*HP HDX DRAGON Owners Lounge, Part 1*

so i called hp (they serviced it with my accidental drop damage warranty) and they said they will have a case worker look into it and that i should get a call Monday or Tuesday. i bought it from them directly so they should have record of the transaction somewhere...

ill keep you posted

 

Nice. Thanks for that real test

How soon to 10G? I heard it's already begun in some places.


On the side, I found this Tthrottle cpu/gpu temp analyzer. Not as good looking as them gawidgets though:

http://www.efmer.eu/boinc/download.html

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Would this work as an AC adapter?

I know some of the writing is in Korean, but if you scroll down the important info is all in numbers.

 

No trouble!

 

Looks good. Though the HDX uses 18.5vdc input. I suppose the 18 and 19 settings on that adapter are nominal and likely are a bit higher. And as long as you have the right plug end, you should be good to go.

 

So I should set it to 18 and hope it works? I'm only using this adapter when the hdx is plugged into my tv, so the screen won't be pulling any power. The 6.5x4.5 connector looks the same as the original.

 

Yeah 18. If it crashes or won't boot, then 19. The power draw isn't the issue. It's whether or not there's the right amount of input voltage to be properly divided and dropped to various voltage levels (3.3v,5v,12v) required to power various sections.

A little too much input voltage is fine. A little too little is not. Best thing to do is to use a volt meter to see how much each level puts out. 18vdc may be 20v. Or it could be 17v.

 

What are the chances I kill the machine? I'm weak on electrical knowledge.

If there's a chance I can fry it, then I'll just pay the extra $70 for the HP adapter.

 

Here's one to file away in the back of your memory to always try...
First, let me thank 2.0 profusely for this tip he suggested about a century ago and keeps coming up. And BTW, hope you get your avatar back (I love the political UNcorrectness of old Bogey with his smokes). His tip was to remove battery, unplug, hold power button 2 min. This just saved me $421 to HP.
Problem: Was just surfing and screen went black just suddenly. I could see a little glow on right hand side but other backlights were down. Wiggled, jiggled, no change. My extended warranty ran out 11 days ago (figures). Set up RMA and was billed to Master Card for $421 (standard non motherboard fee). 2nd monitor on external VGA worked fine. Something hit me and I realized the lights were on during boot but turned off in Windows. Tried the magic 2.0 fix and voila', success. I will always try this fix first from now on. Thanks for the fix man, this gift just keeps on giving....David

 

I just put a voltmeter to the adapter output and it's 18.17-18.23vdc. So the 18.5 is a nominal figure.

That said, the tolerance should be .5vdc above or below the nominal figure of 18.5vdc. Maybe a little more.

You should be good. Though I'd recommend testing the output with a voltmeter since it has switchable voltages. Adapters with switchable voltages can vary widely away from their listed (nominal) voltages. I've seen Radio-shack ones that were several volts away from nominal.

 

Awesome. Glad that worked out favorably for you. Having to send your HDX back to HP is risky business.

Yeah, I miss my avatar. AT first I thought it got banned on account of the non-PC smoke. And it looks like he's got a joint. But it turns out that the new vbSEO software gets borked when the username has any punctuation in it.

 

Maybe you could become "2dot0" or "2point0" or even v2 or"2period0" or"20/10="

 

Could anyone come up with a reason the above problem was caused and/or solved the way it was? I can't think of anything that would cause the Dragon lights to go out that way and then come back. Any ideas? Thanks, David

 

Thought about it. But then if they fix the bug, I may find that someone else registered with 2.0 and then I'm stuck with the change.

Figure, I might as well just exercise patience on this one.

 

I reformatted to Vista 64bit and finally got the NVIDIA 3d Discover Vision driver working. I also downloaded the Vision 3D player. Can anyone let me know how to get 3d working? I view videos in the player but they're two separate images side by side. Do I have the right codecs selected? What's the dealio?

 

While we're on the subject of chargers...mine took a tumble from its resting place on my desk yesterday, after which it stopped functioning. Luckily I have a second charger for travel, which I am currently using, although I was wondering if it could be repaired? It's been my observation that laptop chargers generally stop functioning because of a short either in the wire leading to the AC/DC box or in the cord leading from the box to the computer. In this case, however, I think it's possible that a piece of solder was dislodged when the charger fell, perhaps rending it useless. Any ideas/possibility for repairing it?

Thanks!

