*HP dv7t Quad Edition (429X / 5XXX series) Owners Lounge*

The HP Pavilion dv7t Quad Edition is a fifth generation dv7 notebook that features the new 2nd generation Intel Core i7 processors built on the "Sandy Bridge" micro-architecture. In addition, it features refreshed AMD Radeon 6570M graphics and a 2-year standard warranty. Aesthetically, the dv7t Quad Edition is very similar to that of the previous generation.

Source and more information: HP Pavilion dv7 and dv7t Quad Edition series | HP Official Store

For current and prospective owners, feel free to talk about anything that is related to this notebook -- it's your lounge!

 

Finally a DV7 lounge.

 

Might be a DV7T owner very soon... HP.com has a few offers I'm finding hard to turn down.

They have $150 instant rebate, free 6GB ram upgrade as well as a $200 off promo code.

A well equipped dv7 I configured earlier came out to $1000 on the dot.

 

Hello, dv7 owner here.

 

Hey all you owners...

Can you confirm that the 6570 is GDDR5 in this laptop? HP told me it was DDR3...

 

It is GDDR5 - I posted a screenshot in the other thread.

 

Hello fellow owner.

 

Ordered mine from Walmart. Should have it in hand tomorrow or the 13th. My Vertex 2 came in today from newegg.

Did you guys put a SSD in your dv7 yet?

 

"well equipped?" I'd love to know what specs you put on.... My config was $1664.99 Not even close to your $1,000....

Operating system Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit edit
Processor 2nd generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2820QM (2.3 GHz, 8MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 3.4 GHz edit
Graphics card 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 6570 graphics [HDMI, VGA] edit
Memory 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm) edit
Hard drive 640GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection edit
Office software No Additional Office Software edit
Security software No additional security software edit
Primary battery 9-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (over-sized) - Up to 5.0 hours of battery life +++ edit
Display 17.3" diagonal HD+ HP BrightView LED Display (1600 x 900) edit
Primary optical drive Blu-ray writer & SuperMulti DVD burner edit
Personalization HP TrueVision Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone + HP SimplePass Fingerprint Reader edit
Networking Intel 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth(R) edit
Keyboard Standard Keyboard


KJ

 

A link to the drivers page:
Software & Driver Downloads HP Pavilion dv7-4290us Entertainment Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

 

You really overpaid for that CPU. You probably wouldn't have noticed much of a difference between it and even the 2630QM. You might as well have waited for the new Envy 17.

 

Sorry for the confusion! I did not order it, just played with the configuration tool, lol. I am still holding out for the SB version of the Envy 17 3D.... I also checked out the Alienware M17x, but if I do get an Alienware its gonna ba a gamer.... either the M18x, or beyond. I still want to own a cool Envy...

KJ

 

Yes sir. MicroCenter's rebadged A-DATA 64gb (60gb actual) Sandforce SSD. < 20sec to get to the fingerprint login screen. 2 more secs to get the desktop ready and completely loaded (even the sidebar items)

 

Does the dv7tqe have switchable graphics? Hp's website does not list the graphics card as switchable, but on the drivers page it list drivers for the integrated graphics as well as for the amd graphics. I am interested in using the integrated graphics for it's superior accelerated video encoding/transcoding. I know that this feature must be enabled by the manufacturer. So, if this feature is not supported right now, can it be implemented in the future with a driver update, or is this something that can only be implemented in hardware at the factory? Thanks.

 

Maybe I'm missing something, but the i7-2630QM is not even listed at intel.com as a processor with the rest of the sandy bridge CPU's. I did a search for it and nothing. There is an i7-2720QM and a i7-2820QM, but no i7-2630QM.

Where to find out info on this thing?

Also, while the 2820QM may garner a high price, it also has 8MB cache, where as the others supposedly only have 6MB. That is a big performance enhancement.

Interestingly, intel specs show that you can have TWO 2720QM's in a system, but only one 2820QM.

Still, where is some specs on that 2630QM chip???

 

Intel and Lucid was demonstrating the software only solution by Lucid at CES recently. I heard it being discussed over at This Week in Computer Hardware podcast at the TWiT.tv network

 

It hasn't been switchable using HP's drivers for the Intel HD graphics - it gives me an error message saying my hardware doesn't meet the eligibility requirements.

Software only would be great, although I'm happy with the battery life so far - I'm getting 4 - 4.5 hours in balanced mode at the moment using this for work.

 

Did that graphic come from Intel's site? Is the i7-2630QM more like an i7-640 than an i7-720, in that it has integrated graphics and the i7-27xx and i7-28xx do not have integrated graphics?

 

Thanks, I will take a listen.

 

Thanks for the info on it not being switchable at this point. I am interested in using the HD3000 graphics because they are almost twice as fast as the AMD discrete card at video encoding. The battery life improvement would be nice, but that is not what I am after.

 

All SB chips have integrated graphics, including the 27xx, 28xx, and above. What changes, atleast on the mobile side, is how high the graphics turbo to. If you look at the two 26xx on the picture you see that the difference is about 100mhz in turbo. The 27xx and above go slightly higher than that I believe.

 

Here's an article on Anandtech demonstrating this as well:
Lucid Enables Quick Sync with Discrete Graphics on Sandy Bridge - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

It's still a demo at this point - Anandtech estimates beta soon.

 

KJ,

Yours came out to that much because you opted for the top of the line CPU which I think is a bit unnecessary lol

My config was similar to yours but with either the 2630qm, a 9cell battery and office 2010, or the 2720qm. Both came out to about $1000 which right now is by far the best bang for buck I've seen in quite some time.

