*HP EliteBook 8760w Owners Lounge*

I received my new 8760w today. 2GHz i7, 8GB, DreamColor, Quadro 4000M, 750GB HD.

First, the packiging is a joke. I really got afraid when the box had text on it "the computer is personal again". I thought the picked the wrong product and gave me a consumer laptop. I opened it and saw it was the correct one. The amount of protection is ridicolous, eggs are better transported that this.

The laptop is a little bit scewed. All rubber foots doesn't reach the table. When you open the laptop it gets better. This is a minor flaw and I hope it will get better in time.

I was afraid that the keyboard was going to be worse. It is a litte bit worse that on 8740 and 8710 but still it is ok. If you're used to the previous models you can get used to the new keybaord. It's not as good as the previous ones but not really bad either. I would say the quality is similar as Sony keyboard. Keyboard flex is absent and you feel that there is enough support for a comfortable typing experience (I'm typing this on the 8760w right now). However, on European models the enter key is too small. It's too thin compared what you are used to. You need to think about where your enter key is until you get used to it.

The DreamColor display is very clear, crisp clear I would say. The shimmering pearly effect reported on the 8560w is not visible on the one I have. It's acutally the opposite, you can clearly see the pixels and the pixel density doesn't feel that high. Also I really want my 120 pixels back, however, they are not coming back so I just have to go on with my life. The colors of the DreamColor display are extremely strong. Uncalibrated, the colors pops out, especially red and green. The Firefox icon for example blinds you, the fox will burn up any second. The full red on 8740w for me felt more like cerice, this is now gone and red is really red. For normal use, you need to calibrate this screen otherwise the colors will be too saturated. The uncalibarated white is also towards pink. This is no problem as you can easily get your desired white tone.

I haven't got the time to stress the machine too much yet. Under no load it is very quiet. Under load, the fan spins up but the noise isn't disturbing. It's swishing sound.

I will test it some more now and I will get back to you if I find out something more.

 

don't worry about your rubber feet. It is normal that only the outer ones reach the surface (same with all of my HP laptops). I guess the middle ones are only needed if you have an uneven surface or a smaller surface to protect the bottom and ensure a safe stand

 

It seems like one of the rear rubber foot is larger than the other. Maybe I should take a knife and cut it.

 

be sure it is only poor build assembly you are correcting and not something which is meant to be

 

Do some of you guys have issues with some of the keys squeaking when you press them? Should I have it replaced of this is normal?

 

I have been using mine about a week, and have not experienced any squeaking yet.

 

I can confirm that the 8760w with AMD does support audio via displayport to hdmi, pictures and sound is great to my TV

 

Had mine for a week now, model LG672EA ( HP EliteBook 8760w Mobile Workstation (LG672EA) specifications - HP Small & Medium Business products )

I added an extra 4Gb RAM and all i can say is 3D CAD performance is outstanding!

Assemblies on my old HP8710P had to be done in small sections to be workable, I can now load full assemblies and activate every feature (previously this would have never been possible).

I recently loaded a full site layout with over 200000 individual parts and the machine doesnt even flench.

One thing though, this DisplayPort, do you get a convertor to HDMI because i cannot find one? Reason being is we have a FHD 50" screen in boardroom for presentations and training but at the moment I cannot use it without the convertor.

 

I use a displayport to hdmi cable, not converter. I have bad experiences with converters, but cables with the right plug in both ends usually works. I got mine at a local Danish store.

 

Yes, my space bar suddenly started squeaking after the first week - anyone have any suggestions as to how to resolve.

 

No, not at all.

Do you have the backlit keyboard ?

 

For the previous elitebook I got this displayport -> hdmi converter:
Amazon.com: Premium Quality DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter (female) Coverter with Audio: Electronics

"Premium Quality DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter (female) Coverter with Audio"

And it's worked for me, including passing sound through. (Note that it's actually black like in pics 2-4, not brown like in the first pic.)

 

Yes, it is a backlit keyboard.

 

Has anyone bought a blu-ray burner separately and installed it in the 8760w? Internal of course. I see some on ebay but the faceplate looks flat as compared to the design of the 8760w.

HP EliteBook 8460w 8560w 8760w 6X Blu-ray Burner Drive | eBay

 

maybe the burner you get is not what you see on the picture?

you should ask the seller

 

For those with nvidia cards, how is the battery life and heat? The AMD has a max power usage of 45W and the nvidias 75+. I think the nvidia idle better and use less power and thus are the only ones that get the energy star rating vs the AMDs. I can't decide whether to get the AMD M5950 or the more expensive Nvidia 3000M. All of my previous HPs had nvidias and I had no issues (8730/8710/nw9440). Its just the 425 price difference that is causing me to consider the M5950.

