HP Spectre 13T-3000

Hello Malikons,
Yes you are right I got this PC from a individual seller on ebay who bought this laptop New. I must say that I got very lucky with this unit. I mean, i got bummed with a lotta unlucky (or stupidity on my part) stuff lately, but that's besides the point. (Eg: I bought a Mazda CX-5 and realized later(!?) that I need a AWD instead of a FWD - So I exchanged my brand new 2 months old SUV and took a $3000 hit. So, yah thats that. But, this PC deal was a great deal for me and small consolation that saved me about $500 . Again, I understand that's besides the point.

I wish you luck in finding a PC in eBay like I did. They are hard to come by, but if you do, consider urself lucky.

 

I would disagree only with the idea that good units are hard to come by; if you buy from a reliable seller (by the #s) and have a 14+ day return period, you have an extremely high chance of doing well, or so I have in sime 25 purchases of used and refurb equip over 5 yrs.

 

Out of curiosity, has anyone on this forum called HP recently, or in the last several months, to complain/discuss the issues with the CPU locking at ~1.7GHz causing battery life issues and prevention from utilizing higher clock speeds? Disabling CPPC has been one way to improve the situation but I've found that even with it uninstalled the CPU can still get stuck after charging again on the AC adapter. With CPPC uninstalled it is easier to open it again, but it still isn't right. It was brought up several pages of posts ago. Just curious what HP told anyone who called. I figured there would've been a BIOS fix by now.

 

I agree - Seller with return policy is a good idea to get a good unit.

 

Anyone having issues with the display flashing to black on a random basis. sometimes every second or so, sometimes every minute or so, no rhyme or reason. I even took the step of resetting the device to factory shipped values, and the flashing started while I was putting in my wifi data. The only thing that can make it stop is going into airplane mode. I've had a couple HP techs work on it remotely, they tried different video and wifi drivers, no effect. I think its a warranty issue, but wondered if anyone else had a potential fix.

Thanks,

Jim

 

I'm pretty late to the party but I just discovered that most of the fan noise on my Spectre 13T-3000 is due to the fan rubbing against the back cover of the laptop! I can place my finger under the laptop and move it around until I hear the fan noise increase and then actually put enough pressure on the cover to stop the fan from spinning. The more I do that, the quieter the fan has become.

 

My Spectre is saying there is no battery installed. Has anyone else encountered this issue? Any ideas for fixing it? HP tech support couldn't fix it via a remote support session and says that I have to send it in.

However, this is a laptop I use in my business, which means I would have to remove everything, send it in, be without a laptop for several weeks, get it back, reinstall everything and generally face a giant hassle and interruption in my business. Hopefully someone here can help me avoid that scenario!

 

I would buy replacement battery and change it myself. The part number is 734998-001 and changing it should take less than 10 minutes so long as you have the T5 Torq screwdriver to remove the bottom panel and a small Phillips screwdriver for the battery's screws. I found the battery on Amazon for $70.

 

Hi everyone, I'm having trouble with my Bluetooth settings.

I did a "windows 8 refresh" last night and while installing some drivers I seem to have lost my Bluetooth functionality - I can't see the settings or anything in the control panel. It is not listed in the device manager.

There is a device with an exclamation point saying that there is "unknown usb device (device descriptor request failed)" so that leads me to believe that this is a driver problem.

Does anyone know what driver to install? I have a lot of Bluetooth devices that have now become useless - any help is much appreciated

FIXED:
Just had a browse through the "HP utility centre recovery manager" and found specific drivers for the Bluetooth radio.

 

Can someone confirm which models have a TPM chip? I searched through the thread but saw conflicting reports. I am looking at newer models on eBay with the newest 4th gen Intel processors and higher resolution screen.

 

Hi guys,

New to the forum. Previously owned a HP Envy 14 and have upgraded to the Spectre 13 (13-3010ea model).

The notebook itself is great, but I'm having some problems when connecting an external monitor and keyboard/mouse. When it's plugged in everything is fine (except for the ongoings HPI chrome settings, but that's another issue entirely). The main issue is when I disconnect the monitor and keyboard/mouse, it seems to mess with my settings. After turning the machine back on for the first time I still have my 1080p resolution, but it's increased the size of my icons and default display settings, so everything is larger. I go into the display settings and reset back to 'standard', but nothing changes. It also resets my pointer movement back to standard too. So everytime I disconnect the monitor I have to start up the machine, increase my mouse pointer speed again, reset the display settings, then restart the machine and all is well again.

