*HP dv6z AMD Llano (6XXX series) Owners Lounge*

My AMD Llano dv6 will get here in a week

 

I pulled the trigger and will go pick mine up from a Best Buy store that had it in stock about 30 minutes away

*Edit: Also, the Best Buy model (as opposed to ordering from HP.com) comes with a free $100 GC. The item itself is $679, and that includes the free $100GC. My only regret is that you can't customize like the HP.com model for a 1080p screen. Otherwise a great deal. Credit goes to www.dealsifoundonline.com for tipping me off to the Gift Card being eligible. The Best Buy email I got says it was for notebooks $699 and up, but for some reason, this one still works. Hope this helps someone.

Edit 2: KNOWING I was about to order this laptop, I sold my E-350 equipped DM1Z for $400

 

Because of my addiction, I'm sure I'll try and sell this damn thing once Trinity comes out.

 

Well, I am pretty mad. I just got off the phone with two different HP reps, including a supervisor, and they informed me that the dv6zQE is not eligible for the free Xbox. This was after I checked with two online sales reps yesterday and they told me it was, the list on the website just had not been updated. And now Best Buy isn't showing the dv6-6135dx as one of the notebooks eligible for the $100 GC.

Edit - Just chatted with another agent and called another. They said it is definitely not included. I told them that the online reps told me it was, even gave them their names and the chat ID's. They just said those reps were mistaken.

I supposed I could just customize it over $999 and use the 30% code but I really didn't want to spend more than $700 with taxes after coupons, and I considered the Xbox a $150 coupon and the GC a $90 one. Even with the 30%, the lowest I can get it is $750 with taxes.

Second Edit - I just called Best Buy and they said it is eligible for the gift card. Still, $640 after taxes and $90 for the gift card after I sell it, is a little more than I want to pay for the A8-3500M, even with Bluray. Still a good deal, though, and I will probably end up getting it.

 

I'll check on the adapters later today for you. There are seriously no options in the bios. I can set a password, enable virtualization on the CPU, change date/time and thats about it.

 

You could try seeing if you can get into the Advanced BIOS. Just press 'A' quickly after you press F10 to enter the BIOS

 

Just to let anyone going with the Best Buy one know, some stores are saying it is an online only promotion. I was just up at the one closest to me and they told me that if it was in-store, the computer would tell them to give me the GC when they rang me up and it didn't so it must be online only. I called the next closest store and they said the same thing. So I had to go home and place the order online for in-store pickup for it to work. Pretty stupid.

 

Can someone please do a 3dmark11, and if you have time 3dmark06 benchmark with the 6755g2 (crossfire)?

It's only 300 mb to download: Download 3DMark 11 | 3DMark 11 – The Gamer's Benchmark for DirectX 11

 

It's worth going over $700 to get the 1920x1080 display. Make sure you get that upgrade, especially if you're configuring up to $999.

 

If I were to get the 1080p upgrade, I wouldn't be able to fit the 6750M into my budget. I would rather have the 6750M because, to be honest, 1080p on a 15'' screen is slightly too small for me. I wish HP offered a 1600x900 option but since they don't, 1366x768 is fine with me especially considering the price of the 1080p.

 

Thanks for the tip but no luck

 

Just so everyone knows this, I was just told by HP that the 1GB graphics option is the 6770M. Take it with a grain of salt, though. The person I talked to sound like she did not know what she was talking about and, at first, just told me they were the 6400M and 6700M series, like she was repeating from the website. I told her I knew that but there is more than one card in each series and she said she would check. She came back about 5 minutes later and told me the 6490M and 6770M but she didn't sound too confident. I think she just told me the options for the dv6t because she didn't know and wanted to get me off the phone. I can't see HP shipping different graphics with the Best Buy one than what they have on the website, there would be no reason for it. And, frankly, I have never seen a pre-built unit of any of their customizable laptops that had something you couldn't customize it with.

