*HP HDX DRAGON Owners Lounge, Part 1*

Hello every1,

I'm a uni student living in the UK and considering buying HP HDX with the new penryn processor and nvidia 8800 gts from www.play.com (£1279) however the thing that really annoys me is that now the format war is over HP only supply UK customers with HD drive not the bluray drive.
This is so unfair where usa customers get bluray. are HP racist?

 

Hi mate, be careful if you want that HDX from play, it comes with a HDDVD plus the screen is not the updated true HD screen (1920x1200), it comes with the 1680x1050 screen.

But on the other hand it does come with the nVidia graphics card and for £1280 it is good value.

 

After alot of thinking about this, i've decided not to change the optical drive in my HDX at the mo, instead i've decided to by a stand alone blu-ray player which connects direct to my TV.

I'll think about replacing the drive next year or when they get more popular.

 

Sensible decision. The price will be better. Plus, by or before then, they'll have a BD writer.

 

I am seriously looking at an HDX but I would not buy it till the summer. Someone earlier in this thread was talking about when the ATI Mobility Radeon 3870HDs roll out and that saying that the 8800 gts was only to tie over till then. I was looking at the specs and there does not seem to be that much of a difference between the two other than the bit higher pcmark06 which we all know how that accurately that shows real worlds performance, and the compatibility with the Direct x 10.1 and the other thing i cant remember. Is it worth waiting because there is no guarantee that HP will refresh to that graphics card. Also the previous post also mentioned the Montevina chips that are coming out. What are the differences between those and the current Penryn chips. Thanks

 

Hi there guys.
I've a doubt.
Finally here in Europe the HDX with T9300 and the GTS ins available with 1680*1050 screen, 3 GB of RAM. Is not configurable, by the way. That's the standard model.
The price is 1900€.

Here's my doubt.
I'd like very much to have the 20" screen but i can't really find any review out there that can help me knowing the performance of the Dragon, and i'm in doubt wheter to choose an XPS with 8800GTX in SLI, but is 400€ more...

DO you have any hint? as anyone received this config (working! maybe ;-) )..what are your feelings about Crysis?

 

Not sure which comparison you used for the cards but...

8800M GTX (mobile)
96 streamers, 500mhz core, 1250mhz shader,800mhz mem,256 bit

Is closer to the ...
8800 GTS 640 (desktop)
96 streamers, 500mhz core, 1200mhz shader, 800mhz mem, 320bit.

Radeon 3870 (desktop) beats or matches the 8800GTS 640 (desktop) in most reviews depending on game and drivers.

And since the ATI 3870 is a 55nm die, I wouldn't think that there would be all that much stripped from it to make it notebook friendly. It should pretty much make it into the notebook "intact."

Therefore, you can assume if it makes its conversion from the desktop to mobile without too much down grade, that it will certainly beat the 8800M GTS and most probably match or beat the 8800M GTX in certain games. ATI's looking to reclaim their lead in the mobile space that they enjoyed for years.

Unless HP discontinues the HDX(not likely), they are certain to refresh or redesign the HDX when Montevina comes out this summer. There was a video interview of one of the HDX design team members which states that HP is committed to the HDX knowing full well that its relatively low sales will make it a niche. They are almost certain to use the Radeon 3870 Mobility when it becomes available given its specs. Of note, it's DX10.1/Shader 4.1 compliant and 55nm die makes it more power efficient. And you know HP is all about power effeciency. One of the reasons you don't see GT versions of Nividia's discrete graphics in their other notebooks.

Monetvina is a platform and not just CPU(Penryn). It adds a 1066mhz frontside bus, DDR3 800mhz RAM support, and Robson 2.0. HP might just implement Robson 2.0 if it pans out to be worthwhile. Robson 1 had little to no benefit for systems with 2 Gb or higher. So HP, along with other manufacturers, didn't implement it.

It's worth the wait when you're this close. But if you need something now, buy now. The HDX is a one of a kind notebook.

