*HP dv8 Owners Lounge*

I travel a lot and I can't regret having a better option for making the Wi-Fi connection. Thanks again for the pointer to the HP number for the item!

 

I was hoping someone would post this info. It's not been convenient for me to take my machine offline in the past day.

 

Peter, I had figured that was the issue since you hadn't been heard from on this in the last day or so. I went and ordered one today after this info was so helpfully posted by Woods3336 earlier.

 

Really weird - my computer started to crawl (video playback, opening up IE, FF, Word, Excel, etc etc). Started doing it after burning a dvd and watching a 1080p video.

So....I restarted the system. Same thing, really strange.

Took the lappy back to my room and plugged it in....voila! Unplugged it and everything worked fine.

I hope this isn't the sign of something impending. Luckily I purchased a 4 yr warranty with ADH, just in case.

The other thing ---> it never did this when I had the hdd installed, it ran and played everything perfectly. I don't know if it has anything to do with playing files off a 5400rpm drive or what not, but this is getting annoying.

I really really really wish HP had a better way to go about doing fresh installs (scratch that, ANY WAY of doing so). If I purchased a recovery disc (rather than make it myself), would that be easier to do a fresh install on a ssd? If that's the case, I'll freaking overnight one. I'd make it myself, but have heard of issues with the hdd size vs. ssd size causing issues.


Edit: I ordered a 160gb Intel G2 (arriving tomorrow) because I thought I'd give this ssd thing one more try, and figured I'd go with a bigger drive anyways. However, if I can't get things running better, it's all going back. I would also try imaging my hdd, but have heard that's not the best way to go about things for an ssd.

2nd Edit: The video goes thru its choppy period whether plugged in or not.

Contacted HP: Was told to set the BIOS to default. So far, it's been fine. But then again, it always is fine in the beginning. We'll see

 

Not sure what your saying Jeff..... Phil is right IMO that rather than simply copy files over "which would only give you the added speed when those files are accessed".. the real speed would only be realized if the Operating system was working from and within it... that means a cloning program to get the new "intel" drive to replace your existing primary.

There are plenty of hidden files not accessible by simply copy and paste methods that not only will those cloning programs get but you will hopefully get a sector by sector duplication.

Phil understands this much better than I. I use ghost for my xp machines "version 6.0" but windows 7 64 bit is another animal and it will take Ghost 11 or a cloning tool trusted for windows 7.

If and when I get a new drive I plan on.

1. Get a decent cloning program like ghost.... I'm not sure how well the windows7 backup program works... whether it will restore to a blank Hardrive successfully I don't know... would have to do more research. Will the drive need to be formatted first?.. partitioned?.. I would think a true cloning program would do it all.. but size differences will be taken care of by the cloning software automatically normally.

2. Clone my existing system to my secondary hardrive into an "image file"..... the " image" file can be copied.. however I hate to mess with them as they can be fragile based on how patent the tool is you use to move them around with.
I would be paranoid about trusting an image from a CD burn.... good luck!

3. DON'T mess with or erase your existing primary hardrive... take it out.. put it in a drawer and leave it alone in case murphy comes to visit.

4. Put your new Intel drive in "it will be in place of the primary you took out and your secondary hardrive will still be in place.

5. Make a boot disk and boot to the bootup disk you made with ghost, windows7 backup or any other tool that will give you a cd drive prompt or usb or whatever your booting to "prompt".
While you could normally boot to the secondary drive, presently its not set as primary and phil says the dv8t will not allow 2 primary drives to coexist.. there are other reasons you can't boot to the secondary hardrive too.

6. the device your using "cd, usb etc" make sure your bios is set to boot it or you won't get to boot to it.... well that makes sense... LOL!

7. Bootup, get your drive prompt and run the ghost program or whatever tool you used to do the backup.. there should be an executable that you copied to the boot cd or usb, or have on a secondary device once you get your prompt.
8. Run it, browse to your secondary drive that has the image and hopefully the magic happens.

