*HP dv8 Owners Lounge*

I definitely plan to keep it plugged in unless I am on a plane. I plan on using it while in school and for my own entertainment....I am not worried about gaming..that's what the ps3 is for!

 

I think that bag might be to small. It says 16.5". Check out this link. And select the 18.4" catagory at the top of the page.
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/accessories.jsp?category=carrying+cases#1263363488555
Never mind I just read the reviews on your bag and many reviewers said it fit an 18.4". Nice bag! I guess you get what you pay for.

 

Nope just the $75 extra. It picks up HD content for free with the antenna. So you could probably pick up HD anywhere. Well worth the $75 imo.

The bluetooth is nice and is only $25 extra. I got it for mice because a lot of them now connect using bluetooth so its good to have.

 

Definitely going with Bluetooth option! I also will go with the Blu Ray burner now that I know that it can burn to a Dual Layer BR Disc!

I asked earlier about the differences between Win 7 Home premium and Ultimate editions.... I can get the Ultimate for 99, but is it overkill?

 

I can't believe I am siding with a red sox fan!
But I am also using the same driver as jeffrey25, did the nvam.inf mod and have no freezing issues coming out of sleep. And this is after a fresh install of Windows 7 this past weekend.

 

I don't think any of us can answer your Win 7 version question. It's more up to how you are going to use your laptop. If you need some of the other features that Ultimate offers over Home Premium, then yes you should get it. I don't need them and am happy with the Home Premium version.

 

The very best feature is Xp mode (its in pro as well)

its an amazingly usefull feature. i have 7 ult signature edition waiting to go on a dv8 when i pull the trigger

 

Question regarding the dv8#s HDMI output....

Does anyone use their dv8 to connect to a large plasma/LCD?
Can the HDMI port output 1080p or is it less?
I read somewhere that the HDMI output is less than the full 1080p resolution but can't see it in the official specs.

 

I have had mine hooked up to my Sharp 45" LCD a few times to play blue ray discs at 1080p via HDMI with no problems at all. My TV only accepts 1080p input, so I know for sure that the DV8's HDMI output is at 1080p.

 

See I don't get that, today I had mine in sleep mode for 4 hours while I was at class and it resumed fine. No problems whatsoever. But why do I get lockups using the latest version of Nvidia?????

 

Thanks - good to know. I just looked it up. I think it must be the VGA port that's limited. For example, you can't output the dv8 to an external 1920x1080p monitor (let alone a 30" 2500x1600 monitor). The maximum external resolution on the VGA port is 1600x1200 despite the internal monitor being 1920x1080p. A strange quirk.

 

i second that....the only reason i got the prof version was coz of the xp mode....consdering how Win 7 is new...having the backward compatiblity is priceless....

 

Well... There was flex in the keyboard I can tell you that, but the keyboard was damned broken. Pressing a key did not give a response or anything. It just did not work. The HP Exchange process was the worst thing ever. If it werent for such the good Cyber Monday deal, I would NEVER EVER EVER buy an HP EVER again!!! lol(so many never and evers). I spoke to HP multiple times. And do you know what? I returned my laptop last week and HP give me the shipping label, WITH THE WRONG BARCODE. So FedEX lost my package and then HP canceled my return. I spent countless hours talking to HP to resolve this problem and now its okay. However, my orignal exchange was suppost to ship on Jan 26, NOW ITS FEB 6TH!!! HP is a load of crap. They didn't even compensate for all of this.
I will never buy a laptop from them again.

 

I'm using the 1.8644 and i never had a bluescreen until... today.

I was using the sleep mode without screen saver for 1 month but today i just installed Dream Aquarium. After a period of 5 hours of sleep mode, i got the blue screen.

The question is, are you using a screen saver (using Direct X)?

I realy think that sleep mode and Direct X screen saver are giving the blue screen when they are used togheter.

Waiting for feedbacks.

