*HP dv8 Owners Lounge*

cc walsh:

You might want to contact your credit card company and demand a refund since HP reneged on your in home service contract unless there is was extenuating circumstances why they wouldn't come out.

I am gong to check that contract for myself to make sure we have rights and make sure I use a credit card that maximizes my benefits.

You might consider leaving a horrible evaluation on the hp board so others will think twice.

HP should give better service for its higher end, higher margin machines especially when you pay hundreds extra for extended warranties like I will.


I realize most people love this laptop but I always feel for the customers who get screwed.

I'm amazed at the technical competence of people on this thread. I wouldn't think of wiping out my hard drive and starting fresh. I would probably just delete some of the worthless programs by deleting them in the programs section of the contol panel and play with the msconfig startup programs but that's it. I guess I would just live within those limitations.

I hope issues with the mobile I7 chip overheating in both dell and HP are cleared up soon.

 

Has anyone been receiving any BSODs?

I've gotten around three since I got my notebook. The BSOD messages are recurring each time. For the first two, they were BAD_POOL_CALLER while the latest ones are IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL.

Is anyone else having this problem?

 

I'm still waiting for my DV8t lappy to arrive (it's in Oakland now) so can't say whether mine is BSODing. However, I would suggest that you check the windows event viewer logs for error messages to see if you can find some clues regarding what is causing the BSODs.

To do this: Start>Search>Type "event viewer" w/o the quotes and hit enter key>In the left pane of the dialog that comes up, select "Windows Logs">and look under "Application" and "System" for error messages occurring at the time the machine BSOD'd. It may give you some idea of what app or device is causing the problem.

Don't be alarmed if you see a bunch of error messages occurring at other times. I think it's fairly normal to see some.

 

I finally found it..... in the front left area... looks like it reads....
(1) Digital Media Slot Supports the following optional digital card formats:
■ Memory Stick (MS)
■ Memory Stick Pro (MSP)
■ MultiMediaCard (MMC)
■ Secure Digital (SD) Memory Card
■ xD-Picture Card (XD)

 

Right click on the video. Choose settings and turn OFF Hardware Acceleration (Adobe Flash Player).

 

I haven't gotten a single one. What firmware, etc are you using?

 

I agree with you about not wiping out the factory load and going the clean install route. I think it's simpler and a heck of a lot easier to simply uninstall the bloatware such as Norton (I realize it's arguable whether that one is bloatware or not) and whatever other unwanted apps are present and then clean the registry of any remaining remnants of those programs. It's even easier if one uses an un-installer program such as Revo or Your Uninstaller, which automatically clean the registry as part of their uninstall process. Anyway, that's what I plan to do. And then I'll remove the HP personalizations, such as the HP log on screen and wallpaper and replace them with something better. Then I will upgrade to Win 7 Ultimate using the "Anytime Upgrade" procedure and start updating various drivers along with Windows itself.

I think this approach will be faster and less likely to result in frustrating issues than doing a clean install and hassling with getting everything working properly. And the end result should be pretty similar to doing a clean install, except with less chance of screwing something up, imo.

 

right click on video, where?

 

Striker,

I have been getting a few of these too - only recently, say the past 3 weeks, after not getting any for 3 months. Not yet annoying enough to make me want to do something - or to note error messages - but I will note them and will call HP if they persist. I'm thinking it's a recent driver update (not nVidia, cuz I'm still sticking with good old 19555 as it has never given me a problem - and I've had it for at least 2 months. Not sure. Will monitor.

 

Just right click on the viewing window of the video. Anywhere in the box that the video is playing in.

 

+1 for this. I was preparing to do a clean install once I got mine last week but considering how temperamental this laptop can be when not fed the right drivers I decided to go the easier route and just uninstall the HP crapware. The machine is still blazing fast. Photoshop CS4 opens in under 2.5 seconds (using SSD) Any speed gains I would supposedly get from a clean install I think would be marginal.

 

I think he means when you're watching Flash videos on the web, right click on the actual flash video and click "Settings" and you'll see the option.

But I don't know if that will solve watching videos from the DVD.

Try it and see what happens.

 

What solution have you guys done to watch flash video on the web since it comes with 64 bit explorer... I've downloaded the latest beta 3 flash and it doesn't work even though it does on thier test page.

I prefer using 64 bit firefox but it doesn't work either... am I gonna have to install a 32 bit browser just to watch flash?

 

@windstrings: My solution is to use the latest 32 bit Firefox which supports flash, plus a lot of nice extensions.

