*HP HDX16 Owners Lounge*

Finally got mine today but I was at work so i just sat down with it. So far so good as far as scratches or dead pixels go.

 

Yes it is flush with the bottom. depending on what your doing with it(gaming) you may want to leave the 12 cell in . It helps with air flow and cools it down better.

 

Congrats!!!
No dead pixels or scratches here either on both the HDX 16 and 18.

 

Just ordered one and was wondering if the laptop overheats as much as the dv5t and if underclocking and a cooler is really necessary. The laptop is for my dad and so I wouldnt trust him with following those instructions - even though they are written great. Should I order a cooling fan for him or not? Will one or the other make the laptop last longer - or do they simply just cool the temperature down?

Thanks

 

Cooling down the laptop would generally increase the laptop's life, as heat causes parts to degrade. With the HDX16t, I would suggest undervolting and/or a cooler if you can (I'm most likely going to hold off on a cooler until I am about to move into my dorm room, or for when they start developing coolers for a 16" platform.)

 

Just got my laptop today. What does everyone mean by dead pixels?

Also, I've been multitasking and my laptop is making a noisy sound from the fan already. What should I do? I stopped multitasking and just playing a game on the computer and it makes that noise. What should I do to stop it? I think it's because it overheated because it's very hot from the bottom and the cooling air is blocked because I'm using it on a table. Is it supposed to be like that or what? I also went to check if I had BIOS updated and my BIOS was more updated than the one they have on their website. So?

Thanks.

 

LCD tv's and notebooks have millions of pixels that make up the screen and deliver the media that u see on your screen. Every once in a while one of these tiny pixels get stuck and when the screen changes the pixel stays the same color as the last screen. If it goes dead it remains a little black speck on the screen. Sounds like you should stop what your doing and call support as far as the heat. Good luck.

 

Thanks man. Been some great help from the start. Ill just tell him he should do it or get an IT guy from his job to do it.

Also, how much junk does the laptop come with? Is it recommended to reinstall vista and then install drivers? And if so, is it hard to install the drivers for vista 64 bit? I will be able to, but for my dad, not sure how vista handles driver downloads and if it is easy to do or not.

 

So, I ordered my HDX16t on the 9th, and already I'm impatient . Did anyone's laptop get built and shipped before the estimated date?

 

I guess it's all based on how busy they are but lately you can plan on having it arrive at your door around your ship date.

 

Turned my old laptop into the insurance company today and ordered the HDX16 just now. I'm feeling kinda naked...

 

I just got the HDX16 a few days ago. Love it so far. I'm dual booting Ubuntu 8.10 32bit and it works flawlessly. Wireless, video, sound... I haven't checked the webcam or used the firewire yet. Vista 64 runs smooth and gaming is smooth. Ubuntu runs great & what's most impressive is that it seems to run a little cooler to the touch under it. You can really feel the diff on the left side of the notebook where your left palm sits while typing. Much cooler under linux, not that it's bad under Vista.

ps - Even the soft touch buttons work with Ubuntu 8.10. video controls and sound... everything but the HP touch smart button ofcourse... =) No driver fiddling... linux just found them and used them. Sweet...
pps - The Remote control doesn't work with Linux, yet. =)

 

Congrats.
Both my HDX 16 and 18 were built and shipped early.
They also arrived a day earlier than the original FedEx estimated delivery date.

 

Cocopuffz,
Congrats on the new baby.
I'm very interested in your dual booting experience.
Great news to hear the soft keys are working.
How large a partition did you make?
What size is your HD?
Before my dvd with 8.10 (free from book offer) arrives I'm thinking of test driving Wubi with 8.10.
Do you have the Blu-Ray drive?
Sorry for all of the questions, but you have me very curious.
BTW Vistabad over on the HDX 18 thread has some Linux experience too, but not with Ubuntu.
Thanks in advance for your input.

I just started a thread for HDX16 & HDX18 Linux Owners

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=341782

 

Love the laptop. two issues:

1. sound is not very loud, it is not bad, but not great. not sure if there is a newer driver or something. When watching blu ray movies, really need to use the headphones since the normal speakers are hard to hear.

2. The treble/bass work, but every time I check them, they slide all the way to the left (off) and I can move them to the right, but then they seem to go back to the left again on reboot.

thoughts?

 

Question here, the HP online manual says that the HDX16 has a 9650M GT. http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01612461.pdf

But the customization page and my order form says it has a 9600M GT. Anyone what GPU is actually inside the thing?

 

I agree with you on the sound. From what everyone said the sound was great so I was expecting great and then, not so much...I don't have the crackling that some people have reported, just seems as though it could be better. I went through and checked some settings both hp's and vista's but nothing out of sorts.

