*HP EliteBook 8740w Owners Lounge - PART 1*

I poked around ATI's Radeon and desktop FirePro drivers and all lacked support for the FirePro M7820 - I looked at the Mobility Radeon HD CATALYST 10.7 release, desktop release, beta 10.7 release, and FirePro beta and final drivers. Closest thing I saw that might work is the beta 10.7 and hotfix catalyst drivers, I found this supported hardware:

"ATI FirePro M7740" = ati2mtag_M9x7, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94A3


This driver still won't work but there's hope. My idea is the M7820 is such new hardware but since they included M7740 support in this particular package, there is hope that ATI might do the same in the future for the M7820. Only problem is that it's not WHQL certified so Blu-ray and and HDCP stuff isn't likely to work if properly implemented, and because it's not designed for FirePro's you might not get all the workstation class software along with it for AutoCAD programs and whatever other unique features this hardware has.

If I had the exact strings of the FirePro M7820 used in HP's Elitebook I could check around to see if it matches any other hardware vendors, sometimes there's a chance that Dell's driver could be compatible, for example (though I highly doubt it).

 

@Gaah,

I'm not gonna risk my stable OS install (my work depends greatly on the system's stability) to try Dell drivers even if they could fit.
As long as my FPS in games do not drop below 30 and I see no broken textures, flickering or stuttering - there's no problem.
It's up to you, your priorities and the work you do.
I won't abandon the system just because someone thinks the screen has a huge input lag or the drivers are not super new. Go to Dell and you'll find yourself in another trap BTW, do you have proof that the drivers used by Dell are any better? And FYI, I'm still waiting for decent drivers from Dell for my M17X (4870's are here for almost a year and still there are some issues while M7820 is a totally fresh card).

 

Only proof I could give you is to take a look at ATI's release notes since the 8.68x. days. If memory serves me right, that's December 09' CATALYST release equivalent. ATI has posted a document monthly since then listing the changes. AMD also re-enforced their efforts into providing better and more stable drivers back in Feburary and development has sped up since then and there's been many significant feature and architectural changes made. See this press release for some of the information: AMD Delivers Performance, Stability, and Expanded Feature Set with New ATI Catalyst? Driver Updates It was generally considered that before this event, ATI's drivers had been neglected and were suffering with many significant problems including grey-screen-of-death on a lot of their GPUs, lack of desktop/2D acceleration, etc. My own testimonial would be that desktop performance has improved a lot since they fixed the broken acceleration and whatnot.

I was going to summarize the list of changes, but there's too many to go over. Here's the links to the individual release notes for each release:

CAT 10.1: http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/catalyst_101_release_notes.pdf
CAT 10.2: http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/catalyst_102_release_notes.pdf
CAT 10.3: http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/catalyst_103_release_notes.pdf
CAT 10.4: http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/catalyst_104_release_notes.pdf
CAT 10.5: http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/catalyst_105_release_notes.pdf
CAT 10.6: http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/catalyst_106_release_notes.pdf
CAT 10.7: http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/catalyst_107_release_notes.pdf

These files only discuss some specific fixes for specific problems but the changes that they actually make can go much deeper and effect any number of programs that use the same features, and they don't talk about vendor specific hardware issues or FirePro related problems that were fixed or added here. The driver between the Radeon and FirePro is almost unified though so expect a lot of these changes were relevant and similar changes were probably made to FirePro specific features. Notice they have a lot of claims like upto 60% better performance in this program or for whatever rendering technique, often times the performance improvements are really that significant and the driver makes all the difference in the world. The FirePro M7820 would likely benefit from all the enhancements made for Radeon HD 5000 Series architecture, and more, being that's it's closely related to the 5870...

Regarding your Alienware, head over to ati.com and download the latest Mobility Radeon HD driver. It should be compatible and a bit newer than Dell's release.

 

@Gaah,

Regarding my Alienware, if you head over to M17X boards you might be surprised to see how badly do the latest drivers perform for us.

Now, all those links are relevant, to a certain extent.
You have to understand that the latest drivers while providing certain fixes can trigger new issues on the specific system, at times completely nullifying the entire reason to update. You shouldn't jump on every new driver just because the manufacturer provides the list of fixes. You should be very careful updating your drivers in general and 3 things should be marked RED ALERT - BIOS, chipset and video driver.
Do you know how difficult it is to make one good system image with minimal glitches and max stability?
Do you realize that many times we (IT guys) have to stay behind the "latest and greatest" for greater good to deliver a working system for you (the consumers)?
It's not that we're not testing the latest drivers, it's just that the overall balance is often crippled.
You'll have to excuse HP and wait for the new drivers or follow Dell and hope for better driver support for your M6500.