@laptop10512 Glad to see someone else out there agrees with me on this, although I know to many it's heresy. I think in the old (pre W7) days a clean install was more important than it is nowadays because of the extremely elegant and efficient way W7 handles services, processes and memory (especially with an app like Process Lasso installed). So even if one has a lot of services running, when they are not actively being used by the system, I don't think they are slowing down a W7 system the way they used to in previous incarnations of Windows.

 

Have you tried the 64bit "Nameroka" Firefox before and if so, do you feel the 32bit is any slower?

These guys all think it is...... too bad... http://www.favbrowser.com/firefox-32-bit-x86-vs-firefox-64-bit-x64/

 

Are you referring to the BIOS? I am using F.13. Stock version that came with my laptop. I'm too scared to update to the latest one (F.17)

Lovelaptops, what BIOS and GPU graphics versions are you using?
I'm using F.13 and 187.66.
I recently upgraded the driver to 188.17 and haven't been receiving any more errors. But note that the BSODs come and go occasionally. Usually one every month.
I say that the occasionally recurring BSODs is the only thing I find bad with my notebook that I can't seem to fix

 

Nope haven't tried 64 bit FF. But I don't feel the 32 bit version is slow. The bottleneck for me is my network speed and the generally poor quality of service provided by my cable ISP. I don't think one browser or another is going to make much difference speed wise. For me it's more about being comfortable with the way the browser works and being able to custom configure it to my liking.

I don't think 64 bit apps make much difference speedwise unless there is something computationally very intensive going on. For example, I haven't been able to detect any real world difference in performance using the 64 bit version of MPC-HC (Media Player Classic Home Cinema) vs the 32 bit version, except the 32 bit version is more compatible with more things and less buggy, so for convenience I'm still using the 32 bit version of MPC-HC, at least for the time being. Works great anyway. And I'm comfortable with the 32 bit version of FF for now as well. I'll be happy to migrate over to the 64 bit version when it's fully compatible with everything I like to run, including flash.

Btw, my DV8t is on the truck out for delivery. Should be arriving within the next couple of hours. I can't wait!

 

Well I've been researching... seems Mozilla's contract with Google expires in 2011 and Chrome is already getting Flash support due to a new contract... seems there could be a conflict of interest since Firefox makes 90% of its revenue from Google searches/ads.... My bet is Chrome will get the support and Chrome support multi processor usage whereas it will separate each memory thread for each tab and also it is built with multi processors in mind... pretty fascinating articles and videos on the subject.... something the DV8T could capitalize on!

I'm gonna try the beta....so far I'm not used to the interface... hard to change once you like something.

I do like the speed results and innovative thought pattern google is taking to act upon all existing technology of java and code and then improve upon it.

I'm not sure if the bios setting found in the dv8t "F.17" to enable cpu virtualization technology helps with this or not.

 

Sorry, somehow missed this yesterday. Believe it or not, I am still on F.06, the BIOS that came with it in December. Why? Generally, no problems (unless these recent BSOD's are the old BIOS not playing well with new drivers.) As to GPU, I am on 19.555. At the time the momentary on/off problems were ocurring, someone posted this driver along with changes to two lines in a .inf file. I tried it. It worked. I never had the on/off/on screen again and, as far as I know, no other GPU-related problems. Frankly, I am afraid to change almost anything that doesn't specifically say (if not in the driver file, from another reliable source) it fixes a problem I am having or improves performance of something lacking in mine (eg, battery life!).

Have you gone to the wizards at HP for suggestions on the BSODs? FYI, haven't had one in 5 days, no changes to system.

 

I saw the driver for HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection (4.0.6.1) in the drivers section and was wondering exactly how to install it? The instructions say it must be installed from the Device Manager using the update driver wizard. But which device do I select in the Device Manager to do the install?

 

Hey my DV8 showed up yesterday, two days ahead of schedule! I'm still in the middle of getting everything updated, upgraded, installed, configured and tweaked to my liking. Upgrade to Win 7 Ultimate took about 10 minutes and had no issues. The screen is pretty awesome and I love the keyboard, it has a great feel with just the right amount of resistance (a bit more than the DV7 I was using) and its pretty quiet while typing. I just wish it had backlight or other means of illumination. I wish I could pop out the glowing HP square on the back of the lid and move it near the keyboard for some light. But seriously, so far I'm very impressed with the unit overall.