@kinetik - Are you sure it is the 6750M and not the 6770M? What does GPU-Z say its clock speeds are? It might make sense that it is actually the 6770M, based on the 3dMark Vantage score. The 6750 by itself scores about 4500 on the graphics score and the 6770M about 5300. Your score of 5700 would mean that the IGP added almost 50% of its performance, which is more than twice the performance gain Tom's Hardware experienced in 3dMark Vantage. At 5700, that would be more what you expected from the 6770M + 6620G, based on their scores in which crossfire increased the 6630M score by 600 points.

 

She's probably wrong. I chatted with HP support and she had no idea what model the cards were. The tech support is clueless.

I don't know what the lower model is, but the higher model is very likely a 6750m. Best Buy lists that model on their site after all.

@kinitek come on man im begging you plz do a 3dmark11 benchmark :-(

 

No need to beg hehe. I'll run it right now.

Checking GPU-Z as well but everything else has labeled it as a 6750m

 

I think it is safe to assume that the HP site has the 6750M as well, then. GPU-Z could be wrong, still, it is reading the memory as GDDR3 but the 6750M only comes with GDDR5

 

GPU-Z kept crashing too...

 

That's interesting...GDDR3...what is up with that? Is that accurate?

 

GPU-Z appears to be very confused by the two GPUs. The memory and clocks on the card labeled 6750M are actually closest to the 6650M, although with slightly slower memory. I'm pretty sure we need to wait for an updated GPU-Z before we can trust it.

 

3DMark11 set to performance: P1750

 

Windows says it is the 6750M under device manager, too. Gonna do a full review soon enough, as soon as I play with it for a little while.

 

That might be better than the dv6t, which appears to get P1600 at stock clocks. Search

Can someone with a dv6t confirm those results at stock clocks?

 

p1600 is about right for stock dv6t-6000 series. the 6100 series are about p1550 ish.

 

lol this isn't helping my decision between the dv6t and dv6z...not sure which to choose

@ xxkinetikxx - did you overclock anything to achieve that score?

 

Far as I'm concerned its currently impossible to overclock at the moment. Bone stock sir.

 

Well, for the record, even the A8-3500M doesn't feel slow at all. In benchmarks, according to CPU-Z, it spends the majority of its time at 1.5GHz. I still don't know why but I will have to wait for something that senses the APU power consumption correctly before I make any guesses, HWMonitor puts it at 70W during Cinebench but I don't think that is correct considering it is the same consumption during the single or multi-threaded runs and 70W is ridiculously high. I know it isn't failing to turbo because of the temperature, those are more than safe. As I have already said, making the turbo work better could be as simple as a BIOS update, as there seems to be plenty of consumption and thermal headroom

Given the level of synthetic performance I am getting on this, about P960 level multi-thread and N930 single-threaded, and assuming the turbo works the same and not any better on the MX series, we can make inferences about the A8-3530MX. Multi-threaded performance should be at the level the the X940 and higher than any AMD mobile processor to date. They could be better depending on how well Turbo Core works with 45W but that is worst-case scenario. Best-case scenario, lower Clarksfield multi-threaded and Arrandale i3 to low i5 single-threaded

 

I would assume no overclocking on the 6750M right now as well. I think all the overclocking software is reading the graphics as one card and not recognizing the card, thus failing. Before we can overclock we are going to need someone to give software that can recognize the 6750 separately

 

Very nice assessment so far. Looking forward to a review!

 

Working on the full review right now, just finished the the Minimized System Recovery, but some first impressions,

- The screen is fine, better than average is you ask me. 1366x768 on a 15.6'' screen turns many off but I don't mind it. Colors are vibrant, text is crisp and brightness is good
- Many people hated the last-gen clickpads, I was one of the few that didn't mind them, but this is definitely better.
- This thing might be even cooler and quieter than my dm1 under normal use
- The A8-3500M is more than enough for the vast majority of users.
- The notebook itself is beautiful. I thought I preferred the silver look but I was wrong. Black is the way to go
- Love the keyboard. It is like a combination of my dv6z-1260se keyboard, which is the best I ever owned, and the last-gen dv6 keyboard. Wish it had a backlight but what you gonna do?
- Not really sure about the light-up clickpad. I don't see anyway to disable the light without disabling the whole clickpad so it seems like a waste of battery and it doesn't seem all that helpful.
- Judging by what I have done so far, I would estimate the battery life at just about 5 hours normal use

@kinetik - Does HP SimplePass work in Firefox for you? On my last-gen dv6 it has Digital Persona and it automatically worked in Firefox.

