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

can u please post some pics phil?

 

Thanks, Was that the regular or high capacity 6 cell?

 

Sorry to hear that.

 

I got the regular battery. I'm too cheap to pay $30 for an additional 15 min when I'm almost always plugged in. Keep in mind that I didn't wait for 2.5 hours for the battery to run out. That's just an estimate based on power consumption over ~1 hour (internet and adjusting touchpad sensitivity until it became useable) with reduced brightness, no sound and max power mode.

Also, to all potential buyers: The laptop comes loaded with bloatware and the recovery partition takes up almost 11gb as a result.

ok, picture time:








I'm downloading 3DMark06 right now. I'll post the results later

 

Nice man! Im stoked to get mine, im debating if i should of gone with the ZM-80 instead of the QL-60. My current desktop is the AMD X2 [email protected] with 1meg of cache and it does all i need it to do so im guessing the QL-60 should be alright. I have to remember i wanted a budget laptop mainly for mobile internet and school/business stuff but i easily get sucked into benchmarks and performance i would never use. Also possibly later on could i upgrade the processor myself?

 

Modern AMD laptop CPUs tend to be expensive to buy later for some reason so ideally I'd get the ZM-80 now on general principle... but if you've already ordered I wouldn't delay receiving the notebook over it. Upgrading the CPU is doable and by the time you're ready it'll probably need the heatsink cleaned out anyhow?

 

I second the ZM-80, if money is not an issue and if you haven't ordered already. It's nice to have the latest technology

 

I already ordered it, oh well. It says it will be here monday, i dont do any real CPU intensive tasks right now so i should be alright. Just internet, movies, music, pictures, and light gaming such as older Cod's and Warcraft 3. Although i hope it has enough guts to play starcraft 2 when it comes out.

 

I'm thinking of getting the dv5z...

Right now I'm considering the deal through Student Pricing (Academic Purchase Program).

Are there any additional deals/coupons I can apply?

Also, if there's any quick tips you can provide me on which upgrades are the best value, while still keeping the price low, that would be really appreciated.

I'll be reading the rest of this thread in the mean time and seeing if there's anything I should look out for.

Thanks for your time.

 

I just received mine about half an hour ago. It wasn't suppose to be here until Monday but it came today so I have all weekend to mess around with it now. It only took 2 days for it to get here from China, sweet!

 

So far I am loving this laptop, I haven't found anything I don't like about it so far. I am glad I updated to the 1680x1050 screen, it is the perfect size for me. I ordered this laptop with only 2 gigs of memory because I figured I would upgrade cheaper through newegg and am I glad I did, it would have been an extra $200 to upgrade to 4 gigs through HP. I just found an OCZ 4GB(2x2GB) memory kit on newegg for $79.00 and it has a $25.00 MIR so it will only be $54.00 after that.

If anyone has any questions they would like me to answer, let me know.

 

Did you get the HD3450, or running the HD3200 IGP?

I dont suppose the bios has tweaking options for RAM? because the OCZ probably go to CAS 4 at 2.0 volts if you dont need battery life. I have some desktop 2x2GB OCZ DDR2-800 that rocks, 4-4-4-12 at 1.9V, ran memtest86+ for 2 straight days with no errors. Thats in my 780G desktop, but I dont have HT3.0 on my 45watt (near laptop power draw) 2.5Ghz Athlon X2.

 

I am running the HD3200 IGP. I don't think I will be doing much gaming on here so I figured it was more than good enough for what I will need it for.

I checked the BIOS settings and there are no tweaking options for the RAM or for really anything else for that matter.

 

I was just curious to see what all you put in your dv5z. I ordered mine today...a little skeptic but excited. How long did it take from the day you put in the order?

 

- HP Pavilion dv5z Entertainment Notebook
- Upgrade to Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
- AMD Turion(TM) X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor ZM-80 (2.1 GHz)
- 15.4" diagonal WSXGA+ High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1680 x 1050)
- FREE Upgrade to 2GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm) from 1GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)!!
- ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3200 Graphics
- HP Imprint Finish (Mesh) + Microphone + Webcam
- Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth
- No High speed 56K modem port
- FREE Upgrade to 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive from 120GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
- SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
- No TV Tuner w/remote control
- High Capacity 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
- Microsoft(R) Works 9.0
- HP Color Matching Keyboard


I ordered mine July 9th and received it this morning.

 

Hi - looking for a little help. Daughter is going off to college so we took a look at laptops and she likes the HPs. I was trying to convince here to go lighter (DV27) and utilize a monitor in the dorm room. Of course she'd rather go 15" and likes the DV5 series (no coupons). She insists no room for a flat panel in the dorm room and she doesn't like wires.

