*HP Zbook 17 Owner's Lounge*

Could not find an owner's lounge for this system, so I'll start it.

Just did a CTO Zbook 17. I am upgrading from an HP 8760w with Dreamcolor.

I am a working photographer and 3D animator using this for Lightroom and Maya.

Here are the main specs:

i7-4900MQ
Dreamcolor
Quadro K5100M 8GB
Bluray BDR/RE

I ordered the lowest RAM and storage, and will upgrade to two Samsung 840EV 1TB SSDs and 1 Samsung 840EV 1TB MSATA as well as 32GB SODIMM Ripjaws. Was wondering if this will work with the 1866mhz ones?

The main reason for this system is the Dreamcolor screen. Dell has stopped including wide gamut IPS screens their latest workstations, and I believe the HP Zbooks are the only laptops out now that include a 30-bit IPS screen with near 100% AdobeRGB gamut, which I need for work.

 

Main specs for mine:

i7-4700MQ
1920x1080 FHD wide view
Quadro k3100M 4 GB
16 G Memory .

Currently running w/ the original 750GB HDD + 32 GB Cache, with a Samsung 840 Pro 240 GB in the second bay . Will eventually go to 240 GB OS + programs, w/ 750 or I TB SSD in the second bay . Primary use as portable Adobe CC machine ( PS and Premiere Pro) . So far so good . Pros include display ( seems to be an IPS - holds SRGB calibration well) , build quality and expandability . Working well w/ application software and Windows 8.1 .

 

One question for any 17 owners ... Does the right-click preference show the 'Run with Graphics Processor' option ? This is a generally supported feature with Optimus , but not sure if HP neutered it .. Have Optimus mostly tamed , but still trying to determine exactly what HP has implemented . It also appears they have blacklisted any HD 4600 Graphics Driver Updates except those from their site ..

 

I did not see that option when I used this laptop. It only had the Nvidia drivers, no Intel drivers were present in device manager.

 

Interesting ..but does it have a dreamcolor display ?? The unit I'm configuring has the FHD 1920x1080 no-Dreamcolor. I think the Dreamcolor can only use the nVidia because of the 10 bit color requirement . Dreamcolor units don't switch graphics .

 

You are correct. It was a Dreamcolor display.

 

Does the optimus work with rgb panel in HP? (that must have been a really costly machine)

 

Just got an estimated ship date of mid May, so will post some pics and maybe a quick review. And you are correct - it was not cheap. I have, however, ordered from HP SMB before and they gave me a nice discount. You can also use coupon code CTOZB17 to get a 20% discount off custom orders (not sure if it has expired yet).

Not sure about Optimus, but I am a power user that almost always has his laptop plugged in, so I have never noticed (it probably doesn't with the Dreamcolor display).

I also have very extensively knowledge of Dells and HP laptops (back in the 90s I used to work at Dell in their product group as a test engineer in their portables division, and am very comfortable taking them apart).

In the past I have owned many Latitudes, XPS, a Precision M6600 (the RGBLED screen could never calibrate correctly), AW M15x (really crappy screen for photowork but build quality was amazing). I upgrade about every 3 years. The system I use now is an HP 8760W workstation with the Quadro 5010M, 16gb RAM, and the Dreamcolor. It has been great since 2011 (the durability on the corner edges are crappy, they are all bent up - very thin aluminum) - but the screen itself has been outstanding for graphics work.

 

As per HP Support Pages for the Zbook 17 , Optimus is disabled for DreamColor displays .. This makes sense given that the HD4600 Graphics cannot support the 10 bit required for the panel . it's in the issues list , with HPs response . That's not necessarily a bad thing, unless there's a lot of off the outlet usage .
i do most of my work in SRGB, so I opted for the wide view FHD panel . So far , it's held calibration ( <2 delta e) very well . It's an LG/Philips in my unit , and it can sit at the table with the Dell UltraSharp Desktop and the Apple Retina it shares space with ( they're all calibrated pretty tightly) .
Only 1 issue at this point; Photoshop CC Liquify caused PS to hang on exit - It's using the Quadro . Might try the beta drivers . Fortunately , liquify isn't a big part of my workflow .

 

They just updated the ship date to first week of July... must be shortage of some part.

 

Looks like Nvidia has added new drivers for the Mobile Quadros on 5/12 ( probably the previous Beta ..) . We'll see how long it takes HP to update the Z Book 17 driver resources page . Looking forward to seeing if this corrects the one problem PS CC is having ..

