HP ZBook G3 (Studio, 15u) Owner's Lounge

I just ordered a 6700hq config without ded. GPU. I will report on my concerns as noise and battery as soon as I can

 

I think you will be happy with the results. Check out this polish review of the ZBook Studio. They actually had both the 6700HQ without dedicated graphics and Xeon 1505M with dedicated graphics models. They measured around 10C less all across the notebook under all situations (idle / load) for the model without dedicated graphics!

I am actually considering selling the Zbook Studio in my signature so I can get a version without dedicated graphics, then something like a Thunderbolt 3 eGPU to drive my external monitors at my desk.

With the Notebook FanControl profile you can keep the laptop from starting the fans in the range where the oscillating occurs.

 

Thanks win32asmguy! Looking forward to my zbook

 

Thank you very much for this. It's been working great and I believe has saved my sanity!

 

Just received my studio (6700hq/FHD/NO ded.GPU)

First look: amazing machine, very sexy. FHD Screen looks nice, everything feels high quality.

I have keyboard flex but I tried to make error inputs in jkl area and no errors. I guess if you dont smash the keys like crazy you wont notice. At least I don't.

Now about my noise concern: I did nothing but fan kicked in every couple of seconds for some couple of other seconds. OK, so currently I'm updating bios, drivers etc.

Now the studio showed me about its capabilitys of being noisy as ****: I understand pulsing issue now and I pray that things will become better since this thing is louder than my old vaio sb running at the same time right now wich is kind of impressing me because i thought my vaio with i7 2620m+ded. gpu is one of the most noisy books on this planet.

I just had some higher cpu usage and the studio sounded like an airplane. It should be ok when under heavy load but I dont think its okay when installing a HP utility for driver...

I really hope things become better after some updates because I see cpu temp bouncing in HWMonitor beween 55-88 °C for milisecs wich seems unusual for me.

regards

e: FYI: I'm reporting from BIOS 01.03 and making update to 01.14 right now

 

not sure if hp is serious...

On the bios update I could hear how fans sound at maximum and things beeped like this book is about self detonating in a few, was fun

after bios update, with svchost using 12%, fans are active, pulsing and package temps in hw monitor still bouncing from 52-80°C. there is nothing hot on this notebook, so i dont see why fans are running and pulsing

 

When switching to energy save mode in win7 i get 33-37°C and the studio becomes silent. I only hear the low noise pulsing fan but if this gets fixed I would like this state. But as soon as I just switch to another power mode things become very annoying...

core speeds in normal mode: 3-3.2ghz, in silent mode about half, I have constantly 12% cpu usage atm because of win update I guess. I just cant believe it is normal to jump from ~30°C to ~75°C instantly just by switching energy modes

 

OK so now I'm on battery mode, I hope the estimated 3 hours life isn't final...

besides, after annoying fan sounds and some couple of different settnigs in BIOS or energy profiles I decided to give notebook fancontrol a try:

currently fan is off, system temp is 54°C as stated by nbfc. profile zbook 15 g3, auto settings. i have measured zbook body temp at 30°C at the top between keyboard and display. I'm on HP optimized energy profile, average cpu usage is 15%. Surfing in the webs and installing SC2 for a test

Why do I need to install 3rd party tools to get silence @HP???

 

The pulsing problem should be fixed in mid November according to @iMaxx over at the HP support forums. In the meantime you can use Notebook FanControl to override the default values and keep the fans out of the bad range where they pulse, for the most part. Once the bios is released, I would highly suggest using the "Fan always active when plugged in" bios option. When the computer activates Turboboost, it can go to from idling at ~5W to 56W TDP in an instant, which WILL cause the processor temperature to jump very fast. If the fans are shut off, then they will instantly come on to keep it from going any higher. Keeping the fans on all the time will absorb most of the temperature spikes from using Turboboost. They will increase speed, but usually only if the Turboboost is active after several seconds. This is how I always ran my Zbook 15 G1, but it had a very mature bios with almost 3 years of updates.

Battery life should be better once Windows Updates completes. I also noticed there was some HP support application that was causing high CPU utilization for seemingly no reason. I uninstalled it and haven't noticed anything since.