Any suggestions or experience from both folks with Nvidias and AMDs? This might help a few folks. I'd be curious to see a comparison of battery life as well as heat/fan noise between the two. Asking HP is useless.

 

I get about 2 hours with the screen brightness at almost maximum (274) with the Nvidia 4000M card. Noise, sure the fan spins up when you load the system and you hear it blowing air. The machine is very quiet when you use office programs and browse the net.

 

Mine with AMD and Core i5 is also very quiet, but I found a bug in the fan control, when viewing a full HD movie using the notebooks screen there are no problems, but if the notebook is connected to a TV via Displayport to HDMI cable, then the fan speeds up like crazy after 20 min or so, I've never heard it so loud, I will post a video next time...

 

Got mine today. Initially thought I was lucky with no issues, until I opened it up and noticed some rough scratches on the metal around the keyboard. The keyboard is also not seated properly and the e-letter sticks until you manually pull it out.

Spoke to HP and they said I should do a DOA and get it returned. But I refused and asked for a replacement to be sent before I return it.

Got it all up and running, except oddly enough the Intel 6300 WLAN is locking up after a few minutes of use and the only thing which resolves it is if I disconnect from the current network and reconnect again. Happens to All APs I have tested today - Cisco (Not their SME crap - the real deal), 3Com, BT HomeHub 3.0. Latest drivers, even from Intel's site makes no difference. No Power Management settings is causing this, also not QoS, or IPv6. APs are all stable for all other devices using it...

 

It's really sad to see how HP are delivering badly manufactured units like this in a very bad transportation box. I don't understand why they are doing this since it is totally unnecessary. This will only punish HP themselves in the end. This is about the most expensive laptop you can buy and they treat it like this. I had to return mine as well because of poor manufacturing. I give them one more try and if they cannot give me a good unit I will demand my money back and I will buy from another manufacturer. It's too bad since the dreamcolor display is really nice.

 

It is a shame yes. Do yourself a favour and look at an unboxing video for an HP Envy 17 and you will see it's a box wrapped in plastic and foam within a box, all the laptop components are packed in black sleeves etc. But apparently all their business products are now poorly packaged. Not even to mention the production defects. The guys at work have sent back 3 B2B orders recently since packaging is so weak that the handles tore away and as a result the kit (including a SAN and server) landed on the floor before it could even be opened.

I'm stuck and I can't really ask for my money back since I ordered it through the office's B2B reseller account and as such a similarly specced Dell M6600 is over a grand more expensive here in the UK. Plus a replacement unit will take 3-4 weeks to be manufactured and delivered. I have however spoken to our account manager and made it clear that I'm not returning this one in advance but am waiting to hear back to see what they come back with.

 

The i7 2820qm with AMD graphics is also quiet during light use. The fan is on but its nearly not audible. It's comfortable on your lap (not hot) for the entire battery cycle (just under 2 hours), even with half of it spent watching 1080p content.

 

The fix to the external TV fan noise, is to install the fan control program TPFanControl as I did with the 8560w, now the fan is at the lowest setting, even when viewing 1080p movies on my TV, it doesn't get hot at all.

 

Hi Folks,

Loving my new machine, but have noticed strange behaviour with an external vga screen - the machine treats it as the only display and I have to force detect to get the laptop screen to show up. It reverts every time the screen is blanked for power saving and I have to redetect.

Any ideas?

 

My first was returned due to backlight bleed and a misaligned vga out. I feel lucky the second was in good shape. It is a pity that the quality is so iffy.

 

The packaging is definitely some greeny idiot sitting a cubicle in the Santa Clara Valley who has never entered an active freight forwarding warehouse. The largest problem with the environmental movement is not its ideals, it is the concept that ideology somehow substitutes for interacting with the actual real world.

The person who designed this packaging never saw a forklift driven by some union guy . . .

 

(rolls eyes) Oh please, we're talking about a major corporation here. The only "green" these guys are trying to save is the kind that comes with president's faces on them, lol.

 

Agreed ...:laugh:

 

Does anyone here use TPFanControl to reduce fan noise? It does work partially, but I would like the fan to be even quieter. I tried Speedfan, but it doesn't seem to be able to control the fan, any ideas?

