Compaq V4000t Owners

Hello,
While I wait for my my new V4000t I have a few questions.
1) Did you recieve a copy of Windows XP on a disc?
2) Which programs/crapware did you delete?
3) What firewall, antivirus, spyware, or other programs did you download?

I really don't want alot of crap on my computer. If I get a windows XP disc I would just like to reinstall windows. I can't wait to get my laptop.
Tim

 

It came with an operating system disc and a drivers and applications disc.

It lets you install a clean version of Windows XP and then choose which drivers and programs you wish to install using the other provided disc. Make sure you look over each driver and program carefully when installing them. There are a few automatically checked off in there that you don't need like the intel graphics driver.

With the fresh version of Windows all I really had to remove was MSN Explorer and even that wasn't really a big deal. I used the windows firewall and it seemed to work fine.

BTW, I just returned my v4000t because of problems I was having with the touchpad. It would stop functioning for a few seconds and I was always having problems with the scrolling. It came with scratches on the surface so maybe that's what was causing it. Don't know if that was normal or not but I decided I wasn't going to take the chance. I'm going to reorder one and now i'm going to be worrying about dead pixels all over again considering i got lucky last time and didn't have any.

I'm going to miss it for a while. Here's a pic of it running bf2 on high settings. better get more ram soon hehe.

 

1) Did you receive a copy of Windows XP on a disk?

Yes! SP2
It also came with an HP driver disk.

2) Which programs/crapware did you delete?

None so far.
It really doesn't have very much in the way of programs/crapware preloaded on it. It does have an Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 CD and a Microsoft Works 8 & Money CD that you can install at your leisure. It also has so other trial software such as MS Office 2003 that you can install if you like. But I don't think it is taking up much room.

3) What firewall, antivirus, spyware, or other programs did you download?

Norton 60 day trial that you have to activate if you want it.

I had originally intended on formatting and loading XP Pro. But, I've been very pleased so far!

 

WonderDude,
So did you decide to get the Antec cooler again? I haven't ordered one yet but I know I will need to. I am waiting for new egg to drop their prices on ram again. They went back up to like $70.00 per stick of 1Gb . Oh well, my V4000t hasn't shipped yet anyways.
How do I go about re-installing window XP? Should I do that first before even starting up the laptop for the first time? I really don't think I need any of the crap software on it.
Thanks,
Tim

 

taylor138,
So the scratches were on the trackpad itself? That's too bad. Hope you and I get lucky with the LCDs.
BTW, What is HP/Compaq's deal with dead pixels. How many need to be dead for it to be replaced? Thanks for all the quick replies.
Tim

 

Thanks for the picture. NOW I CAN'T WAIT TO GET MY LAPTOP. I WANT TO PLAY BF2!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well at least the printer comes tomorrow. Yeah
Tim

 

Is there a guide to re-installing Windows XP? Sorry for being a noob but this will be my first pc of any kind. Of course I am using one right now , but it is my dad's so I don't really mess with it.
Thanks,
Tim

 

Hey timu!

I did go back to the Antec. I tried the aluminum Bytecc that Newegg carries. But it just doesn't cool like the Antec. I found that I can play any game with the Antec on low. And it's very quite! It doesn't fit as well as I'd like it to under the laptop. But it works good enough. And it looks really cool! I of course had to get the pearl version to go with my silver V4000T.

I'm sorry to hear about the RAM! You know, it's like stock. It just goes up and down all the time.

I wouldn't worry about re-installing Windows. I think you'll like it just the way it is.

 

I could feel the scratches with my finger from the day I purchased it.

Reinstalling windows is extremely easy. It was the first time I had ever done it and I had no problems. I actually didn't do it first thing, because I wanted to see what hp had preinstalled but it was pretty bad.

All you do is stick the disc in and turn the computer on. While it's booting up it will prompt you to press any key to boot up from the cd. It will bring you to the setup menu and all you have to do is follow the simple instructions.

The only thing I was a little confused about was partitioning and which way to format the disc. The computer comes with only one partition which is the full volume of the disc, but it also asks you if you want to delete that partition and let windows repartition it for you. The only difference is that if you delete the partition windows leaves about 8mb left of unpartitioned space. If you install on the exsisting partition, there won't be the 8mb of unpartitioned space. It's probably no big deal but I was wondering what the difference was.

Also, you have the option to format the disc either using the "quick" or normal formatting method (both ntfs). I don't know what the difference is but the normal took about an hour (i could be exagerating) whereas the quick took less than 30 seconds. It's probably just checking for errors and whatnot, but otherwise I don't know of any advantage in waiting the extra hour.

Maybe someone else knows something about this, I wouldn't mind having this information either.

 

Yeah,
I am not quite sure about partitioning too. I did find a guide to look at. So I should be good, but if anyone has anymore info let me know.
Thanks,
Tim

 

When I got my v4000t, I planned on just nuke-ing the entire HD and reinstalling from scratch. But I decided to turn it on first to play with it before doing so.. I loved that
Windows screen that came up to help set up a new computer.. I was shocked by that, it had everything in there as the regular Windows setup CD except for setting up partitions.