 

Regarding SRS Audio Sandbox, if anyone wants a suggested setting I created for Rock/Metal music, though I think it may be pretty good for other styles, movies, or anything really, you can try the following:

Content: Music
Preset: Metal (Call it whatever you want)
Speaker: 5.1 Surround
Technology: Auto Tech
Circle Surround II


Output Gain Left- 3 and 3/4ths from right
Output Gain Right- 3 and 3/4th from right
Output Gain Center- 3 and 1/2 from the right
Output Gain Subwoofer- 4 and 1/3rd from right
Output Gain Left Surround- 6 and a spec from right
Output Gain Right Surround- 6 and a spec from right
SRS TrueBass Level- 2 and 3/4ths from right
Speaker Size 60Hz- 2 from left
SRS Dialog Clarity Level- 5 and a 1/2 from right, 5 and 1/2 from left

I wonder if anyone thinks that's a good setting or if it sounds like crap haha. Personally I love warm booming bass, and thought it was pretty balanced. I'm not an audiophile per se, but I think I'll be applying for that area of research sometime soon. While I have a background in music (vocals, guitar, bass, drums, piano, song writing), check out the audiophile forums once in a while to see what they recommend speaker wise, I'm no expert. So it would be interesting to see some other user posted settings. Oh I'm using the suggested 5111 audio driver.

 

Where did everybody go? lol

 

Hahahaha, same thought here--it seems the HDX lounge has died overnight

 

Haha , yea what's the dealio?

 

Everything is working fine & nothing new to report, sir!!

 

Well hopefully HP posts a BIOS update, so we have something to talk about.

 

Honestly, I doubt they will actually get around to it. This should have actually been brought up before the HDX was discontinued. If it were requested in Spring of '08, it would have had a fairly decent chance of being implemented. HP could have used it as part of their marketing.

The problem now as I see it, is that HP sold Extreme processors with not only other HDX models but also DV series models as well. So if they were to do a BIOS update that allows overclocking for the HDX 9000, how could they deny the inevitable requests for doing it for the other models and save face?

A PR nightmare. Plus, there are current CPUs (i7s) available on new systems that will exceed the performance of the X9000 overclocked to 3.2 Ghz. The new Envy 17 is superior in every way to the HDX except for screen size. HP would rather be dissatisfied with the performance of the HDX and figure it's time to upgrade to a new system than do a BIOS update that will potentially cause them a PR headache and lost sales.

I could be wrong and they could do the BIOS update for the HDX. But since the approval of such a thing will go through several departments, someone will likely raise the concerns and see to it that it never gets off the ground.

It was a crap shoot from the get-go that relied on luck.

 

Those are all good points, and it's not a big deal if they don't, but it would be nice.

As for the Envy 17, I just had a look and it's not a bad setup at all. I'm surprised there's no expansion port though. I might have been interested if I could have still used my dock.

 

We'll I definitely don't need my eyesight with all the complaints about backlit LEDs like I believe the Envy has. I hope they will do the BIOS update.. I love my Dragon.. I think it and it's 20 inch screen have pretty much ruined me for other notebooks..:/ By contrast to the Envy, I can look at the Dragon all day long without having a bit of eyestrain with it's beautiful CCFL WUXGA screen.

 

This isn't universally true of all LED backlit displays and is case by case, individual by individual. But most people have no issues with CCFL or LED back-lighting. For many of those who perceive that they do have an issue with either, a simple adjustment to the brightness level usually solves their issue.

You'll have to try one out for yourself. You will find out within a half-hour to hour if you're going to have problems with it.

The 20" is nice, of course. But I could live with 18.4" or even 17". But I'd most likely end up getting an all-in-one with a 20"+ screen. But that won't be for a good while.

 

I think I'll write a song based on this prose, if you don't mind.

But really, HP did right with the Dragon. I'm an eagle-eye type with lots of peripheral, so even my HDX18 doesn't sum up. I can't even use the dragon keypad because I place it so far away. I've been wanting to make the pad pop-out like the remote for some time, but only if it were wireless (and the HDX gods don't strike me down for altering the PC from their own image ).

Has anyone seen the Dragon can play Crysis @ WUXGA high settings?! I was testing Win7 and I'm amazed. It also does ARMA2 as well as some other gpu crushers! (the OCZLE probably helps a tad)

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I've eagerly been scanning through this thread once more to see if someone had a recommendation for a 3.5" drive enclosure that would work aimiably with the HDX's eSATA port. I want to use a Seagate 500GB/1TB 7200 SATA II drive, and I'm now paranoid that I'll buy an enclosure that won't be recognised after this thread!

