Also, someone mentioned that the over heating problem might have another factor as well - motherboard revision. I have two motherboards laying around for the 8730, going to swap the one in there for the latest revision and see if it changes anything. Also, might mention that every time I take anything apart I clean the core surfaces on GPU/CPU and apply new thermal compound to make sure the heat transfer happens according to spec.

Just upgraded to a 8770w because I needed more CPU power, and the ole 8730w wasnt really handling multi monitor setups that well. The GPU temperature at idle goes up 5 C if I hook up my 30" at 2560x1600. Have two of them now, so I had to upgrade the laptop for extra DP connections.


Edit 2:
Found a modded vBIOS on;
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...602-hp-elitebook-8730w-owners-lounge-102.html

Same frequencies but lower voltage, according to the modder, stable.

 

For future ref. if people stumble across this with a Quadro 3700m in their 8730w.

Okey, it seems that modded vBIOS did the trick I mention in the previous post. The lowered voltage and frequency seems to have made the card stable even though the GPU temperature still creeps up to around 85 celcius depending on the ambient temperature.
Made sure also to clean out all dust and crap that had built up around the fan. Amazing amount in just a year of normal use on a desk.

Running FurMark for the second time now, doing 45 minute stress tests and its not showing any artifacts nor bluescreens.
As previous posts seem to have it 4 years ago, it might be the memory modules around the GPU not really fancying the extra heat.
Lower voltage along with the frequencies might give them a bit more tolerance to higher temperature.

Now I can sell the thing in good conscience..

 

I'm surprised you didn't first remove the fan and heat sink and clean it off!

With pets in the house or if living in a big city, lots of dust end up in radiator fans and I've had to take our laptops apart yearly to clean them. Your lowered temperature may have just been the result of this cleaning...

Have you also replaced the heat sink paste? Contrarily to thermal tape it dries out in time.

How is the drop performance wise with the new vbios? I'm following this discussion with great interest as I have a machine with this exact configuration.

Sent from my Note 2 using Tapatalk

 

what tool do you use to upload/change the vBIOS? Back then I only saved it (with GPU-Z). But changing (upload) is not possible. Or is this because my FX3700 is broken and it works only with a working one?

 

Hello, I'm a first time poster here, so please bare with me if I ask something that may have been answered before.

This is my configuration:
8730w
FX2700M with
DreamColor (lower left corner just a little pink-ish, upgrade form Samsung CCFL)
T9550
8GiB RAM
OCZ 128GiB SSD
Windows 7 64bit

Everything seams to be working fine, no color/palette problems, everything works rock-stable, BUT it seams to have a kind of backlight issue:
-I can't change brightness (backlight) of my display not with FN keys, not while in the BIOS not while in windows
(brightness and ambient light sensor settings did work fine with CCFL display and cable)
-turning ambient sensor on-of doesn't make any dfference, BIOS - windows ... same thing
-display doesn't dim as configured in power options
-actualy backlight doesn't turn off at all when display goes to "idle"
-when I start Display Assistant (v1.2) backlight goes to 0% note: that's not dark -that's backlight completely off and reports 0% backlight in options
(can't change this manualy)

I realize it may be the cable, the ambient light board or the display, can somone here help me narrow it down ?
And another question, did anyone try to install Q9100 on a "quad core" motherboard and do you think it's worth it at all ?

thanks, regards,
manjo

P.S. upgrade to DreamColor is worth it (especialy if you're used to desktop IPS) CreamColor is very much like it,
nice contrast, intense colors, great viewing angles.

 

Well, I remember cleaning it out fairly recently. In hindsight, a longer period of time had passed including a 2 month hotel stay with carpeted floors.
The heatsink is built so any dust accumulated is very hard to see unless the fan itself comes out of the sink. Would say poorly designed, requires annual maintenance.

And yes, every time any heatsink comes off I religiously clean off the old paste and apply "Arctic Silver" paste uniformly.

Haven't done any before and after test runs except for Furmarks stresstest. Ran a 70 minute program at work the other day, and the GPU stabilized at 83 C. Not even having to intervene to put the fan at 100% manually through hwinfo64.
Considering the small decrease in GPU, memory and shader clock, the impact on performance will be fairly small.

