HP Spectre 13T-3000

Well, joke's on me! They apparently tried to deliver it today. The tracking info says they will try again tomorrow.

Hopefully the driver didn't beat the **** out of it since he had to carry it upstairs and back down...

 

Hello,

Can anyone check if this laptop has any option in BIOS to "Enable virtualization"?. I'm thinking about getting this machine, and while I know that most laptop has this feature configurable in BIOS nodaways, I want to make sure, because otherwise it will be useless for me.

I saw the i7 model with 8GB, 1080p and 128GB but i must admit that the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition also looks good, with same specs but a 256GB...


Thanks in advance.

 

Hey I just searched the i7 4500U and found that it does support virtualization, as far if you can turn it on or off, I believe it is set to on by default. I can't confirm it though because mine will arrive on Friday and can check for you or anyone else out there that has received theirs' might check.

source: ARK | Intel® Core

 

The Baby arrived today. It is absolutely gorgeous. I have already made the recovery disk. I want to recover the recovery partition space. When I checked the Disk Management, I came across another 8GB partition in addition to the recovery partition. It is marked as "OEM Partition". Any suggestions whether can I remove it or not ?

Got a USB 8.1 Pro version, however while booting(after changing the boot order) the system does not boot into the USB. Any Ideas why ? I want to perform a clean install of 8.1 Pro.

 

I've read all 106 pages of this thread and you guys really helped me make the decision to purchase this laptop - thanks!! I had vowed never to buy HP again, but seems like every manufacturer seems to have problems (every Thinkpad I bought last year was a lemon!) So I decieded to give to give HP another chance..crossing my fingers...

While I wait for it to come, just wondering if anyone has come across a screen protector that fits? Mainly to reduce the glare from the glossy screen.

 

Just booted into BIOS and checked it out. There is an option to enable virtualization. It is disabled by default by the looks of it. BTW this is my first post and I would like to thank everyone for the all the info and advice. You all made the decision to pull the trigger on the laptop without seeing it easier. Glad I did as it is a great machine.

 

How long have you had yours? Also what specs did you pick?

 

Not sure what you mean by "Got a USB 8.1 Pro version," but if your BIOS boot order has USB first, and it won't boot, I would suspect that the USB isn't set up to boot, or is corrupted.

Good luck, Jim

 

This might seem like a strange question but what's the minimum brightness like (migraines)? And what screen do you have? Thanks

 

I meant I had a bootable USB drive with Win 8.1 Pro on it. Anyways, was able to install it without much hassle. I love this machine. You all have been very helpful.

 

- As soon as I get a new flash drive I'll probably try putting the recovery partition on the USB, use the HP recovery program to delete the Recovery partition, and then use Windows Disk Management to consolidate all of the partitions, with the exception of the ~400MB that is on the front end.
- I also found that if you use Magic Jelly Bean it can tell you both your current Product ID (which should match what is shown in Windows System) as well as the CD Key that "should" be able to be used for installation. If, for some reason, the merging all of the partitions doesn't work as I hope, I may just download the Microsoft Windows 8.1 USB installation software from their web site and see if/when it prompts me for the Windows 8.1 CD Key and see if that works.

 

Worst case scenario: complete the 8.1 installation as a trial installation, then call Windows customer support, explain the situation, and get their help activating. Many an NBR member has done this successfully.

Still curious about the FHD screen. I think I'm pulling the trigger on one of these in the next few days (lack of i5-4250U be darned!), and I'd like to know how the screens compare. I'm not super concerned about the resolution, as either of those numbers is more than adequate for me, but color, contrast, viewing angles, brightness, and glare are all worth considering. I'd feel pretty foolish if I spent $70 extra for a screen that draws more power while offering a worse viewing experience, though I guess I wouldn't be likely to know unless I could see the two side by side.

Also, I've seen a current $200 coupon that's labeled as "20%" on some sites, but is there an actual 20% coupon code floating around there as well? Since I'd be going for a couple upgrades from the base model, 20% would be about $70 better than the coupon I've found. If it exists and you don't want to share it publicly, I'd appreciate a PM.

 

I think coupon code for 20% is: PC92229. That should get you 20%.
I haven't received mine yet but I bought the QHD one. From the numbers perspective this screen is actually great (FHD and QHD) in terms of color reproduction. That are nearly 100% sRGB. Its been rated at about 97% or higher. Trust me when I say this, that's amazing. SRGB is a dream to work on as a designer. I've seen the FHD on in Best Buy, didn't test the viewing angles but it looked pretty great. Black levels are pretty darn good. You should check it out at your local best buy though.

 

Can someone please tell me if the laptop is delivered with an invoice stating the price of the laptop or did it just come with a shipping note with no value.

