*HP HDX DRAGON Owners Lounge, Part 1*

I don't believe so. lschulz mentioned a USB --> VGA adapter. I'm using one as well and it works good enough. You're not going to be gaming on the USB monitor -- but is plenty fast enough for browsing, Word, etc... Seems to handle the "Milkdrop" visualization from Winamp smoothly.

If you have a PDA, something like Side Window may work for you as well. Resolution is limited to the PDA itself. I run two Dell Axim X50v PDAs with Sidewindow going. Works great for the Vista/Win7 sidebar gadgets, a weather screen, or whatever. My Axim's are being used with one for weather, and the other to a camera outside my front door and my greenhouse.

On an entirely different note -- I'm just damn pleased that the Dragon can still have 16 of 17 USB ports filled with stuff (I use powered hubs) -- three of which are video, the eSATA loaded, HDMI semi-permanently attached -- and I can still play games with max settings and everything hums along just smoothly.

I've never been a fan of HP (especially since owning a computer hardware store -- but that was in the early through the late 90's). But this Dragon has to be one of the best tech purchases I've ever made. Heck, it cost me almost more than twice as my amateur radio HF base rig (WITH antenna supplies!!)

Fantastic.

--Alex

 

K I'll look thanks. Though, if it has a security problem, which version is best to use with Windows 7, and has no problems like Kindheart's experienced?

 

Any other that's available.

 

That is a pretty good sign, they wouldn't bother if they weren't thinking about it. I just hope it doesn't take six months if they do go through with it.

 

Just in case some of you don't know about the possible benefits of overclocking an X9000:

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4248


If someone knows a good place to buy it, please let me know.


And, to you GrandDragons of upgrading the HDX, I'm proud to say I just got an Intel 5300.

 

I saw in some videos from Crytek that the teams who did each console got together worked together to make them look and work as identically as possible to each other. But yea they usually push the specs. I agree it does kinda suck to lower the resolution. Guess we'll see what they did soon enough. I still haven't finished Crysis, then again I don't play it much either as I do my gaming on Xbox 360 mostly.

 

Hey I was wondering if it's a good idea to use this repair disc for Vista?


http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...ndows-vista-repair-disk-if-you-dont-have-one/


I only have the recovery DVD, not the Ultimate 64 bit disk, and also have the Vista Anytime Upgrade. Can I do a repair with the Anytime upgrade, if not, using this iso at the link, what will it do exactly in a repair? I'm thinking maybe that will fix my problems since I remember it asked me to repair it once and since I didn't have the disk I couldn't do it.. I THOUGHT I tried the Anytime Upgrade and it didn't work but I can't remember. Any ideas? Thanks.

EDIT: Anyone know?

 

Ditto on that.

Thanks for the link. The Intel 5300 is great! A nice improvement over the previous one it came with.

 

So are there noticeable improvements regarding speed/range/throughput with the 5300?

 

I have the NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTS with the new driver update version 8.16.11.8766

how will verde help me?

 

Definitely. Especially going from a megabit network to a gigabit network. I just need to replace all my ethernet cables for CAT6 and it will be even better.

 

Someone had that issue a while back but I can't find the series of posts. I believe they or someone found a solution.

Have you updated you quickplay software? You do so via quickplay's built in update function.

 

Go to control panel/device manager/monitor. Click the last tab, details. Then in the drop down menu choose hardware ID.

What does it say?

 

funny you mention cat6 (there is actually cat 7 as well). i hope you are buying it premade/cut, because unless you have tens of thousands of dollars to test cat6 properly...it's undoable. YES you NEED special expensive equipment to actually test cat6 properly, otherwise you are just jury rigging it. despite it looking all nice and crimped and it connecting. having it work, if you were to cut and crimp your own, is not a validator that it is performing to spec, , etc.

 

NVIDIA System Tools with ESA Support 6.06 / 2010.04.09 published

Operating System: Windows Vista, Windows 7 64-bit, Windows XP 64-bit, Windows XP, Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows 7

6.03 and 6.05 ran on W7, but 6.06 is better suited to my W7U64bit.
6:06 not yet been tested by me.
I preferred to now 6.03, as new parameters of the 6:05 on the HDX is not influenced.
Caution: This tool is not for everyone!
I use it only as Powermizer with me "off".
I also overclock a little. (especially downclocking)

 

Thanks for sharing. Works well.

Edit: actually, if affects brightness levels when waking from sleep. Did a few experiments and found that 6.03 seems to be the best as it doesn't affect brightness in quite the same way. Also the 6.06 change the screen size in 3D Mark06 to a small frame with black bars all around.

Recommend skipping the 6.06. Stay with 6.03.

Tested with 197.16 win7 64bit.

Edit 2: 6.06 works well with 186.81 and 186.91. No brightness issues.