The drive:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) [ST3500418AS] Internal Hard Drives SATA 450GB - 800GB

A potential enclosure:
Icy Box - Ib-318stus2-b - Premium Aluminium Case For: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

Poring over the documents on their website I see the enclosure has a JMicron chipset, and that's all I gleaned. If someone gave this combo the thumbs up for eSATA on the HDX I'd be so happy

Otherwise, alternate recommendations for the enclosure?

Regards,

Andy

 

That will work fine. It's the older, 1st gen J-micron chipsets that didn't work with SATA II (7200 RPM) drives, only SATA I (5400 RPM).

Nice looking enclosure, BTW.

 

Thanks for the clarification 2.0!

Your work alongside others in this thread over the last few years has been remarkable, I just have to say; it's a magnificent resource for Dragon owners and I would have been lost without it.

 

I sincerely agree with Andrew about 2.0s contribution of his time , effort, knowledge, and courtesy to this forum. I would have been lost too without it. What other single machine have you ever seen so much forum help about. The "Dragon" will probably go down in history as a special niche product. No Dorothy, I don't think there will ever be another made just like it. I wanted one and almost paid full retail of >$4000 for it but waited till I could get some coupons out of HP and that lowered it to $3000 and I was tickled pink when it arrived. It was the most fulfilling day of my electronic experiences, I couldn't have been happier. I had been reading this forum for about 4 months before I got my baby and read every word and problem that was discussed. I don't know where 2.0 gets his detailed knowledge of the Dragon (I do suspect he may have something to do directly with HP) but if all tech reps were like him it would be a happy digital world. He is one smart little dude. Not that you're the only one out here that has solved problems for me, there are many other great ones (don't want to start a war so I won't mention the names of the others) but your word or even opinion is "THE DEFINITIVE ONE" Thanks 2.0 and all the others....Vive la' Dragon..... David Gerard

 

I never realized there were possible incomparability issues with our eSATA...I have two Vantec Nexstar 3's ( Amazon.com: Vantec NexStar 3 NST-360SU-BK 3.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 and eSATA External Hard Drive Enclosure (Onyx Black): Electronics enclosure), which fluctuates in price between about $33-40, as well as this Rosewill enclosure ( Newegg.com - Rosewill RX-358-S SLV (Silver) 3.5" SATA to USB & eSATA Ext. Enclosure w/Int.80mm fan) which is around $35. All 3 enclosures have worked wonderfully, and are very well constructed (the former a little more so then the latter). Also, I can verify that both enclosures do in fact support 2TB HDD's, regardless of their 'specs'. Because of the fan in it, the Rosewill seems to keep drives cooler, however, I've never had any issues with the Nexstar which is about half the size of the Rosewill (due to the lack of fan). Ohh yeah, and to answer your initial question, both work with The Dragons eSATA port. On one final note, the Nexstar have a stackable design, and can be placed either horizontally or vertically on a desk, the Rosewill may only sit flat, is not stackable, and does not come with rubber feet... All-in-all, they're both solid enclosures--it all depends on what features you're looking for.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Brent

 

Hi guys. I have recently upgraded my HDX 9300 from 4GB to 6GB however unfortunately since this upgrade my laptop has crashed numerous times.

I have identified that this only occurs when watching videos or gaming so am I right to aasume that amount of ram is disagreing with my graphics card?

The peformance of my laptop was intially very quick after the upgrade however in the last few weeks boot up times general perfomance has started to severly lag!

What can be done to rectify this? Any suggestions would be most welcome.

My laptop specs are below...

Windows Vista SP2 64-bit
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 880M GTS
400 GB Hard Drive 7200rpm

6GB CLass 5.0

 

Does your computer still show 6GB?

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Much appreciated.

Truth is though, we all stand on each others shoulders. Literally, everyone who posts adds to our knowledge base. Questions make us seek answers and learn. Correct answers we can use for future reference. Tips, tricks, drivers. Merely sharing experiences and observations adds to our knowledge base.

So thanks to all we have ever posted in this thread. Your contributions is what makes this particular thread invaluable.

 

Looks like it doesn't like running in Asynchronous mode.

Which slot do you have the 4GB module in? It should be in the first.

Also, the RAM timings must match.

With RAM, the best thing to do is to match manufacturers.

One other thing you can do is to fix the size of your swap/page file to either 4GB or 2GB. You do this by going to control panel, System. On the left panel, choose advanced system settings. Click settings in the perfromance section, then choose the advanced tab. Under virtual memory, hit change. Choose custom size then enter 4096 for min and max or 2048 for min-max. Then hit set. Reboot.