I'm still waiting for the new envy though

 

Got my dv7-4290us today... I'm satisfied so far. I like the button on the battery that shows you how much it's charged.

Expect to spend 30-45 minutes removing HP bloatcrap if you don't opt for a wipe (which I didn't out of driver concerns).

 

Congrats JJJJust!

 

Mine came in yesterday. Didn't have time to mess with it. Today I was able to -make the recovery Disc (took like 4 hours).
-Download the clean W7 iso (got like 5 minutes left)
-back up the SwSetup folder on my old pc, 2 DVDs, and my external HDD

I plan on taking this HDD out and putting in my OCZ 120gb later today. When I get the hard drive caddie, I plan on putting the HDD this laptop came with in the 2nd drive bay and leaving it alone. That way I have a working backup if something were to happen to my SSD.

Hopefully this x64 ISO works for me. That 3 file thingy didn't.

Bravoexo. What are your idle CPU temps? On Skpye I am in the 60-63C range. Idle I am in the 52-55C range. Is that normal or so I get a cooling dock for this thing.

First time on W7. The only gadgets I got are Network Meter and CPU Usage. Any others I should use?

 

Congrats, Tycobb.

Without AC in the room, and coolsense at balance, yes you won't go under 50C. (CPU and GPU are sharing the same heatsink, remember)

I've managed to hit 90C (just 10C til maxTJ he he), with no permanent damage (will not do that again with cinebench...)

You will notice some heat soak on the palm rests once you put that SSD (it did with mine). So a U3 was my solution.

But now that I'm back here in my country, the AC is always on... 41C-44C on idle. 65C max while playing GRID for several races.

The restore partition takes 32Gb...and HP's restore process puts all of that back in the SSD before restoring the thing... which obviously failed on my and my small SSD. oh well, hard lesson learned.

I use the All Monitor + CoreTemp running to track core heat temps.

 

I received mine today (dv7-5050es in Spain) and the fan is going nuts all evening.

Can anybody be so kind to post the sound drivers? I deleted the recovery partition (burned the dvd´s) but I can´t find the sound drivers anywhere.

 

I am having trouble taking off the primary hard drive cover. I can't get the bottom left screw out.

 

Hmm... when you turn does it click? if it does, it's out.

At the top part (inverted T), near the battery slot, in the middle, there should be a slot to put your finger nail in and just pull the protectsmart cover once all the screws have been unscrewed.

 

MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service

 

I finally got it out. I think the cover was stuck on something. I had to almost rip one side off.

Right now I got the Vertex 2 in and it is installing W7. I wish i could have gotten the USB drive to be bootable. Doing the DVD way now. Hopefully everything works.

Did you change the BIOS at all?

 

Thanks a lot!

 

Bravoexo - Were you able to get AHCI in the bios changed?

 

I think its AHCI on already. (Well, the windows registry was already set to 0) so I think it's already in AHCI mode. The BIOS is surprisingly sparse in configurability.

 

Ok I got everything running...I think. I had a little scare when I flashed my Vertex2 but I think everything is good now.

Here is my windows experience scores.

Processor : 7.4
RAM: 7.6
Graphics: 6.9
Gaming graphics: 6.9
Primary Hard disk: 7.8

Not too bad...right?

 

Excellent scores.

 

I'm so jealous...
I'm pretty sure my dv6 is going back for a new SB dv7...

I'm just in the process of seing if HP will allow me to use my $500 off
$1399 coupon.

Question...is it worth it to order the Windows 7 recovery disk?

 

Take a look at your temps. HP might have screwed-up with the thermal paste/pads on the CPU and GPU.

 

Not really, you have so many ways to make them. Direct 8 DVD restore creation.... partition backup... make iso's after creating the recovery disks. The only thing I can think of is you're not patient enough to endure the long process of burning them (takes 4 hours, per Tycobb)

 

My first 4290US was having fan issues as well - it kept constantly revving up and down every few seconds. It was noticeable and annoying in a quiet room.

It turned out that the CPU fan had a bad bearing, which was also causing a winding noise. The Microcenter was kind enough to swap it for another 4290US earlier this week.

 

I had problems with my cover also when I swapped out my HDD. This is my 3rd Pavilion DV7 (I had the Gen 1 and Gen 3) - this was by far the most difficult cover to remove.

 

I took half an hour... coz I didn't see the fingernail slot on top. ha ha..

 

The temps are fine. Now it´s idling at 50C-52C. The fan is behaving quite nicely this morning. Here are the temps now:



It´s not about the heat, it was the noise that was driving me mad last night.

I have the "Always ON" setting in the BIOS and the 2nd option selected in HP Thermal assistant.

 

What's the name of that gpu gadget? need to have that... he he

 

It´s GPU Observer.

You can find it here:

OrbLog Blog Archive GPU Observer – Sidebar Gadget

EDIT: By the way, what Turbo Boost driver version you have? I installed 2.0 last night and it´s quite a resource hog... I guess I´m sticking with 1.04.

 

I was thinking that the temps might have been why the fan was so loud. Though, I wouldn't call 50C a very good idle temp unless you're in high performance mode (which I wouldn't recommend using all the time).

 

I've really become hooked on a new DV7 but what's the noise-level like?

 

Actually I think that 50C is OK. These CPU have a TDP of 45W and they can go up to 90C or so.

Anyway HP should release a BIOS update that fixes these crazy fans.