*HP dm3 (1XXX series) Owners Lounge*

Yep. It's a fantastic laptop. And yep, I'm not a fan of the chrome trim, but I don't hate it either. Matte black would have been great or even matte grey/silver.

 

Yea, I wonder if there is anything I can do about the trim? Mine has peeled and makes the whole thing look cheaper.

 

Same here. I might try a silver marker or some silver paint.

 

Let me know how you get on.

 

Not a big fan of the chrome trim either.. wish it had something like the trim on the dm4t instead.

 

Just pulled the trigger on the updated model.

Athlon Neo II 1.3ghz x2, 2mb L2 cache
3 GB DDR3
ATI 5430 / 4225 switchable
250gb hard drive

$~609 after tax, plus I will hopefully get 10% bing cash back.

 

Just flashed the F.28 BIOS update...HUGE difference with the heat issue here guys. The laptop is running very comfortably, even with the power plugged in, unlike before. I highly recommend everyone updating.

 

About the chrome trim, I'd probably sand it down if it comes off of the laptop easily and use some vinyl color on it.

 

My AMD dm3 is running cool as a cucumber now as well.

 

Wow, that's a very low power processor for sure. You'll get very nice battery life.

 

Any Intel users with the new bios update? Is there any difference?
The only part that gets hot for me is the left palm rest and the bottom left part where the memory chips are.

 

I have Intel SU4100 and it does seem to stay a bit cooler.

 

For the intel BIOS, you guys are talking about F.18, right?
Oddly enough, it didn't show up on HP Advisor when it did its updates check.

 

Where and How can i get this F.28 Update?

im getting the 10.5 catalyst right now.

 

HP support website, just need to enter your model number.

 

I tried to install catalyst 10.5 but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. I still show the old driver, even though the 10.5 install process appeared to have gone smoothly. Anyone want to share what they did?

I noticed that the 4300 isn't in the list of supported GPUs for this driver...

Also, is there a significant performance improvement or something with this driver?

 

I'm hoping so. I was a little unsure on the processor, the 1.3Ghz seems slower than the older models, but it also has twice the L2 cache. I expect it to be faster, because I know the L2 cache makes a difference, but its that knee-jerk reaction of seeing a slower clock speed that makes me think its going to be slow.

I could have gone with the 1.5 ghz for $50 more, but with how often computer technology changes, I try to tell myself to save the cash and buy more often instead. I hope I was right.

 

Has anyone here with the HP DM3z gotten to successfully install Windows XP on a partition or just fully install it over Windows 7?

I want to have a small 20 GB Partition for Windows XP but it's having errors when I boot off of CD.

Also, where is everyone getting this new BIOS update?

 

No offense but what would be your first guess?

(if you want to cheat look three posts above you )

 

I don't think there are drivers for Windows XP for the DM3 series.

Why would you want to run windows xp anyway? It's an outdated operating system and Windows 7 runs way better. If you need to use some of the features of XP, then again windows 7 also offers you to use XP Mode.

And plus the reason why it's not booting is because it needs the sata drivers for it to see the harddisk drives. without that it won't boot. thats why it asks to press F4 when it first boots into the installation to put in the drivers for the sata drivers. There could be another option in the bios to enable to the harddisks to be seen but I'm not too sure with it.

 

Windows XP drivers are available at Hp.com

 

If I get an SSD drive, will my laptop run cooler? Can I keep the HDD so I can use SSD for OS and day-to-day use and HDD for archiving?

 

SSD will run a little cooler than a 7200rpm drive.

You can use the HDD as an external harddrive if you buy a USB enclosure.

 

Really? I thought it would be a lot cooler with no moving parts?!?

Can I keep my HDD inside the laptop as well as an SSD?

 

No you cannot. If the laptop had an internal DVD slot you could, but the DM3 only has one slot for a hard drive.

 

Don't get your hopes up. The primary causes of heat in the HP DM3 are not the hard drive. Other parts are.

If you want to buy an SSD do it for the huge improvement in booting and launching applications.

Alternatively you could look at the Seagate Momentus XT that combines HDD+SSD.
Seagate Momentus XT (500GB) Hard Drive reviews - CNET Reviews

 

Hmm, yea maybe I should leave it. Why does the fan turn on the second my dm3 turns on? I'm becoming obsessed with ways to turn off/reduce the fan.

 

It's such a small form factor with a dual core chip that heat has a hard time escaping without a fan.

If you really want, you can make it so the fan isn't on all the time within your BIOS settings, but that is definitely not recommended.

 

When you power on, you're computer checks to make sure the fan is working so nothing frys if it isn't. If you undervolt/underclock the fan will run much, much less and as TSE said DONT turn the fan off in the bios. Also, on my dm3 the hdd is consistently the coolest thing, I've never seen it go above 105 degrees F on HWMonitor

 

I've tried turning off the fan in the BIOS and it doesn't turn it off anyway! Anyone know why?

I've tried underclocking before but struggled. I'll give it another go now, thanks.

 

What you can do is mess around in RMClock and turn off certain transistors and it will underclock that way. When I run on battery I only run the lowest FID, 4.0, and have the voltage at .7125v, so it runs only 1 core at 800mhz which dramtically increases my battery life by about a half hour.

At 30% brightness, wifi on, bluetooth off, just basic word and web browsing, I can get about 4.5 - 5 hours which is more than enough for me. I really don't know how they got 6 hours.

It also runs extremely cool that way too.