No guarantees, but it's worth a shot. Otherwise, it seems that you would need to go back to 4GB or up to 8GB.

 

Ok I finally succeded in installing the aver Media TV driver in windows 7.

after reading in forums for about 3 hours no one had a decent answer but I got to the solution and felt like I had to share. I know maybe im a year late but its useful anyways.

First download the driver from hp.
Then open the device manager, the aver media should be an unknown device.
Then disable the aver media tv tuner, it should disappear form the list.
Proceed to install the driver from HP.
Maybe it could fail the first time but insist.
Thats all I did and it worked like a charm.

It was an accident but im glad it happened, well thats my way of saying thanks to all the people that has helped me in other matters in the past.

Hey, pls thank me at least

 

Lol feel free to man

Why not just get a wireless keyboard, with back lighting at that?

Wait are you saying you can play Crysis with the highest settings or somewhere around the top settings with WUXGA.. or are you just asking if it can be done? I just formatted and am trying to figure out how to set it up as a clean install properly.. especially since I realized it came with a lot of drivers all ready.. I'm trying to follow Comtrekkies list but I'm having a snag on a couple of things.. What's OCZLE. Arma2 looks pretty cool btw.


PS: I do like getting a 5.9 WEI score without overclocking and no SSDs though. I figure since overclocking brings it up one point usually I'll be looking at a 6.0 for whatever that's worth.

 

Seems to have been going on for a couple of years now across platforms and companies/brands. After my moms tv went out I helped her get an LCD and noticed that everywhere the "deals" were for what? LEDs/backlit LED LCDs. I bookmarked a bunch of sales for HDTVs and what sucked was I didn't realize all the crazy great prices were mostly and almost ONLY for the LEDs.. The physics of it just seems I dunno.. aggressive. It hurts to just hear about how the tech works. Reminds me of when I was in like 3rd grade and they brought in a tech guy with a "lightsaber", basically a glorified laser pointer with a large handle, in order to lure us into get interested in science and tech..and they told us not to look directly into the light.

I was saying before to just get a star on an HDX and it will fly off the shelf, but I've been watching 24 for a while, and noticed Bower has a Palm Pre, and I guess we see how that helped Palm.. Notice how I nicely segued that directly back to the HDX and specifically HP?

BTW thanks for all your help man! It's much appreciated!

 

I've tried installing Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit and was hoping it would have been a true clean install, but alas it has many drivers. One thing that has me confused is why it listed 1gbps on the WIRELESS Intel 5300 adapter under status with a high number of sent and received packets, when it seems that 300mbps is the limit for the DIR 855 and pretty much all gigabit routers? I'm thinking maybe I had the LAN Ethernet cable plugged in at the same time and got confused on a very consistent basis but was really just using the ethernet over against the wifi connection?? I thought that I was getting 1gbps even without the ethernet cable plugged in.. Or am I missing something here?


In noticing that the most one can get in Windows 7 for wireless is 300mbps I was also wondering what the correct way is to install the latest Intel 5300 drivers? I saw that under audio with the stock drivers it comes with some sort of audio bluetooth profile. If I uninstall the 2 bluetooths and the Intel 5300 drivers from the network section of Device Manager, and the bluetooth audio profile disappears. It also will automatically reload the stock drivers with a hardware scan or reboot... minus the bluetooth profile. I think that even if I install them after installing the original ones, they stay with the stock ones anyway. I've also tried to install over on top of the stock ones and it seems to stick with the stock ones as well if I'm not mistaken. Any help appreciated.

 

Yes it does 6GB in system information so the ram has been recognised.

 

Thanks for this info. Admitedly the manucfacturers of my ram don't match (because I couldn't get hold of G.Skill RAM in England). The Ram timings do match and the 4gb is also postioned in the first slot.

I shall try the your suggestion of the page file swap and let you know how its goes.

Thank you

 

Dom, The 300mbps is the wireless connection, the 1Gps is the wired connection. Think of those speeds as theoretical. With the 5300, my router assigns a separate IP address for the wireless connection and another IP for the wired connection, so router is treating them as two separate devices even though they are coming from the same laptop. A laptop by design doesn't know if it's in an office or in the airport, so it's brain tries to communicate with both the wired and wireless ports to determine how to communicate when booted. For max actual wireless thruput, use the MAC address filtering features in the advanced router setup area, then you can turn off the WPA/WEP network encryption.

