*HP dv6t & dv7t Select Edition / Quad Edition (6XXX series) Owners Lounge*

I can only tell you what my experience was with the quick ship pavilion dv7 that I returned. All the SATA interfaces were 3 Gb/s. I assumed since it was Sandy bridge that it was SATA III but that was not the case. There were also no USB3.0 ports either. I think they skimp on the quick ships a bit. If you call tech sup they will tell you what the spec is(if they know). I have had them tell me something that was wrong but that was from the sales side. Dont assume anything that seems like a no brainer with HP.

 

Finaly, can anyone enlighten me what type of memory can we use in our laptop, is it only 1060 or it can be 1333?

And what is maximum amount? 8 or 16?

 

According to the Costco site, customized units share the same return policy as stock models, is this true?

 

Anyone know if there will be any effect on HP from the explosion at the china Foxconn plant? They do manufacture for HP as well as APPLE who is the most affected according to the news reports on the explosion. There is mention of others as well as HP in the news. This manufacturer is very large. I read that they manufacture over 50 percent of the worlds electronics. That is big!

 

Do you have a reason not to trust Costco's own site?

 

So besides the sandy bridge issue has there been any other common problems I should be aware of? If you all could do it again would you buy the same laptop?

 

Hmmm... you had a 6770M and not a 6570M GPU? That would be very odd if it was a unit with the 6770M in it.

The hard drive bay on the dv6t I had was most definitely 6Gbps(SATA III) and there were two USB 3.0 ports on the left side.

 

I am playing GTA4 on my hp pavilion dv6 quad edition (in the minimum options) it is heated to 70 degrees after 15 minutes, is it normal?

 

He might have had the DV6T-4xxx series. The 6xxx series definitely has the USB 3.0 on the left side.

I was doing some very large file transfers from a USB 2.0 external last night. Even though the hardware was only 2.0, there was much greater sustained throughput with the USB 3.0 ports vs the USB 2.0 ports, the USB 2.0 would taper down and the 3.0 held the transfer rate. I transfered ~30 GB trying both ports.

 

The Sandy bridge issue was an issue with older generation Dv6s and Dv7s - pre March 2011.

I sent my 2 Dv7t Quads back because of the horrible screen quality, and reordered with a FULL HD (1080P) screen - other than that I LOVED the laptops.

They were EXTREMELY fast, even with the 7200RPM hard drive. The temps did not get hot at all. Video encoding on my old XPS M1710 took 3 to 4 hours for a 2 hour movie to convert, and on the DV7t Quad - 20 minutes.

Outside of the non high def screen, this laptop is one of the best bang for the buck, sleek sexy looking laptops out there.

The other main laptops I considered were the Asus G73SW/JW (pretty big/heavy, no onsite warranty support), Dell XPS 17 (hit every ugly branch and kept going), Toshiba Qosmio (too expensive, tacky looking).

 

Sure would be nice of HP to get that F.07 Bios out for everyone. I need that virtualization option in the bios

 

It is so funny, because, I spent last night doing the minimized recovery and found that the biggest bottleneck was the optical! Mine was fast even with just the 5400 RPM drive.

 

The dv6 has the best value/price ratio by far out of any laptops out there. With the decently generous 30% coupon, you are looking at a $1500 laptop for $1000. Especially now with the 1080p screen out, it just blows everything else away.

What I was looking for in a laptop:
1) Metal palmrest - If you have seen my 3 yrs old Sony FW, you'd notice that the plastic palm rest is so worn out that the silver paint had been removed/dissolved by sweat in the shape of my palm. I need something more durable than just plastic covered in paint.

2) Decently aesthetically pleasing, to me AND to others - Comparing the design of the dv6 vs. XPS 15, the latter looks absolutely hideous being thicker, heavier, more flex on chassis, plastic construction, etc... Similar things can be said of other competitions.