Funny thing, I back to using the 186.91 driver. Works just as well as the 197.16 when it comes to flash update 10.1 RC. Also, using Physx 9.09.1112 with the 186.91. Zero brightness issues. Can use fn+f7/f8 or win+X or adjust brightness slider in power options and it holds those settings after sleep, reboot or log off. Something the 19x.xx drivers can't do properly. Need this feature since I started using WMC to record OTA hi-def shows and need to brighten the screen up during playback.

The uncompressed OTA HD signal the HDX picks up puts my cablevision HD to shame. Can't wait until FIOS TV comes to my burg. I have FIOS internet and it's literally like having a fractional T3 line. Never down, no throttling, stable speeds 24/7.

Cablevision tried to appeal to my cheapskate side by offering me a great deal for triple play with all channels including sports plus Optimum boost 30Mb down internet. It was an easy nope. Keeping my Verizon FIOS internet (it's liquid gold and diamonds plus a fine sauternes wine rolled up into one) and paying $80 more a month to just have all channels with Cablevision. Have to have my HBO, Showtime, Starz. Otherwise I'd miss Spartacus, The Pacific, Dexter, True Blood, The Tudors... etc. Commercial broadcast TV in the states is pitiful. Especially after this year when Lost is done.

Yeah I know, TMI. :embarrassed:

 

I bought them from pretty much the only person I could find selling CAT 6s on Ebay. They're all pre made. No way I'd do all that.. lol.

 

Hey 2.0, I was wondering if you have any input on the Windows Vista Repair Disk from the previous page?

 

ok. well i don't actually mean stranding them together, but cutting your own length and terminating them with ends with cat5 crimpers (that is relatively easy). i say that cuz i was going to get cat 6 put in when a friend of a friend was wiring some stuff, and I said i'd pay the extra for the cat 6, but he said it's not that crimping ends on is hard, but that you technically need some really expensive equipment to test the cat6 not just to make sure that the leads or whatever are connected, but that they perform to cat6 specs or something.

i'm not quoting him exactly and he said a bunch more and i'm pretty sure he knew what he was talking about, but i don't know why completely.

anyway i doubt you will be going 10gigabit anytime soon. and your hard drives would be the weakest link.

 

It's Kosher. Used mostly to fix your bootloader or anything else that may be causing startup issues. System restore is on their also for those times when you can't boot into safe mode or normal mode to run it.

But the thing I think you're looking to do is to do an in place "upgrade." That's where you run a vista install as an upgrade to refresh your OS without losing any of your settings, files, etc. It just overwrites all your system files and registry entries dealing with those system files. Your anytime upgrade disc should be able to do that. I've done this with win7 on a DV5 when Apple iTunes screwed things up. Worked like a charm. Not sure of the exact procedure for Vista.

Look at this as a starting point for further review:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Installing-and-reinstalling-Windows-Vista

 

Yea I just want to fix whatever is wrong with the database, without loosing my settings, software, especially my Firefox tabs I just want to fix/repair it. I'll check out that link.

 

So I definitely want to just do the Vista upgrade using the Anytime Upgrade DVD not the repair function right?

 

To Kindheart and anyone else interested, LV2Go has posted nVidia driver 197.01, with 3DVision.

http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/26567-nvidia-geforceion-driver-19701-released/

 

Yes, provided that it installs the "upgrade" without breaking your registry and losing you settings and files. You'll have to research that.

 

Anyway, back to the 186.91 driver. All the 19x.xx drivers have a brightness issue. They can't seem to hold their brightness level after log offs, reboots, and wake from sleep. Let alone if you adjust brightness via the fn + f7/f8. It's to bad because some of them are great drivers. 197.16 and 197.25 are the best so far.

 

Ugh.. If I back up the registry and restore it would that insure anything?

 

No. Acronis or equivalent imaging software is your best safeguard.

But you should research the procedure to see if it does what you want it to do.

 

I was hoping for a way to avoid having to backup 400+gbs of data.. But I guess I can choose what I want backed up in the image of the Mediasmart backup too though.

 

you'd be amazed at how relatively little space it takes up with acronis compression options. you can put it on a hard drive instead of dvd's as well, i'm sure you know.

 

where did you get these? the latest i see on nvidia site are 197.16.

 

Oh wait, imaging only takes a snapshot, it doesn't contain the actual files of anything right?

 

Imaging contains the exact image of your hard drive, files and all. It literally is copying the entire hard drive or partition of the hard drives. 1s and 0s.

What Dv7 is talking about is that most imagining software will allow you to compress the size of the image file. so if you have 50GB of HDD space used that you are imaging, and you do not compress it, the image file will be 50GB. If you compress normally, that file will be about 25-35GB in size. You can compress it even further with many imagining software products.

Think of it as ZIP or RAR.

But imaging 400GB will take a VERY long time. You're looking at hours.

