*HP dv8 Owners Lounge*

Jeff, I'd start with just removing the nVidia drivers (which includes the nVidia Panel and PhysX), run CHKDSK and then reinstall ... my suggestion is really just a simple as Jeff's and I'm sorry you seem to find it complex. I believe in doing one small thing at a time and seeing if it helps ... then move on to trying another simple thing. OK? Then, let us know if the problem remains or is gone.

Regards,
- - Phil

P.S., My previous suggestion were EXTREMELY context sensitive at that time so I wouldn't try to repeat them without finding the original post, etc. As such, it was intended to be done back then and not weeks later when all sorts of other things may have changed.

 

Phil,
Thanks, it wasn't that I found it "complex," it was just an open question as to which of the individual nvidia programs were included in the "driver" and you have given me the answer so I know to delete ALL of the nVidia programs , run chkdsk/r (which I believe I did when you first recommended it, but as you say, we'll do it stepwise and stay simple. Thanks for the help and I will keep you posted.

Also, thanks for your concern re: my posting at 5 AM. You know as well as anyone what he pain of waiting for surgery can be like - I rarely sleep more than 3-4 hrs per night and am counting the days!

Best,

Jeff

 

Best wishes on your surgery. Went through spinal surgery to fix a herniated disc with good results a few years back.

 

I just got that impression from your reaction to my straightforward suggestion as I see that most often when the recipient thinks there's more to it - hence the characterization of "complex".

Just remove the ones that are included in the new 257.21 driver package since that is what will be replaced when you install the new driver package after running chkdsk.

Yes, remember that very well in the weeks leading up to my surgery. I usually got up and moved around a bit and went back to bed. I wasn't expecting you would be going online, etc. Hope the surgery is successful for you!

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Hey guys,

When installing a 2nd drive in the DV8, is there anything specific that needs to be done (other than taking the usual static precautions, installing the caddy and drive and plugging it in)?

Will Win 7 automatically recognize it and install the necessary drivers, and does the new drive have to be formatted within Windows before it can be used?

Good luck for your surgery lovelaptops - back problems certainly are not fun...

Thanks and regards,
Richard

 

Windows will automatically install the necessary drivers (reboot is usually required) but then the drive usually has to be formatted, "initialized" and assigned a drive letter before Windows will "see" it in the usual way. To do this right click "Computer" and select "Manage" and then "Disk Management." You should be able to see the new drive in the Disk Management console that appears. If it doesn't prompt you automatically, you simply right click the new drive showing in the management console, click "initialize." Once that is done, if necessary, right click it again and click format (I may have the order mixed up, can't recall whether format is first or initialize is first, but whichever one Windows will let you do first is the one to do). And then right click and select "add" and you will be given an opportunity to assign an available drive letter to the drive. After that it should be visible in Windows explorer and to other programs. This whole process only takes a few seconds.

 

Great, thanks for that Peter.

Cheers,
Richard

 

Very close, Peter, but I believe the sequence in Device Mangler is :
1)Initialize
2)Create (define partitions and letters)
3)Format (select filesystem)

Hope this helps...

Regards,
- - Phil

 

It's not device manager . . ., it's done via the "disk management console." If you just type "disk management" in start, search and hit enter, the disk management console will come up and one can perform the necessary operations. I don't bother memorizing the exact order of operations as Windows makes it pretty obvious what needs to be done and in what sequence when one is in the disk management console.

 

Not the point, Peter. I get to Disk Mgt thru "Device Mangler" and you use Search. Doesn't matter which.

More relevant was the corrected sequence there to get the disk partitioned and formatted for use. Just correcting it not trying to ruffle feathers.

Regards,
- - Phil

P.S. You can also get to Disl Mgt thru Control panel/Admin Tools/ etc. etc.

 

Has any DV8t end user calibrated their screen by use of Colormunki or Eye one pro ?

 

Hey guys,

Thanks for the advice/instructions, and glad to see y'all are so passionate about your DV8s! I'm pretty PC literate, so between what information both of you have given me, I am sure I will get the 2nd drive going...and if I don't, then I know that there are a few of you here that can help me out. I didn't mean to rub anyone up the wrong way.