 

That's strange, the sound on my laptop sounds amazing. Seems like there may be some quality control issues there...

 

Hi all,

I just received purchased an HP HDX16 on that really great 30% off sale - I'm a digital photographer and I bought it to replace a DV5t that has a very poor screen for photography by comparison. For anyone looking for a good laptop graphics screen, I can say this is the best I've seen!

However, I have one problem with this machine that is giving me a royal pain - the DVD doesn't burn DVD discs. It reads CD/DVD discs fine, burns CDs just fine, but won't burn any kind of DVD media - and I've got a wide variety of excellent quality discs that I use for photo file archiving. Have tried 3 or 4 different kinds of DVD-R (all Taiyo Yuden or top brands - no junk), couple of DVD+R, couple of DVD-DL... well, you get the idea. It's not the media - it's something with the drive, driver or a conflict that doesn't show up in any of the usual places - and it's just a simple DVDRW, not a Blue Ray.

I've done some reading and have heard many complaints about this issue, but mostly with Blue Ray drives. I've been through all the usual steps - uninstalling and reinstalling both the hardware and the drivers, reimaged the system, checked the registry entries, cleaned up the OS as much as possible. But nothing works, and I thought I'd ask if anyone had come across this problem and knows a definitive solution before I have to send this unit back, which I really hate to do.

This is the same disc drive as was in the DV5t I had that burned all my media just fine. The system configuration is the same and both were running Vista 64 Home Edition. The drive model reads HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T50L in device manager, and as I said it is detected readily and is functional in every way except burning a DVD (which is basically what it's there for ).

I'm not looking forward to battling my way through tier 1 support to get to a case manager, so any help would be appreciated. If I try to copy a DVD, it will create the image, will even simulate the write cycle, but as soon as it starts the burn cycle it ejects the disc without burning a single byte. Error codes are different depending on whether I try to write directly from Vista or using DVD burning software.

So bottom line is this has a very nice machine and I don't burn many DVDs because hard drive storage is so much cheaper per/GB than good quality DVDs - but at the price of this laptop I do want a working machine

I'll probably post this under a new topic as well, so sorry for the redundancy, but just trying to find someone who may have been through this and can help me out. It may just be a bad drive, but as a fairly tech savvy guy this seems a bit odd. Any suggestions appreciated!

Thanks!

 

I have similar experience with my drive - just trying to burn an .iso file (Windows 7 .iso, in fact) with DVD Decryptor or Nero 9 proved to be impossible on this laptop for me, and I use only authentic Taiyo Yuden, like you. I then transferred the file to my desktop via wireless network and it burned without a hitch, so I know there's nothing wrong with the media or file. It was weird too, it wouldn't even give me an error message - it just sat at 2% completion for about 30 minutes until I realized something was wrong and canceled it.

Please keep us updated on what you find.

Aside: I'm glad you mentioned that you didn't like the DV5T screen for photo editing. I'm an amateur photographer (Nikon D300) and I'm picky about displays too. I went through at least 2-3 laptops (returned or resold) because the displays weren't nearly on par with the HDX16, but I've recently been eyeing the DV5T on account of the weight difference. At least I don't have to wonder anymore!

 

What do you mean by itself? Without the laptop screen on? I never tried it that way since
I want a dual screen.
At lower resolutions the Acre fills the screen. Sometimes this causes the wallpaper on the laptop to shrink although it seems the whole screen area is still avail
able. I have tried changing the settings through both Windows and Nvidia control panel. I have tried the stretch screen function on Nvidia it will not go beyond where the
Background image is. I have reloaded the HP drivers (made it worse) and loaded the latest Nvidia drivers twice. No joy. Still no driver on Acer site.

 

Yes, I did mean as a stand alone monitor.

 

Does anyone's laptop making a screeching noise when it starts up? and then stops 2 sec afterward?

 

No, sorry I don't have that.

I'd suggest check your fan for dust.

 

Why should I when i just got this laptop two days ago? And it's been acting like this since yesterday o.o I think I might have a fan problem even when I play highpowered games, it's goes crazy, really loud noises? How can I get support when this laptop was shipped from Shanghai?

 

It's warranteed by a US-based company, so you should have no trouble. In fact, if you just want to return it and get every cent of your money back - including shipping BOTH ways - you can do that too, and it's painless! Just give them a call, you can choose to either return it or exchange it for a different one. Definitely sounds like a hardware problem though, not software, so call soon (while you're in the return window).

 

I asked this before, but it was ignored.

Can someone PLEASE help me get some of my touch buttons working?? My eject, bass treble "mediasmart" button dont do anything.

I have installed the latest quicklaunch button drivers, and i have mediasmart Tv & DVD installed. what else do i need to do.

help a brotha out please!