I was about to say I've had no issues so far but just as I was writing this post, for the first time I got the momentary graphics glitch that almost everyone has mentioned these units are prone to having. My unit came with Bios F15 and the 186.44 nvidia driver. So I guess I'll be updating those soon. The Intel 6200 wireless adapter on it is working really well giving me a better signal strength and stability than I'm used to seeing from my previous laptop. Hasn't dropped the network connection yet. The memory is DDR3 1333 (free upgrade to 6 GB so I got one 4 GB module in there (made by Samsung). When prices eventually come down I'll swap out the two GB stick for another 4 GB one. And eventually I'll get an SSD for it, again after prices on those come down some more.

Idle temps are mostly in the low 60's which isn't too bad. I see its now going up into the 70's and 80's while installing COD MW2. I found this cool gadget that shows the activity/usage of all 8 logical cores along with the temps and it's fun to watch in action.

But right now I have to get back to getting my mission critical apps installed (such as COD MW2. ). I think I'm going to really enjoy using this gargantuan powerhouse, except when I have to carry it someplace, but it will mostly be staying home otherwise I would have chosen something more portable. It's really nice to have something this snappy to work with.

 

Dont know if this will help at all.. I haven't tried it yet...
http://www.paralaptop.com/hp-compaq/how-to-install-hp-dv7-protectsmart-into-windows-7.html

 

Finally had a chance to play some COD MW2 on my new machine (DV8). It played just fine in FHD (1920 x 1080) with high settings. Game looks really great on high with a bit more detail than I was used to seeing. No lags or glitches. I was surprised and pleased to see that CPU and GPU temps were only in the mid 70's after an hour or two of play, which surprised me because it idles in the 60's. Much better than my T61p which would only play in lower resolution with med settings and would get up in the high 90's and occasionally choke.

 

$899 with free shipping for DV8T after $300 off coupon.
http://www.techbargains.com/news_displayItem.cfm/203929

 

Darn, that coupon is expired already. Sorry I missed it.

 

I am noticing something odd with my DV8 and that is that there is no wired ethernet adapter listed in device manager. The Intel wireless adapter is the only thing listed in device manager under "networks." This seems odd to me. I don't have a wired connection handy to see if it would suddenly appear if I connected the ethernet port to an active wired ethernet network connection. So I'm just wondering if anyone else sees only the wireless adapter and does NOT see any wired ethernet hardware on their DV8's and whether this is a normal state of affairs or not?

 

I assume that this is a normal affair as I have only the wireless adapter shown in device manager under network adapters

 

Ok, well that's a relief and thanks for responding.

 

It is actually I believe the "green lan" feature that "dynamically turns Lans clock off when not in use to conserve energy." My lan dosen't show up in device manager but when I connect it to download updates it connects.

 

I would also like to say that when the computer is in the power saver mode, the cooling is switched to passive mode. This caused me many headaches when I first got the machine because I could not figure out why it was running unstably. Only sometimes I kept thinking. HP tech support tried to help and responded very quickly, took me a day to figure out that it was the passive cooling letting the processor overheat and cause the system to run unstably . The computer is AWESOME. Make sure the cooling is set to active in your power plans to avoid my problem and you will have a GREAT computer.

 

Thank you for that additional info and advice. I did notice that in the "HP Recommended" default power plan, the cooling was set to active but I didn't really know exactly what that meant. Anyway, I did leave it set that way and based on what you advised, I will make sure to always do so.

In reflecting on my experience with my new DV8 so far, there are just a few minor complaints I have about the notebook.

First and foremost, the lack of a backlit keyboard is a major frustration but I knew about that going in. I have, however, found a moderately effective work around. Most of the time, I use an external 24 inch 1080p LCD monitor with the laptop (which is even better than the 18.4 inch built in FD display). And, I keep the laptop screen open about 35 degrees so I can still use the laptop's keyboard and see over the top of the screen to view the external display. Normally, I keep the laptop screen turned off but I have found that if I duplicate the displays at night, so both screens are on, the laptop screen will usually throw enough light on to the keyboard from the partially open position to light up the keyboard fairly well. It's just not a very green thing to have both screens lit up at the same time just so I can get some light on the keyboard. But it is helpful, if not energy efficient. I did dim the laptop's display quite a bit though to lower the power consumption as much as possible while still lighting up the keyboard. But this is an inelegant work around and I would gladly have paid extra for a back lit keyboard.

