*HP HDX DRAGON Owners Lounge, Part 1*

ahh...the thing is i cannot find a link anymore. i think it ended earlier this month...through microsoft at least. will have to see if i can find another link. i'm not good at that stuff though.

 

No worries. Just knowing that it CAN be had -- is all the knowledge I need for this.

It could very well be a "beginning of the semester"-type of thing. That would entirely make sense. I can certainly wait.

Thank you again for bringing this up!

--Alex

 

If there's no difference in price, and you believe you'll find a use for Bitlocker and win 7 in 35 languages, get Ultimate.

Otherwise, Pro will have more than you need already or in the future (as in next 3-4 years until a new OS comes out).

 

You talking about this?: http://www.microsoft.com/student/en/us/software/windows-7.aspx

 

Hey Dom,

I think you'll appreciate the much improved Firefox 3.6. Especially in the area of memory management.

 

Brilliant! Thanks a ton for that link, Dominick_7! I think I remember reading a page back (I view at 100 posts per page -- so my 'pages' may be different from yours) -- I can indeed use the "upgrade" for a fresh install, correct? Just a matter of running the course twice? Not a problem at all -- just want to make absolutely sure.

2.0 -- Appreciative of the heads-up here! Not sure why Firefox didn't update itself. But, I can indeed see a noticeable difference.

--Alex

 

Yes, you can use the upgrade to do a fresh install. You don't need to run it twice if the HDD you are installing it to already has Vista on it. It looks for the bootloader and if it finds it, all is well. Then you can use the upgrade disk to format the HDD.

If you are installing it to a brand new HDD/SSD, then you have to run the intsaller twice. 1st time as custom. 2nd time as upgrade.

YW.

 

Sweet! Now I need to find someone with a college email haha. I'd like to buy a few of these in case I get another HDX, for another PC, and or for someone else.

Another thing I was thinking of doing was creating a partition or image/clone of a clean install with all the drivers, and another with all my software installed..any recommendations from you and others for the best image software ala Norton Ghost or what not?

One other thing I was wondering was there was someone or a couple of people on here I thought that wanted to try to see if they could make that 1TB hard drive fit in the HDX (I guess minus bracket), anyone try it? Thanks.

 

Really? Cool, I'm going to have to wait though till the DigitalPersona, TabMixPlus, and a few other addons surely work for it. I'm having my best friend test it out for me right now, but she says it still freezes for her like it does for me currently. She does say it's faster though which is cool.

Hey does anyone know of a really good coupon for the HP MediaSmart Server EX495? I see a $10 off coupon, but a few weeks ago before I had the money, I got it down to $590 including that coupon and my student discount when it was on sale, $633 or so with tax..but now it's back up in price.. It'll be $663 with tax, that coupon and my discount.

 

TabmixPlus .038 works fine. Digital Persona 5.0.0.379 works fine also.

Don't know what's causing freezes on your and your friend's comps.

As they say in the south, "y'all must got sumpin' strange goin' on up in there."

 

Dom,

Yeppers ... the pixels, or the triplets, as I call them, do turn an ugly shade of light brown/gray when I cruise the UDP box over them, and then start to fade. But within seconds they gain color and come back about half way to black. Leaving UDP running seems to be doing little at this point and massaging the pixel area does nothing. But moving UDP's blinking box over them repeatedly does have some effect. I'm wondering how much longer is prudent to keep screwin' with this though. My Dragon is absolutely mint for a year and a half old and this is the only (knock, knock, knock) thing to have gone wrong. I guess I'll dink around with it for a few more weeks, but I'm starting to see little flashing RGB boxes of light everywhere now and am worried for my sanity.

By the way, has anyone used high-end wax or polish on their Dragon? I used a very nice product produced by Zaino Bros. and I attribute the fact I have zero screen scratches, no paint rubbing off, etc., etc. to this fine product. And no, I have no stake in the company. Just great stuff. Their URL is: http://www.zainostore.com. Check out the testimonials and pictures, the stuff is amazing. It's not traditional polish or wax. Highly recommended.

