*** ALL QUESTIONS dv9500t ****

Jeff, first the refresh rate of an lcd is static. You can't change it. Secondly LCD display best at their native resolution. If you lower the resolution you will get a display that is blurry or not as sharp.

The proper way to handle this, if the fonts and icons are too small, is to change the DPI settings and/or change the size of the icons themselves. 96dpi is windows' standard, but can easily be changed to 120dpi if you wish.

 

I find it adequate too. However, I would have liked one that was better than the model that preceded it. Not a downgrade, if you please. The webcam that I have for my Dell is 2 megapixel, that can be configured for 640 x 480 for better frame rates. Why couldn't HP have done that? Because they figured that people would be satisfied with a new mediocrity.

 

I guess I'd have to set the standard to 120 DPI... I have it set to 96 DPI on this monitor, but I DID have it set at 120 DPI at one point because I wasn't used to things looking so small... Then I got new, better glasses, and I was able to deal with it (the 120 DPI causes SOME problems with SOME webpages and whatnot displaying all their text within the given boxes, which is part of why I changed it back, but if I'm using it on a smaller monitor set with this same resolution, it might not be such an issue)...

So I think I've decided I WILL go with the 1680... As for refresh rates, if that's a SET THING, it hasn't always been so... The Samsung monitor I got with my HP Media Center desktop the day after Thanksgiving 2003 was a "multi-sync" and it DID have multiple different sync frequencies... When I check under displays for this monitor, I see only 60 Hz, BUT, that's because I have the "preferred refresh rate" box checked... I'm pretty sure if I UNcheck that box I can synch it at other speeds...

I heard an eye doctor on the radio medical show, "The Peoples Pharmacy" say this afternoon that 60 Hz refresh rates (and below) can cause headaches due to eye fatigue after extended use because of "monitor flicker," but I REALLY THINK that's mostly on older, CRT monitors, because I've NEVER noticed any problem like that using this LCD monitor -- even after MANY hours in front of it.

Safe Surfing!
Jeff

 

I think you are right (about the doctor not knowing), in that it has to do with CRT's. It's not so much the refresh rate, but the refresh rate combined with the decay rate. CRT phosphors dim(decay) as soon as the electron beam's scan leaves it's proximity. That dimming contributes to a darkening that is refreshed with light as soon as it is scanned again. LCD's dim to zero in a fraction of the time, and would drive you nuts if they were not lit until "refreshed" by another scan. Instead, they stay at full brightness until "told" to otherwise change, at the refresh interval. Thus there is no noticeable flicker even at a max 59 hz refresh of the NVidia 8600 on the DV9500T.

 

I can certainly understand the reluctance to go to the higher resolution on a smaller footprint. I spent several months using a 14.1 (4:3) 1400 x 1050 resolution on a Thinkpad T42p and after a full day I had a raging headache. That experience influenced me greatly in purchasing my 22" Samsung SyncMaster 225BW which tops out at 1680 x 1050 @60Hz native. Needless to say I was very nervous about applying the same resolution to a 17" laptop screen.

I was very surprised after looking at my friends Dell 1510 (15.4" WS 1680 x 1050) that even at 15.4" it was quite easy on the eyes. After a few weeks of using the same resolution on the dv9500 I can say that I'm quite pleased and have not noticed any eye strain.

As for scaling, the display scales very well with little to no noticable change in sharpness or contrast. I've seen some older Dell XPS systems that scale horribly but even playing NeverWinter Nights 2 at 1024 x 768 for awhile was completely unnoticable (I've since figured out how to get the resolution up as the game or video driver has a bug preventing in-game selection of resolutions).

You won't be disappointed with 1680 x 1050 on the 17" WS.

 

The sticker on all dv9xxx models will always be dv9000, because they are all part of the the dv9xxx series.

The standard for 19" monitors is typically 1280x1024 (for 4:3 monitors). Any less than that and it's a crime to have such a big monitor with such terrible resolution. 1680x1050 on the HP's is low, and the Dell guys have it right by laughing at HP for not offering 1920x1200.

As far as eyesight goes, consider how big the letters are in the newspaper. It's certainly smaller (if you measured with a ruler) than the text on a computer screen. What does that tell you? It's the DPI of something that's more important than the physical size. Incidentally, a higher resolution screen gives you higher DPI, which makes smaller text easier to read. Check the DPI guide in my sig for more information on that. If you need a magnifying glass to read the paper, then don't expect differently on the computer.

Stopping a defrag in the middle is no big deal. Any modern defragger that's not some kid's college programming project knows how to catch the signal that it's shutting down, stops what it's doing, and writes everything to disk. If you kill the defragger from the process manager, that'll probably be bad, so don't do that.

The webcam is 640x480 because 1) most people only use it for video and because of that: 2) the fewer the pixels there are in a CCD the faster it can offload the image data, giving it better frame rates and 3) fewer pixels on a bigger CCD give MUCH improved low light performance. Low light is defined as "anything that's not in direct sunlight", so "inside" basically, which is where most people will be using the camera. Having a multi-mega-pixel camera built-in to a laptop is almost useless. Are you really going to take family photos using a laptop camera? No, you'll be using that nice Canon digital camera with lenses, color balance, autofocus, etc... In this case, HP resisted the temptation to play the megapixel wars, and chose something that *works* better.