To the other question, I used the latest version of nvflash found on techpowerup.com. Should be the first hit if you google "nvflash windows".

Very straight forward. nvflash filename.rom

 

First you can always try to re-installing the BIOS (same version as actual). Sometimes a few things are reset during this process, but it really looks more like a hardware problem.

 

Hello, I had an issue with this cable.
-this is actualy a TouchStyk's cable (the thingy by the G and H keys)
-i dont use it at all, but it bothered me that Styk-thingy would not work anymore :-(

Anyway here's what I did (DIY approach):
I located the place where copper leads snaped it was near the end so I used scissors to cut it entrirely and evenly.
Used a sharp knife to gently scrub the white foil/paint off the copper leads to expose contacts as they would be on the original cable.
Inserted that end of the cable in the keyboard/Styk, inserted the blue foil from original end to close/tighten the connector as it should be.
Leave the other "original" end for connection to motherboard side
(it's easier to work with "original" end at that side when you're mounting your keyboard)
Works fine for me ever since...

My advice regarding this:
-disconnect flat cables even if they are long enough to give you some space to work whatever you're working with
-never straighten the cable: if it works -it's fine, no matter how ugly it looks (I'm quite sure that was my mistake)

 

I had a similar issue with mine (low brightness that cannot be changed) and the only solution was to replace the screen. Tried the card and the ambient light sensor, no difference. Ended up buying a parts laptop for the screen, that resolved the problem.

The sensor and cable aren't that expensive, you could try to replace those first, it's not that difficult.

Installing a Quad core on the dual core MOBO is NOT recommended, as a matter of fact IIRC it doesn't work or causes severe bleuscreens.

HTH, gotta go.

 

Hello,
thanks for a quick response:

I tried another cable today -it seams not to be the cable (behaves exactly the same way)
so it's either ambient light sensor or screen.

From all the posts I have read it seams that it's never ambient light sensor :-(
so it's most likely the screen (i just got this one yesterday)

the screen is usable even as it is (100% brightness) but it would be much nicer for use at night if it responded to ambient light sensor and brightness control actualy I prefere my screen not to be too bright. (most of the time under 50%)

Ofcourse I have QuadCore motherboard but my Q9100 works the same way as if on original DualCore motherboard
(one of the cores doesnt go to idle mode properly and not always the same core)

I got the Quad motherboard from Ebay, it should be part number 501508-001 but the part number sticker is removed, and as it sems I didn't get what I payed for :-(

Is there a way to tell the difference ?

 

Look for vrm-s around cpu socoet. Qc mbos should have 1 or two more when compared to ec ones, at least that is how most of notebooks have. Little grey square thingies.

Sent from my C1905 using Tapatalk

 

I'm really interested in your issue as it would confirm the problem I've had, just like you, is with the LED control board on 5he back of the screen and that the LEDs themselves are fine.

The difference is mine was at 0% brightness, which made it impossible to use except in a dark room.

I understand your plight. I use it at 50% most of the time myself. 100% is just too bright except in daylight.

Have you tried re seating the LED cable from the connector on the back of the screen (it's the smaller one of the two) to see if makes any difference?

Sent from my Note 2 using Tapatalk

 

Yes, ofcourse, I did try to reconnect both ends

-also with 2 different cables the result was exactly the same, (brightness stuck at 100%)
-next thing I'm going to try is the ambient light sensor board
-the one I got from ebay was in original HP packing version 1.4, but i used it to try to start a "compatible" NOT samsung screen,
-since Samsung screen missbehaved BIG TIME -maybe it suffered some "colateral" damage
-there is much more what could fail in the display rather then ambient light sensor, but the sensor is cheaper and as I wrote it has a "history"
-the display is "new" so more likely to be fine.

On the other hand from your experience it is more likely to be the display
(only if that difference 0% vs 100% brightness indicates to diferent kind/place of failure)

QuadCore motherboard issue:
I'm not 100% sure but it seams to me that both my mobos look exactly the same, from what I gahtered the difference was in ACPI implementation... and what not...
-when I got the mobo I did "compare" the two and didn't notice any difference, but i didn't expect to see one, so maybe I just failed to see the difference :-(
-the seller is telling me (2 times already) that the mobo he sent to me was 501508-001
I'm just puzzled why would somone remove the sticker with part number... (something smells fishy)
or maybe the board was displaced, there was not tag on it ... and so forth...

