The HP ProBook 5310m Owners' Club

No problems partitioning? Just shrinking the NTFS one and placing ext4 + swap partitions at the end of the drive?

 

Yeah it's a great computer

 

Yup, more or less. I did something slightly different this time around to attempt to simplify my upgrading (I usually do a fresh install of Ubuntu every 6 months), and decided to throw my home folder onto a different partition. This meant that I had to pre-partition my HDD before installing, which I did using the LiveCD and gparted. My partition breakdown is as follows:

50GB NTFS -- Windows 7
25GB EXT4 -- Linux installation
225GB EXT4 -- Linux home folder
3GB -- Linux swap (I know this is overkill; I can't remember why I made it so big though...)
2GB FAT32 -- HP_TOOLS (I *think* this is QuickLaunch. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong on that.)

One thing of note: Windows has absolutely *NO* support for EXT4 right now, third-party or not. This means it's impossible to mess up your Linux install from Windows, but it also means you can't reach any files. If you need access to Linux files, you could either install on EXT3 or install your home folder on NTFS or another file system that's readable from both Windows and Linux. Cheers!

 

Thanx for the details chaosrl! I'll attempt something similar in a week's time..
But with a swap like that, you could very well run Windows within Ubuntu!
A word of caution though, a few years ago, while putting Ubuntu on my current laptop, I got a bit overzealous with the partitioning. Consequently, I made /boot too small, which precluded all future kernel upgrades. So I hope you won't need more than 25GB for your software.. until Lucid and your next drive wipe at least.

 

I think Ext2Fsd works with Ext4:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1181698&page=2
post #18

 

Well, I was hoping that I wouldn't have to do a complete wipe then and only wipe the boot, but we'll see how that goes.

I believe that post is an error. The Ext2Fsd site explicitly states that it does not work with EXT4 when extent is enabled, and as far as I could find, that's a lone post claiming success where everyone else is experiencing failure. I have tried Ext2Fsd myself as well, back in November, and it didn't work with my Karmic install.

 

I just got this laptop 3 weeks ago and loved it.

What I didn't realize is that the recess that the keyboard lies in causes a major flaw. By simply holding the side of the laptop in my palm and gripping the base with my fingers(around the edge where the keyboard recess is) the screen flexed enough into the recess which caused cracks to develop right at the recess. crappy side view pic below

<---cracks all come from this point below
---------------- <---screen
----_______---- <---base
........^ where the keyboard is

This is a design fault, the recess creates a fulcrum that when the laptop is grabbed in this position. This puts unneeded stress on the screen which in turn causes cracks.

There are 3 cracks on my screen and they all emanate from one crack at this spot(corner of the recess). HP says it will cost me $440 to get a replacement screen and this is not a known issue(forgot the term she used).

If I would have known this laptop was so delicate I wouldn't have bought it. Now I'm stuck in a rut.

 

chaosrl, I am puzzled, did you delete your SYSTEM and HP_RECOVERY partitions?
Because I see..

1. SYSTEM (NTFS, 300 MB, bootable)
2. [no label, Windows partition] (NTFS, 300GB)
3. HP_RECOVERY (NTFS, 15GB)
4. HP_TOOLS (FAT32, 2GB, LBA flag)

SYSTEM seems to contain a boot manager of some sort, memtest, and logs. Apparently Windows 7 creates this at installation (and in traditional non-standard Microsoft manner "Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary" ).
HP_RECOVERY must be the partition housing Windows setup.
HP_TOOLS holds QuickLook, QuickWeb, BIOS images.

This means a bit of a problem since they are all primary partitions, which precludes adding another partition without first removing one, then creating an extended partition, then finally adding to it the necessary logical partitions (the deleted primary, and in my case a swap and ext4 partition).

But I'm not entirely sure how the boot manager identifies the various partitions - if it's done using the label, the order, or UUID.. And I would like to preserve QuickWeb and restore functionalities.
Ideas, anyone?

 

I think I've figured it all out! So for future reference, and to spare others some agony, I will explain what I did here, and why.

