*HP dv7t (1XXX series) Owners Lounge*

I'm also having issues with IE7 and my new AMD powered DV7z. The same symptoms as dreamingflower described. Opera (my fav browser) also is sluggish and erratic, as well. FF has been the most stable, but not completely immune from an occasional crash, either.

I believe this may be a Vista 64b compatibility issue.

I'm doing an in-house demo of a very similarly spec'd 15" Toshiba laptop with Vista 32b, and IE7 has been rock solid. Same for Opera. No idea about FF (not installed yet). RAM use is approximately 500MB less for similar use patterns and configs, and the system is less sluggish.

I don't want to bring the thread OT, but yes, I'm beginning to suspect the browser stability issues I see with the HP are Vista 64b related.

BTW - Did anyone notice a seperate DV7 z (AMD powered) thread, or are those of us from the darkside hanging here, too?

 

Wow. Glad I am not the only one. I was beg. to think I was... uggh so fustrating. So many times I was in the middle of something and it would just go haywire one!

 

I always stay scared of bios updates til enough people report their computer didn't die.

 

StratCat and Flower,

I had the same issues as you guys. I have a 64 bit dv7t. There are some earlier posts on this forum with a very easy fix; worked for me.

 

This should help.

 

Sometimes this thing hangs on bios. It'll sit there forever on a black screen with a blinking underscore and eventually load grub. It did this before I installed linux too. Maybe I have an old bios? I would like to fix this somehow.

 

Hi Gemiar -

Thx for your suggestions.

I found the 2 HP plugins and disabled them. I still have issues with the multi media softkeys, but haven't really addressed this issue lately. Ditto for Opera.

I don't really have an issue with HP as much as I think Vista 64b isn't really for me. The issues with Opera are somewhat important to me, but I suppose not an absolute deal breaker. I just didn't realize that 32b apps run on Vista 64b via an emulation layer!

I'm also now becoming torn between 17" and 15" sized models.

Actually, my DV7z is on Holiday Gift Receipt return priviliges thru 31 JAN 2009, so I'm considering doing a CTO of an Intel Centrino 2 based system running Vista 32b. HP DV(x)t is on the top of my list.

 

FWIW, both the DV7t and DV7z have had recent BIOS releases (mid November). I've been meaning to update mine.

BTW, do I understand correctly? You're currently running Linux?

 

Thanks. I have tried what that poster did. I did not see any of those that were listed. The only plugins that I see is the Java plug ins not HP. I did not see mobile fav either. Am I missing something here?

 

I am trying to dual-boot Vista with Kubuntu but sadly there are issues with the nvidia drivers for KDE4 so it is incredibly slow. I am sticking with Vista until that gets fixed.

 

Assuming, in IE7, you followed:

Tools/Manage Add-ons/Enable or Disable Add-ons/Add-ons currently loaded in Internet Explorer

That's where I found the add-ons as described.

Not sure if it worked, since I decided to return my DV7z and get a 15 incher.

 

hello, my sound troubles come when i turn up the volume and down it clicks horribly ???

 

I did a search and didn't see anything that helps.

My plan is to get a 15' HDMI cable from monoprice and run it from the dv7t to an HDMI connection on my Denon 3808 receiver. The receiver has an HDMI connection to my 58" plasma. This should allow me to take advantage of my 5.1 sound and allow me to surf, do hulu, movies and YouTube.

Are there any other things I need to know about the PC (settings, extra software, etc.) to make this happen or is as simple as plug & play?

Ray

 

1.12 gb is what mine says

 

same here, if you find an answer lemma know i am unsrue which ones i can safely delete and get rid of.

 

It is for the most part, plug-and-play. When you connect, vista will do some flickering and ask if you want to extend your desktop. That should be about it. Might have to durn on DTS and Dolby Digital out in the vista sound system.

 

Hi -

You can disable the "clicking" sounds in the BIOS.

I did that. No idea where to find it because I returnd my DV7z and don't exactly remember the path. But it was very intuitive and easy to find if your familiar with poking around BIOSs.

I decided to go 15" and Intel (either Tosh or HP).

HTH

 

are you talking about the clicking sound it makes in windows? if so, that can be changed in control panel.

i dont know if you can disable the clicking sound in the BIOS... that doesnt seem like an option that would be there... i could be wrong... or right.... l0l

 

Hrm...I'm stating this from memory...could be wrong, possibly. But yeah, the BIOS is so pitifully spartan (compared to an enthusiast destop mobo) that a quickie 30 sec check should be all it takes to find out!

