NEW HP DV6 2010 User Review

Atheros AR9285 802.11 b/g/n WIFI card.

Not sure how good it as, but ive never had any problems with it

 

Crap. I was just going to order one of these but the coupon I wanted to use expired. Anyone know when hp releases new coupons? I imagine quite regularly?

 

Yeah, now you know what it means in context! Autonome -> self-contained, stand-alone unit.

Anyhow, the dm4t seems to be ticking all the boxes. 9 cell battery option, screen resolution a bit worse, but I could live with that. Not available in Europe just yet though, and will come pre-configured. The dv6 is nice, but I'd prefer something smaller. Also there is the Acer 3820TG, still not available yet with the i5-HD5650 (pre-order with the i5-HD5470, but not interested).

Sorry for going off-topic. HP laptops are picking up the pace, which is nice to see.

 

ok so this laptop benefits greatly when placed in an angle. The main problem is that the exhaust vent blows warm air horizontally and partially down. This creates at pseudo pocket of warm air.

i went to JB HI FI today and bought a laptop cooler (not that it needs it as you can see), i'll post some temps tonight but essentially the temperatures drop 5-7C on load for the gpu and cpu. I mainly bought it so i can use the laptop on my bed without the heat vents getting blocked by the quilt

 

What cooler did you buy?

 

Targus Chill Mat AWE55US

The best thing about it is that it takes air from the sides so you can put it on a quilt with no problems

 

How much can you overclock (use MSI afterburner software) the ATI Mobility 1GB HD5650 in this laptop?

I am concerned about the i7 larger 640GB 5400rpm drive being slower than a 500GB 7200rpm model that comes as standard in the lower model of new DV6. Can you confirm if the drive is slower, maybe run a speed test with HDtach.

Lastly, the overall design, is the i7 built any different with higher quality parts and case design, or is it merely just a standard new DV6 with a higher powered CPU / memory option?

I am in New Zealand, these new models are showing up everywhere in droves over the last few weeks in all sort of configurations, AMD, Intel, with and without ATi graphics 5470 and 5650. Specs vary but basically the same things on the outside, possibly the same motherboard either an Intel H55 or AMD based chipset.
I would hopefully suspect that the cooling system would be an up rated model if i7, and the parts like wireless are better branded?
Surprising is Australia and New Zealand seem to be getting the new DV6 series before the rest of the world!

I am waiting on DV6-3041TX, my local store has sold out of what they have of this particular model. i7 720QM, 8GB RAM is basically what is making it expensive.

 

Going to do some overclocking soon

personally I findi dont see much point going from 5400rpm to 7200pm. Win7 operates maybe slightly slower than two 10k rpm drives on my desktop for all but the most demanding applications. Not enough to justify the price. significant improvements are only seen when ssds are implemented. As far as im concerned 7200rpm drives would only run hotter, and consume more power for little perceived difference.

There are no apparent differences between the i7 (silver) and i5 (brown) model however when deciding on the laptop on the day i did play extensively between the two. Not to mention, coming back to the store a few weeks later to spending some more time playing with the other laptops.

The i7 models are covered in a anodized brushed aluminium/magnesium finish that covers the lid, palm rests and surround keyboard bezel. The i5 versions i felt where made to feel more plasticky. I cant confirm this is best to ask somewith with an i5 variant. The lid and palm rests are actually psyhically cold to touch and knocking on either the lid and palm results results in a 'metallic', as opposed to plastic response.

 

Actually the dv6tSE all have the metal finish (whether you get an i3, i5, or i7) while the regular dv6t has the plastic customizable colors (whether it be i3 or i5).

 

Ah ok, here in Australia were stuck with and un-etched standard finish for anything below the i7 version. Mainly since we cannot upgrade or customize our models, and only buy them through retailers. I think people in NZ have the same problem as us. Best to go to the store and start tapping and feeling each of the laptops lol

 

Yeah NZ are stuck with pre-defined models also. I would guess HP figures that custom build demand will be too low and will cost too much money to implement on their part. Therefore a bunch of low end models to suit NZ market are more suitable for the average Joe Blogs are pushed out to the general public, and an almost there higher end model for a few people that might care about high performance. e.g. I really wanted the new DV6 with a i7 820QM but that option is not available in any of the released models.

How long does the battery last if you play GTA4 on a full charge?

 

I just received my new DV6 and I noticed the whole laptop feels like it vibrates when turned on(no noise). I am thinking that perhaps this is due to the hard drive(7200 RPM) and/or just poor design. Have you noticed this with your DV6 laptop? I do not have this problem with my previous HP dv6500 laptop.

 

I'm glad hp fixed the heat problem, while gaming my GPU temp. reaches 90c with the it's fan running (noisy too), the battery lifetime is terrible, 2h max. while watching a movie or browsing the internet, its my 1st hp laptop I own i dunno if its me only who is having this problems

 

That's some nice GPU power from the Mobility HD 5650. I'm not too fond of 1366 x 768 though.