My goal was to preserve all the stock functionality; Windows 7, Quickweb, Quicklook, HP system recovery, and the obscure Windows 7 SYSTEM partition apparently used for recovering a broken installation, whilst adding Ubuntu 9.10 to this insane potpourri.

First off, I loaded the Ubuntu 9.10 desktop CD image onto a 2GB USB memory using this extremely simple procedure: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/create-a-ubuntu-9-10-live-usb-in-windows/

Then booted off the USB stick and chose to run Ubuntu. After having copied the contents of the HP_TOOLS partition to an external drive, I started gparted and did the following:

1. shrunk the 300 GB Windows 7 partition (/dev/sda2) to about 50 GB
2. moved the HP_RECOVERY partition (/dev/sda3) to the end of sda2 in order to create lots of unallocated space at the end of the drive
3. deleted HP_TOOLS (/dev/sda4)
4. created an extended partition (/dev/sda4) from the 245 GB worth of unallocated space at the end of the drive
5. created a logical partition (/dev/sda5) at the beginning of /dev/sda4.
   Label HP_TOOLS, size 2043 MB, FAT32.
6. created a logical partition (/dev/sda6) after sda5, this was to be my Ubuntu partition, ext4 and 241 GB
7. created a logical partition (/dev/sda7) after sda6, swap and 2 GB

After that, it was the simple matter of installing Ubuntu to sda6, using sda7 as swap, installing grub to /dev/sda (the MBR - very important stuff!), and moving back the contents of the deleted HP_TOOLS partition to /dev/sda5.

HP have published a PDF about the HP_TOOLS partition. See the HP Business Notebook HP_TOOLS Partition Guidelines here: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...riesId=4021356&docIndexId=64179&manualLang=en

They simply state that this partition must have the label HP_TOOLS, be formatted as FAT32, and should be 2 GB in size. And it works!

GRUB found the Windows 7 partition (/dev/sda2) and booting off it works. In addition, /dev/sda1 (the notorious 300 MB SYSTEM partition) is also listed as a Windows 7 installation, and the 15 GB HP_RECOVERY restore partition is also present in the boot menu as Windows Vista. I have not tried booted either of these 'rogue' partitions.

Code:

$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x161e8608

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          39      307200    7  HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2              39        4920    39208984+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3            4921        6878    15727635    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4            6879       38913   257321137+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5            6879        7139     2096451    b  W95 FAT32
/dev/sda6            7140       38652   253128141   83  Linux
/dev/sda7           38653       38913     2096451   82  Linux swap / Solaris

And that's it!

 

Thanks for the info! Wish I had read it before I made my dual boot.

 

Sorry, I've been in an area without accessible internet for the past few days (horrifying, I know ), but yeah, I guess I did get rid of them. I'm not sure I did that on purpose, but they don't exist on my computer. I suppose I don't need them as of now, and hopefully will never need them, but if I do choose to reformat my computer, I may see if I could recover the two.

Nice writeup, by the way, thanks!

 

I asked earlier in this thread but managed to figure it out on my own so here's the answer if anyone is interested:

Regarding preboot passwords: it is available on the 5310m but only through the HP ProtectTools-suite which must be installed.

After launching the suite in Windows you can set a preboot password and then reboot. Voila!

Unfortunately ProtectTools is pretty much bloatware, so beware.

 

Has anyone discovered a smaller power adapter that works?

It's quite annoying to see this beautiful piece of hardware (the laptop) be accompanied by a fat ugly beast (the power adapter). It practically makes the laptop like twice the size in a backpack.

18.5v, 3.5a

 

Official slim power adapter:
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/e...23-329261-329223-4054433-4054509-4054511.html

As for adding a customised boot logo.. there doesn't appear to be much information about this procedure available from HP, but through lots of Googling, many reboots, and deciphering Kanji I've come to this conclusion:

The boot logo must..

• reside on the HP_TOOLS partition, with the path "Hewlett-Packard/Logo/HPLOGO.bmp"
  (as this partition is FAT32, paths are not case sensitive)
• be a 24 bit BMP file
• be no larger than 1024x768 px
  (it can be smaller though.. the background will be black)

The image will be stretched horizontally to the native screen width of 1366 px, but there is a trick to not having your boot image look chubby. Edit it as a 1366x768 image, but before saving - shrink it to 1024x768 (making it look squished).
Here's a demonstration of mine:

 

Hi everyone.