/me is now currently HP-less but is considering a DV4t amongs others

 

i have both a dv7 and a dv4. the dv4 is worth it for the LED screen alone. after seeing the LED screen in person, i started second guessing my dv7t purchase. anyway, you can not go wrong with the dv4. just realize that if you go nuts with the specs (IE, 512mb video card and high end processor), that the unit will run hot as he11. this has also been mentioned on the dv4t thread.

the p8400 unit on my dv7t runs really really cool. i can only think how hot the t9600 would run in it... ;-X

but overall, i love the dv4 because of it's size but the dv7 wins because you can put in 2 hard drives (which i have done), it runs relatively cool and the screen is nice and HUGE. the resoltion is great.

my high-end dv7 is actually what made me like vista as an OS. yeah it's a resource hog, yeah it's a lot of flash without function, etc etc etc but if you have a machine that can really fly (my windows experience score is a 4.8), then vista is definitely worth it. I feel like vista is worth it's weight simply because of the indexing function that makes searching for a file a job that takes 2 seconds.

 

Just received my Dv7t. Is there a plastic layer on the screen that you pull off? It looks like theirs one but i can't seem to get it started.

update: never mind. It's the new infinity display(plastic dust barrier). It's noticeably a little bit duller but I'll live.
this was a replacement laptop and i was worried that i wasn't getting the brightview (extra lamp) and they just changed the name

 

The many uses of the DV7 screen:

1. Checking out your hair, cause you saw those girls walking behind you

2. Burning ants

3. Messing up races by blinding drivers

4. zombies! Trust me on this one.

 

Does anyone have the HP part number for the hard drive caddy for the dv7t? TIA

 

goto newmode.us - i got my caddy from there. it came out to around $35 with shipping included. I think the caddy itself was $29.

I ordered it and it shipped from cali. they shipped it (or processed it to be shipped) within an hour of my order and it was in my paws, here in nyc, within 3 days. and that was with the 'default' shipping option.

the caddy from newmode.us is quality. i added another 320gb drive into my dv7t. and now this beast has 640gigs of storage built in. it's wonderful.

to answer your q, the hp part number for the caddy is 480457-001 - i got that from their documentation - page 26 of http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01550113.pdf

 

Hello,

Does anybody knows how easy/difficult to upgrade the CPU for this Dv7?

Thx

 

I returned my DV7-1019tx, which was a replacement for a previous DV7-1019tx that had faults.The replacement had the same, plus more, faults as the first one, which I bought 4 months ago.

The onboard audio was unballanced with the right hand speaker 30% louder.
Both the original & replacement were the same.
Nothing HP got me to do would change it, e.g. reinstall IDT driver, update BIOS & Factory Restore.

The fingerprint reader would stop working if the DV7 was left on for a few days. It would work again after a restart.

The vertical scroll of the touch pad stopped working. Never investigated as to why as to busy fighting the freezing & eratic behaviour of Vista.

Sometimes System Restore would open a second or two, other times it would take 3 minutes.

IE7 got dumped in favour of Firefox as it would freeze often.

I was concerned that the fan ran all the time. I thought that should only come on when a threshold was reached?
It would run at about 60 C browsing the Internet & listing to music, etc. Nothing demanding.
Once, whilst downloading a Torrent, the temperatures got to 75 C.
I wonder if, in a year or two, the high temperatures would cause premature failure?

The Infinity screen was on the dull side & the viewing angles were poor.
Dust specks were appearing behind the outer cover of the screen & the screen itself.

Sometimes it would shut down in about 45 seconds & the very next time would take anything betwen 10 to 20 minutes.

After doing a Factory Restore, I put on the same programs that I installed on my fresh install of Vista Home Premium on my Desktop. Both are running the same OS.The only difference is the preinstalled stuff from HP on the DV7. All the programs were reported to be compatible with Vista, as reported on Microsofts own compatibility web site.

Programs would run fine on the Desktop but would either freeze on the DV7 or, take 3 to 10 minutes to exacute a command, the twirling circle would go on & on & on...............
If I was lucky, it would not go 'white screen' & report that it had stopped resonding & would I like to check for a solution to the problem? (there never were any solutions offered).

The touchpad would click up & down on the top right corner.

Quick Play would either launch after a few seconds or would take 10 minutes or would not respond & have to be shut down with the Task Manager. I would use it's own updater to download the latest update & after I installed it, QP would still offer the update even thought the build numbers were the same.

