*HP dv5z (1XXX series) Owners Lounge* **PUMA Goodness**

I'm considering downgrading to Windows 3.1. You'd probably be looking at the desktop before your finger leaves the power button.

I was wondering about that, Miner, as it works great with my desktop PC. Would there be any drawback to leaving a notebook in sleep mode 24/7? It sure would make things more convenient.

 

I do game, but I don't play any next-gen games. I leave those for my 360. A little bit of WoW casually and Company of Heroes, but besides that not much. I'm just hoping that I can get most of my money's worth by getting Xfire to work.

 

LOLOL! someone, quick, find me SATA and intel wireless ABGN drivers for windows 3.1! k thx!

 

Everything for Hybrid Crossfire should be contained already in the 780G chipset, shouldn't it? I hate it when manufacturers assume nobody really has any idea what they're doing.

 

Unless you have a specific driver or software which doesnt play nicely with sleep it should be perfectly fine to put the system into sleep. I have been using sleep on my tx2500 and it hasnt failed yet(hopefully I dont jinx it!). Hibernate is another option it would consume no power but then again it will be much slower to resume than from sleep. Vista has hybrid sleep(initially it wil sleep and after a set amount of time will go into hibernation which is nice if you are on battery power. try it and see if it works for you.

Yeah, you should be fine. The HD3450 isnt leaps ahead of the HD3200 but should play both of those games.

 

Yikes! I had a dv5z in my cart from yesterday and I went back to modify the configuration and the price went up $25! It seems that the ZM-80 and ZM-82 went up by $25 overnight!

Unfortunately the configuration that I had saved was one where I was considering forgoing the 3450 and getting Microsoft Office and a 250GB hard drive instead. =(

 

I thought I noticed a price difference earlier today. Perhaps this has something to do with what they said to me about the "processor replacement"?

 

They are just juggling prices, as they often do.

 

I thought that too, just considering all possibilities.

 

I went with the integrated 3200 and did not receive the firewire port..it closed off but I do still have an ethernet port. The laptop does include a media remote and battery, some people have had there's in the express card slot and others came in a bag...mine came in a bag.

 

I used the $200 off of $1000 along with the $150 instant rebate and got:

HP Pavilion dv5z customizable Notebook PC

* Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
* AMD Turion(TM) X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor ZM-82 (2.2GHz)
* 15.4" diagonal WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Infinity Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)
* FREE Upgrade to 2GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm) from 1GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)!!
* 256MB ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3450 Graphics
* FREE Upgrade to 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive from 120GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
* [For BrightView Infinity] Webcam Only
* HP Color Matching Keyboard
* 802.11b/g WLAN
* No Modem
* SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
* No TV Tuner w/remote control
* 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
* Microsoft(R) Works 9.0
* HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

All for a grand total of 649.99 before tax, so 690.61 in the end. Not bad for their best CPU and the 3450. I must say, I'm somewhat shocked I was able to get something like this for $650. Especially if the Hybrid Crossfire issue gets sorted out.

 

Yep, that is a good deal. My previous Pavilion cost more than that, and has much lower specs......

 

Sciontc

Does your dv5z have just the 3200 IGP or did you get a dedicated graphics card like the the 3450. I want to compare battery life of a high capacity 6 cell with just the 3200 IGP

 

I'm pissed because that $200 coupon was released AS I WAS PURCHASING MINE. It took a while to register on the site, configure it, and place the order, and an hour or two after I was done I saw the coupon.

I called them and tried to cancel the order but they said it was already being processed, so I'd have to wait for the laptop to ship to me and then ship it back to them...by that time, the $200 coupon would be expired.

I eventually got them to take $50 off the price in addition to the $150 instant rebate, but that still left me with a $750 laptop that I could've gotten cheaper. I keep trying to be optimistic but I hate being swindled like that.

 

Oh man, I'm really sorry to hear that. I was so happy when I found that coupon. I got to add the ZM-82 and and Infinity screen at no extra cost.

 

This is my first HP computer and I am NOT impressed so far. Keep in mind, I don't even have the laptop yet.

I'm not saying I'm mad at HP for using stupid coupon codes because I realize that's a common practice.