 

fn + space

 

Thanks a lot. Do you have a dv6t?

 

yes. i have used a dv6t since jan for the 4000 cto version, which eventually got changed to two 6000cto version (first one had dead pixels), and now to a 6100 version.

 

Does the lack of function on the F5 key bother those with the dv6t? It just seems so empty and keeps on drawing my eye.

 

yes, backlit keyboard toggle.

maybe i'm just seeing what i wish to see though...

 

It seems like maybe they were going to put it in but maybe decided not to at the last minute, leaving the blank space. It looks pretty stupid like that, to be honest.

 

Yeah it's kinda strange, considering that the DV4 has a backlit keyboard.

 

i agree. but look at it from their point of view - dv6/7 is already equipped with somewhat comparable graphics card (6770m vs underclocked 6850m), 1080p screen, metal top plate and screen cover, beats audio, etc... along with a pretty often 30% off coupon, who is going to buy the envy if they dont have anything special going for them?

 

Anyone have a full review up yet?

 

I don't use firefox but it works well in Chrome and IE

 

Alice Madness Returns looks awesome on this thing btw

 

Bet me to it even though I don't have a DV6 anything.

abaddon4180 you can choose to save the answers for following questions in your review, I'm just making up questions that matter IMO to make your review more useful for anyone interested in a HP DV6 Llano laptop.

You can still choose briefly but accurately answer any questions now if you want if no particular order.


a) What kind (brand) of gigabit network, wireless card and Bluetooth card (if applicable) does the laptop come with?

b) Is the touchpad (smoothness, tracking, material and sensitivity/multi-touch) itself a lot better than last-gen DV6, also are the touchpad click buttons hard to press, are they noisy and how's the feedback?

c) Is the DVD/Blu-ray drive loud while reading/burning (vibration noise), is the eject button still hard to press and what the brand model (if possible)?

d) Does the laptop run any louder than last gen-DV6 even with CoolSense set to Cool and how is the noise and temperatures difference after a gaming session with Cool and Optimized Mode (you don't have to try out Quitter mode but it'll be good if you can)?

e) How's the flex on the keyboard, how would it stand up against spill in your opinion and how's the feedback and overall comparison to last-gen DV6 (if applicable) ?

f) Is there any flex on the lid and how does the hinge hold up the LED screen any wobble/stability issue with slight movement of the laptop?

g) How's the cooling design in your opinion from last-gen DV6, is there a exhaust plus intake grills/holes for the main heatsink?

h) How's the palm rest area both left/right after a long gaming session, does it heat up much?

i) Do you have any USB 3.0 thumb drives to test Llano on-chip USB 3.0 speeds?

j) How's Beat Audio and the speakers itself, also how does the laptop sound when headphones are plug in?

k) What brand of ram does HP included with the laptop and what are the rated speed, are they DDR3L (low voltage) 1.35v?

l) What brand of hard drive HP include with the laptop, is it 5400/7200 RPM, 4K sector (if Scorpio Black) and how's the heat, noise and vibration sound from the hard drive?

m) How's LED/LCD display performance under fast motion games/movies, how's the viewing angles, colors, brightness, contrast, is there any visible banding, clouding, color bleeding and lastly how's the blacks?

n) How's the overall construction and built quality of the laptop and all it's components?

o) How's the battery life under typical usage conditions, gaming and watching videos with WiFi on and Bluetooth off and with both off (if applicable)?

p) What are BIOS options available in the BIOS, anything HD 6620G/HD6 6750M related?

q) How's the keyboard function buttons and how do they work, do they act are functions buttons and F keys with the function button combination, does WiFi and touchpad light stay off after reboot/shut down?


I know I have more but that's all for now, so looking forward to your review.