So I was booted into Windows in < 10 minutes with working Ethernet from the time I turned on the laptop. I then popped in the latest Knoppix CD, rebooted, and then booted into Knoppix. Ran qtparted to resize the NTFS partition from 80 gigs to 70 gigs. Then I rebooted again, popped the Debian Net Install CD in, set up 2 new partitions, a swap and a single root partition for Linux. Debian automatically detected that Windows XP was already installed, installed Grub with multi-boot support, added Windows XP Pro to the boot menu, and when the installer for Debian was finished, added Debian to the boot menu... I was soo totally shocked by this, I hadn't used the latest version of the Debian installer until now. It is incredibly powerful, but the GUI is still a bit ugly visually (not that it really matters much as long as it works.. I mean really, its not like you need to spend much time looking at a Linux OS installer screen.. Windows on the other hand... If they didn't have a pretty installer screen, that'd be a REAL problem... )... Now that I think back, I bet that Debian installer would have allowed me to resize the NTFS partition, so all that Knoppix booting was a waste of time.

Within an hour, I was running Windows XP Pro, and Debian with all the patches installed. I ran into a little hiccup with the Debian Stable (The X700 graphics card is too new for the drivers to be in Debian Stable).. So I switched my X-Window system over to packages from Testing... Had to download, compile, and enable the fglrx-driver package for the 3D support. That was a bit of a pain too.. Took about another hour.

But now that I'm finished, the system is just totally awesome.. Dual boot Windows XP & Debian GNU/Linux rocks.

Windows Setup with full 3D, sound, ethernet, etc.: < 10 minutes
Linux Setup with full 3D, sound, ethernet, etc. : About 2.5 to 3 hours, but only because some of the drivers aren't "stable" yet.

 

Its always a good idea to have different partition for system and data. I usually nuke the OS for the new notebook and reinstall XP pro, install all the software i want and create an Image(Ghost) of that partition. I usually just save my data to different partition coz i usually reimage every 2 months to my clean install. save's me time reinstalling everything from scratch.

 

Generally partitioning the HDD slows down the performance of computer. It's a trade off: somewhat greater security with two partitions vs somewhat faster HDD with only one partition.

 

Quick format just writes the partition table at the beginning of the disk and checks to make sure there are no defects in the table. The full format scans the entire disk for defects. Generally HDs today have an on the fly correction algorithm that will remap bad hard drive sectors to other unused parts of the the disk, so you don't have to wait for the full format unless you are really paranoid

 

Vassil_98,
You said

Okay, I am a newb at this but from what I read people say that partitioning speeds up your harddrive searches for your data. Do you have a guide or something that I can read about this? I am not trying to be a jerk I am just trying to figure this all out .

Yeah, I got my printer today , but they haven't even shipped my laptop . Oh Well.
Tim

 

As I was searching for guides to re-install Windows XP I came along this website www.tweakguides.com. Is this a credible source? I have begun to read his tweaking companion pdf. So far it looks really good, but I just wanted to see if anyone had any expirence with this guide/site.

I really wish my laptop would ship . I could really be using it for school (BF2 ). Well hopefully it ships today.
Tim
:hp:

 

I have only partitioned desktop computers and my experience shows that whenever you transfer data from one partition to another, it is slow. Keep in mind that desktop HDDs are faster than laptop hard drives and yet if you want to move a movie from C: to D: it takes a few minutes. If you have only one partition, then moving large files is instant. In both cases you fragment the hard drive but in the case of two or more patitions, COPY is always faster than MOVE. I prefer it the other way around, that is move faster than copy -- single partition.
Using a separate partition for Windows is benefitial when the partition is in the beginning of the drive and when it is not used for anything else. In this way, it stays defragmented and compressed, that is the hard drive spends less time searching for files and the OS runs faster (Yet, I'll be surprized if you can notice the difference). The greatest benefit is that you can reformat this partition as often as it pleases you without losing information from the other partitions (for example virus attacks, clean OS install, OS upgrades). Take a moment here and think about it: how often would you need to wipe out your OS? It depends on what you are doing with your computer, so if the answer is "quite often," then do it.

Years ago, it was necessary to partition the HDD because the FAT file system was restricted as to the volume it could handle. FAT32 relaxed the restictions but still there were other reasons to patition - virus vulnerability, data loss, etc. NTFS is by far the best file system !IMOP!; it is more reliable, and less vulnerable to certain type of viruses. Still, partitioning the HDD gives you greater security but it also negates some of the bonus the faster HDD and the better file system offer.

And in the end, how much space would you need for your OS? 2GB?4GB?6GB? If you set too little, bad - make sure you leave enough space for Virtual Memory. If you put too much, bad - you will have 1 or 2 GB locked for no use.
It's a matter of personal opinion but that's how I see it. I use one partition and keep my HDD at most 50% full, but again, that's what I need.