But just keep in mind all those Sager and DELL XPS buyers last fall. The news and rumor was that Nvidia will be coming out with a top card to beat the 8700GT. Just looking at the specs of the 8700GT (that being a souped up 8600GT) foretold of a top end card. Not to mention the fact that there were 8800 desktop cards. Now many of them are kicking themselves because they just couldn't wait a few months. Well, we're in the same situation now. You know what is coming out. You know what will most probably come out in a few months. Prices and price to performance ratios only get better the longer you wait. What's more, the comptetion between Nvidia and ATI is in full swing again.

Lastly, the next iteration of the HDX would have more of its kinks worked out considering how HP's product development is more evolutionary than revolutionary.

Hope that helps.

 

Is it possible to upgrade GPU in HDX? I think you can do that in Sager...

 

Probably not in the HDX. Even so, it'll probably cost you a fortune to do it if it were possible.

As far as Sager goes, it turned out not to be upgradeable. What happened was that when the 8800M GTX came out, you couldn't just buy the card. A new motherboard was needed costing more than what anyone predicted. So the idea of "user upgradable," which Sager/Clevo touted as a sales pitch last summer turned out to be untrue. What's more, the latest iteration of the Sager 5790 (the 5793) has a modded case and additional fan.

 

Thanks for your input and answering my questions 2.0.

 

if anyone has the 1900x1200 screen hdx with 8800gts will you please post benchmarks/settings for oblivion if possible? i haven't been able to find any so far.

 

Another possibility for the next iteration of the HDX:

HP has ordered illuminated keyboards from Darfon. This company makes the illuminated keyboards for Apple's Mac.

http://en.lightingchina.com/news/news_info.asp?newsid=352
See the 4th paragraph.

 

2.0
I am not clear on the differences between DX10 and DX10.1 also Shader 4 and Shader 4.1

 

An observation regarding the CPU lineup for the HDX on hpshopping:
HP made available on hpshopping the 45nm Penryn T9300 and T9500 and did not bother to bring on the X9000 Extreme Mobile Processor, which is the 45nm 6 MB L2-Cache 800MHz FSB Penryn successor to the X7900 Extreme Mobile Processor.

An observation regarding the Hard Drive lineup for the HDX on hpshopping:
Another one is that HP has not yet made available the 200GBx2 7200RPM Dual Hard Drive, which Dell has had on its 20" version for a while.

As usual, HP is lagging in offering the latest technology on its flagship HDX. HP ought to learn catch-up.

For reference-
Intel Montevina with Penryn Wi-Fi WiMAX:
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20070919corp_a.htm?iid=search

Intel Santa Rosa Refresh with Penryn:
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/events/ces2008/ces_factsheet.pdf

 

asuhoru:
please mate...i desperately need help...i have got the same problem as you, and is annoying...i have been trying to fix it for a long time, but the driver name still display as g92-700, can't get it back to 8800gts, i tried to download some drivers, but all have errors, can you give me some help please, i just don't know how to do it, please e-mail to [email protected] if you can, i will be very appreciated it.

 

Brief summary of differences between DX10 and DX10.1:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,2168429,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

PDF white paper on DX10.1 additions - Written by ATI

http://ati.amd.com/products/pdf/DirectX10.1WhitePaperv1.0FINAL.pdf

Shader Model 4.1 is part of DX10.1

 

Actually, HP beat Dell in offering Santa Rosa. Beat Dell at offering HDMI. Beat Dell at offering Penryn.

Dell doesn't offer the X9000 Penryn yet either.

The XPS 2010 doesn't offer any Penryns. Only has 1680x1050 resolution. A ATI radeon Mobility x1800. Doesn't have HDMI. Worst of all, uses year old processors (pre Santa Rosa refresh).

As for the 200GB 7200rpm harddrives, yeah. They must have a reason for not doing it yet. Probably power consumption concerns, heat, and that they feel that many wouldn't opt for a >$300 option.

