HP Spectre 13T-3000

Any thoughts on which is the better buy out of XPS13 and Spectre13?

A bit concerned about these throttling issues - is it definately fixed with the new bios dated today on the HP site? Does the XPS13 throttle or have any other annoyances?

Thanks

 

BIOS should fix throttling on AC, will throttle on battery regardless.

Unfamiliar with XPS 13, but the price difference is staggering. ~$1650 (+ $50 discount) for a maxed out XPS 13, while ~$1435 for a maxed out Spectre with identical stats and better screen. Plus there's a $200 HP coupon ongoing in January. Granted, that's with an extra year of Dell warranty (3 vs 2), but if you don't care about that, that's almost a $400 difference. For the minimum model, there's a $200 difference in favor of the Spectre while not losing its touchscreen.

Can't speak to build quality, but they should be at least comparable. Honestly, the currently discounted Spectre is way better value, and is probably the best value in this middle tier ultrabook category (discounted Yoga Pro 2 is close).

 

Sorry, I should have said that I am in the UK. My options are:

Spectre 13 with i5 £1099 (potentially with another 10% off)
XPS13 with i7 £1179 (with no discount)

So accounting for the 10% off, price difference is around £190 = approx $310 USD.
The specs look almost identical except the XPS13 has i7 and Spectre has i5. The XPS13 appears to be a little smaller and lighter.

In the UK we don't seem to have any customisation options on the Spectre, so it's i5 with 1080p or nothing (there is no QHD or i7 option)

But I'm more concerned with the quality of the hardware and any potential annoyances rather than pure specs or (within reason) cost

 

Ah ok never mind then. I'm not that familiar with the new XPS 13 so I can't say anything about that, though that smaller overall size seems pretty awesome. But as for the Spectre 13, I would say that the high pitch of the fan noise is pretty much the only real flaw that I would consider. And the degree of fan noise seems to be a bit variable, and would be difficult to judge for or against without hearing it yourself. Other than that, I have been satisfied. As mentioned here and in official reviews, the build quality and peripherals are all good to great. Though, if price weren't an issue, I probably would've ended up getting the Acer Aspire S7-392-9890 for what that's worth. Good luck deciding!

 

THe BIOS came on mine installed. I turned off coolsense, switched to performance. It turbos all the way up on battery. If anyone one wants to see more settings (even though I haven't changed anything) let me know. There is zero throttling on mine. I usually just keep mine on battery saving mode anyways then performance and coolsense off when using photoshop and it seems great. BTW QHD/i7/8gb/256gb/802.11AC

I'll post a screenshot soon, some reason it wont upload right now



The second picture is with cool sense on? Cool sense detects if the laptop is on your lap or on a flat surface based on that it throttles the CPU to reduce heat and power usage. I use battery saver mode anyways and then performance mode for photoshop etc. If you are doing performance based, I don't recommend you do it on your lap anyways because it will get warm really fast

 

I know people are saying they've uninstalled Cool Sense and not had any issues, but I wanted to caution against that. I did so with my HP dm1 and found that with Cool Sense uninstalled it was performing as though Cool Sense was enabled. The laptop would throttle under load to the point where games were unplayable. Reinstalling Cool Sense fixed the issue as long as I had Cool Sense disabled.

 

This is pretty basic so pardon me if you have long s ince checked this, but could it be the notebook throttles on battery because the power setting has "maximum processor" set at anything below 100 % to save battery usage (and heat / fans btw)because even at 99 % it will keep the cpu from going into turbo mode. In the (like|y) event that you (and others) have assured the max. cpu was at l00% both on battery and AC current it remains possible that, like turning Coolsense on, lowering the max cpu setting to 99% or below should lower the cpu/gpu to run cooler (and slower!) and possibly reduce the frequency and intensity of fans running. Doing this should also improve battery life but I can't be certain of that because a faster cpu will follow instruction more quickly and return to a very low power idle state resulting in a lower average current consumption.

I hope this gobbledygook didn't obscure the actual questions in there.

 

To those who have asked, yes I am running BIOS F.13 and I am right now having a situation where even under full load and on AC power I cannot exceed 1700 mhz even with the high performance profile (without resorting to forcing a higher multiplier using throttlestop). 1700 Mhz is my max frequency on battery too.
I'll do more testing and make a more detailed post later today.

