*HP dm3 (1XXX series) Owners Lounge*

bluesboy, I actually observed the same problems as you did.
I went to Bestbuy today to check on dm3 and I found the same thing.
Two things really bother me are that one, the heat from the bottom and the left side of palmrest (bottom is really worse of it), and two, the noise (or vibration)from inside the computer, I actually felt it.

The model is also a AMD version...............does any AMD version owners have the same observations?

P.S forgot to mention, that laptop was updating

 

The poor thing has probly been on all day. Most best buys don't even shut them off at night. Also they are on a plastic surface with almost no air flow and are often lined up a few right next to each other leaving no where to actually vent the air. Many times the laptops are just pulling back in the hot air another one exhausted

 

someone should file a pc cruelty complaint

 

Before I say anything about my observations and opinions so far, please note that I have the DM3-1030US, picked up from OD this afternoon.

I can confirm that the area underneath the left palmrest does get warm. It is really only the bottom, though, and most prevalent when plugged in to AC power. On battery, it is noticably cooler.

Got a few screenshots for you. I am still waiting for the battery to achieve a full charge, so it will be a while before I can provide thoughts on longevity.

Performance-wise, I am pleased so far. The Neo processor is faster than I expected. Passmark results:


One of my big concerns with LV/ULV processors was whether or not they would be able to handle my existing collection of 1080p video. Here are some comparison shots with and without DXVA enabled:

Transformers - H.264 No DXVA


Transformers - H.264 w/ DXVA enabled


Star Trek Trailer - Quicktime MP4 (.MOV) No DXVA


Star Trek Trailer - Quicktime MP4 (.MOV) w/ DXVA enabled


Interestingly enough, Windows Media Player would not play my Batman Begins VC-1-encoded .TS file (got audio only). Using MPC-HC with DXVA enabled, it was silky smooth for both audio and video.


Now, I personally use YouTube rarely and Hulu even less.
However, I did take them both on to see how the DM3z would handle them.
YouTube exhibited high CPU load, but the video was playable and smooth as long as I was doing nothing else on the computer.


In regards to Hulu, 480p content in windowed mode was ok. There was some stuttering, but not enough to be a concern. Taking 480p fullscreen, however, did result in significant choppiness. 720p in windowed or full screen wre unwatchable, unfortunately.

All of these tests were run while plugged in and charging, not on battery.
Overall, I am pleased with this notebook. It is a snappy performer, has a solid chassis, decent screen, well layed-out keyboard, and an extremely competitive price.

Please let me know if there is anything additional you would to see tested (besides battery life and current 3D games - will work on battery tomorrow, current 3D games aren't even worth the test as this is still a very weak chipset).

 

Can you test half life 2 . Not very current. Also if you play lotro. I'm most likely going to get the 4330 upgrade anyway. Basicly getting it for free because of the rebate.

 

@Avatar

Awesome man! Thanks for the effort you put into it (where's everybody else?! lol...) +Rep

Yeah, you're right about it being an outdated chipset, but I do think people would be interested in seeing how well the integrated graphics handle the source games like HL2 and CS:S since those are older games and could probably actually run alright on the HD 3200 since they scale well.

So, to you, do you think you could have it on your lap say in a car on a long 3 hour drive comfortably? Would it get to hot or could you use it without starting to sweat horrifically? I expect it would probably get fairly warm, but I need to know if it would likely become a problem.

Also, for Hulu playback, I have usually found Mozilla to work the best for smooth playback. With the Acer Timeline, sometimes internet explorer would play the same hulu video choppy that would play smoothly in Firefox... so you might try that... or you could also try downloading the Hulu desktop program, sometimes that plays things a little more smoothly too.

All of this might not really matter though soon since they are coming out with a HD flash update so that flash can take advantage of the GPU in addition to the CPU. When that happens within the next month or two, the dm3t/z will be golden as far as HD playback on Hulu/Youtube is concerned.

 

Hi, when you installed MPC-HC, did you install the DirectX runtime component? It seems to have trashed my DXVA support. I'm not sure where I can enable it after installing it.

 

As I posted in the other dm3 thread... i ran 3d mark 06 and here are the results:
Just ran 3dmark 06.
3d mark score: 1131
SM 2.0 score: 368
SM 3.0 score: 452
CPU: 1104

I am currently downloading team fortress 2, half life 2, cs source and portal in steam, so I should be able to see how it performs sometime tomorrow and post feedback.

Aslo, as the previous poster stated, youtube HD worked fine fullscreen, but hulu struggled.

 

I think i may have trashed my installation by installing the latest ATI drivers from ATI website (caused Hardware H264 accel to stop working). Just FYI.

I'm going to try and reinstall with whatever is on hp website.

