HP dv6t (6XXX series) - Have you tried to fix the gap and LED indicator light leak on the right-hand side?

The dv6t (and perhaps the dv7t also) have an issue where the plastic casing does not fit flush on the right-hand side and the light from the LED indicators bleeds through and you can see it from the top.

HP is aware of the issue but says just to ignore it and it is normal.

Here are two links with pictures:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...xxx-series-owners-lounge-653.html#post7631085

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...xxx-series-owners-lounge-649.html#post7625027

It was mentioned that this may be fixable with a product called "strip caulk". I've also thought about maybe double-sided tape to just hold the plastic trim to the case and thus block the light.

I haven't done any of this but I am considering something minor just to block the light. I know it's not a huge thing, but it bugs me when I'm working in low-light.

I was wondering if anyone else did anything to solve this? I have just been ignoring it and may continue to do so but if someone found something rather simple and that it worked for them, I may try it. Or, I may try either tape or the strip caulk suggestion.

 

I don't see much light but the trim isn't flush to the case, I noticed that.

It's not a huge problem that I would return it and get a new one..

 

Yes, my power adapter indicator light and powered-on light leak through the top of the case.

I don't think it's worth messing with. More important to me are making my system stop crashing on Source games, and finding a way to swap the wireless card with a Centrino 62xx.

 

non-issue. I do know people who have returned their laptop for reasons even less serious

 

I was at a Best Buy today and noticed a dv6t and dv7t and neither seemed to have this problem. I find that odd.

Also, my laptop had a very small nick in the lower-right corner on the plastic. I wonder if they swapped things out and maybe that caused both the nick and the plastic to not fit correctly.

Part of me wishes I had just returned it, but I guess I'm just being somewhat obsessive about it. I'm going to have the laptop for many years and I guess I wanted it to be in the best shape possible from the start.

 

I agree. If you spend the money, then you want your stuff to look good for as long as possible. I have the same issue with the "light leak" on the right side. Wouldn't have thought anything of it until I saw a few threads here describing it. I would like it to be snug as well, however, given some of the other prevalent issues this model seems to suffer through, this is somewhat the least of my concerns. I wouldn't worry about. If it were something where you could just snap a peice down or just something easy to do, then yes - I'd do it in a heartbeat. But right now, it isn't worth opening it up to fix, IMO.

 

What are some "prevalent issues" this model suffers from?

 

Check the "sticky" threads. Mostly graphics-related.

 

The only sticky I found was graphics related (or about bloatware). I mean people mention HDD failures but I wouldn't say that's prevalent...essentially are there any prevalent issues other than graphics for the dv61xx (hardware issues like this one)?

 

I went to best buy again. I now see the reason that the machine there doesn't exhibit this issue. I pulled the trim out a bit and there is a piece of black tape over the top of the LED assembly. I put a card in there and tried to wedge it out but all I managed to do was to push the tape farther into the laptop. That exposed the top of the LED thus causing the same issue of light coming through.

So, either HP is now putting pieces of black tape over the top or mine did not get that done during assembly. So, this would imply that this "IS" a problem and HP support lied in order to keep from having to fix their mistake.

I suspect that every LED has this black tape over the top except in cases where they skipped it like on mine. This is an assembly issue.

 

The dv6t is a performance/price machine, not a build-quality machine. You might want to look at the Envy or Elitebook series for better build quality.

 

I had an order placed for an elitebook but I was given incorrect information on it and cancelled.

But, there is no reason to accept poor build quality on a $1100 notebook because it's not an "elitebook". They screwed up during assembly and now want to blow it off as "normal".

 

I know - but if you prioritize build quality a brand like Dell - who gives you less bang for your buck - may be more appropriate.

 

For the moment, I would say that the graphics issue is a big one for many users for some very valid reasons. Yet not so on the scope of preventing or swaying those users from making their purchase. They have faith in the hope that AMD/HP will eventually move forward with a corrective software update. Common, yet for now, accepted. There are many who have brought up the issue of excessive heat due to what is being described as an improper seating of the heatsink on the CPU. Easy to fix and definitely not a dealbreaker. Maybe not as common, but accepted. The 60xx series has an issue with "keyboard flex" and both the 60xx and 61xx have the design flaw of the leaking LED as you can see. There are others you can easily find if you dig enough. And none are unique to any one person. But you will have to do a measure of reading and searching this forum and perhaps a few other like it. My apologies - I didn't think I would have to go into detail as to what, precisely, some of the dv6-6xxx series common flaws were let alone believe my choice of words to be misleading or incorrect. Of the common issues that crop up around the dv6, I do not think I have seen anyone, or at least a small few, who have posted that they were returning their purchases.

So far, all of the common issues seem to be relatively easy to fix or deal with for the time being. People know that they are there, yet they make the purchase anyway. As they should. The dv6-6xxx is, as others have stated, a great peice of hardware for the price. It has it's share of problems, like many in it's class, but nothing that cannot be overcome, IMO.

 

Lol, don't know if you were serious but that's a "feature". If you want to turn off the mouse pad backlight, press fn + spacebar.

 

I can confirm y DV7tqe has this as well. Definitely not worth returning in my opinion. Of course mine gap is very tiny.

 

Thanks everyone for their feedback. I agree, there are bigger issues and I also agree that there are positives to the machine.

I am in the process of putting tape over the LEDs. I will post pictures when I'm done. HP is using a black tape with a fabric top.

It requires taking the top cover off, but the only hard part is keeping track of the small screws and making sure I don't pull too hard on the ziff sockets.

It's good experience just to get more familiar with the innards of my new machine, if nothing else. I thought about re-pasting the CPU while I'm in there, but I think I'll save that for another time. I don't think I'd gain much for the effort and my arctic silver is over 7 years old so I'd probably have to get some new stuff.

 

I discovered that my computer did in fact have the tape installed. The tape was just poorly positioned. I moved the tape and thought I had it, but something must have moved when I put everything back together since there was still a little light leak from the bottom light. So, I took a small strip of electrical tape and wedged it in there and now it's good. If I look straight on then I can see it a little bit, but when sitting here typing I can no longer see anything. Before it was very obvious in pretty much all light conditions while I was typing.

So, I'm happy with the results. It took two hours to get everything apart and back together and then another hour to fix the little remaining light leak.

There were various parts of the computer taped down and I noticed that my keyboard had double-sided tape in two places which I assume helps with flex issues.

And, I saw the memory chips for the GPU, but they only amounted to 1GB. There were four chips. There must be four more chips somewhere since I have 2GB and that is confirmed by HWInfo. But now I know the type of chip used which I was curious about.

 

Light leak is gone and my computer now has fixed graphics thanks to a BIOS update. I'm happy

A backlit keyboard would have been nice, but other than that I'm fine with what I have now for the next few years or so.