*HP EliteBook 8740w Owners Lounge - PART 1*

A few comments on weight/size.

I weighed my laptop as delivered (battery included but not power brick) at the USPS: weight was

8.36lb/ 3.79Kg

so significantly more than the advertized minimum weight of 7.8lb. (Just to double check I took it to a FedEx oulet as well -- their scale gave me 8.35lb).

This is pretty close to my upper limit, and getting into the Dell Precision M6500, or even Lenovo W701, range. On of the big pluses of the 8740w in my mind (in addition to the overall construction and style) is its relative portability for such a powerful workstation, so I'd say HP is pushing the envelope a bit on the weight as far as my standards go (though no doubt they had to).

I also compared the 8740w with my 4-year-old HP-Compaq nw9440 (the immediate precursor to the 17" elitebook mobile workstations). It's definitely lighter (more like 7.5lb, which is about what I'd hope for in an ideal world), but size-wise I was quite impressed. They 8740w is essential the same thickness (maybe a couple of milimeters higher) and only about a 1/4" wider. The main difference is that the 8740w extends about a 1/2" deeper than the nw9440, but seems like they have kept the size increase down pretty well.

I prefer the nw9440 buttons for volume/wireless etc instead of the touch sensitive light/buttons on the 8740w. Also the big square latch button on the 8740w stikes me as a bit clunky and loose, though it closes the lid down at two separate points on either side, not just one point in the middle. But those are minor things.

The 200w power brick that came with the 8740w is also pretty big (2.2lb/1.0Kg weight with cords...). I plan to get another AC adaptor to take around with me. Hp offers the 65w slim line adaptor as compatible with the 8740w, but I wonder if it's powerful enough. There is a nifty hp power assistant tool that shows the power consumption -- currently 39W on battery, but it easily goes up to 90W on high-performance ac power, and running a cpu intensive (MATLAB) and graphics intensive (Mass Effect 2) application at the same time gave me power consumptions of 140W plus. Still have to figure out how to get it up to the max power consumption shown on the meter of 270W.

 

I tried this, though I had trouble downloading the linux version you linked, so I used kubuntu

Put Kubuntu 10.04 on a Flash Drive using Windows | USB Pen Drive Linux

Maybe I'm doing something wrong...but after booting off the USB key and seeing a somewhat funky looking kubuntu loading screen for a while I just got a dark screen (maybe same issue as the windows issue that crops up) and no desktop. I can boot into the kubuntu desktop off the same usb key on my thinkpad, so looks like it might be an issue with DC2 compatibilty but who knows...

 

My bad..Its a typo.. Its 13.1 lbs=5.9 Kgs

 

Try open SUSE instead, it should have a better compatibility with HP products. But you're right, it could be a screen or GPU (more likely to me)

 

Even i got that once. Once i restarted, the Display assistant was able to open without trying to find a display. To have the display assistant back on the rt click menu, open display assistant and uncheck and check the option.

I am planning to place a call with HP with all these tiny issues - so it gets to their issue log and possibly a fix.

 

I just sent an email to tech at HP working on the crashing issue to let him know about the freezing issue (which I had assumed was a side-effect of the crashing, but it appears this a separate issue). Anyway, I mentioned there were some problems with the DC2 panels and asked if he wanted to get into that issue as well. Do make your calls and start your own casefile, but there is a chance he might pick it up and save you some time working your way through escalation. I'll PM his contact info to you if he agrees.

 

Does anyone have any battery life figures for this thing? I am guessing that people aren't getting beyond 3 hours with a quad core.

 

I think I got an estimated like 1.5 hrs, lol. But this is without using any power saving things like lowering brightness.

 

It's hard to say since I don't know how to reproduce the problem of getting a black screen on starting/restarting, but I think the lines and poor color display that sometimes shows up after that are probably just a result of not having shut down cleanly, rather than a driver/Win 7 problem.

I tried burning a live KDE disk from SUSE also

software.opensuse.org: Download openSUSE 11.3

but still ended up with a black screen instead of the desktop when booting off a DvD (and I didn't manage to boot into KDE off a USB drive at all --- though I could do so on my Thinkpad). I'm not sure if it's my linux compatibility or the 8740w's linux compatibility that's the problem, but I guess I'll leave it there.

I did find that I could open Display Assistant after it disappeared by running it as an administrator, so maybe there's some problem with it's permissions.

 

Please PM me the contact info.

 

This was the issue me and m8o mentioned before. The screen looks like end of world when restarting sometimes.

 

Hello again,

I wonder if HP 3D Drive Guard also protects the drive on the expansion bay. Can somebody to answer to this?

