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

Yeah you're right it is kind of a nice change, will stand out in a good way. I was leaning towards silver but now I don't know anymore.

 

Most routers are single band, and run the more common 2.4ghz, but some also support 5ghz or dual band at the same time. For regular everyday surfing, the 2.4ghz is fine. I use the 5ghz band for media streaming in my home theater, but limit the rest of my activity to 2.4ghz, since my router supports dual band at the same time.

 

Curious, SSD users, what would you recommend as a good capacity for Windows7 64-bit OS with room for games. I suppose connecting a persistent external will be fine to deal with storage of non-immediate use files?
Have never really used a SSD, so looking into how to do so effectively. Worried that 64GB may not be enough in the long run, but the current series of 120GB are soo expensive XD

 

I know it's a little bit offtopic but can you connect to two seperate networks with dual band at the same time?

So if you have access to 2 wireless networks, can you connect to both and configure that one browser uses network A and the other browser network B?

 

In my personal opinion, I think 64gb should be enough as a system disk, and I am considering to buy an intel ssd 40gb as a system disk.

 

Has anyone gotten the 1080p screen yet?

 

Not at the same time to the same computer.

 

Check back next week...the first ones just shipped yesterday.

 

It doesn't work that way, out the box. You need fancy enterprise software for that. Only 1 mac address per active connection. You need 2 physical cards to do that.

 

So if I get a second card (like USB-Wifi stick), then I could connect to 2 networks at the same time, right?

What software do you need for doing that?

 

i wasnt sure how much installation space windows7 home premium took up (i was guessing the neighborhood of 40gb XD) then leaving future programs, games, and temporary storage; 64 seemed small to me, then again it really depends on if im doing the estimates right

 

I do not have an SSD in my dv7tqe (partially because I havent received my laptop yet), but I do have 2x Vertex 60 gig drives in my desktop running in raid 0.

I would not put less than 120 gig in a machine if you have any hopes of doing anything with it. Whether its a single 120 gig SSD or larger, or some form of RAID.

On my setup on my desktop I have intentionally moved all of the user profiles and storage areas off of my SSDs onto the storage array (4x 500 gig WD Caviar Black drives in RAID 5). Even so, with just Windows and World of Warcraft, and a *very* few choice other applications installed on my 120 gig SSD array, I'm at about 64 gig all told.

There are a few things to keep in mind with an SSD. (I'll leave off the raid considerations since we cant really raid them in a laptop)

First: You should never fill an SSD to capacity, *some* of them are intentionally over-provisioned (for example, a 60 gig SSD actually has 64ish gig of memory), this is to help with garbage collection and wear leveling. Despite that, it is generally agreed that you should leave about 10% of an SSD open to help with that. It will extend the life of your SSD and increase performance (plus, Windows gets a little upset if you take it down to nil)

Second: You'll fill that SSD faster than you ever thought possible, partially because you'll love the speed, and partially because you may not realize just how easy it is to fill up a 40-60 gig drive. Drives that small are called boot drives for a reason, there really isnt any space on them for anything except Windows.

Third: Having an SSD is not really a 'hands off' kind of installation currently. Most of the major SSD manufacturers are releasing firmware updates regularly to help with the life/performance/reliability of their drives, and many times those firmware updates recommend a wipe (or cause one). This is not to say you *have* to install them (I'm one firmware revision behind on my Vertex drives, but mostly because I understand the risk and the fixes to the newer firmware wasnt something I really needed to worry about). This is not to say SSDs are unreliable, in fact they can prove to be far more reliable than a physical drive simply because there are no moving parts, but keep in mind, SSDs are very young in the grand scheme of things.

Finally, there are other considerations when installing to an SSD to increase performance and/or life of the drive. I wont go through all of them here because it is quite a lengthy list. You can easily and readily install Windows to an SSD and just leave it be and it will perform wonderfully without any of what I mentioned above, but just throwing out there that there are other considerations with those drives should you choose to go with them.

In the slightly more than 1 year that I've been running my drives the technology has moved at a blazing speed. Mine are first gen Vertex drives, and now the Vertex 3 drives on SATA III perform faster as a single drive than mine do in RAID 0 (I would love to get my grubby hands on a couple of Vertex 3 120 gig drives to run in RAID 0). The drives over this period of time have also become increasingly more stable and better in terms of manufacturing and reliability.

I dont say this to deter anyone from choosing SSDs in their installation, but more of a public service announcement so people are aware of all that there is in the world of SSDs, and this barely scratches the surface. My SSD installation has been excellent, I routinely get 430 MB/s reads and 250-300 MB/s writes which far exceeds physical drives. So if you're into being blazing fast, then SSDs are the way to go, just be aware of all the potential benefits and possible pitfalls of choosing this solution.