 

Although it is probably buried in here, has anyone successfully replaced or multi-booted the HP Spectre 13T-3000 (i5/8GB/256GB/FHD/AC) with Windows 7 (which is a requirement for my corporate environment)?

Up to this point, I have been primarily considering the Dell XPS 13 (which supports Windows 7, Windows 8 and Linux) to replace my Dell XPS 15, but the HP currently represents a better deal, provided that I can load Windows 7 on it.

Thanks

 

Do you have Cool Sense installed still? And set to disabled? Like I said, removing Cool Sense caused a lot of throttling issues on my dm1.

 

I haven't personally done it, but you shouldn't run into too many issues. You'll need to disable SecureBoot/set it to Legacy mode I believe to get Windows 7 to install. The 7260 AC is supported in Windows 7 so you can just use the driver from Intel's site. I would definitely recommend the FHD screen because scaling is terrible in Windows 7 compared to 8.1.

 

My guess is the process would be similar to the Dell XPS 13 (since it is the same core intel ultrabook platform), but am looking to avoid any obvious 'gotchas' (e.g. system locked down), particularly if someone has already done it. In the past, I have generally used the Intel Driver Update Utility to get the latest drivers for intel equipment, particuarly since they are not updated as often by the OEMs.

 

I got mine yesterday and unboxed it last night. So far, physically perfect, though the box definitely looked like it had rough trip from China. Of the items folks have been discussing here:

- I've seen no evidence of backlight leakage, tried various combos of room lighting and computer displaying. Happy about that.
- Fan came on once during install of Office 2010, and its noise is comparable, maybe less than my old HP laptops. It made a whooshing sound that I would NOT describe as high pitched. I don't know if it came on to maximum or not.
- One note on scaling, on some of those windows, you can do the stretch maneuver on the touch pad to make them bigger. I had to do that when installing Adobe Reader, it was not readable at the scale it came up on. But I stretched it to a usable size
- One weird touch screen glitch. The arrow parked itself in the upper left corner of the screen, and if you pulled it out of that corner, it went back like it was on a rubber band. It went away with a quick excursion to the desktop and back. It's concerning to me, because it resembled a problem I had with my Slate 500 on Windows 8 Consumer Preview, where the touch screen would appear to "touch itself", and execute all sorts of weird things without be touching it at all, complete with little round features popping all over the screen like fireworks. I was hoping to never see those little circles again...

- To be done, check the processor speeds and the hissing thing from the audio jack.

Overall.....me likey!

 

How do you count the 21 days return policy? Do you start counting from the date when it was shipped from China or from the date you receive it?

 

just received mine. playing for an hour but only lightweight work. web browsing mostly . setting changes etc.. fan hasn't come on at all or at least it's inaudible. Maybe I missed it, but where do you access BIOS version ? So far only negative comment is that the FHD screen, though very sharp, isn't terribly bright . 340 nits ? Don't think so

 

What is your return policy?

The HP Home & Home Office Store will accept returns and exchanges up to 21 days after delivery for most products. Exceptions apply. Exceptions include gift cards which cannot be returned except where required by law and packaged software which can only be returned or exchanged if the original packaging is unopened, some oversized printers, and gift cards (except where required by law).

 

I am a little confused by the somewhat contradictory posts regarding Cool Sense. It has been said that you must uninstall Cool Sense to reduce greatly the annoying fan noise. Elsewhere, someone with previous experience using it on an older HP product has said uninstalling it will actually cause malfunctions of fans and/or throttling. I have even posted that I found that turning Cool Sense ON on my HP Envy Spectre 14 (with many similar innards to the 13T) it pretty much eliminated the fans coming on at all.

