8510W arrives...

I ordered a HP 8510w from Newegg, also a 200x7200 Hitachi drive, another 2GB of ram and a SD card. Newegg got it here in 4 different boxes from 4 different locations. Laptop in one box, drive in another, memory in another and SD in yet another box. Sheesh.

I fired it up and the screen looked perfect, until I looked a little closer and see a stuck pixel. 1, white. Once it’s running it’s not noticeable, only on a black screen. I’ll work on this with the stuck/dead pixel apps later.

I was immediately impressed with how clear and brilliant the screen was. In comparison to the dimness of the T61p the HP is much brighter. There is no perceptible light leakage anywhere, it’s even toned right to the edges of the screen – as one would expect from a high quality laptop.

So first boot is going well, I’m thinking that I’ll be into it in 15 minutes…then it hits HP’s recovery partition tool and spends 38 minutes, I could have done without that.
Then it hits HP’s install stuff, and it churns away at that for a while. Then reboots and churns away for a while with a black screen and a while longer.
More prompts from HP. Then it’s personalizing settings for a min or two and I have a desktop at 1:22pm, I flicked the power switch the first time at exactly noon. 82 minutes for first boot. 1.1GB of ram in use, 82 processes.

Gets a 7511 in 3DMark05. This is stock out of the box w/ no tweaking.

The 2nd mem module is in and it's running Memtest86...

 

Glad to here max. I would wipe it clean, and use the Vista 32 bit disk or 64 if you have 4GB's of ram, ands then use the software/driver DVD which you can choose to only install the drivers with none of the extra bloatware.

 

Memtesting 4GB of ram takes a longgggg time. 40 min into it, no errors. I'm killing it for now, will let it run overnight tonight.

Now is time for more play

Oh yea, it'll totally be clean installs when I put the 200GB in. I'm just doing a little playing and baselining with it stock.

 

With two modules 3dmark05 increases to 7619, up from 7511 w/ a single module. We are probably seeing the difference that dual channel makes.

I will say that when this thing is working, the fan is pretty loud. Surprisingly it doesn't seem to be moving all that much air.

 

Great to hear -- even though the configuration is much different from my expected 8510p. Just nice to hear a compliment towards an HP computer.

Hm, though. Was there much bloatware from HP itself or was it a matter of tweaking Vista (clean install, for instance) to free up some resource?.

If all that was from bloatware.. yikes. I'm not going to be able to do a perfect Clean Install on mine -- I'll be ordering XP Pro and will lack the OS CDs.

 

Does the 8510w have Bluetooth?

 

It was just as configured. I'd say lots of HP software, not sure to call it bloat or not. Just lots of it. I'm not even bothering trying to clean this install. Will leave it as is, get the 200GB drive installed and sell the stocker (a Seagate 700.2 120GB.)

These can be had. Mine didn't come with it. Part number 398393-002 +cable kit.


XP install in process... note: need to go into the bios and set the SATA to non-native mode for XP to install without having to slipstream the disk w/ the sata driver. Will switch back later after drivers are installed.

The DVD drive is pretty loud too. Making a zip zip sound (some kind of stepper motor.) Quite audible.

XP's installed, now working on drivers.

 

The cable kit might not be needed. When I changed the hard drive out on mine I saw an unused cable not plugged into anything. I am not 100% sure on that though.

 

I'm glad you like your 8510w! I'd really want one, but I can't justify it, since my nw8440 is only a year old and still has decent specs along with the $$$ factor...

 

Hit a bit of a setback. Seems that theres' no way to install the SATA drivers and get the drive back into native mode.

I have to start over with a slipstreamed XP...

 

Yea Maxx...I had the exact same problem installing XP. You can't just disable that and re enable later with the drivers in. Gotta slipstream and start from 0 or the laptop doesn't like it

 

3dMark05 in XP is 8309!!

 

Not bad! For a desktop comparison, my 7900GT KO 256MB @ stock got 8613.

 

Whew, first day went well!

I got it at noon, first use after 1 (long first boot.)
Did a few checks and upgraded the ram, ran Memtest86 for a bit.
Then I popped the new 200GB 7200RPM Hitachi in and began installing XP.
Around 5 or 6pm while i had it running well I realized that this was futile with SATA in native mode and began slipstreaming the SATA drivers into XP for a reinstall.
At 6:40 the GF and I left for din din and left the notebook installing XP. When we returned around 10 it was done.
Next up was drivers. I have to admit this was a bit tricky. Seems there's some order these have to go in. Long story short, XPs installed, all the devices are working, no errors in Device manager.
On to Vista64. Thanks for including the disk HP. Not like those cheep bastiches from Lenovo who make you buy one even though you've paid for the OS.
Initial install went quite quickly.
Then I fired up HP's application and driver CD. This is slick, just install what you want, check the items and let it go. It does take quite a while, but the machine was usable during this time.
3AM XP & Vista are dual booting. No errors in device manager and it appears all is working.
Shut it down, popped in the Memtest86 CD and let it run all night. It completed 9 passes w/o error.


So there we are today. OSs are installed. It's dual booting like a champ and I'm beginning to install software.

Along the way I ran 3Dmark05 at various stages. I'm quite impressed with the results. Even though it doesn't have the top of the line processor (only 2ghz) it's a very fast machine and when the new 45nm chips are out in the spring hopefully one will fit and it'll get another burst of speed.

Happy days.

 

Do these HP laptops come with International warranty?

 

The fingerprint reader works MUCH better than the Lenovo one did. It was frequently telling me 'too fast' and wouldn't accept the scan.
The HP does it every time no matter how fast I swipe. Much better device.