I have been impressed with HP's stance on some things lately. Using a lower rez camera is one, and their statement about the the Robson technology is another. They are definitely listening to their engineers instead of the marketing department.

 

Thank you for the clarifications, Orev.

UNLESS you secretly work for HP's marketing department, once again you make PERFECT SENSE with everything you've said -- PARTICULARLY about the webcam, and I hereby retract my "common garden slug" comment.

I STILL don't see how 1920 x whatever screen resolution is applicable to a 17" widescreen laptop, however, but maybe when and if I see one displaying that, I will... However, after reading Brad Turner's response, I'm definitely sticking with my 1680 x 1050 "upgrade." (and as I have an 8 megapixel still camera with a 12x optical zoom, you're right -- what do I really NEED all those megapixels for on a webcam?)

My comments on the defrag WERE based on my knowledge of the process from when it first became common, but I STILL think stopping one in the middle -- particularly when he didn't say HOW he stopped it -- is a VERY ill-advised thing to do.

And no, I don't need a magnifying glass to read the paper, but I do to read fine print... yet even at 3 feet from the screen, I can read your sig specs just fine on my high-res 1680 x 1050 monitor, so I really think good quality VIDEO is different from PRINT.

I DID notice you had NO RESPONSE to my comment about NOT disabling System Restore... Do I gather that FOR ONCE you actually AGREED with me???
Jeff

 

The jury is out on System Restore. I disabled it on XP, but I'm trying to use Vista with as many of the defaults as possible. If it really starts to get in the way, I'll probably turn it off. However, the way to look at (and how MS looks at it) is that if you have "free space", it's wasted. RAM is often used for a disk cache, especially in Linux, so it always shows as being used. Why would you have all that expensive and fast RAM just sitting there free?

I am surprised (though, not much so, considering the grace MS uses when they do these sorts of things) that the space used for restore points actually shows up as used. I would expect it to show up as "free" to the user, but maybe "used" to an advanced view of the disk. That way you would know what was "hard" used vs "soft" used. The system should reclaim that disk space as you use it for your own stuff.

 

The real problem is that Microsoft should fix their antiquated NTFS filesystem so that these silly defrag procedures are not necessary. Defrag is soooo 1998.

NTFS is so far behind other major filesystems, it's just silly. And it's not just the filesystem either - the entire Windows storage management system is weak, pathetic, and out of date. They really need to improve their technology, badly.

I'm using SGI's XFS filesystem which is the fastest one out there, by far, except for maybe Sun's new ZFS. Mmmmmm sexy.

If ZFS is a Ducati 999, NTFS is a tricycle.

 

Thanks for the nod - I have always left System Restore on personally (both in XP and Vista) as I find it's certainly valuable on a desktop OS.

I have a friend that uses a Dell Insprion 9400 with a 17" 1920 x 1200 resolution screen and he is quite upset at the lack of Santa Rosa options for staying at the same resolution but he swears by it. At a glance it doesn't appear that bad, but not having worked with it for more than a few minutes I can't comment as to eye strain. I wear glasses, but my prescription is pretty minimal and only really required for distance viewing but eyestrain is still very important to avoid in my opinion.

 

Ouch - I can't comment as to how NTFS compares to some of the more advanced *nix file systems but it does get the job done. Despite the need for an occasional defrag it's very rare to encounter file corruption these days that is not a result of a disk or media failure. On any well built server platform these days there is battery backups on read and write disk caching controllers so data loss due to environmental failures is unheard of. However, the same can't be said for the average desktop or notebook so NTFS + disk write cache = bad idea.

It looks like Server 2008 will add the following new NTFS features:

• Transactional NTFS
• Self-healing NTFS
• Symbolic Links

 

Well I'm 49.5 now, and what was originally just myopia (nearsightedness) migrated to include a pretty significant case of astigmatism (so much the eye doctor says the ONLY way he can write me a prescription that will actually bring me to 20-20 is if I opt for contact lenses, which I have NEVER been able to understand how folks put those things in their eyes and deal with them and don't either lose them, OR end up getting CONTAMINANTS in their eyes by using them, OR end up POKING THEIR EYES OUT putting them in, OR some combination of all the above... and my fear is that I'd do ALL OF THE ABOVE, LOL (heck, about once every other year I'll see some itty bitty baby spider hatchling crawling around looking for a new home and smash it with my finger -- I mean one like 1/16" of an inch long... then an hour or so later, not even THINKING about THAT I'll rub "the sleep" out of one of my eyes and BINGO, nasty case of "pinkeye." Did it just a few weeks ago again... End up on Benadryl and eye drops for several days... Gawd only KNOWS how I'd end up with CONTACT LENSES, lol)... Oh, and as predicted, when I passed 40 I started needing bi-focals... They say EVERYBODY'S eyes lose their ability to change focus at different distances somewhere between 40 and 45, and MOST folks need either reading or distance glasses after that age (I have no-line, so I don't go COMPLETELY CRAZY from split vision).

As for getting that super-duper 1920 x 1200 screen on the Inspiron 1720s, I find it rather ODD that Dell offers that, but NO Gigabit Ethernet card OR fingerprint reader on those machines... Given my choice of the super-res. screen or the Gigabit and/or fingerprint reader, it's a NO-BRAINER, which is WHY I'm getting the HP, PERIOD (plus the fact that it's less money for what I consider MORE computer).