On a completely different note, I cannot get my signature to display even though I (believe) I have the option enabled. It's nothing special - just listing the specs of my DV8 as y'all have. Do I have to request it to be enabled by a mod or should it be enabled by default? Sorry for the dumb NOOB question.

Cheers,
Richard

 

You should be able to enable signatures now that you have 5 posts. Give it another try.

 

Hi,

I finally got my dv8t with dual HDDs. So, no more confusion on the bracket stuff I was asking last month.

Anyways, the first thing I did is run the recovery manager and created 4 DVD-R recovery discs.

Also, copied C:\swsetup to a flash drive.

I checked up Disc Management and found 4 partitions on the primary HDD.

199MB - No name partition
C:
HP_TOOLS [E:]
RECOVERY [D:]

What is the 199MB partition here? Somebody mentioned it could be the EFI partition. I'm planning to install Linux variant to the HDD by doing a complete format of the primary HDD. Will it be a problem if I also trash the 199MB partition? Will it be recreated if I run the recovery manager from the DVD-R discs?
What about HP_TOOLS and RECOVERY partitions? Will these be recreated too when running the Recovery Manager DVD discs?

Thanks.

 

Great, thanks for that 2.0.

 

The option was buried in the User Control Panel. Had to check a couple of boxes, but is working now.

Thanks 2.0.

 

Good deal. You're welcome.

 

If you recover using the recovery disks, everything will be recreated to exactly as it appeared when you first fired up your new DV8. Congrats on getting it btw! I went for the dual HD's also because when I got my unit, HP was offering some additional discounts for the upgrade and when the cost of the bracket and shipping for it, is figured in, I thought it wasn't that bad of a deal to just let HP install it (and have it covered by HP's warranty which, in my case, turned out to be good because they have already replaced one of my HD's twice now with very speedy FedEx express one day delivery. Bad part is my HP warranty is only 1 year with another year from using a credit card to make the purchase.

Anyway, that 199 MB unnamed partition is needed for Windows 7 to boot properly. I have a feeling it might interefere with Linux or Linux might interfere with it but I'm not sure about that as I've never used Linux as an OS. Hopefully someone with more Linux experience can help you out with that one.

But I recall hearing there is a way to get rid of the 199 MB partition and run windows without it, but you can't just delete it. There must be a special procedure that must be followed to properly remove it and configure W7 to run w/o it. It might involve deleting it and using a W7 installation or repair disk to run startup repair several times. I'm not sure. I just decided to keep the partition for the reasons further described in the next paragraph. Anyway, I'm sure you can find more info about this issue and how to get rid of the partition if you decide you want to do that using Google.

But yes, all the partitions including the 199 MB and other partitions will be recreated if you use the recovery disks to recover the factory load. Hopefully those disks will be readable and functioning properly if/when needed. However the 199 MB partition also contains W7's recovery and repair tools and this can be handy if they are ever needed because otherwise you will need to get those tools from a W7 repair or installation disk. It is nice, imo, to have them resident on the Hard drive so they can just pop up automatically if/when needed.

 

Thanks pae77.

 

Thanks much. This will be my third

When I previously installed 257.21 (without a hitch after finding that the 64 bit version was "hiding") the only two program being updated were the driver and the digital audio. You had said to delete PhysX and there is also Control Panel and nTune. Recall, I am trying to get it to stop giving me BSODs when I try clickling on functions I really don't need, like "view system information" so, could the problem reside in one of the other programs that 257.21 doesn't upgrade, and if so, any advice as to a release that has all the companion programs for the GPU and runs stably?
And thank you too for the good wishes!

Thanks RR! Welcome to the forum. Great computer, awesome forum! I can tell, you are going to fit right in and be a great contributor, once you get your "rig" the way you want it. We've all been there.

 

Lol! Thanks! I did a lot of reading thru the pages on this forum once I decided to buy one, and the information and opinions contained within has been invaluable. I'm still tinkering with it, but I'm enjoying every moment of it!

I've just installed the latest 257.21 drivers today, and so far I have not had any issues. I have clicked on all the tabs and links in the NVIDIA Control Panel, but have not had any BSOD yet (and touch wood, I don't...). So far, everything is going great - it runs lightning fast, the sound is great, and the screen is excellent (although I did upgrade from a 6yr old Asus Z9200 dinosaur...!).