3) Quad core, yet have 4+ hrs of battery life - I use vmware fairly often, so quad core really helps out there. A common misconception is that quad core is only useful with applications that are designed to be multithreaded. This is NOT the complete truth. whereas individual programs might run faster if they were optimized for quad core, multi-TASKING (i.e., running a couple SINGLE threaded apps) also benefit immensely from having a quad core (for example, I play starcraft 2, while gchatting on chrome, while listening to music on itunes, while downloading/uploading on utorrent, and I saw visible difference between the i5-580m and i7-740qm, and yet another jump when I compared i7-740qm and i7-2720qm.)

As for battery life, this is simply amazing. I opted for the 9 cell battery to raise the back to project the back speakers better, and to help out with cooling. when I played a DVD on max brightness (on Intel gpu) for two hours, I had 70% battery left - that translates to about 6.5 hrs of DVD playback on the 9 cell on MAX brightness (with background download using wifi also). I get about 8 hrs of normal usage (70% brightness, wifi on, word processing or web browsing, etc.)

4) Capable of gaming to some extent - 6770m is very capable, using 11.5a drivers I was able to get 1699P 3DMark11 at stock clocks, and about 1850P overclocked. This is more than good enough for me (for comparison, Alienware m14x, which weighs a more than a pound more with the 555m, gets about 1380 at stock).

The major competitors I was considering were:
$2200 Macbook Pro 15inch - Very nice, but too expensive for the specs, I get a faster dv6 for less than $920 + tax. If you give me a $800-$1000 coupon I'll definitely jump on that. For any less than that it’s just simply not worth it.

XPS 15 - Bulky, ugly, heavy, 540m GPU with gddr3 is too crippled for a 1080p screen.

Alienware m14x - though I am personally mildly attracted to the look, I'm sure many of the people around me wouldn't be. Slower GPU (555m with gddr3 is about 20-30% slower than 6770m) for a "gaming" machine. VERY heavy considering the power brick size.

Workstations laptops - Too expensive, bulky, heavy
Lenovo thinkpad w520
Dell precision M4600
HP elitebook 8560w

My "dream" laptop would have been a sandy bridge envy14 with 1600x900 (I prefer this resolution over 1920x1080 on anything less than 17") and non crippled 6770m (okay I might take a slightly underclocked one, but nothing less than 6750m), but that took HP way too long to release, not to mention I'm not even sure if those are going to be the specs.

The dv6 is as close to my dream laptop as any would get. The dv6t-6000 feels like my envy 14 (minus the plastic bezel on the side, needing two hands to open screen instead one, etc.) If I had to buy another computer, I would definitely order the same laptop again.


HP Pavilion dv6t Select Edition customizable Notebook PC
• dark umber
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit with Service Pack 1
• 2nd generation Intel(R) Quad Core(TM) i7-2720QM (2.2 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) w/Turbo Boost up to 3.3 GHz
• 2GB GDDR5 Radeon(TM) HD 6770M Graphics [HDMI, VGA]
• FREE Upgrade to 6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 640GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• No Additional Office Software
• FREE Upgrade to Norton Internet Security(TM) 2011 - 15 Month Subscription (activation required)
• 30% OFF! 9-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (over-sized) - Up to 9.75 hours of battery life +++
• 15.6" diagonal Full HD HP Anti-glare LED Display (1920 x 1080)
• FREE Upgrade to Blu-ray player & SuperMultI DVD burner
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone and HP SimplePass Fingerprint Reader
• Intel 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth(R) with Wireless Display Support
• Standard Keyboard
• HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope
Instant discounts you received:
$500.00 Coupon
$150.00 Laptop instant rebate
Order subtotal $920.99
NY Tax $81.74
Grand total $1,002.73

 

How to did you get the $500 coupon stacked with the $150 instant rebate?

My configuration that I purchased on Sunday comes to $1079 tax included.

My total discount was $427. It specifically says this:

We automatically select the greater savings when offer restrictions allow only a coupon or an instant savings to be applied to an item.

 

its from the january $500 coupon with the dv6t-4000's with the defective chipsets, when they roll over apparently the $150 rebate is still intact unlike the other coupons. However with the current 30% coupons this laptop is still a great deal.

 

The customizable dv7 units do have SATA III and USB3 but I was speaking of the Quick Ship Pavilion dv7 from the HP Store online. I sure am glad that HP has the 21 day return policy. Cant beat that.