Plus it has an eSATA port. So if you need more storage space, no problem. Much faster than using USB 2.0 external HD.

No Dell lappy offers an eSATA port.

 

This post is for the HDX Dragon people with the 8800M GTS512 and have the BluRay drive.

What Nvidia driver are you using? (yes im familiar with laptopvideo2go and all that) And also, have you had any issues playing BluRay movies where you get no video just sound AND have to go to Display settings in control panel and fart around with the monitor refresh settings to get the video to show?

Searched and searched about this and figured to go straight to the owners mouthszeszesess.

 

why us brits get bloody useless hd where americans get blu ray????? bloody annoying. us brits have more money than usa and we not going in recession yet dumb hp dont sell blu ray to us.

guys where can i buy a hdx with blu ray and full hd monitor in uk. i dont wanna use ebay.
ps im an ivestment banker and will be needing this laptop for my office so it look professional.

 

2.0:
My point was that HP ought to offer on its HDX the bells and whistles as they become available. And since the HDX is superior to the Dell - I do believe - HP ought to offer the 200GBx2 7200RPM. The power consumption of the 120GBx2 7200RPM is same as the 200GBx2 7200RPM.

Also, since HP is now offering Penryn Processors, it ought to offer them across the gamut especially when it comes to the Mobile Extreme Processor X9000 that is the successor of the X7900.

 

Can anyone here help me get my graphics card working?? I have the HDX with the 512M Nvidia 8800M GTS. I wiped out the HP installation and put on a vanilla copy of Vista Ultimate (32-bit) but nothing I do will get me any more than just a "Standard VGA Adapter". HP seems clueless too and they actually voided my warranty just for doing what I did!
Help getting a driver would be great...

 

@ValmonNR:

Don't worry, the X9000 is on its way. Could be next month or they may wait for Montevina's launch to give them some wattage overhead.

As for power consumption, depends on the manufacturers and which models HP chooses. They may not necessarily choose the same manufacturer and/or model series for the 120GB 7200RPM drive as they do for the 200GB 7200RPM drive. They base their decision on a number or things - price, performance, power consumption, noise, heat, etc.

I'm fairly confident that you'll see further improvements in offerings at Montevina's launch. Just gotta be patient.

 

In this thread, go back a few pages and read what I did.

 

I did and your situation is just like mine...except I think you still had the recovery partition, didn't you? Is that where you went to the advanced options to install a driver? I don't have that partition b/c my recovery failed and I lost every partition. My only option now would be to, I guess, try to recover again and do as you did.
Any other ideas? What driver did you use exactly?? I think that until the driver software sees my card as some NVidia, instead of the Standard VGA Adapter, none of them will work. It's like they look for something that would need the driver and they don't find it.

 

Did you manage to get your touch buttons working? I installed all of the drivers from HP and one of them made all of them except the Eject button work. I can live without the Eject...
I have to say, HP seems to really suck as a company. The recovery discs should be perfect but they're really not reliable and their service is typical outsourced junk. I think if I can't get this issue worked out I'll switch to MAC for good. At least they pretend to care.

 

Yeah man, you gotta get that recovery part back on there. Once you do, do the recovery manager and do a hardware driver reinstall (you will see the NVIDIA driver there) and it will get the device listed later as g92-700 nvidia. or something like that. Then, go to laptopvideo2go and follow the instructions and download the 32bit vista 167.25 driver with the mod inf file (it wont work with out that inf file). And now i'm back up and running.

No, not all my buttons work right. Eject and the quickplay buttons on the left side don't work. Volume, bass, treble, that movie mode button and the wireless buttons work. I read on a forum there that once u do the security update from hp's update program ON the hdx, it will disable some or all of your quicklaunch/quickplay buttons. And sure enough, i did do that that update that day and some of them stopped working. I did try all the workarounds- reinstall everything etc or take the battery out, then pull the ac plug then the 1min hold the power button to do a hard reset and that didn't work either.

