*HP HDX DRAGON Owners Lounge, Part 1*

Hmmm. I ran across this recently on a laptop I rebuilt. When I got it, the DVD drive would open at the slightest touch. Very annoying, especially when I was trying to make backup DVDs. But I replaced the drive and the new one worked fine. I don't think it was the drive though, because I put the drive i took out in another laptop and it stopped doing that. Are you sure you have all of your screws back in?? Something is amiss here, but I am betting that you won't have to take the drive apart. Maybe take it out and put it back in, but not apart.

 

Anybody have comment on digital tuner??
Thx

 

What kind of antenna setup do you have? Likely, you need a better setup or amplifier.

 

I have a question that maybe some of you will have some experience with! I recently built a storage tower with four 1.5tb drives in it. It has a multiport controller built into it, which all four drives hook into, then a single eSata connection comes out of the back of it to be hooked up to the computer. WELL, silly me didn't research enough first to know that only a motherboard with multiport controller support will work (correctly) with such hard drive towers. If the motherboard doesn't have that, and if you plug in the eSata cable, the computer only sees ONE 1.5tb drive.....not all 4 of them. So I ended up having to get an eSata-to-USB adapter in order to use my storage tower, cause NONE of my computers have multiport controller support. I can't find anything so far by googling, regarding if the Dragon's motherboard has multiport controller support. I hopefully have my first Dragon on the way tomorrow. I have bought 5 previous ones since this past December, and every single one has ended up being a scam. Thank goodness for Paypal, cause I've got my $$ back each time. I'm hoping the Dragon has support for the tower so I can plug it into the eSata port and be rocknrollin'! Anyone have any idea if support for this exists in the Dragon's motherboard? Thanks!! Also, I am gonna buy an X9000 and upgrade the processor from its current T9300. 2.0 mentioned earlier to look for a "Q" in the model number of the T9300 that was being discussed, as well as CO stepping, and the "ES" was mentioned as well. So, was that only pertinent to the T9300, or does that apply as well to the X9000? The one I'm wanting to purchase has all those specifics that you mentioned. Oh, and when I replace the cpu, do I have to use some kind of cpu grease/lube/whatever that I think I read about in one of the other millions of posts? Thanks! I'm looking forward to becoming a Dragon genius!

 

Guys, I have been using my HDX for quite a while with the factory setup and then I uninstall what I don't need. Unfortunately this is a massive install and even with SSD - over time it slows down in booting and shutdown considerably.

I just recently found VLite and managed to get quite a few applications uninstalled. Fresh install size is 5GB vs 20 (?) something GB with the factory install.

I copied all my SWSETUP folders from the factory install way back when but the only driver I am missing is the webcam driver. Does by any chance this HP driver exist?

Or have I accidentally deleted the drivers with VLite such that it cannot find them in the Lite Vista install CD? i.e. just standard Vista webcam driver.

Many thanks

 

The Sata controller in the HDX is the Sil 3531. from Silicon image's press release:

"The SiI 3531 is at the forefront of eSATA technology. Complete support for eSATA signal levels allows the use of two meter cables through multiple connection points. Support for Frame Information Structure (FIS)-based switching allows simultaneous commands to multiple hard disk drives for maximum performance. Port multiplier support coupled with massive 3 gigabit per second bandwidth allows the SiI 3531 to access multiple hard disk drives using a single cable. "

Pre-emptive congrats.

Applies to all Intel Penryn CPUs

Yes you need to use thermal compound. There's lots of tutorials on the web concerning how to apply it. Google for the specific brand you use. I prefer Arctic Silver 5 for CPUs.

 

Yep, you accidently deleted the USB driver when you Vlited it. There is no HP driver for the webcam since its driver is Microsoft generic.

 

Do we know for sure who made the 3700 in that HP notebook?

It just seems weird to put a mid tier on an advertised high performance machine like they have placed the HDX18.