I would very much apreciate if somone could tell me how I could realy tell the diffrence without that sticker :-(
Maybe in the BIOS ? Or maybe if someone has QuadCore to look for sticker near RAM slots.
A lot of images I noticed the QuadCore had this sticker under the video card unlike the DualCore which has this sticker by the RAM slots,
but I don't know this for a fact... it's just what I noticed.
Both my mobos have this sticker under the RAM near the RAM slot. another clue it could be the DualCore :-(

regards,

 

Another thought about motherboard:
where does SKU number in BIOS/Syteminformation come from ?
Both my motherboards say GW678AV (referes to dual core configuration) :-(

 

Hey everyone. Hoping you can help me out. I recently bought a new LED screen, cable, and ambient lightsensor (all dreamcolor) so I could upgrade my screen on my aging laptop. Unfortunately, the system is failing to boot while the new screen and stuff is connected. I get no display at all, but the power light does come on and flashes a total of 12 times.

If I reconnect the old screen -- which is just connecting a single cable under the keyboard -- the display works fine on the old one. Does anyone know of bios limitations? I have a Core 2 Extreme, 4GB of ram, and a Quadro 2700M.

 

Who's the supplier? I'm not sure I would trust an offshore supplier. Have you been able to match part numbers? Could you post your screen part number?

I looked at the DC panel schematic and there is an LED controller on that flex board on the back of the screen. The failure mode full on /full off would seem to indicate that chip is defective as a short (full brightness) or as an open (full dim). You'd have to trace the power input to the chip and the output to the LEDs in order to bypass it if you wanted to jerry-rig an off the shelf controller board suitable to the LED voltages that you could adjust manually with some sort of pot. I may try that with my defective screen.

 

Well then you did get a Dual Core mobo... I don't think the BIOS would lie...

 

By all means tell us where you acquired the screen and the part number, so those that are planning to do the upgrade won't fall into that trap

Kidding aside, if you have the Quadro FX 2700M you should be able to get the DC working with the proper cable and ambient light sensor. Are you sure about the quality of your cables? Flashing power LED may be indicating you have insufficient power to boot. You need at least 135W to run a standard Dual Core DC equipped laptop with the Quadro FX 2700M. You may be overextending yourself if you have an extreme processor... The DC panel takes a huge amount of power on startup!

Forgot to mention that when replacing parts like this you should make sure the CMOS battery has been removed (it's under the keyboard) and the CMOS erased by holding the power button on for 30 seconds while main battery and power cable is off, it should reinitialize the BIOS to defaults. Just be VERY gentle removing that 2032 battery... There's enough power in it to fry the board if you drop it. Happened to me once when I was a greenhorn

HTH...

 

All very good tips to try, 83bj60.

Unfortunately, just about 2 hours ago while trying for about the 10th time to get the new display to work, the new cable and light sensor (part numbers match the 8730w service manual) smoked and caught fire. The new ambient light sensor was the source of the fire. It was not a gentle fire either, as it went up fast. Not sure yet if it's the new displays fault as it never even came on once, but at this point I am giving up. I had everything back together and was plugged into my Dock station. Now the power supply that was connected to that does not work, so I am at a lost to what was the culprit. Either the fire took out the power supply, or the supply was faulty after so many years and took it out. Also could have been what you mentioned regarding my Core 2 Extreme. I might have just pushed the power to the limits.

For now I have the sensor completely disconnected from the motherboard and am running a cheapo sanyo TV threw HDMI as my primary monitor as this elitebook is my only working computer. Come the 13th I will have some money to spend and am just going to finally retire this old elitebook and buy a new gaming laptop.

Anyways, thanks for the help.

 

Man, what a bummer! Playing with that Samsung screen must have busted the sensor as you presumed...

Perhaps you can sell the laptop on eBay for parts, or see if you get a rebate on your new laptop when you bring that one in. Where did you get the DC panel from, can you return it? If postage wasn't so ridiculously expensive I could be interested but alas, I'm in Canada, eh!

 

Not sure what I will do with the laptop honestly... probably part it out, as I can use the SSD in a laptop or desktop depending on which I decide to buy. I bought the DC display from eBay, so I should be able to return it. I will just tell the seller the laptop died just before receiving the screen and hopefully they will give me a refund.

