*HP HDX DRAGON Owners Lounge, Part 1*

Alright, let's try this. We're going to try to uncorrupt your driver table.

Start menu/Accessories/

Right click command prompt and choose run as administrator.

Type the following at the command prompt:

SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1

Hit enter, then type:

devmgmt.msc

This will open up the device manager to show hidden devices. In device manager, under view, select show hidden devices.

Now expand your sound, video, and game controllers tree.

Take a snapshot and post it. The greyed out ones are the old drivers.

 

*****UPDATE******UPDATE*****UPDATE*****UPDATE******

Hey Dragon loungers, I have FINALLY achieved SOUND from my 9010!!! After owning it for a year, fiddling around with it, getting mad and punching it (hence the need for a new lcd bezel ) it's doing what it 'sposed to do!!

BACKSTORY: Even with help from Remy75, Dominic, 2.0, DV7, Santa Claus, Jesus, & the baby from the squaretrade commercials(who's a smart youngin, FYI), my Highly Disappointing e Xtremity-of-a-laptop was still a mental MUTE (as opposed to a clinical mute, which isn't funny), and as you can probably gather from the verbage in my last post, I was resigned to the idea that I would evermore have to enjoy my laptop in silence, like a monk in a starbucks full of hibernating bears...but guess what, wake those DAMNED bears up (stupid bears ) because THIS monk just got KICKED OUT OF THE MONASTERY!!(sorry Jesus)

Ok ok enough ranting about my sound and let me tell you about HOW I got sound.....

You ready?.......



Wait for it........



almost there.....


Don't you hate when people do this in those chain emails?!!? Just tell me the damn thing already....

Where was I?!? OH yeah, right:

ORANGE FANTA.

That's right boys and girls, a good ol' KFC cup-full of ORANGE FANTA saved my sound (and my sanity, however that's still up for discussion) And HOW pray tell, you ask, did the sticky & allbeit mobo-hosing badness of carbonated drinks FIX my screwy problem? Well, I had to disassemble, grab some rubbing alcohol, some cotton swabs, a magnifying glass, and a bible(wow, quite a bit of christian references, eh?)

Antywhoo,
In the process of cleaning the keyboard, mousepad buttons, bluetooth module, front headphone assembly, quickplay launchpad strip and HD-DVD DRIVE(which is not working properly anymore, btw) I came across a patch of unfamiliar residue on the board, which seemed to be kinda too old & white to be relevant(kinda like John McCain, but I digress... ) after a thorough cleaning, re-assembled, and VOILA!!! sound. good. barely 18. (Ok ok, barely 20, but NO kids! --

I would like to thank the academy, and the lounge'n'eers for helping me in my plight.

I would like to also say that HP can kiss my la-z-boy warmer for selling a replacement BEZEL for the LCD for 85 BUCKS?!!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? That Shiit(ake mushroom) cost 15 dollars AT BEST to fabricate, package AND distribute - I was willing to pay 30, maybe 40 bucks top-end, but 85 DOLLARS? LUDICROUS....I can see 65 maybe 70 bucks for the remote, because it is a piece of electronic equipment, but a PLASTIC BEZEL that is all of 3mm thick, and ONLY purpose is to cover unsightly wires/brackets? THAT'S UDDER BULLSHIIT(AKE MUSHROOMS are great with a medium-well T-Bone & a baked potato)

My rant is over guys, thank you for your support.
And PS: Bulls DON'T have udders....

 

That could be since it's an ATI version and not Nvidia HDX. Will have to see the device manager description hardware ID to know. But if it is, then that might mean that the sound chip is FUBAR since specific drivers kill sound.

 

Here you go:

 

Tiking,

For each High definition audio device, I need to see the hardware IDs.

You can obtain that by right clicking each, choose properties, then Details tab, then click the drop down menu and choose hardware IDs. Copy and post that.

Edit: BTW, you can set SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=0 to restore hidden devices back. There were no old audio drivers in there.

 

First HDAD: (Is this the info you mean?)

HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_1002&DEV_AA01&SUBSYS_00AA0100&REV_1000
HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_1002&DEV_AA01&SUBSYS_00AA0100

Second HDAD:

HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_8384&DEV_7627&SUBSYS_30D4103C&REV_1002
HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_8384&DEV_7627&SUBSYS_30D4103C

 

Yeah, that's the info.

