*HP HDX18 Owners Lounge*

I know that the HDX16t users had crackling and popping for their sound. So what they did was they uninstalled their drivers that HP supplied and just let windows choose the drivers.

Of course your situation is different because you are using x64...

 

Lol I hope they play nice! We should definitely compare the quality and build of our laptops as we're unboxing it.

 

Hopefully whatever group of guys built our laptops were having a good day so we get lucky with perfect laptops.

I just ordered the seagate 320gig 7200rpm drive and the 4GIG G.skill ram, should arrive by Friday.

I think the HDX ram will fit into my HP Tablet PC I bought last year so I will take the 3GIG's the HDX came with and upgrade my tablet with it.

 

Can you give me links to what you purchased? And do you think they will definitely provide a noticeable increase in performance as opposed to stock memory and hard drives?

 

Well you are probably ok with the 3GIGs if you don't really plan on doing too much. I want the 4 gigs because I will be installing VMware.

I will have 2 Linux Guest OS's at 512MB each. So there goes 1 GIG.
And I will put WinXP Guest OS with 768MB. And the remaining memory will
just go to Vista...now when 8 GIG's becomes cheaper, I will upgrade to 8GIGs.

As for the 5400RPM vs 7200RPM, I'm only hoping it would provide a difference since I will be having other OS's running and I assume the 7200RPM would provide quicker access...


G.SKILL RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231156


Seagate HDD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148336

 

I want 4G just cuz I got the 64 Bit edition of Windows and that will be able to utilize it a lot better.

I know you said that you trust Seagate above all else but were there any other hard drives that you were interested in that you would also recommend taking a look at? Perhaps one that does have that g force attribute?

 

Not that I'm aware of. Western Digital has the same drive (no g-force) for the same price $99. And if you look at the comments, one user is complaining about clicking noises....and I definitely don't trust Maxtor drives.

The drive that comes with HP, I think is Hitachi and it comes with the HP Smart Protection which come close to what the g-force does...

I'm sure this "gforce" technology works, but I can sleep at night knowing I don't have it...

 

Check your PM's vistabad

 

mine was a fujitsu. I don't believe the HD protection has anything to do with the HDD, but rather with the notebook itself. There is probably a drop sensor in the notebook that sends a command to park the heads of the HDD.

I'm still keeping an eye out for the Caddy Kits on the HDX18t. Still nothing yet. Last I heard from NewmodeUS is that they would put me on a waiting list for it. bleah.

 

That memory from GSkill is a "non refundable" item....why is that? I mean hopefully it works and all but I find it weird that they won't refund me my money if I'm not happy with the product...

And what's people's opinion on this Memory option from OCZ?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227251

It looks pretty tight and has lots of positive reviews.

 

Don't know, but my 8 gigs of G.Skill suffered my burn in test just fine.

 

Yea, I didn't see it at first myself. I wish I had known about the disc b/c I ordered mine with Vista Ultimate 64.

 

To any and everyone that is interested in a FREE copy of ZoneALarm Firewall Pro; its only free for today though, theyre doing a promotion for their bday. I meant to post this earlier but i totally forgot. If youre using a router you already have a hardware firewall, but hey, free is FREE!

http://lifehacker.com/5091005/zonealarm-2009-pro-free-tomorrow-today-only

http://download.zonealarm.com/bin/free/sum/index.html

 

About Vista....

SO I ordered it with Vista Premium w/ SP1 64 Bit. Now I know some people are upgrading it to Vista Ultimate using some sorta workaround? Does anyone care to explain it to me?

And I'll still be able to register my license with MS right and be eligible to receive updates, etc?

 

I'm still not sure what you guys mean by "caddy kits". My SSD fits really snugly in the drive bay, I'm not sure there would be any room for some sort of "caddy". As far as I can tell, all you really need is the cable.

 

Oh, I hope this is a good omen!

My package of accessories for my HDX18 arrived yesterday (the actual computer is not scheduled to ship until the 25th). I was surprised to discover that they had packed two Bluetooth Mice in the box, and assumed it was an error in their shipping department. Then I checked my online invoice. Whoops! I must have hit "add to cart" twice or something; sure enough, I accidentally ordered two of them.

