*OLD: HP dv8t QUAD Edition Owners Lounge*

I just ordered this VERY impressive new BEAST of a laptop for on-site video editing, DVD/Blue-ray production etc. We got it on a Logic Buy "Cyber Monday" STEAL for $899.99 from a $450 OFF Coupon (since expired unfortunately).

We added a Blu-ray *BURNER* OPTION and Bluetooth which added $150 + $25 = $1074.99 ... being built as we speak, should arrive next week.

http://www.shopping.hp.com/series/c...mpid=in_r329_personalization/browse1/home_SDP

Anyone have any good and bad experiences?

 

Um, there is already a DV8 Owner's Lounge, its just doesn't say QUAD EDITION but it is.

 

I bought the same machine but with Blu-ray Rom for $900. still can't believe that $900 can get quad-core i7, Blu-Ray, 1080P screen and dual HD setup. have looked everywhere since. the next cheapest laptop with similar spec i believe is the Asus G51J which costs $1500. I am only a little bit concerned about the screen. Not sure how's color accuracy which is very important for me.
Just returned the super-beautiful 27 inch i5 iMac last Sunday (because of 1TB Seagate HD noise issue). I will not buy any computer without a quad-core CPU right now.

 

TO a MODERATOR

I did NOT see the existing DV8 thread ... I searched on dv8t ... and it looks like there is current activity so you can move/delete this

 

There isn't, and when I made the DV7t quad edition owner's lounge I was going to make a DV8t Quad Edition one too. Then I saw the current DV8 Owner's Lounge and the very first post in there was in fact dedicated to the DV8t Quad Edition.

But hey I'll gladly post in this thread. I ordered mine this past Monday with the Logic Buy $450 coupon

HP Pavilion dv8t Quad Edition customizable Notebook PC
* • Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
* • Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-720QM Processor (1.6GHz, 6MB L2 Cache,1333MHz FSB)
* • 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
* • 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
* • 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 230M
* • 18.4" diagonal High Definition HP Ultra BrightView Infinity Display (1920x1080p)
* • Lightscribe Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer
* • Webcam + Fingerprint Reader with HP Imprint Finish (Espresso Black)
* • Intel Wireless-N Mini-card with Bluetooth
* • HP Integrated HDTV Hybrid Tuner
* • HP Color Matching Keyboard
* • 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
* • System Recovery DVD with Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Estimated build date: December 10, 2009

 

was debating about whether i should change my order to get the HDTV tuner. is it useful? some ppl is saying that an external USB tuner is much better.

 

we can get one at ebay for just over 1000$ http://computers.shop.ebay.com/PC-Laptops-Netbooks-/177/i.html?_nkw=hp+dv8t&_catref=1&_dmpt=Laptops_Nov05&_fln=1&_sc=1&_sop=15&_sticky=1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m282
I bought my dv7 from ebay

 

matt - nice specs. what was your configured and final price?

 

Final Price was $1,318.99 NOT including tax courtesy of the $450 off coupon.

 

Guys,

I got a dv8t as well. I jumped on the $450 coupon with $237 (20%) bing cash back. I upgraded to Win7 Prof and got the Blu-ray burner and a few other items. So $1070 out-the-door. Great deal for all the features with the nice i7.

I hear that this laptop runs pretty hot. Does anybody have experience with a solid silent fan usb laptop cooler with the dv8t? I don't think the Heatshift thermapad is gonna work with this monster.

Mine will complete the factory build on 12/11/09 and I was hoping to get the cooler in soon.

One more thing.. After I ordered, some guys were saying that the HPs were horrible for reliability. Any issues I should be aware of?

Thanks

 

Meganet3,

I bought several of the laptop coolers from Fry's in anticipation of the arrival of my Dv8t, and as a whole their performance was "ok". Most of the 1 and 2 fan coolers had 80" mm fans and felt cheap. The cooling wasn't amazing and I kept thinking to myself that I could build a better one myself, plus none of the coolers that were sold at retail stores were designed to fit a 18.4 laptop.
So, bought a piece of lexan from home depot and 3 120 mm fans and made one myself. I powered it with a old camera charger. overall works better then anything I have ran across. I used a heat gun to shape the lexan. Alternatively, a real easy homemade cooler would be to take a sheat of lexan, cut it to size, rise it 3" in the back and 1" in the front, and add your fans. The hardest part of the whole thing was heating and shaping a lexan. So, with that step removed the project becomes exponentially simpler.