1st one is HDMI (Remy was right).
2nd one is sound hardware.

If updating the second one doesn't yield sound, then I think we're stuck here. I'll have to look into it more. But my suspicion is hardware failure.

I have to run but I'll think of something tomorrow. Sorry I couldn't be of more help today.

 

No worries. I gotta hit the sac. It's 2 in the morning. I'll check back tomorrow. Thanks for your time and help. Appreciate it.

 

I updated the second one as you suggested and now it's only sound through both head jacks and no t the speakers.

 

Also:

 

Ha Ha...yeah I saw that option after I did what he told me to do. Much easier than the Command route and easier to remember.

 

Yes, if you read the post you quoted just a little further, it was instructed to do that.

But the command line option was necessary first to show the older greyed out drivers and duplicates.

 

Try updating your video driver. Uninstall it first. Reboot. Then install a new one.

Before installing the new one, test to see if you have sound through speakers.

When you install a new one, choose custom. It will have a list on components to install. Don't install the HDMI audio if that is one of the choices.

Version 8.42: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&os=2093&product=3675225

 

Games to be installed to the HDD. After that, I'm sure you can find a way to trim down the programs you hardly ever use. No digital pack-ratting with SSDs.

Start off with the programs you NEED to be loaded fast: OS, office, browsers, productivity, business, multimedia. That should be no more than 40-50GB, really. How many installed programs are larger than a GB each? Mostly games are >GB. Then you add in some other frequently used programs you'd like to be fast.

 

I will try that wien i het home from work and let you know

 

Comcast Xfinity uses Movie Player to stream your movies and TV shows (accessible as part of your particular Comcast subscription) up to HD quality, and works really well..but that ALONE is 120GBs.

 

That's definitely something you don't want on a SSD. It likely uses the drive as a buffer for streaming. Meaning, lots of writes. Besides, streaming speeds (that are usually buffered to storage) are much slower than HDD speeds. So no benefit to using SSDs for streaming media.

 

Ok. I have followed your advice to uninstall the video drivers and delete it. Then reboot. Well i have and all i see is a black screen. I suspect window is searching for the video drivers which are no more on my computer. What do i do now? I wrote this from my mobile phone because i cannot get into windows.


Managed to get in and install the new drivers. There were no options to decide weather to install the HDMI audio, so it just install and still no sound through speakers but only from both headjacks. 2.0, so I think this is the end of the road. I'll just have to live with the setup I have now. If I want sound through the speakers I'll just uninstall one of the drivers and get sound through one headjack.

 

Need the groups concensus....SSDs...? Which are best. Looks like I need a 128GB to cover the basics. Want easy installation with max performance for cheapest price (like who doesn't). Any recomendations or warnings from owners of the Dragon....Thanks people, I really respect your opinions and knowledge and experience. Just upgraded to 8GB RAM and am ready for the final step... David

 

Read 2.0 statements on SSD size and have decded to go with 80GB on the SSD instead of the larger...Thanks, David

 

So basically you're saying I can't devote the 2nd hard drive to being only for storage. I'll have to use it for installations and that may or may not be something that would make dual booting clean and easy? If I can get another HDX I guess I can just use that for dual booting as I am trying to find an easy way to get OSX on the HDX, but now that I think of it, I guess Firefox/Hulu is not something I should put on the SSD either then, even if I want smoother browser usage? Or do I just not use the Movie software for Xfinity because it's a buffer and because of that will have a lot of writes? Also would you say the lifespan of the SSD is a guaranteed dead end or could it make it past that estimated expiration date?

 

SSD usage isn't that complex. Simple rule is you want to minimize large writes. Large writes or culmulative large writes are the enemy of SSDs.

Why put games on a HDD? Because game installations take 3+ GB each. Not that big of a deal for SSDs. But most people load games on, play them, then uninstall them (delete). Wear and tear on those precious memory cells. If it's a classic game that you know you'll always leave installed, by all means, load it onto the SSD. What will the SSD do for the game? Only one thing; make it load faster. That's it. No performance increase otherwise.