 

so i did some light OCing with amd gpu tool. However there are a few problems i have encountered:

1. When overclocking the unvolting feature that means the card idles at 100mhz core is lost, even on battery the clocks are what ever the overclock is

2. These early installed drivers prevent good overclock. I reached 600/800 core/mem (from 555/800) with a 3dmark06 boost from 7660 --> 7907. installing Catalyst 10.5 might help with overlcocks.

 

When on battery the cpu underclocks itself, and turbo boost is no longer available. It makes doing anything except light tasks a nightmare

 

is there any way to run the laptop in full performance mode while on battery, using the power setting in windows 7?

 

It's rather silent when you are not doing heavy tasks/gaming, and when on Power Saver mode it doesn't get hot at all.

When it comes to gaming however, the vent sounds like an Airbus' engine.

 

Honestly I'd like to know this as well. Trying to determine whether or not I want to buy one of these.


If it's sluggish feeling on battery I may have to pass. (Sluggish feeling meaning that when you scroll along in Firefox or something it's kinda laggy or if you're running youtube the video gets laggy while on battery).

 

well youtube and other internet browsing wont be a problem as long as u have a modern system. Netbooks, in general, have considerably lower specs than this notebook even at base config and they're can handle a few tabs and standard definition youtube relatively seamlessly.

I'm more concerned with having the ability (if i so choose) to run the laptop in full performance mode even if that means getting 30 min of battery life.

 

right.


I'm just being foolish then. I just remember my brother's netbook being all sluggish on firefox but yeah...that IS a netbook.



I guess my real other concern is going from 1680x1050 for 3 and a half years to 1366x768. Eh. I'd adapt I guess.

 

hey unless u REALLY want metal that much then a dell might be for u. they do give more/better color options. and u can get everything you get in this notebook and a little more.

Oh and your right netbooks are definatly slugish with firefox (my bad ) but they are running atom processors and there is a big difference between an atom and an undervolted/underclocked core i3

 

heh.

I'm liking what I see from the hp on account of the switchable graphics.

5650 seems pretty good (and is one hell of a step up from my go 7700).

it's got a hdmi port...I got a hdmi cable that could be of some use.


...ya know that's actually something I need to ask. I know the nvidia control panel has an overscan scaler you can mess with to fix overscan issues.

Does ATI have something like that as well in the catalyst control panel?

 

As far as I'm concerned the when running on battery there is no option to run the processor on full load. I.e 55W according to HWmonitor. which means a full battery running on full load would last just over 1 hour (on the i7 models anyway)

On the contrary the m11x can play games for up to 2 hours on battery.

And no, there is no slowdown during light tasks and web browsing.

 

Just remember there is a big difference between full load and gaming.

 

did you get the dv6t or the select?

 

Also, does the dv6 select have a battery bypass option?

 

I think if you select High Performance mode when you on batter power the processor will run on full load and your GPU will not underclock, thats how its done in mine, but if I did that the battery will die after 1 hour maybe less

 

NFS shift runs at at mid 40's fps btw for anyone who is interested. This is at native res with 2xAA and medium settings for everthing cept high on texture.

 

truly awesome review... we need more like this

 

Recently purchased a dv6-2130 core i3 machine with a 512 dedicated graphics card. Wasn't pleased with it at all. What I hated the most was the fact that for some unknown reason, HP shipped the machine with a dynamic hard drive effectively making it impossible to create additional partitions without rendering the recovery partition useless AND to do a dual boot. So for instance if I wanted to install another version of win7 or Ubuntu on another partition, it wouldn't boot into it... Now that sucks. Has anyone else experienced this or was it just a fluke??

On top of that it didn't come with ANY recovery or OS installation disks even though it had win7 home pre-installed. Why does HP cut corners when it comes to recovery/installation disks? Are they just cheap? Had to trade with a Dell inspiron 15R.

I am, however, interested in the dv6 3032. Does it come with recovery disks and such? Does it also have a dynamic drive or is it basic and expandable in terms of additional partitions?


Best Regards,
Jason

 

by dynamic drive do you mean a separate drive that called D: "recovery"? If so then yes the new HP's have them. I did not get any recovery CD's although first thing i did was create some using the preloaded software

 

I have basically the same spec new DV6, one thing I can say for certain is it eats battery like there is no tomorrow (depending). This thing need some kind of BIOS fix to control the CPU from going out of control and running to hot.

Most of the time temps are ok at 40-50c when just surfing or doing other general stuff. Battery upto 3 hours.

Every now and then the processor will run very hot at 55-62c. This happens even if there isnt anything happening all programs closed. Task manager says there is no load on the CPU, no processes hogging the CPU. Even happens with power options set to as low as power saver running at only ~900MHz! Battery life is ~2 hours when this happens.

Running at full load or running a game will make the CPU heat up like crazy in about 30 seconds flat. Battery life is very poor 45mins - 1 hour at best.

