*HP dv7t Quad Edition (3XXX series) Owners Lounge*

^^^

Dear hanzohattori12,

if you are not interested in blu ray, i think the price is fine. to be honest i pay 1425$ +100$ shipping to Saudi Arabia and i was looking for asus with 1 GB DDR5 ATI Graphics card which support direct X 11, but you know i hate there designs. then i moved arround to Toshiba Qosmio i think the price is the same but the heavy wight more than 10 Pounds. So, I already have HDX 16nand it is nice but you know i want to move to 17.3 since it is the best according to me "between 16 and 18". so, the conclusion you get the best choice my friend.

 

I do render a lot of videos, but have only recently begun using serious HD.
Opted for no Blue-ray, so that is not an issue (so far).
Waiting for prices to come down seems like a smart course. When I do buy, I hope it will give me a performance jump. My editing preview could be a little smoother.
Thanks,
BG

 

Anyone with the 320m done any gaming with it yet?

 

As someone else has already pointed out it is usually possible. Personally I believe that 4GB is plenty of memory. The biggest factor is the speed of that memory. If you had 500GB of DDR1 ram vs 4GB of ddr3 ram, the 4 gigs is far superior.

Unless you are having serious memory problems with your 4 gigs I would wait a few months for prices to drop at which point I would buy 2 sticks of 4. Quality is much better than quantity, as long as you have a decent amount and you do.

Also, if you find that your using a lot of your 4 gigs (thus using your page file a lot) you can buy a usb stick or SD card and use ready boost. (I used to use an SD card and leave it in all the time, usb sticks are more common but more practical for a desktop.) Windows will store a cache of your pagefile on the SD card so when you are swapping you can swap using the flash which is many times faster than you HDD. Also, it is only a copy of your pagefile so if it gets pulled out instead of crashing windows will just resume swapping with the pagefile on disk. The one I bought for my laptop was a 4GB (I forget the brand) and I paid $12 off of newegg.

Also note that if you are using an SSD windows 7 has disabled the ready boost option as there is no need for it.

 

You can always buy a blueray drive later, and it is actually cheaper. (See my post a few pages ago).

 

1. Price all depends to you. For me my laptop is an essential part of my life. I bring it to school with me, I do research on it, I play games on it, so I can justify spending a little more on it. It is probably my number 1 source of entertainment.

2. I'm using the 320m, I wish I would have gotten the 230m but really that is only because it looks to be better. I have experienced no limitations with the 320m but it is like if you are eating a cookie and the person next to you has a bigger cookie. I haven't tested it with serious gaming yet, but the windows experience is over double what my last laptop had so I can't believe that it would dissappointment.

3. On my laptop it is 6 for gaming graphics and 5.8 for graphics. (Last page or the page before I listed my entire index scores.)This is before any tweaking whatsoever, not even in the NVIDIA control panel so it might be possible to improve even without overclocking, which is also an option. (No plans for me, I'm happy with the results thus far)

4. Not positive on this one but I don't believe so. I didn't look into it but if it was I'm sure it would be the first thing advertised.

5. Yes but you are going to need to buy a new caddy. A caddy interfaces a standardized hard drive with proprietary laptops. The cost is about $50 and you can either buy them from the parts store or for a few bucks cheaper I bought mine from newmode.us. However I haven't tested it yet.

 

GPU temperature question on a DV7t with GT230M.

My temp. is 100-130 F,

is this normal?

I thought I saw posts with temps. around 60-70

 

Celsius vs Fahrenheit, yes its normal

 

Thanks, just wanted to make sure everything was OK

 

Flight Simulator 9 with settings pinned high...BEAUTIFUL!

 

I just bought this laptop, have 2 questions:

1. How can I clean install windows 7 without having to install the bloatware?

2. I just formatted the laptop and had put in a clean install of Windows 7, now when I play FLASH videos in full screen for example Youtube, the video gets stuck but the audio runs fine, and when I exit full screen, video and audio works.

Thanks.