Just Gawd help any of us when we have to call Tech Services... ONE of the worst cases of support I've BEEN blaming on Dell was, in fact, an HP Customer Tech person who "helped" me with my second HP desktop Media Center (a display model I got from Sam's Club after they put a HUGE discount on it last September)... He was short-tempered, bordering on RUDE, and spoke English with such a STRONG Hindi accent I kept having to ask him to repeat himself... That system was such POOR quality (nowhere NEAR the quality of my previous, 2003 HP Media Center) that I ended up taking it back to Sam's for a REFUND... Interesting note about computer purchases from Sam's, by the way -- they give you SIX MONTHS to take your computer back (I took only two -- gave me time to shop for this Dell XPS 410, and get it with a free Vista upgrade -- would have been A LOT LESS TROUBLE to wait and get one with Vista pre-installed, I think, lol).

As for issues with defragmenting and NTFS being behind the times, I don't really keep up with what our HOW the different file formatting systems are or work so much, but I HAVE been hearing one of my internal drives RUNNING a good bit the last day or so, so I took a look... Knew my secondary drive, which I had split into two, 250 GB partitions, had one partition almost full of recorded TV, and thought maybe it was trying to defrag and didn't have the room, so I opened that folder and looked to see if there were programs I really didn't wanna keep, and there were 40 GB or so, so I deleted them, and all the spinning stopped... Then I went to defragment it, anyway, only to see that the system is set up to AUTOMATICALLY defragment all drives, weekly, and it will get its turn again in about another 30 hours, so I just figured I'd come online and yack with you folks a bit, instead, lol... I find it really nice that Vista has auto-defrag., something I don't think XP had.
Jeff

 

NTFS, just like FAT32 and FAT16 and FAT12, all write a new file starting at the first available block. Even if the new file is 50 blocks long, and the first available block is part of a contiguous string of only 8 blocks. That means this 50 block file becomes fragmented the first time it's ever written to disk - by default. Fragmenting files by default is plain idiotic. Any other filesystem will write that 50 block file not starting at the first available block, but starting at the first available string of 50 contiguous blocks, ensuring that the file is not fragmented.

NTFS also stores small user files inside the master file table! Not in 'normal' partition space. This cuts down on seeking when accessing many small files, but it's not considered a good practice. It's like saving your Word document into the MBR or into the NV RAM on your motherboard. Sure, I guess you could if you really wanted, but that's not where it belongs.

The one thing NTFS has going for it is that it's Journaled, (and has been since its inception) meaning if you have an unclean shutdown, you don't have to fsck the entire disk - just replay the journal and go. That was cutting edge 10 years ago, but all other decent filesystems have that today, so it's par for the course now.

Performance wise though, NTFS is garbage. It's too slow for any serious work. Simply unpacking a very large (many GB) compressed file (standard .tar.gz or whatever) takes ten times as long on NTFS as it does on ZFS. So if it takes 4 minutes to unpack on ZFS, it's more than forty minutes on NTFS. On the Postmark web and mail server benchmark, ZFS is five times faster than NTFS, handling 5000 large transactions per second, while NTFS only handles 1000. Ouch.
[source] http://blogs.sun.com/Peerapong/resource/zfs_msft.pdf

NTFS is equally slow when creating new volumes. 4.5 Hours to create/format a 32 disk striped array on NTFS vs. less than one minute on ZFS. (NTFS does not offer a "quick format" option in this common enterprise scenario)

Another NTFS shortcoming is filesystem resizing. You can grow an NTFS filesystem (when it's under low load) using the diskpart command line tool (no, there is no GUI tool to do this), but you cannot shrink it. Even the lowly Linux ext3 fs can grow and shrink on the fly.

Another missing feature is file-based symlinks. NTFS doesn't have 'em. Plain and simple. All UNIX type filesystems do, and it's a handy feature.

But enough about why NTFS sucks, lets talk about why Windows disk management in general really sucks.

First off, Windows doesn't have an LVM. There's no logical way to manage the disks!! You have to manually use each individual disk as a single entity and manage them separately. PITA and inefficient. All UNIX os's (including Linux and Mac OSX) have an LVM that allows easy and flexible disk management. On HP-UX and AIX for example (those two have particularly robust LVM's) I can move a filesystem from one physical disk, to another physical disk while the filesystem is mounted and reads/writes are occuring!!! I can also use LVM to mirror and stripe data across any of my disks, and reorganize them on the fly. Windows has none of this. You're stuck with tools like Acronis and Ghost to "image" filesystems from one disk to another, a very time-consuming and off-line process. Windows has the "dynamic disk" feature, but it's so simplistic and limited it's hardly worth mentioning. You can mirror two disks OR you can stripe two disks. That's it. You cannot do mirroring+striping, online volume migration, and you cannot change the size of the mirror or the stripe. Not to mention that you can't even use any of it if you're running in a cluster. Too many shortcoming for any serious work.