Thanks for all the great information in this forum from all the contributors.

I just received my 5310m last week and am happy to say I absolutely love it. My spacebar key works fine, so it appears that HP has resolved this problem on newer releases. But one major change that I don't think has been posted before - this laptop comes with a different hard drive than the usual Seagate model. It's a Western Digital WD3200 BEKT.

For what it's worth, the noise from the WD drive is very unobtrusive, although I haven't heard the Seagate for a good comparison.

 

^^^ Interesting tidbit about the harddrive change.

One small minor annoyance. I notice that the monitor refresh rate keeps switching back and to 40hz from 60hz (in windows). Anyone have the same issue?

 

i have an interesting issue...

my usb ports dont charge up my phone....they charge my ipod mini (yes, it still works), but not the phone...is this bc it is CULV?
it even connects to the phone to access files and pics, etc. but no charging...

anyway around this?

i lost my charger for my cell phone, and was using my old laptop usb to charge it, but cant carry two laptops when traveling...

 

This is a power-saving feature of the Intel GMA chipset. You can turn it off through the Intel Tray-icon if you'd like but I recommend keeping it on as it makes no difference performance-wise.

Some problems could occur when playing older games or very unusual videos where it slows down occasionally. In this case turning off the power-saving features are a good bet on a fix.

 

I'm interested in purchasing this notebook. I have some questions, they may have been answered somewhere in this thread but I wont read all 77 pages...

How long is the real battery life while using stuff like microsoft office, browsing web etc?

Can it play hd videos without lag?

Is anyone here running Ubuntu 9.10? If yes does it work well?

 

1) Most people with the 4-cell battery have been getting about 4:30 to 5:00 hours. If conservative, I can confirm on my machine getting over 5:00.

2) I have problems streaming HD flash, but I've only done this in Ubuntu, on which flash is really not up to par with the Windows version.

3) I'm running Ubuntu 9.10, no problems except for some sound issues when I first installed it. It handles just about everything I throw at it fine. Also, now that I have an XP virtual machine, I'm VERY rarely booting to Windows.

Charles, is it possible to link to your review in the first post or sticky it somewhere for easy access?

 

Where is the license key for the laptop located? I don't have the windows 7 laptop sticker on my laptop but have been given 4 recovery cds which have winxp sp3 and win 7. I used the windows 7 recovery cd and now when I try to activate it says invalid key and use a new key for activation. Does anyone know what's going on ?

Thanks

Rajesh

 

Do all of you have a windows key sticker on the back of the laptop? Do you also have PN and SN on the back?

My laptop does not have any and I'm concerned.

 

Yeah, they're on the back, but hidden away behind the battery. Just pull out your battery and all of the normal fleet of stickers are sitting under there. It's a little annoying, but since we rarely use the stickers, the clean bottom look is really nice and totally worth it, imo.

 

Thanks a ton dude! I've spent 1.5 hrs on the telephone with HP and they've been saying stuff like buy.com is not authorized and yada.

They just didn't know where the COA and the PN/SN stickers are located and were saying that HP never ships a laptop without them and were suggesting that I may be a victim of counterfeiting.

 

Gotta love them customer service reps! Though I guess they're right in saying HP never ships a laptop without them... good thing I remembered seeing them there as I was sticking my battery in the first time. I don't think any of us takes out the battery on a normal basis.

 

I forgot one question, brightview vs antiglare... I like a nice high contrast so brightview will be the best yes?

 

It's entirely up to personal preference. Brightview will give you a seemingly higher contrast, but will be highly reflective of what's behind you; antiglare allows for a matte screen that has almost no distracting reflections, but you lose a bit of the contrast.

I think the general marketing consensus is that Brightview is aimed towards consumers who "consume" a lot of media -- videos, photos, that sort of thing -- whereas matte is for "business" folks.