 

Probably need to update flash, if not the video driver might need updated. Windows is generally pretty good about getting a video driver, but for max performance your going to want the one off of HP or if you are really ambitious the one off NVIDIA.

 

I got the latest video driver from Nvidia, and I have the latest flash....I tried everything cant seem to work it out.

 

What is your resolution set at?

 

How stupid is this, Windows 7 won't let me put something in the startup folder...


Edit: Fixed that, had to give myself full control.

 

Does anyone know how to get a hold of the F.16 BIOS for a dv7t-3300 dated January 2010? I really need it...

 

what's the "defective core charge?" i went to hp's parts store to find out about the blu-ray drives and i'd like to know what it is.

 

Defective core charge is for the return of a defective part.

Just google Defective core charge

Try this link
http://h20141.www2.hp.com/HPPARTS/(S(22onjo551pv0in553nrff0uc))/Faq.aspx

 

i did, but not much came up. thanks for clearing that up for me, though.

 

Several people in other forums have experienced problems with the BIOS update. I avoided it like the plague. I'll stay on F.13 until I'm forced to or need to. Sorry, another "senior moment"!

 

Truer words have never been spoken.And installing new drivers ( for anything, including audio/video cards) the day they comes out is unwise. I always wait a week or two and see if they are stable or causing other people problems.

 

Superfetch/readyboost uses usb drives to cashe hard drive data and thats not the same thing as the page file. Im not sure, but I dont think windows will even let you put the page file on a usb drive. I am sure that if you want to put the page drive on a drive other than the primary drive ( which is a good idea if you have multiple internal drives) you have to go into the settings and tell it where you want to put it and its size. Readyboost pretty much runs on its own ,deciding what files ( usually those most often read) to put on the usb drive speeding up opening applications.
Its kind of pointless comparing ddr1 to ddr3 because this machine only uses ddr3 ,We know ddr3 is better, thats why we have it .What we are talking about are mismatched sticks of ddr3..which will not run as well as matched sticks because part of it wont run in dual channel mode and the memory timing will be that of the slowest stick.But I agree with everything else you said.

 

I was just exaggerating that most people believe that 6GB is always better than 4GB but that isn't always true. comparig ddr1 to ddr3 was just a quick way to express that in a way that most people should understand.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/readyboost.aspx

 

Open your task manager and see how much memory you actually are using , if you are writing to the pagefile alot, then a memory upgrade might be warranted ( but not at these prices) but for standard video I would be surprised. The main thing is that you have a good quad core processor.I haven't tried blueray rendering with this laptop yet ( I use my desktop, win xp. core2duo quad Q9550, 4 gig ram for this task with no problems) I expect this laptop to be close to this in regard to this task (its not as powerful as the desktop overall but it excels in some things- video rendering is one)

 

I must be a little slow, but I dont understand what point you are making with the ready boost link.

 

So I am doing a fresh install today on my SSD. What is the best way to do this and yet preserve drivers and maybe microsoft works, ect.

Thanks

 

Well, I just got the laptop, dv7t-3300, and it came loaded with F.16 on it. I was having a problem with the wireless card. I tried everything, thought I would check the BIOS. HP only lists F.13A for my WH764AV model number. I thought that maybe the driver on the card wasn't compatible with the BIOS. I installed F.13A and it killed my video, completely. No secondary monitor or anything. I have to send it to HP now. They are refusing to give me the F.16, saying they don't have it. It came on the damn laptop, I don't see how they don't have it. I've been searching the internet but cannot find F.16, not with a date of Jan 2010 anyway. But, yes, F.16 with the 365C ID would fix my Laptop, and HP is once again, completely useless.

 

If you have no video on the lcd or a secondary monitor... even if I was able to find you the F.16 version, how do you plan on flashing it to your bios?


Also, I have never heard of this before. But couldn't I make a backup of my F.16 bios and then send it to you? I know the total size of my bios is about 1.5MB, so the backup file shouldn't be bigger than that.