 

I ordered my 8760w a week ago (it's actually for my work). I ordered it with th 2920XM and even tried to get the newer 2960XM delvivered but it is not available (yet).
Meanwhile I have been trying to figure out if it will actually boot from eSATA (for alternative configurations, like a backup 2nd Win 7 install). That remains unanswered yet, unless one of you guys tried it.
I read through some of the posts and saw questions about the SATA port capabilities (SATA III vs. SATA II). In the Specs you can actually find everything on page 51, Table 1-2 (QM67 , note 4):
Mobile Intel 6 Series Chipsets - Technical Documents

I also found this a few days back in case others need the 3rd HDD bay (upgrade bay)/Drive Caddy from a different source than HP (I ordered mine with the Laptop though):
NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks
(just look for 8560 they are identical AFAIK)
They have some other useful things like drive adapters. I though I mention that since most folks first look at ebay and start wondering if those items offered fit.

I am switching over from a Envy 15 and as much as I loved the Envy laptop, the limited number of USB ports (only one USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0) and the issues with Heat (fan was runnnig all the time and chassis got REALLY hot), random freezes daily if used with 16GB RAM (downgraded to 12 GB which reduced the freezes to 1-2/month).

Looking forward to this one

 

I ordered my 8760w a week ago (it's actually for my work). I ordered it with th 2920XM and even tried to get the newer 2960XM delvivered but it is not available (yet).
Meanwhile I have been trying to figure out if it will actually boot from eSATA (for alternative configurations, like a backup 2nd Win 7 install). That remains unanswered yet, unless one of you guys tried it.
I read through some of the posts and saw questions about the SATA port capabilities (SATA III vs. SATA II). In the Specs you can actually find everything on page 51, Table 1-2 (QM67 , note 4):
Mobile Intel 6 Series Chipsets - Technical Documents

I also found this a few days back in case others need the 3rd HDD bay (upgrade bay)/Drive Caddy from a different source than HP (I ordered mine with the Laptop though):
NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks
(just look for 8560 they are identical AFAIK)
They have some other useful things like drive adapters. I though I mention that since most folks first look at ebay and start wondering if those items offered fit.

I am switching over from a Envy 15 and as much as I loved the Envy laptop, the limited number of USB ports (only one USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0) and the issues with Heat (fan was runnnig all the time and chassis got REALLY hot), random freezes daily if used with 16GB RAM (downgraded to 12 GB which reduced the freezes to 1-2/month).

Looking forward to this one

 

Just added desktop capabilities to the Hp 8760w - Logitech solar keyboard (which is an amazingly thin wireless chicklet keyboard) and a Logitech marathon mouse. Waiting on the HP ZR24w monitor to arrive, then the set-up will be complete. Wacom Intous 4 tablet also just hooked up. Highly recommend this laptop for any CS5 photo/video applications.

 

I have the following questions regarding the chipset:

1. Can it create a RAID 0 array over 1 of the 2 SATA III ports and the Upgrade Bay SATA II port? I'd want to swap the optical drive with a 3rd HDD. Config in mind: SATA III SSD for boot & programs + RAID 0 array for data

2. Does the eSata port have port multiplication? I plan to connect a direct attached storage enclosure with 2-4 HDDs JBOD'ed and it's important to know if I can see each of these HDD separately

Thnks,
Alex

 

Has someone noticed audio click sounds, especially hearable when using head phones. I think this has to do with power save, you cut the power to the audio unit or something similar which result with an audable click. It happens after a while when you haven't used any sounds for a while. I would prefer if they didn't do this, at least when running on AC, then you don't need to save power like this.

After the power is cut, the noise increases and noticable when amplified. There is not much noise when the audio unit is on,

 

Breaking news on the 8760w straight from HP Online!

You can now order the HP EliteBook 8760w in ANY color you want!

(sarcasm-on)
If it hadn't come straight from the most reliable source of all, HP Online Chat, I wouldn't have believed it either!
(sarcasm-off)

Chat transcript below.

------
please hold for the next available Solution Specialist.
info: Hello, you are now chatting with Sara.

