*HP EliteBook 8730w Owners Lounge*

Thanks for taking time to respond!

 

The batteries on the hp's are brand new . Wear level is 0.
http://www.pbus-167.com/ With this program you can control battery and see that they are new .
The reason of discharging is something else or maybe what i have said above

 

It is true that LiIon batteries are self discharging but not at a rate of 15% in 24 hours. It is more a matter of around 5% in a week, if even that.

In my tests I always connected the computer to the power outlet before starting which means it starts charging before I turn on the computer thus 10% of battery power is not required for booting up the computer.

I have turned off wake on LAN in the BIOS setup and this time I also didn't have AC adaptor connected to the computer, STILL the battery is discharging.

 

Maybe we need a Bios update ?

 

Hopefully this can be solved with a BIOS update, if not HP has made a real blunder.

BTW, I think you have the same problem with your machine. Assuming you sleep 8 hours, the battery is discharging about 10%. If you turn your computer off for about 24 you will notice it has reduced to about 75%. That's actually 25% in 24 hours, I calculated wrong before.

 

Battaries are new with o% wear . So it could be a motherboard leak .
If it is so we are in deep sh..t.

 

According to wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery

Which is actually a lower self-discharge than I expected.

The HP battery is a smart battery but an internal circuit that drains 25% in 24 hours is something I hardly think could have made it to the market.

I've also tested to have the battery outside the computer and then of course there is no discharge so the only conclusion I can come to is that the computer itself steals power despite it is off.

 

I don't know what to say for now .
I will check out my batteries and i will replay

 

Hi guys,

@fritz40: Congratulations on the notebook. Enjoy it.

I have a 8530w running XP (got it back in November) with a similar issue. Otherwise it is a great professional laptop. Mine shows about 95-97% if left for about 24 hours unused and unplugged. It never really bothered me much since most of the time I have it plugged.
I've always thought it was the wake-up settings for the hardware but never tried to thoroughly check. Since the 8530w and the 8730 are different machines it should be either a software (bios?) issue or a common battery issue. Do the 8530w and 8730 have the same battery? We can start from there.

Thanks,

edit:
A quick check would be to detach the battery and leave it out of the laptop for a day or so and check.
Will try to do that tonight and report results.

 

Thank you asusnote
I opended my laptop right now and from 100 % i found it at 85% 12 hours later it still says that i have 2 hours autonomy . The batterie is new with 0% wear level .I don't know if this thing must bother me or not . I have even a 12 cell battery so i can get easily 4.30 hours .
This is another disappointment because if i am not wrong the specs were for about 7 hours for fx3700 cards attaching the 12 cell and the primary battarie .
Is this so or am i wrong ?

 

Screen glare..... This is probably an old topic, but I just jumped into the 8730w thread while looking for a new laptop. I'm a button-down matte screen kind of guy who uses his computer mostly for work related things and surfing. I've been investigating various consumer laptops, including the new Dell XPS 1640, but have been put off by the reflection of the glossy screens. I'm guessing that in the 8730w family, I would want the anti-glare WUXGA. I'd be appreciative to hear comments on its brightness and reflection. Thanks in advance.

 

I can tell you about the Dreamcolor screen .It is very bright( 300nits) e no reflection at all, it is matt 100%.Go for it

 

Going back to the battery discussion, is there anyone that has an 8730w WITH the DreamColor display that is getting good battery working capacity anywhere near the HP advertised operating times? Anything over 2.5 hrs on the primary battery or an additional 4 hrs or more(over 6 hrs total) with the 12 cell ultra? I'm thinking that we are seeing the battery life problem due to the DreamColor display. If anyone with a DreamColor is getting good battery life, I'd sure like to hear about it. As I mentioned before, I get less than 2 hrs on the primary battery alone, and only about another 1.5 hrs with the 12 cell ultra attached. My system is with the Nvidia FX2700.