 

How is it even possible that HP would make them different? I have a Quickship DV6 and it has the USB 3.0 ports.

 

From what I heard from the news, that Foxconn factory was mainly for iPad2. I don't think it would affect much to the dv6t series.

 

I believe, some Quickship models have dv6-4XXX chassis.

 

I'll take them if they're still up for grabs...

[email protected]

 

Just a quick question regarding the graphics card option. Do you guys think there would be much difference in performance as far as games and temperatures between the

1GB GDDR5 Radeon(TM) HD 6770M Graphics [HDMI, VGA]

and

2GB GDDR5 Radeon(TM) HD 6770M Graphics [HDMI, VGA]

 

Most games won't even be able to access all 1GB. The speed of the card will usually be the bottleneck rather than the memory.

 

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Laptop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBSQ
+
EMCKEHF29
=
64.99

 

There is a whole thread dedicated to this right here

 

The quick ship unit I had was this one: HP Pavilion dv7-4295us Entertainment Notebook PC (aluminum) | HP® Official Store

I was told by tech support that it was SATA II ports only.

 

I'm looking at picking up one of these systems (a dv6tqe, specifically), but I have one question: I've got a HP 30" monitor, dual link DVI (only) input. Can I run the monitor from the laptop at 2560x1600?

Googling hasn't provided any really consistent information; has anyone manage to make it work?

 

yeah... that's not the laptop for this thread. that's a previous gen dv7, not the dv7t-6000 series.

 

I agree with everything you have posted here... I even plan on underclocking the GPU, and disabling turbo on the CPU while mobile.

 

Make a thread about it when you get this laptop and have a chance to undervolt. I'd be interested in seeing what kind of results you get!

 

SB processors are not too friendly to overclock/undervolt, you are more than welcome to prove me wrong though.

why underclock the GPU rather than just use intel? in guild wars, everything on max, 4xAA i'm still getting around 30fps using just the Intel HD 3000. If you dont care much about playing at gamer settings it should suit you just fine.

 

hmm. Good point.

 

Has anyone tried installing Ubuntu or any other Linux distro on their dv6? Any success?

 

So, I finally pulled the trigger and got one of these. I really don't feel like it made the computer super much faster. I think that the processor and memory are fast enough on this machine that it doesn't appear to be that the hard drive is the bottleneck. WEI didn't go up at all.


New hybrid SSD hard drive by boost, on Flickr

 

Bummer. I thought the hybrid drives helped. Have you done any read/write HDD benchmarking to compare the before and after?

 

I am thinking about these SSD's and wonder if anyone has a perferance for one of these over the other and why. They all seem to be very similar to me and I am wondering what the distinguishing factors are. Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, LED LCD TV, Digital Cameras and more!

Help me decide please.

 

Good to know. My dv6tqe was scary fast compared to what I am currently using (don't laugh - a Fujitsu with a pentium mobile processor with 1.86 ghz and a radeon x600, but with a great 17+ inch screen, but weighs over 10 lbs. - it has been a great work horse). Cannot wait to get my replacement. No plans to install an SSD.

 

They gave a great review for that drive at anandtech.com, I guess it might take some time to cache the most used LBAs and see better performance. WEI might not access the same LBAs in consecutive tests(certainly the first run wouldn't benefit) and it would probably behave much like a standard HDD for that benchmark.

AnandTech - Seagate's Momentus XT Reviewed, Finally a Good Hybrid HDD

By the way, I verified with newmodeus.com that this caddy works with the 6000 series dv6t's. If anyone wanted to go sans optical drive and use an SSD boot and HDD storage configuration.

2nd Drive Caddy - HP dv5, dv6, dv6t, dv6z (add 2nd HDD or SSD) [OBHD-SATA12-SATA-BU] - $44.75 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

 

Speaking of anandtech.com

AnandTech - OCZ Agility 3 (240GB) Review

Those Agility 3 drives look like a great bang for the buck drive, $215 with rebate. The Vertex 3 is a the top of the list for not too much more. Depends on how much you want to spend.

