I love My Dragon.

We bought the HDX9000 Dragon with the works, Including TV card. With the exception of the HardDrive. Only 250 GB. We bought a TB network drive instead

After going though the The Giant HP Laptop Out-Of-The-Box Guide published in this forum. Our Dragon is smokin fire (Very Fast)
We also just upgraded the BIOS from F.06 to F.13 and changed the ATI plugged in settings to Max Performance.

We bought the Dragon to connect to our 61 inch HDTV as a HTPC with the HDMI output.
We plugged it in, Selected source HDMI 1 on the TV and turned on the PC.
It was amazing. The manual told us we had to press a couple of keys to get the computer and TV to talk. We didn't have to change or press anything. The TV even told the computer to change it's diplay from 1024 x 768 to 1920 x 1080. and when we turned off the TV the computer's display went back to 1024 x 768. Very cool. The only thing we had to do was answer the question. Do we want to use both the TV and the computer displays at the same time? We did have to select the HDMI audio driver as default. But since the PC will pretty much stay next to the TV. This is not a problem. So far the games we have work fine with this driver along with HDDVD disks we played.

The Dragon found our PRE-N Wireles network and once connected in less than a second is smokin at 130 Mbs. The router we are using is the Linksys wrt330n. Got on the cheap for $30.00 as a discontinued item.
This lets the Dragon move around the house with the SlingMedia Slingplaypro box conections running at full speed.

I hope I don't jinx things by saying. The Dragon running Vista Ultimate 64 is running now with less problems then my Old Dell Desktop which I had to have serviced 4 times before Dell gave me a new PC.

The PC is now 3 weeks old and have not run into some of the problems posted here that others have.
We are going to give it one more week. Add some more programs.
Then we are going to use the Windows Vista Backup and Restore option to make Windows Restore Disks and Give the PC a nice home next to our TV.
It also only takes 11.524 seconds from the time we press the on button to the Desktop (Amazing!!)

We have only one problem. HP support gave us a workaround. Not really a fix. If other people here have the TV card installed or if you have seen this problem and know how to fix it. Please let us know.
Every time Vista Ulitmate 64 boots, an error shows up in the Problem Error Log QBS failed to start. But when went into the Services list. It showed it running and the TV worked great including capture and the Tivo like features.
So the only thing we could see wrong was this Error message.
This is the Quickplay background capture service. HP IT then had us make sure we had the latest Version of QP. We had to Update QP one time. HP IT then had us go into the Vista Services list and 1st try to set the service to Automatic Delay start.
This did not work. Then they had us disable it from the services list. This stopped the error message from showing up. But it also prevents the use of the TV in Quickplay. So then HP told us to try and see if the TV works from Windows Media Center. Yes it does just fine including Capture.
So HPIT told me that it looks like a bug in QP and that they would send my report out but could not tell me when I would receive a response.

Anyway, Thats the jist of it. No strange noises. 20.1 inch monitor looks great. We had to reduce the brightness a little bit. Oh! By-the-way The New F.13 Bios turns on the ATI power Play Features. The Blue touch keys work, even comming out of Hhibernation like some people reporting that keys would shut off.
The fans are quiet. The left side next to the pad does get a little warm. But both the manual and one of HP's service bulletin both say this is normal.
So I guess nothing is wrong with that.

I feel the battery makes a nice 1 1/2 hour UPS but not much use for it other than that. Who the heck would want to carry around a 16 pound laptop? I would have gotton a 9000t if we wanted that. Rather then paying $6999 for a true HTPC we save about $2,500 by getting the Dragon.

My Dragons Base performance is a 5.0

Processor = 5.5
Memory = 5.0
Graphics Aero = 5.9
3D Gamming Graphics 5.5
Hard Disk = 5.1

So it looks like the memory is the slowest item in the pipeline. I wonder If I could speed this up??

So at this time we think this HDX9000 is perfect for what we need it for.
Well worth the money we paid for it. Who knows?, Maybe we got the 1 good one out of 1,000.

If anyone has a solution to the Quickplay problem talked about above. Or just let us know you see the same thing so that I'm not the only one in the world with this bug to make us feel a little better about.

Thanks again for providing that Out of the box guide. I'm sure it saved us lots of prolems and time.

 

That just sounds like a whole lot of fun!

 

finally, someone with a successful HP purchase

you are very lucky!!
congratulations!

