All Owners Of The New NC/NX 6000/8000 Series

I was wondering if all owners of a new NC6000/8000 or NX6000/8000 series check to see if they have 1 or 2 IDE channels on their notebook.

Goto Device Manager -> IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers and tell me if you have Primary & Secondary listed or just Primary.

My NX8220 has only 1 Primary IDE Controller that the DVDRW & HDD is connected to. I'm getting performance problems when trying to write to DVD media on this drive. The buffers just continuously just from 5% to 99% throughout the entire burn. The read buffers also constantly drops to 0% and then slowly climbs back up. This happens when burning onto 2.4X +R media, imaging trying to burn to 4X -R media, I'm sure it'll take over 1hr to burn since it'll continuously get buffer underrun problems.

Anyone else having similar problems burning to DVD?

Thanks in advance for the responses!

-Vb-

 

Venombite,

My nc8230 also has only one Primary IDE Controller. The HDD is at location 0, and the DVD is at location 1.

I have not tried burning DVDs yet, as I just got this machine (a DOA replacement) yesterday.

By the way, this time they sent me a brand new unit, and everything worked fine right out of the box.

 

Hmmmm....that's a weird setup for HP to have for their new notebooks. It's common practice to have the devices on 2 different controllers for this exact reason (performance). I wonder why they've opt'd to use only 1 IDE channel (other than the cost factor)?

Please report back after burning a DVD to let me know what happens. Since my DVDRW drive is only 2X-R & 2.4X+R, the +R media was the one that started with the performance problems. If you have a 4X drive, try it with 4X media and see what happens.

Thanks,

-Vb-

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Venombite

 

Hi,

I am talking to HP Support at the moment, but am not getting very far with them.

Turning off the Bluetooth Module, introduces this noise. Turn on the Bluetooth module, noise is gone (only after disabling power management for the USB Root Hub connected to the Bluetooth module) + it sucks battery life.

They have now advised me to install the DirectX 9c update, which they did to remedy a similar problem with an NX7010 notebook running Windows 2000 Pro...

I doubt it will work, but worth a go eh!

If the NX8220 doesn't do the job for me, which laptop will?

Cheers,

Rob

Rob Jones
HP NX8220 (UK)

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Chrispz
Hi,
maybe mine, is a newbie question : the burnin problem happens also when you try to write to cd ? Have u fixed it?
Now a little OT:
I've read your an expert about toshiba-hp laps; i'm going to buy mine in few days ( maybe tomorrow!!!), and my first choice was a nx8220; above all i was searching for a solid-construction notebook; compared to toshiba TECRA s2/m3, dell latitude d610, lifebook e8020, the nx8220 is still the best for the construction, the materials used and build quality?
Tha pitch sound is a common problem and somehow is it possible to solve? ( i discovered this issue only today readin your posts)

Thanx in advance,
Bye
<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

Chrispz,

The problem doesn't seem to be resolvable as this was the way HP designed notebooks. Anything that has a high speed burn will cause the performance issue. I have also tried a to burn a CD. I reduced the burn speed to see if it will reduce the buffer problem, well, it did but it was still present. The all the media I have tried burns properly, but the write buffer will jump around between 5% to 98% thourghout the entire burn. Reducing the speed will make this happen less, but it's still there. Hopefully HP decides to make a change to their design.

Regarding the construction, I think the nx8220 has an excellent build. It's very solid, no un-necessary flexing anywhere on the unit. I would personally stay away from the Toshiba's. I've been repairing these recently and I must say they have high repair rate. Our facility repairs IBM, Toshiba, HP Compaq Business & Dell notebooks & desktops. All have been IBM & Toshiba's, mainly systemboard changes. From other comments on this site, some say the Fujitsu has an excellent build quality.

In my personal opinion, I think the HP provides the best balance between cost, performance & quality. Even with the minor quirks this unit has (LCD clarity, IDE Channel, high pitched noise), I would still recommend this unit.

