*HP HDX18 Owners Lounge*

Does anyone use Victorinox Wishire backpack for HDX18t ?

I know that build quality is top notch but I wonder is it fits in the sleeve.




I love their Acropolis bag/backpack (pic below) but unfortunately it is 15" only. Wilshire is designed for 17" laptops but I don't want to spend money if 18" will not fit.




I am also thinking about Knomo bag, but this is shoulder/strap and not much space for accessories.






Frinton style is not bad either

 

I bought the Targus Blacktop Deluxe 17” Laptop Case w/ Dome Protection (CPT401DUS).
My HP HDX 18 fits perfectly.

 

Targus above is the only thing I was able to find that it fits.

 

Nice of him to lie to you. We've seen the pictures, and the touchpad matches up with the HDX16 perfectly.

I've found that when the bass and treble goes bonkers, adjusting the volume level makes it stop.

 

When you say sleep seems to be working fine what do you mean? I am having 2 issues with my 2nd HDX that are driving me nuts.

1) When I sleep it and close the lid, then come back to it in the morning it is turned on and running..

2) When I boot it up (after a shutdown or a sleep) it sometimes is very unresponsive. The mouse when moving jumps and the finger card reader doesn't work and I can't login. I have to cold shut it off and start it up and hope it doesn't happen again (Which it has!).

Any thoughts to why this would occur?

 

1) usually caused by a program waking your computer up - check some of the stuff you have installed recently

2) similar to above - anything new you added? changes in drivers?

 

Well mine arrived sooner than expected. The box looked worse for wear as it came from China direct to me. But when I opened the carton I was in awe. It was beautiful if I may say w/o not sounding unmanly..lol. I only used it for a few mins doing required updates but so far so good. I did read the post about the media keys and when I tapped them they worked fine and the sound was awesome especially compared to the Studio 17 I had and returned to get this one. It was the best decision I made. Goodbye Dell the family can use the Dell I have had for a while, but this baby is mine all mine. I was blown away by sheer size and the display compared to my Inspiron 1520 which on m profile is a picture showing the difference between the Studio 17 and the 1520. I will update that soon to show my Hdx18t. If it stays working the way it has been I will be a happy camper. Will post config and pica later. I am now a proud owner now and not a tire kicker. Thanks to all who have helped with my question and helped me in saving a few dollars and still getting a great system.

 

That bag looks great, does it provide decent protection for your laptop? The sleeve they sent with mine is ok for keeping the dust off but not much more protections than that. Will look into that bag. For info and prices on bag.. Targus Blacktop Deluxe 17 Laptop Case w/ Dome Protection CPT401DUS by Targus
Buy new: $53.03 28 Used & new from $41.99 via Amazon

 

How long did it take to receive? Are you on the east or west coast? Congrats on the laptop. Mine is on the way.

 

When I set mine up yesterday it had the ant and a cord to connect right to cable and did have cable qam as an option.

 

So how good is the antenna? Does it say what the gain is?

 

Congratulations! That was the way I felt when I first got mine almost 3 months ago and I still feel the same way. I can afford any computer I want and this was definitely the way to go for me too. BTW - It was even more beautiful after I took the stickers off. Happy computing!

 

I was thinking about removing mine as well. It takes alot to get me excited and boy this did it thanks for the congrats. It is one of a kind and I am so glad I got away from Dell. The Studio looked good but outside of that it was junk. Maybe it is just that product line. Companies need to remember that the customer is what makes them successful. No customer no sales. HP has a new fan now.

 

I did a scan but did not have the antenna where it would p/u so I did not try it out yet. I also have a pinnacle usb pro stick and that did not work to bad.If you have poor sig the pic will pixelate and sometimes freeze up but when I hooked it straight to the cable it was great. I will keep you posted on how it works out on the Hdx18t. I have only used it on my Dells. I will you know how it works on mine sometime next week when I try it out again I was in tinker mood at the time and did not really mess with that feature other than the quick scan.