 

It has the same build as the DV7t which ran very cool IMO. I am still patiently awaiting for an official review by someone on this site or like pcworld or cnet. Then we'll know for sure.

 

Since this is the DV8t Quad Edition I might as well post my pics in this forum as well.

To a Mod: I have this same post in the DV8 thread and it serves the same purpose over here also. Hopefully I'm not breaking any rules, I do not intend to.

Well I received mine today and even though I'm waiting til X-Mas to power it on I did examine it thoroughly today for defects. No scratches, no flex in the keyboard. Looks to be fine. But I'm treating myself by waiting til X-Mas to fully play with it lol.

My whole experience was amazing with HP. Here is an outlook on my experience to help those currently waiting.

Ordered: Nov. 30 (Cyber Monday)
In Production: Until Dec 5
Shipped: Dec. 5 (Saturday)
Received a Day Early: Dec. 10

NOT BAD!!!!

Here are pictures outta the box. Excuse the image quality, I had to use my dad's digital camera as my batteries were dead for mine.

My Specs:

HP Pavilion dv8t Quad Edition customizable Notebook PC

* • Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
* • Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-720QM Processor (1.6GHz, 6MB L2 Cache, 1333MHz FSB)
* • 50% OFF! 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
* • 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
* • 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 230M
* • 18.4" diagonal High Definition HP Ultra BrightView Infinity Display (1920x1080p)
* • Lightscribe Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer
* • Webcam + Fingerprint Reader with HP Imprint Finish (Espresso Black)
* • Intel Wireless-N Mini-card with Bluetooth
* • HP Integrated HDTV Hybrid Tuner
* • HP Color Matching Keyboard
* • 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
* • System Recovery DVD with Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
* • Microsoft(R) Works 9.0
* • HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope
*HP 2 Yr Accidental Warranty

$1,318.99 BEFORE TAX!!!

 

To the owners of the HP dv8t....how good is the sound period and at full volume? Also, is the keyboard backlit?

 

Thanks for the pics. I have to say, the similarity to the HP HDX18 is very, very close. Port layout, chassis shape (and probably size). I wonder if they used the HDX18t chassis??? That was a solid chassis!

My dv8t Quad is very similar to yours (except I got the 1TB option). Unfortunately, the two I ordered shipped the same day, but the well-equipped model, for some reason, sat in Shanghai whilest the not-as-well-endowed dv8t Quad continued on it's way to my city (for delivery TODAY!). So, now I must wait a couple more days for the 8GB model to show up!

 

I have the HDX 18T with 1GB Nvidia 130M option. I bought it to play games and do high-end graphics stuff. I must say I am very dissapointed; I'm sure you've heard about the dreaded NVLDDMKM.SYS error. Well, everytime I start playing WOW or EVE or whatever game, screen goes black than I get the yellow triangle at bottom right saying:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/wddm_timeout.mspx

U will see exactly the error in above link from Microsoft; no one admits who should fix this; I am sending the laptop to HP to fix, but they will run their tests and return it saying its all good; but its not. I would like to know if the nvidia 230M has the same problem; if any 1 can run a game or 2 to confirm this i would greatly appreciate it. this HDX is useless to me at this time. I am also posting what Nvidia had to say say about it.

http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t31913-0.html

Thank guys for your help.

 

Can anyone tell me if the dv8t has the 1333mhz ram speed?

 

Just an FYI (something I learned after much frustration upgrading to the new BIOS). When I first got my dv8t I changed the BIOS setting for "Fan always on" to disabled. I only want it to be on when it needs to be on. However, after upgrading the fan ran at full blast all the time, regardless of the setting. It sounded like a jet. I tried resaving the setting to no avail. What fixed things (it seems) is to load the setup defaults in the new BIOS, *then* change the setting. I'm not sure why it would work that way, but it does.

