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

I agree in comparison to our deals. But on the retail front, check out what they're charging for i7 740QM models. Quite ridiculous.

 

Use this:

Newegg.com - Thermaltake BlacX N0028USU External Hard Drive SATA Enclosure Docking Station 2.5" & 3.5" USB 2.0

 

I like this external usb harddrive dock better, multi use
Newegg.com - Thermaltake BlacX N0028USU External Hard Drive SATA Enclosure Docking Station 2.5" & 3.5" USB 2.0

 

1) Anyone know what program / folder in the SWSetup I need to reinstall the Blu Ray player software?

2) In my dv7t I have:
-X25M 80gb SSD as my OS drive (placed in the slot using the short SATA cable)
-and a 640gb 7200rpm HDD in the other slot.

I'm only getting a 5.9 in my Windows Experience Index score. I recall SSDs as easily being in the 7s. I understand the WEI isn't a real benchmark score, but I'm wondering if Windows is properly recognizing that I have an SSD installed (and turning off defrag, enabling trim, etc). Or if my low score is based on the HDD I also have installed (but the WEI says primary harddrive?).

Anyways I guess I'm wondering if there is anything software or BIOS related that I need to do after installing the SSD (driver is up to date according to the device manager).

Thanks!

 

I have the USB2.0/eSata version of this and it's great, but it he might want to consider a USB 3.0 dock or enclosure such as
Newegg.com - Thermaltake BlacX 5G ST0019U ABS Plastic 2.5" & 3.5" Black USB 3.0 Docking Station

 

well 5.9 is RIGHT for the mechanical 7200rpm drive ... Could the weakest link establish the low disk score ... i.e., if you disconnect the 7200rpm drive and run it again ... not that it really matters ... if you are using the SSD as the boot device ... you are gonna smoke

 

I just got off thr phone with HP support and they will only supply another drive (5200rpm unit) identical to the one in the notebook as shipped. They said that the unit I have does not have SATA III ports at all. I have the Quick Ship Pavilion dv7-4295us with sandy bridge 2.0 GHZ chip. I thought that all the Sandy Bridge notebooks supported the Newest SATA III drive speeds. Well this is not the first time that HP Support has told me something that is not right I guess. I need to make a decision before the time runs out to send it back. Short of taking the notebook apart I dont know how else to find out if the HP Support guy is right about this. Anyone know how I can tell without taking it apart to see the mainboard ports? Better yet has anyone done this upgrade on this model?

 

The rep is probably right, as you have the old dv7. This forum and the information you saw in here is for the dv6t and dv7t 6XXX. These new models have a four digit number starting with a 6, whereas you have a four digit number starting with a 4). Also the new model is an umbre color (black brown) and the old model is silver/aluminum/gray colored.

 

I thought all the old models were recalled due to the chipset problems. Are you saying that I have a model that has the old B2 stepping bad chipset? The Sandy Bridge chip id the newest chip right. This unit has that chip.

 

no one knows, go open it up and check for your self that's the only way you'll know (don't do it if its still under warranty just send it back)

 

Here are 2 videos of installing a Crucial c300 (SSD) in the DV7T from the start. Please forgive the quality, the camcorder was not very good and then the upload speed was not very great here either. So grainy + low quality video. I would cut out more but I was having problems with the camcorder.

YouTube - HP Pavilion DV7T 6XXX - Installing SSD (Part 1)
YouTube - HP Pavilion DV7T 6XXX - Installing SSD (Part 2)

ABR Download
HP Drivers (#641306-001)
Windows Install
HP Parts Store

 

I could be totally off-base, but have you looked specifically at what chipset is in your model. According to the service manual for the dv7t-4xxx and 50xx that was published in Dec '10, the 4xxx models had the HM55 chipset and did not have sandy bridge cpus while the 5xxx models had the HM65 chipset and only SB cpus. The question is, is HP possibly shipping HM55 units with 2630 SB cpus. I haven't been able to find the definitive answer in my quck search, but I read suggestions that SB cpus are pin compatible with HM55 and could be combined.

 

It has the HM65 Express

 

Good video, thanks for doing it. The dropping screws did make me want to punt a kitten though

 

I installed all the parts the same way you did, but my SSD showed up as Disk 1 and the regular HDD showed up as Disk 0.

How do you check the AHCI Setting?

Btw what's your Windows Experience Index for your SSD?

 

Well, so much for my idea. That's for the better, I guess.

 

A post a few pages back linked to HP's doc on how to tell if your SandyB is defective:
Check out this link... Intel® Chipset Design Issue May Affect Certain HP Desktop and Notebook PCs - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

According to that link if the fourth through the sixth digits of your serial number are "108" or higher then you have the new B3 step chipset.

I had a dv7-4295us that showed 112 as the fourth through the sixth digits of the serial number. I was still skeptical but I think it's fine. I returned it after finding this forum and coupon codes.