 

Go anti-glare, almost any situation will give you glare otherwise. Even sitting in a normal classroom will be distracting on your eyes. The antiglare screen was the selling point for me in getting this laptop, i can easily view anything on the screen in any situation

 

I highly agree that anti-glare is the way to go. Reflections will be noticeable with a glossy screen in any situation where there are lighting sources above or behind you. Additionally, they are more sensitive to damage and hard to clean compared to matte displays.
Most consumer notebooks have glossy displays because they are more "bling bling" and look better on display in Best Buy.

Congrats on the laptop, and thanks for the information about the hard drive change. HP and other manufacturers do not use a specific brand of hard drive; it is whatever they have in stock. I would likely not have upgraded my hard drive if it had a WD3200BEKT, that is arguably the fastest 2.5" SATA II notebook hard drive on the market (tied with the Hitachi 7K500).

I assume your phone charges when connected to other computers? The issue could be either due to your phone or the cable. The 5310m definitely has powered USB ports . . .

You don't want to read all 77 pages?! Lazy!

Kidding of course. chaosrl is right, the battery life is averaging around 4:30 - 5:00 hours; most of my times are north of 5:00. I have edged it to about 5:30 in some cases. The 5310m's battery life is very good considering it has a 7200RPM hard drive and a 4-cell battery.
A six-cell battery is available though I am not aware of anyone here who has tested it yet. It is larger than the 4-cell and does protrude out the bottom some.

I was not prompted to put in a license key when I installed Windows 7; it was automatically activated using the SILC codes in the BIOS.

 

Just stopping by to say that even though I have my dm3t on the way I still am really interested in this machine. If I had the coin I'd probably have both. I'm just really attracted to the sleekness and what HP did in such a small package...

 

I have tried laptops with glossy screens like the macbook pro and some acers with their "crystalbite" displays and i've liked them in spite of reflections. But if you guys thibk it reflects that much then I should probably go with the anti-glare...

 

Anyone know if there are problems using a diplayport to vga dongle?

My choices are narrowing down to the ProBook 5310m and the Asus UL30A. The prices are similar.

Most of the time, I will use the computer for the usual web/word/youtube things, but a few times a year, I have to go to conferences and make presentations. Quality and ease of VGA out connection is a very very high priority of mine.

Pros of the 5310M
-Stylish and thin
-Confident the build quality will be superior. (I have a NC6400, which is the predecessor to the elitebook 6930p, and I love the magnesium casing)
-Much much faster processor
-7200rpm hd

Cons
-worse warranty. The Asus has a 2 year warranty with 1 year accidental coverage.
-Worse battery life (about half of the Asus)
-Need to carry dp to vga dongles (HUGE NEG)
-no hdmi-out. it would be nice just in case I want to watch stuff on my TV. (not too important, since I can buy a dp-hdmi adapter and keep it near my TV)
-2 gb ram instead of 4gb
-1 slot for ram. Very expensive to upgrade to 4gb.


Wow, when I list it out like that, it seems the the Asus should be a better fit, but I must a sucker for the style and build quality of the HP .

Anyone have input on my dilemma?

 

I have some hands-on experience with the UL30. The HP's keyboard is far superior and the build quality is as you suspect - miles ahead as well. One other point to consider is that the 5310m has a matte screen vs. the UL30's glossy, so no annoying reflections.

There is a six-cell battery available for the 5310m BTW, which should extend the runtime from the current 4:30 - 5:30 to ~7 hours or more.

I have a DP > VGA adapter with my 5310m, it did not work when I tried to connect to a projector. It recognized that I connected the adapter but refused to switch over to the projector. I can't write it off as a total loss since I only tried one device. Nonetheless if connecting via VGA is a priority for you . . . I can't recommend the 5310m. Maybe step up to one of the 14" HP ProBooks?

 

Thanks for the inputs.

Yea, I might have to pass on 5310m unless I get confirmation that vga out works flawlessly . Technical difficulties would be the last thing I want to worry about right before a presentation.

That's really too bad. I really liked everything else about the 5310m.

 

That's what happened to me . . . I was supposed to give a presentation and my 5310m was unable to connect to the projector. I suspected that could happen so I brought my other laptop with me, good thing I did.