 

I don't know the answer to this so I'll ask: would the recovery disk repair this fault? Also, I ordered the Windows recovery disk with my laptop. Is this really my recovery disk now and I don't have to create a backup recovery disk?

 

Almost certainly not.The bios is sort of a mini operating system that lives in a memory chip on the motherboard called an eeprom , is not part of windows or an application so it isnt part of the recovery disk package.( which are copies of the 4 partitions on the hard drive} He has a recovery partition on his hard drive and he could recover from that( isnt it key f11 at startup? ) but the bios probally wont let him get that far into the boot process.( it wouldnt help him anyway because the bios isnt there)Does the bios try to start and fails to turn the system over to windows or will it not start at all.I confess I dont know how to flash the bios on this machine.Sometimes you to do it thru windows and sometimes from a bootable disk you create.Plese tell us how the bios fails( if its the former and you can flash from an external device without being in windows..theres hope if someone can find the bios.)Let us know and Ill look up flashing procedures.I am 98% positive the bios isn't on the recovery disk, it never is..I would call hp and ask them but they arnt even half sure of anything.Heres what the website says about flashing the bios:


Keeping Your BIOS Up-To-Date
HP constantly improves its products and provides software updates to its users. The software on your notebook PC is composed of driver, firmware, and application files. You should periodically check if an updated BIOS is available to keep your HP computer running properly. By knowing the current version of the BIOS on your PC, you can determine if a newer version is available on the HP Web site.
The BIOS system can be updated with a process called 'flashing.' There are different types of flashing utilities; however, they all accomplish the same thing. Close all other programs before trying to flash the BIOS.
Winflash or HPQFlash is the most commonly used process. Download the file to the hard drive, and double-click the file to start the flash. Read and follow the instructions to complete the flash. Do not use the PC until the flash is complete and the PC has been restarted.
ROM Image is used by companies when they need to update many PCs at the same time. Download the file to the place on the network, then access the file from each PC.
ROMPaq involves restarting the PC with a bootable disc, CD, or USB key. Download the file to the hard drive, and double-click the file to create a bootable disc. Insert the bootable disk and restart the PC to flash the BIOS during the startup.


Old Shadow ..I would still create the backup recovery disk even though now you do have one from hp.WHY? Because its free and having a spare backup recovery disk set cannot be a bad thing.( and its not like HP has never screwed up anything before , right)

 

Whenever you flash your bios...on anything...you take a risk.Not only that there are problems with the bios..but if there is ANY problem installing it, or if you have the wrong bios or if you have a corrupted download ( ect) your device is dead.I update drivers somewhat regulary( after they are proven bug free) but flashing the bios..I need a compelling reason to do so.

 

I was told by Cyberlink to update my VGA/Sound card driver, after they saw my DxDiagx64. They did not tell how. Actually, I can figure THAT part out, but I am not finding the VGA reference in the Device Manager, and am I looking for 2 drivers, a VGA and a sound card?

Display Devices: Date: 11/20/2009
Sound Devices: Date: 2/5/2010

Their answer was a little muddled.

 

thanks Devilsbane. actually i spent my time on the notebook after getting back from work. playing some games and watching HD movies. regarding to nVidia 320m amd its score it seems to be similar to 130m that i have in my HDX16 as the following image:



actually the performance is great in games such as COD MW2 and today i try BF BC2 and it was imazing. Also i watch a Full HD movie on my HDX16 and the size of the Movie was 43 Gig and it was imazing using Windows7codecs + KM Player. So, I hope the 320m will be the same.

thanks for your reply.

 

Thanks Joe, I'll take your advice and create a backup recovery disk set.