Next up is the fact that Windows creates partitions with a 63 sector offset, by default. Yes, I said sixty-three sector offset, an odd number. This is how MS-DOS version 1.0 did it, and they've stuck with it ever since - Server 2003 and Vista do the same. Very idiotic, since all modern external RAID arrays use a 64 sector offset. If you create your disk partition using Windows Disk Manager, you're stuck at the odd 63-sector offset which will causes the alignment of the entire partition to be off, generating two disk I/O's for every one I/O you want to write, effectively killing your disk performance. The fix is a Microsoft command line tool called diskpar (there is no GUI version of it) that you MUST use to create the partitions on the disk, then you can format the disk from within the GUI. If you didn't use diskpar to fix your partition alignment at the time you created your partition, you're SOL - the only way to fix it is to backup all your data, blow away the partition, recreate it, format, and restore your data. Garbage.
[source] http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/0e24eb22-fbd5-4536-9cb4-2bd8e98806e7.aspx

Lastly, NTFS and the Windows "dynamic disk" management scheme are very poorly documented, and proprietary. No one can implement them on any other OS, so they're totally locked in to Windows. All other filesystems, IBM's JFS, Sun's ZFS, SGI's XFS, Linux ext2 and ext3, Reiser FS, even FAT16 and FAT32 can be implemented on any operating system out there, ensuring compatibility. NTFS is the only one that's locks you into a single vendor, due to it's "closed" nature and lack of any useful developer documentation. Bleh.

Any server administrator who knows Windows and only Windows will say NTFS is just fine, nothing wrong with it. It's because he doesn't know any better. Any server administrator who knows several different operating systems will beg to differ!

Disk management and Clustering are Windows's two largest shortcomings IMO. In both these areas, they are so far behind the competition it's just silly. The disk management, as I've just illustrated, is pathetic, and 5+ years behind the competition, but Windows Clustering is even worse. Windows Clustering is at least 15 years behind everyone else. At least. Yeah, it really is that bad. But that's a discussion for another time.

 

Wow, that's a lot of good info! I would argue, however, that for a home user, NTFS is pretty good, compared to the alternative (FAT32!). Anyone worth his salt will be using Linux for a server anyway

As for fragmentation, I've only ever noticed it severely in files downloaded via p2p. I've had files with over 60,000 fragments.

 

Data storage is my profession, actually, so that's one subject where I can surely hold my own in a debate.

Ever used google earth? Ever wonder where they get all those high-res aerial photos? One of my customers is a supplier of these photos. They fly planes over large areas with these huge analog cameras mounted on the wings. The roll of film is about the size of a 2 liter soda bottle! They then put the film into this machine that digitizes the photos. Each picture is several GB once digitized. Anyhow, this customer has a typical working data set of around 1700 TB. That's 1700 Terabytes. On a given project, they are writing between 1 and 5 Terabytes of new data to disk each day.

They're using an SGI Altix supercomputer to process the photos, it has 128 CPU's, 512 GB of RAM, and twenty-six large Fibre Channel disk arrays. The disk arrays each have 240x 300GB disks (roughly 72 TB). Of course, they're using the XFS filesystem since nothing else (except the new ZFS) can handle filesystems and files of this magnitude.

So yeah, I'm very familiar with "big" computing.

 

WOW, Lupin, you REALLY DO know your drive storage stats and formats!!! You just increased my knowledge and understanding of NTFS by something like 1000%!

All I "knew" was that NTFS was Microsoft's "latest and greatest" file storage system, the "state-of-the-art" for Windows and that if you got a hard drive that was pre-formatted as Fat32 (which WOULD work with either Windows or Mac -- and which I DID use to migrate files from a Mac to my first HP Media Center the first time I got one), the FIRST THING you should do after you were SURE you no longer needed any Fat32 features would be to REFORMAT the drive as NTFS in order to achieve the "SIZEABLE BENEFITS" of NTFS (or so I'd been told and read, PREVIOUSLY).

From what you've just said (and based on what you do and your encyclopedic knowledge on the subject, I believe every word), NTFS, while I guess I'm stuck with it if I'm staying with Vista, does have some SERIOUS issues... Saving small files in the MASTER BOOT RECORD?!?!? Just HOW STUPID IS THAT??? Automatically saving ANY NEW FILE starting with the first available block, REGARDLESS of whether the entire file will fit in the contiguous space available to that block... also RIDICULOUS unless the drive is ALREADY fragmented and/or almost full!

It actually amazes me things work as well as they do, now knowing what you just said... No wonder things have to keep getting "faster."

A former friend of mine who was at one time one of these Mac-Only folks used to say that Windows was built on a "house of cards" because they continually built everything on the SAME OLD FLAWED INFRASTRUCTURE they originally started with in MS-DOS, rather than starting over from new and not worrying about "backwards compatibility," like Apple did... I had NO IDEA how far back that went until you told us about the 63-sector block offset... Most of us -- myself included -- don't even go back BEFORE MS-DOS 3.1, yet part of the protocal for the drive formatting system used even with VISTA goes all the way back to MS-DOS 1.0?!?

Is this all part of some EVIL PLAN to, at some point, have us all with hard drives that JUST WON'T WORK and then Microsoft will hold us hostage to THEIR rescue??? (I've never been one of the Microsoft Conspiracy Theorists, but yaneverknow.)
Jeff

 

That brings up a question (totally off topic now)... How would *any* system know how big the file's going to be before it is written?

 

Well, GENERALLY, when you're either copying (or even downloading) a file, the system knows the file size when it begins, because the file is essentially one chunk of contiguous data as it exists before being copied or downloaded (OR if being copied from another disk where it's ALSO fragmented, the FILE ALLOCATION TABLE would have that information, wouldn't it?)

And I'm SURE you know the answer to that question, Orev (as you seem to know MUCH MORE about these things than most of us), and just wanted to "bring it into the discussion...