On the other hand, I think I'll wait a bit more to order my unit, because I see too many operating errors with the DreamColor panel. It may be this panel is very new and drivers are still inmature.

 

It Protects only the primary HDD Bay, not the optical/expansion bay.

 

Sure it's the end of the world, but it's the end of the world in 10-bit and wide color gamut! I think posting that pic with the DC logo in the corner should get someone's attention at HP.

 

Well, then why does HP put the 256G SSD on the primary bay and the optional 7500RPM 500G hard disk on the expansion bay? Would it not be better at the opposite? Since a SSD has no mechanical/mobile parts, it does not make sense to protect it against impacts, but the hard disk on the expansion bay needs this protection. I was thinking to order this configuration...

 

the only physical hardware used in 3d drive guard is a freefall sensor, which is not tied to an individual bay. So yes, it protects both.

 

Oh, you beat me to it! I was coming here to post the very same thing as I was delayed 'til now. Good thing I haven't seen that again.

I also feel it necessary to say now, it is not a statistical anomaly. Time to state booting this thing up from cold is starting to become a real be'atch! Every time now, when the machine is cold, it will start without display.

* FYI to all if/when any of these boot-up screen problems happens to you [screwed-up sync or no screen], let it boot until you see the HD activity slow down, hit Tab 3 times, then Enter. That 'should' shut it down cleanly.

 

Wow! that system is a heaven for IT first-gen-nerds ( ).
Already I see an endless pleasure of messing with it, hehe.
Wait for me, guys! We'll fix it faster than HP support ever will

To begin with,
what do you see under monitor/display tab in Device Manager? Generic?
We might need a proper LG driver.

 

I should have mentioned after my be'atching that I do think this machine is fantastic and love using Lightroom on it (haven't started w/ Photoshop CS5 yet). It is TBD that the images I'm producing look as good on other people's machines as they do here. ... very important.

 

What about disabling the 10-bit? Will the cold boots be ok then?

 

It says Generic PnP Monitor. I pinged LG display in Live chat, then had no clue as usual.

 

Koshinn, thank you for the clarification. Are you absolutely sure of this? I think the 3D DriveGuard technology is not just an accelerometer which detects drops...

It may be this subject is explained in your user's manual...

 

You could try Wubi, which installs Ubuntu literally as a program within windows (it boots to a true, disk-installed Ubuntu, but it doesn't do any partitioning - the disk is permanent but virtual (in a file on the Windows drive). Uninstalling is done through windows, and the boot menu is powered by the Windows bootloader. All very clever.

IF you do that, I suggest choosing to "configure grub" when given the option on update. Skipping it seems also to be ok with the latest version.


For the the record, all the hoopla discussed with Knight427 here turned out to be not an issue at all - apparently he DID NOT have any boot issues, and I was posting all sorts of solutions pointlessly.
(correct me if I misunderstood again!)


In any case, it's harmless to try and may work better if there are weird hardware issues (in particular, config changes will be persistent). I have personally had more odd things happen with newer hardware under KDE than under Gnome/XFCE, so I'd stick with the plain vanilla distribution for starters. You can always install KDE from there to test both.

 

Yes, looks like what I've seen also (though I think it's only happened to me after not shutting down cleanly).

The starting-with-no-display has happened to me quite a few times now, but I don't know what causes it (my laptop started from cold fine this morning, and I've seen it happen both after restarting from windows and shutting down from windows and turning on from power switch). But it's definitely annoying when it does happen.

Ah right, I was trying to remeber what keys to use to shut down cleanly last time this happened (but I guess it's windows_key-tab-tab-enter, at least how my system is set up?)

I agree -- I'm liking mine a lot also. Mostly (apart from the dark-screen annoyance) this is just an excuse to mess around with it.

 

Normally, that's what it should be, but in some cases when the operating system fails to manage the display properly, - drivers from vendors (LG) required. I also assume that there are no such drivers available yet and it will take some time till HP gets those.

I'll ask again, -
Does it also happen with 10-bit disabled?
If not, we might have to wait till the upcoming Service Pack for W7.

 

I have never seen the rainbow screen posted earlier, but I don't have 10-bit enabled because I just work in sRGB.

I also have had zero crashes. My computer has been on constantly for the last 4 days, minus a restart or two every day for un/installing programs or drivers. I have 4 sticks of ram installed.

 

Ok..I just enabled back the 8-bit option(default). Will report in a day or 2, if i see any abnormalities.

 

That's a good news.
Did you play any games at all yet?