I don't know. But they do come with a 3 year ONSITE warranty, stock. That's a huge improvement over Lenovo's 1 year depot warranty.

 

OH How cool!!! I just 'discovered' the buttons for volume.
It's a sensor strip accross the top, no button. VERY COOL.


BTW: the speakers sound really good for a laptop.

 

Sort of, yes. They have a global warranty. But the local details of that warranty depend on your country. Here is some info from HP.

The main difference from country to country seems to be the Onsite support, which simply isnt available everywhere. But the 3 year bring in should be everywhere.



P.S.: @Monstermaxx, in europe Lenovo actually has 3 years too, but they are nowhere as cheap as in the US. And good that you re happier now with your HP! its a nice book

 

So if I buy a laptop from the US, the warranty will still work here in the UAE?

Secondly, do Lenovos also have International warranty?

 

For the Lenovos that likely depends where you buy them too. The ones sold here in europe supposedly have a 3 year international warranty.


As for HP warranty in the UAE, on HPs UAE / Middle East site the HP 8510w is listed with:

So thats what you would have there, even when buying in the US. At least as far i understand whats written in that link i posted above. But you always could, or maybe even should just ask a local dealer, or local support.

 

You guys have to register your notebook on HP's ITRC site. This will allow you to track warranty and support information. A lot of people completely missed this excellent service provided by HP.

Warranty check can be conducted here:
http://www2.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do

This would be equivalent to what HP support personnels see on their system afaik.

 

wow this hp sounds really sweet if i have another problem with the new dell coming i def think ill check these out... what is the real differencebetween these and the p version?? thanks

 

Graphics card and screen resolution options.
The workstation model gets an Nvidia Quadro 570, but the P gets an ATI X2600. Workstation models get WUXGA screen options, while Professional models top out at WSXGA.

 

IMHO you don't want WUXGA. It's just too high res for a 15" screen. WUXGA is just right on a 24" panel. Even WSXGA is a bit high, but it can be handled.

 

Dual booting XP/V64. XP's on a 10GB partition, V64 on a 190.

Anything directly XP is installed local c:\, but all the other programs are installed and reinstalled (under vista) on Vista's drive d:\. Seems to work OK.

Problem is that I didn't give XP enough space, now there's barely enough room for the hiberfil.sys. Also had a problem with Vista's bootloader getting corrupted. That and several of my applications (financial, management and CAD) simply won't run in Vista
Vista's behavior is erratic as well as being quite slow. In XP, when I launch something, it happens NOW, with Vista there's often a 15-60 sec delay before the app launches. Browsing the network can be slow (not always, but often.)
The fingerprint reader application keeps getting corrupted in BOTH OSs.

I knew XP would be necessary. Thought Vista was a cool toy and wanted it too.

But now I'm having too many issues and I'm feeling like it needs to go, be put on it's own very small partition and only install a few applications so I can play with it.

I'm thinking about starting over, giving XP a 180gb and Vista a 20, install (and reinstall under vista) all the 32bit apps on XP's drive (opposite of what I did this time.)


There goes 2 days of work

 

So screen is great,
Video performance is great
Build quality is great
Vista sucks but you got it running in XP fine.

I can only get the 7300 processor with the 1680 screen. Kind of anoying but I might go for it.

 

well... you do not have to re-install... take a look see here on how to re-enable native mode if you installed with native mode disabled... you should be able to figure it out

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1057792

 

Ugh, hopefully third time's a charm.

Formatted and started over again. This time XP's the primary and Vista will get just what it can really use.

Oh, a clean install of vista 3Dmark05 of 7951 with the vid driver from windows update.

 

Where did you get all the XP drivers from?

 

Right off HP's site

 

I canceled my T61p (1920 res) order on Monday and changed it to the 8510w (1680 res) from the same supplier, I bought a new license of XP Pro with it and the power dock. I will back up the Vista license so that if I want to move to vista later I can.
Couple of reasons, 4 usb ports, couldn't get the 1680 T61p here in Canada that I could find and in stock availablilty of the 8510w vs a few weeks wait for the T61p.

Only the T7300 processor but I can put a T7800 in it next year if I want.

I will likely skip native mode SATA to avoid the hassle.

 

Slipstreaming the SATA drivers is actually surprisingly easy. I just used nLite, my XPP SP2 install CD, and the 8510w/p SATA drivers off the HP site. nLite does all the work and you just follow the wizard and burn a new CD.

I don't know how much of a performance hit you'll take by keeping SATA native disabled, but either way

 

So you have XP on your 8510P?

 

I went back to Vista because when I was setting up XP (back around August 31) there were no updated XP drivers for the Radeon HD 2600. The only drivers available were some old ones from HP.

I'm told there are now ways to mod the latest drivers to work w/ XP, but since I'm already in school it's too late to take a weekend off to mess around

 

I just got my 8510w last week. I Love it. I am running Vista Business, fast and no problems at all. I have XP Professional installed in a Virtual PC that I can open up if I need it. So far I have every app running great in Vista, once I figured out the "HP credentials Manager" that kept popping up.
PC Mark is 4816 and 3d mark 05 is 7897.

 

Congratulations on your new 8510w. I just got an 8510p (P/N: RM268UT#ABA) with the integrated WWAN module.

I immediately noticed that the RICOH SmartCard Reader appears within the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon every time even though the SmartCard reader is an integral part of the notebook and, therefore, not removable.

Have you faced this issue with your 8510w?

 

Try going into the device manager for that card reader device and it might have a "Device is removable" checkbox that you can uncheck. I know that with a few SATA drives this is needed to get them out of that hotplug list.