 

Too much local storage data management for my tastes (64gb), unless your pc is only used for a few apps and internet and even then its only a small matter of time before it would be inadequate. Waiting on the crucial m4 or intel 510 128GB to drop to around $150 personally. I mean this laptop is not slow...

Of course a second drive bay (DV7T users make me jealous in THIS regard) negates this.

 

Please I need to know if your ssd working on sata 3 mode or sata 2....and did you make some benchmarks? I Want to know if sata 3 working on this laptop so I will get sata 3 ssd ...

 

Why are you seeking 2 active lan connections on the same system? I'm not aware of a current ISP that can max out the existing wireless or wired infrastructure! I get connections of 216Mb/s even on the 2.4ghz band, whereas my Comcast cable connection nets me about 25Mb/s with a direct router connection and about 20Mb/s over wireless N. Some loss, but minimal. That said, it won't help if it's for internet speed, but may prove useful for large file transfers hosted locally on an intranet.

 

+1 on the SSD, and that's exactly why I went with the DV7T over the DV6T. Both are great systems, but until larger SSDs come down in price where a single drive can meet all of your needs, I wasn't about to be tethered to an external drive for storage!

 

I've seen at least one confirmation that SATA 3 SSDs indeed work in the newest DV6/7 lineup, but have no personal experience to share. Looking forward to installing a reliable/fast (in that order of importance) SSD myself once my DV7TQE arrives!

 

I have no doubt that an SATA III SSD *works* in a dv7tqe or dv6tqe, but SATA III devices are backwards compatible with SATA II, I think we have yet to determine if the interfaces are SATA II or III

 

I have to transfer files sometimes and they're bigger. So if I had two active connections, I wouuld be able to transfer files with maximum speed on one connection and then do "normal" stuff on the other connection.

 

Good point! How would you know that the SATA III protocol is active? Would it show in device manager as recognizing the drive as SATA III vs. SATA II? I'm guessing speeds alone wouldn't tell the story, since I've seen benchmarks for SATA II's that appeared to be faster than some SATA III SSDs.

 

Alright, then your logic makes sense, and you should see a benefit. I've done a fair amount of LAN setups, but never dealt with this before, so you'll want to lean on someone more knowledgable for setup advice.

 

The Intel Rapid Storage Drivers have a Control Center app(it's the drive icon with the green checkmark in the system tray). You can see all the drive info and the state of the physical interface. These laptops definitely support 6Gbps SATA III.

I've posted this before but if dv6 owners want to go without an optical drive this caddy will allow you to have a 2nd hard drive. I'm not 100% sure if the optical SATA connection is SATA III but most people would be using a large SATA II drive for storage anyway.

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

 

You haven't dealt with it before because it's not possible with a single router/subnet....and it's impractical from a setup and flexibilty standpoint with a multiple router/subnet configuration.

One hackish way to do it would be to install VMware Workstation, Virtualbox etc. Create a VM with whatever OS you want and bridge it's network connection to your second wireless adapter. Then use your host OS with the other adapter.

Get a high speed router and USB adapter that will handle both types of traffic with plenty of bandwidth to spare. Or use the wired ethernet port. That's the easiest route.

 

For me, Corsair Nova 64 (60GB actual) has 16GB free with 7 Home Premium SP1, World of Warcraft and few others on it. Hibernate is disabled, user files, page file, program files, and system restore files are on a HDD. It's not the fastest SSD in the world, rates a 7.3 on WEI, but I got it for $110 - $30 rebate.

 

So I just tried to confirgure a DV6t QE with the student discount and the 25% coupon but it wouldn't let me. Are these two not stackable? Has anyone else had this problem?

 

Not stackable. It will show the discount from the option that is most to your advantage.

 

Actually, if you have the student discount, it won't let you put in the coupon at all (at least not for me.) I had to make a new account just to order my laptop. You could chat with a sales rep and see if they'd let you stack them. >

Edit: Actually, they'll say "Our system can't allows us to blah blah blah." Demand a $x (student discount amount) credit or you will go to Dell. Might work, depending on who you talk to.

 

Their system will let you enter the coupon, but you need to configure your system BEFORE you log on. Configure, cart, zip code, coupon code, log in.

 

Ehh. Every time I tried that, it would either undo the coupon or just kick the price up with the student discount.

 

I tried that as well, configuring it before logging in makes the laptop the pre-EPP price so the coupon will apply but its just like getting it with a non-EPP account. Configuring it after logging in configures with the EPP price but then no coupon works.

 

Why would you need a router if you're just "connecting" to the Internet? I'm not hosting the connection but I'm using it. Or is there anything that I didn't consider?