 

Counter strike source, l4d2, and age of conan. Theyre all working well.

 

Are 8740ws with the DC2 shipping out on a timely basis now? The people who are ordering the 8540w with the DC2 are having serious delays.

 

I've had 10-bit turned off for days. That's unrelated.

 

"Timely basis" is not the phrase you can use here
First orders with DC2 were placed in early April and the first actual owners appeared 4 days ago.
But I believe the situation is getting better now. As far as I understand they ship from China every Saturday.

 

Yes, you remind me of that. I found it very strange to find generic panel there and not a specific driver. Surprising.

 

As I mentioned, it's ok .... as long as generic driver covers all the capabilities
of the device.

 

You're reminding me of the circumstance when this occurred for me. I'm not sure it was off a cold start or reboot after hot-fixes and driver updates. The machine was starting as normal, I saw the Windows active boot logo, and before I could see the login screen, the machine just rebooted on its own. I then saw that on the next start. So on clean re-boot I get no screen, on failed reboot I get that de-sync'ed screen. Great.

[Insert "thumbs-up" emoticon here]

 

...I think I've going to get more RAM. 4 Gigs doesn't seem to be enough when I run Lightroom and a few other programs (and Chrome) in 64-bit mode; can't imagine starting PS CS5 at the same time and using it. Went into some heavy disk swapping yesterday and I was not expecting the degradation in performance to the degree I saw.

BTW, I'm so jazzed at how well Lightroom keeps all of the processors busy!

 

Just to add, I've also been running my 8740w with 12 GB of RAM and all four DIMMS occupied with no sign of any crashes either, so at this point there seems no reason to worry about adding more RAM.

 

Me, already placed an order for additonal 8GB (2X4GB).

On a different note, did anyone experience blank screen(right after the windows logo) after running the HP Support Assistant and rebooted when asked to do so.
I had to then resort to m8o's suggestion of 3 tabs and then restart.

 

According to the HP 3D DriveGuard PDF ( http://www.hp.com/sbso/solutions/pc_expertise/professional_innovations/hp-3d-drive-guard.pdf) it's the 3 axis accelerometer, software, and a firm mount to the notebook frame. I'd guess that the accelerometer and software should be able to cover both drives, and the firm mounting probably depends on exactly how that expansion bay is configured and attached to the frame.

 

wow the screen is so amazing!!

 

Yup it sure is!

 

I want one so badly, but I don't really need it. I wish that I could justify spending the $400 or so for it.

 

If you equalize the specs as much as possible I suspect the MBP would cost more than an 8540w with DC2 display

 

That's true.... And also, with 8540w you also get a much more powerful GPU.

 

It's not fair for the 8540w; I am looking at a refurbished MBP, so the price edge is not in the 8540w's favor right now.

How much more powerful is the M5800 than the GT 330M?

Also, the MBP has better battery life. The DC2 could probably offset that for me though.

I'm so indecisive!

 

Up to 40% in synthetic tests and ~20% in games.

 

I'm exactly in your situation! I am also considering a MBP with the high-res anti-glare screen, except I'm looking for the 17" flavor. If battery life is important to you, then Apple is by far the best choice. I wonder why there are NO PC notebooks with the high-end specs and which also have at least decent battery life!??

I only wish that the MBP's finally got IPS panels since every other product that they make and that has a screen on it, the screen is always an LED-backlit IPS one. I looked at them in a store and I must say that the displays they put in all of its MBP's as of mid-2009 are super nice! Higher color gamut, deeper blacks, and better viewing angles (140/120). Their build quality is also second to none.

As you suggested, I am also thinking of getting one from the outlet store since nothing really changed in the 2010 refresh.

 

Sounds sweet. I assume that games would look amazing on the DC2.

Do you know if the DC2 consumes a lot more power than the regular displays, or is the difference minimal?

I would try to get one of the 2010 refresh models because of the Core i line's TurboBoost tech. There should be a good amount of refurbs on the Apple site in the 17" form factor.

 

According to HP - it requires a bigger PSU (150W) if you opt for DC2 in 8540w, so I assume - yes, it consumes more juice.

 

The reason why I asked about that was because of the M5800's lower TDP than the other GPUs. HP requires a 120w power supply, even though the M5800 has a 26 watt TDP. The FX 880M has a 35 Watt TDP and the FX 1800M has a 45 Watt TDP, so both consume more power than the M5800.

My TDP figure could be completely wrong if the M5800 isn't based off of the HD 5730 after all, or if notebookcheck has incorrect numbers.

I'll look in the other thread for DC2 battery figures if anyone has one yet.