Why put multimedia on HDD? Simple. They are large files (movies can be greater than 5+ GB), often buffered, that will get erased often. The buffer itself will be flushed often. What's more, if it's streaming media, the fastest it will stream is at the speed of your ISP connection. HDDs can transfer data much faster than your wifi internet connection or gigabit LAN connection can. HDDs can do >50MB/sec transfer. Wifi and gigabit lan are only at 1MB-3MB/Sec. So why would one waste an SSD with that? Multimedia is a sure SSD life killer.

Dual booting on an SSD? Bad idea. Not that it can't be done but now you have multiple OSs on it, each accessing it in random ways that each is not accounting for. So your TRIM will be out of whack. What's more OSX requires a different type of SSD for max compatibility. There are other ways to have multiple OSs on the HDX. One on the SSD, the others on the HDD. You can add the others on the HDD to the bootloader on the SSD's OS.

On SSD life, they don't die per se. But once you reach their max WRITE life, you won't be able to write to them anymore. You can read from them though.

Browsers? They are fine. Just don't cache to disk. Especially YOU with the way you browse. Firefox allows cache to memory or no cache at all. IE let's you drop storage it down to 8MB.

SSDs are for users who first optimize their setup for efficiency, and then for speed. This is why they say SSDs aren't exactly ready for primetime. They are not hard drive replacements as they aren't storage devices in the common sense of the idea. Hard drives excel at being that. SSDs predominately are for READ SPEED at the expense of storage. And that's the premium you are paying for. That read speed advantage is what boost overall system performance.

I'd hate to see you spend ~$800 on a 250GB SSD when you don't need it. Optimizing the way you work, changing your habits... $0. Then go out and get a 60,80,120GB SSD.

The other thing is, don't fill them up past the 80% full mark. Even though their wear level algorithms reserve some capacity for when memory cells die. Leave yourself some head room.

Follow these basic simple rules and your SSD will far outlive your computer's useful life. Why would you spend all that money just to see your SSD die in 2-3 years (considering the way you were planning on using it)?

 

I suspect a hardware issue. What you could do is leave it so that you can get sound from the speakers and buy a headphone jack Y adapter so you can use 2 headphones with the one port that works.

Sorry that we couldn't get it to work.

Best wishes.

 

So basically minimize the amount of stuff you copy and paste/drag to it, minimize the adding of data to it via other means like streaming, as well as for installations and uninstallations of software? How does formatting and reinstalling an OS apply to this?

Isn't a gigabit router/port a lot more than 1mb-3mbps? Or is transferring data not the same as what goes on in streaming.. which I guess is buffering..? Ok so multimedia on a Hard Drive.

That's what I was wanting to do, do one OS (Windows 7) on the first drive presumably an SSD, and then OSX on a partition of the second hard drive 500GBs-1TB. But I'm thinking if I get two HDXs the one I mainly use (the one with higher specs) I'll do just one OS (Windows 7) with an SSD in the first slot and storage for the second hard drive besides I guess big and less used files or data that would lessen the write lifespan of the SSD.. And the other HDX I can do a dual or triple boot all using just regular hard drives.

Lol that's what I be talkin bouts. Must kill SSD as fast as possible with Firefox alone via caching.. not even via streaming, then we will know which is badder in the east coast

Hmm how does caching to memory work? Is there a way to clean it out? I see that option in IE but I don't remember seeing it in Firecrap.

Optimize...? I thought that was what the gerbils on the wheel I put in there are for. I understand what they are for, but I didn't know how specific one had to be in reference to a particular write lifespan..

If I could get a 250GB one for way cheap then I would but I see what you're saying regarding expense to it's purpose. I don't like that I have to have one other thing to be careful about/particular concerning the HDX/PCs in general for this kind of technology. Thanks for the great input. I know better now what to consider now for a purchase.

 

Reinstalling OS and formatting applies as well. But how often does one do that? A few times at the most.

Yeah, had that wrong. Gigabit = 125MB/s. But no media streaming software comes close to those speeds even across gigabit ethernet. No need to. You have the matter of compression and decoding. It's only feed so much per second. Depends on the quality of the source. But it won't pass 3MB/s. Usually done in KB/s.