EDIT: I should note that the review is for the 240GB model. The lower capacity drives usually have less channels to the NAND flash and don't have quite the performance specs of the larger models.

If you deal with a lot of compressed file types, h.264, jpeg etc. The OCZ Sandforce based drives MAY not be quite as good as an Intel 510 or other Marvell controller based drives(Crucial m4 and others). None of these drives have much of a track record yet so reliability is kind of an unknown at this point.

 

Can the Dv7 support SATA 3?

 

I don't think anyone has been able to adapt VGA or HDMI(the only two output types on the dv6tqe) to dual-link DVI and get that resolution. This would apply to all laptops with those ports. Your best bet would be a laptop that has Display Port or mini-dp.

Wish I had a nice display like that to do testing on.

 

Today, I already returned my dv7 that I got it on May 6th to exchange new dv7 with 1080p and 2gb 6770 version. I also got 30% off coupon for the deal. eta: Jun 13th

 

hi all
well I got a bsod last week. Ending up getting a rash of them over the weekend. Looks like I have a bad hard drive. still in return period. i returned for a similar machine with a few upgrades. they were great over chat. could not have been easier.

 

Honestly, I haven't put the drive through its paces yet at all. No benchmarks. Based on some of the marketing videos, I guess I was expecting more and more performance. I also did a completely clean install, minimized version, from DVDs. Don't get me wrong, it seems faster, the programs load faster, and when I was installing programs from drive to drive last night, it felt faster too. I guess I was just expecting some mind blowing results when decompressing programs etc. The test on whether or not I will keep the drive, or put it in another machine will be how it performs with video compression and if that goes any faster with a drive like this.

On a side note, there is a byproduct I absolutely do not like. I've always bought 7200 RPM drives for the speed, since previous machines haven't had the fastest processors in the world. I'm actually missing the 5400 1 TB unit that shipped with the DV6T right now, because that HD was so quiet. I'm constantly hearing this drive doing reads and spinning. It is very irritating. Even with the 1 TB Toshiba out of the enclosure, I can't even hear it doing reads.

If anything, it should tell anyone just how quiet this machine is on the HD3000. It is so quiet that the 7200 RPM drive is the noisiest thing on the block!

My plan was to take the 1 TB and stick it in the external drive bay. Looks like that plan is foiled. The 1 TB drives are too thick for the caddy.


1 TB Notebook doesn't fit in caddy by boost, on Flickr

 

How easy is it to replace the optical drive with another hard drive in these things?

 

I'm going to purchase the dv6tqe with the 1080p screen. I intend to game on it. is the 1gb 6770m good? will i see any advantage getting the 2gb one? i'm not going to use an external monitor.

 

Check out this thread

 

I'm circumspect on why they would release a 2 GB so quickly after the 1 GB, instead of getting their maximum return on a new product launched. Anyone in the know think that AMD might have found that the 1 GB is actually holding back the capability of the 6770 processor and clocks?

 

Thanks a lot! going with 1 gb.

 

There are plenty of complaints about this drive over @ the Seagate forums from people after 2 to 3 months of usage. I have been following the issues for several months now. However, Seagate has most of them resolved for PCs.

I want this hybrid really bad but will probably wait until Intel comes out with theirs this year, and Western Digital has one in the works for next year. I am used to my hard drive in my XPS M1710 thinking ALL the time, and slowing down, but man the DV7t Quad is fasssssttt with the 7200RPM.

Hopefully the Intel hybrid will have more solid state memory, will be quieter, and not suffer from issues. The Macbook pro people have suffered the most problems from the Momentus XT.

 

There are MUCH faster GPUs than the mobile 6770M that have 1GB VRAM. I doubt it's an issue. The theory is future games that use DirectX 11 may need more VRAM for texture caching but I think that only will come into play with resolutions higher than 1920x1080. The 6770M would struggle at those higher resolutions anyway and that would only come into play if there were LCDs available.

You can Google 1GB vs 2GB video card and read until your eyeballs fall out. I think it's currently a "my video card has more GBees than yours" thing. Especially for laptop based GPUs and screen resolutions.