There may be an easier way to do it.. but thats my game plan.

 

The short and simple way you can get what you need is to download and create a Hiren's Boot CD:

Hiren's BootCD 10.4 - www.hiren.info

The Ghost program (v.11.5 I think) is one of the long list of utilities on the CD you create. Current Hiren's version is 10.4 and is FREE (we all like FREE don't we? ). When you boot up with it, select loading XP with it. The StartMenu will take you to utilities, including Ghost. It will let you clone (disk-to-disk, sector-by-sector) and set destination partition sizes to match sizes of source partitions. This will let you clone a 120gb partition on a 500gb drive to a 160gb SSD, as an example.

As I mentioned before, move as much as possible off your primary drive till the occupied space is less than the formatted capacity available on any new SSD you may get. It may sound like a simple concept but it's worth repeating: Ghost won't copy more "stuff" to the destination than the capacity of the destination drive!

Let me know if you have questions as you get into it.

Hastily...

 

Seems like an amazing find!..... I can't seem to get a download link for Hirens boot cd.... it shows all the utilites included.. that whole page didn't provide a link that would activate a download.

I saw the freeware link.... upon first glance I saw over 40 pages... no search engine....

You have a download link for Hirens?

 

Phil,


Can't I take all the data files off the HDD and park them on my eSata external drive, ghost the slimmed down drive with all the programs and OS/hiddne files onto the SSD, then put the data files back from the external drive onto the HDD?

I think I'm probably missing something here. What is it?

Thanks,

Jeff

 

I'm trying to decide between a DV7 and a DV8. I use the laptop for home use and on my lap. I prefer a large screen, but I am wondering if the DV8 will be too large. Also, I've read a lot of mixed reviews on the DV8. I'm wondering for those of you who have had theirs for a few months, can you tell me if you are satisfied with the DV8 after a few months of use.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

 

I don't know much about the dv7, but I can't imagine there's much difference btw the two except size.

Also, the size is really not that big once you get used to it (which happens quickly). I also find it surprisingly light (in terms of weight) - but that could be because I'm 6'2", lol

 

I guess it was that "free" part that got to ya!

I've been using older versions, since 8.7, of it for over two years.

I don't have the link for the download but whenever I need to get the latest updated version, I just Google for it. There are lots of sites that have it - most use BitTorrent but some are direct downloads and those are what I choose.

 

Jeff, I have no idea what you think you're missing so I can't answer your query.

I outlined the key requirements and left the "how you choose to do it" up to you since there are so many different ways to do it.

In my case, I'm a great believer in copying (not moving) things to spare drives outside the laptop. Any procedure which you can use that leaves you with less stuff on the bootable HDD than the space available on the SSD should allow you to copy it to the SSD. Just be sure that you have the SSD in the primary drive location when you clone the bootable HDD to it. Is that what you're asking?

Have you bought an SSD yet so we can be specific about the hardware?

 

Here are the updated results for my Windows Experience Index :

Processor - 7.1
Memory - 7.4
Graphics - 6.4
Gaming Graphics - 6.4
Primary hard disk - 6.9

The big improvement is in the primary hard disk (SSD in my case) which just jumped from 5.9 to 6.9 when I performed Garbage Collection.

Overall score is now 6.4 - hot patooties!

 

I haven't had use of a Dv7t yet but I'm overwhelmingly happy with my Dv8t for general purpose "desktop replacement" use. I particularly like the large screen and dual drive bay provisions. I find that if it is properly positioned on my lap so the cooling vents are not obstructed, the temperatures (which have been the frequent subject of discussion here) do not become too warm.

Totally exceeded my expectations so far!

 

I just ordered a dv8t with the standard specs off of Ebay. I am too lazy to sift through 100s of pages, but I've done some research, read some reviews, and found out about some common problems the dv8t has. If I happen to experience the video card error, does anyone have a fix for this? And is there a fix for the bass/treble screen popping up yet? Any help would be greatly appreciated and I'm sorry if the solutions to these problems have already been posted.