If they're pulled from a machine then wouldn't the machine at very least be available or broken ones to be pulled from? If everyone would want one, I would think the fact that it can be guaranteed to work would be the biggest hurdle. That would motivate me to look for the part and wouldn't feel bad if someone got it and I didn't...YET. But if I know it would work that's good news in spite of all the doom and gloom about HPs intention to make sure it wouldn't work. If it CAN work that means I can extend the life of the only 20 inch notebook worth getting. I don't know about everyone else, but I dread the idea of moving away from this awesome machine.

 

Congrats Gambit! I had the same problem when it was still on the HP site for cto..I had just about gotten the money together for the top specs one and they took it off..and I went on to lose each auction on Ebay as well. I found a dood on Craigslist who owned a 2.5GHZ one for a couple of months and bought it from him. I love the HDX! Even still a possibility of GPU upgrade and or CPU upgrade and or overclocking would make it even better!

 

Hey does anyone know the difference between the ES631AA and the ES632AA HP QuickDocks? I've been getting the ES631AA but out of 5 I've tried only one worked with video only and not audio..then it no longer worked after a week or so. What I am seeing is the ES632AA lists the HDX under the compatibility list where as it doesn't come up for the ES631AA. I'm guessing I'll need to get the ES632AA instead, but I'm wondering what the difference is since they both have the same expansion port ends.

 

Thanks lancorp.

I've seen the ones in NewEgg.com. I'm certainly going to go with one of those..

This is the one I'm looking at..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227451

Now if (big if) Sandisk comes out with a competitive one (as in soon), I'll go with that instead as I like to support my local corporations first...

My concern is what happens in a few years when the Dragon becomes a bit outdated (even with all of the possible upgrades)....those 18.4 "inchers" don't even come close

 

Speaking of "doods", there was a dood over in the NBR Marketplace selling a couple of X9000's for $300 each (OEM, not ES). I got him to put one on ebay and used bing.com 12% CB and saved an extra $36. Total for a X9000 = $264 w/free priority USPS.

Now, need to find time to take my Dragon apart and strip out that ol' T8100.

I figure if anything, it will certainly help the resale value of my Dragon down the road!

 

Hi Everyone,

I am trying to find a spare power adapterr for my HDX and I looked through the posts here where the Kensington 90W was mentioned.

I have been unable to find any product code/ model for the one that will work with HDX/ will have the right tip for it.

Can anyone give me the model of their 3rd party power adapter compatible with HDX? It does not have to be Kensington of course and would be great if it was smaller than the one supplied.

 

Hey guys, I'm kind of new to installing fresh copies of Windows on drives (I still have the stock HP-endorsed Vista Ultimate 64 installed) and since my new Seagate 500GB drive just arrived in the mail, I'm about to install the Windows 7 64RC on the new drive. I was just wondering about drivers/compatibility etc., once I run Windows7 for the first time on the new drive in the Dragon?

Things like wireless drivers, bluetooth, even the HP touch buttons above the keyboard, how will I get those all working in Windows 7 without the HP stock CD? Or is Windows7RC smart enough to figure it out for me?

Sorry for my noobness to installing fresh copies of windows, but I just dont want to proceed without some help from you guys first. I just really want to know about essential drivers for the Dragon.

A timely response would be sweet, since I was hoping to do this first thing tomorrow. Thanks a lot in advance!

 

I have 2 tv, one old crt using digital video converter box and I can get all the sub channels, another one hdx I can't get sub channels. Both tv has same antenna and preamplifier..Is the hdx tuner same like all other lcd tv tuner, that able to tune in uhf and vhf?

 

Dood! Sweet!



What's mine say? (from Dude Where's my Car, which should have won an oscar) I think I remember seeing them on there too. Do you know if he has anymore?

 

SOLVED, All subchannel need to manually enter!! AutoScan only gives you 26-1, not -2,-3,-4 etc.

 

A question for 2.0

After a few retries of installation I managed to get a fresh clean Vista x64 SP1 install V-Lited. 5.5GB HDD space (1GB virtual memory).