My simple-minded logic goes like this. To my knowledge, Cool Sense is little more than a throttling program activated by an accelerometer. Thus when the notebook senses it's on your lap, it throttles down the cpu/gpu so the computer will not get as hot. A side benefit of this should be to reduce or eliminate the need for the dreaded fans to come on. As I said, this seemed to be the effect of invoking Cool Sense in my Spectre 14. I also had two models of Sony Vaio Z laptops - rather amazing products in their own right, but that's not the point. Sony had it's own Control Center which was part overlay to Windows Control Center functions and part customized. A customized function was one that allowed three "Power Settings" for the laptop, entirely independent of the Windows power settings. The settings were: Performance, Balance and Silent. The last setting is the giveaway: the purpose of these settings were to control the frequency and intensity of the fan going on. I always assumed it just downclocked/throttled the cpu/gpu/igp when the setting was "silent," and that "balanced" allowed partial turbo boost while "performance" simply let 'er rip as far as totally enabling turbo boost. I can assure you that each of these three settings did exactly what they were supposed to do: regardless of which Windows power plan you were set on, the "silent" setting would not allow the fans to go on - but I'm quite sure this was temperature-based; in the "performance" setting the fans would be quick to go on, rev up and stay on, as long as the maximum cpu level was set at 100% so full turbo boost would be invoked.

So what I'm asking is:

1) Why would it be best to uninstall Cool Sense to reduce fan noise when it's purpose is to lower operating temps which, in turn, would inhibit the fans from coming on?

2) To the contrary, rather than uninstall, why would it not be most helpful regarding fan noise to leave CS installed and turn it on?

3) Is the uninstall of Cool Sense recommended not for fan noise at all, but to stop throttling, which I assume is what Cool Sense does?

I just took possession of my 13T so soon I will be my turn to report experience. Taking it out of the box and fiddling with the keyboard, I am very impressed with the build quality and keyboard action - guess I am used to using ultrabooks that slightly shorter keystrokes don't bother me. These don't seem that short and there is nice feedback with a muted but definite "click".

Watch this space...

 

Does anyone know if the LCD is magnetically held in place when closed? Mine seems loose and actually opens up slightly when I carry the laptop around.

 

What kind of display do you have? The QHD or the regular FHD?

Did you check out the screen when it is first booting up (black screen with the light blue HP logo in the center) with the lights turned off in the room?

That is when I noticed my back light leakage problem. I had the FHD screen.

I'm going to try one more time with the QHD display on the next one.

 

I have coolsense installed but set to off. In high performance mode, on battery or on AC power I just cannot get above 1695 mHz. Pretty shocked HP would cripple the processor this much all in the name of battery life and heat without even giving the user an option to turn off all throttling except when overheating. What is the point of having an i7 4500U that gives i3 performance?

I also noticed that even under powersaver, my frequency refuses to drop below 1700 Mhz. The multiplier is just stuck and locked at 17. I would love to have a conversation with the HP engineers who came up with this monumentally moronic power policy.

 

Not sure why you call into question HP design of power/throttle specs. As has already been realized through the input of others, this is an issue with YOUR machine and is not universally apparent in other systems. Call HP and get an exchange. If outside of the return window then get repaired under warranty.

 

Are you suggesting that my system is somehow defective and differs from the others as far as this throttling behavior goes? I don’t really see much clear evidence for that. This thread has many other posts complaining about throttling, some even while on AC power. My problems have been largely intermit and I reported some time ago that my throttling issues have gone away completely but somehow they are now back and I am unsure as to why. The fact is that if a CPU is not overheating, and every power option available to the user has been set to a performance oriented mode, there should be absolutely no reason to limit the processors frequency to nearly half of its design frequency. It is simply inexcusable and such power management policy should not be defended. At the very least the user should be given an option. I am hardly the only person to have experienced this issue and to try to suggest that this is something specific to my machine is inaccurate. I am quite sure that many users who are not reporting the problem are simply not aware that occasionally this throttling is happening.

HP has had a history of such throttling and this review of the Spectre 13T-3000 even sheds light on the significant performance cost:
“Surprisingly Slow
The Core i5-4200U that comes standard with the Spectre 13t is a processor we’ve tested many times before and, in theory, should perform the same in every system. Reality, however, proves that theory wrong. We received a SiSoft Sandra Processor Benchmark score of 25.29 GOPS and a 7-Zip compression/decompression score of 4,604 MIPs. Both numbers are well behind the similarly equipped ThinkPad T440s, which managed respective scores of 38.69 GOPS and 7,277 MIPs.
“

HP Spectre 13t review | Digital Trends Reviews

 

As a point of clarification, ANY and ALL others who experience throttling and no dynamic processor turbo functionality when connected to AC power need to get an exchange from HP. Consistent or intermittent. I did not imply nobody else other than you has seen this unfortunate condition. Note where I clearly said it is not a universal condition. If beyond the 21 day return/exchange period and it cannot be permanently corrected via a setting or config change, it needs to be fixed under warranty, end of story. Not saying you are the only one just that it is not universal and the resolution path is clear. When I get my 2nd exchange Spectre at the end of the month due to a QHD screen defect in my current one.... I will send that one back too should throttling on AC power occur.