 

My laptop is at work so I cant walk you thru this...but it should be under display adapters.Id look back thru this forum and see what driver version other users are upgrading sucessfully to if I were you. ( me ..I havent updated my drivers, no need to) Because I dont have my computer here I cant say for sure...but your video drivers have to have an audio component ( if just for the hdmi)..but they are probally saying to upgrade both audio card and video card drivers.
The reason Im posting is to tell you that when you go to technical service for ANY software or hardware product, the first thing you are going to be told is to upgrade your drivers/software to the latest version. Thats the universal step one, regardless if its the answer to the problem or not.( and often it is- but often it isnt)
Im somewhat familiar with cyberlink , I assume you have a bluray problem. What I have to say is that NOBODY makes a software player that is anywhere as reliable as a hardware player. Ive had alot of software players, dissapointments with each one.You wont find perfection.You would be better off going to the cyberlink forum and see if others have the same problem as you ( there are alot of people with problems over there I can promise you)or post the question there as they are familiar with the program. (I have the cyberlink blueray suite,bought cyberlink power dvd 9 and I now use something else as my main blueray player. Alot of people use multiple software players because they all have their strengths and weaknesses}
I hope that helped somewhat ?

 

If I had the windows InsydeFlash executable, then I could run the program in windows using the ease of access narrator, like I have been doing to try and fix it. I don't know if the backup from your BIOS would do the trick or how to install it.

 

I'm sure that its the same one. I currently have the F.16 (from January 2010) and all of the numbers you were talking about are listed on mine.

I have only flashed a bios once or twice and it has been some time, but it seems to me the first step was backing up the old one. Now where the backup got put I don't know. Maybe you were allowed to save it somewhere, maybe it just auto saved somewhere. (Or maybe it didn't happen and I'm mistaken??) Maybe you can pull the HDD and plug it into another computer using a USB adapter and look for files created around the same time that you flashed your bios. Now if you find something, I don't know exactly how to load it into your bios, maybe its some sort of .exe?

Again I don't know if the technology exists, but if you can find a program to read my bios and save it to a file I can do that and email it to you. And even if somehow it is the wrong version, what is the worst that could happen? A pc with no display is just as useless as a pc that doesn't power up.

 

I'm pumped my laptop was supposed to be built by march 5th, I just got an email a few hours ago stating my laptop has shipped, almost wish I would have paid extra for 2 day shipping

 

My problem is HiDef tape capture. I have been unable to capture HD from my HV30, unless I use my wife's XP laptop, then transfer to my DV7t.
My laptop will only capture as SD quality from tape, no matter what program I use. Has anyone captured HDV tape successfully using this laptop and Windows 7?
Thanks for your time, glad I found this forum, I am a senior member of the CL forum, but no one can fix this. Not cyberlink, HP, or Canon. But this is a common issue on the web, HDV capture/Windows 7/laptop.

 

I ordered standard shipping, it was supposed to be built and shipped by friday the 26th but instead shipped on monday and arrived on the 26th. I bet if I would have paid extra it just would have shipped on Wednesday or something. (But I had the same feeling when I saw mine shipped).

 

I thoroughly searched the web for a way to capture from HV20/30/40 to HP DV7-3080us and found the only fix that worked. Now I can capture HDV to DV7 with absolutely no problems.

What you need is the JMicron 1394 Filter Driver (sp45057.exe) located here: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3860262&os=2100&lang=en

I originally downloaded from here ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=404164 ) but it is no longer listed/available.

Please backup/create restore point before installing and use at your own risk.

Also before installing, I deleted the generic 1394 firewire driver installed by Windows7.

I hope this helps.

 

Hi all. I am a refugee from the dv8 forum. I am scrupulously trying to avoid the letter or spirit of a double post here, but this is one subject that uniquely must be addressed to both the dv8 and dv7 Quad forums. (Protect me from accusal of double posting, lol!) In the dv8 forum I posted an impassioned plea to combine our two forums. The reason is that each of our respective forums have trickled to a virtual halt, and since our machines are virtually identical, concerns of dv7 Quad owners should be the same as dv8 owners, other than the different screens. I just don't want either of us to become "orphans, as may be HP's product plans. There's more strength in numbers, and one would be more likely to bother posting if there was a reasonable expectation that there would be enough traffic to get a thoughtful discussion, or at least some advice, from doing so. I have asked an NBR forum manager to consider it and two weeks ago he said no, that each owner group would want their own forum. But traffic on both forums - more so the dv8, has all but died off since then - by coincidence, or I was clairvoyant, lol.