 

Personally I think it would be better if there was an option available for those who wanted to run newer and better stuff. I highly doubt HP has reasons other than lack of investment in not offering updated drivers, it wouldn't kill them to offer a quarterly update, or beta releases for example and it would be highly beneficial for the end-user considering how rapid and radical the improvements can be. I've also seen notebook vendors release a piece of hardware and cripple it by limiting driver and software updates, sometimes never updating at all and making it impossible to enjoy the evolutionary path that software and operating systems take (actually technology in general).

There should be no point in arguing for less support, I totally don't understand why people do that because it only limits the potential for a better performing higher quality product. That being said, I'm stiil looking at the HP as a viable solution, the hardware itself is very sexy and nobody else has a screen that competes. I'm still investing some time on this driver issue, at the very least I'll mod my own drivers but I'm exploring the possibility that there might already be a solution in existance. It would be helpful if someone would post the exact hardware and vendor IDs (see attached screenshot of where to find these details) because I plan to dig a bit deeper into the packages HP and other release, maybe we could also come together and get HP to get off their arse and give us more frequent releases as well.

 

I agree that sometimes vendors do limit their hardware/software intentionally. But look at this from their perspective: the complexity and variety of hardware/software options often make it impossible to enjoy the high-end product 100%. So, yes, sometimes the drivers are deliberately crippled and a custom vbios is implemented that completely blocks the possibilities of using the latest AMD drivers (like in M17X-R2 )

On the bright side, - you don't have the system yet and are just guessing. Many (if not all) owners here enjoy the laptop and don't notice any issues with the drivers.
Maybe the problem isn't as big as it seems?

Maybe, instead of digging that deep into drivers, you should ask us to run some tests for you to help you decide whether or not this system will fit your needs.
Some complained about input lag in games, but after playing numerous games we came to conclusion that the lag is only noticeable in a very few and rarely encountered scenarios (I haven't seen any yet). Does it make me worry - no. The system runs so smooth and the screen is so gorgeous that there's no way on Earth I'd worry about the lag that I cannot even notice.

As I said, it's up to your needs. Those who work with specific software, should ask the relevant questions to help them decide.

 

I think you've mistaken where I'm coming from, I am aware of the tradeoffs having such a nice screen comes with (higher transition latency when pixels change color, etc) - perhaps the workstation class graphics will also render a little slower because more time is spent making sure the scenes are accurately rendered without compromise - those things don't concern me, actually they appeal to me.

Unlike you I wouldn't be satisfied with a suboptimal experience just because it sort of worked and I could get by with it - I'm more focused on understanding (analyzing) and developing things, I don't just use software applications or play games. In terms of these drivers, I don't subscribe to the idea that things are tried and true, significant performance, quality, and feature improvements are to be had, and the way I try to dive so deep into a lot of the most technical aspects of software and hardware, some of these things become more important.

edit: What I'd come back to say is that the differences/improvements aren't always measurable by some kind of benchmark, but you use your perception to notice the smoothness of the user interface and how well things are drawn (animated) together, the color depth and effects, the motion - you quite frankly won't always notice how poorly something was performing until you were able to test a newer driver out, for example, but you'd have to be one to care special attention to detail, the harmonics of it all. This can't be measured by raw numbers and I've observed the difference things like this can make.

 

Ok did the test again on PC version of SF IV.

Ryu - close HP, 5 frames to connect, +6 frames for inherent PC lag = 11 frames.
close HP is consistently 14 frames on my DC2 @ 60 fps. Looks like it's more accurately 3 frames of lag, or ~50ms lag. Unless the 6 frames of inherent PC lag in SF IV is wrong, but IIRC, that's what it was.

 

@Koshinn:

If I've understood you well, 50ms lag is the average. This is an acceptable lag (as average) and most users even won't notice it (me included), unless you are a hardcore gamer. It does make more sense, because the HP LP2480zx DreamColor monitor has about 33ms lag average, and don't forget the DC2 screen is based on this monitor.