 

It looks like I may have finally figured out what is going on with this whole throttling issue and I think I've got a possible explanation for the differences we are seeing between users.
I went into my BIOS and went into the system configuration menu and turned on the "Fan Always On" option. This immediately fixed all throttle issues and restored dynamic modulation of CPU frequency under AC power. On Battery power this restored dynamic CPU frequency changes as well but disabled turbo mode, so I cannot exceed 1.8 Ghz. If I do not have this option on, I am stuck at 1.7 Ghz regardless of AC or DC power and the frequency just doesn't change. Some of these policies make little sense to me, if the always on fan option is turned off and I am on power saver mode, why would the CPU be stuck at 1.7 Ghz instead of going to its lowest allowable frequency of 800 Mhz?

I hope some others here can go see what that option in their BIOS is set to and see how it impacts their CPU frequency.


EDIT: Never mind, it wasn't the bios setting change that did anything. If I just restart over and over, I find sometimes the throttling isn't there and sometimes it is. The only consistent thing is that if I start without a throttling problem then I continue to not have throttling issues until a shutdown. If I have throttling when I boot into windows, then I can never stop throttling until a restart. Something is clearly wrong so this system is going back to HP for an exchange.

 

Good work on the diagnostic. It was not time wasted as this will help others. It does appear to be a truly random scenario impacting some systems. Knowing this, it seems exchanging for another system until you get a non impacted one needs to be the process at this time. Have you called HP support with the details on this situation? It would be helpful to see if anything productive could come of that but I suspect a lot of time would be wasted and the return/exchange would be the end result anyway. An expensive proposition for HP if the impacted number of systems is large. At any rate, I really like this system a lot and I will tolerate the exchange process if needed. I bought and returned a Dell XPS 11 and a Dell Venue Pro in the last few weeks and the issues with those machines were far greater in number than this HP Spectre. Perhaps poor quality control is becoming more common. Let us know how it goes.

 

I'll keep everyone up to date on what happens. Actually that BIOS option may have something to do with this after all. If I turn it off, I seem to be stuck throttling no matter what I do or how many times I try to restart. With the fan always on option set, it seems most of the time I don't have any throttling issues. I set fan always on to enabled and selected the HP power option with cool sense set to off and restarted the system several times and it seemed it isn't throttling under these conditions. Still, I get the feeling that there isn't any rhyme or reason to any of this. My gut feeling is that this is some kind of firmware or bios level glitch, but that would impact basically everyone and not everyone seems to be reporting issues. Perhaps it only impacts i7 users? Sootnsmoke, if you set your power policy on high performance with your always on fan option to disabled and try shutting down and powering on / restarting your system, you never have any throttling issues? What processor do you have?

Its a shame some of us have to deal with this silly problem, the rest of this laptop is so well done and I can't cant get enough of this ridiculously nice QHD display.

EDIT: Ah, so I am starting to find some patterns here. If I turn off the system with a shutdown and manually power it back on with the power button then I get back into Windows throttled at 1.7 Ghz and I'm stuck. If I restart the system using the restart button in windows, everything works as expected, no throttling. This smells a lot like some kind of BIOS issue. I am almost willing to bet that there will be a BIOS update to deal with this from HP. At first I thought HP had come p with some ridiculous power policy, but this is clearly some bug.There is no way HP intended this behavior.

 