Now wifi N is 38MB/s. WifiN is still slower than a HDDs transfer speed. 5400RPM 320GB drives transfer in mid 50MB/s. Also no ISP does 300Mb/sec yet. Fastest out there is 101Mb/s. If you're on a 20Mb/s down stream, that's 2.5MBytes/sec.

Mb=megabits
MB=megabytes

You have to type in the browser address, about:config. Find browser.cache.disk.enable and set it to false. No more cache to disk. Then find browser.cache.memory.enable and set it to true. When you close the browser, the memory cache is cleared.

Yep, SSDs aren't mainstream yet. They are marketed to the enthusiast crowd because of the thought involved in use and periodic maintenance required. Though win7 has help in the maintenance department with TRIM support, it's not the end all be all of SSD maintenance. SSDs also require proper set up to maximize their speed and to protect their lifespan. It's simple to setup but unfortunately most do not come with setup instructions. I figure the next version of windows will automatically detect and configure the OS for SSDs.

 

update..unscientific...although i am making it moreso now...haha.

i bought 2 new hp batteries for my dragon, and figure i would rotate between the two of them...use one for a few months, then the other and back and forth.

well i dont remember exactly when at the end of december or january at some point (let's say about 2 months...therein lies the uncertainty but no matter either way)...but i just popped in the battery that i just let sit (after fully charging it first)...and it is at 95%!

so i am following 2.0 and other's advice about being ok to leave plugged in all the time (as this is how i use it 95+% of the time) and then maybe once a month allowing it to run on battery til it goes to (the preset 5%) hibernation. Then i plug it in as usual.

so right before i put away battery 1, i let it discharge while web browsing, etc....then let it fully charge (even a few hours after the charge light turned off)...then i put it away and starting using battery 2.

used battery 2 for a couple months and did the same thing before i put battery 2 away...and then when i put battery 1 in (without being plugged in of course, so i can see how much percent battery was left after just sitting there...it was at 94% full! needless to say i though it would be at like 50% or less...i guess these rechargeable lithiums drain/retain (whatever your perspective) similar to AA eneloops i use for other stuff).

why don't other rechargables hold their capacity this well just sitting in storage (i.e. other brands besides eneloops...i'm assuming you all heard of eneloops right?).

not to confuse...i am just tying in the eneloop batteries with the hdx battery(no relation), to illustrate their retaining capacity in storage.

 

so i will note it in the forum that i am marking the "calendar" on march1st i put in battery 1. i will go until june 1st (3 months before i use the other one).

 

by the way, when the Dragon is on battery, as has been agreed on by 2.0 and berlin...the video card power is ramped down drastically, no matter if it's on high performance or not.

obviously this is not acceptable in many situations. i am wondering, what in this case does it make it equal to, would you say....a 6800 card?

i mean i get stuttering in flash enabled stuff i never get when plugged in...really stupid i have to say for a high end card. is there a "hack" for this to make it work at full power like i should have the option for it to do?

curious to see what people's graphics score in 3dmark or whatever are, plugged in vs. on battery.

i really can't believe it works this way. what was hp thinking?

 

All of my Hard Drives are 7200. I'm hoping to get the DLink DIR 855 (run media streaming stuff on the 5GHZ band), I have the D-Link DGS-2208 Ethernet Desktop Switch, and CAT6 cables so all I need is the router to replace my non gigabit one. Do you know if rate of transfer relates to bit rate of what is being transferred in terms of video quality? The movies I record in have a 13.5 bit rate. Blu Ray is obviously higher.

Keeping that as a note for future reference. Thanks!

Maybe I'm looking more for a RAID 0 configuration instead of an SSD per se.. but what a waste of capacity for storage.. Bah. You HAVE to have or use 3 hard drives for RAID 0 no? ANd you can't do that in the HDX except via software from what I remember.

 

It's Nvidia's doing, not HP's. It's the powermizer feature.

There is a way to make remedy for it. But you must be duly warned, my lady. It will lay waste to you battery's life in short order.

(Have to stop watching 'The Tudors.')

Right, so as I was saying... you would have to disable powermizer so you can get full clocks on either A/C or battery or both. GPU will run a bit hotter at idle though. Not the end of the world but just an FYI.