 

Thank you SO much! I had the proble too!

 

Oh glad someone found a fix. Thanks

 

Curious, shouldn't this thread be merged or removed entirely? It was established on the first page that there's already an official thread for the DV8 models going...

 

I'm looking at getting one of these dv8t quad machines.

The only thing holding me back now is TPM support. I need Win7 Bitlocker to work.

Does anyone know if the dv8t quad has a TPM and has anyone enabled Bitlocker in TPM mode successfully on one of these machines?

The specifications on HP's web site make no mention of TPM support, which leads me to believe this laptop doesn't have one. Pity.

 

Already addressed question in primary DV8 thread

 

Did you know the answer, because a simple YES or NO would have saved us a bunch of time doing a search that turns up no results in the "primary DV8 thread".

Maybe you could have linked to the post, or something, since a search of the dv8 Lounge for "TPM" or "bitlocker" turned up no results for me (not to mention, you have to wait 40 seconds between searches).

I would probably guess that there is NO TPM in the dv8. It's not a business-class PC.

 

That's exactly what I said. The other DV8 forums specifies the core i7 on page 1.

 

aaaaa posted the EXACT same question at the exact same time in both DV8 threads. I addressed his question in the primary thread in that same time frame. You could have tried to compare time-stamps, as it was obvious I responded to his question here within 30 minutes of his original posting.

I posted here as a courtesy, so no one else would find the need to respond when it had been addressed elsewhere. If you had bothered to read the posts in the DV8 thread from the previous 6 hours (less than a page of material), you'd have found it. This is a pointless thread, considering the older one has 140+ pages. I'm surprised the mods haven't done something about it. If you'd asked nicely instead of lecturing, I'd have happily provided a link here--but your tone is rather grating. I'm not getting paid to post, and I'm not your mom--I'm not here to spoonfeed you.

Short answer is "no", I checked with HP this morning (out of curiousity) and this unit doesn't feature TPM.

 

Sorry about posting in both places, I wasn't sure if my question belonged in the DV8T QUAD specific thread or the DV8 general thread, so I posted in both.

 

Some gaming info for the dv8t - this is the special Black Friday one we just received for $899 plus s/h. Installed Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and it runs great at 1920x1080 with everything enabled but anti aliasing off. Not bad! It does make the table quite hot, so maybe a under tray fan would be good to get for extended gaming sessions.

 

MATT ---

how are you liking your new machine? it's after xmas so im assuming you've used your new laptop thoroughly in the last few days....

what are your impressions thus far?

 

I love it. It's so awesome. Others have bashed it but I must have received the perfect unit lol. I seriously have no complaints. I really love the screen and the resolution. Its perfect and text is crisp and sharp. I do have the dpi at 125% though. But I am loving it. Don't see why so many people have problems with it.

 

glad to hear you are loving it!

i dont know why many people hate it... people hated the dv7's when i got my unit a year back and i have no clue why. people complained about the screen being too grainy, the touchpad/wrist rests getting warm, etc etc etc. some people want to nitpick the hell out of everything and i dont know why. "the wrist rest gets warm... hp sucks" mentality is unfounded. all brands/models have their negatives.

anyway, dude, enjoy the hell out of your machine. install unreal 3 on it and enjoy!

ps - did you do a clean install on it yet? i know, you've only been using it a couple of days... just wondering...

 

I did do a clean install then had some problems with the bass and treble controls so I put the factory OS back on. I unistalled some of the bloatware with CCcleaner and cleaned my registry and this computer runs extremely fast. I am not complaining at all. I registered my 2 year accidental warranty package the other day so I'm good to go.

I can tell no performance difference vs my clean install and the hp factory os. Now that I have cleaned out the registry.

 

Does the wrist rest get warm on the left? LOL.. Sorry, But I really would like to know. I have a problem with my hands and the heat bothers them. It only becomes a problem when I am gaming and have my left hand on the WASD keys. If it does get warm.. can a cooler stop it?

I bought a new Dell Studio 1747 and ended up returning it since the screen was terrible. I was going to reorder with the upgraded screen but Dell is having inventory problems now.