My system is a max config I7/8GB/256ssd/AC wireless/Win8 Pro. Since I got my system a couple days ago I have been using the HP "recommended" power plan. I have run the Intel benchmark 3 times on AC and 3 times on battery power. I can't tell you which runs were done or not done after a Windows button restart or full off restart via the keyboard power button. Results have always been consistent: On battery power a 250 performance score is returned (+/- a couple points), throttling is always in force with a maximum processor speed of 1.8. On AC power a 365 performance score is returned (+/- a couple points), throttling is not in place with full dynamic range up to around the 2.8 area. I have made no changes to the default BIOS settings (it is at version 13) and I have not even accessed that BIOS settings area. There is definitely an issue if you are finding a consistent pattern change based on whether you restart through windows as apposed to the keyboard power button. Definitely something fruity going on there to say the least. I am sure there are a lot of unidentified impacted system by new owners out there. Many will just likely shrug their shoulders and think, it runs slower than I thought it would and take it no further. Most will not now how to access tools to confirm an issue. It does sound like a very low level hardware/firmware issue. However, if you are on version 13 of firmware like I am, than that rules out firmware in my mind or the possibility of a fix coming as a result of a firmware update. Agreed, there is something clearly wrong with your machine. Let me know if there is anything you would like me to check further on my system to identify a potential difference somewhere. When I plug the system in to AC power it right away stops throttling and becomes a much faster machine. I actually like the throttling on battery power in the interest of reduced power and heat. I will have it a couple more weeks until my replacement one arrives the end of this month.

 

3 Ghz, no throttling all on battery power only.

Well this is pretty interesting. I ran this benchmark on the HP power profile and after it had completed I switched to high performance so I could take a screenshot of the max frequency. Earlier I was either stuck at 1.7 Ghz or had a dynamic frequency with a upper limit of 1.8 Ghz. I did not use Throttlestop at all and have not been using it.

I have only been varying 3 variables:

1. Whether I restart using the windows restart button or restart with a shutdown and a press of the physical power button.

2. Whether I have the power plugged in while I am booting/rebooting or not.

3. Whether I have fan always on or off.

I'm not really sure which sequence of events allowed for me to use my CPU to its max on battery power but it is clearly possible and has continued to happen from time to time since this screen cap. As I've said before, once I boot without a throttle problem I continue to be throttle free until possibly the next restart/poweroff-poweron.

 

Just checked mine (using Intel Extreme Tuning) and it too was locked at 1.7-1.8 on AC power. For grins I restarted while on AC power (using the settings menu/restart) and this time it ran at full power. There is obviously something a bit buggy. BTW, I have Coolsense off.

 

Some machines actually "lie" about their battery status. In other words, they will say the battery is at 100% when it's really at 90 or 95%. They do this to increase battery life and keep people from plugging and unplugging their systems to "top them off."

 

Ladies and Gents,

This might be off topic, but what are you guys/gals using to carry this beauty around? I am currently sporting a Jansport backpack for my Thinkpad and all the necessary items. I am looking to downsize it a bit, cause it's a bit large. I'm seriously considering one of the Case Logic backpack and would love to hear some inputs, comments and/or recommendations. Any thought on the HP professional backpack, it's a deal at $37. Last but certainly not least, any of you sporting a sleeve for yours?

Thanks

 

Interesting find-- especially about how symptom changes depending on how restart is invoked. I am seeing something similar going on with my core i5 (also at F13 bios level) only it is frequently 'stuck' at 1.47Ghz... not capped but seemingly frequency locked. Changing power plans/settings when in this mode has no effect whatsoever on frequency. I have also observed normal turbo up to 2.4 and down to .78 as expected; so its not permanently fixed. Rebooting via windows screen selection has restored normal behavior (but only when plugged into AC, not when restarted on battery); not sure how repeatable this scenario is since up until now I hadn't been paying attention.

I suspect between bugs in the firmware and "Intel Collaborative Processor Performance Control" (whatever that is) all the dust hasn't settled yet. According to my event viewer logs on startup (event ID 54) CPPC is allegedly being disabled on Proc 1 & 3 due to a firmware problem with the notation "check with the computer manufacturer for updated firmware". Kind of a shame if you're expecting max battery life and your stuck at 1.47Ghz.... or on AC and benchmarking expecting max turbo. Hopefully it will get sorted out before too long. The hardware seems otherwise very nicely done.

By the way, anyone else experiencing a bluescreen after resume from hibernate? I've had this several times now (when working normally, resume from hibernate is ridiculously fast-- the machine is ready by the time it occurs to me to try to time how fast it is). HP.com's driver update page shows an updated Intel 7260 wireless driver that claims to address a BSOD on resume from hibernate. I've tried applying this and ran in to other issues which I'm trying to nail down (version number in add/remove programs doesn't seem to change, yet device driver level does... odd) so I'm not sure the fix is being applied properly.