I have noticed that even if a large file is extracted the CPU temp sky rocket in no time flat, but the notebook is quick to cool. Sometimes it forgets to return to the normal 40-50c range and stays in the ~60c as I have said above in this post.

 

inspirohost I'm pretty sure with the exception of a couple of dell models, some asus models, and macbook [pros] no computer comes with recovery disks

 

Is DV6-1353CL also considered as 2010 model.

HP - Factory-Refurbished Pavilion Laptop with Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor - Espresso - dv6-1353cl

 

I just got mine and while it's nice...I had my mind set on returning but missed the ridiculous 24-hr cancellation period.

I went with a i5-540 config with ATI 5650.

It "feels thin". About 1.125" at the front and around 1.3" toward the back. I wish I could measure the weight with my food scale but it won't go that high.

The top of the lid is metal based with the slightest flex if you tried hard to push on it since the bottom side of the notebook is hard plastic. Oh and the compartment that houses the hard-drive and memory slots wasn't completely screwed down as the tabs were protruding and not set down in their slots. Annoying to fix but easy.

I don't really plan on turning it on...so this post concludes here.

 

Same thing on my bros dv6z. I was kind of annoyed but they built it and shipped it so fast that I got over it.

 

I can say now with out a doubt that each time the GPU is run in full screen 3D mode, e.g. any kind of game with the i7 720QM and ATI 5650 combo, when returning to the desktop the CPU will run upto 20c hotter than normal.

I would advise that anyone with the above configuration download Core Temp software, check you temps before playing a game and then after.

Something is not right. It is almost like the CPU is remaining at maximum voltage even though the system is at idle and there is no CPU usage even when clocking down 931MHz.
Since there is no software that reports core voltage with the i series, there is no way to know?

Putting it into sleep mode or hibernation will not restore normal temps. The only way to restore normal temps is to shutdown the computer completely and start up from a clean boot.

I have checked the GPU with both Everest and GPU-Z and it does return to the same clocks as per normal.

Why is this a problem? Temps are higher of course. The processor fan beings to loop, slowing down and spinning back up ever ~30 seconds or so. Most importantly, excessive battery drain ~30+ minutes less run time.

Adding to this post, I have observed that after GPU load has occured, the fan will actually fully turn off completely and then ramp up again from the heat generated. The fan will then spin very fast to cool the CPU and shut off completely a few seconds later. Off then on and off then on cycle. I am thinking HP has some work to do with the BIOS, let hope they do soon rather than later, and in saying that there is no ganrantee it will ever be fixed?

Please post back your feedback...

 

hahaha, i had that problem too!

I'll run GTA4:EFLC after the WC soccer finishes... with some before and after temps. Should be a good comparison for any potential faults seeing as we have the same system minus 2GB of RAM.

 

yep, good idea. Results awaited.

 

Here are the cooling results before running gta 4 and the cool down rate after (note HWmonitor has maximum temps observed during gameplay):

Idle Temperatures at 2:51am


Temperatures right After Closing GTA4 after 15mins of gameplay at 3:51am


Temperatures at Time 2:53am:


Temperatures at Time 2:57am:


Temperatures at Time 3:01am:


I guess it follows newton's law of cooling? Effectively reached idle temps a few minutes after gameplay. Although not shown, GPU-Z reported maximum gpu temp of 52C for the GPU during gaming. This effectively means that the cpu and/or ram is the bottleneck.

Sounds like you might have a dud system

As for battery life, the system peaks at 55w (i7 cpu's with 5650) when stressed as indicated by HWmonitor. Given that the capacity is 58wh, you would mathematically expect about 65minutes of battery life when on full load.

As for normal battery life, after 1hr of wording it up and surfing the web it reaches about 72% with brightess 2 notches above minimum. So thats about 3-3.5hours of real use. Personally I am never in need of a socket for more than 1-2 hours.

 

That's interesting, I wouldn't have expected that for GTA and a quad.

 

Thats not the system peaking at 55w, its purely the cpu! your system is probably about 90w fully loaded

 

Are you sure you had GPU-Z set to continue refreshing while it was in the background and to show the max temp? 52C is ridiculously low.

 

I don't see the box checked and it's very important to have it log in the background.

 

ok yeah it seems i didnt log the program in the background i'll run it again. When i went back into gpu-z the system was in the process of cooling down, ergo the 52C. As for checking battery life under full load is there a program i cant download which tests the system and estimates the battery life?

 

can anyone tell me if the dv6t is frameless or framed? I went to a local bestbuy and i noticed that the 17" model is frameless but there werent any 15.6" model avialable. So im just curious if the 15.6" model is frameless or not. Please let me know. Thanks

 

the dv6 as far as im aware is framed. However the touchscreen variant might result in another glass layer to be placed over the frame.

 

Framed. The dv7t you saw had which HP calls the "Infinity" display (frameless) but the dv6 doesn't have that even with the touchscreen, as far as I know.

 

Is there anyway i can remove the stock unbacklit keyboard from my system and install a backlit one?

I've been looking everywhere for a replacement keyboard with no luck