As for being "totally off-topic," well, I don't know if I'm the one to judge, since I just had my first post PULLED in a different thread for getting TOO off-topic, lol, BUT, if you ask me, it's about computers, and file systems, and how things are stored and copied on hard disks... and the name of this thread is "All questions dv9500t," and we ALL either own or are in the process of buying a dv9500t, and all have questions and/or concerns on these issues, and they DO apply to the hard drive and storage system ON the dv9500t, so I don't see where it's "off-topic" at all.
Jeff

 

NTFS does work as its creators intended, and for your average desktop user, it's perfectly fine as Orev mentioned. It's also much better than FAT32. I was just pointing out that it's way behind (technology wise) most of the other filesystems that are out there.

It's like playing your Super Nintendo and thinking "As far as video games go, this is adequate! Works great for me, why should I care about anything else?" But you're only saying that because you've never seen the PS3 or the XBox 360. Once you've actually seen the PS3 or the XBox 360, and you see what they can do, you realize just how out-dated your SNES really is.

Not the MBR, the Master File Table (MFT). The MFT on NTFS is equivalent to the File Allocation Table (FAT) on FAT32. It's intended as a look-up table only, not for file storage.

Do they? I don't know of any Windows user who's never seen a blue screen. I've never had a Linux kernel crash on me. Not even once - ever. And I've been using Linux rather heavily since September 1997. Edit: (Wow, almost 10 years now!!)

I don't believe in space aliens, or that Elvis is still alive, or that the gov't caused 9/11, but I do know that any time Microsoft comes up with a "standard format" for something, they keep it proprietary and closed so that no one else can implement it, basically locking you into the world of Windows for ever. Examples: NTFS, .DOC, .XLS, .PPT, Direct-X, .WMV, .WMA, Active-X, etc. etc.

 

I'm not a programmer, but when your application wants to write a new file to disk, it makes a call to the OS and says "I want to write a file, size X, to this location." The OS doesn't care what the filesystem is, it just passes that information to the filesystem driver. The filesystem driver interprets that and determines how to write the data. The filesystem knows which blocks are occupied and which are not since it's all mapped out in the file allocation table.

It gets more complicated if we're talking about LVM volumes, since now we're dealing with logical extent to physical extent mappings, but the concept is the same in that the LVM layer and the filesystem driver know where the data on the disk currently resides, and they know the size of the new file being written, and determine where to write it accordingly.

There are instances where the size of a new file being written is not available, and therefore the filesystem is not passed that information. In those instances, fragmentation can occur. But even in those instances, the FS will usually just write it starting in the largest available contiguous set of blocks to best position the file against fragmentation. That works well only when the filesystem has plenty of free space and isn't almost full.

UNIX filesystems certainly aren't immune to fragmentation, but because of their intelligent algorithms for writing files, they avoid it much better than NTFS does. On a heavily used UNIX server, file fragmentation is rarely more than 3% or 4% even after years of running (again, assuming the filesystem has decent amount of free space and isn't almost full), where with a Windows server, your fragmentation could exceed 20% after only a few months.

That's why there are defrag products for Windows, but there's no such thing on UNIX.

 

Hope I don't interrupt the technical discussions here but since the thread says "all questions dv9500t" I am going to ask a super low-tech question here...

What backpacks are you using to house the dv9500t??

The thing is huge and I haven't found too many good backpacks out there with good protective sleeves that would fit. Lots of packs that are designed for the MacBook Pro 17" are just a tad too small for the dv9500t. I scoured just about every link in that backpack sticky thread in the accessory forum.

 

Good question. I had a Wenger one for 17" laptops for about a week. It's like 2 inches too small. I wound up getting a Booq python XL. Pretty pricey, but it fits well and looks pretty good.

 

None. My dv9500t is way too large and heavy to carry around. It stays on the desk at home, permanently. IMO any 17" laptop is best suited as a desktop replacement, used only on the desk, with only occasional travel.

For travel, I use a nice little Apple iBook G4. Small, light, rugged, reliable.

I hope you're not carrying that dv9500t around on a daily basis, that would be unpleasant to say the least.

 

I searched high and low for a backpack to fit the dv9500 - the best one I found was the OGIO Politan. I have had very good luck with the OGIO brand and their ability to safely store laptops. I highly recommend finding a local dealer (Sport Chalet carries a limited selection of OGIO backpacks including the Politan and several other backpack brands) to get a feel for it and see how you like it.

 

Sorry ,out of topic ,are there any shop that offer customize dv 9500t to ship internationally ?

 

Glad you asked, Ahimanic (REALLY GLAD -- since my order is only a couple days away, lol, and I've been planning on bundling in the HP Sport Backpack, which they CLAIM will fit all their laptops, with a "snug fit" for their 17" models, partly because it's a decent price, and partly because, what the heck, it would say "HP" on it, lol)...

So has anyone else with a dv9500t (or any other dv9*** model, as I believe they're ALL pretty much the same size) gotten the HP Sport Backpack and tried using it with that? I'm taking this thing on an extended vacation with me, and am planning to use a backpack as both a carrying case AND, maybe as a backpack on any rare occasions I need it for that purpose.

As for all the technical discussions, I think we kinda pounded that puppy enough already for the day, anyway... but that was some GREAT INFO, I think.
Jeff

 

Hi - I'm curious if anyone knows if the Optical drive can be later upgraded to the HD(R) drive.

 

I'll state my two cents and then I'll leave this thread well enough alone as I do feel it strays too far from the original intent.