 

My local Best Buy is several thousand miles away, unfortunately. I'd be buying this with my sister's address as the shipping address, then she'd bring it to me in China in April when she comes for my wedding. It's everything I want except Iris graphics, and the price is pretty excellent, so I think I've gotta take what I can get...

 

Thanks for the answer. And thanks you too, Dpat09.

 

Good day!

I got this laptop yesterday and I love it, however, it was my first exposure to ClickPad. I think I know now all or almost all gestures and tricks (like two fingers tap is a right button click) but I still can figure out how to simply select text in MS Word and I feel dumb. I'm trying to tap at the beginning of my text and move my finger still pressing but it doesn't select anything. Any help is highly appreciated.

 

I upgraded to x1440 screen just because (I know I'd be fine with 1080 as well), so I can't compare it with 1080 but 1440 screen is amaizing. Brightness, colors, sharpness are excelent. Probably, you can find another, better one, but I didn't see, so far. I didn't calibrate it yet and didn't try to work with photos, so I can't comment on color accuracy.
BTW, IE shows text in normal readable size, however, Chrome doesn't use (at least by default) size correction and text is very small. So, I switched to IE for now.

And I like everything else, especially for the price (i7, 8Gb, 256Gb, AC, x1440 screen for $1180).

 

I just checked and it is actually a 45W adapter. I'm waiting on an answer from HP confirming that the 65W won't damage the battery as you alluded to. There aren't any 45W options that I can find.

 

Weird...it actually worked this time. For those that want to use Intel's drivers instead of the ones that HP puts out, follow yzm's instructions.

 

Got delivered mid December. Decided on the i5, 8 Gb, 256 ssd, FHD screen, and wireless AC.

 

Considering that you can purchase either a 65W AC adapter or a 90W AC adapter for the Spectre 13t-3000, 65W should work fine, no problem.

 

This is still in concept mode, but I think this company has the best approach to power adapters: FINsix

 

On the HP website for customizing the 13t-3000, there are two choices for i5 cpu based on whether you specify 4gb vs 8gb ram. If you pick one of them, you must get 4gb not 8gb If you pick the other one, you must get 8gb not 4gb.

Why would this be? How are those two i5 processors different? Anybody know? (If not, can anybody guess? ;-)

 

I've read the thread, but it's so long that I've forgotten half of it already (brain damage, I guess). So, please forgive if this has been answered already... but... has anybody run Speccy (or something like it) to determine exactly which 128gb and 256gb SSD's come installed from HP?

 

It's just a silly and inefficient way to set up their customization profiles. Other manufacturers do the same thing, particularly when a part selection requires a different motherboard (in this case, the motherboard with 8GB soldered instead of 4GB soldered), so I imagine it has something to do with their manufacturing databases. It's the exact same processor, so there's nothing to worry about on that end.

 

So I've been using the spectre 13 for a little bit now. Everything is quite good (build quality, screen quality, trackpad, etc). The biggest issue I am having though is that the audio jack seems to be noisy. When I plug in earphones I can hear this constant hiss/static, it's not terribly loud but loud enough to be annoying. Turning off beats, uninstalling and re installing audio drivers did not help. Anyone else have this issue? It is unfortunately a deal breaker for me if I am not able to fix this issue

 

I've had some more time to use the system and its quite a great system overall, HP has done well with this thing (coming from an admitted HP hater in the past). My biggest complaint continues to be the sound jack buzzing noise that is just constant and never seems to go away, I really wish I could get rid of it, any help or suggestions would be appreciated. It is not really audible on my ATH-M50 headphones but my smaller earphones which I assume have lower impedance pick up all the noise.

I was also benchmarking this system (i7 4500U) against my other laptop which has a sandy bridge i7 2620M and I was shocked to see the older i7 demolishing my spectre, but then I noticed something funky. The Spectre was being capped at 1.7 Ghz even on the high performance profile. This CPU is supposed to have a regular frequency of 1.8 Ghz and can turbo up to 3.0 Ghz single core or 2.7 ghz running multiple threads and this wasn't happening. I installed throttle stop and forced a multiplier of 30 and then the performance improved dramatically (becoming even with the i7 2620m). When I plugged in my charger, I got some HP message saying I am running a low capacity adapter and it will run in lower performance mode until I attach a higher power adapter, this made absolutely no sense to me since I was running the only adapter HP gave me. I haven't seen that message again though.

Right out of the box my Geekmark scores were quite good 1880 Single thread and 5600 for multithread, on the next restart the system started to do the stupid throttling again and dropped the scores to 1300/3600 until I again used the throttlestop. I also disabled CoolSense in hopes of stopping the throttling. Hopefully that is the end of the throttling.