Hopefully in the next few days, the caddy for the 2nd drive will arrive, likewise with the silicon keyboard cover. Will let everyone know how those go (esp. the keyboard cover - just for Chapter81 ).

I did have one problem though which really stumped me: both 32 and 64 bit versions of IE8 would stop responding, and I had to kill the process in Task Manager (but also had to restart the machine to be able to use IE again). IE is definitely not my browser of choice, but I had to use it to download Firefox and Chrome and other bits and pieces. When the machine was restarting, there was a program that was causing it to wait too long and I had to force it to close. The program was ISWMGR. After a bit of research, I found this belonged to ZoneAlarm Forcefield, which I had installed (64 bit version).

I backtracked thru all of software installations and driver updates, thinking one of these could be the cause of IE hanging. I thought that ZoneAlarm FF may be the issue as it was causing the machine to hang on shutdown as well. I uninstalled it, and voila - everything was perfect again.

This is rather interesting, as I had also installed the 64 bit version of ZAFF on a DV6-2120TX that I had briefly for a couple of weeks (before a hardware fault necessitated its return). On the DV6, ZAFF worked with no issues whatsoever. But it caused problems on the DV8 (I installed and uninstalled it 3 times on the DV8 just to be sure (between each installation I used Glary Utilities and CCleaner to clean out the registry)). Each time, it caused the DV8 to hang on shutdown and IE8 to not respond.

Does anyone else here use ZAFF, and if so, have you had the same issue on the DV8? There's obviously something in the architecture of the DV8 that ZoneAlarm doesn't like.

Cheers,
Richard

 

I don't think programming for 64 bit OS's is ZA's forte. They were very late to that party. In fact that was what caused me to switch from ZA's firewall to Comodo's firewall. Now happy with Comodo.

 

hi guys!
i wanna change my dv8 keyboard & dunno how to remove it!
how to proceed?
thank u!!

 

Are people satisfied with the dv8T now, any recurring problems now with the newer dv8T?
I used to follow this site in the jan -feb but was turned off because of issues and I wanted usb 3.0

I purchased the new Envy 17 and my laptop will arrive soon. There is a lot of squaking on the E17 site -people complaining about heat etc. I may return it to get DV8T or something else if I experience too many problems.

I heard the blank screen problem with the video card has been solved on DV8T? What problems are unresovled?

 

There are no unresolved problems on my machine. Once I got everything properly updated, it's been pretty rock solid and stable with great (no stunning!) performance for the price, imo. The latest nvidia driver (257.12) has brought a noticeable performance boost when gaming and seems ultra stable so far.

I just wish it had a backlit keyboard, antiglare (matte) screen (although I mostly use an external display to get around this issue), and USB 3.0 would be nice (but this eventually could be added with an express card).

The only negatives, imo, are the size/weight (which is the price for the wonderful FHD 18.4 inch screen) and the short battery life (caused by the i7 CPU and the big non LED screen). These were tradeoffs I was very willing to accept.

 

Thanks Peter. I've heard some mixed reviews about Comodo, but then I've also heard some great reviews. How do you find it?

Cheers,
Richard

 

Hi Neil,

I'm with Peter - I haven't had any problems with my (very new) DV8 so far. Heat is not an issue, but then again I don't play games. I have my DV8 sitting on a desk with adequate ventilation around it, and the fan seems to be very quiet (can't hear it during the day due to ambient noise, but can hear it a little while working at night in a quiet room).

My machine was built in late April, so maybe they have updated some of the components that were causing problems. Drivers have also been updated over the last few months, so I think I am quite safe in saying that probably 95% of us on this forum have no issues and are all happy.

Regards,
Richard

 

Download the Service and Maintenance manual from the HP website - full instructions are contained therein.

 

I do a bit of gaming on my DV8 and it stays reasonably cool ime. I haven't seen CPU hit higher than low 80's and GPU in the mid 70's, and this is after hours of playing CODMW2. And the machine never had any problems, never shut down or anything. It plays very smoothly, especially with the new nvidia driver. I get tired before the DV8 does.

I think a large majority (but not all of course) of the people who have experienced issues getting things to work properly are those who have decided to blow away the factory load and do clean installs of Windows 7. While installing W7 is easy enough, subsequently getting all the necessary drivers properly installed so everything works properly is not so easy.

