V2000Z Gripes

My main gripes with my new V2000Z is it gets really hot in your lap, feels like it weighs 8-10 pounds, and doesn't have the impressive battery life I expected from a 12-cell. Does anyone else have these problems?

 

Make sure you're not blocking the fan intake with your leg. Check Windows Task Manager and see if there are any background processes spiking CPU usage, and if so make sure they're not viruses/worms/spyware. Run MobileMeter, check the Options | Battery Info tab and tell us what your battery wear level is.

 

Make sure you are dimming the screen as well. The screen is the biggest battery user on your laptop.

 

mine weighs about 6.5 pounds, battery last 3hrs....if my leg is blocking the air intake and exhaust for the cpu cooler it gets **** hot, otherwise ok.

 

Thanks everyone. zgamer, yours is a 12 cell right?

 

I just took a flight from NY to LA, watched two ripped movies, and still had enough battery left to post this message. I'm getting 5+ hours on my 12 cell with the screen brightness at 30%. Try testing your battery among other things at:

http://h20239.www2.hp.com/techcenter/battery/battery_ts.htm

 

With MobiMeter:

Temp: Mid-50s C
Wear Level: 0% (N/A on Voltage, Manufacture Date, and Serial Number)
HDD Temp: Low 50s C

One Note Though:

Remaining Capacity: 125078 mWh
Designed Capacity: 88800 mWh
Fully Charged Capacity 129293 mWh

 

Thanks John. It said "EABFiltr: Device has a problem". I have no idea what that is. It said my battery is alright though.

 

hdd temp of 50C is kind of high. My l2000 idles at 43-45 when the CPU idles at 50C /that is when the ambient temp is like 25C/.
Undervolting helps!

 

What is undervolting and how do you do it?

 

You did not give any details. It is kind of vague. What is your configuration.

12 cell really adds 0.7 pounds to V2000z making approx 6lbs. Every ounce make it feel heavier.

Does not give impressive battery life!! How much you are getting? and how much expecting? 12 cell may give around 5 to 6hrsmax in typical light usage( web browsing, word editing, photo viewing etc). But if you are using any processor intensive programs it may only last for 2-3 hours.

 

I'm getting 2-3 hours internet including 20 minute session of HL2. Check my other posts please.

 

, that's v2000z/l2000's specialty /these are the same laptops in different cover/. Generally by undervolting you reduce the input voltage without sacrificing performance - that is run at 800mhz with 0.925v instread of 0.975 (or 1v). Check one of the undervolting threads like: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=20249

 

I am not going to tinker with anything internally.

 

It's 100% sotware thing

 

What system brightness level are you using? I mean the brightness you change with the keys.

 

Still too risky for me.

 

I am sorry. None of the your posts in this thread has any information useful to help you. And you are not really forth coming.

Only thing I can guess is, for some reason your CPU is constantly running at full speed. Check the which power scheme selected in windows.

 

# AMD Turion(TM) 64 ML-30 (1.6GHz/1MB L2 Cache)
# – 14.0 WXGA Widescreen (1280x768)
# – ATI RADEON(R) XPRESS 200M
# – 512MB DDR SDRAM (1x512MB)
# – 60 GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive
# – DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive
# – 54g(TM) 802.11b/g WLAN w/ 125HSM/SpeedBooster(TM)
# – 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery

 

What do you need to know Chinna?

 

With you configuration if you are getting 2-3 hours for typical usage with 12 cell, there is certainly some thing wrong.( Many bettery test benchmarks are giving 2:30min+ with 6 cell)

Either some kind of software(spyware?) is running full throttle making CPU to run at full speed constantly. Or if you Windows Power Scheme is wrong( is it selected always on?).

I have ML-37 processor with 6-cell(see my sig for specs) I am getting around 3 hrs, and 2:30 min for DVD playback with PowerDVD.

Can you verify what power scheme you currently selected? And see if processor usage level higher than normal?

 

go to START - RUN - msconfig. In the start-up sheet you can see how many programs load when you boot. There shouldn't be more than 4-5 even if you have Norton Antivirus installed /which you'd be better off uninstalling/. All the stuff you don't need, you should remove.
The power scheme should be Portable/Laptop (or Max battery if that's more important), in case it's not

 

My v2000z has the exact Specifications as yours plus bluetooth and a lesser 40GB 4200rpmHD and it lasts 5 hours on a 12-cell. Does your fan always stay on?? or almost always?

But I do agree it is heavy with an 12 cell for a 14 inch screen. It feel as heavy as my 15.4 screen Acer with an 8-cell.

 

Dude you should seriously consider undervolting. There is almost nothing to worry about. It is practically 100% safe and it is all software controlled. Only issue you might ever have is that if you don't do it correctly your laptop could become unstable in the middle of something important and you'd have to restart and lose everything but this avoidable if you do it correctly the first time. Plus running it will allow your processor to run cooler which should prolong it's life. Check this guide for details on how to do it. There are two of them, Basic and Advanced. The Basic one should cover everything you could do to besides undervolting to get the power consumption down and the Advanced will tell you all about undervolting. I strongly recommend it, I just did it for my own V2000z and i'm getting about 20-40% more battery life (estimate) and it's running much more cooler. Took less than 30 min to figure it all out.

