This Hp notebook I am trying to get

Yesterday, I ordered a hp dv6700tse.

I have been looking for a laptop for months, but I was not in any rush until my crappy laptop finally died on me 8 days ago.

I actually discovered this site back in august in my quest for a new laptop.
Its because of you guys that I didn't buy the computers that had bad memories or a small hard drive.

So this is what I ordered:

- HP Pavilion dv6700t Special Edition CTO
- Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit)
- Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.20 GHz, 4 MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
- 15.4" WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)
- 2GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)
- 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS - For Core 2 Duo Processors
- HP Imprint Finish (Influx) + Fingerprint Reader + Webcam + Microphone
- Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network Connection

- FREE Upgrade to 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive from 120GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive!!
- SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
- No TV Tuner w/remote control

- High Capacity 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
- Microsoft(R) Office Home and Student 2007
- HP Wireless Laser Mini Mouse (White) and Mobile Stereo Headset (1 pair, White)
**************************

It all cost' me $1,351.21

I had gotten a total of $319 worth of discounts.

So do you guys think its a good notebook?

Its my first time with a hp notebook.

I planned on using it for school, and playing the sims 2.

Another question I have is this:

Can I call up hp to see if they could change my video card to Nvidia 8600t?

 

No they wont be able to change the GPU...HP does have the 8600GT in any of their consumer notebooks.

But yeah thats a notebook with nice specs did you use the coupons???

 

I had one for the accidental warrenty

But the other discounts came from the student discount. and some other discount the guy gave me, while we were putting together the computer.

We were having cool convo while puting the computer together, He was really nice.


I'm going to call hp first thing in the morning and see if I can get them to change the video card, since the computer has not been built yet.

I was hoping this would be a good laptop. because this would be my third one.
The first 2 my mom brought them. But I am buying this one, and I wanted it be the best for me.

 

They don't offer the 8600gs in the 15" series... there is not enough room. So the 8400m is it. Only the 17" offers the 8600gs.. no GT option.

The only thing I would recommend is buying the extended battery.. Looks like you have the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network Connection which should have the blue tooth as well.. You will be lucky to get 2 hours out of that battery.. or less. With wireless/BT on, the HI capacity battery is not great.

Its pretty hard to change an order once you place it.. I called HP 10 minutes after I placed it and no go. I forgot to click on the free upgrade to soft scrub dvd burner or whatever they call it.. they ended up just giving me another 100 bucks off instead of me canceling order. If you can alter order it has to be done really fast.. Once its sent to chinas (shanghai) build site.. its too late. HP really needs to have some kind of modify department like dell does.. They are pretty inflexible about this. You might have to cancel order to modify it.

Again, I recommend adding the extended life battery and maybe downgrading the processor. Unless you do intensive video editing.. or trans coding of video etc.. the extra cost of that processor will not be noticed. These machines are not meant for hardcore gamers and your faster processor will make no difference in gaming.. The 8400m will be the bottle neck to gaming performance. If you really want the faster GPU at this price point I would get the new Dell 1525 which should be out in January. It appears to fix the headphone jacks... there now up front and it will include HDMI. You should also be able to get the GT card with that.. But you might have to wait a bit longer for that model to come to dells site. I personally think it arrive soon. A lower end model with intergrated graphics was already spotted at a staples.

Other then the stronger GPU, I like the HP over Dell any day. The built in altec lansing speakers are much nicer sounding then whatever crap dell uses. But I have not heard the upcoming 1525 speakers yet. I am assuming they will be comparable to what the 1520 has now. Nevertheless, I thing the new Dell 1525 will be the new standard in this category laptop.. It will offer hdmi, blue ray and fast GPU at a decent price point. The current form factor of the pavilions are smaller/lighter and probably the best design if raw gaming power is not a top priority. The only draw back to HP is the bloatware they load and no anytime upgrade DVD included.. you can buy that separately for 5 bucks elsewhere and do a clean install later on. Other then that, you should really like this machine.

Its a good design being Dell is copying it like crazy IE: the new dell 1525 puts the speakers behind keyboard, headphone jacks in front, adding HDMI, using a latch less lid, media buttons behind keyboard. HP already designed this in whereas Dell is now just adding this design to there most popular notebook.

 

If you indend to upload a good deal of music, video or other large files consider upgrading to a larger hard drive. Vista takes up about 20G of space. I just purchased a similar unit with a 160G HD and after just loading a few programs I am under 100G before I even loaded any music or other documents...