All the drivers installed smoothly and used the latest Nvidia Laptop2go Video driver, etc. Everything is recognised but 2 things:

* Quicktouch button above the keyboard - the TV button
* Quicktouch eject button

First I tried installing the driver from P100 of this thread which was Quick Touch Buttons v6.40 B. No good.

Then I did a fresh install and installed the Windows Update driver for HP QuickTouch Buttons. No good. I updated with v6.40 B driver and still no go.

The buttons do work (not faulty) as the original image with the factory install works fine. Am I missing something here? Is there a sequence of driver installation that are to be followed? I left the QuickTouch buttons to the last to be installed.

When I checked the HP factory image I saw a driver 6.20 F2 and another driver which is the HP QuickTouch 1.00 C3 driver.

P.S. The infra red remote control works fine. All the Quicktouch buttons work and so does the light dimming button.

 

I look at it like this...

I would only need a quad-core and more than 8GB of Ram for my server. Anything bigger than a 20" monitor on my lap and I'll be in pain more than enjoying it. And as you can see from the Dragon, a lot of laptops are just now catching up to it. They are just now getting Blu-Ray players and HDTV tuners.

So it'll be a while before it is truly out-dated. And even then, I won't see much reason to get a newer laptop.

And I wanted to post a link to a store that has Dragons in stock. I got mine from their ebay auction. They are refurb w/ a 90-day HP warranty. I just want to help the people that are reading the forum but don't have a Dragon yet. Or those that just want to get another one (I don't blame you, if i could I would have gotten 2 )

The store's name is Eritech International. They are based in California.

Here is their page on the Dragon. It's model No. HDX9494nr...


Here is the ebay auction. I used ebay because of the paypal protection. Can never be too sure...


Oh, and at the bottom of the auction page, the seller says that there is no TV tuner with the unit. They apparently never took one out of the box and fired it up. The Hdtv tuner is there, and you get the antenna as well. I would correct them, but I am just happy to finally have my Dragon

 

Make sure you get the 120W, not the 90W. Here is a good deal on ebay with the correct tip: Kensington 33197 Universal adapter

 

Thanks for the link! I didn't know they put items in Ebay. Regardless, hopefully I'll get another one soon.

You have an interesting way of doing things. My main (but not all) applications truth be told are..... 1)Firefox and 2)TradeStation (trading software).

I dont' see a problem with Firefox for a while, but TradeStation in the next 2-3 years will certainly will.

TradeStation doesn't allow one to run their applications out of a server to a computer....

 

For those of you running (or soon will) Windows 7 RTM on you Dragons, here's a tip on where to find compatible fingerprint driver and application software. Note that if you upgrade to W7 from Vista, your existing legacy biometric support is preserved. But if you chose to install from scratch you'll need the new driver framework.

Here's a quote from Microsoft about the new biometric support in W7:

"The Windows Biometric Framework (WBF) is a new addition to Windows 7 that provides support for fingerprint biometric devices through a new set of components. These components include the following:

• A driver interface definition.

• A pluggable expansion platform.

• A client API.

• Support for fingerprint logon and User Account Control (UAC) through a credential provider.

• Basic management capabilities.

• Mechanisms to configure biometric fingerprint devices.

• Integration points that can be used to launch third-party fingerprint management applications.

These components improve the quality, reliability, and consistency of the user experience for biometric fingerprint devices that are integrated with WBF."

-----------------
Luckily for us, AuthenTec has released beta drivers that supports Windows 7. You can find the software here:
http://win7beta.authentec.com/

After you install the driver and reboot, you can find the TrueSuite management user interface to enroll or manager your fingerprint authentication at C:\Program Files\WIN7TS\TrueSuiteApplication.exe.

Note that the beta software only provides fingerprint support for W7 logon. I presume once HP starts rolling out drivers for W7 support for their current-gen laptops that contain Authentec fingerprint readers, we'll be able to get the full software suite.

 

Of no use really, if it doesn't support DigitalPersona 4 or equivalent (on the condition that such an equivalent can import years of account login data from my DigitalPersona's profile).
You need Digitalpersona (DP) for IE8 and other Windows apps, e.g. FTP clients - it's not just for logging to Windows that you use a fingerprint reader. The 64-bit Vista drivers for the fingerprint reader and DP software v4, both from the HP support site for your HDX, work 100% well under Windows 7 x64. Do not use the fingerprint reader driver suggested by Windows update.