 

My power scheme is set for a laptop. I don't know why this matters if I just turn it off when I am not using it. My system doesn't have spyware! I am a information systems major. I know how to take care of my system:

Logfile of HijackThis v1.99.1
Scan saved at 9:54:14 AM, on 12/1/2005
Platform: Windows XP SP2 (WinNT 5.01.2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP2 (6.00.2900.2180)

Running processes:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE
C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgamsvr.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgupsvc.exe
C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPLpr.exe
C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPEnh.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgcc.exe
C:\Program Files\Microsoft AntiSpyware\gcasServ.exe
C:\Program Files\Microsoft AntiSpyware\gcasDtServ.exe
C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
C:\Documents and Settings\Nathan\Desktop\HijackThis.exe

R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/default.aspx?ln=en-us
O2 - BHO: AcroIEHlprObj Class - {06849E9F-C8D7-4D59-B87D-784B7D6BE0B3} - C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\ActiveX\AcroIEHelper.dll
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SynTPLpr] C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPLpr.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SynTPEnh] C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPEnh.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [AVG7_CC] C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgcc.exe /STARTUP
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [gcasServ] "C:\Program Files\Microsoft AntiSpyware\gcasServ.exe"
O16 - DPF: {0E5F0222-96B9-11D3-8997-00104BD12D94} (PCPitstop Utility) - http://pcpitstop.com/pcpitstop/PCPitStop.CAB
O16 - DPF: {17492023-C23A-453E-A040-C7C580BBF700} (Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool) - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=39204
O16 - DPF: {6E32070A-766D-4EE6-879C-DC1FA91D2FC3} (MUWebControl Class) - http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/V5Controls/en/x86/client/muweb_site.cab?1133199990046
O23 - Service: AVG7 Alert Manager Server (Avg7Alrt) - GRISOFT, s.r.o. - C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgamsvr.exe
O23 - Service: AVG7 Update Service (Avg7UpdSvc) - GRISOFT, s.r.o. - C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgupsvc.exe

 

What percentage of brightness does everyone run? I am talking about the brightness you change with the keys. I turned mine down.

P.S. I will officially time my uptime today and report with the official battery life.

 

step 2 or step 3 is what I use( it has 10 steps, so from lowest 2nd or 3rd).

 

Thanks, I changed mine.

 

Looks like you are not aware of how power management works in laptops. Based on power scheme the CPU speed switching changes. Like if you select ALWAYS ON scheme, CPU runs at full speed irrespective of processor usage( which consumes lot of power)

For ex: you CPU ML-30 consumes 7.9W at 800MHz which is pretty good for browsing, DVD, Music playback editing etc.
But if it runs at 1600MHz it consumes around 32Watts(almost 4 times). That is the major difference between a Mobile CPU vs Desktop CPU( Beside Max power consumption is low).

Power Scheme also decide how agressive it switches to Full speed.

I suggest you go thru some of the threads here with lots of details on how things works/different in the case if laptops.

 

I changed my power scheme to "Max Battery". Thanks for your help Chinna.

 

1 Hour: 77% internet and listening to WMAs. It's improved.

 

On mobimeter it measures my frequency as always 1.6 ghz. This is real-time info right?

 

Putting your computer on Max Battery is about the best thing you can do, along with dimming the screen, to maximize battery usage. But you can stretch a little more out of it by undervolting (oh no here he goes again). Basically what your computer does under the Max Battery Power Scheme is that it locks the CPU in at 800 mHz. So as long as you aren't doing anything processor intensive (mostly just surfing/listening to music, etc, no gaming) you should be fine. When you undervolt though, you can have it lock the processor in at the same frequency while using less power consumption. By default (i believe) the processor uses 1.00V when running at 800 mHz. By undervolting, you can get the same performance out of your processor while using about 0.950V or less. You also scale down the voltage necessary for 100% performance at 1.6 Ghz (assuming you have an ML-28 or 30) Then you can set the built in power scheme to always on and use the 3rd party software to control the frequency of the processor. You can put it at minimal (locks CPU at lowest frequency), Maximal (locks cpu at highest frequency), Automatic(mostly uses lower frequency but uses more processor when necessary), or No Management (which turns the system off). Hope that clears up the difference between the built in power management vs. undervolting using 3rd party software (freeware).

BTW, these CPU clock speeds are all in reference to the ML-28 and probably an ML-30 since it's the same cpu only with more L2 cache.

 

My fan is on half the time with max battery. Where do I get the undervolting software?

 

Look at my post on page 3 and click on guide. It has all the software and instructions in there under the Advanced Guide. If you are still having trouble look at the thread about undervolting on this forum. It has to do with the ML-34 but it's the exact same process.

 

you can be sure this sucks up your battery pretty fast. For browsing and listening music it should be constantly at 800mhz and the fan should not turn on (ok maybe from time to time depending on the room temp)

 

Yes, it is real time. Also means something is wrong with the settings. That also explains why you are not getting good battery life.