 

Thanks, I'll try that. Generally, I'm not that keen on turning off a core (especially for only 30 mins extra) but there will be times when it's useful so thanks.

Why does only having FID x 4 and 0.7125v make only one core run?

I'm having a nightmare with undervolting, everything I've tested under 0.975 has turned the PC off. Should I wait between doing stress tests so one test doesn't start from a higher temperature from the previous test?

 

That shouldn't make any difference.

Personally I never do stress tests. If it runs with normal usage it's stable enough for me.

 

I'm glad you said that! Your opinion always seems to be well informed.
I think I'm gonna follow that advice and just make sure I quick save things!

Which DM3 have you got and what volts and temp drops have you had?

 

Keep in mind though that I'm not using my notebook for very important things. If I would there might be some point in stress testing.

Currently I'm not using undervolting because when I'm on battery I always use the lowest multiplier. Last time I checked there's no undervolting possible with Intel SU4100 at lowest multi plier.

 

The only important stuff I do is in my browser. Since it saves the session when it crashes and gmail autosaves drafts, I can accept it crashing. Also, if it does I will obviously up the voltage, using the crash as my practical stress test. I'll probably put it back to the stock multiplier when I play Company of Heroes on the LAN still!

 

That's exactly how I do it when I use undervolting.

 

Now with all the undervolting and lowerclocking the cpu... is there any chance in hell that we can overclock cpu?
I don't mind, except while playing Need for Speed World (still in beta) the resolution and everything is low. I know the gpu is intergrated and all that yaddaa yaddaa but can we somehow overclock those as well? Still the cpu.
The notebook runs quite cool for me, coretemp reports temps as low as 104*F and highest is about 125*F. and real temp just reports the same just minus 4 degrees. I don't know which one to trust. just keep coretemp cause it says in the taskbar with the temps....

 

Overclocking the CPU will not change anything noticeably on this type of machine. And overclocking the integrated gpu will matter even less.

 

I was thinking of engraving something on my lid. Do you think it's too thin?

I love the fact that every piece on the laptop body is replaceable.

The chrome trim around the front, seems perfect size for some kind of plastic/rubber trim over the front for a bumper.

Anyone know why they label this as an entertainment PC? A computer is a computer,no? I'd just assume it has to do with the type of software on it.
Food for thought.

 

was thinking the same, why they call entertainment pc when there is no games playable on this thing. maybe because we can use it to play youtube videos.

just checked with gpu-z and the hd3200 graphics card only have 32bit bus width, crap.

i have a question, can we install the video drivers from Drivers & Support | GAME.AMD.COM or only the ones from hp website?

tried to put xp on this but the drivers i downloaded and installed seemed to not find the gpu? ( i know win7 is all that and xp is too old, just i dont like 7)

 

you need to integrate the sata driver into xp image

download the raid driver (259kb) from here Drivers & Support | GAME.AMD.COM

and use nlite to integrate it on xp and generate a new cd nLite - Deployment Tool for the bootable Unattended Windows installation

 

Have owned a DV4T for a little over a year, and looking to get a new laptop(seems kind of soon but I'm not liking the DV4T very much. Always runs hot and loud).

Looking to get a 13 incher, and the dm3 is one of the choices. I'm looking at the customization on the site, but am not sure which processor to get. Would getting the K325 or the K625 make the computer a lot faster than the cheaper processors available?

Laptop is gonna mainly be used for web browsing, music, homework, and movies(tend to watch standard definition flicks, but I occasionally watch 720p movies, and would like to be able to watch 1080p flicks if possible, but if not, those can stay on my TV).

 

I think "entertainment PC" is just a label used for their Pavilion line.

Dunno how well engraving would work out, since it's not entirely smooth like a MBP.

 

From what I recall seeing posted in this forum some time ago, the "metal" is just a very thin coating over plastic. I wouldn't recommend engraving.

 

OK, cool. kind of felt that it was.

 

The AMD dm3z runs fairly hot and loud, make sure you check one before you buy it. Also, it's worth getting the firmware upgrade for the BIOS, it makes it run cooler.

 

Any processor (including atom) should be able to handle 1080p videos fine. The main killer is flash video right now (think youtube and hulu). You'll want a dual-core processor and then use flash 10.1 to be able to do HD flash well.

Right now I'm on a single core ULV, it can just BARELY do 480p hulu fullscreen, with flash 10.1 The odd part is, it does youtube 1080p fullscreen perfectly fine.

Either way, the k325 is only $50 more, definitely worth it.

 

Just bought a refurbished/recertified dm3-1039wm from Best Buy
Was $449 plus tax and shipping minus $90 in BCB! Got it for right at $400; pretty good deal I think

I have read through a lot of this thread but there are 2000+ posts so if anyone could give me a quick rundown of the things I need to know as a new owner that would be great

I see that the newest BIOS update (is that 2010-05-21 , Version:F28 A, 2.2M as per the HP site?) fixes some of the overheating problems, right?

I am much more concerned with heat and battery life than performance, so if there is anything additionally I can do to decrease the former and increase the latter that would be great. I've read a little about undervolting but am not too familiar with it (my overclocking days were 8+ years ago!) so if anyone could tell me if that's worthwhile that'd be great too.

Also, just any little things you wish you had known when you first got your dm3 would be awesome!

Thanks

 

You have the correct BIOS update noted (F28). It made a significant difference in the amount of heat mine generates. Also, install Flash 10.1 and ATI's Catalyst 10-5 Mobility drivers which will allow hardware acceleration with the HD3200.

Here's a link regarding undervolting.