Back in this lounge, CompTrekkie post #8954 covers the load sequence for where he loads the 5300 in a Win 7 build. I think 2.0 said to load the HP wireless assistant to get the blue/orange button to work.... or use the assistant to control the 5300. That gets you the bluetooth and wireless going and controllable. Then you should focus on tweaking the router setting for best 'real actual' speed via the MAC address features. It really makes a difference. I don't think there is such a thing as a clean build in Windows 7. After an initial build, a registry cleaner finds all kinds of holes.

Next toy in the bag for you should be a Netgear WNDR3700 router where you can have 4 separate SSID's/wireless networks in your house. I don't think I exactly answered your questions, but you did get me thinking again.

 

Could someone please tell me what type of card this is?
It died on me out of an HDX Dragon 9000t and i believe it was a 8800 gt or gts.
Trying to find either the same card or an upgrade off ebay within the next week to take with me on my deployment.
I have tried searching for MXM cards but none have had the same pin setup as mine.

 

Looks like the Nvidia 8800M GTS. But remove the heatsink from the card and the info will be there. 4 screws at the corners of the "X".

Note though, you have to get the card either directly from HP (HP parts) or another card specifically made for the HDX as they are proprietary. You can't simply buy an MXM card off ebay as it will not work.

The part number for the 8800M GTS: 454311-001.

Not sure what the ATI board part number is. You can find it on HP parts.

Also, if you had an ATI card, you can't simply drop in a Nvidia card unless you have the ATI/Nvidia motherboard. Basically, if you have an HDX 9200 -HDX9400, then you can. You'll need to reflash the BIOS afterward.

 

K thanks for the info.
I removed the heatsink and it says G92-700-A2 so yah it is the 8800m GTS.
Do you know if HP carries any upgrades for this machine or i suppose i can just call right now and ask them myself.
Thanks for the help.

 

I went to HP live chat to see if they could find the correct part for my computer and they gave me this link to buy ATI Mobility Radeon? HD 2600 XT Overview

 

Ok that's what I was thinking, but it also seemed more speedy under Vista, which is where I'd see 1gbps on wireless and wired. Yea the DIR 855 is a dual band Wireless N router as well, 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz. Hmm I see the MAC address filtering in there.. Does that mean that no one and nothing can get into the network unless I added their MAC address? The thing is I like to have friends sometimes access my router and stream movies and download stuff. Does this mean I have to add their MAC addresses or is that something different? I'm finding that the settings I used in Vista which I saved/backup, worked very well. Because I don't know how to exactly set it up for Windows, I'm finding it frustrating. What I've also noticed is that if I try to open ports manually it upsets the router. In Vista before I got a tech to get me the right settings, whenever I used to try and open a port or two it would drop it down to 130mbps.. It also messes with my remote streaming on the server. Trying to figure out how to resolve this but this alone has gotten me to seriously consider just going back to Vista.

By wireless assistant you mean Windows+X? Yea I tried to uninstall the Intel 5300 drivers and then install the newest ones, but doing so made it break completely.. soooo I just seem to find myself reformatting over and over again because I end up breaking something without repair.. It was actually down between the Netgear and the 855, can't remember exactly why I chose the Dlink but why would I need a Netgear gigabit router when I have the Dlink 855?

 

No upgrades. If you go to their parts store and type in the aforementioned part number for the 8800MGTS, it will give you ordering info. There's a possibility that they no longer stock it in which case you'd have to google the part number for a list of 3rd party sellers.

 

Yes, when your friends come over, you have to add them into the MAC address area of the router. Nobody else gets in. Using the MAC address feature in my Gigabit Rosewill router got the wireless to double from 150 to 300mbps. So I suspect it's what you are doing in the dLink that is reducing the setting to the 130mbps, not the Win 7 settings. I will tell you I got Win 7 so confused one time by messing with my Rosewill router that I had to reimage my Win 7. My Win 7 system thought my home LAN connection was a dial up and the wireless would not work without the LAN wire being plugged in. So, knowing that, I can easily believe your Win 7 has been wacked out by the router to the point of being illogical and you can't recover. I found it less time consuming to reimage rather than debug as there was nothing I could do in Win 7 to change its confused network logic and believe me I tried for hours to unconfuse it. Going back to Vista may be the simple fix. I never had network issues in Vista.


Google 'HP Wireless Assistant' and up will pop an HP 9000 download. I have not used it in Win 7, but I did in Vista. As I recall, you get an icon on the desktop or in the tray to turn on and off the 5300 and the bluetooth. I think the Windows+X is working on slot one, not the second slot the 5300 is in.

The 855 will do everything the 3700 will do.... guest networks on both frequencies. Nice. I'm not there yet.