 

The TRAP is that even some LCD screen sellers don't realize that subtypes of LP171WU5 and Samsung made counterparts are NOT
electrically comaptible.

You MUST be sure to get TRUE LP171WU5(TL)(B1) it's ony type reported to work on a couple of places (here in the past as well)
also the LP type TLB1 has the best specifications regarding color gamut, and viewing angles. That's probably the reason why HP used it in the first place.
On the other hand gathered from issues and various posts it seams not to be very reliable, but that's not so much up to HP as much as LGPhillips.

The pinkish lover left corner and bluish lower right corner are "by design" there are ways that could be addressed, but most probably not worth it.
It's like trinitron monitors had 2 tiny lines on the screen. It's like flat CRT screens had blury edges, or high resolution CRT-s had MOIRE and so on.

I consider my eyes healthy (my recent medical check confirms that) so, I see everything there is to see, and I can tell you:
these efects are not that bad, especialy once you realize that's not a fault or defect. it's just the way things are (at this time)

2 thoughts about DreamColor:

1. The best comment on DreamColor I have read is:
It's the screen closest to quality desktop screens.
On various videos on youtube you can get the idea but not true intensity of the difference.
If you're used to quality IPS screens you will feel right at home !!!

2. Working on such display for hours (half a day realy) will not strain your eyes the way most
laptops do.
A lot of laptops have nice intensity backlight, fair contrast, but not so much color intensity (gamut) in the end
comparing to IPS or DreamColor image looks kindof bluish or fogy.

Take it from real life:
When you go outside a couple of hours after rain you see very far and very clear.
On the "normal day" not so far and not so clear in the distance.

 

Thanks a lot for the idea. I will certainly give this a try.

In case I am unable to repair the cable, are you saing that xxx.synaptics.com/en/touchstyk.php sells or produces these?

 

If your cable is long enough to reach both ends (once you cut it) it will work for sure. (Good as new)
(you may find such cable on ebay, but it may be defective or weak without sellers knowlege)

My other try would be to buy any keyboard in any condition (you may find some on ebay) but be sure to check with the seller
if both cables are on the keyboard. That way you get the cable and spare keys if you breake some off.
TouchStyk rubber tip also.

If you're user like me... it's just a matter of principle.
(if it's there -it's supposed to work)
although I have it disabled 99% of the time.

 

@ manjo: Thanks again! I already cut off the cable but did not get to connect it yet. However, it looks like this might work indeed.

Nevertheless, its a shame that HP does not offer replacement for this cable unless you are willing to pay the price for an entirely new keyboard.

 

I have seen one on ebay once, but in just a day or two it was gone.
I think it could not be obtained separately -same as touchpad cable but that's why there's ebay and used parts...
Be sure to use the blue foil (a little thicker than the cable) on the end that you cutt off to support the cable once you plug it in the connector
and then close the latch of the connector when everything is in place.

Once the connector is latched it will be solid, no glue or anything is needed (better not to mess with any kind of glue at that point)

I'm expecting the new ambilight sensor in a couple of days so I will know if it's the display or sensor that's stuck at 100% brightness.

 

Hello,

I got my second ambient light sensor today. (I was waiting for it more than 10days)

I did notice the version of this ambient light sensor is 1.20 but have put it in right away and... display won't light up at all :-(
it does boot correctly but no back light at all :-(
it's seams to be up to version :-( with the sensor version 1.40 i get full brightness all the time
but as i wrote before this 1.40 may be defective due to failure with Samsung incompatible screen :-(

To tell you the truth when delivery was delayed for so long I felt this story is not going to be over :-(
(when the motherboard was delayed it turned out to be "normal" dual core motherboard insead of quad core)

Could you check if your machine had version 1.40? (the version sticker should be visible right under the screen bezel)
The only thing that comes to my mind is maybe sensor version 1.20 is for "normal" led screens with white led backlight?!?!?!

 

Well, after sending my screen back, it turned out to be defective. The seller sent me a proper one, and I ordered another cable and ambient light sensor -- and now it works great. Luckily, this panel has no defects at all -- no bleeding at all!