 

I actually downloaded some screen savers from wincustomize.com and I had them set to go on after 10 minutes. This could be an issue. I'm glad I'm not alone lol. But here is the best fix. UNINSTALL ALL THE NVIDIA DRIVERS. THEN RESTART AND LET WIDNOWS FIND THE DRIVER ONLINE. USE THAT DRIVER. IT SHOULD BE DATED 7/23/2009. This is the best solution imo. You won't get the black screen saying Nvidia has stopped responding and you won't get the freeze after resuming from sleep.

 

I empathize. I had to return a HP laptop to replace the faulty graphics card, and guess what - they changed the hard drive instead. And then they returned it with the same faulty graphics card. They never read my notes or tested the laptop. They ignored everthing I said and wrote. Unbelievably incompetent service. It took ages on the phone to organize it to be sent away again - four weeks later it and I'm still waiting.

 

That is totally unacceptable. Why do large corporations like HP act this way. Simple carelessness. I believe when the computer is shipped back to get fixed they fix it here in the US. Wouldn't these guys take the time to make sure they repair the right piece of hardware. I know if I was working for a computer company in repair I would thoroughly re-read all directions left by the owner and make sure it worked correctly before shipping it back.

But it doesn't surprise me that the hardware in these computers doesn't last long. That's why I got the 2yr accidental damage warranty. Hopefully I'll never have to use it but its there. I strongly recommend that everyone who purchases a computer today buy an extended warranty. Its never foolish. Unfortunately, you won't be the last person who gets his computer back with the same problem. I have read Dell behaves the same way.

 

yea HP CS is the worst thing ever. They also tried to steal money as well. They charged around $400 dollars more than it was suppost to be charged when I did the exchange process as well.
Hopefully our replacements won't be as faulty.

 

We are using the same driver.

Except this problem, i'm very happy with this driver. No black screens (ok 2 blacks screens of half second in 1 month) and my GPU temp dosn't go over 62° even with a nice overclock (625 mhz, shader 1400 mhz and memory 1024 mhz).

Actualy i don't use Dream Aquarium anymore and the problem seems to be fixed. Waiting for an update from HP to use Dream Aquarium again...

 

Anyone use a 12 cell battery yet? I am tempted to buy this 12 cell battery because I'll now be bringing this laptop to school. I'll want to use it when I have an hour between class. Any input on this battery?

http://cgi.ebay.com/12cells-Battery...ItemQQptZLaptop_Batteries?hash=item45effd9c06

 

Hi,

I got a new DV8t with the 820 processor, 8GB RAM and 1TB disk. So far very happy (aside from the fact screen is so reflective). So far I have not seen any of the problems discussed here.

Question: is it possible to overclock the system? my laptop is almost always connected to the brick so there is no lack of juice. What side effects can this have if at all possible?

Thanks.

 

long short answer- the i7 has overclocking built into it. You cannot overclock it further.

Any attempts will more then likely cause you to never have children and force you to move into your parents basement for the duration of your natural life.

No really.. its overclocked from the factory and I dont believe that anyone has managed to find a way to tweak or hack it into overclocking further

 

Im stuck in a rut with this video driver, don't know If I should go with the new one, or do what mattmjb does. So far I only see 3 posters that have done the update, and out of those 3, matt is the only one with the freezing problem, and that looks due to a screensaver maybe? Anyone else have the latest drivers on and everything working 100%?

Thanks!

 

also here is a thread for the issue on the hp forums:

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Displa...stops-responding-and-periodic-BSOD/m-p/204903

ugh, the headache continues, there are over 3 seperate "fixes" on this thread. So another poll question

Who here has the new BIOS update working? i dont want to update my bios and have to turn off my fan.

 

LOL! Thanks SMoses

 

Try for yourself. With the new updated driver test it with a screensaver and without. If you experience a lockup after resuming from sleep then we know its the screen saver. Personally I find it best to just let Windows install the driver. I have HAD NO PROBLEMS with this method so far. I'll just keep using it until HP releases a new driver.