The audio jack issue and the throttling are quite annoying and I'll try to see what I can do about them but other than that this system is really great. The QHD display is wonderful, the build quality is solid, trackpad is one of the best for a windows machine and the keyboard layout is good as is the backlight, but the keys could use a tiny bit more travel (being a thinkpad user, it seems no other keyboard can satisfy me). Speakers are pretty impressive for a thin laptop like this. The webcam has better than average image quality and the beats EQ settings actually sound pretty good for most things.
Will post more updates as I continue to use the system, especially battery life.

 

I maxed out the same configurations as yours, and ordered it today. Would you please confirm if the FHD screen is IPS, or the QHD display option is IPS. I give up the QHD because the contents in this rel is so small. So I have to make a balance between the vivid or sharper display and the comfortable experience.

 

I maxed out the same configurations as yours, and ordered it today. Would you please confirm if the FHD screen is IPS, or the QHD display option is IPS. I give up the QHD because the contents in this rel is so small. So I have to make a balance between the vivid or sharper display and the comfortable experience.

 

I had the exact same problem with the audio jack. Just a really bad source. Unbearably loud hissing on my IEM and a very quiet hiss on my ATH-M50. I ended up getting this resistor adapter which worked to a good extent. It dropped the hissing on my Klipsch S4 to almost the same level as the ATH-M50 without the adapter. It's something I'll live with. Though the adapter is about the same size as the plug on the ATH-M50 (a little narrower). Would prefer a non physical fix, but this was the only solution I could find short of getting a USB DAC.

As for the benchmarking, have you tried installing the BIOS update? It fixed the throttling problem for me permanently. Though I never got that low capacity adapter pop up so we may have different issues. It's been mentioned earlier in this thread that using Intel Extreme Tuning Utility can also solve that problem, thought it didn't for me. Maybe give that a shot if the BIOS update doesn't pan out.

Like you said, everything else has been pretty fantastic. The high whine on the fans are kinda annoying but I got used to it, and turning off CoolSense helped. Anyways good luck with your computer!

 

Double tap, then drag. Should work. If not, there's probably some deeper issue.

 

It's a SanDisk SD6SN1M-256G-1006. Just double checked with Speccy. Haha it's been mentioned before but I forgot too It's quite a long thread.

 

Both are IPS

 

Apparently the 128 GB version uses the LITEONIT L8T-128L6G-HP, according to someone on slickdeals. Thought I should add that. They should both be m.2 SATA III 6.0gb/s. At least that's what my 256 gb version is.

 

"1/14/2014 - Tuesday
-

8:41 pm
In transit
SHENZHEN CN

8:00 pm
In transit
SHENZHEN CN

6:00 pm
International shipment release - Import
SHENZHEN CN

1:19 pm
International shipment release - Import
ANCHORAGE, AK

1:15 pm
In transit
ANCHORAGE, AK

12:49 pm
Arrived at FedEx location
ANCHORAGE, AK"

Okay so this is what FedEx tracking says.
Do you guys think it's on track for Friday?

 

Yeah, my mistake, I assumed that since they didn't sell the 45W adapter that the 65W was what came with it. That said, I'm 100% certain that it's fine to use a 65W adapter on the laptop. Source being my degree in electrical engineering Also, they wouldn't sell the 65W adapter as an accessory for the laptop if they thought it would damage it.

I've found that the double tap + hold speed is pretty touchy. You need to be quick to get it to register. You can also just click in the pad with one finger and drag with another to do the same thing.

You shouldn't be. The 2620M is a mainstream 35W processor while the i7-4500U is an ultra low voltage 15W processor. The Haswell equivalent of your i7-2620M would be the i7-4600M which draws 37W.

 

HP shipments going through Anchorage sometimes go in and out in the same day, and sometimes they sit there for a week. No real way of knowing until it moves again.

 

To my knowledge both display options are IPS. Someone correct me if i'm wrong.

 

I'm with you on this. Mine arrives tomorrow and I'm already discouraged

Great job coming up with the resistor workaround +1. Does it make the noise virtually inaudible through your ATH - M50s? I recall at most one or two other mentions of this problem through this thread, causing me to ask,

*** To All Owners - could anyone else who have this problem post the following:

1) Did you discover a software / driver fix for this?
2) Anyone return yours to HP for repair/replacement?
3) Any other workarounds used?

Thanks very much. Jeff

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk

 

Some one in a previous post said the 1080p panel is definitely IPS. And according to them the QHD panel is IGZO because the viewing angles are different. Just search this thread I'm sure you'll find it

 

Oh, I did get my Spectre yesterday and wanted to provide some initial impressions. I bolded a few questions I had for other owners.


Screen: I love the QHD display. I haven't used the laptop that much but from installing a few programs and etc I didn't run into anything that was too small. I did run into a single issue where the Firefox installer appeared very low-res but still plenty large enough (like it was stretched to the correct size rather than scaled). The screen is nice and bright and the colors look great. My only issue would be the backlight bleed at the bottom... I know it's normal to some degree, but on my laptop it is noticeable on any solid color (not just black and gray, but green/blue/etc... as well). Does anyone else see that?