I have been involved in IT for the past 15 years (my first job was literally delivering computers) and in that time I've worked my way up through the IT strata (assembly to desktop support to server admin to systems architecture) and have spent a good deal of time consulting for companies of all sizes. During my time I've bounced across various vendors and brands and had the fortune of seeing things come and go all the while attempting to remain as agnostic as is humanly possible. I'm not saying this to laud anything over anyone or denegrate anyone elses experience - I'm merely establishing my credentials.

I see no need to tout the graces of one OS/product/feature so completely as to degrade another. I have amassed a great deal of respect for *nix platforms and they certainly have their place. While I don't claim any great knowledge of *nix, our solutions commonly deal with the aggregation of identity data from applications or services running on non-Microsoft platforms.

One slight correction - the 63 KB issue is no longer a problem from Windows Server 2003 forward which defaults to a 64 KB offset and while I can't comment as to whether or not this applies to XP I can tell you that Vista shows up with a 32 KB offset. I'll readily admit that NTFS has its shortcomings, but it's made small steady improvements since its inception (hey, give us a break, we're finally getting symbolic links!)

I also want to point out that Microsoft, amidst all of its flaws, is the only company I know of that actively rewards an individuals' volunteer activity in forums such as this to answer questions regarding Microsoft products. This does generate an intense amount of loyalty from those who devote their personal time to helping the general public for free. You can read about the Microsoft MVP program here.

As a 2nd year MVP awardee I recognize the contributions of the folks on this forum and the incredible dedication to spending your free time in answering other people's questions. Since I started reading and posting on this forum I have developed a great deal of respect for Lupin's posts as they are always informative and intelligent - this is the first time I've really seen you get passionate about something to the point of actively trashing something.

Let's wrap this thread up before we drive off any future posts - if anyone wishes to pursue this further please contact me directly and I'd be glad to exchange my personal email address.

 

Wow awesome thread!! Took a while to read it all but i made it!!

So here's the deal.. i've decided to get the dv9500 from the hp site so i can fully customize it but i have a few questions before i make my choice.

1.- I've read many good things abou the fingerprint reader but i believe i read somehwere that if you select that option you get one less usb port? is that true? haw many usb ports are available without selecting this option?

2.- Battery choice... 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery or High Capacity 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery? Any experts on batteries? Im tempted to get the high capacity one but im not sure what its benefits are.. will it be much heavier than the standard? how much longer can the battery life be?

3.- Ram.. i will most definitely upgrade to 4gb of ram but if upgrading through the hp site is an extra $525... i think i could do the upgrade myself buying the ram somewhere else and for half the price!! right?
Take this for expample: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820144066
Will this ram be compatible? Is it a descent brand?

4.- Upgrading to 4gb of ram means i would need a 64bit os, right or wrong?
If so, then getting the "home premium" version will not take advantage of the 4gb but instead 3gb (correct me if im wrong). Does this mean my only way out is buying the "ultimate" version of vista since i dont seem to find the option for home premium 64 bit... help!!

5.- One last thing.. is there a review for this laptop posted on this site? could not seem to find it...

anyways.. this is plenty to read.. i will probably have more questions after i get a few answers.

Thanks everyone!

Alex.

 

Standard form factor so swapping it should be a piece of cake.

 

Hi Brad, first off, thanks for your comments. Do you have a link to a Microsoft paper that states this? The documentation I have says partition alignment *is* required still with Windows 2003.

I don't know that any of my posts are worthy of respect; they're merely the aimless ramblings of a disgruntled geek.

Computers have been part of my studies, and profession, since the mid 1990's, starting with Windows 3.0, Linux 1.2, Solaris 2.5, and IRIX 6.5.0 so I have a little more experience than the average n00b.

Some instances, when a piece of technology has burned me due to it's failure to perform, I get a bit fired up in my response - I do admit that. But for the record, EVERY operating system has its shortcomings, and its 'bad' releases. IRIX 6.4 was garbage. Linux still doesn't scale well on extremely large systems (hundreds of GB of RAM and hundreds of CPU), Solaris has a horrible and awkward device file naming scheme, plus youre stuck buying VxVM if you want a decent LVM. I'll gladly pick on any OS as none of them are perfect - just happened to be Windows' luck day when I wrote the previous post.

 

Yes, you lose a USB port. There would be one on the front-right corner, but with the fingerprint reader that one is not there.

I had a dv9000 with regular battery, and when I got the dv9500 I opted for the high capacity battery. The regular one got me about 2 hours of battery, which I felt was too short. I haven't really tested the new one though. I can't really say if it's heavier either, as the laptop is pretty big and didn't really notice.

Yes, after market RAM is always a good idea. What you want is PC2-5300 SODIMM (laptop) RAM. I would check out the Hot RAM Deals thread here. The brand doesn't really matter, as long as it has a warranty.

Yes, to access all of the 4GB you would need a 64bit OS. HP only sells Ultimate as 64bit, but you *could* just buy Home Premium, then get a 64bit Anytime Upgrade DVD. You can use the Anytime Upgrade DVD to do a clean install of Home Premium in 64 bit. Check the guide in my sig for information on how to do this.