Installing the new bios will just make the fan run all the time. All you have to do is change the settings to factory default and it runs exactly when it did before on the old bios. Keep us posted though.

 

Looks like im going to go with the method you went with, since its running stable. As for the bios, ill be doing that too.

Another question tho, im trying to free up some things that are sharing the same IRQ channel as my SIIG express firewire card, and here is whats sharing on that chanel


IRQ 19 Texas Instruments 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller
IRQ 19 Intel(R) 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 - 3B48
IRQ 19 Intel(R) PCHM SATA AHCI Controller 6 Port

The 1st one is my express card, 2nd one I dont know what it is, and 3rd, I thought was the sata port/usb port, but its not letting me disable, only uninstall. Does anyone know what those other 2 things are??

 

Hopefully my method won't have any issues and we can just await the new driver. I am able to play crysis and the screen savers work so this driver is fine. It does say in device manager though that the driver is signed by: Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher. Driver 8.15.11.8644 7/23/2009

As far as clearing up space on the IRQ channel I have no idea LOL. Sorry, hopefully someone out there will.

 

haha, no problem. Sometimes I really wish my hobbies/work didn't include me having to work on a computer that MUST work 100% and I just got to doodle with them and play some games

as far as the driver fix though, in the HP thread, the person whom claimed this:

This seems to be true, as most, not all, but about 98% of my crashes, were during me watching flash videos, and to be very particular, during youtube/southparkstudios.com, so this does make sense... doesn't just seem like something hp is saying to keep us quite, because again from my experience the crashes to tend to be during anything involving flash. Just thought Id throw out my observation of the issue.

*edit*

also would like to clarify that i've never experienced "crashes" just the "nvidia display driver stopped working", those are "crashes" to me, but no BSOD for me

 

Let me add I never had the BSOD either. My only problem was after putting the computer in sleep mode then resuming it would lock up. It did this about after 20 seconds from resuming. Also I did experience this a few times to, I turned the computer on and it just froze. This was at the Windows Welcome screen. The spinning circle would just stop NO BSOD, the mouse just wouldn't move along with the keyboard. Only fix was to power off the computer. Sometimes it did this several times. All with that new updated Nvidia driver.

So far my fix which is uninstalling all the nvidia drivers and let windows fine the best ones seems to be working fine for me But I tried that method and still got the Nvidia has stopped working. With the windows driver you don't get that. Well at least not yet.

 

The driver provided by Microsoft is just the same as the one coming with the Laptop. The 1.8644 is the only official driver for the DV8 wherever you get it, HP, Microsoft or someone else.

So no need to uninstall the driver to reinstall exactly the same unless you have some files corrupted.

Anyway, hopefuly HP will release a new driver including some fix...

Just a question, does your screen saver use Direct X? Do you have a link to see it?

 

I had several problems with the dv8t-1000 and was going to exchange it; but when HP extended the return period because of the holidays, I made use of the time and corrected all of my issues. As far as help goes, this forum gets 5 stars (out of 5), HP gets zero.

ISSUE #1: Either nobody else did booting from a CD/DVD, or I'm the only one with this problem. Whenever I exited a program initiated from a bootable CD/DVD, the dv8 would display an overtemp error. It didn't matter if the computer was on one minute or 10 minutes, so it was evident there was no overtemp problem. I updated the BIOS ... PROBLEM SOLVED.

ISSUE #2: The on-screen treble control would randomly display on boot-up. A shut-down and restart was required. Installing the previous mentioned BIOS update did nothing to correct this problem. Installing all of HP drivers didn't help until I installed "Essential System Updates for Microsoft Windows 7". I have not had this problem since; so I'm considering this PROBLEM SOLVED.

ISSUE #3: Screen intermittently goes black. This was corrected by using the NVIDIA driver as explained in this thread. PROBLEM SOLVED.

I don't use hibernate, sleep, or screen savers; so I haven't had any of those related problems mentioned in this thread.