Build Quality: The laptop feels very well made with very little/no flex anywhere.

Keyboard: The keyboard feels great to type on. My only issue is the backlight. It's not particularly even. It's pretty good, but there are some keys that are dimmer than others, and the keyboard backlight toggle key seems to only be 2/3 illuminated (the right third is not) when the backlight is off. Also, the spacebar is not at all illuminated. Is that normal?

Touchpad: The touchpad is pretty good, and I don't mind it being a clickpad. My only real complaint is that it is not as customizable as the one on my HP dm1. On my dm1 I was able to easily change it so that 1 finger tap was left, 2 finger tap was middle and 3 finger tap was right. With the Spectre I can configure the clicks (1, 2 and 3 finger click) but not the taps.

Fan Noise: I can see why people were complaining. Even at the lower speed the fan noise is rather high pitched. The fan also seems to only have three settings: Off, Gale Force and Hurricane Force.



Overall it's a pretty nice computer. I'm looking forward to checking out the audio quality as I have not yet done so. My only real concern is the little quality control related issues like the keyboard backlight and display backlight bleed. I know they are fairly common but they are on par with some significantly less expensive laptops I have used. I would hope that with the price premium they would be able to eliminate some of that.

 

Nope. I'm quite aware of the TDP differences between the 2620M and the 4500U. Before I got my Spectre 13T, my expectation was that their performance would be roughly equal, with the 2620M being faster in a few areas and slower in others. Remember that the Haswell is a tick and a tock after Sandy Bridge. It has gone through a process technology upgrade and several architectural tweaks, hence why a 15W Haswell ULT can go head to head with a 35w Sandy Bridge.

Anyway, after stopping the weird throttling issues, the performance is right where expected and I'm pretty pleased now.

 

I'm glad I am not the only one who has noticed the audio jack noise, I'll definitely have to look into getting an adapter to increase resistance. Thanks for that link!

I'm running BIOS F.13 from 12/23, I believe that is newer than what HP has on their site? Anyway ever since I turned off CoolSense, the throttling has stopped and not come back even after several restarts. Looks like the audio jack is my only issue now

 

True, but the Ivy Bridge Tick gave only a modest performance boost and the Haswell Tock was focused more on power consumption than performance (to where Haswell processors don't have an appreciable performance boost over their Ivy Bridge equivalents).

Glad to hear it's working well for you now though.

 

Where did you download that BIOS version? I updated my BIOS to the one on the site which, as you said, is apparently not the most current. I have the throttling issue after installing that one. On battery it stays at 1.8GHz. When plugged in, the turbo feature is enabled and it hits 2.79 GHz. Can you post a link to your more recent BIOS?

 

Hey folks, I've had the 13T for 21 days, this is literally the last day I can return it. It's been great all this time but all of a sudden today when I turned it on it blue screened. I was so surprised I didn't even look to see what the error code was and I hoped it was a one off. I've shut it down and restarted a couple of more times and everything was ok and shut it down again. A few minutes ago I started it and it blue screened again. When it blue screens it restarts and everything is ok.

This time I looked at the error code and it said something about a driver but it goes away so fast I cant write the whole code down.

I would hate to have to rush and return it. If it's a driver error I assume I can correct it. And I was going to say how it's really been terrific until today, lol.

Has anyone else come across this problem and wht can I do to try and fix it?

 

So I got my second Spectre today (returned the first because of fan noise issues).

First: HP's customer service was very good about the whole thing; they gave me two-day shipping on the new item (which, to be fair, means two day shipping once it's in the US, I think; it took a few days to get out of China).

Second: There is still a high-pitched fan noise. It doesn't oscillate quite as annoyingly as the previous one, but, like my previous model's fan, it's on almost constantly. I'm not quite as annoyed by it, but it's extremely frustrating when comparing to a 2011 MBA, say, which is silent unless doing something relatively intensive. I'm a bit torn, and I'll probably give it a few days. If the fan noise continues to be an issue, I'll likely return the Spectre and pick up a Lenovo Yoga Pro 2. I'd have to take a hit in specs in order to maintain the same price, but (and maybe I'm unusually sensitive to/annoyed by the fan noise) having a high-pitched whine running almost constantly is probably a dealbreaker for me.

 

I think you will be fine. Mine was in Alaska yesterday and it was supposed to be delivered tomorrow (Thursday) but it was actually delivered today, just a few minutes ago.

 

That's exactly what my tracker is saying as well, with estimated delivery by 4:30PM Friday (to Colorado). FedEx estimates are pretty good in my experience.