Best,

Doc Eye

P.S. And the paint on the Dragon looks ten feet deep after using this Zaino stuff. Very liquid, very shiny, and very smooth effect on paint and screen alike. And it repels dust and fingerprints!

 

thanks. will pass on languages and bitlocker is cracked anyway...so no use for that.

 

thanks, but it doesn't say how much for win 7.???

i was talking about through a differnt link through microsoft, which was $30 for students, but that expired/closed on january 6. current student pricing through the same thing is like $65, which is fine, but i'd rather have it for $30.

so i am wondering if that link refers the the $30 price, then thanks, otherwise, ya i already know i can currently get it for $65....was looking for $30 deal.

 

Wow it's been hours now and no crashed or freezing. She only has like 1-2GBs of memory on XP, so that may have something to do with it. Though people talk lak dayt around her so that twang may have gone an messed her Firefox up too so who knows Everything works except for Time Tracker and the stupid HP Smart Web Printing I never use. So far so good. Thanks for the heads up yos.

 

Cracked? What do you mean? I THOUGHT that's where the 30 dollar link sent me last time, but I guess we won't know for sure how much it is unless someone uses a college email in there... Anyone have one to use to verify it's cost and what OS versions are available?

Yea I'd pay $30 over $65 any day. Can anyone check/does anyone know?

 

Hmm well the UDPixel didn't look like it was doing jack the whole time I had it on the specs sitting there TILL a week later and only for a few seconds it did that ugly brown/grey color, not even by the spec, and then the spec popped and it was gone and has been gone the whole time since. So when you massage it while UDPixel is on it, it doesn't fade them come back when the screen settles? Haha sorry to hear you're going insane, but hey, you may possibly get a perfect screen again so..

The polish sounds nice, which one do you use? Little to no fingerprints sound excellent. I really want to get some kind of plastic tape over the whole palm rest like I did before, but can't figure out which kind of 3M or other tape was on there which came with my HDX when I bought it from someone. After the stickiness wore off I started getting worn off paint.. If I replace the palm rest it'll look almost perfect otherwise.

 

referring to bitlocker. it's not secure anymore. it has been cracked=no piece of mind. no matter, as there is stuff out there that isn't.

i should have jumped on it when i was taking classes last semester. i am not currently taking any, but my email address is still good, although i have forgotten the password, so i'd have to call the school, but i don't know if that would alert them or not to cancel it, so i am kind of trying to find a way to find out that info first, before i ask for a password/reset...otherwise i would have told you all.

there is a message on msoft's website that the student store, as they called it, closed january 6th, for that offer. i guess $65 isn't bad, but until i exhausted all lesser costly possibilities, i will wait to see if it could be had for less.

 

Not true: http://blogs.msdn.com/rockyh/archive/2009/12/12/bitlocker-broken-cracked-not.aspx

 

Yo,

It's been a while. I'm considering upgrading to Win 7. Would it be beneficial to me?

My Dragon has the t8100, 8800GTS, 320 HDD, and 4 gig RAM. What kind of performance boost, if any, would I get.

If it would be beneficial, gaming or just regular computing, could you please point me to a guide for upgrading on the HDX.

I know our beloved laptop can get a little flustered if you don't use the right drivers. Took me like 2 weeks to set it straight when I first got it. I don't want to go through that again.

Thankyou for you help

(I apologize for any repeated questions from other posts, and yes I did do a search for, Windows 7 upgrade guide)

*Scratch that last, found the guide*

 

Dom,

Here's what the owner of the company emailed me:

"Zaino Show Car polish can be used on any non-porous, non-textured surface. If your plastic parts are non-porous (not textured) use Zaino Z-2, Z-3, Z-5 polish. Z-AIO, Z-CS & also Z-6 or Z-8 spray. The Z-6 works great on LCD screens as long as they're smooth, it is also anti-static."