 

So far I did the following:

- disabled turbo mode in bios
- set max cpu speed to 99% in energy saving profile win7
- installed stock notebookfancontrol, zbook 15 g3, auto

The fan is deactivated most of the time now. It only kicked in pulsing when playing sc2(for gamers: low details/fhd/150 fps with the 530 gpu). Other office/surfing usage with average 30% cpu the fan keeps being inactive,just how it should be when doing some office work. notebook doesnt get warm at all so I still don't get it while fans start to blow for 2 seconds like crazy when in stock settings.

I will reactivate turbo mode tomorrow to check if its the main reason why the zbook fan keeps being off

 

So I reenabled turbo mode in bios and even with hp optimised energy profile I still enjoy fanless silence when doing some office stuff. I'm happy with the machine and will upgrade 2x8gb hyperx ddr4 2400 ram in the next days. that means im going to keep this machine

 

For the fan noise, I've started to carry a cooling pad with me.
One that has two large fans that spin slow so that it doesn't make much noise.
I'm using "AVANTEK 15"-17" Ultra Slim Laptop Cooling Pad Cooler 2 Quiet Fans Laptop Chill Mat with Dual USB Ports and LED Lights, CP172"

Works great, although I could do without the blue LEDs.

 

I would like to know which SKU affects the keyboard localization for this laptop.

The one that I got is Part Number: T6E16UT#ABL and it has a Canada English/French Canadian keyboard layout which is an ISO format keyboard with a small left shift which annoys the crap out of me.

Should I assume that any laptop with the #ABL in the part number is the Canada English/French Canadian keyboard layout? Or is there a guide somewhere or someone has more information about it? I want to get the USA keyboard localization version and I just found out that HP Canada doesn't have it. I would have to go through a reseller like CDW or something to find out.

I know I can get the spare parts for the keyboard but I'd rather not buy another keyboard for it, which costs about $150 + tax + shipping, and have a spare that I will never use.

After looking at the Maintenance Guide

For use in Canada: 841681-DB1
For use in USA: 841681-001

Also about the fan speed, I used Notebook Fan Control to turn off the fans and it works great. For regular web usage, it averages at 40C which is fine. I usually use this laptop on a desk anyways and not having the annoying fan speeds is really worth it. I think the fan only really makes the temps go down to like 35C or something like that.

Anyways talking about battery life, it seems to last about 5-6 hours of my web browsing use so far. Sometimes Battery Bar indicates 9 hours of remaining battery when on idle. Not having spinning HHD and not using the GPU/GPU fans really helps with the battery life, as expected. Does anyone know what the largest battery for the HP ZBook Studio? According to Battery Bar, it's 62Whr on mine.

According to the Maintenance Guide, there is only one battery for it and it's very likely that my particular model also has the 2.5 inch hard drive bay for installation of more stuff.

 

T7W00ET#ABD - german keyboard layout

 

The last letter of the model number should be the country. So if you want the US version of your model, it would be T6E16UT#ABA. You can get the US keyboard from eBay for $33, but you are probably better off exchanging your unit if you still can. As far as battery goes, there is only one. The way the machine is designed, it looks like they may have meant to have a 1 SSD + larger battery option, because the entire front length could take a battery if the second M.2 standoff were removed.

 

Good to know. I'm confirming with a reseller about it before buying it from them. Also good to know I can get the keyboard off eBay, which is substantially cheaper. It will probably take longer to ship but whatever, it is also free shipping for most of them.

 

Today I ordered one of the integrated graphics only models (T6E10UT) from eBay. I needed something with a FHD panel, after finding out that there are a few apps that simply will not behave correctly with Windows 10 scaling.

Without the Quadro GPU, this model should work pretty well with an eGPU. Its essentially a Skulltrail NUC in laptop form. I want to try it with an Akitio Node once they are available. I also have the HP Thunderbolt 3 dock so it will be interesting if using both together will hurt performance with the Node.

I have noticed that the 1TB Toshiba XG3 ZTurbo PCIe SSD will randomly start making clicking noises for a few minutes. It doesn't seem to be related to disk activity, and while I could have sworn some other people have heard this happen, I can't seem to find a solution, other than maybe exchanging the drive for a new one and hoping it does not click as well.

 

Just got myself a ZBook Studio G3, SKU is T6E86UT. I immediately upgrade the components by myself.