To disable powermizer, you have to edit the registry. Or you can use this program found in this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=273276

To enable your setting, you have to reboot. It may even work if you merely logout and login.

 

Any reason in particular you want to get that router? I got the European model a year ago. Wasn't crazy about it, especially range. Got the WRT610n and it was marginally better, but much more stable. New firmwares have come out for the 855, but didn't make much difference. I also hear the Netgear WNDR3700 is pretty darn good...newer than the other two. Throughput speed is much better over a greater distance according to:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/index.php?option=com_wireless&Itemid=167

They have multiple comparison filters for a wide range of routers.

 

Bit rate and streaming bit rate are two different things as you probably know. You can stream a blu-ray quality recording at 128Kbs. The key is the buffering used. At that speed, a larger buffer would be required to make the playback appear seamless. Anyway, suffice it to say that you can easily stream hi-def on 10/100 ethernet. All streaming software balances playback with streaming speed versus streamed input buffering. Generally the buffers are fixed in size and are FIFO (first in, first out). Good software will allow you to increase or decrease the buffer size. The software merely delays program start until the buffer is filled sufficiently relative to the speed of transmission. A fast connect will fill the buffer quickly and start playback sooner. A slow connection will fill it slower and start playback later. A connection that is too slow (buffer will empty faster than being filled) or prone to error will effect playback.

You can Raid 0 with as little as 2 HDDs. The more HDDs you add, the faster the array, per se.

Software RAID is the worst way to go.

Why would you think you need to RAID array anyway? RAID 0 is merely making one large logical disk out of many with the benefit of faster speed than any singular drive in the array. A single SSD gives you better than HDD RAID 0 speed without all the fuss.

You can go RAID externally though via eSATA. Problem with RAID 0, though, if you lose any drive in the array, you lost everything unless there is some software that shadows to all like a RAID 1, except not being a RAID 1. But that means you would need twice the storage space needed just to maintain the RAID's shadow.

You pretty much have what you need with the HP Smartmedia vault (I forget the proper name). Just add more storage space to it. Drop in an SSD in bay one, use the 500GB 7200 HDD in bay two, and get a rocketfish enclosure for the other 500GB 7200 HDD and use it in eSATA mode. And you're good to go.

Here's how I'm set up:
120GB SSD, bay 1 - OS and all programs, documents, pictures.

320GB 7200 RPM HDD, bay 2 - Backup OS which mostly mirrors the SSD's installed layout [I can boot to it using the USB flash drive boot key I made]. GAMES. All shortcuts to games are on the SSDs OS. So I can only play them when booting off the SSD. And DATA.

320GB 7200RPM HDD, Rocketfish - Acronis backups, music archives, drivers, Document archives, software test environment. This drive is connected to the HDX at all times via eSATA and powered by USB.

NAS Wifi N via a USB flash drive. Contains work related backups and critical files. Music for streaming. Public folders.

And really, this is more than I need. But it was a work in progress. I've got a few more drives that are in rocketfish enclosures that I use for all sorts of bizarre things.

You've got even more and everything you need except for an SSD. Just alter your way of doing things to accommodate an SSD. You can't go wrong with an SSD and you'll be happy you got one.

Once you go SSD, there's no turning back.

 

I have the WNDR3700 and I can say that it works great for the Dragon. My old setup (a WNR3500 w/ an access point broadcasting the 5.0 signal) was working but not as reliable or as strong as the 3700. One thing I never did was try it with the original wireless card that was in the Dragon. SO if you are still using the Wifi 4965 then i can't say how well it will work. But if you have the Wifi 5300, then you are good to go.

 

i curtsy. ok now done with the formals and into the nitty gritty.

that link to powermizer switch...is there a developer? wondering if 1.2 version posted from over a year ago is the latest, basically that's all.

i see what you are saying about battery...i wonder however if it reduces it to like half or what. would love to test.

when you say it allows full clock cycles whether on ac or batt...are you saying that on a/c it also does not do full clock cycles? cuz if it is so then all i want is to get to whatever clock cycles it gets on a/c cuz for some reason when on a/c i have no stuttering on flash intensive stuff.

overall not a big problem...more of a "i just want to know it can do full power if i ever wanted to" kind of thing.

you are always so well written. seriously you must be a writer/editor or something (or university english professor maybe?)...not just a technical writer.