 

Well, after disappointingly missing my delivery Wednesday, I got mine in yesterday. I only upgraded the wifi to AC. It is amazing.

The only thing I'm going to post about is fan noise and throttling. With a laptop this thin, the fan is going to make a whining noise. I notice it on mine a teeny bit. It seriously isn't as bad as you guys have made it out to be. The throttling however is a little troublesome. At first I was being capped at 1.7Ghz until I changed my performance settings. I'm being capped now at 2.6Ghz but I wish it would go a little higher. Oh well. It plays me LoL and DayZ.

Oh god and this screen is beautiful.

 

Mine seems the same way.The hinge is strong yet fluid but it doesn't seem to have a magnetic latch.

 

I ordered mine a week back maxed out, estimated to ship out on Jan 24th. Can the enlightened ones please post some pointers as to what are all the things one needs or should do upon receipt to get productive as quickly as possible. For e.g, do I need to run windows update (comes with 8.1), update BIOS ( link to latest?), update any drivers etc. etc.. A list of things to do would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

I've had my machine a few days, and based on that I think that unless you want to take a trip down the rabbit hole of debugging drivers and updates to drivers, you might just want to use the machine as is for a while (after making sure you create a few system restore checkpoints as you start installing stuff). Make sure all the features (camera, speakers, mic, SD slot, etc. are working before the no-fee return period is up. It wouldn't hurt to let the machine run the Windows memory diagnostic for a while too just to make sure that any crashes you get aren't the result of memory issues.

I started off by applying the 'important windows updates' of which there are many and some of the HP updates and that's when my non-productive time spent chasing bugs began (first off, after applying the Synaptics update from hp.com for some reason causes a rundll error popup on startup which complains about a missing entry in btmshellex.dll-- the Bluetooth driver, which otherwise seems to operate fine).

There's definitely some weird interaction between the Synaptics driver and the Intel wireless driver going on. I enabled hibernate on my machine, but get frequent BSOD's on resume which point to Syntp.sys ; yet the comments for the updated Intel 7260 driver on the hp.com site claim to address this scenario. I've tried installing it and it doesn't apply properly-- the Program information in add/remove programs isn't updated, and there is an error message viewable in the Reliability History that the Intel driver update failed with RC 1065-- and to top it all off, the BSOD's on resume from hibernate still occur. So far uninstalling the Synaptics driver does seem to prevent them.

I suspect (and hope) there will be more driver updates to come.

 

I think the key here is that you only noticed the issue since you started paying attention, I think a lot of people are actually have systems with locked frequencies and are suffering sub-optimal performance and battery life without even knowing it.
I actually wiped out the entire HP windows install and put a fresh copy of windows on here and I am still having the same behavior, my confidence that this is a defect in the current firmware is growing. The Intel CPPC is a bit suspect too since it is involved in processor power states. I wonder if my fresh copy of windows is having issues as well due to the drivers I have installed (CPPC, etc)
I will also give the hibernate thing a try, I don’t think I’ve hibernated at all since I got this system given that it uses so little power during sleep, I just tend to put the system to sleep more often.
I don’t think I’m going to exchange my system over this problem, it doesn’t seem specific to my device and I’m pretty sure more or less every spectre 13T user has it if they looked closely and it should be completely fixable via a firmware update. Now if only HP would acknowledge the problem and confirm that they are working on a fix, I would keep this system for sure but now I am a bit worried of keeping it beyond the 21 day return period.

 

FYI, I'm also finding these messages in the event log

"Collaborative processor power controls on processor 3 in group 0 are disabled due to a firmware problem. Check with the computer manufacturer for updated firmware."

"Collaborative processor power controls on processor 1 in group 0 are disabled due to a firmware problem. Check with the computer manufacturer for updated firmware."

"The speed of processor 3 in group 0 is being limited by system firmware. The processor has been in this reduced performance state for 71 seconds since the last report."

"The speed of processor 1 in group 0 is being limited by system firmware. The processor has been in this reduced performance state for 71 seconds since the last report"

Also something about "\Driver\WudfRd " failing to load.


When the system reboots without throttling issues, the event log looks clean.
Certainly something really nutty going on in that firmware...

