*HP EliteBook 8740w Owners Lounge - PART 1*

Ha! you should see my Toshiba after 2.5 years... The palm rest area is completely discolored, showing the natural black plastic underneath the original silver finish, and the left mouse button and the space bar have these nice greyish spots from wear on them... To Toshiba's credit, none of the keys lost their markings!

The 8730w has an aluminum palm rest area and it looks like a fairly easily replaceable part... I want mine black anodized like on the 8740w

 

I had Toshiba and Sony with both suffer these (badly) colored areas and they look bad after a short while of usage.

My former HP, however, did a better job (I think it was not "painted" at all like others and instead it was only the color of the plastic, so nothing to discolor )

 

I got my System 8 monitors off eBay for a steal. I love them so much used w/a 5watt single-ended amp & NHT sub. You mis-understand my reason 'bout the grill; I only keep the grills off the Tannoys because they're so damn sexy! My M&Ks, JBLs, Fostex, Klipsches [my Heresys, not my La Scalas], all wear protection. (I have Matrin Logans too, but the perforated metal grill is an integral part of that speaker so that doesn't count)

So not to stay off topic too much more. What do you think of the 200'ish nit brightness? Let us know how it fairs if you take it outside.

 

Yes, that's why I've always looked up to the Thinkpads because, as stodgy as they often look, they usually maintain their looks after many years with their black plastic exteriors!

But perhaps it's just a fact that early computers had their colors embedded into the plastic and thus could not wear out like the thinner, sleeker new models (although they would get that burnished look to them after long use). My best computer in that respect was probably the gray Toshiba I had in the late 90s... A tank that still looks good with all its scuffs after several years of use !

I wish that high end machines had better case design and build quality. There is too much emphasis on lightness, IMO, and not enough on sturdiness and life survivability. As much as I like the heft of the HP and the sturdy feel of its keyboard, what's with all these cover parts? Why can't they build sturdy covers in one piece like Apple can? How difficult would it be to design for that? It would then be very easy to make spill and dustproof!

But I digress... For now I'll be happy if I can simply change the color of the palm rest and "switch cover" to dark gray, and the keyboard keys to fluorescent white on matte black, with perhaps a couple of directional UV LEDs shining onto the keyboard from the top of the LCD cover

 

The brightness is plenty for me, but I'm an audio guy, not video! Also, I have no intention of using this outside. I tried using my Sony on my patio once, then bugs started crawling in every available crack (it was late and they were attracted by the light I guess).

I ran into my first problems. I have the fan problem coming out from Sleep mode. I also just got an instant crash about 5 mins after coming out the last Sleep (but I only have 4GB on 2 DIMM...but it seemed like the RAM problem associated with slots 3 and 4). I don't know what bios version I have...I really don't know enough about computers to check or how to update.

EDIT: looks like I have version F.03 which is the latest version on HP's website

EDIT2: thx AlbertRaccoon, I have the old driver installed and now gestures work...not sure what else they do beyond scroll u/d l/r and zoom, but I find the scrolling to be a nice option to use in conjunction with the pointer...METAEDIT...I guess there was always scrolling from the side of the touch pad...I dunno that I'll need the gestures much, I feel that touch pad is too small for those who want to use it as their primary pointing device...not a problem for me tough

 

You crashing problem might be video driver related. Do you have the latest driver installed? What if you try the official drivers from AMD?

 

Sorry to hear, but if I had the 8740w w/o the major differentiating factor of DC2 and your experience I'd likely do the same, as that Dell was a consideration for me before I decided DC2 was the most important need I had. Can't win'm all I guess.

 

I can't find anything on their website about Mobility FirePro at all. The shut down has only happened once so far, so it's hard to know where to look. I'm avoiding Sleep mode, but when I have more free time, I'll play with it as see if the shutdown is related to coming out of sleep.

I played my first game. I signed up for Steam a while back to get in on the free Portal giveaway. I just got it running today, looks great, but I don't think it is probably a very demanding game. I also have to frame of reference. The last game I played was KotOR2, which was just barely playable on lowest settings on my Sony. Regarding the game, I love it. FPP (first person puzzler) is defiantly for me!