 

Retrieved from "PowerMizerSwitch" I advise against it. Dword values are to be changed into the latest drivers is no longer available. You need to be created. I explained this well in earlier contributions.

Nor can the HDX with "2222" (in battery operation only) a fixed clock of 383/301/766 will be generated. Full performance under battery (500/799/1250) is not possible.

Later more ...

EDIT: Incidentally do you know this version?:
GPU Observer – Sidebar Gadget
Very nice, since clocking directly traceable even without GPU-Z.
(including "OrbLog" design)

 

thanks berlin.

 

Been following the Nvidia DPC threads quite a lot and since the HDX suffers from crackles and pops thought i'd have a look, seems the pops also match the ramping up of the GPU or downclock, could quite possibly be the HDX suffers the same issue.

Use DPC latency checker and GPU Z together and you will see.

Hopefully nvidia will fix this for the 8 series.

 

I bought the cheaper 120W charger, and it worked great. For 3 days. Now, I am having the most difficult time getting a good connection where the charger actually plugs into the back of the Dragon. It is a constant struggle to get the blue charging light to turn on. Sometimes I have to shove the charger into the back as hard as I can and then start twisting until some internal little part lines up just perfectly and starts charging. Other times it is pulled slightly out, and bent at a certain angle. Other times, I cannot get it to charge at all. Other times, (although now very very rare) it charges easily without any physical manipulation of the plug. Now, did I get a faulty charger? Are there known connection/charging issues with this 120W charger? Should I just buy the OEM 180W charger, eliminating all issues? I will happily pay for the 180W one if this solves my problems. Or worse, I am worried that all this twisting and shoving I have done to the back of my Dragon for the past week is actually doing physical damage in the back, making it such that ANY charger (even buying a new 180W one) will have the same problems as I am having now? PLEASE help me!! As I type this, I am using a friends computer, because my Dragon's battery is completely dead and I have twisted and shoved that 120W charger in the back for a good 10 minutes without any success. A prompt reply would be greatly appreciated!!

 

For this problem, there can be no fix for Nvidia.
The problems do not seem to fall on them.
I deal with this problem since the end of 2008. For example: This and, and, and.....
He wrote at that time already at Nvidia (getting 6 pages long) without ever having an answer.

My HDX runs since that time without the power saving feature "Powermizer.
Solid bar for all operating conditions 215/110/465. (controlled by ESA's tools)
Just for play is necessary for me a higher clocking.
For this I have created several profiles, which are assigned automatically or manually programs.

Latency problems are for me the past.
The idle GPU temperature is about new drivers now at about 45 C.

EDIT: The power management mode in the Nvidia control panel switches from Powmermizer not. (for the HDX)
Thus, this contribution is unfortunately NOT applicable for us.
This would have been for many, a simple way. Everything else is just a little more complicated and not applicable to all.

 

You likely have a bad male pin in the connector end of the adapter. Meaning it's too thin or a little to short. You may or may not be able to fix it.

With the OEM charger, you shouldn't have that issue as it's made to spec.

 

Which revision did you get? I heard the earlier ones had problems, but the newer revisions are good.. then again, as I told 2.0, almost all of the router especially dual band router reviews have terrified me.. Which is why I'm getting a long extended warranty with it with the chance to get a refund or replacement. But I'm open to any input.

I was looking at the Netgear one as I heard some good things about it, but it has about the same feedback (lots of negative yay mixed with very passionate good reviews) from review sites I saw except the two words that stood out was it was decent and or slow in some cases. Also when I'd call retail places they warned me against the Netgear even though it was more money than the DIR Dlink 655 I was looking at..

Dlinks firmware can suck big time, as I think the DIR 615 got worse with each new one as far as disconnecting more times per week. It does this once or twice per week or more now.. Annoying. I just want something that works well, but I figured I'd keep it all Dlink so I'd have fewer places to call, and it seems like if I order it from online, even from Newegg I can never know which revision I'll get no matter which product I order..