 

Thanks! So do the important windows updates, but skip the HP Synaptics one

 

Thinking this through a bit more and following your findings, I agree 100%. The random nature of the behavior with variability of dynamic range working correctly means the hardware is fine. I believe at this point that a call to HP support for their response would be ideal if you have the time. If you can get some form of acknowledgement on the issue then not only will you feel better about your investment (and everyone else as well) but it may result in a work around setting change for more consistent proper functioning until a firmware update is released. I have been paying more attention to the sub 1.7 frequency range while on battery power now. I see that with the system idle on battery and as I write this that it will not dip below 1.68 Ghz. Even though I have not experienced any throttling issues while on AC power I do see the locking of 1.7 Ghz on battery power. What an incredible battery time the Spectre will have when resolved given how good it is now intermittently locking at 1.7 Ghz

EDIT: Just restarted the system from Windows and sure enough after that, the sub 1.7 Ghz frequency modulation is now working. The processor is now working in the .77 area after the restart and as I write this. BTW, I have the power plan selection on "Power Saver" (same as prior to the restart)

 

Also something about "\Driver\WudfRd " failing to load

I see that in my event log too. I actually remember seeing that same message in the new Win 8 desktop I bought last fall. I chased down and fixed a few similar errors (lots of file permissions were set incorrectly; probably by bugs in the update application process). If I had to judge by the stuff in the error logs, I'd swear these machines would never work at all.

So far, after uninstalling the Synaptics driver (as in, running with NO clickpad driver at all; just with barebones trackpad functionality) I have hibernated and resumed about a dozen times without a BSOD. Prior to this, with the either the pre-installed or updated Synaptics driver, it would BSOD on resume from hibernate about 30% of the time.

 

I actually just contacted tech support and was less than impressed. The tech kept insisting that their power management was fine and it was all more or less intentional behavior. I tried to explain to him why idling at 1.7 Ghz when you could idle at 800 Mhz with a much lower voltage was less than ideal but he just didn't seem to get it. All he said was that if there was truly a problem, HP would release a BIOS update.

I agree that even with the screwed up firmware, my battery life is pretty impressive. Should be even better once things are fixed. If it weren't for the fact that I like just about everything else on this system, I would have already returned it but it is the only Ultrabook out there that is reasonably priced, beautiful build quality, exceptional screen, battery life, etc. All HP needs to do for me to keep this machine is to acknowledge the defect and promise a BIOS fix, but without that it makes me a little nervous about being stuck with this problem. HP offered to take my system back and exchange for a new one but I know that is completely futile, there is nothing physically wrong with my current system. Just fix the darn firmware and make everyone's life a bit easier HP!

 

You should try again and ask for a supervisor. All first level techs and sales people are fairly limited.

Good luck, Jim

 

I called back again, this time I was told HP is working on releasing another BIOS update very soon but the tech claimed that this was not listed to him as a known issue. He wouldn't disclose when the bios would be released or what kind of issues it would address.

 

I need to do some more testing to confirm this, but I uninstalled the Intel CPPC drivers and I have had no throttle issues in the last 10 power off/ power ons and restarts. I'm able to consistently hit full CPU speed (3 Ghz) even on battery, and it drops to 800 Mhz on idle. The CPPC drivers keep complaining about firmware errors and malfunctioning.

EDIT: If you remove the CPPC drivers, doing a full shutdown and power on seems to produce the right behavior on AC and battery everytime. If you do a restart, the battery performance seems limited to 1.8 Ghz.

 

Does uninstalling the Synaptics driver affect the trackpad's windows 8 specific functionality...i.e. do the edges of the trackpad still bring up the charms menu on swipe etc?

 

My trackpad lost tap, double tap, two finger scroll, etc. Seems a lot of features rely on the drivers being installed. I'm keeping the drivers.

 

I am not sure what else is in need of being urgently addressed outside of this issue LOL. Overall the system is very stable on bios ver 13 and updated Win 8.1. It is too bad an acknowledgement of the issue was not confirmed even if an updated firmware release date could not be given. This is especially disappointing given the fact that early identification of this issue was identified by a well known review source even prior to the retail release. This is concerning as a fairly long period of time has gone by since then and we are already at BIOS ver 13 and still no confirm of a fix on the horizon. Seems like there is always an irritating unresolved issue on the new stuff out now. I do believe that this issue will reach more of a critical mass as more units are sold and more tech savy owners quickly see and report the issue. When I get my exchanged machine and see the same scenario is happening, I will call and speak to a supervisor to make a report of the issue. Hopefully enough do that to effect a fix. It is very possible that the coming update will fix the problem as I have no faith in what any phone support resource says is or is not contained in upcoming firmware.