Thanks,
K

 

When I checked the time left estimated by windows when the computer is idle I got between 2.5 to 3 hours. I have no idea how this translates to real life battery life. I also have an 8710p which I get about 3 hours left estimated by windows. I have no idea how long the battery actually lasts but my according to my experience the battery life was adequate. The dreamcolor consumes according to spec 15W instead of about 5W for a CCFL variant so that will definetly affect the battery life. I would say about 2 hours i still quite good for this model. When it comes to marketing battery life from HP I'm sure they get their figures from the most low end model.

 

I get 2 - 2.30 hours with my primary battery and 1,30 - 2 hours more with 12 cell attached In total not more than 4,30 hours . This where the risults for the first time using it in wifi mode and installing and surfing and office working .
I never saw more . 7 hours as mentioned for the 8 cell + 12 cell is inexistent
and i have the FX 3700 + Dreamcolor .Even 3,5 hours for the primary is pure fantasy from HP .
I am disappointed because a part for the dreamcolor display , the long lasting battery of the 12 cell was another reason getting this laptop .
If i knew that the battery life would be so short i would buy maybe another laptop between M6400 AND W700.
Now it is too late to think about it . I will buy another 12 cell and so i will exchange the exterior battery and have finally 6 hours .

 

Ok, so I looks like your experience is similar to what I am seeing. That is good news for both of us, even though it is ultimately a disappointment. The fact that we both see similar results (even though your results are maybe slightly better than I'm seeing) means that our power consumption and battery life is probably typical for this computer and not something of a statistical outlier - meaning there is probably nothing wrong or defective in production. However, this does mean that this may be a design flaw that should be addressed - possibly with a firmware update (hopefully).

I'd be very interested to hear from others on this topic that have the DreamColor display so that we can collect a bigger sample set of data.

But I do have to say, other than the issue I have with the battery (and a few other minor quirky things), I am very pleased with the 8730w in most all categories. Although I do not have access to other competitive units for comparison (M6400, W700, etc.), I feel satisfied that I selected the best available unit for my needs.

 

I am satisfied also and i love this notebook and it is the best i could afford
but when someone spends a lot of money he wants the best . Do you know what i mean ?? Every thing that is not as dreamed before do hurt us a lot .

 

It would be good for someone to try Windows 7 on this laptop. It is meant to offer far better battery life for laptops then Vista or Xp.

Regards,
Simon

 

Ugly stickers are gone:


Dragos

 

Does anyone own the CCFL WUXGA or WSXGA+ screen and is it any good ? (details appreciated, it's for graphic work)
I can't find the Dreamcolor display at a decent price here in France, so if I pick a 8730w I will go with the CCFL.

 

Dragos , where have you been ??

1.How did you managed this without leaving any signs ?

2.What do you think about our discussion about the batteries
How is your time with battery only power ?

3.Did you found the enclosure to put another hard drive in the upgradebay to combine raid ?

4. How is going your machine ?

Best regards

Chris

 

Hey,

We'll there's lots of work at my studio and I barely find time to sleep. The removal of the stickers was actually killing time occupation during a render...
1. Just took them off. There might be some glue left which I removed by repeatedly sticking the removed stickers on it. No traces/discoloration are left on the metal surface.
2. I have never needed battery for very long time, I used it at a shooting and the life seemed OK but I only needed it for an hour. So basically I'm not yet informed from experience about battery life in real world.
3. No. Since I don't want RAID anyway, just more storage, probably I'll go for an external SATA enclosure.
4. Excellent. I use it 12 hours a day for 3D animation, 2K film compositing, 3D tracking and got absolutely no issues. I just managed to break my OpenSUSE install by being stupid .

Dragos

 

I am happy for you that everything is ok .

One question about the fan .
Do you have the fan always on when on power ?
Or did you changed this in Bios ?

 

I disabled it, it's conflicting with Linux.

Dragos

 

I'm considering buying a 8730w with a CCFL WSXGA+ display. This would be a replacement for a Dell M6400 with a CCFL that has trouble displaying some colors, as described in this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=331809&page=7&p=4479001​

I'd like to know if anyone with a 8730w with a WSXGA+ CCFL could check to see if their display is capable of displaying the full range of colors shown on that chart?