Of course, this Friday I had already given up and built a brand new gaming desktop so I no longer need the laptop....I posted it on eBay, so if anyone is interested, let me know. Note the laptop has no drive installed - but it's a Core 2 Extreme system with 4GB of ram, 2700M, and the LG 1920 x 1200 panel!

I think I got lucky though.....I figured after the fire incident the laptop would never work with the screen again but there is nothing like old "trial and error" when dealing with laptops....at least in my experiences with them.

 

EDIT: Nevermind, screen is fine. Booting Ubuntu 14.04 from USB and using teh xrandr command allows me to dim the screen even though the FN key's do nothing. I will assume if I put a drive in it will work fine.

Also, can anyone confirm that using an LED dreamcolor display one should be able to adjust brightness from the BIOS? I don't even have a hard drive installed in the laptop, but brightness is stuck on max and the brightness does not change. Ambient light sensor seems to do nothing as well. I am wondering if Windows + ACPI drivers need to be installed in order to control the brightness?

 

Same thing here:
I upgraded my 8730w from CCFL to DreamColor.
And I to have brightness stuck at 100% :-( not only in BIOS but in windows as well,
when display should turn off as set by power settings it does go black but backlight stays on :-(

When I start Display Asistant the screen goes 100% dark (switches off the backlight) reporting 0% brightness and it's grayed out (not changeable)
no matter what i do with FN keys (brightness up or down, disable ambient lighr sensor) my brightness is 100% all time :-(

I suspect my ambient light sensor board is defective so I got another one (version 1.20) with that sensor board my display won't light up at all it does boot up
but the backlight is off.
Now I ordered a third ambient light sensor (V 1.40) I hope to get it in about 14 days to try again. If that fails it means the display is faulty.

It seams that either: someone is selling the screens which did not pass the quality check or something... IT'S VERY ODD TO ME that we have exactly the same problem.
OR is there more to it than just cable, sensorboard and display? (it seams that not even HP serivce/support knows about this stuff)
I'm very happy with the screen/image quality so I'm going to try to get it right, but if it doesn't work... i will most probably go back to CCFL or WLED version because i can't work with 100% brightness:
1. my eyes would burn out of my skull
2. when screen goes to power save mode -it should save power

To be honest:
I like this laptop very much, but I got nothing but trouble while trying to upgrade it.
I also got the quad core processor and odered a Quad Core motherboard which turned out to be normal dual-core motherboard so far no luck with CPU upgrade either :-(

regards,

 

Hmm that is interesting. I think the trick I did in Linux just darkens the output display -- so I have the same issue. I am using a 1.40 version board as well, so I am not sure if the boards are the problem. I am going to check the HP website and download and install a BIOS for a Dreamcolor screen -- even though they may be the same version and same size, they may have slightly changed something and maybe re-flashing will help. I will let you know.

I also now have the battery drain problem. -_- Battery after two days was at 53% while sitting off. What a bummer!

 

I did not test my laptop for battery drain since I use it on adapter, but I have read that battery drain was the DISPLAY CABLE issue.
(maybe these 2 issues are related) From the posts I have read there is no clear clue how to tell if the cable is right.

Also when buying a cable on ebay -you realy can't tell for sure what you'll end up with :-(
I don't realy depend on this laptop (have other machines to work with) but this 8730 is generally in very good condition (barely used),
so I wanted to upgrade it with display and CPU I even considered buying over-priced QX9300 CPU.

When I started this upgrade I did my reading and was well prepared I am aware of motherboard issues related to quadcore CPUs and
that cable, ambientlight sensor have to be changed (not just the pannel) and so on, but still ... it's one problem after another
(none realy technical -more like not getting what I'we payed for or hidden differences in parts even though they are THE SAME part number like that V1.20 and V1.40
maybe that's the difference people having 1.20 ambient light sensor board get stuck with their backlight not turning on, on the other hand with 1.40 have 100% brightness
based on couple of posts here and in general it was screen that was defective)

Then there are same sreens LP171WU5 TLB1 with prices from $70 up to $230, I wonder if there was a difference. If paying more means higher quality product, ok...
also there is age to consider from 2008 some parts may have gone bad... capacitors gone bad or what not... or damaged due to handling+static electricity

I would love to hear some good ideas/explanations about it all... and again I realy would not bother if I hadn't seen the display work the image/colors and all...

regards