 

Yeah I liked it as well. It can heat the cards pretty fast, so I wouldn't call it a less demanding. Have you measured your max temps?

 

The Half-Life 2: Lost Coast tech demo is a fun little free game to do some graphics testing, although Portal may be updated to have much of the same fancy now.

A demo of anything new will probably offer a decent test, though.


Has anyone tried running Linux (any distro, but I'm primarily interested in Debian) on the 8740w yet? I know the open source ati drivers can't do much with the R800s yet (one advantage to the Dell's 7740), but I'll put up with fglrx until I can switch.

Actually, I had the same issue re: drivers - AMD's site pretends the thing doesn't exist, and it's not clear that HP offers a linux driver . . . I was gonna hope the latest fglrx supporting the HD 5870 would work . . .

 

Have you tried installing the Mobility Radeon 5000 drivers? It's the same physical card, AFAIK.

 

What do you guys recommend for monitoring temps? Do any of the programs keep a time history of temps beside reporting live temps? I'd like to look back over the data after gaming to see how fast they approached their max and how fast they cooled.

Also, I'm too much a novice to try the Radeon drivers. I know everyone says it's the same card, but even so, I don't want to be the tester for this...I'd be really screwed if it went bad.

 

Use GPU-Z (just pick the "show the highest reading" option for each sensor in the sensors' tab), or try HWMonitor, HWinfo32.

Don't mess with the drivers yet, wait for me

 

I managed to get all four RAM slots filled as I'm now running 4x 2GB chips. How were the crashes caused? Is there any way I can test for them?

The systems shipped with the latest BIOS installed so I'm hoping I won't have any problems. But, if they do happen, the sooner the better.

 

Just do your normal activities: browse, play, watch, open buncha windows in parallel, copy large files, utilize the DVDROM, etc.

 

Oh, I plan to do all sorts of silly testing (and spend a lot of time fixing things in a plain terminal while I repeatedly break X), but I haven't made the purchase yet.

Probably going to by Monday, and just suck up whatever driver pain I have to take on Linux until R800 acceleration support makes it into RadeonHD. :-/

I had been resigned to using nvidia's proprietary drivers more or less permanently (acceptable performance with nouveau is a long way off), so having to wait a bit on open source drivers is a small price to pay for being able to have ATI graphics. And I think I'd rather have the better card and the wait than take the 7740 and have open source acceleration right now.

I'll post whatever results I get and any configuration backflips I end up using to get fglrx and compiz, etc. to play nice.


Oh, and one easy way to get an app to eat up ~4GB RAM is to download GIMP for Windows (the 32-bit version, actually - the experimental x64 compile has very aggressive swapping behavior even with a huge tile cache), set the tile cache to ~3.4GB, and open up 40-50 3200x2400 images. Just download a bunch of wallpapers. It'll chew up the memory and you can use the ridiculous number of windows to see how responsive the system is. [That said, that shouldn't stress it at all - but it's a good component of a multi-app test.]

 

Looking forward to your findings! Might join you as am interested in dual boot with Lucid Lynx. Still recovering after a painful experience with M17X (couldn't make SLI/CrossFireX work flawlessly in Ubuntu or any other distro)

 

I had a few more crashes tonight. I'm less convinced it relates directly to Sleep mode now. I got one out of no where, one 20 min into playing Portal (was running GPU-Z but lost log file data in crash) and one more after Sleep.

 

Look into event viewer for error logs. Though it would require a lot of work to pinpoint the problem. Too bad.
do you have 2 or 4 RAM sticks?

 

Another question popped into my head: This machine is a wee bit on the not-so-light side, and I'm thinking I'll finally start using a backpack. Any advice on good carrier packs for a workstation of this size?

