*HP dv8 Owners Lounge*

Strange that they would be laptop specific (dv7 and not dv8) when the GPU is the same. What's the difference between a 230M in a DV8 and the same 230M in a DV7? The driver should be identical.

 

I just put my dv8t in sleep for the first time since I got it (around 2 weeks ago) and when waking it up from sleep, the fingerprint reader does not work. I know I read this in this owners lounge once before but I'm too lazy to go through these many pages to find a solution.
Do you guys know how to make the fingerprint reader work after waking up from sleep?

 

Thanks, worked perfectly. Will this change affect the audio output if connected to a remote digital receiver, in other words, will this prevent 5.1 audio output to an external receiver when, say, playing DVD's?

 

Try to go to Digital persona's Dash Board > Properties > Advanced > Full power.

 

thanks for your help =D

 

I would think so, but I haven't tried it. You would probably have to enable/disable it depending upon what you were going to do. If it gets to be a big enough hassle, I am sure you could write a simple script file that you keep on your desktop to change the setting. You might even be able to link it with the DirecTV2PC application starting and stopping.

 

As I await the arrival of my new DV8T, I have a couple of questions for current owners.

- Is there a crapload of bloatware that needs to be removed? If so, what program do you recommend?

- How well does the web camera work? Should I look into an external solution?

- I have 90 gigs of music and movies split between my laptop and an external hdd.....what is the best solution to transfer all of the files to the new laptop?

Thanks in advance for all of your assistance!

 

Yes, lots of crapware. Takes about an hour or two to remove it all. Installing your own frsh copy of Windows 7 can make HP support reluctant to handle your case if there's anything wrong.

Camera works fine.

90GB, even at USB2 speed will take about 90 minutes. An eSATA speed, the transfer will only take about 30 minutes. I recommend an external eSATA drive of, say, 2TB for all your files and backup. It won't be long until USB3 becomes standard and you can insert a USB3 card and a connect to a USB3 external drive for even faster transfers.

 

yup thats what i was referring to.

 

Is it possible to connect one of my Uverse boxes up to my DV8?
Will my screen act as a monitor?

 

That happened to me quite a bit....
I should have known there was a fix for this lol.

I never used the webcam personally, nor did I really mess with the bloatware as I was waiting to upgrade to Ultimate myself.

I use a program called TerraCopy for copying my files. It seems to have sped up transfers of files period (or maybe it was a placebo, dunno, but I've read alot of others have seen a boost in transfers).

I personally didn't even really like the "subwoofer" that's on the laptop. I usually used headphones when I wasn't at home or had it hooked up to external speakers (the logitech 5.1 surround sound that hp offers).

 

Don't game much but I picked up Bioshock2 and will install it tomorrow when I get to work. (I leave the DV8 there).

I will post thoughts and how well it runs.

Aloha

 

Yeah, you have to get the TV Tuner card. Although, don't expect it took look nearly as good as your HDTV or even your regular tv for that matter.

I have the TV Tuner on the HDX18, and while it's great to have for me, cause if I see a hockey play I like or something I can throw it on my computer through the TV Tuner Card then up to YouTube in a short time. You won't get "TV" quality out of it. It's because everything coming into the TV Tuner card from your STB (Uverse, Dish, Directv, etc) has to be encoded before you see it. So there is a slight lag and picture quality suffers as well.

Well at least that's been my experience.

Hey, everyone join up over at the DV8 User Group.It's helped 100's of HDX's Users and we upgraded everthing to be DV8 ready as well. With this community, folks won't have to scroll through 3,000 posts to find their answers!!! Link is in my Sig. Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!

----------------
Now playing: Rage Against the Machine - Voice of the Voiceless
via FoxyTunes

 

I heard that's a pretty cool game. Let me know how you like it.

My HDX18 still games great. I have the 9600 GPU. I can overclock it and it really rocks!!

----------------
Now playing: Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine - 10 - Freedom
via FoxyTunes

 

I think I must be the only fps/rpg gamer out there who's played both Bioshock/MassEffect, and couldn't care less about playing their sequels...