You could consider the HP ProBook 4310s/4320s (13.3"):
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/321957-321957-64295-3929941-3955552-3974409.html
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/321957-321957-64295-3929941-3955552-4145545.html
Not as sleek as the 5310m . . . they are still nice machines though.

 

-The HP quality is much better thus you shouldn't really need a longer warranty, and business sector warranty is much higher quality (although you still only get a year)
-The HP gets 5 hours which is still near all day computing, and the processor speed is much better, probably the best battery life considering its speed (a total different class than the 1.3ghz asus)
-You would need a dongle but it seems like for the most part you wont be needing one anyways, carrying one for those special presentations shouldnt be too bad (my dongle is pretty small, can fit in any pack)
-Again yeah you need a dongle but its not like the dongle is ever going to be plugged in while the laptop is on your lap/on the go, so it shouldnt ever be a nuisance (assuming you carry some sort of pack while using your laptop)
-RAM prices will go down, you can upgrade your ram to 4gb later pretty easily but you wont be able to upgrade your processor if you go with the Asus (2.26 vs 1.3 is a huge disparity, and you can overclock either processor)

 

All good points. Where did you buy your dp to vga dongle and it works without any problem? Carrying one around isn't too bad, but I wouldn't want any unexpected incompatibility.

 

I used the SIIG DP to VGA adapter from Amazon.

Getting the image to actually transfer on the screen has never been an issue for me, it's just been the resolution and the scaling.

That being said, I went for the Asus UL80vt after getting rid of the HP. My CPU was getting very hot, sometimes up to 98C. I don't recall anyone else on this forum with the same issue, so it must of have been an isolated incident. I also wanted something with a better GPU.

 

Even though the UL80VT could run CODMW2 around 30fps at native res, some menial tasks were just WAAAAY slower than the 5310. It's that noticeable.

That being said, I went for the HP Envy 15 after getting rid of the Asus.

hah.

 

For those interested, I tried PCLinuxOS(based on Mandriva) beta2 2010 just now, and everything works very well right out of the box (sound/wireless etc...).

 

Hey, thanks Charles. I was all set to order a replacement drive, and then I realized what I had and backed awaaaaay from the "confirm order" button.

BTW, based on your recommendation and review I ordered a Waterfield Mambo Combo bag. Interesting company. Shortly after ordering, Waterfields founder sends me a personalized email asking how I learned about his company, that they operate by word of mouth, etcetera. Kind of a cool personal touch that you don't get very often. Plus the bag isn't too bad, either

 

I have been doing some in-depth testing with the Hitachi 7K500 and the Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB. The WD is faster, sometimes significantly, in random access times (which are the most important) in nearly every scenario. The Hitachi is unmatched in sequential data transfer rates though that is far less important than random access times, which makes up the majority of read/write activities in everyday usage.
I am doing power consumption numbers right now, should be interesting.

Good choice on the bag, I personally use a VertiGo + SleeveCase.

I am currently looking into getting a small SSD for my 5310m, I may be able to get one for a low price. Only 32GB, but I can make do with that.

 

Thanks everyone for your input so far on the 5310m. I have been following this thread for awhile and am just about ready to order a ProBook for myself. (I am also considering the MacBook Pro 13".)

My biggest concern right now is the problem that Bartg describes above. (IIRC a few other posters have described finding mysterious cracks on their screens.) Would anyone be willing to comment on this problem? I'm not particularly rough with my electronics but I won't be handling my laptop with kid gloves, either.

For me, having never seen an actual 5310m, the cracked screen points to a wider issue: build quality. On the one hand the 5310m's reputed build quality is a major selling point. OTOH if the screen has so much flex that it can crack, then how solid can the laptop really be?

 

The 5310m is a very well built piece of electronics, but it is also a thin and light. It would not surprise me if holding it at certain points for extended periods may cause flex and subsequently cracks since the bottom of the chassis is obviously heavier than the screen. That said, I haven't read anyone but Bartg having such issues, and personally don't see it as a concern.

 

I fully agree with what kingcy said. The screen bezel is made out of plastic, but I have no cracks whatsoever on mine. Of course, I don't hold my laptop by the screen, I don't set it down on the screen (unless the lid is closed and I put it on the table upside-down for a second), I don't really push on the screen until it flexes a lot.