And keep in mind you'll be able to conect the 8740w to your HDTV and get rid of this annoying lag

Thank you very much for your second test

 

For the record, I tried the Dell drivers on my 8740w. No luck so far, even by manually installing them (Windows refuses to let the drivers install). Maybe a .inf modification would do the trick, but I'm not good enough with this stuff to try it.
Too bad LaptopVideo2Go doesn't make ATI drivers modification. I used to used the nVidia modified .inf on the Quadro FX2500M of my previous laptop (Dell Precision M90), and it was working swell, allowing for the latest drivers (and thus optimizations in several games) in opposite to the outdated Dell drivers for this card.
I remember Omegadrive used to mod ATI drivers a while ago, but has apparently stopped it.

 

Got the shipment notification from HP for my order. It's got the DC2, so at least those of you that ordered around the same time I did (August 4th) aren't likely to have issues.

 

@Gaah,
I make no assumptions, m8.
Do what you like but don't blame the perception of others.
If I don't see a problem, doesn't mean I'm living in oblivion.
I'm very picky when it comes to graphics and performance.

What I fail to understand is how can you even talk about issues without seeing the system.
So you're telling all the happy owners that our drivers suck?! Nice try.

Good luck digging.


@ AlbertRaccoon,
That was kinda obvious but thanks for the efforts.
BTW, can you see any problem with the stock HP drivers?

 

Has anyone ordered DC2 since 8/11 or later? If so, have you received any word on your order being delayed?

 

Got my tracking number.

HP's 2 day shipping option apparently takes at least 4 days. That's pretty annoying.

 

No problem, but newer drivers often include fixes (e.g. tesselation in Unigine 2.1) and optimizations for recent apps (e.g. GPU acceleration for VLC) and games.

 

Replacement of HDD to SDD.

Do I need a different bracket to install my SSD into the main HDD port (not the upgrade bay)?

 

Ordered mine on 8/13. The rep I just spoke with said it's scheduled to ship on the 21st. I asked if he knew of any delays and he said no. Hope he's right.

 

Please post here if it ships. I hope he's right too.

 

No. Just unscrew the Drive from the existing adapter/holder in main HDD bay and put the SSD (assuming its 2.5in) in it.

 

To tell you the truth, I'm not too confident that it will ship on the 21st. Everyone else has had to wait at least 3 weeks and I just ordered last Friday. I'll post when I get confirmation though.

 

Ok folks. I got my replacement 8740W with DC2 this tuesday. It came with the Hitachi 7k500 320GB HDD. Here is a quick summary report.

Surprisingly, this new unit is not having any problems with fan/noise/end of world screen,etc. It came with BIOS F.05 The BL keyboard was giving a sound when typing the characters on the left to center. So i swapped it with my existing unit. And the Hitachi HDD was not giving any sounds like my WD did. But i heard that WD is better than Hitachi. I can still swap them as i have both the units. What do you say, folks?

No glowing pixels.

Now coming to the sad part. I compared the two screens side by side with same setting (HP MDA). The new one is emitting brighter and is kind of feeling like having a red tone (like Aikimox unit problem?). Either my old unit is wrong and i got used to it and makes the new one feel bad (or) the new one is actually bad. . I will post pictures when i get home.

I also bit the bullet on the SSD. Got a Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB for $470 from TD. Put that in and did a clean install and all is so far good. The only problem is i am getting a low 4k read/write values in Benches.
.
When i run in Safe Mode, its a bit better.
.

I read in crucial forum that even in 8540W, it was giving the same results.
Link to crucial

Even RampageII with his Intel X25-M on raid 0, was getting lower values.

For for folks out there with SSD on 8740W, can you post your numbers (both Crystal Disk and AS SSD).
Please note that i followed all the guides in the world for installing SSD. (AHCI, disabling pagefile,superfetch,prefetch, cache,etc,etc..). I also installed the latest Intel RST drivers for AHCI.


For those that did a clean install, did you get your HP support assistant, HP power assistant to work?. Does the HP_TOOLS drive need to be present for this to work?. The HP PA gives some database error. I installed both HP PA and HP PA data.

 

Stick w/the Hitachi. I've had more WD drives crash on me than any other type. So I'm biased, but you asked for opinions and that's mine.

Regarding the 'tint'. If it's anything like I've seen, I get that whenever I touch the pre-configured color spaces (even just changing the screen brightness) and switch the selected space after a few hours. Resetting any color space that is named with the prefixed 'User' always puts things back to normal (or just reseting the whole thing with the button in the right column)

 

You're happy being stuck in the middle ages, and no option to update your graphics driver to get new features. Good for you.

 

I'm happy having a working system. I bought it for software development and gaming.
Some people prefer to waste their time on digging and will always find something to complain about.
You never even mentioned what do you need a laptop for.
And from what I see, - you will not even buy this system.
So why bother.