Most efficient setup for imaging is either incremental imaging where you "add" to an image file weekly (not recommended) or you keep only many programs and minimal data files on primary HDD and image periodically using seperate image files (highly recommended). Why? Think of it as a superior "system restore." one that takes only minutes to either backup or restore and you'll have several back up points to restore to instead one point (with incremental method). You can imagine the pitfalls of only having one backup point.

 

Yeah, typo. 197.16.

197.25 can be found on LV2Go. But requires modded inf.

 

Still working on the brightness issues with 19x.xx drivers...

For Nvidia 197.16
Installed QLB driver 6.50.16.1 - sp48159
Seems to be working better. Only a slight change in brightness when wake from sleep. You have to find the sweet spot between what adjust screen brightness slider bar is set at and fn + f7/f8 is set at to minimize the difference.

I know, PITA. But the lastest driver seem to be worth the effort.

Tried every combination of everything.

Here's what works:

Brightness level is remembered on reboots and log offs.
Things go off and it can remember brightness level when resumed. It defaults to some level you never set and you can 't change it so it will remember for next sleep/resume. But if you reboot or log off, it remembers your brightness levels that you set during the session of the reboot or log off.

Does that make sense?

If not, in simple terms, if you never use sleep/hibernate, you won't encounter any brightness issues with 19x.xx drivers.

Or if you do use sleep/hib, you'll have to use Win+X to adjust brightness back to where it should be. But you will have to do this everytime you resume.

EDIT: But WAIT, there's more...

To find equalibrium between start/reboot brightness and resume brightness, you have to adjust the FN +f7/F8 brightness. Leave all other brightness levels settings alone. Once you find the right setting, you won't have the loss of brightness save on resume.

Yes, it's pretty convoluted,

 

ya it makes sense. i keep mine at full brightness actually and only on resume from sleep (haven't hibernated in awhile), do i just do the windows x thing.

 

Yeah, but it's a PITA. I still find the 186.91 driver to be better though. So I'm likely going to go back to it by day's end. So far, I noticed a few issues in games using the 197.16, depending on settings that I don't have with 186.91. Plus doesn't have the clarity/sharpness of the 186.91.

Other thing is, Flash 10.1RC works well with 186.91.

So, I'm not seeing the net benefit of 197.16 other than experimenting with it and the brightness issue for the benefit of future releases. Hopefully, Nvidia or Msft will fix the brightness issue eventually. Either via driver or OS service pack.

 

I've noticed HD streaming videos go choppy on 197.16 in full screen. Didn't have this problem with the exact show before, same quality before. No knew installs except Vista updates (going win7 and SSD this weekend!).

 

ya maybe the ol 186

 

Our HP 8800M GTS ACPI is getting obsolete...

 

hardly. it's still considered high end in my book, with a very small percentage of notebooks that have something more powerful in it. as far as percentile rank among all notebook, i think it be in 95% or greater for certain. maybe even 98-99%ile.

 

its the os et programs that i would image every once in awhile not the data on another drive, in that case, why not just have a backup drive, basically copy/pasting?

 

Can anyone help me figure out if the new Drobo S eSATA connection would be compatible with the Dragon's eSATA controller?

Details are at http://support.datarobotics.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/332.

[L]

 

Indeed. I'm feeling the pains of abandonment...

 

Yes. The HDX's eSATA controller is Silicon Image 3531. That boards they report as being compatible use a Silicon Image 3132 chipset. Same family, good to go.

 

Hmm I did the backup configuration for the Mediasmart, and was told it was better than Acronis, but didn't see a compression setting.. I'm at 38% after around 4 hours. It does the latter highly recommended kind. It seems to be about 10% per each hour. So I guess it'll be another 6-7 hours more and it's done.

 

I have the Medismart now with 5TBs in it so I might as well use it. I have backup hard drives I do copy and paste with, but none of the external hard drives have enough space for the image.

 

holy moly! when it rains it pours!

Terabytes are the new Megabytes

i think Kilobytes are just starting to get obsolete

 

Haha it's because I record in HD and all the movies I have are humongous that it takes up so much room SO quickly, its ridiculous. It actually does make it seem like terrabytes are like new megabytes! Well said lol. I can't wait to be able to get a 1TB hard drive or two in the HDX already.. If those Expresscard SSDs weren't so slow it'd be nice to have an extra third hard drive in the HDX too.

 

I have over 5TB, well, just because lol

Well, seriously, 5TBs of it is used for all my video media. No HD content, just a LOT of standard definition stuff. Like every episode of 24, Smallville, Grey's Anatomy, Burn Notice, Buffy, Angel, etc.

I actually stole the idea from a friend. He has a MASSIVE DVD collection. I wanted that, but didn't want to lose a wall just to catch up to him lol.

The rest of the room is used for storing digital copies of software, music collection, pictures, and storage for my customers when i have to do a complete wipe of their systems. all of that doesn't even take up 500GB.

 

Awesome. Thanks 2.0!

[L]