 

Can anyone comment on the quality of the 17.3" Full HD UWVA anti-glare wide 1920 x 1080 / Full HD

??

Is it is good as the Dell M series hd screen?

also is this the dream color display or the regular one?

thanks

 

It's not a Dreamcolor , but it does calibrate to within 1.5-2 delta E with the I1 .. I believe it's IPS judging by the viewing angle . I use this screen for photo and video processing with no issues at all , and very nice contrast ratio . Recommended if you don't need or don't want to drop the extra $$$ on the Dreamcolor ..

 

Yep LG has started producing a 17.3" AH-IPS 6-bit eDP display. They offer the same panel in a 14.0" and 15.6" version that is used in the Zbook 14 and 15 as well as a few other manufacturers. It can do sRGB just fine while also being compatible with optimus for longer battery life. Best of both worlds if you don't need the fidelity of the dreamcolor panel but still want something better than TN.

 

Ok, cuz i called a guy selling this laptop online and he said it was the dreamcolor and those are the specs he provided. What i am wondering is if it in-fact is the Dreamcolor do you know if i can easily swap the dream color for the HD screen?? Would i need different mounting brackets? cables? or would it be an easy swap?

The reason i dont want the dream color is that it lowers battery life from like 7-8 hours to 2-3.

So if i were to get the computer id like to downgrade the screen slightly for the battery life.

also can anyone comment on the quality of the "non" dreamcolor hd display? Is it a good screen? How would it compare to the Dell m4800 ips? Thanks

Thanks

 

Comments on the non - DreamColor above .. can't comment on the Dell because I haven't seen it ..The UWA HD as we described in a very good panel , and in our environment it is used for photographic and video processing with no issues . As per above, it's an LG ( LG/Philips) IPS panel .
Speculating, but a swap from a DreamColor to non could be problematic from a physical standpoint, and you'll probably need to reinstall Windows as well; Understanding is the DreamColor does not and cannot utilize Optimus or 'switched' graphics because of the 10 bit constraint ; guessing there are specific drivers, etc for the DreamColor versus the more standard displays . Not sure it's a plug and play downgrade .
Dreamcolor typically adds a big premium to the initial sales price and resale ; not sure how economical it is to purchase with Dreamcolor with the goal of swapping to a more conventional panel ..

 

At a minimum you would need the raw display panel, the display cover assembly, and the eDP cable (all dreamcolor panels use the old LDVS cable). The problem is, these are all fairly new parts so they only way to obtain them is direct from HP, which is going to be very expensive as spare parts. Better to just get it right from the start with the panel you want. I think the one you want is advertised as WVA - HP won't call it UWVA because the 17" version of the panel only has a viewing angle of 80 degrees in any direction unlike the smaller ones which are 89 degrees. Still much better than any TN display.

On the other hand the dreamcolor panel is an amazing display to look at (even for those who aren't doing color sensitive work) and you likely won't want to give it up when you see it. It is literally like having a desktop quality display on a notebook. Pair it with a high end quadro card and you can't really get a better mobile work machine.

 

So i ended up getting it.

Zbook 17
i7 4700mq
32 gigs of ram
500 gig evo ssd
k3100m gpu

how can i find out of it does have dreamcolor? where does it say the screen type / model?

Also what is the easiest way to use 3 monitors without a dock?
-1 vga
-1 display port
-1 thunerbolt to dvi?

or something easier?

Thanks

so far i like the laptop. I will write a small review after a few days.

I also want to point out the laptop has been very good at gaming. I have tried League of legends, assassins creed black flag and shadow warrior. I was able to run AC and SW on high - ultra at 1920x1080 which is definitely nice for a non gaming card. Very impressive.

 

you can check if the machine has the 'HP Mobile Display Assistant' installed, and whether it works . This is software specifically for DreamColor displays , and won't work on non DCs . it's for color adjustment, calibration, etc . or HWInfo64 and dump the display information ..it should state 10 bit ... I don't know the panel code for the DC displays
Also, not completely sure about this , but I don't the the Win 7 Aero theme will work w/ 10 bit .. You'd notice a slightly different appearance with the Windows desktop and possibly some other applications .

 

The dreamcolor models have a rainbow pinwheel sticker in the upper right corner of the display bezel. The id should be LGD02FC.

The config you listed should work for 3 external monitors, but these machines really deserve a dock and you should figure out a way to get one!