 

I have what I believe is the 15" version of that bag and it is a nice bag, took my current laptop on the plane last year with no issues. My HDX 18 will arrive tomorrow or Friday, will have to see about getting a new bag, have to see about ordering it off Amazon or seeing if Staples has it as that's where I bought my Targus 15"

 

when comparing the picture quality to my plasma I found that I had to adjust the color properties, like the contrast, and digital vibrance. The hdx montior is brighter but the plasma color tuning is more correct so when I compared to my plasma i found that the whites are not pure white, like a hint of yellow so I made some setting changes and now it looks great. I will be comparing movies I know to be perfect on it to make sure.

 

Hey guys I have a couple of questions I was hoping to get some clarification on.

1.) CPU-Z has my QX9300 Core speed at 1565.7 MHz. Obviously it should be closer to 2500.0 MHz, so could it be CPU-Z? I'm running CPU-z on my OCZ Whitebook with the same proceesor and it correctly shows 2527.0 MHz. And Ideas?

2.) I've been comparing the bluray player on both systems, and the HDX seems to have a grainer quality on playback. Has anyone else had trouble with the HDX bluray? Or could it by the bluray itself.

3.) Does anyone know if this bag: http://www.ogio.com/product.php?product=515 or this bag: http://www.slappa.com/aura-black-laptop-sleeve fit the HDX 18?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Yes, I would say the blu-ray issues on the HDX are software related. Probably the drivers.

 

Any luck on getting better drivers. I dont even know what model HDX I have, so I havent updated any drivers via HP.com yet.

On more note. Does the HDX automatically underclock the processor when not in heavy use? Because via CPUZ and PC Wizard 2008, I've seen to core speed jump from 1500 MHz to 2500 MHz on occasion. It just generally stays on 1500 Mhz. Also, My power options are consistently on: High Performance. I figure that would set my clock speed to 2500 MHz consistently if it is automatically being downclocked, but it doesnt seem to.

 

Hey lancorp,

Well, I finally found me a laptop, and pulled the trigger..... just released in the U.S. today, the ASUS W90Vp-X1. Check out this bad-boy!

I really appreciate your thoughts on notebook selection. Here is a little price & performance for ya. :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220503

http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&u=http://itpro.no/art/13803.html&sl=no&tl=en

http://forums.vr-zone.com/news-around-web/394504-20k-3dmark-06-asus-w90-notebook.html

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=218157

http://translate.google.com/transla...58&Itemid=84&limit=1&limitstart=0&sl=cs&tl=en

ENJOY!

 

The dealbreakers for me are no provision for a built in 2nd HDD for backups on the road without carrying around extra gear (a very high priority for me), weight (I use mine on my lap most of the time) and I prefer the "looks" of the 18t over everything else I've seen out there (not a huge priority, but I have to say it gets more attention than anything I've ever owned before).

I'm not a gamer so my priorities are different than your's.

 

Umm... this thread is for HP HDX 18 owners.

 

My fans run all the time (when I turn on my HP18), is this normal? What can i do to fix this problem?

 

Theres a setting in the bios for that. Under system configuration. Fans always on. Enable or Disable. I have mine set to disable. The fans only come on when needed.

 

thanks BADWOLF, how can I enter the BIOS?

 

At bootup you press the F10 key.

 

I am considering buying an 18T tonight. I see in this thread that some of you have gotten 40% off or more. Even at only $200 off it seems like a pretty good deal to me, but for those of you who have watched this a long time, how often to the big coupons come around? Any indication that they are coming soon?

I would be pretty bummed if I ordered it and they came out right afterwards

One other question - I had a Dell Inspiron 530 with a Blu-ray player in it. It used PowerDVD as the player. It crashed at least once or twice during every movie I watched. During researching this problem a lot of people said this happens to most systems right now. I was wondering if this happens to most people on their 18Ts, and if the Blu-ray software that comes with them is PowerDVD or WinDVD.

Thanks!!!

 

You are protected for 21 days. If a better deal/promo comes along during that time, just call them and they will credit you back the difference.

 

Ahh, gotcha. That's cool, but the bad thing is that if I had a coupon I would still spend the same amount of money, I would just configure it way up with a quad-core processor, etc. So if the coupon comes out, I will feel like I didn't get as powerful of a laptop as I could have, not that I spent too much.