One reason I've stuck with a normal carry case thus far is that I run a lot (partly because it's fun, partly because I'm usually late for something), and case held away from body = not slamming around and risking damage [but rather tiring to the arms!]. So (if one exists), I'd really like a backpack that sits reasonably stable when running and bounding up and down stairs and such. Er, and is unlikely to fail. (I invariably end up overloading all but the sturdiest backpacks - but I think I'll be a lot more careful with one holding my shiny toy!)

Who me, picky?

 

Just bought a HP 8740w - i520M, 4GB, M7820, WSXGA +
The video card is very cold, the temperature does not exceed 70 degrees C, but the processor is a little hot under load, wPrime warmed up it to 85 degrees ...
the fan becomes loud only when the processor is above 80 degrees.
The first screenshot shows the scores with turbo boosts, the second without...

 

which OS?

have you tried this?

HP EliteBook 8740w Mobile Workstation- ATI Workstation Video/Graphics Driver for Microsoft Windows Windows 7 - HP Business Support Center

 

new BIOS will be released next month but be carefully, you cannot go back to an older version after installing (read "impact of change")

HP EliteBook 8740w Mobile Workstation- HP EliteBook 8740w Mobile Workstation System BIOS Update F.04 - c02202898 - HP Business Support Center

 

He was referring to the suggestion that he try the official AMD drivers - their website doesn't list the Mobility FirePro cards anywhere (except for two of them noted as being supported with a new Stream SDK package), and the driver pages don't have them in any category's dropdown, nor will they produce anything when supplying the model number directly.

Quite irritating, but not unusual for high-end, possibly-exclusive notebook cards, unfortunately.

 

I've been using the Orion AW backpack for a year and so far only positive feedback.

 

You can do 2 things to improve the temps: replace the thermal paste and buy a heatsink for quad core cpu's from HP (it's not expensive). The HS for dual core processors has only one pipe while the one for quads has 2. This will greatly improve the temps.
I'll look for a reference number... here you go!

 

Are you sure that it is possible to put on the HS of quad core processor, instead of the dual-core?
the instructions written
For use only with computer models equipped with Quad Core processors 597570-001
For use only with computer models equipped with Dual Core processors 596048-001

 

For the 25$ I'd give it a try anyway. If it doesn't fit tight enough - you can always add a shim/pad. But it will surely provide a better heat transfer.

Also, looking at your tests... have you noticed the reduced clocks of the FirePro? Maybe that's the reason for lower temps. I still find it difficult to believe that the cooling on this machine is so good.

 

Has anyone that is experiencing crashes opened a case with HP? If so, have they yielded any results?

 

Are you experiencing them as well?

 

No, I cannot seem to get the system to crash. I've tried running multiple stress tests / benchmarks and different power configurations.

The one issue that I am experiencing is the fan running at full after coming out of sleep. I'm betting this is a BIOS problem. There is a setting in the BIOS that you can check to have the fan run on full when the system is plugged in. I disabled that setting and it stays off (if cool) until it wakes out of sleep.

I'm just hoping that anyone that experiences crashes opens a case with HP. Otherwise, how will they address or even know about the issue?

Also, just as an FYI, it doesn't appear that this system suffers from any throttling that has been so problematic with the i7's in laptops.

 

Yeah, fan's behavior will be fixed with a BIOS update.
We should notify HP.

 

When I play games, video card runs at full power, it can be seen in the screenshot ...
Video card is very good, this is the reason why I chose this laptop...

p.s. And there is an analog ThinPad Power Manager for HP Elitebook?

 

Wow, I like the temps! Could you choose it (GPU-Z) to show the max readings for all sensors and play again? I wonder what are the peak/max temps in BFBC2?

 

As I said, video card is very cool ...
The laptop is quiet, the fan noise is barely audible above the temperature did not exceed 80 degrees

 

Amazing!
I have to wait another month (at least) because of that DC2 screen. :cry:

 

I installed ATI Workstation Video/Graphics Driver for Microsoft Windows Windows 7 as suggested by Sotton. I guess I'll have to wait for a few days to conclude it is helps.