I never had this problem with the Envy. When that was connected it returned to the way it was when disconnected, this machine really seems to struggle with being disconnected from the external display.

Is this a HP thing? A windows 8.1 thing? Or the fault of the external monitor (a 4yr old 1080p dell).

Any help appreciated.

 

Hello all. I'm still having a serious problem keeping the processor from locking. A few questions:

1) In the event that what Windows is reporting is incorrect, in terms of locking, is there another recommended app that shows real-time clock frequencies as they change?

2) What is the method agreed upon right now to keep the frequency from locking? Install/uninstall CPPC, put the laptop in sleep (or off) when charging, etc.?

This is getting frustrating. I'm noticing that when the processor locks it affects both battery life and Internet.

 

When I had my Spectre 3000, I uninstalled CPPC and checked Device Manager to be sure the driver wasn't still there. You can use Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to check real time CPU speed, but Task Manager has always been accurate for me.

Good luck, Jim

 

Has anyone recently bought this Ultrabook. I came across this model today itself and really liked it. But unfortunately the model does not exist on any online retailer or HP shopping website. Have they withdrawn this model. Most reviews are very positive and this model was supposed to be a winner.

 

Mime was withdrawn from sale around a week after I bought it, which was odd. It is around a year old though, so maybe they're launching a replacement soon?

 

Hi guys!
I'm really interested in buying the HP Spectre 13T-3001el (i5/128GB/8gb Ram) version.
However I also read on some online reviews that the fan can get quite noisy and temperature considerably high. Could you please give me more details about this?
- How much noise? is it really annoying or acceptable?
- Under how much load it will start to do it? will it get hot if i watch an entire FullHD movie during summer (30 'C) (i live in a quite hot country)? all i do is web browsing, working on Office (excel), and watching 1080p movies (no photo editing or playing games).
- also, will my palms move the cursor on the touchpad while writing?

thank you in advance for any replies!

 

I'm hoping someone is still monitoring this thread and can help. I just had to reinstall windows 8.1 off of my recovery media and am back to having several partitions. I tried to remember how I used diskpart before to 1) delete the recovery partition and merge with C: and 2) unclutter the three remaining partitions. I was able to accomplish 1 but now I have a 401 MB unallocated space, a 256MB EFI System partition, and a 127MB partition before the C:. Can someone please refresh my memory and post the diskpart commands to consolidate as much space as possible into free space. Basically, I want to minimize the number of required partitions and maximize C: space. I can't remember if the EFI can or can't be deleted. Right now, diskpart won't let me delete it and it won't let me merge the c: with the 127 MB of unallocated space directly in front of it. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Update on my above message. First, it looks like it was the 18 November Windows Update that broke my Restart/Shutdown in Windows 8.1 (the machine would hang at the Restart or Shutdown screen and troubleshooting didn't work). While I am still interested in advice on the above DISKPART commands I used a friend of mine's Windows 8.1 install USB and it installs with 3 partitions (Recovery, EFI, System). I'd still like to see if you can get the HP setup to consolidate to 3. Anyways, another issue I'm curious if anyone has. My screen started showing some streaks beneath the glass as if something was putting pressure on the LCD. It is most noticeable on white backgrounds. Pushing on the the top of the lid in the area where they are located causes them to move and sometimes I can temporarily remove them. Otherwise, I have to adjust the screen angle and they become less noticeable. I'm not sure what it is as it wasn't there before.

 

I've had my Spectre 13t-3000 for a bit over a year now. I have the maxed out i7 model with QHD and I really like it. I am curious as to why HP discontinued this model completely. Does anyone have any insight on this? The only problem I've noticed is occasional fan noise, but I don't find it to be much of a problem.

 

Does anyone know if the Spectre13 supports NFC please? If so, whereabouts on the laptop is the NFC chip?

 

No NFC. Sorry. It's a pretty solid machine, though.

 

Does anyone have a link for the last F.14 BIOS? I accidentally deleted mine and only F.13 is available on the HP site.