Oh well, I think I am just going to go for it

I have read through a lot of this thread, it is very informative. Thanks to all of you for your posts. Hopefully most of the issues have been worked out, I am coming from an aluminum 13" MacBook which defies the laws of manufacturing (it is like a piece of art). I just need a 17"+ screen for remote computer support. But I am not spending $2800+ on a MacBook Pro 17". I love the specs of the 18T and don't mind Windows (I use it a lot on my MacBook anyway), but I am paranoid of going from a solid milled block of aluminum to a plastic laptop. I felt some laptops at Best Buy tonight (not just HPs) and I could actually flex them by holding both sides and twisting slightly. Eek! Do the 18Ts compare favorably (sans the mentioned problems in this thread) in fit and finish to normal PC laptops? I see they are called a "Premium Series" and the pictures look great. I am just scared of what it will feel like? Can someone reassure me before I click the buy button?

Thanks!

 

Oh - and one more question - since these came out fairly recently, are they free of the Nvidia snafu of graphics cards that burn up? I know a lot of newer laptops are using 9600s and I haven't heard of any problems, I just wanted to make sure.

I saw in this thread some people turn off the "fan always on" option in the BIOS, is that option on by default because of the graphics card problems Nvidia had? Similar to Dell's BIOS updates that run the fans all the time?

Sorry for all of the questions out of the gate, I just read 400 pages or so of this thread and I had a few remaining questions. My wife does not allow me to buy a computer very often, so I have to make this a good one, LOL.

Thanks everyone!

 

Valen,

Thanks for the assistance and posts on rivatuner!

My WEI results: Graphics: 5.9 Gaming Graphics: 5.5 (overall 5.5)

I pushed it a bit with a couple sessions of rthdribl and monitored with GPUz and after playing a bit with some issues got it stable and then scaled back just a bit more for my own comfort. I ended up at 621/1509/523

I was running Crysis Warhead at Mainstream settings after having to scale back from Gamer but was able to go back and set all settings to Gamer and it was very smooth.

I did it with the original post you had on the HP drivers, so I never did go try the other drivers you posted about.

Great stuff. Thanks again V!

CC

 

Not to worry...you also have 21 days to try it out and return it if you are not 100% satisfied. Not sure about the fans as I am waiting to receive my HDX18. Should have it today. Good luck.

 

Don't worry about the coupon. I felt the same way as you. Just cancel your order if a new coupon comes up and place a new order with the quad.

 

I've watched about a dozen movies so far. Occasionally there have been times where the movie will stall for a second then continue to run. This is most likely caused by a process starting in the background. After all the primary function of this machine is computing not a dedicated Blu-ray player.

I'm very pleased with this machine so far. The wireless "N" doesn't connect with any reasonable speed, but wireless "N" is still a work in progress. One option I wish they had was for a Solid State Drive. I added a G.Skill Titan 256GB SSD and the machine boots much faster and opens and loads programs much faster. I have 8Gigs of ram due to arrive today, that will be all the mods I need to make. I think this machine was the best available, and so far am very pleased with it's performance.

 

I do agree with you but I do believe this was directed at lancorp for which he should have sent a PM but oh well.

 

Thanks everyone for the replies! I am going to order one today. Finally!!!

 

Back in, i think, 2003, I purchased the Toshiba P20; at the time the first 17" laptop in Canada. I remember I had to wait a little to get a laptop case. Finally when i found one (at now the bankrupt Compusmart) it was the following case:

http://www.targus.com/ca/product_details.asp?sku=CNXL1

i am interested in purchasing the HP HDX 18-1180CA [ http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...67&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=ca&lang=en&product=3860278] (in the US as the HP HDX 18-1180US), however I want to see some more reviews, and hopefully someone on notebookreview will post a full review I went to Best Buy the other day to try it out, and while I attribute it to being a demo model, the adjustment of the treble and bass was not smooth as compared to when i played with the demo HDX 16 model. But a sick machine nonetheless. I wanted to flip over the machine to look at the underneath but i couldnt as it was anchored to the table. I was however able to slip my hands underneath to get a feel of how warm it was. While it is was warm, it wasn't by any means hot. However I am a little disappointed that the venting system is not like the 8730w. I know I know, it's like comparing apples to oranges, however having side exhaust vents (like on the 8730w and my P20) would greatly improve heat exchange, instead of leaving things dependent solely on the mini-vent in the rear and the underneath vents.