 

I think you are making this too complicated (but you don't think so) and yet not doing anything yet while we keep refining the language and descriptions. I've clarified it three times (I think) but I'll say once more:

Remove nVidia driver and run chkdsk. Then reinstall nVidia 257.21 drivers. If you want to discuss further details to make it less complex, please email or PM me.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

I second this assessment wholeheartedly! Many come to this thinking starting over will make a better system when compared to just removing what they don't want or need from the factory load. While I have seen no net difference in performance when I had done it BOTH ways using cloned drive images with Ghost, etc., there is no question that I conclude that staying with the factory load is better since the drivers were originally tested to assure a compatible combination and in the correct order. I think many try the clean install and find themselves here to locate correct drivers or to resolve driver conflicts or other issues arising from trying to find/install drivers during the clean install.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Phil, Phil, relax, chill I have now twice done what you recommend, and there is no change! It's not a semantic exercise, it's an attempt to cure the BSOD's I get from three different (otherwise flawless) nVidia driver loads, only when I try to click on some nVidia control panel optons. It doesn't effect the operation of the computer, and I don't need the nVidia control panel options that cause the BSODs, but I started asking about this because I think we all agreed that having the vulnerability gives evidence of a problem, that is better fixed than left as-is.

To restate the situation, in case I wasn't clear, I have perfectly normal video performance with no BSOD's or impairments, except that when I click on certain features in the nVidia Conrol Panel, such as: "View System Information" and "Launch NV Monitor," I always get an instant BSOD. I have thoroughly removed and re-installed all my nVidia drivers, running CHKDSK /F in between - no errors found on two tries). I am now using 257.21 and my video performance remains trouble free and frame rates are up on games I have solely for testing purposes. I truly have no use for those nVidia features that I have found to cause the BSODs. (I was only messing around to see how they worked when I first discovered the problem!), I have no trouble using the nVidia control panel to do the things I need it to do: adjust my screen resolution, adjust monitor color settings, tweaking video playback settings, under/overclocking GPU performance (that was one I was only checking out because I leave those settings at default; I would think if anything could throw the screen into a BSOD, that would be the one, etc, and the video card never fails for any other reason.

My latest thought is that I have a bad nVidia Control Panel program and the same one, with some corrupted or outdated commands, keeps reinstalling itself every time I remove it and the driver programs and install new drivers. I don't even know what the programs for PhysX or nTune do, but they are also not part of any driver set, so I am thinking that the fault lies in these ancillary video card programs - but particularly the nVidia Control Panel program - and each time I update drivers, I get no error messages and when I benchmark the card's performance (Furmark, Unguine, etc.) after each install it tends to get better, never worse, and none of the benchmark tests reveal errors. Any further thoughts on what could be causing this and how I might eliminate it would be appreciated. Many thanks.

 

I concur 100% with this, having owned my dv8 for 6 months now. I use the notebook screen more often than not, because I use it where direct light is usually not present, and it is gorgeous, though power-sucking. I love this machine (the dv8) for all that it does well, and it does most everything well, with the shortcomings as Peter noted, and also it is widely accepted that, while the video card problems are well in the past, it is apparently a pretty weak GPU for an avid gamer, which I am not. With all its goodness, my dv8 cost me less than $1,000. HP was doing some insane discounting around Chirstmas, and you will have to pay a bit more, though there are some component improvements and other fixes that make the one you buy today a bit better and, finally, if you can wait up to 2 months or so, they will probably come out with a round of big discount promotions, saving you an extra $200-$400. A promotion that recently ended ran for a few weeks and had dv8's with Core i7-720 cpu, blu ray dvd, 6GB RAM, 500GB HDD for around $949. They have yet to seriously discount the Core i5 version since releasing it a month ago.