EDIT: I just spent about 30 min playing Portal. I thought I had the log file all set up to record everything, but it stopped logging data after I started playing. I also forgot that it wouldn't update the Sensor monitors while it was in the background, so the whole time I was gaming it seemed like the temps hadn't gone anywhere. I think now that I checked the box to update the screen while it is in the background, it should log ok, but I'm going to bed and will have to try again later.

 

I have emailed a PM in HP's SMB group to find out if he knows about the crashing with 4 RAM slots full issue.

I'll let you know what I hear.

 

By the way, for those who actually have the unit in hand, what do you all think of the size and weight of this unit?

Is it doable? Especially traveling with it? I wouldn't necessarily be using it on airplanes, (that's what an iPad is for ), but I would be carrying around through airports, etc.

I'm debating between the 8540w and 8740w. I like the 8740 because of the better graphics card option (better ATI option), larger screen size for viewing on a desk at hotels or the office, and the backlit keyboard. But the larger size and weight of the 8740w may put me off.

Thoughts?

Best Wishes,
Eric

 

Try carrying a 7-8 lbs weight with you in your bag to see how it would be like carrying it around. I carry my 7+ lbs laptop to school everyday, so I'm used to it but if it weren't my only computer (can't bring down a desktop where I live), I'd definitely prefer a smaller one.

 

anyone tested the run time of the battery (normal web browsing, light work)

just curious...

 

The thing is, up till now, I've been carrying around two computers: a 17" MBP and an HP 2730p. However, the weight and size of the 8740w is actually larger than the 17" MBP. Because of that I am debating things.

What about the comparison with the 8540w? What made those of you choose the 87 over the 85?

 

I was going to get the 8540w but I really wanted a backlit keyboard on top of everything else it offered. Then I found out the 8740w was getting the backlighting while the sales rep had no idea when the 8540w would be getting it. I then noticed the 8740w is 0.5lbs lighter than my Sony. I rationalized that having a GPU that was bench marked 60% higher (in gaming) would compensate me for added weight (which I knew I could handle b/c I was already carrying more).

Also, I will never buy a laptop w/o backlighting again (unless my uses change significantly some day). Even my father (who just left after visiting this weekend) commented how nice it was to have the backlighting and now considers it an important feature for his next laptop. I know it's not for everyone, but it is definitely for me.

EDIT: I just ran 3DMark2001 so I could directly compare my 8740w to my Sony (plus I wanted to see if GPU-Z would log successfully). I got 36,020 as compared to 1,606 from my Sony. Big surprise there. Anyway, the GPU temps never exceeded 61, though the test lasted only about 8 mins and only occasionally pushed the GPU load into the 90+% range.

EDIT2: The ATI drivers from HP's website did not fix the crash problem. It happened once today while browsing NBR (nothing else running but Firefox). I'd install BIOS F.04 but what's up with the warning about no going back to F.03? Should I worry about that?

 

Hello.
I read the first posts, but there was nothing there.
So I wanted to ask: has there been a review of the panel of this mobile workstation? I need informations specifically on the gamut and color fidelity.

 

If you're referring to the DC2 panel, then the answer is no, since no one has one yet.

 

If everything goes well, the DC2 will be available from 21st of June. So by mid July I'll get my hands on it and make a review. So far - everything is a speculation.

 

Understood.
Thank you for the answer.
I'll be back by end of July, then.

 

there's been a few replies on this topic. If the others don't re-post (or you don't find them many pages back) What I recommended was the one I know of an have:
Backpacks and Laptop Backpacks made by: TOM BIHN

 

Have there been any 3dmark06 or vantage benchmarks with the firepro?

 

Hi guys,

I got my 8740w back from repair today (HP had it 20 days).
Actually I got an new computer. HP replace it.

But, i have the same problems with this one. The screen is gray/blueish and i get headike after only 15 minutes working on it. The screen flickers.

Im changeing from a 8710w, which i can work a whole day on without any problems.

I really don't know what to do, i like the machine, but i can't work on it.

It has this product code: WD940EA#AK8