That being said, my 5310m certainly isn't living the life of a princess. I constantly hold it by the palmrest (it feels very solid holding it from there), and being a college student, it's constantly on the move, tucked away in my backpack (in a sleeve, of course, though I don't have a "laptop backpack") often times with one or two textbooks pressed against it. So far, it's held up very well.

And finally, I have dropped my backpack with the laptop in it about a foot onto hardwood floor on accident. My backpack has literally zero padding on the bottom, so it was pretty much dropping the laptop+sleeve, except that it doesn't flop over afterwards. No noticeable damage from that.

So yeah, I wouldn't worry too much about screen cracks, as long as you aren't having your laptop doing extreme activities. And like kingcy, I don't recall anyone else but Bartg having these cracking issues.

Edit: Oh yeah, two more things. I will say the build quality of the 13" MacBook is far superior to that of the 5310m. The aluminum unibody is just ROCK SOLID.

Other thing is that the aluminum does scratch. I realized this on my palmrest after about a week or so, due to wearing a wristwatch with a metal band. So now when I'm on my computer, I take of my watch. Just for those who wear watches.

 

I am also going to agree with the above posters, kingcy and chaosrl. I have been using and traveling with my 5310m daily for the past several months and it has not developed any signs of wear. It is not the most durable notebook on the planet; as noted picking the notebook up and applying pressure in extreme areas (like the screen corners or the plastic ledges next to the keyboard) is not a good idea, with any notebook. However, if treated with modest care it should not develop any problems.

The 5310m is built very well and is a true business class notebook. It has a metal internal frame (I have taken my notebook apart and verified this - I posted pictures in this thread somewhere) and the brushed aluminum exterior also helps with durability. The lid has very good support from the all-aluminum backing.
The display hinge appears to be quite strong; I have opened and closed my notebook probably five times daily for the last four and a half months (so about ~700 times) and it is still like the day I took it out of the box.

If you get a good sleeve and don't be reckless with the 5310m (dropping it, shoving it around), it should last a long time.

 

Thanks, kingcy, chaosrl, and Charles. I needed just a little reassurance on this point and got it quickly. I put in my order today and will hopefully receive my ProBook this week--in time for Lucid Lynx. chaosrl, I will be reviewing your helpful posts as I slice and dice my HD for Quickboot/Win7/Lucid multiboot.

Yay!

 

Yay! Let me know how Lucid runs. I probably won't have time to install it until summer (Lucid's release is right in the middle of my finals period and I don't want to mess with alpha/beta stuff in the middle of the semester), but Karmic works great, minus the small sound issue I had.

Speaking of, my Win7 partition actually failed somehow. It began to boot straight into a BSOD, and repair work failed consistently. I have an idea of how it happened (long story short, Windows updated, auto-rebooted, went to Linux, I was unaware after waking up from a nap, mounted Windows drive when it should have rebooted into Windows to finish installing updates, broke something), but as of now I don't have QuickLook or QuickWeb. This means my pretty little buttons don't do anything when the laptop is powered off, but I honestly only used QuickWeb once or twice as a "Hey check out what my laptop can do" thing rather than something useful. But hey, that's me, and I probably won't miss it.

Cheers!

 

I tested the Lucid beta 1 the other day, and they fixed the sound problem (yay!) but I couldnt get wireless to work now (boo!). It was also pretty buggy, but I'm sure it will be great when it releases (except maybe for that left side window button change...).

Also, maybe this was just a Canada thing, but it took me a month to receive my 5310m after I ordered, so you might not want to your hopes up you'll recieve it so soon!

 

A month... A MONTH!? Oh man, I hope not. CDW said it would ship next day, but I checked this afternoon and they still hadn't shipped. Oh well, I see now that Lucid's not scheduled for release until the /end/ of April, so no big rush there...

But still, just to hold my 5310m... I can't wait!

PS Has anyone removed their laptop stickers (the ones by the keyboard)? I love the 2001 monolith look of this thing and find the stickers distracting. I'll want to take them off but won't want to scratch the aluminum in the process...