 

I've been looking back at your discussion on this and I guess I'm failing to get the whole picture of what you're trying to do with the whole dual NIC setup and how you intend to connect to the internet. I do enterprise networking for a living, so lay it all out here and myself or someone may be able to tell you what is possible and what isnt. From where I am though and what I've seen of the discussion it almost sounds like you're trying to do some form of NIC teaming, which isnt possible with end user level NICs and drivers.

 

Quick question for you guys. I'm planning on ordering the dv6tqe, and on the HP page, it has an option for a "6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (standard) - Up to 5.5 hours of battery life" and "High Capacity 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (standard) - Up to 5.75 hours of battery life" for an extra charge. Is the second option a second battery? The 5.75 hours as opposed to the standard 5.5 hours is getting me a bit confused.

 

The second option is different battery in place of the standard battery, has slightly higher capacity. You still just get a single battery for the laptop. There is a different option for an additional battery.

 

Personally I don't see why they would even list the 5.5 vs 5.75hrs batteries as an option. I mean 15 more minutes, why even bother? The only thing I can think of is that the High-Cap battery may protrude out more from the laptop and increase airflow, but just speculating here.

 

It says on the page that the 5.75 hour battery has a standard form factor. It's still a 6 cell battery. The option for the 9 cell says it is larger.

 

Yes, you can't increase the bandwidth to your computer by utilizing two different wireless NICs on a single subnet (ie. Hooked to a single router). Irregardless, your laptop wouldn't support it even if you could. Wiring your PC will give you more bandwidth to your router than your router has to it's gateway. Wireless connections aren't really built to handle high volumes of sustained traffic anyway.

So, the reason it has more life in it is because the battery packs more watt-hrs of power in it. The reason, I believe is because the battery has higher density cells which are more expensive.

 

If I understand your question correctly:

At the first level, there is basic "firewall" protection. Different ISPs provide different types of cable or dsl "modems." Some do routing themselves, thus "hiding" the connected device (e.g., a PC) from direct exposure to the internet by way of network address translation (NAT). Others can expose the connected device (again e.g., a PC) directly to the internet for all to see and potentially invade. Not a good idea. In the latter case, your own properly configured router inspects traffic coming in from the internet, blocking that which is not specifically requested or allowed by its configuration (i.e., a firewall).

I suggest that you check out https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2. Regardless of your setup, the scans there are very useful to see and verify what's going on with your particular internet connection.

At the next level, there is sharing of the internet connection. I'm over simplifying it, but if ISP-provided equipment doesn't provide for directly connecting multiple devices simultaneously, a router becomes the best choice to provide it.

Finally, and again over simplifying, a router can provide the necessary "services" to run a local area network (LAN) and also connect that LAN (and its components) to the internet.

 

First thing, this is completely off topic so this is the last thing I'm going to post about this. I'll assume you're "borrowing" a neighbors connections since you aren't being specific about the situation. There are plenty of other forums and things to be found with Google.

The VM workaround I posted is the good solution since it essentially mimics having two separate computers with two separate adapters.

Good luck and ask your neighbors permission.

 

First of all,thank you for your answers.

Let me clarify, what I intend to do.

Assuming there are two internet networks. Network A and Network B (both are either wireless or one is wireless and one is wired)

So, now I want to use BOTH internet connections simultaneously. However, both connections will still be separate and not combined:

If I had to transfer big files, then I could do this on network A.
Now, I want to use network B for other "normal" internet use so that the transfer of files in network A gets the maximum speed since there is no interference with anything else.

Now the tricky part:
I have to let the computer know somehow that there are two connections used simultaneously. I also have to setup what programs use what connection. E.g., IE uses network a and Firefox uses network b, program "x" also uses network b, etc.

I would use two network card/USB Wifi Adapers so that each network card/wifi adapter can connect to one network.

The question is, how do you realize that without setting a Virtual Machine up?

Do you guys now, what I mean?

Thank you very much!

 

Speedies, you are in the wrong forum!

 

I'm looking at the HP dv6t-se I'm having trouble confirming just how many USB 3.0 ports there are and if it is SATA III ? Is anyone running a Sata 3 hard drive in this beast?

 

What you're asking for is indeed something that enterprise level NIC Teaming does. Its a bit more difficult to accomplish with a home user OS/PC, but here are some options:

Option 1: If you're familiar with the way Windows builds its routing table, you can assign certain specific IP addresses to go out each of your NICs. I did this back in school. We had a free internet connection through our apartment complex which I set up my machine and all of my roommates machines for use when we were just browsing the internet (I basically made it our default gateway), it was an utterly terrible connection, but it was 'ok' for regular WWW browsing. For gaming, however, I added the IP addresses of the servers they used (was mostly Counter-Strike so it was easy to determine) and manually configured the routes for those to go out the other connection which was a DSL line we paid for. That DSL line also put us on the school's network, so any traffic to the school network was also considered local to that line and needed no additional routing as the metric was lower and preferred.