I would be inclined to recommend you get a Core i5 cpu, as it will save you cash, some heat and some battery life, and 99% of people will see zero reduction in speed. It wasn't even being made when I got mine. Then again, maybe not! HP has been making these with Core i7 quads for 8 months now and only released them with Core i5s less than a month ago. HP has a longstanding reputation of not testing new products or new revisions and appear to ship things out without internal testing, waiting for customers to tell them what works and what doesn't - true: it's in the folklore of this very machine, the dv8. Though it's only a cpu change, there's plenty of electrical engineering adjustments for them to screw up, and why be their guinea pig? The gains (of going with an i5 vs. i7) are modest and so, perhaps, are the risks, so I would make it a cost and patience-based decision. (Full disclosure: I have a nagging video card issue, but it does not affect normal operation in any way and seems to be a corrputed file somewhere, but I'm not referring to any of the now long-since cured video card shut-off issues that plagued the nVidia GT 230 5 months ago and, again, has no effect on my use, it's just a quirky thing, but no one but I seem to have it, as you will see by perusing the recent posts by me and others.)


I too have been eyeing the Envy 17, but unless you are a hardcore gamer, or have another reason for needing the fastest mobile GPU available (in which case you should not be considering a dv8), it sounds like it could be more headache than enjoyment. Seems to be another case of HP designing a machine for how it could perform, rather than how it will perform. Though the dv8 was released with plenty of bugs, and all ended up easy to fix with software, the Envy 17 is taking off where the 15 left off: too much performance in too small an enclosure to dissipate the heat and, of course, the only track pad in the industry that they can't get to work after nearly a year of trying! The Envy could be described as a better spec'd, better looking, smaller and lighter alternative to the dv8 - plus it has a G-D backlit keyboard, the lack of which makes us dv8-ers gnash our teeth! But I'm not sure I would want to live through the 3-6 months it can take HP to get a new product right (see also below) and I'm not sure they've figured out that you can't make a high performance computer on a mid-price budget Bear in mind, these are made to sell, within 3 months, at a price point 25% below their present prices - unless you were lucky enough to get the 25% BCB that was available for a nanosecond - so HP has to design them to make money at fairly modest price points, and they just seem to be up against the clash of the laws of physics and economics. Don't get me wrong, for the right price I would be tempted to try an Envy 17 myself for the 21 days they give you to throw it back.

If you have the patience and wait to try to get a "good one" (by some estimates, 50% of HP's new products are shipped with manufacturing defects requiring replacement) and you have time to install drivers and patches for a while, I suggest you do one of two things: 1) order from HP and return for replacement any product that appears to have been poorly assembled and, once you have one that seems well built, call them at around the 18 day point of your ownership and say you are having problems (assuming you will; if you are not, just enjoy and take no further action!) but would be willing to try and work them out if you were given an additional 21 days to do so - they will probably agree, so you will have around 40 days to see if you can deal with it or, alternatively, 2) order through Costco.com and get their 60 day "no hassle" return policy. The downside of ordering through Costco is that, while you can do a CTO and get it just how you want it, you can't use HPs famous $200-$500 coupons, which probably sell more than half of their CTO orders. If you really want to "work the system," you might find that Costco has a "low price guarantee" and you can get them to refund some $ if, during the first 60 days of ownership, you find it advertised elsewhere for less, and the "elsewhere" could only be HP.com, if you have a CTO model. Even if they don't have a written policy about it, they might be, shall we say, "flexible," if you were to call them on day 52 of ownership and say: in all honesty, I like the computer but HP is selling them now for $400 less than I paid and I could return mine and buy one from HP. I would expect them to prefer to give you a discount than to have to take back a computer with 52 days of use on it. I get a little uncomfortable at truly "gaming" the system, but in this case you would be making a prudent decision to buy from Costco (they also double your warranty for free), and find you like the computer enough to keep it, but $400 is $400, and Costco knows they are taking this risk selling HP CTO products without being able to participate in HP's internal promotions. I believe you actually pay about 5% more from Costco than from HP, and wouldn't be surprised if that 5% doesn't subsidize the sizable percentage of pre-60 day returns or price matching requests they have to cover.


Good luck!

 

I have been thinking a lot about the i5 and I was almost to the point of getting a second machine with an i5 CPU but what I have noticed lately is that more and more apps, including W7 itself, are taking advantage of the hyperthreading offered by these multicore CPU's. I have a CPU meter that shows the activity of each of the 8 cores (4 physical plus 4 logical) in my i7 CPU and I'm seeing more and more apps using several, or in many cases, all 8 threads of the i7. And this trend will only continue. So, my own opinion is an i7 is more future proof than an i5 and I think the i7's actually do offer better performance, albeit at the cost of more heat and more power consumption which means less battery life. So unless battery life is a real important consideration (which it isn't for me), I would opt for an i7 over an i5. The test results that show i5's performing the same or better on non hyperthreaded apps don't mean much, imo, because almost everything is or soon will be taking advantage of hyperthreading and the more cores the better, imo.