While I understand a laptop cooler would be a logical choice for this machine, that is not an option for me. I do not game, however I do enjoy my entertainment (hehehe I could only imagine what South Park and Corner Gas looks like and sounds like on this machine lol). The purpose of this machine will be to help me with my thesis work (anyone want to do it for me...any takers...i'll give you a cookie )

It is a big machine, however in no ways is it not portable. It could be difficult yes to transport, but meh, to get a little, you need to give a little. However I wouldn't have this problem if Toshiba or HP would market higher resolution 17" laptops than what they have now; oh well, c'est la vie mon esti n'est pas lol

Anyways, I was on the Targus (Canada) website and saw the following:

http://www.targus.com/ca/product_details.asp?sku=TCC008CA



It says it can hold up to a 20" notebook...it would appear as 18.4" laptops become more and more produced (and marketed of course), cases will need to become available.

As a final thought (stop clapping people lol) it's funny seeing this machine next to a 17" HP; when I got my 17" laptop it was huge (and 10 lbs as well), now in comparison, a 17" laptop seems tiny compared to this beast!

Cheers all! :tongue:

 

The first page of this thread includes a full review and if you google HDX18t review, you will find many.

 

no no I know...sorry i should have said a review with the Intel Q9000 processor that is

 

One last question before I order - sorry if this was covered, but this thread is getting as big as the 18T itself, so it's hard to navigate ..

If I buy the 250x2 Hard Drive option and then swap out the secondary drive with a 500GB drive myself, will it void any portion of my warranty?

I really am only buying the two drives so that I can get the caddy but the 500x2 option is pretty expensive.

Thanks!

 

Boy do feel dumb, really really dumb!

I wanted to upgrade to 8Gigs of ram so i looked up what ram my machine would use in Everest. It said that the chipset would support 200 pin DDR2 or 204 pin DDR3 ram, so I bought the 204 pin DDR3 ram. Well I have the 200 pin DDR2 ram in my machine, the DDR3 won't fit the sockets are different. Now I have $640.00 of useless ram sitting here.

I have a couple of options on how to resolve this situation. I can return the ram to the vendor at a loss of a 15% restocking fee. I could ebay them, or I could go to a local computer shop and see if they will exchange them for what I need. Opinions welcome. :confused2:

 

Ah, you know I havent seen that either. Though, if you want to go quad core, I'd go for the Q9100 your only paying $50 to go from a 2.0 quad to a 2.26. I think it will be hard to find reviews on the quads. They are great, but most applications don't use them right now, so for comparing the speed of normal use right now, the duals will always win - thus no need to review a quad as all the other features are the same.

 

That stinks man, good to know though. I though the DDR2 and DDR3 ram was interchangeable too!

 

bad wolf made a bad choice!

you would definitely not make that much back via ebay so the best option, to get back as much of the $ you put in, is to send it back and GLADLY pay the restocking fee... try the exchange at a local computer company but dont be surprised if they dont accept what you have or ask for more $ for the swap, etc.

take this as a costly lesson learned - you always gotta do your hw!

 

Nadroj,

No, replacing a hard drive or memory module (ram) will not void any of the HP warranty. I asked that specific question when talking with HP reps twice and was twice told that it was no problem what so ever.

 

can anyone tell me how I can check my CPU/GPU temperatures, should i download any software?

thanks in advance

 

http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

download is in the upper left hand corner.

thank me later.

 

Mara,

I use Core Temp for my CPU temps and GPU-Z for my gpu, they are both free downloads.

CC

Though I do like the look of what timesquaredesi posted, thanks T.

One reason I like Core Temp is that it can be minimized and shown next to your clock so that you can see your temps as you work without having to mess with where the app window is.

 

PC Wizard 2008 is a good all inclusive tool.

 

Silly question. For the ones that ordered back in October/November, did your notebook ship with Microsoft Works? I can't remember if I uninstalled it (I don't use it) or if it just wasn't there. I received a Microsoft Works 9.0 install CD today from HP.