*HP HDX DRAGON Owners Lounge, Part 1*

Thats Superb. Thanks RemyL75

 

Just to add I am based in the UK. The G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) that RemyL75 recommended is unfortunately not availiable in the UK . Any other recommendations???!!!

Cheers

Lucas

 

did it get cheaper or is it just me?

 

Yeah it did. It used to be $280 for the kit and buying them separately was cheaper. I don't mond the price drop though, long as I can get them and an SSD

 

<tempted to get it....but if it will drop even more in price later in the year...will wait.

 

wow! i typed a message just before this one but the text is not there. is this one for the record books? that is a post with 0 characters(despite me actually typing a message)?

wow! i beat the minimum characters thingy.

anyway...i said if it will get even cheaper later in the year...i will wait.

 

GSkill 4GB Memory Stick:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231202



GSkill 4GB x2= 8GBs of RAM:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231210

They beat me to it.

 

Dominick 7 - I think he can't get those because he is in the UK.

DV7T - The board likes playing havoc with your posts I see. NOT COOL BOARD!!!
As for the memory getting cheaper later in the year, I am tempted to wait, but I am also afraid of them not having them anymore as the newer laptops are using DDR3. I don't want to wait and then they discontinue some of the slower speeds of DDR2. I'll take the hit if it means I can get it before they take them out of the stores.

 

Thanks for all the help so far guys but the GSkill 4gb stick is not availiable to me from newegg.com as I live in the UK! Any other suggestions would be welcome.

Lucas

 

You can try Ebay (I see at least one being sold on there), or do a google product search or regular search/yahoo search and add uk in the searches. It's code is F2-5300CL5S-4GBSQ or you could search for 4GB GSkill 5300. These guys I think are in Ireland so I'd think they'd ship to the UK possibly: http://www.memoryc.ie/products/desc...y_module_single-5_5_5_15-SQ_Series/index.html.

 

Bought a new battery from HP. Problem is system does not see it. Is there a trick to get it to work?

Thanks,
Scott

 

Cheers Dominick_7. Just had a browse at the http://www.memoryc.com/computermemory/ddr2sodimm/4gbgskillpc25300sqseriessingle.html website. It works out to be $175.77 just for ONE module !!! You guys in the USA don't know how lucky you are . I'll keep on searching for a better price and i'll let you know what my results are!

Is the GSkill Module the only compatible 4gb module for my laptop or is it the best one?

Cheers for all the info guys.

 

Any PC2 5300 DDR2 667mhz 200 pin SODIMM will do. Timing of 5-5-5-15 or 5-5-5-12. Lower latency RAM (like 4-4-4-12) has no meaningful effect. Difference would be 0-2%.

So Kingston, Crucial, Mushkin, etc are all fine.

 

On the sublect of wlan cards, I bought my son a pre-configured HP dv7-3079wm from Walmart this Christmas. Blu-ray, ATI 4650 1GB dedicated gpu, 640 GB 7200 rpm hd, etc. Pretty awesome machine for a 10 year old, for 790 bucks

Anyway, it has the AR5009 a/g/n card, and it blows my intel 4965 away. Shows full signal on 2.4 ghz net at least 50-60 ft farther away than mine, and is noticeably faster. Shows full signal on my 5.0 ghz net in his room, other side of house from my router, where mine avaerages 2-3.

I've asked this before, but is it possible to use this card in our HDX? I could just as easily swap it to see, but thought I would ask again. Cheers.

 

It will work in the 2nd PCI slot. 1st slot (where your 4965 is now) is BIOS whitelisted so only those cards approved for the HDX work. @nd slot any card will owrk as long as you have the driver.

 

Yeah, I had a DV7-1240US and that card has great range. I didn't get a 5.0router till after I sold it to go and get my Dragon tho. So I didn't know that it could even pick up that signal till my friend brought it over so I could install Windows 7 on it. Helluva card.

 

hmmm.....true...i guess i would be gambling by waiting. tough decision. on another note. here is a newegg link to the drive i got awhile back. looks like price came down $30.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ebooks+/+Laptops-_-Western+Digital-_-22136459

$99 shipped seems like a great deal. i heard it was $90 on black friday. i woulda bought another then, if i knew.

btw, anyone have any coupon codes for newegg? or is there a bing cashback for newegg? just thinking.