 

My 1st decade programming & using computers I was of like mind to gaah today... this being the tail-end of my my second decade developing? I just want crap to work!

 

It was only 11 business days from the time I ordered until the time mine shipped. And that includes at least a 2 day delay because I called to change my shipping address and it put the order on hold without me knowing.

Without that, it would have shipped in 9 business days.

 

Exactly. It takes time to realize that chasing ghosts won't make you happy.
BTW, do you have any video driver related complaints?

 

Well, I'll start by saying I'm mainly a 2D user. In that light, there are some symptoms that hint at the thought that things could be running better, but I think patients is warranted given this machine was just recently released and at risk of repeating myself to the other readers (as you already know this) likely earlier than it was ready to be released at that. I think the best answer to what gaah brings up would be answered in the 8710w, 8510w, 8730w and 8530w owner's threads.

As to make use of 10-bit mode in PS CS5 I need to have the OS/driver set to operate in it. As I continue to see instability & boot problems a few boots after changing that, I've changed to run in 10-bit mode and I leave it there. That "turns-off" Aero. I'm OK with that. In that mode of operation, let's say I have Chrome or other browsers loaded, and spend a good deal of time in Lightroom or PS CS5. There are times when I bring the browser to the foreground that I observe painting of the screen to visibly take a few seconds to accomplish the task. Given the level of processing present, that comes as a surprise. Sure, and one thread of one core isn't "all that fast", but I'd expect the graphics card to be taking care of that part anyway. So there's likely better performance to come, as I suspect Greg Stanton and others have seen similar behavior.

In regards to 3D, when I 1st ran that Crysis demo you pointed us to months back it started up in "low-rez mode". The screen update rate was horrendous with choppy video and visible scan line breaks the bottom 1/3 of the screen when the intro was playing; I didn't even allow it to get to the game-play part . When I set the game to play in full-rez mode, all operated perfectly. Amazing actually, as I remember the days when the opposite would be required -- to lower and lower the resolution to get smooth video and game play.

 

Nice, I might be in luck then. It's sad but I was almost hoping it was still a few weeks out. I'm waiting till the last minute to buy RAM and a SSD to hopefully save a few $$$.

 

I brought up 2D previously in case you miss my post, the M7820 being based on the 5870 doesn't have any 2D acceleration in the 8.683.x driver, it wasn't until recently that it was fixed.

Regardless of this problem I might join all the owners here of the 8740w, just a few more things I need to become familiar with before I can affirm my decision.

 

After running Tom2D benchmark I got the following result:



Looks pretty pathetic.
Still, I don't really care bout something I can't normally notice. My older 2D games rock just as well as the newest titles, so I'll camp till the new driver appears with no worries.

 

Update to my earlier post.

There is BL light leak in the top below the camera in my new panel. Should i be worried? Can't tell now as i can't see any effect in normal usage.



For reference, below image is the old 8740W panel



I was doing the Lagom LCD Test and found something interesting.
While doing the Black Level Test My old 8740W displayed only couple of shades of black. But, my new 8740W display spot on to the ideal condition ( "On an ideal monitor, all of them should be distinguishable, even the very dark first row of squares"). This makes me wonder if my old panel was indeed wrong from the get go.
Also when i compare the 2 displays with the same image background, the new one is bit brighter than the old.
Please note that both the display's were set to sRGB with Luminence of 115.

I would suggest you folks to do the black level test to see how your panel looks.

Here are some comparison pictures (Left one is New 8740W, Right one is old 8740W).

1. Black Level Test


2. Desktop Compare - 1


3. Desktop Compare - 2


4. Desktop Compare - 3


4. Desktop Compare - 4

 

Mine looks like your left screen on the Black level test.
Also, I don't have the light leak.

 

I haven't tested for light leak.

I'm not so sure mine isn't like the one on the right when in sRGB. I find sRGB has the most black clipping, then AdobeRGB, and Rec.601 gives me the most detail in the black level.

BTW, what browser(s) were you using? I've seen different results at the site linked-to with different browsers, as well as before and after changing settings in config gfx settings in Firefox.

I should get the calibrator and get serious about that part of it, as my use for this machine is something that warrants it.

 

I was curious to see how bad that was, ran the same test on my chronically throttling Mobility Radeon HD 4670 w/ CATALYST 10.7/8.750.x. Scored more than double. I expect there's a big 2D performance enhancement coming to the 8740w w/ FirePro in the hopefully not too distant future.