However, when I tried calling them and explaining the situation they were not receptive AT ALL. At first I just wanted to cancel the order and place a new one...that way everything would show up online and such. But no, she said that even though it's only been 4 hours "the laptop is already being built." She said that if they tried to cancel it now they probably wouldn't receive the notice until after it was being shipped.

That's utter BS, if you ask me. It had only been 4 hours and I know it takes them at least a couple days to build it...it's been 3 days and it still hasn't shipped.

So I kept trying to reason with her, trying to figure out a way I could get the discount, and that's when she said that she could give me $50 off. Why $50? Because, she said, the instant rebate and the coupon were not stackable, so I really would've only saved $50.

Once again, this is also BS because I saw posts from multiple people saying that they had received both discounts. But what can I do? They were essentially holding my money hostage and they refused to believe that both discounts could be applied.

This is the first laptop I've ever bought, and the last time I bought a desktop was 2 years ago when a friend built mine. He said he doesn't build laptops because of how difficult it is keeping the heat down. I HATE dealing with these OEMs but I didn't have an option in this case.

If I end up having problems with this laptop I'm shipping it back immediately. If I encounter any resistance I'm going to start reporting it to the news outlets like the Consumerist and take it from there.

 

Alright, I understand that you've had a bad experience, but HP really does make good stuff. Really high quality on everything I've had experience with and most of the time quite good customer support.

 

Hmm. Yes, the battery life is crappy. I have the high capacity battery; I couldn't even get all the way through watching a 90 minute movie before it shut off. Gonna have to look into undervolting this thing to squeeze a little more life out of it. I suppose I could also try getting the updated BIOS and see if it makes any difference here.

(Note that I was running Ubuntu Linux, not Windows. Since there's no video acceleration under Linux, all of the movie decoding was being done by the CPU, which is probably one reason it was more power hungry...)

 

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Hi Eric, I just got an dv51002nr, and Im having problems with cs3. I would like to know what to do, because I cant close the aplications after I install them, so if you could help me I would be thankful.

Ps Sorry for my English, my main language is Spanish

Fernando

 

Eric and Fernando,

I don't know if there is a thread specifically devoted to this issue, but I'll have my dv5z in about a week and will be installing CS3. Please reply in this thread and let me know where you discuss troubleshooting just in case I need it. Thanks!

 

I am just wondering if anyone can tell me what would cause this, faulty IGP/Memory issue or heat. I loaded up counter-strike: source for 30secs and closed, went to desktop and it was flashing checked squares all over the top of the screen, i rebooted and it disappeared. I loaded CSS from cold, it hadn't been running.

Other question to ask about ram, it's running at 400mhz, i have the rm-70, is this slower than it could be? Also i have another question is it usual for the ram brands to be different in the HP laptop? It has Elpida and Samsung sticks, myself i have never heard of Elpida until now, what brands does everyone else have?

 

All right all the dv5z owners help me out here, my system has AMD Turion(TM) X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor ZM-80 (2.1 GHz) with vista (64 bit) running 2 gigs of ram (800 mHz). If I upgrade it to 4 gigs, will I see a big defference in performance? Because with 2 gigs the system is very slow compared to my previous intel 1.66 Ghz cpu with 2 gigs of ram. Neweggs got some great deal on rams, now which will be faster DDR2 800 with 5-5-5-18 timing (5 cas lat) or DDR2 667 with 4-4-4-12 time ( 4 cas lat).

 

It could be enough to require a 90W power brick instead of a 65W. There's just no way to know until someone clueful at HP decides to talk.

If that is the problem, if AMD came out with a new core stepping that uses a little less power that could allow HP to enable Crossfire. That's way, way speculative. Technically AMD could surprise us with 45nm Turion Ultras, they started fabbing 45nm Phenoms in June (takes 2+ months to finish, then they have to build up enough inventory, THEN release the chips, figure October), and a 45nm Turion surprise would be an exceptionally smart (if slightly risky, notebook chips add a degree of difficulty vs. desktop) move. It would make far more sense for HP to just spend an extra buck on 90W power bricks though.