 

Hmmmm, I KNOW this is off-topic, but since I upgraded my desktop XPS 410 to 4 GB but it refuses to use more than 2, even though the SYSTEM recognizes 3, and Dell provided me with a Vista upgrade disk (which I've heard ALL have all versions on them, just not available without the right "key,"), I wonder IF and how much trouble (and expense) it would be for me to upgrade to Home Premium 64-bit (or DOES THAT EXIST?), and will all my software work with it?

Perhaps I'll explore that.

As for getting the dv9500t WITH 2 GB of RAM, then buying the upgrade to 4 GB separately, elsewhere, someone please correct me if I'm WRONG (I don't think I AM, though)... I'm pretty sure that like most notebook/laptops, it has only TWO SODIMM slots, and if you get it with 2 GB, you receive it with BOTH occupied -- each with a 1 GB SODIMM -- whereas if you get it with 4 GB, it comes with a 2 GB SODIMM in each slot (which likely explains why that's so much more expensive, as 2 GB SODIMMs, and even regular DIMMs, tend to be more pricey than the 1 GB variety)...

IF that IS the case, then avillabon (or anyone else) who buys it with 2 GB then upgrades to 4 GB would have to REPLACE the 2 GB that came with it and buy and ENTIRELY NEW 4 GB in the form of 2 2-GB SODIMMS... While that might still be A LOT less expensive in today's RAM market, I still think if that's the case, people should be made aware of it.
Jeff

 

Jeff,

I have stepped on my tongue a few times in this forum as my head is usually buried in the Server OS's and not the Desktop ones which differ slightly in memory management. I think the consensus is that while you can put 4GB in a 32-bit OS, you can't effectively use it all unless you move to a 64-bit one. Good news is that it does appear that ALL Vista editions have an x64 flavor:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/64bit.mspx

 

Hmm, if the "system" sees 3GB, what is it that only uses 2? There is a per process limit of 2GB, so any 1 process can only use that much. This is another restriction of 32bit systems.

Yes, that is a good point. If you are planning to upgrade the RAM with aftermarket, you will have to replace any of what's already in there. You do have options though. If you buy 2GB from HP, then you could take out only 1 and replace it with 2, giving you a total of 3. Or if you get 1GB from HP, you'll have to take out 512MB, and can replace that with 2GB, for a total of 2.5GB. If you want to get 4GB, order the laptop with 1GB and take out both of the 512MB modules.

HP will always ship the system with both RAM slots full, because 2 sticks are cheaper than 1 of the same cumulative size.

 

Correct, the dv9500t, when ordered with 2GB of RAM, will ship with two 1GB modules.

Any 32 bit desktop Windows cannot see/use all 4GB of RAM. (Although 32 bit Linux CAN! ) You'll need one of the AMD64 editions of Windows to use all the memory.

Kind of silly since all Microsoft has to do is enable PAE support in desktop Windows, which would allow 32 bit desktop Windows to see up to 64 GB of RAM. Wonder why they don't do that?

 

PAE support is available for Windows XP, but using it is sketchy. There are a lot of compatibility problems because many drivers are not written correctly to handle it. PAE is really a hack. In Vista, because there's the 64bit version, MS decided not to support PAE because anyone fixing their drivers should be making 64bit versions anyway.

Even Linus doesn't like PAE, but linux supports it as a stopgap:

 

This sounds like a plan! That way i dont have to spend all the extra cash for the ultimate version.. How expensive is the "anytime upgrade dvd"? and where do i go get it?

By the way.. if i do opt for this option will i need different drivers when moving from a 32 to 64 bit os?

thanks orev!!

Alex

 

There's a link in my guide (in the F.A.Q) to compusa where you can get the disc for $5. They also have them on amazon. You will need other drivers, but all the ones for your laptop you can get from HP. You might run into issues if you have other devices, like printer, scanner, etc...

There are some other issues with 64 bit, such as some programs don't work the same, but the main ones work pretty well. I'm not sure the state of gaming though.

 

Great link, BTW.

 

So let me get this straight... IF I install Linux on this 'puter, it will recognize and theoretically USE all 4 GB of RAM installed?

Now assuming I DO that, is there a way to do it WITHOUT uninstalling Vista, i.e. having a "dual-boot" system (I have two internal hard drives, although I don't BELIEVE the system let me format the second one as an "MS-DOS Startup Drive."

And ASSUMING I WERE to install Linux (is it still free?) would my MS-Office (or Open Office), my AOL My Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements and other major programs I have installed still run on that platform...

Finally, are you saying all these AMD Turion duo-processor systems with processor numbers that run from 56-64 ARE automatically capable of recognizing all 4 GB of RAM as they more easily install a 64-bit version of Vista? I KNOW all the "real experts" in the industry keep saying Intel's Core 2 Duo technology has "left AMD in the dust," and that if they don't respond with something comparable soon, they'll be a "memory" in the CPU business, yet there still appear to be far more AMD-based desktops AND laptops on the market than Intel, mostly at the better prices... Every time I've checked one of the AMD-based laptops out at one of the stores and looked at the Windows Experience Index for Aero performance, they PROCESSOR SCORE was IDENTICAL to that for a Core 2 Duo chip running at the same speed (for instance, I looked at an HP 6100 laptop at OfficeMax this afternoon that used the TL-60 processor (2 Ghz), and the processor scored 4.8, which is EXACTLY what I believe some of you (Orev, for instance), told me YOU got when you ran a WEI check on YOUR SYSTEMS in the CPU section of the results...