 

Just saw the dm3 at OD today. The laptop is really nice and sharp looking. But alas the dv4 model next to it looked better! Didn't buy today... just window shopped (no pun intended)

 

@pasta4u
I just finished running 3DMark06 and the exact same score as mrXniick. Will be trying out Crysis and Wolfenstein later for giggles, is there a free demo of HL2 available for download?

@Quadron
In regards to heat, if you are running on battery, you will be fine. Plugged in, it may get a little uncomfortable after a few hours, but I would say it is personal preference. It is certainly not burning hot like my old Dell 600m. As for Hulu, I rely on my 2 TiVos to get me my TV shows... No need to worry about Hulu slowness.

@Snipester
I did install DX Runtime, made sure to get the most recent version (August 2009). Here are some links to additional DXVA resources I have found helpful as I built and tested my desktop. As an aside, it is very interesting that DXVA is working for me on the DM3 for all tested formats, where my desktop (Phenom II X4 955BE, 8GB RAM, Geforce 8800GT) fails to utilize DXVA on VC-1 files (runs them file without it, of course, but its a matter of principle!).
Links
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1165681
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1176557
http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/DXVASupport.html
http://jvance.com/blog/2008/12/15/DirectShowFiltersForWindowsVistaX64And64bitCodecs.xhtml#Troubleshooting
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=123537

 

Ok, performing a battery test now. Leaving the notebook on the default power profile, running a 1080p video and have 3 web browsing sessions open on sites with actively refreshing content. CPU usage @ 40-45%. We'll see how long it takes to kill the battery

 

please do an idle low power and regular use test too for comparison!!! wifi on?

 

I found it interesting that if you look at the probook series.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/321957-321957-64295-3929941-3955552-4021356.html

estimated battery life between the sp9300 and the su2300 is only a 30 minute difference...... weird.

 

yeah... that can't be right... also the SP9300 on that website has mobile broadband which surely must contribute something

 

Will do. I screwed up my initial test anyway, so I will have to recharge and start over. For anyone who is interested, streaming 1080p over wireless through MPC-HC gives you about 2 hours of battery life on the DM3-1030.


What would you all like to see for "normal" usage test?

 

Web-browsing with a couple documents open on 60% brightness is what constitutes normal use for me.

 

Agreed as above. Screen brightness is a major detail.

Just saw the review of the 5310 Probook.
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptop/hp-probook-5310m.aspx?page=4

Says 5+hrs with the SP9300 and 4-cell battery with X4500. Hoping the DM3 can better that even with the Nvidia graphics.

 

That vibration is likely due to the 7200 rpm hard drive, i noticed that too when i went to best buy.

 

For those who have the AMD DM3s, how is your CPU usage while using wireless?

I have a Windows Home Server and am using a D-Link DIR-655 router, transferring a 1080p video file from the server to the laptop and seeing 70%+ CPU usage... Seems high to me...

 

Here is someones review just posted on newegg.com of the DM3-1030us. They gave it 5 stars...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834157044

Well Executed Small HP Notebook
Reviewed By: Steve on 10/22/2009 Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: less than 1 day

Pros: Nicely thin case - very sleek. Well-spaced keys take some getting used to but feel substantial and typing becomes easy as you adjust to it. Great specs for the price, with a dual-core Neo processor, 4 GB ram and 320 GB HDD. I have only had this a short time but so far Windows 7 seems stable and quick. Processor fan exhaust port on the right side quietly blows out surprisingly cool air for an AMD CPU, which in my experience in the past can run quite hot. Wireless works really well and installing three wireless printers took only about 5 or 6 minutes, test pages and all, which is unimaginable in previous versions of Windows. Four USB ports are a nice touch, as well as HDMI output. The machine seems quick and responsive.

Cons: Nothing major - touch pad has glossy silver surface which really shows fingerprints, though the rest of the case has a nice matte finish. No optical drive installed or included. Power and wireless buttons are a little awkwardly placed on right panel of the laptop.

Other Thoughts: All in all, this is a well executed design by HP at a great price. Be sure to get an external optoical drive if you do not have one. Battery life is still an unknown. Case design is really thin and attractive, and this laptop is perfect in size - not so small that it can be a strain to use like some netbooks, but still small enough to compfortably travel with.

 

Interesting... I was under the impression that it did come with a External DVD Drive. I must be terribly mistaken

 

Passmark wise, thats pretty good. Seems close to what the Intel CULV gets from what I've been reading from other threads (other brands) in the forum. Might have to get this for my sister from Office Depot since it seems very durable and looks pretty sharp.

 

Some models come with it, and others do not.