I like the K3100m because while it only has 768 shaders (like the 765M) it has 256bit memory bandwidth so it should perform pretty well at gaming.

 

For grins , I did run the Cinebench 15 and Uniguine Heaven benchmarks on the 3100 .. Cinebench hit 82.9 FPS on OpenGL, Heaven score was 670 w/ DX11 and about the same with OpenGL ..about the scores for a mid-range gaming card .

 

Also i hear if you use a caddy to have a 3rd hard drive then you cannot use the msata slot. Does anyone know if there is a way around this? It would really be great to have 4 hard drives.

Thanks

 

Have anybody tried to install 32Gb of non-HP memory into Zbook17?
What are the requirements for 3rd party memory?

I've bought 4x Crucial CT102464BF160B (DDR3L, 1600, 8GB)

With all 4 installed laptop woudn't boot, num and caps lock are blinking showing the memory error in BIOS.
Only 2x8Gb works fine in any 2 slots
After adding any another amount of RAM (I've tried plenty of 4Gb modules 1.35 and 1.5V) BIOS error comes again

If only 1.5V memory is installed there is a warning in BIOS that memory may not be compatible. After pressing Ok it boots normally.

What modules are known to work in Zbook17 in 4x8Gb configuration (except HP H6Y77AA)?

P.S. Processor is Core i7 4700QM
Laptop comes with 1x Samsung M471B5173QH0-YK0 (4GB 1Rx8 PC3L-12800S-11-12-1B4)

 

Hey i got my laptop off craigslist with 32 gigs of ram, i didnt look at all 4 sticks but just quickly looking underneath the part number on the ram stick is:

Corsair Vengeance 16 gig
CMSX16GX3M2B1600C9
http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Vengeance-Performance-1600MHz-CMSX16GX3M2B1600C9/dp/B00EXPNG5Y

I didnt look under my keyboard but i am guessing it must be just 2x 16 gig ram sticks.

hope this helps you.

note: I also have the i7 4700mq cpu with k3100m gpu

 

Thank you, cenkaetaya

Corsair memory seems to be low latency (cl 9). Does it really work in cl 9 mode inside Zbook?

 

I am not 100% sure how to check this but:

I downloaded CPU-Z and under memory it gives me:

DRAM Frequency: 799
FSB RAM 1:6
CAS# Latency 9.0 clocks
RAS# to CAS# Delay 9 clocks
RAS# Precharge 9 clocks
Cycle Time 24
Row Refresh Cycle TIme 208 Clocks
Command Rate 2T

 

There are no 16 GB RAM sticks in the SO-DIMM form factor for laptops yet. 8 GB is the biggest size you can buy. The part you link to is a 16 GB kit = 2 x 8 GB sticks.

 

ahh you are correct.

ya i havent looked under the keyboard to see the other two slots.

 

ive just asked some questions in the zbook thread regarding the quadro gpu inside the zbooks, since i am thinking about getting the zbook 17, but use it for gaming except for a daily usage, so would be great if someone could help me!
thanks!

 

I got this laptop partly for gaming. This is because i had a Thinkpad W530 with the K2000m graphics. Much to my surprise that laptop gamed very well. This Zbook i got has a K3100m and its basically able to play every new game on high or ultra.

Its quite impressive and I like the fact that these laptops look normal and not some fancy gaming laptop design.

My dream would probably be a Dell M4800 with a gaming GPU however i found this Zbook on clist for cheap and the 15 inch laptops do not allow for better then a K2100m.

As long as you dont care about having the games at absolute max settings these will game very very well. Not like the quadro or firePro cards of a few years ago which couldnt game if their life depended on it.

games i have tested so far:
League of legends = all max ofcourse
Wolfenstein - The New Order - i didnt play around with settings much but it ran great and looked great
Assassins creed - Black Flag - runs very well on all high
Shadow warrior - runs great on all high

I havent tried too many games yet, but i remember on my W530 with K2000 I also played Planet Side 2 on all medium which worked perfectly. So i am sure this K3100 could do better.

Note: I usually manually swich to from Nvidia / Intel

I find sometimes the GPU does not work correctly in games, its not a big deal but for example league of legends used to sometimes drop down to like 5 fps for a second during some game sequences. Once i set it to manually use Nvidia GPU in Nvidia Cpanel it worked great.