So the question is, DV5Z or DV5T? Am I being too cheap or is the extra $300 worth it for the core2 duos?

If 5Z, I was thinking to keep it middle range on the processor (ZM-80), no graphics card based on the review from this site, minimal memory and I'll get a kit from Newegg, no hi-res graphics as I think it's just too much for a 15" display, 250G drive and maybe add bluetooth for connectivity.

Any opinions would be appreciated. I just noticed the build date is now August 18th? That's a little far out...

 

Aug 18, most people seem to have there in hand within 2 weeks.

The integrated graphics on DV5t aren't as good although it will get a good amount better battery life. So that really the deciding factor for you, if price doesnt matter. The P processors use 10 less watts and the X4500 IGP uses less power than HD3200.

Only reason to get discrete graphics on either is if you insist on having HDMI, which is crappy, since the HD3200 and X4500 easily support HDMI, one of their selling points.

 

I guess as far as the discrete graphics go, I was more referring to the dv5z where the review pointed out (I think) that the integrated was better or as good as the discrete with the AMD cpus. Any thoughts on cheaping out with the 5z over the 5t? Only difference is the cpu?

 

Yes, the HD3200 is nearly as good as the HD3450, maybe better than the 8400M GS and just as good as the 9200M GS discrete option that is offered in the DV5t.

So youre getting more from the DV5z for the less money, but sacrificing battery life. I dont consider the Intel CPU really better, except for power savings, because the ZM-80 should be plenty good for your daughter.

Thats why I'd say it comes down to battery life. I'd honestly say the Intel x4500 graphics are probably good enough for most people too, unless they really play video games.

If HP offered an 8 or 9 cell option for the 5Z I'd get it, but they dont, however there is a 12 cell option if battery life becomes an issue later.

 

Alright got mine yesterday and so far im pretty impressed. Overall finish is beautiful, im currently creating recovery discs for a clean install. This recovery creation process seems like its taking a long time. Will report back with pictures and whatnot.

 

Wisconsin hows the dv5z treatin ya? what have you run on it so far and how is its performance? What are the best features it offers so far? Do you plan to game on it at all? If so which ones?

THANKS

 

Alright in my noobish efforts i created the recovery discs thinking they would be clean. But they weren't and i wasted a bunch of time re-installing windows to come back to the same bloatware, lol. I have researched and it appears that OEM license owners cannot get the backup cd's from windows marketplace. So now my next option i guess is to clean it myself as best i can. Anybody else with any advice or in the same situation please chime in as to what tactics you are using. Also i was gonna upgrade my graphics driver(HD 3200) but it says its 150mb and the CCC 8.6 is only like 40mb, is there something im missing?

 

In the parent node of this HP forum, there is a thread that give instructions on how to do a clean install of Vista without the bloatware. I don't know how you could have missed it, seeing as it is a sticky right at the top and has a very intuitive title.

 

I appreciate the response and apologize for being dense but are you saying that even though the dv5z HD3200 is integrated, it will consume more power than the integrated x4500 on the dv5t? Do you think it's significant or still way less than going discrete on either?

 

Yes, the HD3200 consumes a good amount of power, compared to the X4500. You probably get around 30 more minutes with a DV5t. Hope to see a review for it soon though. So instead of 2.5 hours on the 6-cell it might be 3 hours. A good percentage more, but significance would depend on the user.

The HD3200 consumes less than a discrete card though, since it has so many power management abilities in the chipset.

 

Hey I am very pleased so far with the DV5Z. I haven't really ran anything so far to really see how it performs. I have been using it just to the surf the internet and download some things so far.

One of the things that I have noticed so far is that it doesn't get hot. My friend has a dv6000 and it gets pretty hot when it has been on for a while. I can have this DV5Z on all day long and it gets a little warm around the vent areas on the bottom but it still fine to sit on my lap and not even notice it.

I also am liking the touch controls at the top for the volume and you can enable,disable the wireless/bluetooth, also there are some quickly buttons.

I almost never hear the fan running even when I have had it on for a long period of time. It has to be really quiet and I have to really listen for the fan to be able to hear it.

As far as gaming goes I have not played any games on it yet, I have been too busy playing NCAA 09 on the ps3. I probably won't be playing too many games on it either, I do most of my gaming on the console.

 

One question that I have is if anyone has found out yet if you buy the laptop like I did with just the IGP HD3200 if you can upgrade to the HD3450 later on if you wanted to? Also does the hybrid crossfire work? I am not able to test it out as I obiously only have the IGP HD3200.