 

I hear ya there. Vista is a beast. After I made my recovery discs I went ahead and deleted the recovery partition. That gave me another 8 gigs or so. An OS should never have to take that much space. Vista is too bloated but thats another topic.

The other option is to buy one of those small USB powered external hard drives. Thats my plan once I fill my HD. In some ways, putting multimedia files on a portable HD has its advantages over storing it on the primary HD in a notebook. You just want to make sure your HD is large enough to load all your applications and your favorite games. I feel sorry for those that order a new laptop with a 80 gig drive and vista. The problem with lack of HD space comes to home rather quickly. I have a friend who just bought an Acer laptop with a 80 gig drive and vista and is already asking me how to replace the HD with a larger one.

 

So do you think I should cancel my order and upgrade on my hard drive?

I mean I do download music, but I tend to delete them once I get it on my mp3 player. so that not really an issue for me.

I do save files from microsoft word. and then at times I play the sims2.

other than that I just surf the net.

 

I think one major reason to cancel your order and upgrade is this coupon:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=200680

It gives you 500 dollars off the price of the laptop so you will have a bigger hard disk AND it will end up costing you less.

 

That coupon is no longer valid, nor is it working. I called them up last night ready to cancel and make adjustments. So if there is another coupon in 10 days or so, I will cancel and order another one with the bigger hard drive

 

ditto..i'v been stalking that coupon too for the same reason...we'll see what HP gives us. Hint: if you call up they can give you a phone only coupon for another $200.
for me, music and photos are the biggest storage users..if you dont store a lot of music then you may be ok. Its not the end of the world if you dont upgrade the hd, as the other poster said, its an easy matter for some extra $$ to get an external USB hard drive. if the laptop is your only pc you should be backing up anyway...

 

Well, I've been stalking their site. to see if prices go down and such.

I'm also trying to see if I should cancel and get an 17 inch. But I'm most likely to stay with what I got already

 

I'm so excited!!! MY Laptop just shipped today, so I have a few more days to go

I even recieved my Notebook Bag today. I was worried that I would not get it before I left for work.

 

Awesome envy. Did you end up with the same specs as you stated above? I have an older model of the special edition (white color) and it's great! The silver keyboard is dream to type on compared to the black one. However, my system is breaking down and I'm going to replace already. It won't be a special edition, but still a dv6700t.

 

I never changed it. So I still have the same Specs.

Did you get the new laptop, or did u order it yet? Is your last laptop still under warrenty?

 

My notebook is being replaced through warranty. I have already sent the notebook in twice but they didn't fix anything both times. Instead, it came back damaged.

So the case manager gave me a replacement. It's a huge upgrade. My old notebook (not really that old), was AMD-based Special Edition. I'm getting an Intel-based notebook.

My specs are almost the same as yours, but it's the regular black color notebook on the dv6700t series.
- Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2ghz
- Intel PRO/Wireless 4965AGN + Bluetooth
- 250gb 5400RPM
- 2gb DDR2
- HD-DVD ROM
- 256mb Nvidia GeForce 8400m GS
- Fingerprint Reader + Webcam + Mic
- 12-cell Battery

The notebook is under construction. Hopefully by next week I'll be getting it. Just in time for school.

 

For those of you that don't know, Vista not only takes up a lot of space to install, but by default Vista's Shadow Copy (backup program used in Vista) it will take up to 15% of the partition size. You can modify this to whatever you want it to be, but that is another reason why Vista takes up so much space on your HDD if you leave the defaults.

Also, another thing to consider to any newcomers to this forum is doing a fresh install. When you purchase a personal computer from any manufacturer they install a bunch of bloatware (companies pay them money to install their software) which will slow down your computer exponentially. By doing a fresh install, you won't have all that crap on your computer and you will notice the difference in speed. There is a sticky post on this in the root of the HP forum that tells you how to go about doing a clean install. Just make sure you burn your recovery disks before you do anything on your laptop, just so you have a backup to always go back to.

 

My laptop is now in Ancorage Alaska . well it left there around 1:30pm. So if it was coming straight to Florida it would take 10 -15 hours. Which would be good news, and I might have it by tomorrow. or even Monday.

 

So am I supposed to do the back up first, and then do the recovery disk?

Which one?

Is it hard to do a clean install? I never done anything like that before.
I know that most computers come with a recovery disk. So I'm not supposed to use that?