Sara: Welcome to HP Chat, please tell me the nature of your visit to chat today? (ie: technical support, pre-sales question, purchase, or quote)
Sara: Hi there!
Sara: Please go ahead with your query.
Guest: I have some questions about the EliteBook series of notebooks.
Sara: You are looking for an assistance before you purchase a notebook, am I right?
Guest: Correct.
Sara: Great! Thanks for considering HP notebooks!
Guest: I am looking at the 8760w series of notebooks.
Guest: can you tell me the main feature of "DreamColor" feature on the laptop. I seems like a lot of money for that model.
Sara: Just a moment please.
Sara: Thanks for waiting online with patience.
Sara: You can able to choose your own laptop color, if the model supports "DreamColor" feature.
Guest: what does that mean, "choose your own laptop color"?
Sara: You can able to choose the laptop color that is normally laptop comes with black.
Guest: What colors besides black can I choose from for the 8760w?
Sara: You can choose any color according to your wish for HP EliteBook 8760w Mobile Workstation.
Guest: I really like the color orange. Can I get the 8760w in the color orange?
Sara: Yes, you can.
Guest: Is there an extra charge for ordering it in the color orange?
Sara: No.. there is no extra charge for ordering.
Sara: Our dedicated sales team can be reached at 1.800.888.5858 option 1.
Sara: They will be able assist you regarding your request.
Guest: Thank you. Bye.
Sara: I apologize for sending you elsewhere, since I would hate to misguide you with the information.
Sara: Nice chatting with you.
Sara: Bye and take care.

 

LOL, that's most bizarre thing I've ever heard. I don't believe it and it's feels like a late April fools joke. I believe when I see it.

So if I ordered 8760w in HOT PINK, I could get it?

 

OMG, this is a joke, right?

 

I do have the original emailed chat transcript from HP Online to prove the HP rep really said DreamColor means you can order an 8760w in ANY color you want.

That said, DreamColor is obviously the name of the IPS display technology and not the name of some secret "paint color" order code hidden from the public.

Even if the rumors that HP might sell off their PC business are true, it appears they have already begun to abandon it...or has the PC division always been run this way which is why they are thinking about selling it...

 

I plan to buy the 8760w model XU099UT (Intel 2630QM/DreamColor) today. Best price I can find so far online is $2353.79 + no tax or shipping.

Even if I can't get the custom color I was promised by HP Online, I am more than OK with magnesium alloy as a color.

Any shopping location suggestions for a better price or "discount codes" to online sites (e.g. newegg, tigerdirect, HP.com, etc)?

Thanks.

 

Another problem with my unit. The computer is making noise, a tone actually. The loudness of this tone differs depending how you set the back light brightness. I guess it is the PWM signal generators that do this noise that control the back light, now I just have to find a intensity that where this tone is too loud.

 

Mine is pretty much perfect, I really don't have any complains about my 8760w, I would have liked the fan to be even more quiet in idle, but let's see what future BIOS upgrades will do, there's definately a bug in the fan control that needs to be fixed when connecting an external screen, other than that, it's perfect for my needs.

 

The fan on my unit is very good and I've not noticed any problems with. Funny how the quality differs so much on these early units. It was the same when 8740w came out. The previous unit I had to return had a tad bit noisier fan. Fan control itself seems flawless here.

 

Have you tried an external screen with your 8760w ?

 

No, not yet.

 

Does anybody knows how to make HP backup of the entire disk (C ?
When starting and klick "esc" it brings one option the HP recovery. But how can someone make the backup in advance of the entire system?

 

Does anybody have any information on the huge delay in shipping these recently? I ordered one in August and my order status just updated to a delivery of mid-november!

I called in but HP isn't being very helpful- I was simply told that there are having trouble with sourcing parts and I got the impression it has to do with the dreamcolor display.

If anybody knows anything, I'd love to hear about it. I'm more than a little miffed at a 10 week wait for an order with barely any status updates from HP.....

 

I'm sure you all must have seen this before, but just in case. There's a setting in the bios related to "Fan Always On when connected to power supply" which might resolve any issues.

I have mine setup with two displays docked in an advanced docking station, and even though I have disabled this, it seems the fan stays on - presumably because it will generate enough heat serving two displays.

 

Received my replacement. The new one still has niggles like for instance having to nearly press your fingers right through it to get the bottom maintenance panel off, and one of the plastic sprung-loaded display lock covers are stuck depressed, but at least no scratches this time.

I'm having a real tough time getting accessories for it though. When I enter part numbers on the partsurfer site it doesn't find anything - i.e. for an extra 200w PSU and the back-lit keyboard. Also not having luck finding a UK vendor for the spare SATA drive bay.

 

Hmmm....so build quality and replacing already shipped units probably has something to do with the order delays I would guess.

For those of you that already have these- is it worth the wait?

 

Oh yes, best notebook I have ever used...read my review:

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