 

also battery price is hovering around $56 through hp for our precious dragon
http://www.shopping.hp.com/store/product/product_detail/GJ114AA/
that's without coupons too. i'm sure you can find some coupons.

i just found a coupon ACY93421 ($15 off) must be used by the end of the day jan.16

makes this battery $41 out the door! (add about $2 for tax if it applies) free shipping. hmmm....should i get a third battery? LOL (already have 2).

 

ya.

it's kinda cool cuz it goes beyond the forum's own code stuff to have a minimum amount of characters. i beat the forum computer!

 

Greetings from Paris !

The Port Designs ( www.portdesigns.com) 17" and 18.4" notebook case (ref S18) fits the HDX tightly.
I find the larger 20" cases way too large.

 

Yay! I got a working replacement Intel 5300 in the mail today and I'm getting Sent- 12,290,265 Received- 116,742,708 while loading all my tabs. I get all full bars now and it feels like this thing has muscle.

 

wow. tight fit.which case is that exactly?

 

Hi everyone
Had a little scare with my Dragon last night and would like to get an opinion as to whether I have something brewing or not. I apologize if this gets a little lengthly.

Powered it up and it got as far as the welcome screen and froze -I could still move the cursor, but that was it. Held the power button down, turned it back on, and got the message that there may be a hardware of software problem, and gave 4 choices: Start Windows normally, start with last known configuration, safe mode, and safe mode with command. Tried 3 times with start Windows normally, once with last known configuration, and each time I had to hold the power button down because it only got as far as the black screen with the moving bar (sorry) with Microsoft underneath it. Tried once in safe mode, it displayed the drivers, and then froze. Tried the last known configuration one last time, and then got a message that a disk had to be checked for consistantcy. It did its thing, then restarted. I got as far as the welcome screen and it froze again. As a last resort, I unplugged it and took the battery out, and held the power button down for one minute. Powered it back up and thank goodness it was working again! Anyone think there is a problem somewhere or did it just have a brain-fart or something? Thank you for reading, and apologize again for the length!

 

did you do an update just before shut down or restart? also did you download anything? install anything? i would check with your antivirus antispyware. if not, then ur ok i would say.

my guess is on malware.

 

dv7t, the full link to the S18 is :

http://www.portdesigns.com/new/inde...option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=169&lang=english

 

Problem classification: Zoiks!

Solution: De-bork. (What you did.)

Nothing to worry about at the moment. But if it starts happening frequently, let us know.

 

oh speaking of power stuff. often times in the past (i know better now) if i had my hdx on battery and it ran down to critical percent, where i have it go to hibernate...

well, if i didn't realize for one reason or another that it was going to do that, and wanted it to stay on, but i literally plugged in the power 1 second after the screen started fading, it still would not matter and it would just hibernate anyway. this is normal right?

but what seemed weird is that after it shut down (hibernated), the charge light now sometimes never lit AND when i powered it back on through to windows, it showed in the system tray as not charging as well. not sure why??

needless to say, if it initiates hibernation or whatever, i wait til it's done then plug it in.

 

Ive had a few weird things like that happen. Usually I find something got corrupted.. Just this week, I did a system restore and now I can't play Blu Ray.. Going to try not to do that again:/ I just got some Blu Rays too:/ Mauybe it's an excuse to get Windows 7...

 

Thank you all for your input - I feel better about it now. And dv7t thanks for the battery link and the coupon - a sweet deal!

 

ur welcome. i totally forgot i just posted that.

 

<..........oops.

 

Hey man thanks for this list. Some of the links don't work anymore, such as the Intel Chipset and the Fingerprint reader. Could you possibly update the links for the drivers to make sure they are the correct versions or list the right number they have please? Unless you haven't tested them or what not.

 

Odd not sure what happened. I tested the links before I posted but they somehow got broke when I posted them. I have updated them all in the original post and they all work now. I also put caveats for some of the drivers. For one a new version of the Intel chipset drivers have been released and I am currently using them without issue.

 

Awesome thanks man! Does QuickTouch still give you problems?

 

Short answer yes.

All the buttons work if I leave the OSD enabled. But if I adjust any sound setting in any screen expect the windows desktop, like while watching a Blue-ray or playing a game it would freeze on the screen or crash the app.

I had to disable the OSD to be able to change the sound on the fly. The Bass/Treble slider does not work but it can still be adjusted in the sound options. The volume slider works just fine.

 

I ordered and cannot get the system to see the battery? Possibly defective? Never thought a battery would be DOA?