 

Hello all,

Not sure if you've seen this.. but I think these might fit the hp 8730w just fine.. cheap also.

http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2_27

Regards,
Simon

 

Hello Simon , I can't find any code for our 8730w ? Which one is for ours?

 

I just bought a HP 8730w. Everything is good except one thing. Even i set the laptop that when i close the lid, it still stuck when i close the lid. The desktop will frozen when i close the lid. I don't know why but the laptop seem still working because i saw the HDD led is flashing but the desktop is death. The button seem don't work at that time too because i try to shutdown the laptop by press the power button (did'n hold it for 10s) but nothing happen. And if you hold the Power button to force turn it off, you can't get into Vista again unless you go into Safe Mode and then restart from there. I guess it's the problem of Vista (hope not because of Hardware because in my region they don't sell this model.

 

I've emailed them asking which one fits the 8730w. I'm sure one will as the version Hp sells seems to fit in a lot of different laptops so they will stock it I hope.

I'll post back here when I get a reply from them.

Regards,
Simon

 

Thank you Simon . It would be great having a Raid set up . I know from the W700 that with raid 0 set up the machine is flying .
Waiting for your reply

 

Try first to change settings when closing the lid .
Put hibernate first than shut down and don't forget to do a defrag because after an istallation of os it is a good idea to defrag to put files in line .
Before thinking about hardware failure check out software .

 

Hello all,

I've got a question about memory. I know the 8730w is DDR2 and not 3, however I was wondering if you can get DDR2 laptop memory with super fast timings?
Just thinking when I upgrade to 8GB I'd like to get the fastest DDR2 memory out there, anyone have any iideas what this would be?

Regards,
Simon

 

Is it possible to replace the X9100 by an QX9300. If so what happens with the warranty? In Switzerland there's no QX9300 Model available yet

 

Ok, according to the Service Manual there are seperate Mainboards for Dual and Quad Cores.

 

I asked Hp here in Greece and they told me that there is no problem with the warranty if the upgrade is done by them but the price is to high for now and i don't think it is worth it .
You must pay for the new mainboard + quad cpu + Installation fees from hp.

 

Hi Simon , for now i don't think there are better memories out there than the Kingston PC6400 DDR2 800 /4 GB Simms and they are still pretty expensive for now .If there is other better memory let me know but i think that
the gain will be so insignificant that you will not notice anything , only a hole in your pocket right now
chris

 

I saw a new range of this laptop is now appearing with the Q9000 quad-core (2.00Ghz) and the 2.93 GHz dual-core, as well the QX9300. At least in Germany, you can now pre-order them.

 

Hey guys, can someone tell me if this machine is noisy or it runs hot? I would be really thankful!

 

Arggghh! Having a problem with the display. I was trying to make some adjustments using the HP Mobile Display Assitant (worthless, really). There wasn't anything wrong with it at the time, just tring to tune the settings. I use the original HP wallpaper on the desktop, which I kind of like. Somehow during making adjustments, the wallpaper is now color distorted in some parts. I've tried to reset back to original settings, but the color distortions remain in that wallpaper image. I don't see color distortions in document windows or app windows or other parts of the desktop, or other wallpaper images - just in the default HP Wallpaper image. I've opened the wallpaper image file in an editor and the distortions are still there. I've copied the file to view on another monitor and the image is perfect with no color distortion. The image file has not been touched or changed - still has the original file date.

Does this make any sense to anyone? Something changed in the display setting to cause a highlighting or other artifact in the colors used in the default wallpaper; and I am now unable to recover, even re-installing the mobile display assistant or resetting back to "original" settings does not emliminate the distortions in that image.

Has anyone else with the DreamColor display seen anything like this?

I've changed the wallpaper to something else and I'm ok with it for now, but I must get to the bottom of this soon.

K

 

The machine is very quiet, and does not run hot at all. Probably the best performing notebook I've had in those areas.

 

Yes this is true.

Also the extreme dual cores require the quad core motherboard from what I can make out.