I can't imagine you'd get above 40 fps on low resolution.

 

greetings ... i have uninstalled my nvidia driver 195.62 cuz i wanted 2 restore the original nvidia driver 186.44( cuz i read that although it does crashes but it performs better ...is THAT TRUE ??) so when i tried installing i had a message saying that the nvidia driver was installed succefully but the nvidia control panel failed 2 install so some features wont be availabe ... i tried 2 access the control panel and it does open :S so is it really wokrin or there is somethin i have 2 do ???
and one more question i have noticed that after I did a fresh installation of windows 7 ultimate i have bios F.06 ... is it the right version for the dv8 ??

THIS MACHINE WAS A DISSAPOINTMENT FOR ME ... i have ordered it with the i7-820qm and an 8gb (1067 MHZ :S insted of the 1333 ) keyboard buttoms are fading even my 3 years old hp laptop keyboard is still new :S ... poor graphics , what can i say loool

 

Any Help Plz

 

Help for what?

You said that your control panel is working. Just try to set different resolution to see if everything is working or not.

Windows and BIOS are 2 different things. Ultimate or Home Premium, your BIOS doesn't matter and doesn't change.

 

My dv8 just got messed up. Second HDD is gone. Bios can't see it, Windows can't see it, Device manager can't see it. Did anyone have this problem, is that some kind of bug? Or is it just toast?

 

Did you check inside if everything in connected?

Does your non recognized hard drive works with an enclosure in another computer?

If not, your hard drive failed...

 

I'm gonna go through all those steps, but first I wanned to check with other owners if this is some kind of common problem.

 

There is a fix for the Nvidia drivers, and it includes going into the code of one of the programs in the driver set, which sounds scary, but is actually quite easy. Use this page to update all your drivers, but also see step by step procedure to use latest Nvidia driver without problems. I did it and it was easy. BTW, I used the November version of the Nvidia driver, as several said it was more stable than the latest. That version is on this page as well:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5146163&postcount=1

As to your keyboard fading, I seem to have been the first one to notice it about a month ago and now many are coming out of the woodwork with the problem. My guess is there was a bad mfg run, as so many insist they have no problem at all and have had theirs longer than I have. HP offered (and sent) a new keyboard with no reisitance, though I have no way of knowing if it is a better one. I may want to sell this so I may just leave my fading keyboard on until I am ready to sell. If I have the time, I will call HP tech support (is paint on a keyboard "tech?" and find out if I can trust the new one.

Hope this helps.

 

Sounds highly unlikely that it's anything but a hardware issue, but... you could try a quick system restore to the most recent period before the hard drive issue manifested itself.

If it were me, I'd open up the bay, check the connector and see if it looks like it's been crimped... it IS possible that one of the wires in the cable has been severed--especially if it was caught between metal and the bay door, allowing added pressure to do its job. Check both ends of the cable to make sure they're securely fastened, turn on your laptop and try again. Check disk management to see if your second drive is detected in any shape or form. Even if your drive partition becomes corrupted or begins to fail, disk management should still be able to detect it. A complete HDD failure without warning is EXTREMELY unlikely.

You should have an external sata-drive bay for handling bare drives (my favorite is the Thermaltake BlackX)--check to see if your drive can be detected in this manner. Worst case, pop it in your tower-pc to see if it's detected. If your partitions appear undamaged, you either have a problem with the bay cable or the integrated port.

 

"poor graphics" is relative. You're not going to find a better card in an i7 laptop at this price point. You can play crysis on low/medium settings, so what are you complaining about?

I've never had the issue with the failure to install Nvidia control panel, and I've tried multiple drivers. Make sure you download the official driver off the support page, and (this goes without saying) uninstall the old Nvidia drivers BEFORE installing the target drivers.

You should have had F.12 pre-installed, not f.06. Very odd.

 

Actually the only card I see that is worse is in the Toshiba, and its even got an option for a better card.