So I called last night to arrange a return. The Customer Service rep was very friendly, but said that her system was down and asked if I'd call back this morning. I did, spoke with another friendly rep, and arranged for a credit to my account. However, she said to go ahead and keep the second mouse (presumably because the cost of return really isn't worth it to HP?) and either "give it to a friend to show them the quality of this HP product, or better yet donate to a local school or charity." She added, "It's one way HP wants our customers to know how much we value them and hope they have the very best experience with HP."

I had originally ordered a Dell Studio 17, but cancelled that order in favor of the HDX18 after a horrible runaround with ridiculously unhelpful Dell Customer Service. The contrast of that with my surprisingly pleasant exerpience with HP has given me those "warm fuzzies" that any customer wants while waiting for the Big Toy(tm) to arrive!

 

Just track it in the morning. It will show if it's on the truck for delivery.

Right now, mine shows Clearance Delay. I don't like the sound of that!

 

Hey!!! I have the same problem!!! I can not figure it out. When I log in with the fingerprint reader, I get a low tone, raspy noise instead of the normal sounding tone. Everytime. I've tracked down where the sound files are, and they all play back normally through media player, but not when I scan my finger.

My HDX16t that I had (and my HDX Dragon) all work normally, so I know what the sound is supposed to sound like. This is just not right. I finally wound up turning off the feeback sounds.

Anyone else having an issue with the sound being raspy and lower in tone?

 

Yeah I just saw that on HP's website...not too pleased with that.

Oh well I guess we'll see what happens. Why in the world is there a delay within the US though? I mean I can understand in China or maybe Alaska but this is Indy for crying out loud.

 

With 8 GIGs of RAM you can turn off your pagefiles! That helps speed things up too, plus frees up hard drive space, plus helps keep the fragmentation down.

Just an idea...

 

Dummy!

That's the price you pay for not wasting your life here reading all the posts!

 

All of ours that were shipped together are probably delayed in clearance.

It's probably the fault of your package! They must have found white powder or something ticking inside yours.

Thanks, CK, for the delay!

 

That may be all you need, but did you not even look at the drive that came WITH the computer??? It's mounted in a caddy, with blue rubber vibration dampers...I'm sure you could "double-sided sticky tape" it into the bay, but you should have seen what was originally there (or maybe HP used tape in yours??? )

 

Lol

About Vista....

SO I ordered it with Vista Premium w/ SP1 64 Bit. Now I know some people are upgrading it to Vista Ultimate using some sorta workaround? Does anyone care to explain it to me?

And I'll still be able to register my license with MS right and be eligible to receive updates, etc?

 

This was already discussed and a link for ordering was posted earlier. Search is your friend.

In any case, it's the Vista Ultimate Recovery DVD kit from HP. $16.

As was also discussed, it's not necessarily a proper, binding, license for Ultimate. But, it works. It basically wipes out your hard drive and puts a fresh HP-factory image of Vista Ultimate on your HDX18t.

"Register with Microsoft"? Does anyone actually register their OS??? It's not required to receive updates, and MS certainly doesn't need my personal information!

 

Lots of people register their OS...

And as far as the Recovery DVD I need/have to order one right if I'm replacing the stock hard drives correct?

Also when you say "image" are you implying something is different with this mode of installation? Last but not least what happens say if I have to call MS for help with Windows and they ask for a license number? They'll be able to tell that it belongs to Vista Premium right? Should I just let them continue to believe that?

Also do you have a link to the Vista Premium 64 Bit Recovery CD?

 

And lots don't. My point is it is not necessary to register in order to get the any of the automatic updates, etc. All you're doing is giving MS your personal information. You cannot even call them for support, because it is an OEM version of the OS. You MUST call HP for support. So, again, WHY??

Yes, it's the easiest way. Saves lots of time and hassle from downloading drivers, etc...(edit: OR, you can use one of the imaging programs like GHOST or Acronis True Image, but for a novice, the recovery DVD kit is the answer).

 

Well I found the area to go to for ordering the Vista Premium Recovery CD. Not sure what I'm going to do on that end. There's not really a huge leap between Premium and Ultimate so I may just stick with what I ordered and not try to cut any lines, etc.

 

Mine too!! Looks like our laptops are giving these airport security guys a problem!?