 

I think the guide was a big help. Removing all that garbage software helped.
I also made sure I updated every Driver before I did anything else.

I did not install any of the Hardware updates from the Microsoft Page.
Only the Security updates. All the driver updates were done from HP's webpage.

 

my hp purchase was successful.

dv9500t
Processor = 5.3
Memory = 4.8
Graphics = 4.9
3D Gaming Graphics 5.2
Hard Disk = 4.8



your dragon sounds awesome. i really like the name of the computer

 

One of the reasons the Linksys wrt330n cought my eye was, The router is black and has designs like the designs on the case of my Dragon.
From looking at your results. It also looks like the memory is the weak link.
We are going to have to invetigate this.

 

give it awhile.theyll be back lol

 

I'm told, I'll be lucky if my HDD's lasts 3 months. From what I read, "HP Laptops are notorious for bad HDD's.
But as I wrote above. This thing is going to be sitting in one spot for most of the time. Most of the HDD activity will be to the network drive.

We will have to wait and see.

 

I have had 45 successful purchases in the past 3 years with HP which include 2 of the latest HDX Dragon's, 3 DV9000's, an SE Verve, 3 8510p's and 2 nw8440's.

I don't think luck has anything to do with it.

 

Welcome to the HDX club! It's a fantastic computer!

 

Wow, I'm constantly amazed at the dis-information out there. HP uses the same HD's everybody else uses, their failure rate is average for the industry. I have NEVER had a failure in that time period with a Compaq/HP laptop and this goes back to the days when you needed a suitcase (well, the HDX is almost like that I suppose, but I digress) to carry one. I don't think I can count the amount of Hp/Compaq laptop's I have deployed over the years.

It cracks me up how people will take something based in rumor or a site where people hate HP (like Compaq sucks dot com) but all companies make cheaper models with higher failure rates. This includes IBM and all the others.

I buy HP laptops because I have had the best luck with them, but then I have never bought a cheap model. The Verve is the cheapest one I have ever bought and aside from a cheap screen it has served my wife well and features a decent hard drive and other components. The only other cheap part I have seen on it is the touchpad, but for 800 bucks it's perfectly fine.

Good luck with your HDX, it's a solid well made machine, it will outlast it's usefulness in that you will buy something newer before it breaks down.

 

Yes it is. If we could just solve that one little anoyance
Service QuickPlay Background Capture Service (QBCS) hung on starting.
We would be ecstatic about this machine.

Once we turned off that UAC service. This machine runs great.
I honestly don't understand why that UAC service is turned on for a single user. I must be one of 2 people on the planet that loves Vista Ultimate.
I'd bet that lots of the people at Microsoft also have that UAC turned off among other tweaks.

You know we even got a 11 year old program called Romtech Vista pro lanscape generator to run. We have beem using this program kind of like a speed test over the years. And it's now amazing to see landscapes generated in a couple of seconds when they took several hours or even days on our Amiga 2000 computer way back in 1990.

 

Yes, Thankyou. That makes me feel aa lot better.


I had to replace my dell's HDD 2 weeks after I received it. Then I had to have my Dell fully replaced becuase the MOBO smoked becuase of a bad powersupply Now this Dragon PC's a month old and still running great "knock on wood" Do you think I will ever buy a dell again?
Right now HP has a happy customer.
But you have to admit. It's scarry reading the problems people are having. I'm glad I read the reviews of the Dragon before even comming here.


I honestly believe the people making these comments are jealous. They also told me my 3d marks suck. But I looked up a review and it says that the Dragon was at the top of the list for laptops. The reviews test showed it at 4100 where mine is 4306. It not close to many desktops. But it was at the top of the laptops list

 

If you're an advanced user you can disable it but once the system has been configured unless you're doing something that requires elevated privilege you won’t be prompted endlessly by the UAC. Also disabling it can affect the Windows installer. The UAC pop up isn’t just a prompt for yes or no like deleting a file, answering yes elevates your permissions, if your user account is an Administrator your permissions can be elevated, if not well SOL.

I would remove Quick Play and reinstall it, while I find version 3 buggy I have not had the same issue others have reported. The new HDX I just received has version 3.6 of Quick Play. My earlier HDX has 3.3, perhaps an upgrade to 3.6 is in order. It’s 182 megs however so I can’t host the download.
What version are you running?