 

The DV8t often pops up WITH coupon for $1000 + tax. One time, it was even $900+tax straight from HP. With that in mind, can you find me an i7-equipped laptop with an 18"+ screen WITH a better graphics card below $1000? The answer of course, is an emphatic "hellz no". As you said, most laptops with better cards have them as options--meaning you're paying for them, either as an option or as a built-in price. HP marketed these laptops as budget-i7's. There's a REASON they're cheaper than the competition. If you want better, either put up the big bucks and shop elsewhere... or stop whining

 

+1 from me on that! Repeat after me: the dv8 is NOT a gamer's machine! Never claimed to be. Would need to be plugged back in by the time you unplugged it if it had a more powerful gpu! It is an awesomely powerful DTR/Entertainment Notebook with a lovely (again, for the $) 1080p display, pretty strong components (mostly 1333mhz RAM, 7200RPM HDDs) and connectivity (eSata, Express 54/34, 4 USB2's, HDMI, sd reader, docker...), cheap options (blu ray player tv tuner, fingerprint reader, blue tooth, etc.) cheap HDD options, great sound and, yes, a mid-low range gpu, fine for some gaming, great for all other multimedia enhancements to take full advantage of HD and 3D effects on its gorgeous screen....out of breath here! And yes, for the $1,000 many of us paid with great coupons, extra discounts and coupons for being *one week* late (plus, in my case, an extra $300 off when I complained about having to constantly cancel and re-order every time a new coupon came out!). There are now a handful of $1,000 Core i7s out there (Lenovo y-550 now selling for $899!), but even with slightly better gpus they are not gaming screamers and they lack screen size and resolution, blu ray even as an option, have 5400 rpm HDDs and at best 1066 mhz RAM. So, tradeoffs are always there, but at pre-January prices, you couldn't touch the dv8 for less than 50% price premium.

Now, for those buying now, having to pay $1,500 -$2,000 for a base dv8 with a little extra RAM, few other options, it does change the comptetitive landscape It brings Acer (the only company with more CS complaints than our dear HP!), Qosmio, SONY F and the never-shipping, always buggy Dell XPS 16 into play. Also, there will soon be Core i5 machines with switchable IGP for better battery life that can probably be sold at or near the $1,000 price point and give the dv8 a run for its money, though I would expect HP to be on the front end of this evolution anyway.

As for my increasingly fast disappearing keyboard characters, well...kinda hard to defend that except hope it was just a bad run and my new keyboard will be fine. Any NEW people reporting this strange and crappy qc problem?

Sorry for the diatribe. Not an HP fanboy, though they do seem to have the pulse of the market and the mfg heft to get new products to market the fastest, usually at good price points. Overall quality, though is C+/B- and Support is weak (though not as bad as misreported - you just have to know how to handle them) and they ought to be ashamed of themselves for the first generation of the ENVY and, I am hearing, second gen as well.

 

OK, so I kinda fixed my problem with that disappeared 2nd HDD, but I think that could happen to anyone 'cause I believe I found a flaw. I opened up the HDD compartment of my dv8 and I noticed that a black thin cables close to each of HDD's (suspected that it's a power cable) are very bended and the one of my second HDD (which was not working) even shows some damage because of the bending and a bare wire sticking out a bit. I didn't do anything except touched the cable a bit and closed the panel. Surprisingly that helped and my second HDD is on again. So I believe the problem was power cable which is just a spot of bad quality IMHO.

By the way, did anyone try to mess with their HDD's yet? What are those black plastic things on top of them, some kind of warranty void or something? What if I want to change my HDD, what to do with these plastic things?

 

You found a flaw? That's exactly what I said was likely to be the cause!! The second bay in particular is more likely to have the cable crimp unless you adjust it.

If you look carefully, you'll see that the black film of plastic is the only thing holding the HDD bracket in one piece. That is its only function.

 

"poor graphics" is relative. You're not going to find a better card in an i7 laptop at this price point. You can play crysis on low/medium settings, so what are you complaining about?

I've never had the issue with the failure to install Nvidia control panel, and I've tried multiple drivers. Make sure you download the official driver off the support page, and (this goes without saying) uninstall the old Nvidia drivers BEFORE installing the target drivers.