The other thing I'm finding to be slightly disappointing is that, although the (active) cooling system is very effective, the fan or fans, (not sure if there are more than one) get kind of loud as soon as the temps start to rise i.e., when computer is doing anything more than just idling or surfing the web. So I wish the fan (or fans) were a bit quieter when the rpm's speed up.

One thing that is a pleasant surprise is that (when I use the built in display) I'm not finding the glossy screen to be as annoying as I thought I would after being used to no reflections from using an anti reflective matte display.

And the other thing that is surprising me is how much I'm enjoying having a built in SDHC card reader and finger print reader. Both those things are very trivial but sure are convenient to have.

I'm going to be going on a trip later this month and will most likely be taking the DV8 along so it will be interesting to see how difficult it is to travel with such a large and heavy laptop. But I'm sure I will appreciate the big screen when I get to my destination.

 

Going from a Toshiba Satellite M35X to the HP dv8t is not so bad in the weight category for me. The Toshiba is pretty heavy, and after a few repairs, has been chugging right along for 6 years now. This is the floor display model too!
Everyone so far has said "wow it has a really nice screen!" It's never wow what a fast processor, or wow that's alot of ram, it's always "really nice screen" I got mine configured as follows
core i7 720 Q
8 GB DDR3 RAM
500GB 7200 rpm hd
1 GB GeForce GT 230M
18.4" FHD Display
Supermulti 8X DVD Drive
FP Reader
TV Tuner
I got it specifically for the TV Tuner. I originally bought a 13" Macbook Pro 2.53 Ghz but after it felt like it was electrocuting me when I used it, I decided to take it back to Apple store. They were great, complete refund, no restocking fee. I was gonna buy Eye TV with it eventually, but I found this machine and so far it is better in almost every way except battery.

 

There is a workaround for the backlit keyboard with the HDX keyboard isn't there?

 

Re the work around for the back lit keyboard, my understanding is that the system board of the DV8 lacks the power jack that is required to power the backlit keyboard so while the keyboard may fit, there is no way to get power to it w/o doing some kind of additional mod that would certainly void the warranty. And as far as I know, no one has actually successfully been able to complete the modification up to this point in time.

 

can anyone insert a usb flash drive in their computer and check the event viewer for Disk errors. I get Disk errors whenever I insert a usb thumb drive. It has done it on 2. It dosen't do this on 2 other computers, one running windows7, one running windows xp, both 32 bit. Usb hard drives don't give the errors, nor does my ipod. I was wondering if anyone else had Disk errors with usb thumb drives that also has this same computer. The drives work just fine, but I get the error every time.

 

When I put my ironkey in the very first time, I got an ironkey error.... I just went into a cmd window and ran chkdsk /r on my usb drive and I've never had it again.

Maybe those drives have errors and your other system is not picking it up, or at least giving you an error on it?

 

I'm not sure why the thumb drives give the error. It says in the event viewer 3 times "the driver detected an error on controller \Device\Harddisk1\DR1"
The hard drive letter counts up every time I remove it and reinsert it, ie. \Device\Harddisk2\DR2 the second time I insert it. It does it with a geek squad 2 GB thumb drive and a sandisk cruzer 16 GB. Chkdsk dosen't report any errors, just Windows 7 64 bit. I can read a write to the drives fine, I don't know why the error message on them.

 

I just noticed that my HP 3D DriveGuard located in the Control Panel is showing my hard drive as "not supported" That's odd because HP touts it as one of the features of the DV8t and they installed the software so I know it's supported. I have a Samsung SSD 256GB main drive and a secondary 500GB drive. I think the DriveGuard applies to the 500GB.

Does anyone have their 3D DriveGuard showing the hard drive as unsupported?

 

I guess I don't even have 3D DriveGuard as I didn't see it in control panel... is it available as a standalone download or do you only get it with the OEM disk?

 

My HP supplied 500 gb Seagate is shown as "supported" in DriveGuard. Perhaps what you're seeing applies to your SSD which, as I understand it, doesn't even need something like driveguard since there are no delicate moving parts.

 

If you did a clean install it probably wont be there since it's installed by HP.

 

Hmmm, but wouldn't it apply to the 500 gb drive? Or is the drive guard just form the boot drive?

 

Applies to whole drive (all partitions).

 

There is an update for DriveGuard on either or both HP's driver support page and the unofficial Driver Support page for the DV8.

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

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=4063&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&product=4011375

I don't know if you have to have the original program installed for these updates to work or if they will install the program if you don't already have it. No harm in trying to install it to see, imo.

