*HP EliteBook 8740w Owners Lounge - PART 1*

Yep looks the same. I've tried turning 10bit on and off (rebooting each time) and also changed the performance settings in CS5 (restarting CS5 each time) but nothing changes.

Weird.

 

That's the way it will look as per sources. If your test is to check if 10-bit is working or not, in 10-bit mode, open the psd image file in Photoshop and also open it in Irfanview or any non color managed application. You can see the difference in # of bands. If you don't have one, there is another simple way to look at it. Open the file in Photoshop then move the mouse over to the taskbar onto a different application tab and you will see the photoshop image change its band.

Edit: What i meant in the first sentence was - that's the way it will look in 8740W. Whether its a defect, it's a question to HP.

 

Is this the right thread? Probably not; should probably open a new one. But given the number of DC2 owners here, I'll start here...

How many of you have heard of Microsoft "sRGB-XR"? Microsoft's "High Color" technology? ...and how that's supposed to have enabled Win 7 to have allowed proper display of sRGB colors on a wider gamut display, but was a little to late to get into it??

No? Me neither. Read the reply: How do I get sRGB images to display correct in unmanaged applications on Vista with a Wide Gamut Display

I'm now curious to see if this ever comes to fruition, or if it has problems and is never release, or if politics keeps if from ever being released, etc.

 

Possible reason for red color on the corner of the screen - Read this HP advisory link.

Though this advisory is for 8730, it might apply to 8740W as well.

 

I reverted back to the stock drivers
While 2D was greatly improved and overall performance looked better, I was having mild freezes in every game... They are gone after reverting. Guess, there's more to it than just pointing the device ID's. Maybe the FirePro has some vBIOS/Hardware mod preventing it from becoming a true gaming GPU. I might order a MR5870 for additional experiments later on.
As for the M7820 - I'll wait patiently till HP provides newer drivers.

 

I know far less about GPUs than you, but I discussed them briefly with my HP tech a while back. He said professional GPUs double check every frame for accuracy. A gaming GPU just spits them out and moves on. I wonder if this has something to do with the delays in gaming, the gaming drivers expect the GPU to render a frame and go on, while the BIOS wants to double check and correct errors. Pure guesswork here of course.

 

Not an expert here...
But I remember someone mentioned that nowadays GPU's can't be flashed from Pro to gaming and back since there's also a hardware difference. So even using proper vBios won't help.
Dunno... I guess we need to mess with it some more to know for sure

 

Uh oh... It may be the DC2 has the same issue as the LP2480zx: Dithering on dark hues. Well, if Greg Staten's team has used the LP2480zx engine in order to build the DC2 electronics, why didn't they fix the dithering issue??

 

A couple more issues:

1) Sometimes, when there's a USB device (mouse) plugged into a USB 3.0 port, the system will post a mouse interface error. This is something to do with the mobo/chipset as the same problem was reported in the Lenovo W510 owners lounge.

2) At times the system would post (the LOGO screen ) but stop at it with both capslock and numlock blinking.
I'm unable to figure out the culprit yet, but according to manuals on error codes a few things could be the cause:

* Memory - I use a third party RAM, so could be. But why would it only happen 1 in a 100 cold boots?

* CPU - doubt it very much. No issues ever observed during the load/normal operation.

* BIOS - this happened both with the old and the new BIOS, so - unlikely.

* Motherboard - same thing, - why would it only happen on some very rare occasions?

Any thoughts, ideas, suggestions?


>>>> I think it's a static charge on inner components. For those experiencing a similar to 2) problem:
Turn the laptop off, unplug the power cable, remove the battery, press and hold the power button for 20 sec.
You should be fine now...at least for some time.

 

Has anybody ever had an issue with the docking station (normal, not advanced) where the USB device stops working and the only resolution is to unplug it and plug it into a different USB port?

I have a document scanner (ScanSnap S510) and this has happened twice now. I had it hooked to my Precision m4400 via a docking station as well, and it never happened then.

 

I did notice this in my old 8740W. Its definitely not the memory as it happened with stock HP memory as well.
In the new 8740w i am not noticing it. The only difference between the 2 is i did a clean install and removed all the HP partitions/drives. I also installed only the DC2 utility and the standard drivers. I skipped all the HP utilities. This points the problem to the partitions?