 

I found this issue as well with win7 being installed on multiple laptops/notebooks the network layers and new drivers for wireless adapters in win7 take a high cpu load when your maxing out the speed of the adapter can be anywhere from 10-30 percent higher load than if you were using the adapter in windows xp or even vista. very strange this is with different adapters from different companys on different computers using win7. I dont know how they goofed that one up! (microsoft)

 

Hey guys,

In regards to the heat under the palm rest, this is generally from the hard drive and not the processor. The models carried by Best Buy and Office Depot both contain a 7200rpm HDD. 2.5" 7200rpm hard drives are fairly notorious for building up a considerable amount of heat. I had one in my dv2500t for a while. After doing benchmarks, I found that a good 5400rpm HDD actually performed about as well, but had considerably cooler temperatures. That 7200rpm was almost dangerous..

The performance thing is similar to how the original WD Raptors have been eclipsed by 7200rpm desktop HDDs. The technology is just more developed, and easier to work with, and therefore have fewer missed sectors when reading. Now, these 7200rpm hard drives are probably a lot better than what I had, since I was a pretty early adopter. But still, temps are going to be higher on 7200. It's something to think about.

 

dm3 ranked 3rd in the battle of the thin and lights...

Link to article

 

Alright. First "review" I've seen is up over at Gizmodo.

Basically, they give the HP 3rd place, while the Asus machine gets 1st place due to it's larger 8-cell battery. Looking at the performance numbers, the Asus fares better due to it's 500GB drive, 4GB DDR3, and it's SU7300 CPU, all of which are available on the DM3.

The SU4100/4500MHD configuration got 5.5 hours of battery life, considering it was playing a movie with the brightness at 65% and WiFI on, getting 8 hours while just browsing/music should be easily attainable.

No mention of heat or anything, really a bad review to be honest, but whatever.

I really want to see how heat/battery compares between the SU7300/4500MHD and the SP9300/105M.

 

First thing added may be an ssd . Wonder if this has an open pci-e slot that will allow an ssd to run there ?. Will make the laptop run cooler and save alot of power.

 

They really should have tested the AMD version that costs $499 from Office Depot. My guess is that after only a day or so of use, this review is more of an overview than anything else.

 

That Gizmodo comparison was odd.

They dinged the dm3 on performance and HD space, noting that the "$740" Intel system they used had 2GB ram & a 320 GB HD, yet you can go down to Sam's Club pick the same machine with 4GB DDR3 and 500 GB drive for $699.

 

Most Gizmodo reviews are like this - I usually take them with a pinch of salt.
A lot of sites and blogs are giving the DM3 good reviews and my personal experience so far is that it is a really decent laptop for the price.

For $499 from Office Depot you get 4GB Ram, 320GB 7200rpm etc. . . .
plus if you don't want to buy from Office Depot you can always get Staples to price match (they have the exact same model for $599).

 

Agreed, that's going to be a big decision factor for me. If I can browse the web for 6+ hours (because the CPU/GPU throttle themselves) I'm happy. But if it dies in 4 hours with no intense activity, then that would be a no-go in my book.

 

I keep thinking about the order I made and wonder if it was the right choice. I went with the SU7300 with the 105M. Though I keep thinking if I made the right choice instead of going with the L625 and the 4330. I also got the 7200RPM HD on the Intel, so that may cut into battery life too. I kind of want 5 hours of battery life. That's my ideal number. But at the same time I want the best performance I can get on it. If I could re-order, I would consider the AMD. I am starting to like the switchable graphics more and more, since it'll go to the integrated when on battery life. Which I prefer immensely.

 

Same thing here. I ended up going with the 7300/G105M thinking it was the "safer" combo of the two, but it was a close call. I would have preferred to wait until I could make a more informed decision, but figured that with the 25% Bing cashback offer, I really couldn't go wrong either way.

 

Exactly, I was rushed into a decision, that I still don't know if I made the right choice. I do regret not going with the N-Card. That I 100% regret, but the Intel choice I simply do not know. As I posted before, I've grown-up with Intel. I've NEVER once used an AMD based computer. Which is not to say I never will. I just have never had problems picking Intel.

I keep hearing positive things regarding AMD on these boards that are making me wonder.

 

Very interested in purchasing the Intel version of this machine, but I am a little confused about the screen resolution.

Certain links (including the hp webpage itself) state that the screen is 1280x800, while others, say it is 1366x768.

Does every one with a unit in hand have 1366 res screens?

 

Wow, so I started looking into that Asus UL30, and found it's slightly bigger brother, the UL80VT-A1. The UL80 has a SU7300 with switchable graphics between Intel 4500 and the Nvidia 210!! That pisses me off!! How can Asus have switchable graphics with the Nvidia 210 and HP not have switchable graphics.... BAH! Because it has an 8-cell battery, the estimated battery life for the UL80 is 11.5 hours. It also has an aluminum casing along with some builtin overclocking modes that seem pretty sweet. It also has a DVD/RW built into it.