I've used Zaino on my Vettes, Harleys, my GF's Lexuses (or is it Lexi?) and the results are phenomenal. In thirty plus years of taking care of paint on cars and bikes I've never seen anything that looks this good and is this easy to work with. No rubbing or polishing ... just apply it, let it haze and wipe off. The guy that came up with this stuff used to be a chemist for Dupont or something, and he's definitely done his homework. Just for example: I did a buddy's Road King with this stuff in June of 2003. He has yet to reapply anything and the paint looks like it was professionally detailed two weeks ago still! Can't rave enough about this stuff.

I'll keep after the pixels and slide on out of this thread for a while. I'm sure it's getting tedious for most readers. I'll report back when I have new results. Thanks again, Dom and I'd be remiss if I didn't throw 2.0 a bone. He's the best, don't 'cha all agree?

Late,

Doc Eye

 

It's a matter of personal choice. Vista is fine really. Win7 is Vista, perfected IMHO. As far as perf boost, there isn't any major one, really. Things just run a bit better. The GUI is improved. Hardware compatibility is improved. And boot time is improved noticeably.

They say win7 is more stable than Vista but I haven't noticed any gains it that department since Vista was running fine for me.

Comptrekkie has the definitive guide. Not sure what page it is on but if you search his post towards the end of last year, you'll find it. Look back maybe 10 pages or so and you'll see a link to it.

Drivers won't be an issue really as most things work right out of the box. And many of the Vista drivers also work.

*Oh, wait, I see you found the guide*

 

I dunno, while it sounds like it may look really nice, putting chemicals on where my hands are, doesn't sound too inviting. Yea if you see any difference with the pixels please do let us know. That brown/grey color is an indicator something is happening but I don't know how much you want to move the cursor over it manually. You'll probably just want to leave it on there for a month and see what it does. 2.0 is one of dem dere helpful chaps.

 

Thanks for your input 2.0. Always reliable.

 

Dom,

No man, nothing chemically weird to get on your body at all. This Zaino stuff is like fairy dust; so easy to use and the results are out of this world. Again ... I don't rave on many products, but this one will change your life if you're looking to protect and make beautiful any smooth, painted surface ranging from your laptop all the way up to whatever you're driving.

Take care,

Doc Eye

 

How do you install the drivers under "other devices" in the Device Manager? There are two drivers called base system devices that windows can not find.

 

Assuming you installed win7 recently, you need to install the Ricoh card reader driver. SP45112 will do the trick.

You can find it in the HP softpaq library: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/

*Your avatar of Jesse Livermore tells me you're a trader, no?

 

Thank you for the reply..But are you sure?.In device manager, under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, if you go down the list you will find the Ricoh xD-picture Card Controller. Hopefully this is different and yes a Futures Trader..Very astute observation..

 

Yes, you're missing two other Ricoh components:

Ricoh Memory Stick Controller
Ricoh SD/MMC host Controller

Installing the driver will add these two missing components which show up as other devices you were referring to.

Futures trader. Very impressive. I wish you very much success in that regard. And may the foolish far left politicians here and around the world (UK, France and Germany) who wish to impose a Draconian, unfair and idiotic transaction tax never have their efforts see the light of day.

 

So there's no residue? From what I understand the screen may in fact be porous, as it definitely isn't glass.

 

i'm on the far right, for whatever that's worth damn lefties.

 

Anyone who bought an internet Blu Ray burner for the HDX have anything to report as far as to how it's working out for you so far? I'm split between getting the UJ-240 external burner which has a top speed of 6x, and the internal UJ-220 burner.

Also any recommendations on a good imaging/ghosting software so I can set up my HDX and clone it so I can go back to that if I have any problems?

 

Intel just updated the drivers again. I just downloaded the latest version and will try them out this morning.

Dave

 

Acronis. And you're done.

 

Well, it's not my intention to turn this into a political debate as there are many liberal policies that have been beneficial to the US. Though this particular push for a Transaction Tax that is currently backed by only far left liberals (not centrist or mere left leaning Democrats) in the US (such as Rep Defazio, Ore., Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa, Dean Baker of Econ. Policy Institute, and Nobel Laureate and economist Paul Krugman, a NYT columinst) uses a shotgun approach to appease populous ire aimed at Wall street. I mean, Krugman went so far as describing traders as socially useless. Nothing could be further from the truth. Besides, traders had no part in the recent financial meltdown and provide a great service in the form of liquidity and price discovery.