You should have had F.12 pre-installed, not f.06. Very odd.






well am not complaining but am givin my opinion cuz i have paid
$2,350 on this machine and yes there are a lot of laptops which offer better graphic cards and a better built in machines for the same amount of money ... at least their keyboards wnt fade away within weeks loool
and the vga wnt start givin u errors as soon as u turn ur machine on for the 1st time as if they are surprising u ... hello ur vga stopped working !!!
and finally u recongnize that even though u ordered a 1333mhz they just
give u 1067mhz ... its like a draw or somethin,some get this and some
get that loool ..
just wanted 2 say guys that lets be honost about all the aspects of this machine . hp is a gr8 company but the dv8 isnt a gr8 laptop even the older hp hdx had the backlit keyboard .
hp could have built better thats for sure

 

I don't think there's a lot of space for adjusting that cable, HP kinda did a crappy job there. But what about that black film of plastic, I didn't want to mess it up if it voids the warranty or smth, but what if I wanna shove in SSD? Anyone tried taking the HDD out yet?

 

I suspect that black piece of rubber is the hard drive caddy, which is securing the hard drive in place. It should be okay to swap hard drives out of those hard drive caddies.

 

I think I'm seeing what others seeing--concerning the wear on the key lettering. In past instances of key wear, whole sections of the key stickers would break and fleck off--in this case, I'm noticing that some of the white paint is uniformly wearing off of the lettering--at least the keys that are really seeing use.

Is that what everyone else is seeing? In my experience, this is a rather unique type of wear. I now have a keyboard cover, so problem solved. The lettering is still there, but it just looks as if the white paint is slowly rubbing off...

Having everyone say the letters wear isn't specific enough--can someone else confirm exactly what they're seeing?

 

He's talking about the film of plastic that holds the two bracket sections together. He never said anything about rubber--you're referring to the little rubber stoppers which basically cover the screws and fasten the caddy into the drive bay. They're blue--not black, so that's not what he's talking about.

Anyone who customized beyond the $1500 price point probably didn't get their moneys worth by investing in the DV8. At that level, you'd be better served by going with a better GFX card and investing piecemeal. It's up to the consumer to be informed and purchase what's best suited to their needs.

Anyhow, the keyboard issue I can sympathize with--not the drivers though. The software issues don't break the machines--it only makes things a little annoying. These machines are still new--given time, they'll get the drivers and software inconsistencies ironed out. It's only been 2-3 months since the release--have some patience.

Overall, the DV8 was built to be a cheaper version of the HDX series, and it's reflected in the price. They could have added all kinds of bells and whistles, and then the price wouldn't be bargain basement. If you don't like the options, don't complain--look elsewhere. Yup, you're entitled to your opinion--I'll give you that. But if you hate it with such a passion... does that reflect poorly on HP... or the buyer, who chose it regardless of those sticking points? The graphics card used and non-backlight keyboard were identified in early reports before the DVxT series even hit the market. The keyboards may have quality-control issues. Aside from that, there's little to get upset about. You're getting what you paid for--if you wanted the advertised ram, call them up and straighten it out. It was obviously a mistake on their part

 

Yes same here. The letters seem to be collecting so much oil and dirt that they are slowly fading. Thankfully mines have not yet fully faded. Can HP send a replacement keyboard if all I have is the factory warranty?

 

Not to say that the keyboard fading is not unacceptable, but I spotted these, and thinking of the non backlighted keyboard this seemed interesting. If my keyboard fades I will do this as an experiment before replacing it, nothing to lose at that point.
http://www.cyberguys.com/product-details/?productid=40418

 

Yeah you could do that as well as ask HP to send you a replacement, that way you have a backup

 

Well hopefully hp will work with me on my problem.
My student loan was cancelled and they won't let it go through for some reason...
So now I have a printer, 2TB external, 27" screen, 5.1 surround sound just sitting on my desk in my room....
Hopefully they'll let me return it as it's approx 4 days past the 21 days....
I mean I won't have any money to pay it off with, so it's pretty much in their interest to take it back lol.