That said, I did work with an i5 based DV7 for several weeks and it felt quite snappy and ran impressively cool. So there is a case to be made both ways. I suppose it also depends on what one kind of stuff one intends to use the computer for.

 

About your BSOD's, it's possible they may not be caused by the nvidia drivers at all. I think when you use the nvidia control panel to bring up stuff like system information, those nvidia drivers just call on and use various core W7 functions to bring up a report of system information. So it's possible the root cause of the problem may lie elsewhere, even though you can trigger it by using the nvidia driver. It's a frustrating problem. You should probably take a look in event viewer logs and see if you can find errors that might help identify the cause of the BSODs.

Also, there is a free program called Nirsoft Blue Screen View that might be helpful in pinpointing the cause. At least it makes it easier to see the info W7 collects about the BSOD.

 

I guess you omitted that from any of previous your posts in any the last week! ... since you did not indicate that you had DONE anything and every post I saw seemed to be asking the same question over and over, I was getting as confused as you seemed.

Since I have understood the nature of your Control Panel issue, I guess we can rule out the nVidia drivers and the contained nVidia Control Panel.

FWIW, I think you are wrong about the Physx - I believe it is being included with the drivers in 257.21 package.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Peter, I'm not sure why you posted this but I have had a very similar experience. Everything works perfectly and, using it mostly for multithreaded PhotoShop CS4, mine runs fast as lightning!

I agree with your characterization of the Dv8 shortcomings and consider them minor in terms of using it for my purposes.

Do you know if the fellow, who stripped his shiny screen glazing and replaced it with 3M non-glare tape, even posted his procedure here (as I asked him to do?

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Peter, I find your thinking about the I5 and I7 interesting. You said quite a bit about the I7 and I agree with all that. You didn't say much about the I5 though. AFAICT, the I5 is a dual core (half what an I7 has) that has up to 8mb level 2 cache (same as max offered in my 820QM) and up to 3.36gHz (about 10% higher that my 820QM). What is the issue? Looks like the I7 can do almost everything as fast or faster. Are you just sorting out whether the 2 extra cores of the I7 trumps the 10% higher max CPU frequency? Certainly the I5 will run somewhat cooler but that is not a big deal is it?

Regards.
- - Phil

 

I was just responding to the suggestion that the i5 might be a better choice than the i7, now that it is an option on the DV8. But no, it's not a big deal to me, especially in a machine like the DV8 which has a large case size which helps allow effective heat dissipation and where due to the large non LED screen and the low capacity battery, the battery life isn't going to be very good even with an i5 CPU. It just seems to me that for most people, the i7 is going to be a better choice for the reasons stated previously.

In another machine with a smaller case combined with a less than optimal cooling system where heat might become more of a problem, the i5 might be a better choice, especially if one needs extended battery life.

Personally, I'm glad I got an i7 based machine and this was one of the things that appealed to me about the DV8.

 

I certainly agree that the I7 is a better value, Peter. I thought there was an effort to rationalize the comparative performance from a I7 "perspective" to arrive at a conclusion of nearly equal. I think that I7 will blow away any I5 at almost any real world thing if the I7 has the 8mb L2 cache.

I am certainly happy with the I7 in my Dv8 and wouldn't consider a machine with less....

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Why HP keeps the order of which the drivers need to be installed is a mystery. Go to dell: even for their netbooks they have an ordered sequence of driver installation. Whether this would also apply to HP is a question, but I have no idea why HP can't simply post a link "In the following order...."

It's rather simple, yet they make it seem like brain surgery

 

Certainly shouldn't be a secret but since HP delivers its laptops with OS and all drivers installed, it may be an oversight or a form of self-protection since the order would probably depend on each individual configuration. Since it is not necessary to know the order unless you choose to discard the installed system and start over, HP may consider the sequence info a liability that might encourage people to discard the as-delivered system they are set up to support, etc.