 

Also, the sound is good but not great. It isn't loud enough. Is there anyway to make the sound louder? It's on Max.

 

I just installed the driver for "HP Quick Launch Buttons", and they worked after installing Windows 7 clean. Here's a link to one configuration of the HDX16 with that particular driver (for 32 bit Vista):

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=2093&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&product=3879684

Just go back a page or two to make sure it's the same for your config.

Good luck

Edit: whoops, saw that you installed those already. Sorry this wasn't helpful

 

Try using the tray icon for IDT audio settings or under control panel they have an icon too. Open it and tweak the bass boost as well as boosting the equalizer. I also did enable both of the dolby functions.

 

How much can you relly expect from a notebook, speaker wise? Are your expectations too high?

I haven't received my hdx yet, but I'm hoping that the speakers are good enough for light listening to music and games. That is, I hope it reproduces the music and sounds fairly faithfully, unlike my G1 which was so bad I always had my earphones or external speakers plugged in. I don't expect any laptop speaker system to be up to snuff for BD and DVDs. That's why I have an external speaker set up.

Think about it, one car speaker is bigger than all of the speakers onboard the hdx or any other laptop.

 

Hi Chris,

The fact that I've seen so many people like yourself posting issues with this same model drive on HP Vista 64 installations is what prompted me to look at the driver/firmware issues - that and the fact that the DVD burning software HP provides is surprisingly poor for a notebook this expensive, and the vendor has a terrible support reputation. No answers yet from anyone in the forums, but I think I'll resign myself to just send it in for repair. Tough to part with it, though since I just got it two days ago...

From a photographer's perspective, I can definitely suggest that the DV5t is not the way to go. I thought it was a very nicely built and high performing machine for general use - perhaps even a little snappier than the HDX16 which is surprising to me given the fact that I bumped up the processor a notch on the HDX16 and added the Nvidia graphics card. The DV5t ran Photoshop and LightRoom very well - but the screen in the HDX16 is in a completely different league. Of course, the panels they use may vary with production runs and configurations, so I may have just had a particularly poor copy.

However, looking at the fidelity and viewing angles of the HDX16 screen - at least with the 1080p Infinity dual-backlit display - it's hard to believe it's actually a TN panel. It is a heavier machine but not by much - so it's worth every ounce when photo editing!

There are several other machines from Dell in the newer Studio series that are using RGB LED backlit panels in 15, 16 & 17" machines - and they are said to cover almost 97% of the AdobeRGB color space. I haven't seen one in person but the "buzz" in photography circles is positive. It sounds tempting, but the Studio 17 is even bigger than the HDX16 and they all get pretty pricey.

One last comment from a photographer's perspective - I don't anticipate any of the laptop screens being really good enough for critical color or B&W editing work unless you go for a Lenovo W700 that has an S-IPS panel in it - but that is a big machine and breaks the bank at close to $3K fully equipped. So I am pleased with the HDX16 because it allows me to do "basic" editing without the image falling apart onscreen every time I move my head a bit. Final edits will still be done on my workstation before going to the printer...

Thanks again, Chris - I will let you know if I find out anything about the drive burning issue but at this point I think I'll let it be HP's problem

 

That's disturbing. I'll be sure to test mine out as soon as I get it. If it is defective, not functioning correctly, HP will be getting an earful. There's no excuse for allowing a knowingly defective product to ship.

 

You shouldn't need to send it out for repair. The dvd drive is a self-replaceable part. If you remove the 1 screw on the back the whole thing slides right out and you can read them the part number and they should send you a replacement. You will have to leave a credit card as a deposit until you send the bad drive back to them. This way your not without laptop for 2 weeks for them to do a 10 minute repair. And, they will format your hard drive when you send it out for repair, regardless of what the repair job is.

 

CyberLink DVD Suite
HP Media Smart DVD
Windows DVD Maker

Wondering what software ppl are using that are having trouble burning DVD's?
With so many having trouble I tried all three and didn't have any problem. That got to me wondering if the machines with problems were 'clean install' or standard?

 

Thanks, SMAN! I'm an old techie so that's no problem for me. Do you by chance know a number that I can call to expedite that exchange process? I understand we HDX owners are supposed to have a special support group (or so the HP site says) but they don't list the number in an obvious place.

I've only had this system for two days and burning DVD's is not my primary use, so I'd much prefer to be calibrating the system, working with my primary Photo editing apps, cleaning up the OS and making sure there are no other issues before the 21 day return clock runs out...

Thanks again for the support!

 

Hi Prescott,

Well, the first thing I did when I fired up the system was get ready to burn some recovery discs so I could do a clean install. Was a quick process on the DV5t I had before, so when the system choked I knew I couldn't do a system restore in case I had to return this machine.