I do agree that this system is hands down the best overall ultrabook on the market. I will go so far as to say based on my experience that is the case regardless of price point (I have returned 3 other ultrabooks in recent weeks). There is not another system that has these max config specs in a aluminum premium built chassis with a QHD display and the Spectre's battery performance. At this point it is a trust issue to keep the system. There is some risk that HP will not address and get this corrected but I do think this is unlikely.

 

The Synaptics driver is needed to make the trackpad to anything more than move the mouse pointer and respond to clicks; I just removed it to verify that it was causing the BSOD's. Unfortunately it isn't a workaround if you want hibernate to resume reliably and also want a fully functioning clickpad. There is definitely something wrong; either with the Synaptics or Intel wireless drivers or the way the 8.1 installer is dealing with them. Upgrading the Synaptics driver shouldn't result in a Bluetooth driver error popup.

Has anyone been able to successfully install the latest Intel wireless 7260 driver update from hp.com? I have the wireless AC adapter option. Even though the driver level in device manager changes, the previous level Intel ProSet Wireless product is still listed in add/remove programs, and an error message is eventually logged in the Reliability History indicating that the driver install failed with error code 1065 (which supposedly means the product being updated isn't currently installed). Very screwy.

It wouldn't surprise me if it all comes back to bugs in Windows 8.1. Another bug I just noticed (this is actually the firs time I tried to observe it) that this laptop, like my almost new desktop, will not automatically sleep. The screen timeout works as expected, but when the sleep timer expires, nothing happens. The idle detection in Windows has always been problematic and seems to be even more so with the latest release. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I finally gave up trying to swat this bug on my desktop and resorted to a freeware idle detection utility; I was hoping things would have matured a little by now.

I agree with the accolades for the Spectre hardware; the QHD display is as sharp as any iPhone's. Its superfast starting up and shutting down even without resorting to hibernation (and I just have the i5). The battery life after an hour of web surfing definitely amazes. I'm sure its optimistic but its a treat to see 8 hours 06 minutes remaining on the battery indicator with 78% charge left.

 

I think I’ve finally got a pretty acceptable fix for this whole throttling issue, at least until HP releases a firmware update.

Just go to your Add/Remove programs and uninstall the Intel Collaborative Processor Performance Control (CPPC) drivers. Normally these drivers would potentially improve the system by doing a better job of controlling the processors power state. In our case, occasionally an error between the firmware and the CPPC drivers will occur (and these get logged in the event log) and all modulation of the CPU clock speed will stop. In the case of my i7, I get stuck at 1.7 Ghz and there is nothing I can do about it until another power on/off cycle or restart. This is absolutely terrible for both performance and battery life. There is clearly an issue at the firmware level on this machine, I have not heard of CPPC related issues on other systems like Lenovo Thinkpads or Dells, so this would suggest our firmware needs a little work.
If you uninstall the CPPC drivers you will actually nearly eliminate the problem. Here is how the system will behave:
In the case where you powered off the system with a shut down and manually restarted it with the power button:
There is no throttling at all on battery or AC power. The system will properly decrease its clock speeds all the way from its lowest up to its maximum in response to loads and all the windows power profiles work correctly. Nice! You will also find that your event log looks clear with no power management errors.

If you restarted the system using the restart option in windows:

You will find no throttling issues on AC power, and on battery power you will find that you can scale from your lowest frequency up to your processors maximum non turbo frequency but turboboost is completely disabled on battery. You will also find some CPPC errors in the event log.

I haven’t studied the impact of hibernation on the power management yet, and I have only tested sleep/wakes on the system a few times (with no unusual behavior).

At least with the CPPC drivers uninstalled, it is clear that the system firmware has something go wrong when doing a restart as opposed to a full shutdown, but it isn’t catastrophic (the loss of turboboost on battery power).

This will be my fix for this issue until HP gets their act together and releases a proper fix.

I think everyone who has this issue (and I am pretty confident all Spectre 13T-3000s at least with the latest BIOSes have it whether or not the user releases it) should contact HP and complain about this issue so we can get a fix going quickly.