Configure 64-bit Vista and either get 4GB RAM from HP or plan on swapping in a pair of 2GB DDR2-800 SODIMMs when convenient. 3GB is the sweet spot for Vista but you might as well get 4GB for dual channel memory. Seriously, Vista is that bloated, but throw enough RAM at it and it's actually fairly nice.

 

I still don't get it thought.

My laptop hasn't arrived yet, but I ordered it with 2 gigs of ram thinking that I'd buy some more from new egg. What kind should I get? Because their tool isn't working. And possibly what brand is the best?

 

DDR2-800 SODIMMs. Crucial, G.skill...

 

Ordered mine a few weeks ago and received it last week. Been enjoying it ever since. Specs are in my signature.

BTW, been having a strange issue with my system after installing a Microsoft bluetooth mouse. When the system boots I get an error message saying that "HID Data" has stopped working. When I uninstall the mouse and reboot the error goes away, it's just when the mouse is connected.

Anyone find it ironic that a MS mouse has issues with their OS?

 

Just about to pack my daughter off to school with the dv5z. Seems to be working fine, battery life a little short (IMO), 4G memory, HD3200, ZM80 processor and Vista Home. I ripped a bunch of stuff out and she and I have installed a bunch of stuff on there. Yesterday I noticed there seems to be a huge amount of disk activity when it seems to have finished booting up. Killing processes doesn't seem to stop it, for the life of me I can't figure out what's going on. After about 10-15 minutes, it calms down though the HD light still blinks every second or so.

1) Anything off the top of the head someone can think of that's causing it?
2) Anything I can use to monitor hard drive usage to see what's really going on at startup?

 

Superfetch, basically windows is loading programs you would most likely use into the RAM, so that it can be accessed quicker. You can disable it if you want to. Another source of HDD crunching initially would be the search indexer but this should be a one time thing and once it builds up the index it should stop.

 

Thanks, and just one more question. How far can I go with upgrading the ram. Theoretically, because I definitely can't afford it and I don't think it's even available, can I go up to 8gigs?

 

Have you tried updating the GPU driver. ATi just released Catalyst 8.8 driver, try updating the driver and then see if you notice the problem...
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx

DDR2800 runs at 400MHz. I too have Elpida & Hynix memory in my tx2500. Tehy seem to be a Japanese company spawned through the merger of NEC & Hitachi's DRAM business, the brand name is relatively new I suppose.

 

Superfetch? yuch. Thanx, I'll try disabling it, but 10-15 minutes of activity? I thought I disabled indexing but maybe only certain areas as per an article I saw.

Anyone know how to see who running the hard drive? I've tried task manager and processexplorer but nothing jumps out CPU wise?

 

Resource Monitor should be able to tell what service/process is using the disk. Open it up using the task manager(Performance Tab). But, yeah it will take some time for it to fill up the RAM since you have 4GB of it. You can continiue to use the OS while it loads in the background though. Vista does have lots of disk activity initially but I have both Superfetch & indexer enabled and it doesnt use as much as it does initially. There are other things besides superfetch & indexer which could be working in the background. defrag runs once a week, there is also system restore(Volume shadow copy) and if you have set WU to automatic then it also checks for updates casuing the HDD activity.

 

I shall try this thanks, and regarding the speed of the ram, that is normal?

 

Yes DDR2 running at 400 mhz is relatively standard, as that translates to 800 mhz effective.

400mhz DDR = 800mhz

DDR = Double Data Rate

 

I think I have good news. HP has a 21-day price protection policy, so if your configuration becomes cheaper during that time period, you can get the difference back. I don't remember where exactly on their site I found that, but look around a little bit and wave that in their face. They've got to give you that money back if you want it.

 

Theoretically, if HP updates the BIOS to recognize the higher-density RAM chips required, yes. Support could be in there already, or HP may never add it.

 

I just got my Dv5z a couple of weeks ago, and I already regret not getting the high capacity battery. My question is, are there no other battery options for this notebook? I see in the accessories store batteries for for dv5000 series, would these batteries work in these new notebooks, I could really go for a 9 volt or 12 volt battery.

