The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Hey guys, I've been searching high and low for this laptops hard drive bay size, to determine what size ssd to buy. I bought a 9.4mm ssd and is it too thick? Does the sad size need to be 7mm?
I upgraded from vista to 7 then to 8.1. I don't think 8.1 is anymore demanding than 7. Most drivers were loaded automatically. No issues so far. Metro is very cumbersome. Classic shell is great.
Ever since I upgraded mine with 8GB of DDR2 PC26400 800mhz memory (massive score off eBay for $48!! I purchased ram from an ad that said DDR3 and when it came it was DDR2!!) and the normal sized SATA III Kingston IIIV solid state hard drive running Windows 8.1 it boots up in 6 seconds from ice cold to loading internet explorer so its about 11 seconds until I can check my email. Yeah, its pretty crazy how a couple hundred dollars in updates and a little skill in tearing it apart to replace the CPU and thermal paste the DV5T is still a great working notebook!!!
I have the version of the DV5T with the gold tone finish.
Upgrades:
Modded BIOS.
T9800 running dual IDA @ 3.06ghz
8GB RAM
120GB SSD (Vertex 4)
750GB HDD (WD Black) in the optical bay using a caddy.
Added TV Tuner. Haven't used it in a while. It was just a proof of concept mod.
Intel 6200 Wifi (Thanks to whitelist removal)
Win 7 64bit.
Only regret is that it can't play Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA bitstreaming due to the video card. But I have other notebooks for that.
Thinking about changing the LCD from 1280 x 800 to either 1440 x 900 or 1680 x 1050. Just for kicks. It's just the fear of getting a panel with a dead pixel because right now, I have none.
It's refreshing to hear that other people also are using the optical drive HDD caddy. Plus I really like the gold tone model. The one I refurbed was all scratched to hell so when I had it all apart I painted it Cadillac pearl white and boy it looked sweet!!So many times I've done a refurbish job for people and have gone the "max out the ram, optical drive HDD caddy, slide a 60GB SSHD because lets be honest, not many people want to drop multiple hundreds of dollars into a refurbish of an older laptop, move the original HDD over to the optical drive spot, cheap optical drive caddy, fresh windows install, set up all the tweaks, and BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE! LOL!!
It really makes my day when I do those refurbish type jobs especially for women with no computer knowledge that planned to drop $800 on a new laptop but instead spent $225 to let me do the refurbishment. Plus I normally pull the notebook apart, clean it out (which alone drops the temp normally 40 degrees) reapply MX4 thermal paste, put a copper shim over the GPU if needed, under volt the CPU if needed to get it run for 6 hours on a new battery ( price jumps to $250 then).
But so many people just don't realize how the refurbished laptop job I just described will still SMOKE the $800 Staples notebook they've just went and bought which won't have a permanent copy of Office 2010, permanent good anti-virus software, all the tweaks to turn off the stuff in the windows services menu that just lags a system, and not to mention all the bloat ware that comes on a new laptop which 99% of people don't know how to turn off. And they wonder why their new $800 laptop which is now a cool $1000 for the stuff they were missing takes a minute and a half to boot up.....
If I was you though, I wouldn't mess with the screen because that's not even really noticeable ya know. I am thinking about doing that with my HP Probook 4530S but only because I read somewhere that someone else found an LCD screen with 1920x1080 FHP screen compared to the 1366x768 that it came with and if I was to sell the OEM that came with my probook for $30 It would only cost me $70 including the different video cable needed.
Just wondering if anyone still has their DV5T. Mine is still going strong. I only had to replace the fan once, and that was about 2 years ago. I upgraded my ram all the way to 8 gig. I'm thinking of going for an SSD next. I don't really use this for games as such, but I'd like to have it running as fast as possible, which I think that will help. I like my programs to open fast, ya know. Hope you folks that still have yours are still happy with it, like I am.
No I sold the one I refurbished a long time ago but as far as I know the person who bought it still uses it and that was two years ago and they thought they bought a brand new laptop because it still boots up in 8-10 seconds like the days they bought it from me. If you like your programs to open fast and enjoy a very speedy laptop than you have no idea what your missing if you don't have a solid state hard drive. It's not expensive either. I actually recommend to clients that still have a DDR2 memory running notebook to go ahead with a solid state hard drive upgrade instead of the 8GB DDR2 upgrade because the DDR2 upgrade is crazy expensive. You can get a 60-64GB Kingston V300 3GS/6GS SATA III SSHD for $60 and then get an optical drive caddy for $10, hard drive caddy $10. Now your up to $80 instead of $110 - $120 for two 4GB DDR2 800mhz sticks of ram. Plus once you have the SSHD installed you can go into the Windows settings and make your operating system steal 4GB of flash memory from the SSHD bumping you up to 8GB with the speed of the SSHD. I have a desktop posted that I'm selling right now, I'll post it here so you can watch it boot up and be ready to work in 8 seconds if you'd like to see. It also shows a battlefield 4 demo but you can get the jist. This video has the same exact 2.5" SSHD in a 2.5 - 3.5" HDD caddy. It's the same hard drive I was just telling you about. A Kingston V300 60GB and its actually running with 8GB of RAM so you can imagine what your laptop would run the same.
Google the concept and read into it on Wikipedia or something. Not something I would recommend to anyone who doesn't plan on making changes to their cooling system especially on a laptop. If you overclock your laptop just a little bit your chancing burning up the processor or GPU within days. I usually have to undervolt AMD laptops because a whole bunch of AMD's GPU's run way to hot at 180'F non stop. After I undervolt them they run at the normal 140"F without any performance loss.
Cool video, that's what I'm looking for. I probably won't mess with the CPU at all. Well, I should re-paste it at least. I've had this thing apart twice, so it's not too bad really. The one thing I'm not too keen on is losing my dvd burner. I use it at least 2-3 times a month. I know it's not much, but it works for my needs.
Than just throw your original hard drive in a caddy. I just ordered a kit off newegg, 120 GB Kingston Sata III 3gs/6gs SV300 for $69.99 and a DYNEX USB 3.0 external 2.5" hard drive caddy $8.99. So I got the caddy and 120GB SSHD which I consider the best maker of SSHD's with a 5 year warranty for $80. By the time I'm done putting all the OS stuff on the hard drive there will still be 80 free GB's of space.
If you have never opened up all the way I suggest you do so and change out the thermal paste and clean out the inside. You won't believe what I've found inside the cleanest newest laptops.. Also changing that terrible factory thermal paste and removing the thermal pad on the GPU replacing both with a nice coat of MX4 thermal paste. Doing the cleanup and thermal paste change will probably drop the temperature another 15 degrees. You can also put a copper shim on the GPU to make it run even cooler but if its not overheating doesn't sound like you need to bother with that.
Clear the CMOS. Pull the CMOS battery and let it sit for 10 min or research the motherboard your DV5 has and find out where the pin-outs are on it, connect a wire (just hold the wire ends to the pins) and start the laptop. Should clear the entire CMOS including any BIOS passwords. This is just something to try if you can't find anything else. I know pulling the CMOS battery might work, sometimes it does on certain motherboards. The whole finding the pins to jump it also only works on certain models and brands so its hard to say. I am not 100% sure but it seems like if you re-flashed the bios ( that is saying you have the most current ) it should remove it also. If you don't have the newest BIOS try installing that through windows. Just be super careful that the laptop is plugged in and nothing else is running. Couple years ago was halfway through a BIOS update on a brand new Gateway laptop that I didn't have the battery in, power went out halfway through the update. Motherboard was bricked.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