 

Dunno, but keep your eye on it. If the problem ever happens - let me know. I'm more inclined to believe in a power related issue.
While the problem is rare, I do see some tendency. It happens the next morning after I leave the power cord plugged in overnight (with the laptop turned off). I almost never leave it plugged in when the system is off. will keep digging...

 

@rallyak: I notice you are running a 500GB Momentus XT in your sig. If I'm not mistaken, that's the hybrid drive w/an integrated 4Gig SSD.

...How's it going for you with it? I was about to pull the trigger on one on newegg, but 1st read the reviews sorted by rating. Seems there's a lot of people that suffered corruption of their data or other issues; or at least the level of the reports seemed high enough that it made me pull my finger back from the buy button. ... Hoping you'd be willing to share your experience with it in the 8740w. Thanx.

 

Mine is always plugged in with power even when the system is shut down.

 

@m8o: I was a little hesitant because of the NE reviews too, but so far I haven't had any problems.

It's a nice drive, quick and quiet. I really can't tell you how much faster it is, than the 250GB drive that came with my 8740, but it's fast enough for me. Window's boots in about 33 secs. (w/ no tweaks), photoshop CS2 loads in about 5 secs. and Firefox loads in about 2. Sustained transfer speeds between both drives (XT->250) are right around 110/MB sec.

I planned on upgrading to an SSD in the future and using the XT as my storage drive but I might just buy a second XT instead. I'll have to wait and see what the G3 drives are all about.

If you'd like I can run some benchmarks and pm you the results.

 

New motherboard is working great.
I thought the new boards would come with the latest BIOS pre-installed but that was not the case.
I updated the BIOS to F.05 on the new motherboard and so far no freezing or fan problems at all.

 

No, not necessary. The SSD/HD test/review comparo on the NBR homepage was adequate in telling me the 4 Gig SSD is used quite effectively; even as a read-ahead cache. Just knowing it behaves well w/the SATA controller on the 8740w is enough re-assurance. Much thanx.

 

Yesterday I received my 8740W and ofcourse it didn't have the WWAN option onboard because of the Dreamcolor screen. Well after a little inspection I found that the WWAN slot was there and also the SIM slot behind the battery. Only thing missing where the 2 antenna cables.

After we opened the screen of the 8740W we discovered that the 2 WWAN antenna's where not there but there was room to place them. So we removed the 2 antenna's from another HP Notebook and install them into the 8740W and it works great!

Not sure why HP won't sell WWAN in the DC models.

 

It's good to know. Now you have got the new mobo, can you do the following?

Thank you

 

Wow! Great to know.

Say, you didn't happen to get the serial number off the screen, did you? Could you re-do the steps if possible? I dont' need it but others have been asking for it.

 

@ RampageII and all SSD owners

Here is the solution to improve SSD performance. Though it applies to 55 series chipset, it works on QM57 as well. Downside is the temps shooting up. But JJB has found a solution to keep temps in control and yet improve SSD performance. Watch his posts for a solution write up.

 

Ugh. Found my machine with a blank screen this morning. At first I thought it was normal, as I have the screen turn off (even when plugged in) after 20 minutes of inactivity.

But nothing I did could get the screen to come back. I tried to connect via remote desktop and tried pinging it, but got nothing.

Had to force a reboot to get it to come back.

Anybody seen this?

 

^^ Did this happen on boot or after you left the system on?

 

Was the computer completely shut down? When you rebooted, did it offer you the chance to select between Safe Mode and Start Normally?

 

The system was left on.

 

I had left the machine on over night and when I returned it was like that.

I forced the reboot by holding down the power button. When it came back on it gave me the safe mode option but I started normally.

 

What BIOS version do you have?
If it's F.03 -> flash it to F.05
Also, did you mod the video drivers?
If yes -> revert to the stock ones.

Other than that, I'm still suspecting the static charge as the main culprit of most our blank screens and hanging on logo issues. Metal case increases the rate of static charge build up on the motherboard and other crucial components. Since grounding the laptop doesn't seem like an efficient solution, I can only suggest regular power drains.

 

I suspect the entire computer was turned off...you saw no lights at all? If so, I'm pretty sure your computer crashed while you were away. This happens to mine b/c I still have the faulty motherboard and get crashes on a regular basis, including when I leave my machine for hours and come back to a "dead" computer. But, as a DC2 machine, your mobo should be fine...maybe just same symptom to a different problem?

 

I'm running F.05. No modding of any kind.

 

The entire computer was not off. I saw plenty of lights. The lights on the front (although no HDD activity), as well as the soft keys.