Sure leads to lots of folks coming to this thread after they try a clean install and need to find help with their problems with drivers, etc. ....

Regards,
- - Phil

 

What is more disturbing to me is that HP fails to make all necessary drivers conveniently available in one place and fails to keep them updated in a timely manner with the latest versions of the drivers. Fortunately, we have Justin who does a heroic job of maintaining a pretty comprehensive driver update page here at NBR which is a great service to the community.

 

On the latter point, I'll confirm something I posted previously but you may have forgotten. To wit: I'll quote Justin's descriptive info for the nVidia driver package - "Driver packages originating from NVIDIA additionally include the following components and will be installed as necessary:
* NVIDIA HDMI Audio driver
* PhysX System Software"

Hope that helps you sort through what you've been updating with new driver packages...

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Though I take the point by TheFamilyGuy26 as significant, Peter, I think your point is totally valid regarding access to drivers for everyone who updates their drivers (whether applied to an HP-system load or to a clean install), Justin's a great asset to both groups and everyone who frequents the [Drivers] thread he implements so well! Expressions of appreciation to him are never too frequently offered.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Hey, quick question:

Do you guys know where I can find a list of all keyboards compatible with the dv8t? I mean, I'm seriously looking into buying a more "well-built" one. I replaced mine (the burnt one) for the old spare (without the up arrow keypad), got the up arrow from the burnt and installed a full-functional keyboard. Just one day using and my TAB key already broke the SAME way the up arrow did: one of the tiny-small-fragile plastic pins broke and the key won't stay connected to the keyboard anymore.

So...any compatibility with a resistant and well-built keyboard? Or I got a rotten keyboard?

 

Thanks for those thoughts and the Nirsoft tip. I ran it and it showed me about 5 events in the last 14 days (I have had the occaision of returning to my idling computer and finding it had "gone out" on me whilst I was away, perhaps missing the thrilling BSOD event that happened while I wasn't around (if a tree falls in the woods...well, you get the point )

Otherwise, the data from nirsoft and in the mini-dump files looks like gobbledygook to me, and doesn't provide any info I can make use of.

Anyone have ideas for how to truly diagnose BSODs, then, presumably, determine what to fix to eliminate them? Do you - like me - think that 5 BSODs in 2 weeks (I probably invoked 3 of them on the nVidia CP, testing new loads) suggests a problem that demands attention, even if it ususally happens benignly and after reboot all seems to be well? To be clear, I'm saying that I think I have a problem that needs to be addressed here, even if the "workaround" is to simply ignore and move on.

I'm out of ideas here, so any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jeff

 

Hey guys,

Has anyone else had the issue of the logon screen flickering when taking their machine out of hibernation? I've noticed it a couple of times, but thought it may just be a one off.

When the logon screens appears asking for my password after resuming from hibernation, the screen flickers and the cursor keeps jumping back to the start of the password entry box. It flickers about twice per second - which makes it almost impossible to enter the password. When I do get it entered and click go, then everything is fine - no more flickering.

I did upgrade the graphic drivers to 257.21, but I do not know whether this is the cause of the issue as I did not hibernate the machine with the older drivers.

Any ideas?

Cheers,
Richard

 

How about not using hibernation?

Seriously, why not just use "sleep" (i.e., standby). Your system will wake up or come out of standby much faster than resuming from hibernation. If you are on AC power mostly, this is what I would recommend.

 

I suppose you could start over using the recovery disks to restore everything to factory defaults and see if that eliminates the problem. If you make a good backup or clone of your current primary hard drive before doing this, you could use it to quickly and easily restore to your current system state if the recovery to the factory load did not eliminate the BSOD problem. So you wouldn't necessarily have to reinstall everything all over again, unless the recovery to factory defaults actually solved your BSOD problem. Then you would have to gradually reinstall your apps and settings and after each installation of an app or driver, attempt to trigger the BSOD. Hopefully the BSOD problem would not come back. But if it did come back, there is a good chance that by using this procedure, you could isolate which app that you installed was the culprit.

It's a potentially laborious process but if you really want to get to the bottom of it, it is one way to do so, assuming that recovering to the original factory load actually eliminated the BSOD problem. If not, then nothing lost . . . and you would just restore your back up or clone to get back to where you are now.