Current config:

Xeon E3-1505m v5
nVidia Quadro M1000m 4G + Intel 530 + UHD
DDR4-2133 32G (16G x2) non-ECC
Samsung SM951 512G (NVMe) + Micron MX300 525G (SATA)
Windows 10 Pro, BIOS 1.14 UEFI mode, TPM 2.0

Very nice machine, runs super fast.
The HDMI default output to FullHD only, I am guessing it is for connection to projector.
But I got myself a Type-C to HDMI dongle, which enables me to connect to a HP Z27i QHD monitor (2560x1440 @ 60Hz) with sound.

 

The bios update 1.15A has been released that fixes the oscillating fans issue! I have installed it on both a model with Intel HD530 only and another with the HD530 and Quadro M1000M. In both cases, it greatly reduced the oscillating noise. It is still kind of there, but it is much less noticeable. The fan tables are much more realistic now, too. The fans ramp up slowly as temperature increases, rather than running at full blast within seconds of putting the processor under load.

Unfortunately, I have noticed some throttling occuring with the 6820HQ when benchmarking. The processor would drop down to ~1.8Ghz on all cores every minute or so, jumping back up after temperatures dropped to 3.2Ghz. This would repeat as long as the processor was under load and did not occur before the bios update. I may try resetting the EC and see if it helps.. the 6700HQ doesn't do this, and is now benchmarking faster than the 6820HQ on the same bios. That model does not have the M1000M idling, so temperatures seem to stay about 10C less than the 6820HQ.

 

Just checked SoftPaq, downloading it and installing it now on my i7-6700HQ/16GB unit.

 

Hi, I am confused now,
I read many different stories about putting nvme drives into zbook. Basically, an official statement is: /it´s compatible only with "hp z turbo drive"/, which is of course only sm951 with some driver on it. But, it costs in my country almost twice as much as normal sm951 drive. My question is, wheather it´s ok to put inside anything from: SM961, PM961 or 960 EVO? Is it possible to somehow install HP´s drivers on it, so it works how it should, or is it simply impossible to make it work, since it´s a very good business for HP to sell "their" (samsung´s) ssd so much overpriced??
thank you for your thoughts
(sorry for my English)

HP Zbook 15 G3, FHD, 6700HQ, W5170, 32GB DDR4, 850 EVO 250GB, SSHD 500GB, W10PRO

 

Hi,

New owner of the Zbook 15 G3. Top spec, appart from the 1tb 5400 (slow) hard drive.
Also would like to know which NVMe SSD to get.
Samsung SM951 512gb is not easy to get in UK. All shops now sell SM961 512gb only.
Has anybody succesfully installed new Samsung SM961 as a boot/system drive?
I want to do clean (Windows 10 pro) install on NVMe SSD.
Need to buy one ASAP.
Help/advice appreciated.

Thanks

 

Hey there!

Does any one tried using Dell Power Companion with HP Zbook Studio? It would be quite nice to add additional 66Wh.

Try to go with Toshiba XG3 - it's faster than SM951 and don't suffer from driver problems.

 

Stock Samsung SM951 working fine in my Studio G3 as drive #2. Latest UEFI/BIOS must be installed. Early versions of BIOS do not recognize a second SSD (other than HP OEM part).

 

Great, it´s good to hear this information and I guess there won´t be any issue with recent 960evo drive.

Next thing is as all of you probably know, the noise from the (mostly CPU) fan. When idle, the fan is still too noisy! The problem here is, that the GPU fan is turned off, althought the idle temperature of the GPU is around 43 degrees celsius - which is almost 10 degrees more than idle CPU. The heatsink is actually connected to the CPU´s heatsink. When the computer knows, that the GPU is idle, the fan is turned off, but the heat from the idle GPU is still transfered to the heatsink of the CPU, leading to higher RPM = noise. It would be perfect to force the GPU fan to run, so together with the CPU fan, they could cool the whole system at much lower noise levels. The problem is, that I tried a lot of Fan control third party apps, but none of them could do this. I know, that since my system is equiped with AMD GPU, I´am about to expect higher temps...

Do you have any experience with this solution, or am I completely wrong?
Thanks.


my system: 15 G3, FHD, 6700HQ, W5170, 32GB DDR 4, samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB, seagate SSHD 500GB, W10PRO

 

Using NotebookFanControl, there should be a high likelyhood you can take control of the CPU and GPU fan, creating your own custom speed / temperature table. I made such a profile for the Zbook Studio G3, but I am afraid that the EC registers that control the fans are different on the 15 G3 and 17 G3.