As Bonkersrob indicated, the problem with the high pitched noise seems to be related to the Bluetooth module. We have both tried a few things and having the Bluetooth module enabled in the BIOS & OS seems to eliminate the noise. Bonkersrob has also posted a similar issue with the N610c series notebooks, but this problem has been present in most of there Pentium M Business product lines (had the N610c, N620c, N800c, nx7000 & nx8220 units, but returned them, getting an exchange on the nx8220).

Since there seems to be a workaournd for the noise issue (this is the biggest problem), you should be ok with this unit. Also, if you don't like it, HP does have a 30 day return/refund policy for their notebooks, which gives you an opportunity to see if you like the unit or not.

-Vb-

 

Really helpfull,
so, if i understood properly, the buffer floats but it doesn't create any problem with the burn process ( finally u have your cd or dvd written)...only it takes more time and, ok , the data are not so "safe" durin the writin..
For the second issue, the pitch noise, enabling the BT semms to solve the problem, but this operation reduces the life's battery.. almost an hour..

Ok i hope to have understood... just a little OT-final question: what's your opinion about Dell ( Latitude = their business series)?

Again thanx a lot vb,
if i'll enter in your nx8220 family, i'll try to do my best for usefull comments on this lap
[ ]

Bye

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Chrispz

 

Venombyte,

I still haven't burned a DVD yet. Actually, my only use for DVD blanks up to this point has been to burn TV programs directly from my Tivo. (DVD-R)

With respect to the IDE, I was under the impression that the Sonoma chipset has native support for SATA 1.0a. I don't know if it has native PATA support. If it does, maybe only one channel?

Everything I have heard about SATA 1.0a is that it doesn’t give a noticeable improvement over PATA. Even the NCQ feature of SATA 2.0 doesn’t seem to help much. In some cases (so the tale goes) it actually degrades performance, although this is probably just an early implementation problem.

However, as you have pointed out, doubling up on a single PATA channel creates a real bottleneck. I am not quite sure why HP used PATA HDDs in these notebooks, other than possible lack of availability of SATA HDDs in the 2.5” form factor when they were doing the design.

Wouldn’t it be nice if HP built in an upgrade path to SATA? I am not going to hold my breath.

 

Mtnmasher,

You're right, the 915PM chipset used in these notebooks do support SATA. It also seems to have 1 channel dedicated for PATA 100 and 2 ports for SATA 150.

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/mobile/chipsets_comparison.htm

I guess HP decided that the 1st round of production will come with PATA, while subsequent models will include "enhancements" like SATA. I guess this helps them stay competitive. It's possible they just didn't have any SATA drives available at the time, but it's not that difficult to install a small adapter that converts a PATA to SATA interface. They have these adapters for desktop HDD's, why not do the same for the notebooks? This would have alleviated the bottleneck. Plus, this would have easily given users the option to use SATA drives once they become readily available.

-Vb-

 

Venombyte,

I would be surprised if they didn't wire up at least one of the SATA ports to a connector on the mother board. I could understand them saving a few cents by not stuffing the connector, but I would be surprised if the traces and hole pattern weren't there.

I wonder if the schematics are available somewhere?

 

Mtnmasher,

I doubt they would have wired it up. If they did, what will they connect to it? They already have decided to use PATA devices one the PATA channel, having an SATA port wired would just be a waste of money & time. I'm sure they have the solder points for the SATA ports, but they probably won't attach anything to it until they decide to make SATA available. I guess it mainly comes down to marketing. Come out with PATA for a while, once the performance starts to dip vs other faster notebooks, they'll all of a sudden have an SATA "upgrade" option available, at a cost of course. Eitehr that, or they were just too cheap to even have the option available on the chipset.

I just read a post from a user, Havok_rls2, regarding Dual Channel Memory support for the ZV6000 & R4000 series notebooks that use the AMD CPU's. The chipset support Dual Channel memory, but according to Havok_rls2, HP has hold him that the chipsets that HP used in the ZV6000 & R4000 don't have this support. Weird huh?

http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17914

-Vb-