The HP health tool would check to see if there were any driver & software updates & tell me there were none, even though I could see on the HP web site that there were newer drivers, etc, available.

The left click button below the touchpad would activate by itself, some times. I have 'single click' turned on & whilst hovering above a link, with my hands off the DV7, the link would activate.

Often the Blueray optical drive would not be seen by the OS, I would have to do a restart for it to be recongonized.

There were other small anoying things but you all get the drift of my frustrations..........

This was the first Notebook I had owned. HP wanted to send me a third DV7 but I declined.

I got a refund & have bought the Asus N50VN. It's only been 24 hours and so far am not regretting my choice.

As I am no longer a DV7 owner, I will not be posting again in this forum but will keep an eye on it to see how the DV7 develops over time. I can be found posting in the Asus N50VN thread on this site.

 

Theoldfarter: You worry me with your post while I'm waiting for my Dv7 to be delivered.

 

^ read the other 152 pages before worrying. this machine is stellar and yeah, some people get bad apples - it is inevitable with electronics.

kthx.

 

The overwhelming majority of dv7t owners are satisfied with their purchase, I know I am. Just wait for yours, give it test drive, and then decide if it was or was not a good purchase.

 

Ive had my dv7t for a month now and no problems at all, the 17" display and bronze color is sick
i use it for web browsing, a music jukebox and occasionally TF2 or AOE3, and those games run great

 

guys the dv7t i got is from best buy, the bronze color one, is it possible to buy an internal bluetooth for this monster? btw even with 4gb it feels kinda slow, maybe its just my vista perception hehe

 

You gotta do a bit of overhauling to get this beast moving. Get rid of all the junk that comes with it and run ccleaner.

 

i got this computer in september. specs in sig. i dont know why everyone hates vista. i like it a lot and its pretty fast. i just hate all the dirt that builds up between the infinity display and the actual screen.

 

Does the dv7t have a slot inside to install a Verizon broadband (mini-PCI) card?

Does the palmrest get warm/hot?

I just got a Studio 17 with the RGB LED screen and the palmrest gets very warm and annoys the hell out of me.

 

the palmrest on the left of the mousepad does get warm. fyi, it gets warmer if you are doing something that is cpu or hd intensive - like playing a game. i duno about the broadband but if you can go to the hp dv7t customization page, you can see what wireless options they do give you.

 

i had a dell as my first pc. from what i can tell, their laptops arent that great. and you can get a verizon card with the dv7t.

it doesnt bother me much. it feels good sometimes.

 

I got a DV7-1025nr back in October and I thought I would post my experiences with it.

SPECS:
Vista Home Premium 64-Bit (not a huge vista fan, more on this later).
Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 (2.26 Ghz)
Nvidia 9600M 512MB
4GB Ram
Built-in Webcam, DVD drive with lightscribe capabilities, etc.

For the better part of two months, I used Windows XP (completely wiping off vista) on this machine. It mostly ran fine, but I never could get the sound to work 100%. I use this pc for gaming, and the sound finally bugged me enough to put vista on there. Vista actually runs great on this machine, for everything i need to do. Gaming, DVD watching, music, General office stuff, etc.

My advice for making the PC run faster in vista: Disable aero, disable windows sidebar, disable windows search indexing. I also brought back the old start menu so it seems more like XP.

I don't have the PC in front of me at the moment but when I do i'll post some benchmark results.

 

I did a benchmark test. Here are the results:

Benchmark Results

Test Name: This Computer
CPU - Integer Math: 651.1
CPU - Floating Point Math: 987.7
CPU - Find Prime Numbers: 635.8
CPU - SSE: 5293.8
CPU - Compression: 6433.7
CPU - Encryption: 33.1
CPU - Image Rotation: 2177.8
CPU - String Sorting: 2946.7
Graphics 2D - Lines: 100.2
Graphics 2D - Rectangles: 68.9
Graphics 2D - Shapes: 41.6
Graphics 2D - Fonts and Text: 202.8
Graphics 2D - GUI: 134.8
Graphics 3D - Simple: 299.9
Graphics 3D - Medium: 66.6
Graphics 3D - Complex: 33.7
Memory - Allocate Small Block: 2282.5
Memory - Read Cached: 2057.1
Memory - Read Uncached: 1841.9
Memory - Write: 1578.7
Memory - Large RAM: 781.9
Disk - Sequential Read: 45.7
Disk - Sequential Write: 28.9
Disk - Random Seek + RW: 2.8
CD - Read: 0.0
CPU Mark: 1735.8
2D Graphics Mark: 398.1
Memory Mark: 631.5
Disk Mark: 279.9
CD Mark: 2.5
3D Graphics Mark: 128.1
PassMark Rating: 709.6

for some reason i never get a good cd read.