 

Does the HP at BestBuy (dv6-6135dx) have eSata in a combo USB port?

 

No esata port

 

Realtek and Ralink, respectively. No bluetooth.

Pretty much the same material as the last-gen. Buttons provide good feedback but are a little on the loud side. I usually tap-to-click anyway.

Not any louder than any other drive I have used. I didn't think the last-gen was hard to eject but this one is, imo. It says it is an HP drive in device manager

Even with Coolsense on coolest mode it seems significantly quieter than the last-gen under full load. On quietest mode, it is a quiet if not quieter than my dm1. Same story with temperatures, at least externally I will measure internal soon. Seems a lot cooler than last-gen and on par with my dm1.

Pretty much the same keyboard as the last-gen and I haven't found any flex just typing on it. You can clearly see the openings under the keys so even a little spill would get through the the internals.

No wobble and no lid flex with strong hinges. I thought the last-gen was well-built and this is better.

Haven't seen a last-gen in a few months but the vents seem to be in almost the same spots.

Like I said, I would classify as very good to exceptional for a consumer notebook, especially for $680.

There are pretty much no options in the BIOS. What kinetik said earlier.

Touchpad light stays on/off after reboot and the wifi does as well, but that is always light up whether orange or clear.

I'll address everything else in the review. It will definitely be up by Friday at the latest but I would estimate late Wednesday-early Thursday.

 

Sweet thanks abaddon4180.

I wonder if the Ralink WiFi can be swapped for a Atheros card?

 

is the wireless card the dual band type?
want to use my router's 5ghz like my current 2007 era intel 4965.

 

I just spent an hour with the dv6-6135dx at Best Buy.

After the G74SX (GTX 560M), it's tied with the 17" MBP for the most powerful gaming laptop on display.

Tried booting Linux on it with no success. However, I did get rather DUH! error messages regarding "conflicts with Video ROM" and a distinctive lack of kernel modesetting during the attempted boots. I attribute this a lack of Llano APU drivers on my USB sticks. I'm a little disturbed by this since even a cutting-edge nightly Ubuntu 11.10 ISO still isn't enough to let the laptop boot. I need Linux 3.0, an updated xorg radeon driver, and Mesa 7.11 for it to work. Neither HP or AMD are at fault for this since the necessary code was published only days ago. To this end, I conclude that Llano laptops are not ready for Linux yet and I'll need to divert my attention for a few weeks to the dv6tqe 61xx for studying PowerXpress 4 laptops.

I am also curious about the dual-core dv7 with a 6490M on display that I mostly ignored for no good reason. Not sure if it was a 60xx or 61xx, but either way, switchable graphics on a non-6770M machine is completely undocumented.

I'll probably go back in a day or two and try using RW-Everything on both the dv7 and dv6 document the laptops if USB booting into Linux doesn't work again.

The Best Buy employees are more than willing to let you mess around with the laptops during closing time. They are also well-aware that the dv6 is a steal for the price.

 

So were you able to overclock? I assume you reverted the drivers because the benchmark software didnt run properly?

 

Afterburner allowed the overclock but I wasn't able to open GPU-Z or anything else to verify. Also 3dMark wouldn't run. Thats why I rolled the driver back.

 

Looking at this right now and went online to get feedback - I'm wondering if the 1080p screen and the 6750M are overkill at this point for an A8-3530MX build, and if this line is better with an A6 and no discrete GPU.

Price came out to just about $821 + tax (base config plus the upgrades to the A8-3530MX, 1080p, 1GB 6750M - assuming that's what it is, the 640gb 7200 rpm HDD, and the high capacity 6 cell battery). Overkill? Or is the build worth it with the 30% coupon, assuming that this assymetric crossfire improves with driver updates.

Definitely need a new laptop now that my hated HP dv6436nr has finally fried the motherboard (it was a free hand me down, but I did put a couple hours into reinstalling the OS). I had to go back to an obsolete centrino dell latitude with a flaky screen. Don't do much except internet, play a few early to mid 2000's games (and run dosbox games), but wouldn't mind trying more recent games and getting something that can double as a portable blue ray player during travel.