 

I'm not arguing the value of the Authentec beta software, only that it provides something until HP releases some W7 driver support.

The DP software didn't work on my new Windows 7 Ultimate x64 installation. While the driver will install, the DP software (V3 and V4.0.1) wouldn't detect the driver (I tried three different versions of the driver), presumably because the existing Vista driver doesn't support the W7 Biometric changes. Again, this is on a NEW installation of Windows 7 RTM. If you upgrade from Vista (with working fingerprint software, it does preserve the existing driver support). After all, that's why Authentec has released new Windows 7-compatible drivers and fingerprint software. Digital Persona has no support information that I could find for Windows 7. They claim their software only supports Vista.

 

Anyone wanna help me out? After more research, this is my understanding... I do the clean install of Win7 RC, then let win7 auto-update and restart a couple times, and then I manually download the drivers that win7 couldn't find off of the HP website? Is it that simple?

ALSO, on a different topic, I read that Windows 7 will have multi-touch functionality for computers that have the multi-touch ability. Are our Dragons equipped with the multi-touch functionality?

 

The AES2501A driver that works with DP4 in W7x64 is AuthenTec v7.9.0.4 dated 28/08/2007 (aka Vista x64 era) obtained from HP site. It works flawlessly with DP4 on the HDX as well as a TX2--both running Win7 Ultimatex64.

 

See page 681 on how to install the fingerprint reader.

 

Nope, but the TX2 series are.

 

I'm sure I tried that driver and DP4 wouldn't connect to it. Glad you got it to work. Perhaps installing it in Vista compatibility mode is the key.

The Authentec suite integrates into Windows 7 new Biometric Control Panel applet and the full release will allow fingerprint support for applications as well as logon. It will be interesting tol see which product HP supplies once they officially release Windows 7 drivers.

 

I don't think I would hold my breath that HP will provide HDX Win7 drivers, unless there are generic hardware across various HP platforms, simply because the HDX has been discontinued. In other words, if you went line item for line item down the driver download page, if there are specific to HDX items, I'm betting they won't be upgraded to support Win7, much like XP support was virtually non-existent. Anyway...

Noticed you are from Big D...I grew up in FB/Carrollton area. How's things?

 

I never had a problem with Win7 and the fingerprint reader, as long as you use the older driver not the updated one from MS.

 

Thanks a million Lancorp

 

Hmm thanks man. You can definitely upgrade the CPU in these right?

 

Yep, there is a manual that's downloadable from HP that tells you how to do it step-by-step. And on page 735 of this forum, I posted a list of all the compatible CPUs for the Dragon and links to their data sheets from Intel.

 

Hmmm, TradeStation most likely will be a problem down the line. That's one of those "let's hope that they add some functionality to the software" cases.

 

My experience with W7 and HP laptops is that it is wireless friendly. I have installed it on about 6 laptops since December 2008 and it always installed the wireless driver and the bluetooth drivers wthout fail. I was able to use both immediately. Also, W7 is better at using Windows Update to find missing drivers as well. As for the Dragon, I hear there are problems with the fingerprint reader software, but i hear someone figured out how to install it on page 681.

If you are gonna install W7, copy the SWSETUP folder from your C Drive before you do anything. That contains all the driver and proprietary software for your hardware. W7 will recognize Vista drivers without an issue. So if you can't find a W7 driver, you should be able to use the Vista one. I hope it works out for you.

 

Coolbeans. You or anyone know if you can go from an SXGA to a UXGA screen?

 

Yes, you can. But you have to get the entire internal assemebly. In other words, the panel, the CCFL backlights, the inverter and cables. Then it's just a drop in replacement installation.

 

The eject button will only work if you have Quickplay installed. The TV button requires reg entries that the factory install has. Yes, HP jerry-rigged the functionality of the button. I never bothered to figure it out precisely since I don't use the TV feature nor quickplay.