HOWEVER, thus far every single AMD-based laptop I've checked has ALSO had an OVERALL SCORE of 3.0, and in EVERY SINGLE CASE it was using the 6150 GRAPHICS CHIPSET (that's built into the motherboard, I believe, isn't it?)... I've looked at a couple of those systems on the HP site, and that graphics solution is the ONLY OPTION OFFERED on some of those laptops, so it appears to me THAT'S where the REAL PEFORMANCE HIT comes in on those systems -- particularly if for some reason they simply CAN'T support an additional graphics card like the 7600, 8400, 8600 and so forth... That may ALSO explain why most of those systems are priced around $800, even with a 2 GHz. processor and 2 GB of RAM -- they're simply BOTTLENECKED in their graphics solution (this is just my best educated guess here -- based largely on the bad experiences Kubel has had trying to use his 6*** series to drive an external monitor).

At any rate, my REAL questions here are about installing Linux and what difference it would make... how much benefit it would be to me, how much functionality I would lose of programs I'm used and depend upon and how much of a "learning curve" there would be.

GREAT INFO provided in this thread by you, Lupin, Orev, and Brad, by the way!
Jeff

 

As far as I understand, the AMD64 and Intel E64T extensions are effectively the same - it allows ANY 64 bit OS to addess the processor thusly. It's the 32 bit OS's that have issues regardless of whether they have the 64 bit extensions or not. I do know that there isn't an AMD or Intel specific rev of any Microsoft OS - they are either x32 or x64.

And yes, you can dual boot to Linux without loosing Vista or any installed applications - Lupin can elaborate further.

 

Linux will be able to see all 4GB of RAM if you use the correct kernel. It's supposedly a hack, but it works well enough. Vista will too if you use the 64bit version.

As for Linux, you need to know that Linux is not Windows. Don't expect it to be a drop-in replacement. It excels at different types of tasks than Windows does. Yes, it will work fine for email, web browsing, IM. Office support is mostly OpenOffice. For photo stuff, there's GIMP for editing, but it's a little strange. You can run MS Office in linux if you buy something like Crossover Office. Most people are used to Windows, and it can be disconcerting going to Linux.

The benefits of Linux are that you'll learn something new, it's free, it will change your understanding of how computers work, and you will find things that you can do with your computer that you didn't think about before.

There is an easy way to try out Linux though. Download the FREE Vmware Server and install that on your Windows machine. Then you can download and install Linux INSIDE vmware, and you don't have to dual boot or anything. VMWare is an amazing product.

 

Hey guys my dad bought a dv6000t and I bought a dv8000z last year, because my last laptop a hp zd7000 broke. Do you guys think I can get 20% off the laptop if call hp? since the zd7000 broke a week after the warranty expired and I yelled at them. Im looking to get a dv9500t.

 

I'm also a student in high school?

 

And your theory of why you will get the 20% off is...

because you YELLED at HP?
because you're a HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT??
because your zd7000 broke a week after the warranty expired???
(don't you know EVERYTHING breaks a week after the warranty expires? -- in SOME PLACES that's THE LAW!)

Hey... who knows... I once had a friend who offered some sage advice I've never forgotten... "nothing ventured, nothing gained," meaning, that if you never ask, you'll never know.

So try and see.

Good luck,
Jeff

 

Can you run Playstation3 software on your XBox 360? Or play a VHS tape on your iPod? No. Same goes for running Windows software on Linux. That's not what it was designed to do.

If you want to use a Playstation3, you need Playstation3 games. Not nintendo games. Not atari games. Not sega genesis games. Likewise, if you want to run Linux, you need Linux software.

That said, there is a ton of software available for Linux. Firefox, RealPlayer, Blender, OpenOffice, etc. A lot of the same stuff that's also available on Mac OSX and Windows.

 

Are you asking because you're not quite sure?

 

i've hear that the fan on the dv9000's can be rather loud and ongoing. is anyone experiencing that for i was hoping to buy this notebook as a student but i don't think i could have a loud computer in my lectures.

 

I never heard anything on the 9535 I've played with at Best Buy... Then again, I didn't exactly put it up to my ear and listen, either, although I DID pick it up and look at all sides, to see what ports it had and how it looked top, bottom, front, back, etc. -- looks like it would make a SWEET note-taker, too -- if not too big for you to carry around -- when I went back to college 85-90 I was SOOOOO wishing this sort of thing was available... not quite there yet, then.

As I'm now T-minus 3.5 hours and counting on my Tax-Free Weekend (planning to call HP just after midnight, lol, with the system build up on the screen), my SOLE QUESTION at this point is SHOULD I GET THE HP SPORT BACKPACK???

It SAYS the 17" notebooks will fit in it on their website (albeit "a snug fit"), and the price is $49.95, which ain't bad considering comparable bags made to fit 17" notebooks I saw locally were like $70 or so (although maybe BIGGER AND BETTER)... My question is twofold:

1. Has anyone actually USED this bag with a 17" HP laptop and seen for him or herself how well it fits (and how much room there is for anything else) and, perhaps even more importantly;

2. While on the one hand it might be kinda "cool" to have an HP laptop in an "HP" bag, is that just BEGGING someone to steal the bag??? In other words, am I better off with a bag that doesn't ADVERTISE what it's for?
Jeff

P.S. I posted this question on a different thread 2.5 hours ago, but no responses, and this thread is more active right now... If you have no experience with the bag, I'd still take OPINIONS--Jeff