 

Thank you. I hadn't thought about the size allowing for more ventilation.

Thanks for the input.

 

Thank you for the input. Can you comment on the heat?

 

I think everyone here will help if you find you have such issues when you actually have them and can provide the specifics. Most of them in the past have been readily resolved with correct installation of correct drivers.

 

Alright, thanks. How long have you had your dv8t? How is it holding up?

 

I've had mine since Decembeer 09 and love it. Since I've kept my drivers updated (Video driver is from the Nvidia site ver. 9716) and gone to bios F21 there have been no problems.

The only exception is the IE8 crashing when using Flash player. Still haven't found a fix for that one.

 

Video works great.. never have any errors.....
Do you have your computer yet or are you just planning ahead?

Are you doing a complete new install of windows or going with and cleaning the existing?

The issue with the bass/treble no popping up on the screen is when your doing a fresh install of windows....

Axel has provided the best fix for that IMO...
<link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CWINDST%7E1%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w unctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w ontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} p {mso-margin-top-alt:auto; margin-right:0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026"/> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapelayout v:ext="edit"> <o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"/> </o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--> How to get the OSD back for the Volume and Bass/Treble!!! This also turns on the functionality of the Bass/Treble Sliders as they were disabled during one of HP's Updates. Thanks to Axel Foley for all the help!!

Note.. stuff in red is my addin.

Smartmedia v2.10A is the latest version that works right.... here is a copy and paste for that fix:

 

I'm just planning ahead. Ordered it on Tuesday and it is supposed to get here 7-9 days from then. I'm very impatient and hate waiting- I'm excited and ready to get the damn thing already. I'm going to do a clean install. So I will follow those steps and get Smartmedia v2.10A after I do that. Thanks for the support.

 

Also another question- the RAM- is it one 4 GB chip or two 2 GB chips?

 

Its always cheaper for them to sell you two chips than one... the larger chips cost more... thats the way they do it for 8 gig.. not sure about 4 gig but would assume the same.

Phil has reported that keeping the existing software and just cleaning it "registry included" ends up being just as fast as a system as doing it the harder way.

I did a fresh install and love my system.. but it wasn't without a price..... there have been several that have gone before you now so it will be easier for you I would think.

Just make a restore disk in case you want to go back before you wipe everything.... may want to keep your extra partition HP has on the drive too for securities sake.....
I deleted mine but I had no intention of going back.

 

Alright, so you'd recommend just using ccleaner to uninstall files and clean registry?

 

I ordered my Dv8 in early December and received it around the 10th of December. I had issues with the DVD playback and the phantom popping up of audio controls on screen. I reviewed (carefully!)the available driver updates on the Driver thread for Dv8 and installed only a couple, including the nVidia display card driver. Problems disappeared and have had no problems in last 5 months.
No worries! I don't believe in applying new drivers UNLESS a specific issue I have is addressed in the description. I am particularly cautious about updating my BIOS and haven't done so. I have version F.06 and, because it's so risky, I have seen no need to do so.

 

I think that if you are going with a clean install (I did that and didn't feel it was worth the time and effort), this advice is particularly critical. Before you do anything, start up the new laptop and 'play' with it a bit (and jot down a written list of any issues you discover and how to test for them). THEN, do a full clone copy of your primary drive to save everything in its original state.

That way, if your clean install doesn't meet your expectations, you have the option of going back easily and simply to your "as built" arrangement. With a disk dock for laptop sata drives and a copy of Ghost 11.5, you can make a pop-in clone in less than an hour!

 

I prefer Revo Uninstaller and it's also freeware.

 

surprisingly cool. Obviously if you lay it on a blanket or something, it'll get a little warm (on the bottom back left) but otherwise it's very cool.