Would I buy it again? Sure (I'm gonna keep this one!). This computer is loaded with features; it's fast; eSATA beats the h-ll out of USB for speed; I think the display is amazing for a laptop/notebook; Windows 7 Pro is far better than Vista, especially with the 'Virtual XP' option; and more reasons that will no-doubt be found later. I'm well satisfied.

Having been in Commercial and Government Electronics for 34+ years, it's not uncommon to find bugs in any new CPU controlled equipment. The final determination is "will the manufacture fix them?" For this we'll have to wait and see.

RT

 

Maybe so, but you're better off using the base driver provided by Windows because this way you won't get the lockups with sleep mode. So far I have not seen the Nvidia driver has stopped responding and has recovered. I highly doubt the files were corrupt. I reinstalled the driver several times from HP but the black screen was such an annoyance.

 

I can use screen savers too. The problem is when the screen saver use Direct X. Dream Aquarium is a 3D screen saver that use Direct X hardly. Can you give me a link to your screen saver to try if it works or not?

 

Anyone can tell me how much RAM is used after restarting the system?

I optimised my system and actualy i use 1,28 GB of RAM once everything is loaded (services, security softwares, overclock softwares, shell extensions for many softwares, windows sidebar, etc.).

I think it still too much but i can't find a way to get less (removed many useless drivers like flopy drivers, desactivated many useless services, removed every useless starting program).

Any idea?

 

http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?skinid=897&libid=40

 

I posted my solution some pages back. Check it out. No freezing whatsoever, the laptop has yet to freeze ever since I got it. And no nvidia black screen failure. You should end up with this date and version for the Nvidia driver:

11/20/2009
v8.17.11.9562

 

Yeah and it worked fine except it caused my computer to lock up after resuming from sleep. Do you use a screen saver? I did and that could of been the problem. But I'm sticking with the windows driver. It still says Nvidia and I have the Nvidia control panel. So what's the point of me installing a driver anyway? I will though when HP releases a new one.

 

This isn't the modified v195.62 driver. At first, I did that and realized that the Nvidia control panel was not working. Then I rolled back the driver and it rolled to the version and date stated above, not the 7/20/2009 driver. And no, I do not use a screensaver and I am also using the factory OS, no clean install. I have the factory BIOS as well.

 

Does anyone know of a decent USB QAM TV Tuner? I regret not paying the extra 75 for the built-in one.

 

I'm confused. So you started off with Hp's faulty driver which causes the black screen right? Then you downloaded the latest one and rolled it back?

 

The factory driver is:
09-2009 8.15.11.8644 A

So I am completely clueless as to how I got my driver version because it does not seem to exist on the internet.

 

Yes, I downloaded the 195.62 with the modified inf and then rolled back.

 

Well mine is completely fine, no problems at all on this machine as of NOW lol. Let's hope when HP makes a new video driver, which is going to be soon that there are no issues. Fingers crossed.

 

Fellow dv8 users, our laptops are now outdated junk. Check out the new HP USB3 Envy...

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/HP-USB-3.0-Envy-15,news-32567.html

 

Of course its so typical of them to do that. I guess one can never keep up with technology. According to that article they only did that on the envy line. I'll be pissed if they do it to the pavilion line because I would of delayed my purchase if I would have known USB 3.0 is right around the corner.

 

I think they also have a new revision of the DV8. Ours is the DV8 CTO 1000, theres now a DV8 CTO 1100 probably for the new SSD option. Either way, if you wait for the newest technology you will be waiting for the rest of your life. Technology moves too quickly and everything becomes quickly 'outdated'.

 

Either way USB 3.0 is backwards compatible to 2.0. The thing we will be missing is the speed increase.

 

IF there is a NEW DV8t, then one question WHERE IS THE BACKLIT KEYBOARD??????????? I can't say how STUPID HP was to get rid of that.

 

As far as technology is concerned, your computer is obsolete before you get it unpacked. Mice, keyboards, etc could care less if it's 3.0. My transfer speed on the eSATA for the external hard drive is faster than the internal drive. That's fast enough for me.

RT