Why do I think I'm going with it besides having everything else DLink (the switch and previous routers I've owned)? While the Netgear looks nicer, I was partial to the display panel on the front of the DLink 855 so I figured I'd go with that one with what seems to be a crap shoot..

While network storage via USB seems cool (and is something that works on the 855 with newer firmware) the thing I care about most is fast gigabit transfers for streaming (remotely and in network) for transferring data (also for my Mediasmart backups), and for smooth gaming.. which would be everything I guess right? Haha. If it would not disconnect much if at all during each week that would be fantastic.

 

All I know is it's working kinda crappy via the DLink DIR 615 which is clearly not gigabit. The transfers for data via wireless are painful as well. Wired isn't nearly as bad at all. I can't even get an iPhone resolution setting to play remotely without stuttering. It's nto a bandwidth issue as I have 16-80MBs download, and 2-6MBS upload. Works good with gaming and everything else.

Hmm.. I dunno I'd like speed but don't like the write limitations of SSD too much I guess. I think I also feel like if I get a 120GB or well priced 250GB SSD they'll come out with the next gen the day after I buy it haha.

Yea forget that. Lol. Blah.

Sounds like an SSD may very well be the best option then. Bah.

Nice thank you. Don't know that I'll do it exactly this way but it'll be a nice point of comparison to see where to situate things. Copy paste for future records! How come you boot the games from the SSD? It won't help performance right? Or is it just because you are usually booted into that drive. I take it you do a dual boot just in case something happens to the first drive and it's OS. Do you copy whatever you do on the first HD SSD on to the second hard drive manually?

Oh so you also buy extra $150+ hard drives to put in enclosures for the sole purpose of juggling them in public for money too then? I thought I was the only one. What a small world huh?

Can't wait to fill the entire server up with hard drives, but I'll be interested to see the difference with an SSD.

 

Thanks for the feedback. Which revision is the one you have? The thing that is frustrating besides looking at the feedback for these routers is I can't know which revision I'll get via an online purchase.. What I thought was hilarious is DLink said the 855 was the best option and directed me to the forum for more detailed questions.. I went and I was practically traumatized by all the negative crap the users put up there. Is wireless N still in like beta mode or at very least is dual band or what?? Oh I have both the original 4965 sitting on my shelf, and use the 5300. Maybe I'll go with the WNDR3700.. I wonder why Best Buy and other retailers said to stay away from it..

 

Yeah, I was going to point you to that forum, but I see you found it.

the problem with N, is it is still a draft. Some version was recently ratified, but I forget what it is, and what limitations there are, as opposed to expectations.

And there is the rub. As I understand it, N routers primarily give you two benefits over earlier routers, faster throughput and (generally) operations in a more exclusive frequency range 5Ghz vs. 2.4Ghz to avoid cluttered networks. Some N routers operate in 2.4.

But people misconstrue the capabilities...they expect massive performance gains, especially range. MIMO routers did increase range, but there are G routers that have that technology also. Most people that use the 855, 610, 3700, etc. want 2/dual band capability for the ability to segregate streaming and network file transfers from everyday internet stuff.

Then some people want file server capability, print server, USB hard drive, blah blah.

The guys at smallnetbuilder.com seem to have their 5h1t in one sock when it comes to comparing these things and test set ups.

I have the 610 v1 and the 855. Even though the 610 is 1st edition, I recommend it over the 855. Firmware shipped and updated, it still works better and is more stable, for me. But the 3700 really shines compared to the other two. You can only trust reviews so much. If your read too many, you are bound to find horror stories for any of them. Testfreaks.com, which uses a cumualtive score of professional and user review score, gives the 3700 a 9.9, and it's their top rated mainstream router.

The 855 is about 80-100 bucks more than the 610 and 3700. Another thing to consider.

Take my limited knowledge and accompanying advice with a grain of salt. Good luck with your choice.