 

I believe you can upgrade, as it should be the same motherboard with an open MXM slot.

Hybrid CrossfireX and PowerXpress do not work on this model. HP crippled the BIOS so as to not allow the chipset to enable that functionality.

Incidentally, that is why I returned my Dv5z. It could have been a cool machine, but crippled as it was it was just more of a 'meh' machine.

 

Why in the world would HP cripple the BIOS to not allow this feature? Do you think maybe in a later BIOS update you will be able to use those features?

 

I don't know. OEMs do many, many things I do not understand. My guess is that:

A. it either isn't fully ready yet
B. HP didn't design the thermal system for such a feature
C. they wanted to get a "Puma" laptop to market as soon as possible, whether it was fully implemented or not

Those would be my guesses - some combination of the three.

 

So its true there really is an mxm slot in theas laptops can you get pictures?

 

I don't know for sure. I was just speculating that if there are two models with the same chipset, but one has discrete graphics, then it might connect using MXM. But I do not know for certain.

 

How do you know that the lack of Hybrid Crossfire is a BIOS issue and not a driver issue? It's possible that we need to wait for the next ATI Catalyst driver revision to support Crossfire with the 780M chipset. If ATI sticks to their monthly release schedule we'll see a new revision any day now.

There's no way to know what's going on until HP or AMD tells us, which is of course the real problem.

 

Because you should still see two different display adapters in the device manager, regardless of the ATI driver.

If the OS can't see two display adapters (thank you, BIOS), then Catalyst will not, either.

 

well lots of hp's came with dedicated and intergrated cards for example my dv6000 when they came with dedicated cards they had a graphics card and memory solderd to the board

 

Yes, but did the device manager show BOTH the discrete adapter and the IGP? If not, then it is either hardware disabled (on the motherboard itself) or through the BIOS.

 

If it has a spare slot could you put a better card than the 3450 in?

 

No device manager only shows my 8400m gs but whats your point? people with the dv5's can only see their radeon 3200's or 3450's Also i hope it does have mxm because then i could use a 9600m gt in the amd system but i gusse we will have to wait for a dissembly guide on hp's website ( i checked ) or pictures of parts on ebay

 

That is exactly my point. If the device manager doesn't show two separate video adapters, you will not get Hybrid graphics to work. The OS has to be able to recognize BOTH video adapters in order to have the possibility of Hybrid graphics.

 

Mind if I ask when you ordered. Build dates are a month out for the 5z but only two weeks out for the 5t. A month does not work for me.

 

I don't think that's a safe assumption. That's normal behavior for dedicated GPUs, the integrated GPU gets disabled. I'd expect to see that in absence of Hybrid Crossfire driver support.

The new ATI Catalyst drivers were released today (version 8.7). I think that they'll need to be tweaked to enable mobile support, or did ATI stop that nonsense? I don't have a Puma to test with. We'll probably have to wait for updated drivers from HP but for lack of anything better to try...?

 

Why not? For those who can Hybrid graphics on desktop systems, they have to enable the onboard adapter in the BIOS first. Then, it shows up in the device manager along with the discrete solution. Then, ATI Catalyst can be used direct them to render in Hybrid mode. If it ain't in your device manager, you can trace it to the BIOS.

It's a sound assumption, given current evidence in working systems.

 

Is this the memory you got, no issues with it?

OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Laptop Memory Model OCZ2M8004GK - Retail

* Buffered/Registered: Unbuffered
* Cas Latency: 5
* ECC: No
* Heat Spreader: No
* Timing: 5-5-5-15
* Voltage: 1.8V
* Model #: OCZ2M8004GK
* Item #: N82E16820227251

 

Well yeah sure i understand that but i was talking about the mxm slot and you said if you could see both intergrated and dedicated it could have one but it cant.... lol

 

Oh, I see. I didn't understand what you were saying.

Yeah, I don't know if the Dv5z uses an MXM slot or not (probably not, since it is a cheaper laptop). So, maybe the discrete adapter is soldered directly to the board along with the IGP.

 

The video drivers on the HP site are 112mb and the regular ATI drivers are normally 30-50mb, why are HP's so much bigger?

 

The ones from HP contain both 32bit and 64bit versions of the driver.

 

Yes... that is what I ordered, I have not received it yet though. Suppose to be here by Wednesday.

 

Ah, gotcha. So we're back to hoping for a BIOS update, sigh.

 

How often does HP release a BIOS update? I just ordered a dv5z for school and am really hoping the Hybrid Crossfire becomes available.
So is the consensus a yes or no on upgrading to the 3450 or better later on? (i just went with the 3200) ???