This is a real shame as I was thinking of upgrading to a quad at some point (when they get faster). However I'm hoping my 2.8 Dual should keep me going for some time

That is if they ever ship the thing! It's been 3 weeks now since I ordered it and they have no idea when it's going to be ready. Hp keeps saying there's a lack of dreamcolour screens and they have no idea when they will be in stock again.

If I don't hear back from them soon I'm going to get a refund and maybe pick up the 17" macbook pro which should be out by then.
Grrrr!!

Si

 

Update:
Hmm, I shut down the system again and waited a short period. The problem I was having is gone. I'll repost again if I see any more anomalies in the display. But for now the problem seems to have disappeared.

 

Same issue to me . I dont know why .i changed wallpaper and restarted and put the default settings again and the problem disappeard.

 

I agree with tellc and i can confirm . Best laptop . Quiet and cool .

 

Thanks for the reply. I thought I was seeing things at first. I appreciate this forum and the good information we all gain from the community here. As I said in a previous post, at least all these attributes so far seem to be common and not isolated in-production defects.

Cheers,
K

 

I have a couple of questions about using the 8730w with the HP 2008 Advanced Docking Station (KQ752AA):

1. Will I be able to use both the HDMI port on the 8730w and the one on the dock while the machine is docked? I want to run two separate DVI displays but I dont want to use the analog VGA connection.

2. Is the Upgrade Bay HDD (AK868AA) usable in this version of the docking station? I haven't been able to find any clear specs on that on HP's site.

 

Just a FYI regarding the Nvidia 179.44 drivers available for the 8730w (FX2700M) via Windows Update.

I updated by drivers to these and got a 500 point improvement in 3dmark06 (Vista 32-bit).

However, I had issues with LCD screen brightness (could not increase brightness over what appeared to be 50% or so).

I downgraded to the latest graphics drivers on hp.com's support site (176.87) and screen brightness issue is fixed.

Oh well.. guess I'll stick w/ these drivers for now...

 

So I think this is the optical bay for the 8730w.

http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_5&products_id=176

Although is has a white front on it. Humm, where's my can of spray paint at!?

 

Hello everyone - I recently purchased an 8730w, and I have to say that my decision was cemented by the comments and replies on this forum. I have been reading this thread since it was at 2 pages, and I thought that now I can contribute to the conversation....

I am extremely happy with my purchase. This is unusual, as I am an unusally picky b*stard. From Lightroom to Crysis, this machine performs in a manner most outstanding. (9400 dual, 3700M video, dreamcolor, two 7200 250 gig hd's, dvd writer for exp bay, 4 gig ram, webcam, standard battery.)

I have noticed the dreamcolor has a 1 cm red tinge in the lower left corner of the display, and the battery seems to drain in a heartbeat, but aside from those two issues, I am happy. I will probably send the display back for a panel replacement once they start shipping this machine with valid displays. Yes, it shipped from China, but the build quality is top-notch. The keyboard is one of the best I have felt on a notebook... very tactile and wide keys.

Regarding the above comment on the expansion bay caddy at: ( http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=popup_image&pID=176) This does not look like the HP caddy - mine is rounded to fit the case profile, and also has a small tab that accepts a threaded screw from the bottom of the notebook (apparently to hold it in place.).

I can also say that the HP instructions for removing the hd caddy are wrong - the pdf manual and the video on their support site both explain that one simply has to remove the single screw from the bottom of the notebook and then push on the tab, thereby sliding the bay out. Actually, you have to also remove all four screws that are directly connected to the HD through the case bottom, and also (in my case at least) hold the 8730 upside down while unscrewing the 'official' fifth screw - this will let the screw fully unthread from the tab on the back of the caddy. Then just lightly push the silver tab and the whole thing will easily pop out.

If there is any interest, I can take photos of the hd and dvd caddy and post them.

Regards, Ellsworth

 

Yes please if you could post some images of the bay + the machine that would be great!

How are you finding RAID on this laptop? Does it make much of a difference do you think?

I thought the bay only came with a 160GB 5200 disk? How did you get 2 x 250GB in there?

Regards,
Simon