 

It hasn't been out long enough for a revision, as it was released in September 2009. It came with the first official firmware. I only had problems when i upgraded to the 4th firmware release. Then it started resetting. SO i downgraded to the 2nd release and it was wroking fine after that and has been ever since.
I was going to order mine, but then i remembered "Hey, there is a Frys in the burbs here". Drove out to the store and came home with mine.
You have to weed through the reviews, learn to see the ones who claim to be experts and the ones that actually are (or come close enough to say they are.). For instance, on Newegg, a lot of ppl that wrote reviews on the 3700 listed their tech level as "High", yet they said they couldn't set up a router without a CD (haven't used a CD to setup a router since the first one I bought years ago.). Most of their reviews were bad, and if you can't do what i can do or better, then listening to you and moan about a product is pointless. So I focused on the ones that could at least set it up without a CD and knew how to access the router through the web. When you are done weeding out the real reviews, you will have a lot of ppl saying that it's a solid router and has a LOT of features that most dual band routers don't.
I don't know why other retailers say to stay away, especially since they keep selling out of it (a friend of mine works for BestBuy and says he wanted one but had to wait because they can't keep them in stock. Also, it was near impossible to find in Canada a good month after it was released.).

Here is my review on Newegg... http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=33-122-326&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&SelectedRating=5&PurchaseMark=&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&Keywords=%28keywords%29&Page=9

Hope this helps.

 

This question has been touched on a thousand times already I'm sure, but I'm coming up empty handed each time I look;

Fresh install of Windows 7. Everything I need is working - sole exception - touchpad on/off control dosn't actually DO anything. The other buttons all seem to work fine, with the exception of the Quick Play ones to the left, which I prefer disabled anyway (as per my last Win7 install).

Anyone?

 

My eyes were getting crossed looking at the smallnetbuilder review. Lol. Hmm does the 3700 have the thing where you can enter the mac address and reserve the ip address in the router settings? I like that about the Dlink routers. I'm thinking if I have the money I'll get the DLink 855, with the warranty and if it's a headache or it impresses even less than my low expectations I'll just return it for the Netgear. You said you got the european version of the 855 no? How come, I had the impression you lived in the states? Or were you stationed there or something at the time you bought it? On Newegg some people say to not update the firmware, others say to do so.. If I happen to buy something else I may just go for the Netgear to avoid headaches and the extra hit to my wallet. Thanks for the input.

 

Might need to adjust the buffering with whatever software you are using.

Though write limitations are pretty big. Normal use wouldn't affect the drive in the least. Multimedia use though, would. As for obsolescence, that's the best time to buy. The "new technology" premium has depreciated drastically. Just think, you bought the HDX when it was going out or was discontinued. Myself, a few months before. But imagine paying $4k US for it only to see its price where it was in summer of '08? Will new SSDs be faster? Yes, but no by much. Will capacity go up? Yep. So will prices.

You say "bah" now, but when you get one you'll be say "ahhhhhh!"

Games installed to HDD while in OS on SSD. Why? Game files are huge. Wear and tear on SSD. I'll play a game for a while then uninstall it later. I don't dual boot. Dual booting is not as secure as the method I use where OS drives are isolated. In a dual boot config, if you lose the HDD with both OSs, you lost everything. By having OSs on seperate HDDs with no bootloader info on either, if one HDD goes down (in this case, an SSD or an HDD), I just plug in my USB stick, reboot, and it automatically boots off the other drive. I can replace the bad drive at my leisure suffering no downtime.

I manually update the other drive. It's not an exact mirror or the first.

LOL. No, wasn't like that. HDXs came with 2 160GB. I upgraded those to 320 GBs. Then upgraded to SSD. So I had 4 160 and 2 320GB left over. Then I upgraded my other notebooks with SSDs and had spare drives.

DIGITAL PACKRAT, you.

 

Observant. I got it when it first came out and hadn't been released in US yet. Has more channels than US router too. I think by the letter of the law, it's illegal to use here because of that fact. But anyway, I had WRT310n, which in retrospect had significantly greater range, but not dual band. My network was noticealby congested, so I wanted to try the dual band. The 610n at that time was getting horrible reviews, so I opted for the D-Link first. Had stability and range issues, so I got the 610 about 2-3 months later anyway. Come to think of it, I'll sell you the 855 I have, if you want. Let me know.

 

Did you install the synaptics touchpad driver? SP45848.

You can find it along with any softpak, here; ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/

If so then...


You can try the old school method of getting things to work when they don't on the HDX.

Batt out, AC out, hold power button down 30 secs.

Other than that, dunno.