 

I followed the guide above and my comments are as follows:
I did get functionality of the bass/treble sliders, but it no longer says "bass" or "treble" and no longer looks like the "volume" slider on screen. Instead, it is about 1/6 the size with multiple vertical white bars. It works, but doesn't look the same

 

One caution - particularly if you are not using a temperature monitoring software like SpeedFan or Core Temp - be sure that soft blanket throw doesn't obstruct the vent inlets and outlets on the bottom of the laptop!

 

Thanks again, Woods3336. Ordered it yesterday from HP and received/installed it this afternoon. Works great! Existing drivers picked it up immediately and loaded it successfully.

 

Yep.. looks different..... I have a colored bar when I used HP tone control utility.. but the volume wouldn't pop up on screen "but it worked" and the bass/treble was very erratic and did show bass and treble on the screen.

The one you did has bigger bars, shows all three whether using the volume or bass/treble slider but only the affected one actually moves.

the point is.... it actually works.
If you want to get picky on looks... good luck getting both.

I have no problem with the looks... yes I would like color.. but oh well.

 

'
One of the biggest struggles when cleaning is knowing what to clean and toss verses what to keep.

A virgin install tosses it all and you get to reinstall just what you want.. but drivers can be persnickety as the ones offered on HP's site often miss some fundamental elements only found in the original OEM software that came with the system.

If you clean your existing system... "worth a shot as you have nothing to lose" you can use
1. pcdecrapifier to help identify what items are and what they do and will uninstall too.
2. Ccleaner will do daily or weekly mainenance to keep temp files and trash out and also is conservative enough when cleaning the registry I've never heard of bad issues.
3. Glarys utilites if more robust "but still safe".... if you clean the reg and something doesn't work.. just do a reg clean to where nothing shows and its all clean... reinstall the drivers for the affected item thats not working.... confirm it now works... re-run regclean in glarys and tell it to ignore or exclude everything it finds.
I"ve only had to do that once concerning the latest 2070 bluetooth drivers.

Phil has other tools he used and he has confirmed his system works great with the clean routine.... I have not.. I did a clean install.

 

Phil what exactly did you do here.... general hardrive housekeeping or is this a program you ran?

 

Thanks, Alan. Are there any in-depth reviews of the dv8t online? I can only find them for the dv7t.

 

Normally there probrably would be.. but this thread seems to be the magnet for all issues pertaining to the DV8T.. I know its long.. but you asked!


Also here is the best place I've found to get the latest drivers that are safe to use.. they keep this pretty updated.
I installed straight from HP's site initially.. got everything up and running then went to this site to fine tune to get the very latest....
That could have caused me more headache though since lots of HP's stuff if outdated or even not thoroughly tested but they post it anyway.....
HP's stuff is the simplest to install.. usually a simple .exe.. whereas this page you may have to expand the .cab file or even install from device manager...

According to how comfortable you are installing new stuff.. I would go with either.

Keep in mind some of the negatives you may read about heat etc have all been resolved with newer drivers etc.

My system runs very cool and I have my fan set to not come on unless needed.... I normally never hear it, unless its for 30 seconds or so.

 

Alan, I ran Garbage Collection part of the SSD driver/Win7 collage that restores its writing performance...

If you don't recognize the meaning of GC, think of it like a periodic execution of what the TRIM command would do continuously if our Samsung SSDs had the Samsung firmware update (LISTENING HP?) that supports the TRIM command.

 

Have you looked at this one?
YouTube - HP Pavilion dv8t Quad Edition Core i7 Review

 

Yeah, I've watched all the youtube reviews, unboxings, etc.

 

Oh! You hadn't mentioned seeing any reviews... In any case, that gives you a pretty good sense of what it can do, then. Good.

 

Yeah, sorry. I was hoping for a review that was written out by cnet or something.

 

I haven't seen anything that thorough as yet. I'll let you know if I see one.