I am really comfused.

I want to do everything possible so that my laptop stays in great shape?

one more question.

How many Cd's do I need to make a recovery disk?

 

Hey don't use CDs. Use DVDs. For the dv6700tse, usually it would be 2 DVDs or several, maybe 8, CDs. I would just use 2 DVDs.

As for the clean install...it's very simple and much less frustrating than uninstalling un-need software.

1. Burn the recovery disk with DVDs by going to "Program" and clicking on "Recovery Manger" and then "Recovery Disc Creation". This is going to take a while.

2. Backup any data you have on the computer. If it's brand new, then just backup the folder called "swsetup" on the C: Drive. That has all the drivers and software your notebook needs.

3. Do clean install...make sure you have a copy of the original Vista disc and pick the version your system came with and use the serial # @ the bottom of the notebook.
(@ this stage, you can delete the recovery partition since you already have the recovery disc on a DVD backkup. Use the space gained and just split the HD space in half. Lets see...you have 160, split it 60/100. 60 for the OS and 100 for your data.)

4. Install all the drivers that's necessary for your notebook and install your software.

5. Defragment.

6. Enjoy your blazing fast, bloatware free Vista notebook pc.

 

I know I am going to sound retarded. But how do I back up that folder swsetup on the C drive. How will I know that it works?

what kind of drivers are you talking about?


I'm only going to install the sims 2, microsoft office, firefox, opera, and my aol and msn software.

 

-Open the swsetup and burn it to a DVD using Nero or something. swsetup is just a folder that contains all the drivers for your notebook.
-The drivers I'm talking about are things like chipset, video card, sound, wireless, etc...
-Those software your installing are fine...

Okay, here's a link to all your drivers based on the setup you had in the front page: (Just download, burn in a disc or copy to external HD and after you do a clean install, run them...)

Chipset: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp36501-37000/sp36881.exe

Audio: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp37501-38000/sp37743.exe

Video: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp37501-38000/sp37814.exe

Fingerprint Reader: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp37501-38000/sp37812.exe

Touchpad: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp37001-37500/sp37065.exe

Modem: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp37501-38000/sp37811.exe

Ethernet: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp37501-38000/sp37810.exe

PRO/Wireless: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp36001-36500/sp36413.exe

5-in-1 Card: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp37501-38000/sp37809.exe

Bluetooth: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp34001-34500/sp34496.exe

Webcam: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp34501-35000/sp34746.exe

Quick Launch: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp38001-38500/sp38166.exe

Hopefully this is helpful. Make sure you install a clean install of Vista before using these.

 

I was looking at another thread on how to do a clean install. and it seems to complicated. its like you have to do a whole lot to get it done. do you know of a simpler way to do it?


and thank you for the link to the drivers, and I also want to tank you for all your help. It really means alot to me.

 

You don't have to do everything it says on the thread...

All you need to do is...

1. Install Windows Vista
2. Install the drivers above...
3. Install Windows Vista updates through "Update" section
4. Install your software

Those are it. There's nothing more you really have to do...Are you familiar with Vista installaion procedure? It's pretty straight forward. Just pick the same version of Vista you ordered and use the key below your laptop...

 

Thanks for all you help


and Guess what?


My notebook came this morning around 10:15. I have not opened it yet because I was cleaning and such. Now I'm gearing to Crank it open in another hour or so.

 

Congratulations envy. I'm still waiting for mine to come. Still in the building process I guess. Too lazy to check with the case manager. I'll give him a call on Friday or something.

How is it so far? Are you liking it? Also, hows the fingerprint reader, got one of those on mine also. My setup is almost similar to yours except I got some other extras. Does the system run hot at all? Are the fans loud?

 

the fingerprint reader was a pain when I was setting it up, but I worked it out. and its fine now.

the notebook keys are large. and I have to re-adjust myself with the new keyboard.

The fan does not run loud at all. It has it moments, which lets me know that its working over time, depending on what I am doing. But its mostly quiet.


the webcam is perfect. I tried it out yesterday and sent my friend a video mail.

I didn't try it out on msn or yahoo yet though.

I didn't try the dvd drive yet, but I know it works because I had to use the cd to insall my mouse. so it works. Quick time popped up fine.

The volume on this computer is so awesome. I love it. very loud, and much louder than my last laptop.

The system does not get overly hot. its does get warm. but nothing bad.

I also use a notebook stand to help me out with that, so it does not get too hott.