If we can't get a reasonable forum going, I'm thinking of heresy: get a Dell Studio XPS or a Sony F!!

Comments welcomed.

 

I have actually been looking at the F series Vaio and the Studio XPS after playing with an F series at Best Buy the other day and liking the higher resolution screen and better graphics cards offerings. Even considering the DV8 but the overall size has me not liking it.

I am also arguing with myself on what I NEED/Actually use vs. WANT. Its a tough battle lol.

 

Installed the SSD last night and reran my tests. Oddly enough my graphics dropped but HDD jumped a ton. Can't really explain the other number variances, I have noticed discrepencies in the past and maybe I was just running a program this time that I wasn't before.

Processor: 7.1
Memory: 7.4
Graphics: 5.7
Gaming Graphics: 5.9
Primary Hard Disk: 7.4

I notice a significant improvement, booted up in 24 seconds earlier today. Very Impressive. Now I just need to make Windows 7 bend over and not suck.

 

I would strongly advise you to get the Dell or the SONY. (Not even a question if gaming is important to you). The Dell is very currently refreshed and they are very responsive to forums like this to fix problems and the Sony F is a brand new series with rave reviews and great specs and options, for a fair price. The dv8 appears to be an "orphan" product of HP - they are no longer discounting it and it is way overpriced compared to the two competitors I mention. It also does not offer the new core i5 processors (similar power, less heat, longer battery life), which both the Dell and SONY models do. HP is focusing all it's product development and marketing resources on the ENVY line, which has some wonderful features and important shortcomings.

Ask the same question at each of the other product forums.

 

Oh, and, note that I own a dv8 *and* that I am quite happy with it. It's just that the forums at NBR are all but closed down and sales are at a trickle. HP seems to providing no support and I believe they may soon announce a replacement. HP traditionally have not kept their large, multimedia notebooks in the line for long. The predecessor to the dv8, the HDX-18 was a lovely machine that offered premium, North American service, and it was pulled from the line after only a year and "replaced" with the dv8, which is nothing but a stripped down (eg, no backlit keyboard option) "plan vanilla" Pavillion DTR. It was a captivating buy at $900-$1,000 with $350-$500 off around Christmas.

Sour grapes? Yeah, a little. As much for NBR, who won't do things to breathe an ounce of life into the forums for dv8 owners as for HP. On the other hand, once HP does discontinue the dv8, you will probably get a buy on the close outs of the old ones, and they will still have excellent power features and a gorgeous screen.

 

I just received a dv7t-3300 and need to find the tuner drivers for the Integrated HDTV Hybrid Tuner. I'm not having any luck. Anyone have any info regarding this? It would be greatly appreciated.

 

Try this page:
http://www.hphdx.net/FAQ.aspx?&TID=9
some good samartin posted this first in July of last year and has been updating it ever since. He posts either the last best stable driver from HP or, where HP is clearly behind the curve, posts drivers from other computer or peripheral hardware mfrs but doesn't post until they have proven stable. These are supposed to be drivers that work for all Pavillion dv-6, dv7 and dv8 models with the Core i7-720 or -820 cpus, and the Nvidia GM 9600, GM 230 and GM 320 graphics cards. Read the disclaimers and warnings carefully, and also the release notes where published. I have downloaded a handful of these for my dv8 and *never* had a problem, though I did with the "official" drivers shown for my model. Note, there is an HP integrated TV Tuner driver on this page. Good luck.

 

Thanks a bunch! That's exactly what I was looking for.

 

Pleasure, you may also want to try this:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=404164

It is a separate thread within the HP/Compaq and Voodoo PC forum that deals with all matters - driver on the dv6, 7 and 8 + HDX 16 and HDX 18. The posts generally describe whether the drivers/patches apply to all machines or just specific ones. Good idea to scroll through it and get some good general info, even if not directly pertinent to an answer you seek. Good luck and keep posting!