At the moment, everything works with little tweaks. I don't mind now that certain buttons don't work (it drove me crazy at first) and that I have to mess with the refresh to get Quickplay to play the video from my blu ray drive. In time i'm sure everything will get worked out with later updates and drivers.

What DOES get me pissed is Cyberlinks PowerDVD Ultra which I just bought today. It will just NOT play anything with the newer drivers that I installed for the NVIDIA card. It DID play in the beginning with the recovery nvidia reinstall but the problem with that I was getting major lag from my mouse. I searched and searched and haven't found anything that works to get that thing working right with the drivers I have. The error message I get is that my video drivers are not compatible. I do the advisor thing at their site and it says to use drivers higher than 94.xx or something like that. Isn't 169.25 higher than 94.xxx? Weird. I can get video from Quickplay with BluRay's but not with the same company's PowerDVD Ultra.

 

The whole industry is too segregated. There doesn't seem to be any cooperation anywhere. I can't think of any good reason why MS wouldn't have access to all of NVidia's drivers on their update page. It just makes sense that you could rely on getting updates from one place. But all of these driver issues show how screwed up everyone is.
Open source (e.g., linux) is so much different. Can't imagine how nice the world would be if any serious focus went in that direction...
THanks for the help. I guess I might consider doing another recovery from the DVDs. I just don't trust them though...especially since the very first thing they do is format your drive. So, once a problem is realized, it's too late to do anything but scream!

 

Is there anywhere I can buy that graphics card? I can't find it anywhere but if I could, I might consider it...

 

Well, HP is so much worse than I ever even imagined. And I am officially warning all prospective buyers - buy something else!!
I was able to get a recovery to work, after literally 12 hours and one "Recovery Failed" message. However, like Asuhoru said, the correct drivers don't even install! I'm now trying to convince this piece of junk to do what HP should have ensured in the first place.
I assume that with enough time I'll get things pretty much the way they're supposed to be but when I pay $3000 for a laptop, I really don't expect anything to take 12 hours, and when I want to restore it to factory, is it too much to assume it's included in the price???

 

WORKING!
Hey asuhoru, I appreciate your help. Looks like I have it all working now. Followed your instructions, except that I installed the 167.45 driver.
The card is being recognized as the 8800M again and the lag, which I was suffering with too, seems to be gone.
Hopefully it will be all good from here on out. Again, I appreciate your help. If you come across anything important with regards to this issue, please post it here.

 

Hello, New HDX owner here in South Florida.

I bought this on a whim from CompUsa who is out
of business and being liquidated. They were closing
for the night and I saw the HDX in a glass case, I asked the manager how much and he said it was 40% off retail. He then said it would be 50% off the next day, so I asked him if he would hold it for me till the next morning and he said no but if I waited until all the other customers were gone he would he would give it to me for the 50% off. I waited and bought it for $1349.00 as is no returns or refunds.

It came in the box with all accessories still wrapped in plastic and never used. It had been a display model for 2 months. Everything seems to work except the Quick Launch buttons. I restored it twice and they still don't work so HP tech support is sending a box to pick it up and have it serviced.

I don't mind because of the great deal i got.

Is it possible to get a set of Vista 32bit restore CD's from HP to replace the 64bit version it came with ?





P....

 

Right on man.

Issues I still got:
Quicklaunch keys on the top left side and the eject still don't work. The remote stuff works well, though.

Quickplay needs to be tweaked with the refresh settings to have video show up.

Thats about it. Other than those two, the Dragon kicks ass. I'm sure everything will work itself out in time.

Oh one more thing, I read a post somewhere at work and for some of you with Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra issues playing BluRay disks. Well, I read PowerDVD will give you the "incompatible video driver'" error if you use non WQCL drivers. Which is the case for me because mine are non. But, if you do use certified drivers which I tried at one point, the cr4ppy thing is I get mouse lag and certain games wont work right- which the post also stated. Makes you wonder- did i buy this for games or blu ray movies. I bought it for all of that! Barf.