 

Anyone know a good free or cheap tool to exactly clone a hard drive? I have a dv7t Quad on order, already have the 2nd drive caddy and cable and a 7200 RPM WD Scorpio Black 320GB drive. I wanted to use the Scorpio as the primary boot/OS drive and the factory 640GB 7200 RPM drive for virtual machines and VMware. I will go SSD in the future when prices drop and capacity increases.
Do I need a cloned drive to keep the HP recovery partition? Do I want to keep any factory partition?
Thanks

 

You might have put the cables in the wrong order even though the hard drives are in the right bay. The top one (with the battery on the far side of the laptop with upside down) is port 0 and the bottom is port 1 I believe.

I checked which driver the drive was using in Windows and it listed AHCI along with normal IDE.

The score was a 7.9 out of 7.9 for the SSD =). Its seq. read was over 300 MB/s, so at least SATA III was put to good use.

 

What version BIOS do you have? Its not there for me.

Anyone else not have it?

Thanks in advance

 

I would rethink the "don't think that I want to go the SSD", especially having 2 drive bays (mine will have 1 drive bay). The drive linked below appears to have the best bang for the buck ($200) using passmark as a reference (PLEASE correct me if anyone disagrees). Its all about the $=performance for me also. I plan on getting this drive and using an ext. 3.0 USB drive for extra storage. I figure with partition loss, Win7, and basic drivers/required software I will have approx 60GB (extremely conservative) left for personal program usage.

Newegg.com - Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

If you research the various bluetooth mice available today, most have serious problems. I haven't been able to find a single one without bad reviews on the various popular websites.

 

While this is true, your new HDD will be bogged down by the slowest component. SSD=extreme performance, unfortunately SSD=$$$

 

Keep your eye on:

Search ssd Lowest Prices, Best Deals at Dealigg.com

 

How loud is the dv6t QE and is blu-ray worth it?

 

Can you post your configuration? I ordered on March 31st also and I am still showing May 2nd.

 

According to Passmark benchmarks, IMHO, this drive is unacceptable for the price.

 

I don't know much here...but I've always heard SSDs were very reliable as compared to HDDs. Should I be concerned about life expectancy with write/read opperations on an SSD? Can you post a link for a good source of enlightenment?

 

Agreed, I've also heard bad things about it from someone I know who actually has one, along with not so great reviews on reseller sites.

 

If anyone needs the info i found the dv7t qe 6000 second hard drive 'KIT' on HP's parts site. BOTH cables and caddies plus screws are included.

http://h20141.www2.hp.com/Hpparts/Default.aspx?mscssid=A9E26C54B9364346A0C8C02BB8444416

PART # 641306-001 (33.25 + shipping)

hope this helps someone

 

Well done. Your posts are always clear, precise, accurate, and on point. Repped

 

I'm waiting on a Dv7 (May 2nd, hopefully), and I had a quick question. I'm in University, and I'm probably going to do a fresh install of Windows 7 Enterprise when I get the machine -- what's the deal with the SWsetup folder I'm hearing about? Or is doing a fresh Windows install going to be too much of a pain with all the drivers and such being off? I want to make sure I can use my machine how it's supposed to be!

 

SSDs are generally reliable, and since they have no moving parts don't suffer from the common mechanical failures that platter based drives do.

However, the elephant in the room with SSDs is write endurance. Any particular block in an SSD device can only be written to a finite number of times. If you continuously write data to an SSD it will eventually fail, sooner than you might expect. Factors such as write leveling, MLC vs SLC etc all need to be considered, but the short story is that SSD's will wear out under heavy write workload.

Read endurance isn't an issue.

Using the Crucial C300 that has been discussed as an example, it has a TBW (total bytes written) of 72T. From that the math can be done to make some conclusions. The micron blog link below also talks specifically about the 72T TBW of the C300. Is that number a best case scenario and potentially inflated? Probably.

Being a UNIX and storage admin I appreciate fission's approach, and it is indeed a nice way to go, but I don't expect most users to manage I/O on a laptop.

Get a well reviewed SSD, make sure you backup your data (this applies to any storage device), and sleep well at night, my two cents..

Further reading:

Demystifying SSD Endurance | StorageReview.com

Micron Innovations Blog How to Build a Solid 25nm SSD (and how not to)

 

I picked up a cheap Inland bluetooth mouse for $15.00 at my local Fry's electronics and it works great. I'm not sure how good it is for gaming or whatever, but it functions well and even has a power button to shut it off.

 

A while back, on my dv7-1xxx, I used a program called EASEUS TODO BACKUP. It let's you clone a hard drive regardless of the size, make, and model. It allows you to keep and adjust your partitions. I went from a 320GB partitioned hard drive to a 640GB partitioned hard drive. Luckily, the dv7 has a dual bay. I had problems trying to clone to a external usb. They still offer a 15 day trial. You only need it for 1 day.

 

I wonder though what I'm limiting myself to in the world of bluetooth devices. No bluetooth Skype. Iphone won't bluetooth, even when paired. Hmm, what else?

 

SWSetup is just the folder with all the default installers. Save it elsewhere and figure out which files you need to install. Basically all of the drivers and whatever else you want.