 

It seems to me that the DV8t is kind of like an unknown forgotten ignored machine that offers a fantastic value and feature set. I frequently see machines getting very favorable reviews that have similar, or usually slightly worse specs and usually much less in the way of ports and features and that are going for significantly higher prices than the DV8 (assuming you take advantage of instant rebates and one of the frequent and regularly available $200-300 stackable coupons).

For example, I got the machine with the specs in my sig for about $1,250 including tax and shipping and I know some have done even better on their DV8's. Imo, it's pretty hard to find and acquire a machine with a large great looking FHD screen and pretty decent discrete GPU, optioned out like that and that also has HDMI, firewire, expresscard, built in 5 card reader, fingerprint reader and especially estata without paying a lot more. And let's not forget the ability to mount two internal hard drives plus the optical drive. HP really gives some great values and the DV8 is one of the best, imo, assuming again, one purchases wisely, taking advantage of the coupons or occasionally exceptional 25 to 30% Bing Cash Back offers that unfortunately can't be combined with the coupons.

The above assumes that portability and long battery life are not among the buyers priorities. If so, the DV8 is awesome. If not, there are better options.

 

Peter, I agree with all of what you wrote and value seems to be the key issue. I wish I could have gotten mine for the price of yours but I paid more to get a few additional upgrades and features.

I believe that the reviews are scarce because their focus seems to be on gaming machines with a niche capability. The Dv8t would need a high-end display card to make the "cut". The Nvidia GeForce 230m doesn't seem to make the top 20 when I see comparisons to high performance video cards in other machines. While the 230m is adequate for my needs (image and video editing) and I find it quite acceptable, others who focus on gaming consider it mainstream and "nothing to get excited about". This doesn't detract from the Dv8t in terms of value, pricing, etc., but it may help explain why reviewers haven't been attracted to writing up reports on it.

 

That may be so Phil, but imo, the 230m has also been a bit under-rated (along with the DV8). It really does game better than it has been given credit for. I would go so far as to classify the DV8 as a fairly capable gaming machine, although it is true that there are plenty of other machines with more powerful graphics adapters.

 

I never found what you were talking about... read about "tony trim" procedure with perfectdisk.... several different ways of writings "1s" .... ccleaners "wipe disk"....
And allot of that stuff was written in late 09.... do you have a link to show what you've found?

Garbage collection in general gets mixed reviews from being great to killing SSD life.... seems the intel drives gen1 do worse after using some of them....

 

Anyone having issues with the fans on this unit getting noisy all of a sudden? I have had this since November of 09 and I have found it relatively quiet, except when rendering sequences from Adobe Premiere. I recently updated the video drivers to the latest official Nvidia drivers and the machine is running well. except now the fan seems to be running more often when the machine is idle. I'm not sure why. I check my CPU usage and it is at or near 0.
When copying files from the internal drive to a small WD passport the fan ramps up. even though the CPU utilization is only at about 5%. I have copied loads of movies to this drive prior to the video card update and I never recall the fan running like this.


Is this a known issue with updated video drivers? Seems odd for sure.Thanks.

 

So I'm having problems playing games in fullscreen (full screen) mode. Games seem to play better in 720p mode on this laptop, and usually I haven't had a problem with games stretching to the size of the screen. All I had to do on my old Fujitsu was press fn+f5 and I could toggle between 1:1 pixel and stretched. How do I do this on the dv8t? Is it possible to do it on-the-fly like my old laptop?

Also, i've noticed that my system is frequently going into VPU recovery mode where it says something like "your video drivers have malfunctioned but have properly been restored" or some baloney like that. Is this hopefully only a driver issue, or do I potentially have a hardware problem? Went to the HP website to find newer drivers, but the last ones out are from Sept/Oct 2009. Can I just DL the drivers from nVidia's site? Sometimes laptops don't like that. Anyway, it seems to only happen when I have too many things going on on my desktop (like too many IE tabs open, etc.) Lemme know what you guys think about that.

 

Cool! Glad to hear it picked right up! Notice any difference in speed or range?