It should run at 800Mhz for typical browsing, Music listening. Ofcourse it may have jumps once in a while to 1600Mhz, but it should not be locked at 1600Mhz.

download RM Clock here http://cpu.rightmark.org/download/rmclock_18_bin.exe

Install it and follow the instruction on ML-34 UNDERVOLT thread, make sure you select ALWAYS ON Power scheme.

Ask question if you have any doubts.

 

RightMark is a cool utility. It says my current required voltage is 1.450V. I have it on the laptop power scheme. Setting the power to max battery doesnt lower the mhz. On monitoring it pretty much says I am going full throttle all the time. The Throttle is maxed out with the Core Clock non-stop. Could you please just get me started on the undervolting thing, im confused. How do I get my Mhz down?

 

Max Battery:


How do I fix this?

 

RightMark says I'm OK on max battery:


If I turn it back to Laptop, RM says I'm always at full throttle. How low can I lower the voltage?

 

Read this and this.. For somebody who claims they are an IT major, you sure are making me wonder. Every single one of us has posted numerous times with links to instructions on how to do this. Take some time to read for once 'cause we can't be there to hold your hand through it. I'm not even sure why I bothered responding.

 

My fan won't turn off, its nack at the settingsbefore I messed with anything.

 

First, thing is you are not even going to CPU default speed 800Mhz, so some thing is screwed up. Voltage is another things. May be RM clock will fix it too( I hope).

Ok, anyways I will give steps to start with for RM Clock,

Go to Management Tab,
check Use P-State Transitions,
Press Add, in the popup windows, select FID 4x, Requested Voltage VID 0.975, say ok.
Press Add again, this time select FID 8x, Requested Voltage VID 1.250, say ok.

In the same tab, under Power/Performance Section,
Select
AC profile --Automatic Management,
AC mode-- Power Saving Level 4
Battery Profile- Minimal ( if you are gaming then select Auto)
Batter Mode -- Power Saving Level 4.

In the general Tab select Run minimized in the tray, Restore defaults on exit, and if everything is stable select Run Automatically on startup.

These are typical startup setting, you may be able go much lower(voltage). But if you see if even at this voltages if it freezes, hangs etc, then bump voltage to 1.0V( default) at 4X and 1.30V at 8X.

Anyways, let us know how things are going. Best of luck.

 

Alright Chinna!!!!!! I finally unlocked my clock speed. It is running smoothly! I set new p-states with FIMs of 5, 6, and 7. RM has to be running all the time, right? I wonder why Windows couldn't unlock my clockspeed. I can see the temperature rises are much more smoothed out now. The fan is on less often now. W00t!

Chinna thank you so much for sticking with me, I would have screwed it up without you. I am going to recommend this site now.

 

Yes, RM Clock has to be running for these things to work.

Some how Processor Driver is messed up I guess. If there is nothing important on your laptop, I would suggest a fresh install with the CDs provided. This way you can also get rid the lot of junk installed by HP. These CD has all the drivers required, so you do not need to search for any thing. This should be able let the Processor run at different speeds.

But, it would be even better to undervolt with RM Clock, for less heat and little more battery life.

Follow the instruction provided in above mentioned thread/articles(psufleish23 provided those links above post) and get the least stable voltage.

Anyways, post your result/finding. It may help some other poor soul later.

 

Good instrutions by chinna. What I did to find the stable voltages, I ran a torture test using Prime95. It runs the CPU at 100%. Open up RM Clock. Add a P-state transition (1.000V for 4x and 1.350 for 8x and enable smooth transitions between them or whatever the check box is). Then under the AC/Battery Profiles and make those minimum and this will drop the FID down to 4x and run it at 100%. Now, start decreasing the voltage 1 step at a time, allowing enough time inbetween steps (10-30 sec). If it appears stable, move on to the next step. If your computer locks up, if Prime 95 fails, or if your comp crashes, then you need to go back up to the one that was stable. Now change the profiles for Maximum and this will run 100% for 8x. Now start decreasing the max VID for 8x in the same way. Then you can find your limits (min and max you'd like for it to operate under and Prime95 simulates how it will perform under stressed conditions). From there I permanently have my battery profile on Minimum and AC profile on automatic. You can choose what you'd like. Also, from my experience and anothers, it is best to change your Power Configuration to Always On before undervolting and leave it there because you are using another program to now manage the cpu. When I had it on portable/laptop it would crash on me. No problems now that it's on Always On.

 

Maybe this is already mentioned here (thread it too long) or in other post. but I used to notice poweron dowloaded from AMD mobile will lock the CPU SPEED to MAX (no matter what I set), so is processor driver version 1.2.2.2 B1 (that is for dual core, so make sense) on v2000z support webpage. reinstall the version 1.1.0.18 A1 w/o reinst OS may fix the problem

 

I contacted HP support and the directed me to the updated processor driver which fixed the problem. Thanks all for your help.

PLEASE CLOSE THREAD

 

The funny thing is the HP tech actually pointed me to an out-of-date driver, 1.1.0.18 vs 1.2.2.2, and that solved the problem. I wonder who else upgraded to the latest driver and got locked at full-throttle?

 

Well that what I said 3 posts earlier.