 

I'm referring to who makes the entire computer, not the MXM card.

Not really. The HDX Dragon was a fluke. A one-off product for HP the likes of which will never be seen again. Everyone who has made a 20" notebook has failed to make it sucessful for obvious reasons. Asus, Dell, Clevo, and HP.

In any event, the HDX-18 is aptly pitched as high performance when you take into account the entirety of their notebook offerings. If they called it a gaming notebook, then that would be weird considering that gaming notebooks use enthusiast level graphics.

Therein lies the rub. The 8730w with 3700M is a low volume product. So not many will be available let alone borked ones to pull the card out of. Even less so as time goes by. And by the time a whole system is worth $500 just to pull a card out of, it'll be about 4 to 5 years from now. In 4 to 5 years from now, even the 3700M will be well into obsolescence. It'll be like trying go get by on a geforce 4 440go today.

The stuff that will be out in just two years will render this computer obsolete. Having owned computers for 20 years, there has never been one worth holding on to for more than 5 years. Especially when it comes to graphics.

In any event, whenever you're ready to risk $400+ on the idea, holla.

There's a vendor in Tiawan on eBAy that has 10 (standard, non-HP versions) available for $400 + 30 ship.

 

I tried the HP like you provided but it came to "Customize your dv3t series" ..do you have the actual link to the manual?

 

http://vsslfpro.zcce.compaq.com/plm...175&MEID=D3202541-AF39-41E4-8E51-6D151A75B1E6

Is that the link you're talking about?

 

Sorry, but i didn't provide a link. The forum does that.

Here is the link for the manual.

 

I agree but HP *is* still making laptops with built-in fingerprint readers and we'll see what biometric support they provide for Windows 7 there. As long as these laptops use Authentec 25nnn readers, we'll probably be in business.

Big D is getting more heat, more crime and less water! Enjoy where you're at

 

hey guys, in the interests of making the fingerprint reader work when I install Win7, which of the following options do I choose when installing?

It asks (prior to installation) if I want to go online and get the latest updates for installation, or if I don't want to, and proceed without any updates.

If I download updates, will this ruin my fingerprint reader?

 

No you will not damage or ruin it. But you will have to use software that is different from the Digital Persona software that you would normally use under Windows Vista. In order to use the Digital Persona software, you would need to use an older version of the driver instead of the one that Windows Update finds and installs for you. At least that's my understanding.

 

I will repeat, have you read page 681 of this thread? Your answers on the fingerprint reader have been figured out already. Post 6801 answers your question.

 

Windows 7-64 MC HD tuning issues...

Been running the Windows 7 RC for a few months now. Seems the last couple (few) weeks, signal quality for OTA HD in the NYC area has gone completely useless for high draw broadcasts such as the PGA championship on Sunday. Even more, when I use the W7MC tuner to use the cable box (ie 704) to capture via S-Video, W7MC insists on using the OTA HD channel. The only work around this issue is to record the standard def channel over S-Video. This problem exists for CBS, Fox, and NBC. All other channels are fine.

I'm not sure if the same issues exist in Vista, but may try to re-install my Vista image this weekend just to try.

Anyone else running Win7RC in the NYC area, or anywhere else for that matter, having similar issues?

 

For those of you who have recently purchased your dragon like I have, as a factory refurbished model through a reseller: I am currently in the process of checking with HP's upgrade service to see if my laptop purchase qualifies for the free upgrade to Windows 7. HP's website mentions that HDXs and even certain refurbs qualify for the upgrade if they were purchased recently, but I wasn't able to use the online tool to request it. I called but was told that the computers were down. Once they get their computer system sorted out, I'll let you guys know what I find out. Here's the link: http://www.hp.com/united-states/consumer/windows7-upgrade/index.html

 

I did refer to that page and that post before my previous question; it doesn't address updates BEFORE installation; only at when to update AFTER installation. I do not retract my question.

That page was very helpful however, it was exactly what I was looking for! Thanks for that help.