My first step after checking drivers and other functions of the burner was to try and burn directly from Vista64 - no go. Burned CD's just fine, though. Same with Windows Media Player. My reference to flaky software is the Cyberlink DVD Suite - their product support is not "well regarded" to say the least, and I think that's a pretty poor package to package with a $1,500+ laptop.

I do agree about doing a clean install as a "gold standard" to begin troubleshooting (and of course, to get rid of the unnecessary junk they load onto the system) and would have done so if I had purchased the recovery discs. Thought about doing an Acronis or Paragon backup and then just wiping the "C" partition, but want to make sure HP doesn't have any reason to say I've voided any warranties, etc.

I don't know what the issue is with this particular drive - I suspect we'll see a firmware update soon but there's nothing on the LG or HP site yet. I wouldn't have spent any time fiddling with it if I hadn't seen so many other posts - some from the usual newbies but others from people who understand system internals. But I'm done playing with it - time to swap out the drive!

Thanks!

 

No thank you for responding.
I think by getting a dialog going about this issue we can all benifit.
I'm not so big headed to think just because mine worked (once) it will continue.

 

I'm not familiar with any special number. You should be able to achieve your results through the normal channels. When in doubt you can allways try the case manager route, but you need to have a file setup allready through the usual channels.

 

The direct US toll free number for HDX Tech Support is 866-408-5408

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, SMAN. I called in this evening, opened a case, told them I wanted to talk directly to the HDX support team and didn't have to waste too much time with tier 1 support - I guess they really do have a team for the needs of the HDX users and product line!

Did have to go through a few canned Q/A scripts about "trying this and that" but I had already done everything she came up with and so she just skimmed over that part - now a new drive is on the way and should be here within a week, and I don't have to part with my machine in the interim!

Thanks for the direct number - they gave me that one after taking care of my problem and said I could call back with any further issues. I originally went through the main HP number and opened my case but that only took a few minutes.

They do get a lot of calls on these drive issues, so they said I might not get back the same model drive as I currently have which is fine with me. So did anything come out of the experience that may be of value to the HDX16 owners?

Well, we now have the direct number for HDX support. They told me that changing out drives, memory or optical drives are all done through the technical exchange program. We don't void the warranty by putting in our own drives or memory or doing a "clean" install with any OS of our choice. The only caveat is that you have to have the original parts if you call in for troubleshooting, and if you redo your OS you have to perform a recovery to the original system if you want help.

Basically, all that is good news because I doubt most of the people here who might be inclined to upgrade these components wouldn't be calling in and asking for technical service of non-HP parts or software support anyway...

I'll follow-up on this post when I get the new DVD drive installed and make sure that it was simply a defective component, or what the next steps are if it's not. In the mean time, I can put some time into walking through the rest of the system.

Thanks to everyone for their input!

 

Thanks for the update. Glad they're sending you a new drive without much hassle. Definitely keep us posted.

 

rh91,

Anytime that is what the forums are for.
Good luck and keep us all posted.

 

Hey

I have just gotten my hdx16 and I was wondering if anyone knows how to change the resolution, it goes from 1920x1080 and the next one is 1360x768... I would like to use something in between fx when playing games and using photoshop.. I've tried upgrading the nvidia driver from HP's website with no luck...

A bit o help here please??

 

I recommend using the latest Nvidia drivers for the Geforce 9600M GT. When you install those, I believe it lets you select from a whole list of resolutions.

 

Due to the 16:9 nature of the panel, anything other than those two options will look distorted and fuzzy. That's probably why there aren't other choices.

Seems for Photoshop use, you'd want the 1920x1080 native res...

 

True true, for photoshop yes... But it is still a bit annoying that it does not have any resolution at all in between.....

 

I'm not expecting state of the act but I expect to hear the people talking. After I change some settings, I found out the sound is excellent (DVD wise) only when I'm watching a video via internet that the sound quality isn't very good :/ Could that be because of internet settings? How do I change my internet settings?

 

I just got my HDX 16, and hope you guys can help me figure this out. Mine came with a 500GB 5400 RPM drive, but I wanted to put in a 320GB Seagate 7200.3 drive. When I put the 320GB drive in, for some reason it absolutely refuses to go past the boot screen (The HP logo) and will not even allow me to enter the BIOS or change boot order. I also tried a 120GB Fujitsu drive, and it will do the exact same thing. This charade continues on with another 250GB Seagate drive, a 320GB Toshiba drive and finally a 60GB Hitachi drive, and all drives makes the laptop freeze up at the HP logo boot screen. However, put in its original drive, and it runs fine. I have tried removing the CMOS battery and that didn't help. Did HP do something special to these drives to prevent the end-user from using an aftermarket hard drive?

 

did you try installing drivers for the drives before placing them into the laptop?