Aside form a few bugs I also love Ultimate, personally I think most peoples problems with Vista is the people themselves, which isn't a popular opinion but is the truth from my experience.

 

Do you have the TV tuner installed in your Dragon?

HPIT had me uninstall and re-install Quickplay plus do a full restore with no luck.

Please see this thread for the details.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=206951

My Version of Quickplay 3.6 (4820) HPIT told me this is the latest.

Yes, I had spent a couple of hours on the phone with HPIT plus a few emails back and fourth. About this Problem.
It came down to that HPIT was going to have to send my problem to the advanced IT group and they would have to get back to me with a patch
It looke like the pC left the factory with the problem.
The interesting thing is. As far as we can tell all the functions of QUICKPLAY including TV, Webcam and capture are wotking fine. So this service does seem to start running but generates that error.

I had an idea that maybe since QBCS needs (Quickplay Task Sched) running first. That QBCS can not start. And since it tries 3 times before the error is generated in the log QTS does start on the last try. But I don't know how to tell QTS to start before QBCS if it even matters.

Any ideas.

We pretty much have done it all. Did a clean reload, removed Anti Virus, turned off defender.

If we uncheck QBCS we don't get the error but then many of QP's features no longer work.

Please see this thread for the details.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=206951

Thanks for your support and help.

 

It's because there's thousands of people who buy their product & since they don't have problems with em, you just don't see them posting on forums. Only those who typically have problems will tend to make sure everyone around knows about it

If you were to really trust the internet forums to decide on which brand you'd want to buy, you'd be forever changing your mind because no matter what product/brand you look at, there's going to be plenty of complaints. In fact, forget about buying ANYTHING if you look at reviews before you purchase it, be it a laptop, a desktop, a car, a cell phone, an mp3 player, or even friggin' steak knives =p

Over the 20 years I've been using computers & laptops, I can remember of just one Maxtor drive that failed me. Weeeee ....

 

Viking396

Could you be kind enough to tell us where we can download the Full 3.6 (4820) version of Quickplay without having to go though the upgades.

It is not located on HP's software drivers page.

One thing we havn't tried was to remove quickplay 3.3 and not go though the Upgrade procedure. Just do a clean install of QP3.6 (4820)
HPIT tells me I have to restore QP from my Restore partition and then do the 2 upgrades to 3.6. Will I need a key or something if we do the direct upgade without installing QP 3.3 first?

Thanks

 

Straight from HP.

"If you experience having playback errors such as video or sound problems, you may need to update your QuickPlay software. To do so, use the update function in Quickplay by following the steps below.
Click Start , type quickplay in the search field, and then select QuickPlay from the list.
In QuickPlay, double-click the Update icon. The Updates and Enhancements window opens.
Double-click Get the latest QuickPlay updates .
Select Download now! and follow the on-screen directions.
Now that the updates have been downloaded and installed, your computer will have the latest version of QuickPlay available. Try using QuickPlay again to confirm that your playback issues have been resolved."

Go here for details. http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...2_USEN#download_install_softpaq_Vista_version

 

Well said.

 

Thanks,

We have already done the update procedure a couple of times.
Like I said, Quickplay seems to be running fine.

But, It's just this dumb error being generated in the problems solutions log.

Product
QPCapSvc

Problem
Service Hang Report

Date
1/13/2008 7:29 PM

Status
Not Reported

Description
Service QuickPlay Background Capture Service (QBCS) hung on starting.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: ServiceHang
Service Name: QPCapSvc
Image Name: QPCapSvc.exe"
Image Version: 0.0.0.0
Service Type: 110
Start Type: 2
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

Files that help describe the problem
Version.txt
minidump.mdmp

 

Did you say you got the Linksys wrt330n for $30.00? Or $130.00? If you got it for $30, where did you get it!!!

 

Discontinued item open box special from Best Buy.
They wanted $60.00 but was missing driver and setup disks, wires and instructions so got another $30.00 off. But I couldn't return it or get credit. It looked clean so I took a chance and lucked out I guess.

 

Good luck with it, i am really enjoying mine so far. Just dont try to install XP and you shouldnt have any problems.

 

I'm having lots of fun with it. We really just bought it as a HTPC. But I love browsing on the internet on my 61 inch TV.
Those Stage6.com Divx videos play great too.
We may end up removing QP and just use Windows Media center.
We upgraded the codecs just yesterday that let us now watch Divx and other internet Videos without getting that Codec not found error.