In fact, the soft keys gave feedback when I touched them.

I suspect the machine did crash, but not a bluescreen, as that would have resulted in a reboot. Looking at the event log I see no evidence of a crash, other than the fact I had to forcefully power it off/on.

So if it crashed, it was a total system freeze.

 

OK, that's good...I didn't want to hear the new computers had similar crashing issues (but to clarify, the crashes from the early 8740ws are not BSODs, they are instant-off crashes).

 

Yeah, it didn't sound like a crash to me and I never experienced any screen blanking during regular operation.
However, if your system was on with a power saving mode enabled and it triggered the blanking of the screen - then it's either a video driver problem or a combo issue (W7's power profiles+?BIOS+?Video driver).

Anyway, if you see this happen again - instead of holding the power button, press Alt+F4 and then Enter (repeat a few times till you see the HDD utilization) and the system will shut down.

 

10-bit mode... does it really work? Yes, that thing again.

This post I quote is going back some, but let me use this post instead of some of the newer ones, because, well, that's the page I'm on.

...I always thought the answer to your question was "well, I have to say 'this is bad'". I contend, always have contended, and will continue to contend, this above is the test image displaying in 8-bit colors [grays] showing banding. The banding is readily evident and visible to me. It is not a smooth gradient. ...it's just is not. And tonight I set out to finally put an end to the question, "is 10-bit really working?"

I spent a few hours playing with different CS5 settings, and drawing gradients. All in 16-bit or 32-bit color mode, OpenGL rendering, various display and proofing profiles. In all instances, banding. I was ready to call HP and say "this sh*t is a suk!" (there's a story behind that butchering of the English language I won't bore everyone with ).

But, having already given up and about to close CS5, I tried the most ridiculous and simplistic a thing. And I can now evoke the old cliche "By George I Think I've Got It!"

Everyone w/a 10-bit display and grafx card, after putting the card into 10-bit mode, and opening CS5 with ramp.psd, and seeing the above image. Go to the Menu items Image > Mode and click on 8-bit. ...did you just have the same viola moment I had? Screen cap of CS5 displaying the image (down sampled to 8-bit of course) attached and displayed below (and you can now put the mode back to 16-bit, and the rendering will stay smooth).

Now, I'm not happy about the machinations I have to go thru to see this image right. I'm never going to know if a photograph I'm working on is really displaying in 10-bit or not. Nor am I happy I can't replicate making a gradient w/the gradient tool within PS CS5 to replicate this level of smoothness.

...But at least, I guess maybe, 10-bit really is working!
(please click the attachment below)

 

Not sure if this is related or not, but I've started to get some strange black screens (sort of like the previous boot-to-a-black-sceen) that happen spontaneously while browsing, or something, and I have to reboot to get the screen back.

From windows event viewer, it seems to be caused by the HP power assistant:

HPPA_Main.IncompleteDatFileException
Device not found in the dat file (planName=HP powerSource=AC deviceId=PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_4238).

I'm using a 120W AC power supply (more than enough for anything I'm doing) off an older elitebook, so I'm not sure if that's what's causing it. Also, by coincidence or not, this only started happening after updating to the F.05 BIOS.

 

You nailed it. I was wondering the same, but always looked thru the mode menu and didn't even bother to click any.
By the way, the gradient is smooth even when 10-bit is not enabled using the same mentioned procedure.

The attachment is of less help becos no one can see what the monitor shows in CS5. If one has to see in the attachment in a color managed browser, see it in 100%(for example use the zoom icon when over the image in google chrome).
+1 rep to you to have reinforced the faith in 10-bit

 

@m8o
@NotebookGrail

I remember choosing "8-bit mode" in Photoshop dithers any 16-bit image, which results in very smooth gradients even though it is only composed of 8-bit color values. Just take a screenshot (which is always 8-bit) and zoom in very close to check for dithering patterns.

 

Noticed the Quadro 5000m is now available in CTO, not available with DreamColor though You guys think this will be an option anytime soon? and since when was HP Mobile Broadband not available with DreamColor either?

btw...anyone out there that can help me out with a rep that's willing to go 28%? Ive been trying and can't find one that will go over 18%. I would love you, my mom would LOVE you. Finally ready to pull the trigger on this bad boy and anything would be greatly appreciated. I'm not sure if I can receive pm's, so Ill leave my email - [email protected]

 

DC was never available with HP mobile Broadband from the beginning. Initially it will allow you to order in CTO, but will get denied in the back-end. Now the CTO is fixed.
Send you the email for rep contact info.