 

i got my dv5z a little over 2 weeks ago and i LOVE it.
it has in my opinion the best keyboard ive ever used and my last laptop was an IBM T40 a brand that is hailed for its keyboards
it looks great and its solid doesnt feel like its gonna fall apart at all
i havnt noticed the heat too much the only time i had a problem was one time it was on my lap and i was blocking off the exhast vent and i didnt realize it
the only thing is occasionally the volume controls act up a little bit but if i press the stop button it seems to fix it
i just wish someone could figure this crossfirex thing out
still great laptop
id reccommend it in a heartbeat
btw my specs r vista premium 64-bit
3 gb of ram
250 gb hdd
hd 3450
everything else is stock

 

Great thanks for the info.

I know I'm asking a lot of questions, but I'm not really familiar with notebooks and it's the first one that I actually buy.S

o I've got one last question. People who have upgraded their memory on the notebook can probably answer this.

How many open slots does the notebook come with? I got the 2gigs of ram, does it come as one single 2gig piece of ram or 2X1gig leaving no slots open?

 

There are two slots, and the HP build with 2GB will give you 2 1GB SO-DIMMs (so no open slots).

Actually, it makes perfect sense from HP's end of things. A 2GB SO-DIMMs is more expensive than 2 1GB ones, and you get (slightly) better performance with 2 matched SO-DIMMSs because your system will go into dual-channel mode.

 

Thanx for the resource manager help. This looks like it is a "my bad". I have newsbin on there and it appears all the activity is going on a index.db3 file for a newsgroup we downloaded. No idea why, I'm sure newsbin does not load so there is something about the header download we did that's upsetting Vista each time we boot. I will attempt to delete the data using Newsbin but might have to resort to a pure delete. It was a huge amount of data. I wonder if it's being indexed?

I'm turning off indexing on the drive, had no idea it would spin through the drive as it's doing now, oh well...I'll bet this is the issue. I had selected start menu as the only thing to index (as indicated in an article).

 

No, a dv5000 was totally different. Eventually a 12-cell will show up for the dv5z, as it is already assigned a part number in HP Partsurfer......

 

To all dv5z owners who run linux on their systems, it may be relevent to your interests to read through this thread and lend a hand.

 

Whoa, there's alot of info on this page and I'm not a techie although I do know how to read somewhat

Question: What info specifically applies to a Dv5z owner?

For instance, what discs to use for clean install?
I have no idea what Thinkvantage is? Do I have it?
What driver do I have? I don't remember any Intel, Turbo, Matrix anything.
I think I may have Wireless USB but I don't think I have Bluetooth.
Lenovo? Do I have it?

I haven't received my notebook yet (I listed my specs on page 39 I believe) but I want to become familiar with how to do a clean install before I receive it so any help would be appreciated.

 

Take a look at this one.

I don't own a dv5z (might be planning to), so I can't give you specific info, but the process should be fairly straightforward. The drivers should be included with the package and should also be available online.

ThinkVantage is only available for Thinkpads, I believe.

And Lenovo is a different company...

 

I agree. I can't seem to get enough of that thing. Its beautiful and the performance is incredible. I've stuck with HP since my first HP in 2002 and really liked their ability to last. If these new models last as long and HP keeps up this trend (with performance and quality), I'll probably never consider another brand ^_^

 

I have a problem i only have $550 and i was going to get this with the AMD Turion Ultra but they made the price higher and even with my APP discount it goes over $600. So whats the difference between the Ultra Core and the old Turion Dual Core?

 

Larger cache and more advanced power management. If money isn't too big of an object I recommend going with the Ultra on general principle but you'll be OK with the cheaper chip. Being able to buy a decent notebook at that price point is pretty amazing.

 

This machine "Sucks". I can't believe it got a good review on notebook review.
The machine is slow, gets hot within an hour of use and the Battery life -Terrible.
I am so sorry I did not get a Studio 15 or another brabd.

 

I would not recommend this laptop. You all should see Cnet's review.. they gave it a 5.6 out of 10. To me that is below average. If you all notice no other pc site has tested or rated this product.. there is nothing on PC Magaize, PCWorld etc. This implies that this machine is not worth getting.