Parish,
Try calling HP I'm sure you can work something out with the 32bit recovery stuff.

 

I have had mine for a month and half and love it, only a couple problems. After a month or so the quick touch buttons stopped working. I tried everything and after a few days I got them working.

I can not get cyris to work on this it keeps freezing, any help?

I hook this up to my 65 inch tv and its great for games and movies. Getting fios this week so will let everyone know how that goes


Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit)
Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Extreme Processor X7900 (2.8GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
Extreme performance for vivid, high definition mobile gaming experiences
20.1" WUXGA High-Definition HP Ultra Brightview Widescreen Display(1920x1200) - "True HD" 1080p res
240Gb 7200rpm
4Gb ddr2
blue ray
ati radeon hd2600

 

Sounds great?

Almost identical to mine. I guess you didn't get the TV card.

The Quick keys stop working seems to be a common problem. No ryme or reason with. But, problem seems to happen more comming out of hibernate. But not all the time.


Let me ask you this. Have you been able to record video from the buitl in webcam without the computer sceen going black or the computer locking up on you using the Quickplay software?

Also, If you go to start/Maintenance/problem reports and solutions log.
Do you see any QBCS or QPCAPSRV or hung on startup type errors?

Good Luck.

 

I got the tv card with mine. I have not tried recording with the cam yet,

 

Sounds like a lot of people are having problems with there hdx. I have had mine for about a month and half and have had no major prolbems. Only thing was the quick touch buttons not working. I uninstalled quick play and quick touvch buttons, then reinstalled, then I took out the battery, and they began to work. I also can't ply cyris for some reason it freezes. I love this computer,and think it is great. When I oreded mine to get buitl I found a 500 dollar coupon off, so I suggest anybody looking to buy go online and look for coupons

 

Hello, new HDX owner here. Ordered mine last night.

Vista 32 Bit
Core 2 2.20
2GB
8800M GTS
WUXGA 1080P
240GB 7200RPM Drives
Regular Lightscribe 8x Dual Layer Burner

I've never owned a laptop before but when I saw the 20.1 inch screen and the 8800M I knew that this was the one for me!

Does anyone know if it is possible to plug in an X-Box 360 to the monitor?

Thanks!

 

Congratulations, MrCook!!

The HDX Dragon is a wonderful machine and most of the problems some of us are having are temporary i'm sure. When your phat computer comes in, go back a few pages and read my post and what I did (good chance itll happen to you since yer Nvidia) to get it work.


In case you are looking for a bag, I got the iLugger. Its pretty solid, lots of space but the zipper kind of sucks.

Best wishes.

 

No on the QBCS QPCAPSRV error in the log, TInman.

And I record fine with my webcam- no black screen.

 

Thanks for the support!. Such a nice welcome to a new forum for me. I checked out the iLugger and suppose that will be the one I will get. I am tapping my toes away waiting on getting this thing in so I can see what Gears of War is like on it! I'm thinking I should have dished out the extra cash for the Blu-Ray drive, but I'll live with regular DVD for now.

Just checked out some detailed screens of the ports, doesn't look like there is any imput to take advantage of that monster screen. I think I read every review on google about the thing last night and I am confident that is was a solid purchase.

Cheers!


*Edit*

I just saw that the system comes with an F-Jack adapter. That's nice because when I take off from home I don't plan on lugging a television with me.

 

That's great. That's why your webcam record is working without a problem too.

Good luck.

 

I see an error like that from a few days ago but I am not having any problems with capuring video.

Which iLugger did you buy? I bought the HP bag that is a lot like a travel suitcase but also has shoulder straps like a backpack...it's decent.

Hope MrCook doesn't have the trouble me and asuhoru had. I'm pretty upset about the disfunctional recover dvds but at least there is a good fix to the video problem.