 

The recovery kit does not do an "installation", as everyone thinks of a Vista installation. It is an unattended reload of the drive with the OS, software and drivers, just like it was new.

The link is in my post 5 posts up...where is says "Vista Ultimate Recovery DVD kit".... (oops..I misread your question...you ask about the PREMIUM recover DVD)

 

Yeah but it's $300 for 8GIG's....

I do turn off system restore though to speed things up. When I can get 8GIG's for say $150, I'll be ordering them....

Unless you have some spare's just collecting dust?

 

Dude you're confusing me...I don't want to frustrate you or whatever but if I'm replacing a stock hard drive with a new one that means it doesn't have any OS on it right?

So therefore I've got to install on it correct? I'm not sure what all this "unattended reloading" stuff you're talking about does but it doesn't seem to me like it's going to install the full OS on my computer.

I mean I really don't want to buy a version of Vista from Amazon but if that's what it takes then so be it.

 

Well with the clearance delay, whatever that means, looks like I "should" be getting it tomorrow, not one day early as I thought.

Then Friday/Sat I hope to get my orders from Newegg....that should give me 2 good days to play with this and make sure there's nothing wrong with it.

 

You take the HDD that came with your laptop out and put your new Seagate in right? It will be blank.

Pop in the Vista CD from HP and when you boot, it will find the CD and completely install Vista and all HP products/drivers for you without you having to do anything at all! It is a "quick restore" CD.

It is not your typical Vista OS install where you have to click yes here and there..you don't do anything....

HP has the rights to include Vista in their CD along with their own software and drivers. Think of it as a modified Vista CD...

So you won't be able to use this Vista CD on other computers, just the HDX....

 

Thanks for explaining to CK...

 

Yeah, it's not just the fingerprint login for me either. I play a lot of online poker, and a couple of the "hurry up and play your hand" beeps on from the poker sites do the same thing. Pretty annoying if I'm playing 16 tables...sigh.

 

Curious...do you have a QUAD CORE?

 

Ah, sorry, my fault. I didn't realise that was a caddy. I thought that was just part of the Seagate drives. Either way, I'm prepared to pay $640 for a hard drive, but I would never ever ever pay $140 or whatever HP were asking for that "enclosure". Besides, I have the one on my original drive for when I can find a cable, and the SSD doesn't have any moving parts, so any vibration shouldn't be a big deal.

 

When you boot up the PC with the factory HDD and image, there's an app in the start menu to create your own recovery disc set. So you can run that, burn the dvds yourself and then install your own drive. So you don't need to order the dvd kit if you don't want to.

 

Nope. Just the dual core 2.4. That said, the first time I looked at the HDX, the $200 Quad Core option was there and I would have got it for sure, but when I went to order a week later, it was gone. The Intel SSD does more for me than a faster processor anyway, I don't use any particularly processor intensive apps.

 

I definitely agree with the SSD! 3M double sided tape it!! Just need that stupid cable! Too bad, because the HDX20 (Dragon) does not use SATA cables...the drives plug directly into a SATA connection in each bay...

 

Well you could do that but you won't get Vista Ultimate for $16...

 

So is there a carrying case for the 18.4" beast? I don't want a roller and prefer not to have a backpack...

 

True true. I got the Ultimate and the Premium recovery dvd sets, but just throwing it out there.

 

For the record, in case anyone else wants to know, the roller is actually a really nice case. It's perfect for the laptop + a couple of days clothes.

 

hey guys i am new here .>>Newb lol ..i purchased the hdx18 but canceled it because i need better understanding of what is worth getting as options?
i use the comp to surf the net and basic work .. no video games etc ..
which extra options are worth the money and which are rip offs??


is the 3 year acccidental breakage plan worth it? they really tried to push it on me .. telling me how awesome it was

 

I bet you a lot of 17" carrying cases will fit the 18.4 beast!

 

I would just feel weird bringing a roller to work everday as if I'm going to the airport....

 

Okay so now that I fully understand the whole recovery cd stuff (thanks vistabad) I think I will order one of the versions from HP's website.

However I have to wait for the laptop to get here don't I before I can place the order since it asks for product serial number correct?

 

Check your inbox. HP sent me an email with my shipment date, tracking# etc...if you click on the unit, it will reveal your serial# so you can order it now....