 

Alright, I've finally got my DV6T, and it is a nice machine. The color is great. I actually feel fashionable for once since umber is in season if you look around - Starbucks mugs - cars - cell phones, etc.

Build Quality - I had a DV7-4XXX for a week and was quite impressed with the solid feel of the machine. I think that the rigidity of the outgoing 4xxx was better. The plastic on this unit feels a bit more dusty, grainy, brittle feel than the previous unit. The aluminum overlay on the 4xxx keyboard wrapped all the way over the edge like it was pressed on around the laptop. This kept flex to a minimum. The DV6T has the Aluminum inlaid with a plastic border. And I'll predict that many of us will chip plastic off in due time. I feel like I can peel the aluminum right off like a sticker. Light liquid spills will seep in a bit easier over time with this design - I see light on edges already by the power chord, so liquid will make its way in on light spills unlike the 4xxx. As an industrial product designer, I can see where HP saved money with this new design in order to offer lower prices. However the solid feel of the outgoing model was confidence inspiring and met the same intangible "I will pay more for how it feels" factor that Apple commands. I know that the machine is lighter, but does the plastic have to feel so cheap? They did fix the bezel from the outgoing model, which looked and felt like it was injection molded with a caulking tube and heat gun.

Mouse Pad - This is such a vast improvement over the DV6/7-4xxx. The slight 0.5mm recess has eliminated my palm from unintentionally moving the mouse around when typing. Especially since on the DV7, it would irritate me to have to power off the mouse pad, only to find that it was back on when coming out of sleep. The separate keys are a winner too.

Keyboard - I was concerned about the smaller keys from the outgoing model since now we have an integrated keypad. But this just works. The keys depress nicely and the placement is just right to eliminate hitting the mouse pad. I'm coming from a Lenovo and brightness and volume keys that don't require fn is such a welcome sight.

Finger Print Reader - You have hit pay dirt on this HP. I don't know what the pain is with EasyPass 2011, but it just works. You got me hooked on it with the DV7. I no longer have to have browsers save passwords or key in when making the slightest of tweaks to Win7 with UAC on. Winner, duh???

Styling - This is a good looking machine with the lid closed. You don't realize on reviews that there is that little kick in the back. Reminds me of an Aston Martin's tail or a BMW M3 deck lid, very nice and steps away just the right amount from minimalism.

Things I find abhorrent - The reason why I bought the DV6T was for the portability. This utility completely goes out the window with the massive 2 lb power supply that you have to lug around everywhere you go. Pay attention HP, because some of the small details still matter in our analog reality, where Apple is commanding a premium, ala MagSafe and that tiny power supply. And you still haven't fixed the horrible button for opening optical drives that takes several tries to get open.

 

Excellent review DeusEx.

This makes my day (BMW e92 owner here).

By the way, can you (or any DV6t owner) weigh the machine? I'm interested to know if the DV6t I ordered will be an upgrade from my current machine in terms of portability. My current laptop weighs in at 5.6lbs.. HP's website lists DV6t at 5.5lbs, but spec sheet says 5.7lbs.

 

I bought two of those already. The service manual says it includes two caddies.
Each one included: one caddy, 2 cables, and eight screws (four drive to caddy, and four caddy to chassis).

 

Does the folder have EVERYTHING I need? I want to make sure I'm able to keep switchable graphics and CoolSense and whatnot.

 

Well I decided to sen dmy Quick ship Pavilion dv7-4295us back. Cant live without the SATA III capability with a Sandy Bridge cpu. It makes no sense to me that HP would design a MB that has the technology in the chipset for SATA III and not put the ports on the board! Go figure. Anywho I am thinking of getting in line with the rest of you waiting for a custom unit.

 

It has all the preinstalled software and drivers in it.

 

You can also create a set of restore disks right that will recreate the drive just as you got from the factory?

 

Yes, you can create factory image. Just load up HP backup, you need like 4 dvd disks or some external media.

 

Repped, +1.

And as I promised, send me your paypal info so I can donate some $ for the vids.

thanks again, helped a great deal !

PS - Tried sending you a private message, but the forums says you are not receiving them.

 

Looks like the freeware version includes a drive clone tool:
Best free data backup software. Hard drive backup and recovery freeware. Hard Disk image freeware.
Thanks

 

From a USB 3.0 standpoint, it was NOT that crazy ...what is crazy, is how long USB 3.0 has taken to be adopted. I KNOW not all USB 3.0 devices would work with the Envy... which was a large part of the whole point of 3.0. Next gen chips WILL support USB 3.0 natively ... 'bout time. A laptop has only so much real estate ... you can't expect access to everything the support chip provide ... unless you have a desktop. I sent mine back because of the trackpad, which I found totally unusable.

 

If you want the dv7t quad, now is the time to get it. There's a 30% off coupon that expires tomorrow. The code is nb6973. That gets the price to around $892 before tax with the 2630qm, HD 6770, and 640gb 7200rpm.

 

New Review. Some eyecandy for people still waiting!
YouTube - Hp Pavilion DV6 6017tx Full Unboxing Product Tour Beats Audio Core i7 2030qm Sandy Bridge