 

OK, here's my new question. I installed the 197.16 forceware updated display driver and I noticed that my laptop is constantly running in the mid level performance mode, "Low Power 3D" (GPU clock 405 MHz) even when just doing normal desktop stuff like web surfing. I wonder if this is normal or whether it should be downclocking to the lower power "Standard 2D" mode. If I could get it to run in the 2D mode for normal stuff, the whole system would run cooler and quieter. Unfortunately, I don't remember whether it was running in Standard 2D mode when web browsing with the original older display driver.

 

I just installed the HP 3d Driveguard "sp45501.exe"
I have a 256gb SSD primary and a backup 500gb Hitachi drive.

When I view 3d driveguard control panel it says the drive(s) are unsupported.

But it doesn't say which drive its talking about.

I was told by a tech that the drive protection is all internal inside the drive not dependent upon any installed software.
If thats true, this software is merely a mirror reflecting whats already there rather than providing drivers to enable the support itself.

I don't honestly know.

 

I totally agree with your post! I had previously suggested in an earlier post here, back when Windstrings was still awaiting delivery of his own Dv8t-1100, that uninstalling the superfluous teaseware, HP interface overlays, scrubbing the registry of obsolete entries, would produce a smoother, faster, and better running PC in far less time that doing a "clean install" and chasing down proper drivers for the Dv8T series.
I've now tried it both ways and confirmed that restoring the image of my "cleaned up" HP delivered system runs as well or better than a "clean install" plus downloaded drivers! Q.E.D.

Somehow it seems that HP has gotten most of it optimized pretty well from the "get-go" ... and there's nothing to be gained by "messing" with the original recipe.

 

I went to device manager and looked under "system devices" and its installed there already as "HP mobile data protection sensor"... so I guess thats good.. no errors etc....


Attempting to install all that other stuff just caused problems.

 

I agree too. I've done clean installs of W7 on various laptops as well as cleaned up the factory load and in most cases, the latter approach is easier with little or no performance penalty. With the DV8, I chose what seemed to me to be the simpler route of cleaning up the factory load rather than doing a clean install because it just seemed easier, faster and less frustrating to get the system configured properly (with all required drivers) and to my liking.

I've removed a lot of stuff but there's still some stuff left that I'm not sure whether I'll be keepng on the system or not. For example, HP Mediasmart. I have some very specific preferences in apps for various media tasks such as MPC-HC (plus Win 7 codecs and CoreAVC Pro) for video, Aimp2 for audio, Faststone for my default image viewer, and Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom (plus a bunch of plug ins) for digital photography. So I doubt I'll find much use for Mediasmart, but I'm leaving it on for the time being. Perhaps it may be useful for TV, if I ever get a TV tuner. Just don't know yet about that. Anyway, it's not doing any harm except taking up some space on my drive.

The one thing I really don't care for about the factory load is the way the hard drive is partitioned but it's not that big a deal to me. After I get really comfortable with things, I probably will nuke the recovery partition and just rely on the back up recovery disks as well as images of my system that I've been making with Acronis (both clones and compressed back up images).

On another subject, I'm really enjoying what seems to me to be quite excellent audio quality that the DV8 puts out, especially when listening with high quality earphones. It seems to me to be a lot better than the audio output of my T61p which is finally on its way back to me from the EZ Serv repair depot. I'll be very surprised if they actually succeeded in repairing the intermittent audio distortion problem I was having with that unit (which is what led me to purchase the DV8 in the first place). I'm also finding the on board speakers to be pretty decent (for a laptop anyway) which is nice, although I mostly use external speakers or earphones. But it's nice to have usable speakers when traveling.

Another thing I like is that the DV8 (and most HP Pavilions, I guess) has dual mics and can do stereo mix recording. I'm looking forward to seeing what the quality of that will turn out to be like.

Another cool thing about the DV8 is that with the 197.16 nvidia display driver and Core AVC pro, I've finally been able to get Cuda acceleration working for some of my HD videos which I think is pretty cool. And, as I may have mentioned before, I've really been enjoying playing CODMW2 on high settings in 1920 x 1080p resolution. All in all, I'm very impressed with this big laptop, especially considering all that you get for the price of it.

If I could just get the fan(s) quieted down . . . oh well, I guess that's the price of blazing fast quad core power.

 

Go into your bios and set it to not run continuously. I did that to mine and I can barely hear any fans at all unless i"m really torquing the system.. and thats pretty rare!