I think I'm going to stick with the dm3z because it's lighter (4.2 lbs vs. 4.8) and significantly thinner (.9 v 1.1) with similar performance, plus it looks way cooler with its shiny silver metal sides and touch pad, and it's cheaper... but my big question is: why couldn't HP do what Asus did and make the Nvidia 105 and 4500 switchable? It would certainly help make the dm3t a much more portable laptop...

http://www.amazon.com/UL80Vt-A1-14-Inch-Light-Black-Laptop/dp/B002Q8HK7K/ref=pd_cp_pc_0

 

If the SU7300/4500MHD combo gets 5.5 hours while playing back a DVD, I'd estimate the SP9300/105M gets around 3.5 doing the same thing. That probably means it gets 4.5-5.5 hours while web-surfing. Given such, the dm3t has entered an all-out battle versus the Asus UL80vt-a1 in my mind.

 

It is 1366x768.

 

Man. If I can get 4 hours of battery life browsing/music with the SP9300/105M with minimal heat... I'm sold.
From what I can tell, the SP9300 is basically the same as the P-series CPU that runs at 2.26ghz, which means this little guy will be one bloody powerful laptop.

I'm pretty sure 4 hours should be easily attainable. My question though is the heat... having had my DV2000 and DV2500 die due to heat and lasting barely a year each, I need this one to run pretty damn cool. Also concerned about the HDD temps, watching my HDD run at 50C is no fun.

Guess in a week or so we'll know.

 

I was tracking this one for a while as well, Quadron. Couple of things with the UL80Vt, though... It does not have an aluminum chassis, just an aluminum backing on the display. The rest of the chassis is plastic.
From what I understand, the 105M idles with pretty low power consumption, so the need for switchable graphics is lessened. Of course, if you need the extra horsepower the 210M provides, then it would be worth it...
I just didn't like the way the UL80Vt looked, didn't seem like a thin and light...
Now, if they had delivered a UL 30Vt, I would be all over it. Would probably cancel my pending order for the other DM3.

 

The SP9300 will be ~2x as powerful as the SU7300. 4 hours of normal web browsing and productivity software is likely within range for the DM3 with an SP9300. I can tell you that traditionally, AMD products run hotter than Intel. If the DM3s with the Neo CPUs are reasonably cool, I am sure the SP9300 will carry about the same heat signature.

 

If you go amd get Overdrive from their site


http://www.amd.com/us-en/0,,3715_15337_15354_15359,00.html

Whats great is you can change the cpu speed and also the voltage of the chip. So you can get even more . You can even overclock the gpu on the system. The 4330 is just a slower clocked 4570. The 4570 runs at 680mhz and uses 12-15watts. The 4530 runs at 500mhz and uses 8-12 watts and the 4330 runs at 450mhz and uses 7 watts.

So 4530 speeds shoudl be reachable with an over clock. I doubt getting to 4570 speeds is possible, but you might be able to get decent speed boost.

The 4330 gets 30.7fps on low settings in crysis and 17-21 fps depending on cpu. The 4530 gets 44.9 fps low and 18.3 in medium . The 4570 gets 42.3fps low but 22.7 medium. Its most likely hititng a bandwidth wall at that point in regards to performance

 

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?p=1346804#post1346804

Forgot that the open cl drivers came out . So any of us with the 4330 should be able to run this. Any program that supports open cl will use the gpu to help speed the program up.

Hope that helps you guys

 

Sorry if this was already posted (on the train with my iPhone, hard to browse), but there's a new review up: http://blog.laptopmag.com/the-hp-pavilion-dm3-promises-brushed-metal-long-battery-life

 

I agree with all of Avatar's posts so far. I've been playing WoW for 5 hours and haven't noticed it get hot at all. The warmest part is still under the left palm rest.

On thing I was wondering about, does any dm3 owner feel like the left speaker is louder than the right?

One major grip for me is the trackpad, I can't seem to get used to the mirrored surface and the buttons are super STIFF. If I decide to stick with this, on the wish list will be a bluetooth mouse.

 

@Sbell - your linked blog was dated 9/15...

@SDash - Amazon always seems to have the MS Bluetooth Mobile Mouse for 40% cheaper than everyone else... I have it and use it with all of my mobile PCs, works great. If you are playing games of any kind, I would highly recommend a mouse regardless of the quality of the trackpad.

 

An actual review is up of the SU7300/4500MHD... in their battery test which is continuous web surfing over WiFi, they got 9 hours and 7 minutes, which is crazy good.

However, they did say the bottom left side got very warm...

Review is over at laptopmag.

 

My bad, wrong link (standing on the train with my phone here ). Here's today's review. 3.5/5 issues with touchpad and heat.

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptop/hp-pavilion-dm3t.aspx