I agree that because of the shared heatsink / fan design, the CPU / GPU fan are best if activated at the same time even if only one component is under load. The CPU can actually stay quite cool if you have both fans cooling it while the GPU sits idle.

 

Thanks for yours experience.
When you were selecting your config model, which one did you choose? The is only a Zbook 15 and a Zbook 15 G3 option for me. When I used G3, I had no fan control at all. When I used just Zbook 15 option, I could actually set CPU fan speed, but nothing else.

There is still no option to config the GPU fan though : /. I guess, that AMD had somehow blocked acces to the fan. I really don´t get, why such a high end machine, with thousands of testing hours and hundreds of engineers (my thoughts) working on it has problems like these (actually with quite a simple solution, as I mentioned before).

 

I created my own config. None of the existing ones are good for the Zbook Studio because the G3 series are significantly different than the G1 and G2 series. With the profile I created it has separate controls for both the CPU and GPU fan, so you can turn either one on or off independently, or have them both operate at the same speed all of the time (what I prefer).

The Zbook 15 G3 may be similar enough to the Studio that you can just use this profile, although there is always a chance that writing a value to the wrong EC register could put the EC into a state where the machine will not boot until it is reset. I would test it myself but I do not have access to a Zbook 15 G3.

 

Hi,
thank you very much, I installed your profile and it works as it should. I waited for a while, to see, how it works in real life. Now on idle, the cpu temperatures are around 28 celsius, with almost no noise from those fans (so I started to hear other noises, like the SSHD seek sound, a little bit of coil whine and since I have the zbook dock now, it´s even worse, but it´s another issue). I see, that the fancontrol is not really clear with the config, since the EC values may be a little different with my model, so I have to learn a little more about the values transfered to decimal etc. and test it. (if I set the speed to 100%, I only get around 80 and so, do you have the same?)

Thanks again, hope to see someone create a better fan control profile, than the default one, maybe if I have more time to play with it, I will post it here later.

 

I determined the max value for the Zbook Studio G3 fan based off of what the BIOS fan tables were setting under max load (I used RW-Everything to monitor the EC while running a Prime95 + Heaven). The value is most likely different for the Zbook 15 G3, because it does not use the same BIOS as the Zbook Studio. However, the 17 G3 and 15 G3 are similar enough that the same profile may work for both.

If you happen to have the EC chip model number, you may be able to find a PDF datasheet to help make a better fan profile. That is essentially the resource the BIOS engineers use to write the fan tables themselves.

 

Is there any way to raise Turbo Boost performance on the Zbook 15 G3? Even at only 70-80% CPU utilization (creating a large rar5 archive) the 6820HQ inside has throttled down to around 2.8ghz, which is pretty far from the 3.2ghz 4 core max turbo.

 

You could try using Throttlestop. I think all you need to do is use the Set Multiplier (to x32) then enable. In theory you can also set higher multipliers on it as well, as the 6820HQ is supposed to have 4 bins of overclocking available.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/

 

Hey,

anyone know of a review or test of a ZBook Studio with the FHD display? I'm particularly interested in its max. brightness and can't find this info (tested, not as per manufacturer) anywhere.

Thanks.

 

I believe HP offers the Zbook Studio with a FHD panel from either LG or Samsung. The LG panel seems to be most common. It has max brightness of about 300 cd/m2. Here is a polish review that has more details about the screen:

http://lab-kuzniewski.pl/hp-zbook-studio-g3-wydajnosc-w-ultramobilnym-wydaniu/

 

Thanks! Their measured values seem rather passable if not exactly great. Seeing as you have first hand experience with this display, how is it in practice, how does it compare to similar offerings from other manufacturers that you might have laid your eyes upon?

Thanks again.

 

Its a nice display. I would agree with that review in terms of brightness, contrast, and gamut. The panel gets bright but nowhere near as bright as the Sharp UHD panel. If you want the best display for this generation of screens, you have to choose a UHD panel. I do not mind it as much because I use my laptop docked to a desktop display 80% of the time.

 

Yeah... UHD would be nice but then there's the trade-off in battery run times.

Anyway, I have the Studio with FHD display headed my way now, I'm sure I'll find the display quite adequate for my rather pedestrian use.

 

Anyone know if the laptop work with usb-c charging?

 

I have my 6820HQ in Studio running at 3.6Ghz all the time. I'm using just XTU. No throttling have ever seen. Profile attached.