I have no problems at all with mine at this point. Everything on it is perfect...and as I indicated before, I owe that all to ASUHORU.

 

Let me make sure I'm clear here. Sometime my english is not that good.

If you get these errors. Video will display just fine in quickplay, Roxio DVD software, Aim Skype ect....

But when I click on the red record buton on the bottom of the screen in QP while the webcam is showing my pretty face.
Anywhere between 0 and 30 seconds the thing crashes. In other words. It may record say for 30 seconds then crash. Same with the ROXIO DVD software. But that's even worse. Becuase if I try and record off the TV card
that will also crash.
So my question is. Did you try and record more then 30 seconds?

The strange part is. I can record TV shows off the card just fine using Windows Media center. The webcam works great with AIM, Yahoo, and other chat porgrams where others have had problems getting the webcam to work with Chat programs.

Once again, I'm glad your HDX is working great for you. It looks like I got a bad one as far as the WEBCAM and QL buttons go.

Remind me to never buy anything from HP around the Christmas Holiday season.

They must of rushed this thing, My HDX, out the door without testing it.


One added comment.

I tell you. One thing that works great is the network connectivity.
When I opend this thing up out of the box and turned it on.
It found my Wifi network and connected. Some people may find this bad. Becuae it will start downloading windows updates as soon as you turn it on.
I've gone all the down to the end of my driveway. which is about 300 feet. The conection only went down to good. Lost only 2 bars and speed was 78 MB/s.

My old dell would only give me a good range of 50 feet and speed would be 24 mb/s.
It looks like the 802.11n card HP uses in these HDX's works great.


Once again good luck.

 

2.0
What is your ‘guestimate’ on when HP will launch Montevina on the HDX?

 

If Intel officially debuts Montevina in Early June, then perhaps July/August we'll see an updated HDX. HP's been pretty quick about updating their platforms after the release of Intel's latest platform and refresh. But, I'm figuring a redesign of the unit will add to the delayed release. Not a radical redesign though.

The DV series notebooks will in all probabilty be updated much sooner. May even coincide with Montevina's launch. Plus there will be AMD PUMA based models.

Also, keep your eye out for HP's new 16" Full HD LCD screen notebook with Blu-Ray.
Digitimes reports that Samsung will be manufacturing the screens for them. http://digitimes.com/displays/a20080225PD221.html

 

Hp will not sell me a 32bit restore kit, so can I wipe it & install Vista 32 myself and then load all the drivers off HP's web site ? will that work ?


btw: i did a restore and left the battery out and now all the touch buttons work great.

 

Just ordered an HDX.....

HP Pavilion HDX customizable Notebook PC

* Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit)
* Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.20 GHz, 4 MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
* 20.1" WUXGA High-Definition HP Ultra Brightview Widescreen Display(1920x1200) - "True HD" 1080p res
* 2GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)
* 256MB ATI(TM) Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 2600 XT
* HP Imprint Finish (Dragon) + Fingerprint Reader + Webcam + Microphone
* Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection and Bluetooth(TM)
* 240GB 5400RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (120GB x 2)
* Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer
* Integrated HP HDTV Hybrid TV Tuner and 4 Altec Lansing speakers +the HP Triple Bass Reflex subwoofer
* 9 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
* Microsoft(R) Works 9.0
* Power Pack software - muvee autoProducer Premium, Cyberlink DVD Suite Premium and Serif Web Plus
* HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelop


Build date.....March 5th!

 

Read this thread on how to do a clean install of Vista on your machine:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=120228

It'll be a headache saver.

 

that doesn't help me, i have vista64 and want to install vista32. i have a new retail version of vista32

 

I know. But there are a lot of useful headache saving tips in that thread that will be appropriate for you. Especially the folder SWsetup - where drivers and various other software are stored. Not usre you can find 100% of the drivers and/or software on HP's site.