 

Repeating my post content above , not a gamer, but I did run 2 benchmarks ( K3100M) :

[For grins , I did run the Cinebench 15 and Uniguine Heaven benchmarks on the 3100 .. Cinebench hit 82.9 FPS on OpenGL, Heaven score was 670 w/ DX11 and about the same with OpenGL ..about the scores for a mid-range gaming card .
The Heaven numbers are 1920x1080, high and high , so .. it's not the ultimate gaming card, but if that's what you're looking for there are probably better choices from a value standpoint,

 

wow thank you very much!

this definitely sounds prominsing..
my previous elitebooks just were the perfect notebooks for me, and after a 3-year-experiment with the envy 17 3d, which itself was actually great as well, with some major flaws however (mainly heat due to bad internal design), i would really like to get back to the workstations, since the current HP consumer line is really neglectable, if one needs anything above the most basic poor quality cheap laptops.. the current "envy" is just an insult to the real envy notebooks that are discontinued.

i just hope i can mod the geforce drivers to treat the quadro as a geforce, then everything should work well, since the drivers are the ones mainly limiting their gaming performance. hardware wise they are a bit different, and lower clocked, but the k3100m is still the same chip - although shrinked shaders - as a 780m, which is top end in the nvidia mobile lineup.

now i just hope i can get my desired zbook 17 model, since theyre really hard to get configured properly. ive seen some 4930mx + k610m configurations for €6k.. this is quite ridiculous even for pure professional usage; a small server with a proper xeon inside would be the better choice in that case

btw any clues when the zbooks might get refreshed? as far as i can remember, fall time was usually the period when the business notebooks got refreshed. i might wait some months if maybe a new zbook refresh comes with maxwell-based quadros. although my envy seems to be dying now, after 3 years of average cpu+gpu+chipset temps of 90-107°C, i think the cpu memory controller is giving up currently. getting 2-3 bsods with memory faults per day, depending on how much i stress the system; surprisingly gaming doesnt produce any bsods, mostly browsing with more windows/tabs open does, and swapping the ram with different ones didnt help; neither did just using one ram slot. so it obviously is something with the cpu or motherboard :/

anyway, thank you very much! looking forward to the zbook

yea, this is actually quite good as well. im not looking for the ultimate gaming gpu, but it should be somewhat mid-high-end, and if i can mod the geforce drivers, i am sure the dx scores will get quite some additional boost.
the reason i would like to take a zbook is because i can get it almost for free through a business deal with hp, if it doesnt exceed a certain amount (about €2500, which is enough for a deceont configuration), and i really love the hp business line. else i would be forced to go for a different vendor after more than 10 years HP. and gaming is not my main priority, i would just like to be able to play anything at least on mid-high settings when i want to. and since i dont need much of mobility, the zbook 17 would be great, as the elitebooks used to be before.

 

The Geforce drivers don't give any boost over the Quadro drivers. If you want a performance boost you can either overclock it, or buy the next level up in performance. If you are daring you can buy an 880M and install it yourself. It works fine as long as you don't have the dreamcolor display.

 

are you sure? tested it?

ive done it previously with my elitebooks with firepro gpus, and using the official radeon drivers instead of firepro or hp's drivers gave me noticeable performance and stability boosts in gaming (directx of course).

 

I didn't notice any difference but you can feel free to try it! Obviously if you are comparing a six month old Quadro driver to a week old Geforce driver then yeah, the Geforce is going to perform better and be more stable in the latest games.

I think the K3100m should be reasonably future proof. Its got good memory bandwidth so it should be able to keep the shader arrays fed as well as possible even in future titles.

 

pretty sure the geforce driver would make it perform better in dx apps, after all, as quadro drivers are optimized for CAD etc. programs, geforce drivers are for dx applications, ie. mostly games.

another question regarding the display...

coming from an envy 17 3D, ive gotten used to the wonderful 120hz display - does any zbook 17 have a 120hz display? id go for a normal 1080p display, no dreamcolor. or would it run @120hz if i replaced the zbook's original display with my envy's one (if the cables fit...)?

 

I am able to game on this machine easily. I get 40-50FPS with ultra high settings, games like Bioshock infinite, Titanfall, etc. run fine.

 

great, thank you!
40-50fps for bioshock infinite @ ultra is amazing.

though i am actually considering waiting till fall when a zbook refresh may come, since i can still use my envy well currently, it is not dying completely, and i dont need it during summer that much anyway.
if they release maxwell-based quadros, and hp refreshes zbooks with them, its definitely worth waiting a few more months.