Is there some majik I am missing with a simple swap of a battery?

Scott

 

what's the status of your battery problem.

did you try again?

 

By OSD you mean that volume bass and treble settings box that pops up? Hmm ok. No big deal. All of that works in Vista for me. I've been trying to get a copy of Vista Ultimate 64 bit full for around $170 but can't seem to get one on Fleabay or elsewhere just yet.. just the OEM.

 

The old battery, charges to 100%, but runs out of juice in like 10 minutes. The new battery is never recognized by the system. It is for a second, says charging, then no valid battery....

 

Yep, On Screen Display.

 

With the system off and the AC plugged in, do you see the charge light lit?

If so try charging the battery for a few hours or overnight with the notebook OFF.

If no charge light when the unit is off, then battery is likely dead.

 

What is the best HDX dragon around? I got one of the 9010nr's and love it, but I am getting another for work and wanted saw the ones with blu-ray and the nvidia card were better. Does the nvidia card support wuxga (1920x1200)? What other benefits does that model have over the 9010nr? How many models are there?

Lots of questions

 

Technically, there are only 2 versions of the HDX. And that's based on motherboard. One was ATI only. The other ATI & Nvidia.

The models with numbers like (9010NR or 9494NR) are retail configurations and not custom made to order. Custom made models were series 9000, 9100, 9200, 9300, 9400, 9500(rarest EU version).

Yes, Nvidia card supports 1920x1200.

As for the best HDX to get, anything with model number 9200 and up since they will have the ATI/Nvidia motherboard. If no model is listed, but Nvidia card is listed, it will be 9200 and up as a model.

 

Thanks 2.0 for the reply, thats excellent information, now I just need to find a place selling the nvidia based models do all nvidia based models come with blu-ray?

 

No, not all. 9494Nr (which was the most common retail config) does but it comes with the WSXGA+ (1680x1050) screen.

 

Theres the HDX Dragon (HDX9000 series) that came with the 20 inch screens either WUXGA or WSXGA and then there's the successor the HDX18s with an 18 inch screen and HDX16s with a 16 inch screen. The first one has the best specs, not counting the couple of better processors up to I think the best was a 2.5 GHZ Quad core, and barely noticeable better memory, but the GPU was weaker in the 18s and 16s than the HDX Dragons.. none of these are configurable on the hp site anymore. The Nvidia card supports WUXGA, it's what I have and it's excellent. With the Dragon I believe you could get it with 2.1, 2.2, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, and the Core2Extreme 2.8 ghz processors, and CAN get it that is IF you can still find any on Ebay or elsewhere..of course with the NVIDIA 8800 GPU. You can get up to 8GBs of DDR2 ram in them. Can't think of anything else right now. I THINK there may be a couple of HDB18s on Clearance at HP perhaps still, other than that you'll have to do searches for all of them for listenings at Ebay and other places. This forum though handles the Dragon not the HDX18s and HDX16s (with optional backlit keyboard). Hope that answers your questions.

 

Gotcha, no big dealio. HDX are weird though sometimes.. some can do higher overclocking on the GPU than others, some have odd things like if you switch the Wifi card 2.0 gets the WIFI Quicktouch as orange, when I get blue still. I wonder if I'll have that problem when I can get a good price on Windows 7. Maybe I should have just gotten the OEM at 158.. Oh well I can wait I guess. Thanks again for the write up on the Windows 7 drivers, I have them waiting in a folder on my extra hard drive when I'm ready.

 

Add Me to the list of Battery troubles with my HDX 9300. Same problems as Scott T. Ordered new battery and it acts just like the two previous batterys.
Says it's charged 100 % runs about 2 minutes then dies. Using Battery check software it says the primary batter is not detected. Also just Flashed the Bios to most recent Version but still no luck with the battery. With battery installed and plugged into A/C power I get the Chargeing light on the front (Lightning bolt) flashing in blue as if it is charging but the system tray shows the battery icon with a red X thru it.

 

the charging light should not be flashing. that's all i know. it should be solid.

 

hey lancorp or 2.0, pm me or post about the rockitfish enclosures you got. wondering about differences in board tags. specifically there is a sticker on it like 9E10 or whatever 9xxx it is, and the date code along with a mystery alphanumeric underneath (like T3 or T6).

just wondering what if any differences are, which may be a later manufactured board, if the later ones support higher capacity drives, etc.