 

I am using Chrome. I asked my HP contact and he advised to put a requested for Panel replacement (but, just the panel is on backorder as a part alone option). He also said,i can still do the another new unit option (I hate it as this new one is perfect except the light leak).

And yes, calibration kit is the way. But, i am holding off due to the issue posted by someone couple of pages back.

@m8o and everyone
Between, is the HP DPA really doing what it should do fully.
Try this - once you login to windows and HP DPA is available in the rt click menu option on desktop - got to tune display. Now watch, if the screen brighten's up or dims depending on your chosen setting. My guess is, it is applied only when you do like this. Otherwise by default, it isn't..

 

Hope, you were in sRGB mode.

 

So I was emailing an HP rep, is it true that you cannot get the 8740w with the DreamColor2* (only the 8540w)? It seems like the upgrade price is the same, but 1 is 8-bit, the other, 10-bit. Both IPS displays at least I hope. Does anyone know if this is a short term thing or what?

ETA - *that you can only get the DreamColor display.

 

@nycgags:

For the 8740w the DreamColor display is called "DreamColor". However, for the 8540w, the DC display is called "DreamColor 2". It's just a matter of terminology. Both displays have the same technology (IPS panel with 10 bit resolution per color component, RGB LED Edge backlight).

AFAIK, The WUXGA Wide Viewing Angle (WVA) is the 8-bit one, not anyone of the DreamColor displays.

 

The reps have no idea whatsoever on the minute details of the spec. Both are the same panel. Its just that HP misleads by calling one with a DC2 and other as DC. The issue has been beaten to death....Both 8540 and 8740 offer the same new DreamColor 10-bit panel and is IPS.

 

Thanks for the clarification! I'll assume if I am paying $500+ for the panel upgrade it's the DC IPS panel. Apologies for not doing the proper research in-thread. I'll devour it this weekend as time permits!

 

I may not be understanding the question. I see the color space (including the pre-set screen brightness for the profile) take effect when I either right-click and select a profile off the menu, or go into the DPA (I thought we were going to call it MDA?) and select a profile there, and/or change brightness there. So not following what may not be working.

 

In regards to SSD... Any of you catch this test here on NBR?
SSD vs Hard Drives: A Beginner's Guide to SSD Upgrades
Has got me thinking about switching over to a Seagate Momentus XT.

 

Too many abbr to remember. Sorry, its still MDA. Here is what i meant.

The HP MDA settings have an option to start it during startup. So i assumed, the selected color space/profile/luminance will be saved and applied (mostly luminance) without any intervention during startup(after logon or even before). But, what i am finding is the selected color space/profile/luminance takes effect only after you right and go to HP DPA.
Am i missing something here?.

 

Yes, i did see it 2 days back. But still i would go for a SSD. If cost is the deciding factor, then Hybrid. May be the Hybrid as a 2nd'ry drive.

 

I have to do a "Scooby Doo 'Whaa'?" to that one. I have my MDA configure to start the OS with whatever profile was last in effect under "Settings". I find whatever customizations I made in the MDA before a re-boot are in effect after. Or at least it seemed that's what is happened based on the visible gamma I see, unless I hadn't been paying close attention. I'm not being a wise-guy; maybe I wasn't. I won't be able to check that until tonight or over the weekend, but I'll get back to you.

 

I have both HP Upgrade Bay cradle and NewmodeUS upgrade Bay cradle. After looking at both of them, i feel newModeUS is much better, irrespective of it being little hard to insert properly.
Here is my main reason.
The HP cradle is open on both top and bottom. There is no bottom cover. The HDD has to rest between a plate. The newModeUS one has a bottom and top cover(no top cover in the 1TB model). Hence better protection.

 

Wondering, do you think those covers might be to the detriment of cooling?

 

Even i was wondering about it. But after above medium usage, i pulled the bay out and the HDD was still cool (same as it was felt when in the main bay)..My brain thinks don't let the drive hang in balance when using the HP cradle.

 

Updated Crystal Diskmark Scores;



4K Read score still seems lower than it should be for Intel x25-m 160GB SSDs in RAID0.
I've seen 4K scores of 14.64 and 23.76 R/W respectively, using only one x25-m 160GB SSD. So I'm not sure why my 4K score is stuck at 10.12MB Read.


I also found out why I was missing 16GB of SSD space.
It was due to page file.

- Upon fresh install I had 265GB free out of 298GB.
- After I was done setting up my computer, (installing prog, etc) it was 247GB out of 298GB.
- After disabling page file I now have 263GB out of 298GB.