 

Hi all, new user here with a brand new zbook 17 (F0V54EA). Haven't done any attemptsto do anything yet.

It comes with a 750 GB HDD and 8GB ram installed. I need some guidance to upgrade those two things.
I already have bought a new ssd ready to install and I need to by more ram.

First: How do I go about to make my new ssd master disk in this system. Do they need to physically change places? How about the content already installed on the 750 disk. Perhaps also hidden partition for all i know. Some help would be appreciated. Step by step?

About the ram. I imagine there is 2x4 installed beneath the keyboard. That leaves two free slots underneath the bottom hood. I would like to max it up with ram, or nearly. 24 or 32

Can i leave the two 4 gigs and buy two new 8 gigs? (4+4 and 8+8=24) or does it have to be equal sized chips?
Alternative is to buy four new 8 gigs and dare myself to remove the keyboard. Anything special i need to consider?

Thanks in advance
B

 

you could use the 4 gig sticks aswell with the new 8 gig but its generally better to use all one type. I would just use the newly purchased ones.

you just stick the ssd in, change the bios boot order and then copy your computer to the ssd. Just download hyrens disk bootable iso and use mini windows xp to clone disk to the new ssd. That way you will have two copys of windows. So if one drive ever fails you can still boot off the other.

if you do copy it to a smaller ssd though i recommend shrinking your current volume in disk management to as small as possible. Copy the drive and then extend it on the ssd to match the size of the new volume.

 

Hi all,

I´m here new as a owner of brand new HP ZBOOK 17 (F0V46EA). Can me someone explain why aren´t WWAN antenna cables not prepared for module in this model with dreamcolor display ? Is there a problem with instalation or funcionality ? I wanted install a WWAN module ( not installed in factory) but in authorized servise give me a offer about 600 € (RAW PANEL SUPPORT KIT 210€, SPS-WWAN ME906 LTE NGWW - 378 €). I wanted install HP lt4112 WWAN module (E5M74AA) cost about 140 €. But I have not info about problems with instalation or other problems in dreamcolor display. Thank´s for answers. Mark

 

Mark, the Dreamcolor panel would require an additional module behind the panel.
Which is why there is no room for WWAN antenna.

 

Thank´s for answer. The best way is external modem.

 

I noticed the ZBook 17 has a BIOS setting to have the fan always on, and it is set to do this. I looked around and could not find much on this, what is the guidance - should I turn it off? What would be the disadvantage, I assume it will come on if needed. Does the system run faster with the fan always on or something?

Thanks!

 

I have mine off. It only turns on when using demanding applications. When browsing the web, etc. the fan is always off. There is no advantage or disadvantage to keeping it on/off. Fans have a very long life.

The system does not run faster with the fan always on. When your computer gets hot enough, the fan will turn on.

 

Can someone please post subjective impressions about the LGD03FB display (angles, brightness, black, coating)?

It's a "FHD WVA" display, a category that may or may not indicate an IPS.

From the little that I have found on the web it seems less than ideal ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...17-jxxx-notebooks-2013-a-124.html#post9643148), but then I only found one or two opinions.

 

I've been using this display on a 17" for about 3 months . More than satisfied with it . Viewing angle is indeed very wide , I've been able to calibrate ( sRGB) to within 1.5% delta-e ( and it holds) , with good black level and white point . I use for photo and some video work and absolutely no complaints .. My panel is listed as LG/Philips as the manufacturer. For a laptop , I think it exceeds 95% of what's available at the right price . I didn't need dream color for the extra $$ for the use case I was working, so . It can sit at the same table as my Dell Ultrasharp 27", Apple Cinema, and Apple 15" retina displays . It had to , otherwise , back it would have gone !!

 

What are your impressions of the viewing angle if you tilt the screen all the way back? I was looking at a demo model of the F2P74UT config the other day and noticed that color seemed to invert as it does with TN panels. It did have an LG display but I can't remember exactly what the monitor ID was. The display is still very nice, just seems more like a high-end TN panel rather than an IPS to me.

 

Thanks, that sounds great. Could you please confirm, though, that it is a LGD03FB specifically? You can easily find out with HWInfo or similar sw. It would help greatly in making up my mind about the purchase (I have grown a bit tired of the Dreamcolor on the 8770w).

 

I have confirmed , via HWINFO before my first response . I remembered the ID being close to that , so I checked again . LGD03FB LG/Philips ..