 

What's the point of buying the system without DC now? Also, FX5000M is only marginally stronger (if at all) than M7820, but costs ~1850$ more?! That's just crazy.

 

Yep, I see that now. You are right, having viewed the image @ 500%. It got dithered, and dithering remains after setting the mode back to 16-bit. I guess my steps didn't prove anything. I'm back to questioning whether 10-bit really is working.

 

Hmm, possible culprit? Or at least 'soething'. Clicking "System Info" under CS5's 'Help' reads:

Video Mode: 1920 x 1200 x 4,294,967,296 colors
(I added the digit groupings to make it more readable)

...if I'm not mistaken, that equals the number of positive colors a signed 11 bit display can show; meaning 2^11^3 = 4,294,967,296 X2 or (+/-)4,294,967,296 (ignoring that one of them needs -1 applied to account for the zero)

Ok, so a 10-bit display is capable of displaying 1,073,741,824 colors. But Adobe Photoshop CS5 thinks the display is capable of 11-bits of color divided by two, and perhaps renders to that. So if CS5 is rendering the image to 4,294,967,296 colors, wouldn't the hardware rendering of either the M7820 or screen driver then need to re-sample (down-sample) that to 1,073,741,824 colors? ...yielding if not dithering, this banding we see?

...? Yet that does not explain why when I look at the ramp.psd in CS5 in 16-bit mode, and turn the info display to 8-bit, then mouse over the image, I see that banding line on the boundary when the integer values change. If the image is 16-bit, and viewed on a 10-bit display, there shouldn't be any 'banding' on only the 8-bit display line; there shoudl be 4x more lines between those boundaries.

But with that said, I definitely think that CS5 thinking our display is capable of 4x more colors than it is natively capable of can't be resulting in good things when an image is rendered to screen.

 

I have an idea on how to test it, give me a few hours

 

Is the 5000M really GDDR3?

 

Gddr5.....

 

Where's the original link to the gray gradient to test for 10bit?

nevermind, found it. my test is a LOT more difficult to do than I thought. My eyes are playing tricks on me.

What you can do is number all the bands you see in 8-bit mode in ramp.psd, then switch to 10-bit mode and notice how many more you have. I did it for a couple, but I realized that in 10-bit mode, it's REALLY hard to see a lot of the individual bands if you stare at them too long.

 

Hello, all. I see it's the same great crew here as it was a month ago.

If you recall, after my dealings with HP, I never was able to take ownership of any 8740w. Since that time, I've been using a ThinkPad W510. I thought the Lenovo would be a temporary machine, but I have grown to like it. I no longer have any desire to own an 8740w. This is a problem, because I have the EDIT button for the first few posts in this thread.

As it stands, I obviously no longer have the interest or discipline to curate those initial posts. Rather than have my mistake leave you all with a gimped thread, I would like to fix the problem. Basically, I want to give that EDIT button to someone else (if that's even possible). Failing that, a new thread ought to be created, and I can put a link to it in the first post of this thread.

Who wants to step forward and take ownership of the thread?

 

I think you're confusing the maximum color palette of your graphics adapter with the maximum number of colors rendererable in your display. Actually, the former is 2^32 colors (= 4,294,967,296), because I'm pretty sure 32-bit is the current color depth of your graphics card. That is, how many colors can you select from your card in total, but NOT simultaneously. However, the latter will depend on the monitor color accuracy. If your monitor has a 6-bit panel (mostly TN's), you'll be able to render up to 262,144 colors simultaneously from a 4,294,967,296 color palette (if you're in 32-bit mode). Do you understand?

Make a little test. Change the color depth of your graphics card in Catalyst Control Center and re-run Photoshop. Go again to the System Info tool and watch the results. If you selected 16 bit color depth, Photoshop should report a video mode with "only" 65,536 colors. This does not have nothing to do with the banding issue

 

I could do it. We can ask moderators to swap the ownership of the thread.
Glad, you like your W510. I couldn't accept the poor quality HD+ screen and weaker GPU. The FHD+Multi on the other hand is a very nice screen...still, not going back till more GPU options are offered by Lenovo.

 

I nominate...Aikimox. ^.^

 

Ahhh, Thanx very very much. I appreciate the info and patience w/me.