 

I just ran Windows Update and had a similar problem after installing new Bluetooth 4.0 drivers. Bluetooth showed up in the device manager, but nowhere else. I rolled the drivers back and my mouse is working again.

FuelScience

 

Looks like there is a new firmware update available, anyone know what it changes?

 

From the HP Support site: "Provides improved UEFI EDK2 security. HP strongly recommends transitioning promptly to this updated BIOS version"

 

I installed it and haven't noticed any difference. In particular, if someone installs it, and still has the CPPC software installed, can you see if it fixes the throttling/clock speed sticking issue? I haven't used the CPPC driver for a long time.

 

I'm experiencing some pretty significant image retention issues on my Spectre (I have the QHD screen). Anybody else having this issue?

Also, HP recently announced a successor to the 13t. It looks very similar to the 13t, but has a hinge that is reminiscent of the Lenovo Yoga line:

http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/1/8124345/hp-spectre-x360-laptop-windows-convertible

 

Unfortunately, this has been a known problem from the beginning with the QHD screen. I have had mine for over a year and it never got better. The only way to get the retention to go away is to turn the machine off for several minutes. After using it for a few minutes though, you'll see the retention again (whatever window you had open). I've learned to live with it but it is still annoying.

 

Out of curiosity, can someone post the key combination/instructions for performing a hard reset on this machine?

 

I had the QHD screen, and it was having annoying screen retention issues for several months. Then one day it randomly developed an internal crack in the screen that left a "permanent smudge". I sent it into HP for repair, and they said that internal cracks were not covered under warranty (~ $300).

A week later, I received a call from a HP case manager. She said that the QHD replacement screens were back ordered indefinitely. I think they aren't making that specific QHD screen anymore. In fact, HP replaced my laptop with the new Spectre X360 for free, but the new laptop has a regular 1080p screen.

 

Will a 65W AC power adapter charge faster than the 45W that came with the laptop?

 

Is anyone getting occasional wifi dropouts? I occasionally get this on 5ghz AC and have to toggle wifi off/on and manually reconnect

 

What driver version are you using? For almost as long as I've owned this ultrabook I dumped the HP drivers for Intel products and use the ones off of Intel's site. Right now I'm using 17.16 for my 7260AC wireless. No issues whatsover...nice, fast, and stable. My only dropouts are the result of infrequent router resets (Linksys WRT1900AC).

 

Quickly press the ESC key and then the F10 key to enter the BIOS menu system. I haven't been in it for a long time, but there should be a "Load Defaults" option. Hope this helps.

 

Anybody got Windows edrive working with Spectre 13t-3000? I tried with Crucial M500 and BitLocker only offered software encryption. This was same with HP recovery win8.1 upgraded to pro, and fresh install of windows 10 pro test build.
M500 worked ok on a dell desktop with edrive. BitLocker event log has:
TCG Log entry for variable 'SecureBoot' is missing or invalid.
msinfo32 shows:
PCR7 Configuration Binding Not Possible
It also doesn't matter if TPM is enabled in bios or not.
BIOS is latest F.15A

 

Disregard. I found the maintenance guide that shows how to replace a battery.

 

Hi, I've bought the Spectre 13 just recently (it is a machine from HP Renew program) and I'm somewhat concerned about the fan noise. Not about this high-pitched sound, but rather about its... irregularity? I don't even know how to call it. The fan kicks in really often (while browsing web or using Word) and when it does, higher sound alternates with a bit lower sound. I even tried to record this and ask someone if that's normal, but it's inaudible on the recording.

Did anyone have this "problem"? Or is it just the way this fan sounds?
Also, I've bought this ultrabook because of its long battery runtime. Supposedly it should last about 7-8 hours, but mine lasts only about 4,5 and it's in ernergy saving mode... How long do your Spectres last?

 

Well, unfortunately, upgrade to Windows 10 doesn't fix the historical CPPC driver issue and clock speed getting stuck. Had to uninstall device and change Windows 10 driver install options to prevent it from being rediscovered all of the time.

 

I just upgraded mine to Windows 10 and noticed the clock speed stuck issue. On mine, the CPPC device driver wasn't present in 'programs and features' but I noticed in the advanced power settings that there were new CPPC settings which included enable/disable settings for AC and battery profiles. Disabling "optimization" fixed my problem.

 

Anyone running RHEL or CentOS linux on it?
Thanks