And now I get to go back to using my rent's desktop that has 700 something MB of ram, a 1ghz single processor (I think it may be less actually lol), and a vid card that is literally about 8-9 years old.

Yayyyy for me!



FML.

 

Sorry CodyBear, but a good lesson for you nonetheless.

NEVER buy things on money you don't have, or money you 'think' you'll have.
It's a very important lesson. good luck with the return process

 

Lol, weren't you the person who originally said you were not experiencing this and knew of not another soul who was? No problem either way

The wear I am experiencing is described *exactly* as you just did yours. If you, or anyone, is planning on calling Hp to get a replacement, I would be grateful if you could find out if they will admit to a bad production run and assurance that the replacements they are sending out are made properly.

Thanks.

 

This is now an epidemic!! I received an immediate replacement, no reisitance from HP. I am just reluctant to use it before verifying that they have solved the problem and the new one won't fade the same way, as I am planning on selling this in about 3 months.

So don't hesitate to ask for a new one and, if you would, try to get them to admit to the problem and explain how they have eliminated it. Feel free to PM me if you want more info.

 

Yeah, they are sending me a new one. At first they wanted me to send the whole laptop in but I resisted saying that others have gotten a new keyboard shipped to them. They finally agreed and are shipping me a new one. Why are you going to sell yours, are you planning on buying something stronger?

 

Lol. yeah.
I work at the college too, and it was a loan through the college, and the financial aide lady said she checked everything and there was no doubt that I would get it, but apparently there was. haha.

It's all good though, I'll just save up and just buy my $5,500 sager. LOL

 

edit: meant to sent as PM. Included my personal email.

ZAPSTER: Would you kindly EDIT OUT your response to me! Being a newbie, and being it was a very long day for me, I accidentally posted to the forum, and I really don't want my personal email address, offered to you alone, published on the forum. Thanks.

 

I understand. I am happy with my dv8 but I understand your reasons. If you are positive you are going to sell it I would sell it soon. Someone else on here sold theirs for about $1,400 dollars on ebay and they bought it for under $1,000. Good luck!

 

Well, my new laptop hardcase from Slappa got here today; only about 2-3 more weeks before I have the DV8T to put it in! !!!

Here's the link if anyone is interested: http://www.slappa.com/hardbody-laptop-case?sc=2&category=133

I paid 116 for the case, which I don't consider expensive considering the precious cargo it protects. The case has more than enough room the laptop, the power brick, and a couple of other accessories.

The dimensions are as follows:

17" Outer Case Dimensions 19.2"(w) x 15.5(h) x 5.51"(d)
- Laptop Compartment Dimensions 18.5"(w) x 13.25"(h) x 2.75"(d)
- Main Compartment Dimensions 18.5"(w) x 13.25"(h)
- Weight (empty) 7.7 lbs

I know it's a big bag, but I'm a big man, so I am used to carring around heavier items.

 

Just a silly questions though: When buying a case for the DV8t - am I looking for a 17'' case or an 18.4'' case? in other words: is the size of the case measured by the screen size? Which is it?

thanks.

 

ZAPSTER: IMPORTANT:Would you kindly edit this message out of the forum, please!!! Being a newbie, and tired, I meant to post this as PM and inadvertently posted to the forum. I really don't want my personal email address on this forum. Thanks.

In case Zapster is not available, if anyone knows another way for me to get his post with my message copied with my email deleted, I would be grateful. Thanks.

I love this forum and get a lot of help from it, and try to provide help as well. Just did a blooper!

 

That was me I sold it for $1400 but paid $1400 with the Cyber Monday deal. I also purchased the extra 2 yr accidental warranty which was $179.

 

Usually you will buy a case to fit the screen size of your laptop. On the Slappa site where I purchased mine, the bag is advertised as a 17" case. However the reviewers who purchased the bag confirmed that 18.4' can easily fit the bag.

My suggestion to you is to look at the dimensions for the bag you are interested in, If the interior is large enough to fit the exterior dimensions of the laptop, you have a winner!