I keep looking at the dv8t since it has all of the right features. I like the idea of the larger screen and I really wanted a built in hdtv tuner. I wish Best Buy would get some in stock so I could see one!

 

well, on these hp units, the hard drive sits directly below the wrist rest area. the part that gets warm is directly next to the touchpad, to the left-hand side.

it's not insanely warm. it's almost cool to the touch with the different 5400rpm drives i had in mine (had a 320gig in there for about a year and swapped it for a 500gig)... i would think that the 7200rpm drives would generate more heat, and the wrist rest area may get more warm but this is only a guess. i doubt that a cooler would stop the wrist rest area from getting warm.

 

The only part that gets a little warm is the far back left. The palm rests are cool. The keyboard is also cool.

 

If it is the hard drives then I could always replace it with a 5400 rpm drive. Thanks!

Thank you. Now I really want to try it. I was put off at first by the video card but after looking at the benchmarks it beats the heck out of my 8600 gs. While giving me extra entertainment features like the larger screen, bluray, and tv tuner.

I wish manufacturers would figure out that the components that generate heat should be to the right of the touchpad for gamers! That would solve my problem since my right hand is on my trackball.

 

And if everyone is not right-handed???!!!??

RT

 

Anyone that is left-handed already has 2 choices for movement in a game. The arrow keys or the keypad. Chances are that one of them will be cooler. I've tried using the arrow keys but it is too uncomfortable and awkward.

I have never seen a single one that was warm on the right side. If there is one let me know!

 

Just wondering ---

Can you raid two identical drives (regular drives or SSDs) together on the dv8 for even better performance?

Thanks in advance.

 

Hooray! I received notice from HP today that my DV8T shipped 7 days earlier than expected. Looking forward to its arrival!

 

lol... I can top that- my laptop shipped a WHOPPING 2 WEEKS AHEAD than expected =D!!!!

 

hey all i dont have one yet but im decided between this and the dv7t quad since they are really close in price and i get epp pricing, hoping a nice coupon comes along soon tho, anyways back to my original question after reading thru the dv7t threads they are voicing alot of problems and was wondering from the owners here if anyone has problems with this model. i know over there they were talking about the screen quality issues and the main hinge breaking or not allowing the lid to close completly and finally the keyboard has problems with warping so anyone have any problems with the dv8t quads???

 

Anyone know what the difference between the dv8t-1000 and the dv8t-1100 is?

 

Ive been asking this as well on the dv8 forum with no response. Mine arrived today and it is the 1100.

 

The 1100 is the model with the solid state hard drive option. That is the only difference.

 

Would love to use dv8t quad edition as a desktop replacement if it had 16 GB RAM. Everything else about this machine is perfect as far as I am concerned. Can the BIOS support 8 GB DIMMs? Or, does anyone know if a new version with 4 DIMMs is expected soon.

Thanks.

 

After upgrading bios from HP recommended upgrades, the fan ran continuously. I went into the f10 bios setup and loaded setup defaults. Now the fan is off. YEA!

 

Not according to HP. The say laptops do not support RAID. Win7 must know that since it grays out the "stripe volume" option between dynamic drives and BIOS blocks "enable RAID".

 

From what I know, the chipset in the dv8t-1000 or even the dv8t-1100 does not support above 8192MB. I am not sure about a newer revision of the dv8t that supports 4DIMMs, but keep your hopes up =D

 

Regarding the fans running all of the time and heat generated, I was unaware of it because I installed an Intel 160GB SSD from the get go. It's always run very cool because of this, and i actually get decent battery life considering the size of this laptop. I've since ordered a second hard drive caddy, and installed the original 500GB disk as drive D.

Yup, it now runs very hot and the fan runs all of the time now I don't think turning off the fans in the bios is the answer since allowing the system to overheat might cause other issues. The larger problem for me is the reduced battery life and crazy heat being generated. Does anyone know a way to be able to completely power down the second drive on demand? The basic windows power management control panel program doesn't do this. I'd love to keep the drive installed, and just be able to turn it on when i need it.