 

I got my DV7 in October and am really enjoying it.My palm rest on the left use to get really warm. I read a post on removing the remote control from this location. WOW! it is much cooler after removing it and leaving that slot clear. Only issue I've had is using Flash in the browser. I wish adobe would fix this SOON!

 

i've done this benchmark a couple times now and i keep getting horrible ratings on the cd- read and cd - mark. and ive been getting scores anywhere from 600 - 750.

 

Question about the video options:

Gaming and blu-ray playback is not that important to me. Would the Intel 4500MHD offer any benefit to battery life?

On the HP ordering site, they talk about the NVidia 9200M and 9600M being 1080p/HDCP/HDMI capable. Is the Intel 4500MHD not able to handle Blu-Ray playback?

Anybody with a P8400/P8600 that can comment on battery life with the 6-cell or 8-cell?

 

Does the video card have any influence on battery life?

 

^^^ absolutely. HP reccommends the higher capacity battery if you have the 512mb geforce card in your unit.

it may only consume more power if you're gaming - i am not 100% sure but it sounds logical.

 

i saw both of the dv7t reviews by Infamous on this site way before I got the computer. He said "I get aggravated when dust gets caught between the LCD bezel and the LCD panel itself. With the Infinity Display you won't have to worry about dust or any buildups." But that's obviously not true cuz dirt can get inside the infinity display which is even more annoying than getting dirt between the frame and lcd.

 

I'm waiting for mine, hopefully it will arrive this week. I'm getting it mostly for school work, but also for the bluray player. I will need to use HDMI out for the video to my tv, but i assume that unless you have the dock, you don't get any 5.1 output from this unit?

A simple audio solution is the turtle beach 7.1 USB audio card found HERE

This is a USB device that installs a software soundcard into the device manager and has the program of your choice output to .. well any type of audio connection thats common these days. It also handles 5.1 and 7.1 output. Plus, being USB, you can use it on any computer or laptop with USB ports. Just another idea for thsoe trying to get surround sound output from a laptop to your receiver or logitech z-5500/z-680 speakers.

 

I keep this thing plugged in half of the time. Then again, I watch movies or game half of the time.

 

I thought that hdmi had 5.1 built in.

i keep mine plugged in most of the time unless im too lazy to carry the ac adapter with me or im just bringing it into another room for 5 minutes and then going back.

 

With the HDMI output, can the output of the Blu-Ray disc be set for 1080i instead of 1080p? Apparently, my TV can only accept 1080i/720p but not 1080p. Thanks for your assistance.

 

HDMI does have 5.1 built in, but my tv only has stereo imput so I use a logitech z-680 speaker set for my TV. That's where an alternative output port would ahve been nice, but I guess i'll have to get the turtle beach adapter for 5.1.... or a new receiver.

 

Ordered a dv7t today. Going to see how it does vs my new Dell Studio 17 laptop which I'm inclined to return based on "hot palmrest" syndrome. Also don't like the color calibration problem with the RGB LED display on the Studio.

Reasons I considered the dv7t:
- P8600 processor available. Dell only offers the P8400 on the Studio 17.
- can get a WSXGA+ screen without the Infinity glare inducing overlay (was considering the HDX16 but those are Infinity displays, so no deal). I have a Dell Inspiron 6400 15.4" WSXGA+ display and am really just looking to make that a 17" screen so everything is a bit larger for these aging eyeballs. 1920x1200 is overkill for me and needs DPI adjustment in XP and a few apps don't render correctly with non-standard DPI.
- got the intel 4500MHD video - not interested in graphics performance - battery life is more important. If it can play Blu-Ray, great, if it doesn't, no biggie.
- upgrade to 320GB "protect smart" hard drive protection included. This feature is usually only available on Dell's more expensive Latitude laptops, not the lower level lines.
- lightscribe blu-ray rom/dvd rw for an additional $15 - can't beat that !
- was able to test drive it at Best Buy and play with it. Too bad Dell closed their mall kiosks where you could try the machines. For some strange reason Best Buy and Micro Center both no longer have the Studio 17 on display.

Although I have to say the HP ordering system needs some work - have not received an itemized order email yet. Dell usually does this within minutes.