P.S. Never run XTU and ThrottleStop same time - last one will override XTU and Windows Power settings.

 

I wonder, if the version of Studio with E3-1545M v5 and iGPU only exist - that would be a perfect configuration for me.

 

Something I noticed with the HP ZBook Studio with 1080p display, if you use it wearing sunglasses, you can't really see much of the display. That's a bit annoying. I've never had a laptop with this sort of issue.

 

Could be that it's polarized in a non-standard way (which should only be noticeable with polarized glasses - are yours such?)

 

Yeah that's what I am thinking, it's the same sort of thing with phone screens when you have them in landscape orientation.

It's something that would be slightly annoying for me, I sometimes use laptops outdoors.

 

I'm currently sitting in the beer garden outside with sunny weather, writing from my 1080p studio. I'm sitting faced towards the sun and display is great for work so far. I don't use sunglasses though so I can't say anything about that issue. Besides: Somebody found a compatible powerbank meanwhile? I mean I'm working with full brightness for 1h30m now and seems like I have about 4h39m left. WiFi hotspotting with mobile phone. should be enough but I am still wondering if there is any in case I need a PB.

regards

 

I am happy to report today that I have successfully tested an Akitio Node TB3 eGPU with the Zbook Studio G3. After installing the firmware update for the Node available on Akitio's website, the eGPU is essentially plug and play, and works alongside the HD530 as if you had an Optimus setup. Note that my Zbook Studio does not have a Quadro card. The performance so far has been about 85-90% of what you would get from a laptop with a built in GTX 1070 when using an external display, and slightly less if you are using the internal display. I think you may even be able to use a Quadro card in the eGPU so it may be a good way to get more performance at a desk than what the M1000M / M1200M can offer.

 

So it turns out my HP ZBook Studio model has the Toshiba 512GB SSD and after doing some tests with AS SSD benchmark, it's terrible. Uncompressed write is about 200MB/s, while every other benchmark with the Samsung SM951 is around 900-1000MB/s uncompressed write.. I feel like I got ripped off by HP (Canada).

Is there any way to know which SSD you would get based on the SKU?

 

Is there anyone trying to order 8-cell 96Wh battery of Studio G4 to replace original 4-cell one?

 

Look like you should be able to:

G3:

HP Long Life
4
-
cell
Prismatic
Battery (
64
WHr)
Dimensions
(H x W x L)
0.29 x 3.35 x 10.2 in
(0.74cm x 8.5cm x 25.8cm)
Weight
(max)
315g
Cells/Type
4
-
cell;
Prismatic
Energy
Voltage
15.2V
Amp
-
hour capacity
4.21Ah
Watt
-
hour capacity
64Wh
Temperature
Operating (Charging)
32° to 113° F (0° to 45° C)
Operating (Discharging)
14° to 140° F (
-
10° to 60° C)
Non
-
operating
-
4° to 140° F (
-
20° to 60° C)
Battery Re
-
Charge Time
System in OFF or Standby
Mode
3
hours
System ON
3 to 5 hours
Fuel Gauge LED
No
Warranty*
3 year
* 3
-
year platform warranty is required for a 3
-
year Long Life Battery warranty


G4:

HP Long Life 8
-
cell
Prismatic Battery (92
WHr)
Dimensions
(H x W x L)
0.29 x 3.35 x 10.2 in
(0.74cm x 8.5cm x 25.8cm)
Weight
(max)
315g
Cells/Type
4
-
cell;
Prismatic
Energy
Voltage
15.2V
Amp
-
hour capacity
4.21Ah
Watt
-
hour capacity
64Wh
Temperature
Operating (Charging)
32° to 113° F (0° to 45° C)
Operating (Discharging)
14° to 140° F (
-
10° to 60° C)
Non
-
operating
-
4° to 140° F (
-
20° to 60° C)
Battery Re
-
Charge Time
System in OFF or Standby
Mode
3 hours
System ON
3 to 5 hours
Fuel Gauge LED
No
Warranty*
3 year
* 3
-
year platform warranty is required for a 3
-
year Long Life Battery warranty

 

Where did you get above info?
Read carefully, the info for G4 8 cell is the same as 4 cell in G3, even the battery capacity of 64Wh )
I think HP just copied and pasted without editing )

 

http://store.hp.com/wcsstore/hpusstore/pdf/HP_ZBook_Studio_G4_MWS.pdf