The majority of Democrats are cool to the idea knowing that it would critically hurt the US financial sector and spread from there to industry and agriculture.

Anyway, if anyone's interested they can google Defazio transaction tax.

Last I'll say about the subject so as not to derail the thread, further.

 

My UJ-220 is working a treat.

CJ

 

How/why is it better than say Norton Ghost? Is it easy to use?

 

So how are you using it, internally/externally, if internally what do you use software wise to play Blu Rays? If you are backing up Blu Ray disks, how long does it normally take and is it possible to do Dual Layer.. or is that even something that it allows you to do? Any firmware.. is it accessible? Any input you/anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks CJ.

 

Acronis IMO, has more options and better features than Ghost. I would also suggest you look into Windows 7's Backup and restore options if/when you upgrade to Windows 7.

 

I saw those drivers and was thinking about it, but I figure I'll just wait till I install my Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit os..though I'd love to see any feedback prior to trying them.


PS: Hmm how'd you get an X7900, did you upgrade your GPU or something? I don't usually see those configurations around.

 

I have my sealed Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit sitting right here. I'm just waiting for my Mediasmart EX495 server to come in next week to clear off my 1080i DVR recorded videos and other data first. The backup and restore is like System restore right? I want something super duper good, like SPB Clone (worth some 300 bucks) is compared to SPB Backup (worth like 20 bucks or so) in the Pocket PC world. How does Acronis save..as a file you double click? An image you burn to a cd? A recovery partition?

 

The Restore features in Windows 7 is a little more like Acronis or an even better example, like HP's feature where it creates a backup image and stores it on a separate partition. I don't think you can boot to it though. I have seen some ppl use it and it can even be updated as you add programs and such to your C drive.
As for something "super good", Acronis would do everything you are asking for. It can burn to a bootable image, you can set up a reovery partition (I have never tried to do that myself), you can save to DVDs and you can even make a bootable CD that you can use to restore your computer outside of Windows. It has a lot of options.

 

Wait, I'm confused are you saying Acronis is better or Windows 7 is? I would love to be able to do all of that. Sounds like some great options. I'd LOVE if I could truly make a factory restore type of set up like the recovery dvds do.. not something that gives you an ok result, but outstanding/superior results with no problems like a recovery DVD would.

 

Speaking of the HP partition, is that the factory drivers, OS, etc. ? Why do I have to make back up discs if it is?

 

Well, between Windows 7 and Acronis, Acronis is clearly better. Windows 7 only gives you enough to get it done. Acronis does a LOT more. So I would go with Acronis for what you are looking to do.

 

It's restores everything exactly as when it was shipped to you. Do you have to make backup discs? Perhaps. Main reason to do it is in case you have to send it in for warranty repair, you would restore everything back to factory original if possible. It's not necessary but gives HP one less way to attempt to claim that you violated your warranty.

Generally though, they wipe your HDD and re-image it back to factory original.

SO if your warranty is up, you've done clean install(s), no worries.

Having something like Acronis to backup your clean install is great as it saves lots of time if you need to reinstall your OS. OR when you buy new HDD, it makes it super simple to transfer your HDD image to the new drive.

 

X7900 was a CTO option available in 2007 and very early 2008.

 

Ok, the X7900 is like $200 on ebay (seen it lower, but this is the average price), and the X9000 is $360. The only difference is the cache?!?! WTH!!

*Throws a rock at Intel's main offices and walks off*

 

i) internally
ii) PowerDVD for playback and Nero for burning
iii) Just shy of 2 hours for a DL backup
iv) No firmware updates for my model (only the Sony ones)

Cheers,

CJ

 

Ok, Acronis it is then. Cool.

 

Didn't recall that, interesting. So you say it only takes you 15 minutes to take apart the HDX and then it back together huh..