Issues: With this option is that you have to do it for each machine in question, each of them needs to be dual-homed (means having 2 NICs). Those networks need to be addressed differently (IE: Network 1 would be 192.168.0.x/24, Network 2 would be 192.168.1.x/24). You need to be pretty familiar with how the Windows routing table works. And you need to know the IPs of the remote connections you'd want to send out one or the other of the NICs. You would likely still want to assign one as your default gateway (means if nothing is defined, it would always choose that connection).

Option 2: There are a few home/end user/soho multi-WAN routers available. Many of them provide load balancing capabilities. This is probably the easiest way to set this up in a non-Windows Server environment.

Issues: Cost. They tend to be a fair amount more expensive than your standard home routers, however this would be the easiest way for a home user to load balance for multiple computers. This would also likely not let your computer know that there are 2 connections being used, so it may be difficult to specify which connection to use should you need to.

Option 3: I'm under the impression that some distros of Linux can team dissimilar NICs, although I'm not familiar with how to set it up. You'd need to investigate that yourself.

Issues: It's Linux. Unless you're already a linux user and wanting to do this and run WINE or something with your Windows install, its likely going to present some issues with compatibility and capability with your day-to-day PC usage. Its basically the inverse of what someone suggested with installing a VM of Windows bound to a different NIC.

Option 4: Another expensive option is to get an actual router (not what we call a router at home) but an actual Cisco or other manufacturer device with multiple Fast Ethernet ports and set up a routing table yourself.

Issues: This would require a pretty reasonable amount of networking know-how to pull off. Plus, even low end Cisco routers are kind of expensive.

(The next few options I found with some brief googling, I cannot vouch for the program's safety, stability or capability, use at your own risk)

Option 5: ForceBind: I found this option while I was googling, it may actually be more on the line of what you are looking for, but I only briefly looked at it:
ForceBindIP - Bind any Windows application to a specific interface

I'm completely unfamiliar with it, although it appears it would need a setup similar to what I discussed in option 1, but it would do the interface binding for you rather than you having to screw around with your Windows routing table.

Option 6: Multiconnect: Costs money, found it on softpedia, might be worth demo-ing if you want to try it:
Download MultiConnect 1.0.0 Free Trial - Helps you combine two or more internet connections - Softpedia

Option 7: Octopus+: Another result of google, looks kinda blah though, dunno if it works or how useful it would be:
OCTOPUS+ For Internet Connections


This is just what I know of with my own experience and some brief 'googling'. There are likely some other options.

 

It's right on HP's website. 2 USB 3.0 and 2 USB 2.0.

Yes it supports SATA III.

 

Hi everyone.

I was wondering if anyone can post some pictures of a dv6 laptop with the color "dark umber"

The thing is, I was able to buy a laptop through my work, and I ordered af dv6-6072eo. Though the one they showed us, was pitch black, like a piano. But the color for the dv6-6072eo says "dark umber" and looks brownish.

So if anyone has some pictures laying around, I'd love to see them.

Thanks a lot in advance.

 

Best way to see the color is to do a search on youtube or go to Costco.

 

Okay, then. You got me. I think they changed something in their order system. When I ordered my first laptop, I was able to configure then log in and my coupon was accepted, and as mentioned, did not allow for stacking EPP with coupon.

When I ordered my second one, no matter what I did - even set up a new account - it over rode the coupon with the EPP. It recognized the second non-related account as it did my first account. In the end, I had to place my order over the phone with sales. I thought my situation was an anomaly, but now I know must not have been.

 

We don't have Costco in Denmark, and I've tried Youtube. No luck :-(

 

search for dv7t and also Dv7t quad on youtube. Click on filter and sort by upload date. Look for videos from the last 2 months.

Try this vid first:
YouTube - ‪NEW HP PAVILION DV7t QUAD EDITION SPRING REFRESH 2011‬‏

Does anyone know why all of the links to the posts with pictures and reviews in them from this thread were removed from the first posting in this thread?

 

Took some snapshots but my memory card reader on my other laptop isn't working. (this one doesn't read all types). Best I can do is tell you.

In my opinion the color is a VERY nice change from the normal silver, grey, black, bronze colors. The laptop looks like a vertical brushed metal painted metalic black when it is indoors. Once taken outside into ambient light, it looks like a VERY dark brown (barely distinguishable from black) in the shade, move it into direct sunlight and it looks like dark mocha brown. $25 for the more common steel gray is a shame and a waste of money IMHO. Sorry that is the best I can do, I tried.