a few pictures n words on dv4t

here we go....ive no idea that the max number of pictures i can upload is only 6,still got 20 more of them left....basically same pictures that everybody sees everyday when a new dv4t gets unboxed...

ive had half of my day playing with it, tried to torture it a little see how bad it'd get. i still wanna start straight with the heating.

its TRUE that you HDD gets pretty warm. i havent had one before that once you start doing things HDD temp hits 40+. but lucky for me it stays almost right there,ive heard of people having their dv4t toast up to 50 right away. if yours gets above 50 when you are not even doing anything,i say better you call hp up find yourself a replacement or at least have them send you a new hd. n btw there wouldnt be any significant difference whether your dv4t has a western digital or hitachi in it. hp probably already stopped putting western digital in,mine is a hitachi 250gb.

when it gets to heating issue most of the lappies out there will more or less have some of that. (thinkpad sager clevo lovers plz give me a break..) hp might be having design issues on HDD cooling,but the other parts are as good as you can expect. i got p8600 n both cores stay around 35 most of the time(by lifting up the back there is really obvious temp drop). gpu (nvidia) stays around 50 even less. it hits 55 when i was watching live TV.

but HDD hits 48 eventually. like i said its not too big a problem. except when you touch it...i pulled the whole laptop out a little bit so that the hd part will be left outside the table. saw 2 degrees drop when i did that, kept it there. so basically my dv4t is in a "downhill" position n 1/3 of the keyboard is floating in the air....to me it does make some improvements but almost smashed it down to the floor several times....

i played a little game with it too, but havent got to my fav devil may cry 4 yet, im kind of scared cuz hd once hit 52 n i stopped immediately.then it cools down n stays at 46 .

as for the display since i only got the widescreen, no infinity no LED no fingerprint reader...i guess i dont have much to say except that it is like most of the old hp series, wont disappoint you at all.

battery life havent tested yet, i got the 6cell.

sound is fine, above average compare with other brands(um,not the ones like sony...)when i plugged in my seinnheiser earbud it was quite awesome.

quite a long messy one.....i'l see what i left out later.feel free to ask me anything. im still loving this laptop. for the price its really worth it, (cost me 950) unless you really cant stand you hdd heats up ahead of cpu n gpu.

 

You harddrive should be fine as long as you dont go over 55C for prolonged periods.

 

Hey that's a pretty nice laptop, can you please post the battery life on this laptop. Thankyou

 

Congratulations, 7miles! Your hard drive looks fine
I think you don't have to worry about your hard drive temperatures at all.
You played some game and reached 52. I can understand that, but mine reaches about 52 degrees within 30 to 40 minutes even while surfing the Internet. And, that's an idle temperature! I was thinking about just keeping it and getting a cooler or changing the hard drive. But, then... I thought..."why do I have to worry about the hard drive while others don't have to?"

I'm thinking about exchanging my dv4t with a new one that has the P8600 and a 250-GB hard drive. The hard drive heat issue is not the only reason I want to exchange my dv4t. I think the T9600 is too powerful for me! LOL
I wonder how much difference the P8600 will make, compared to the T9600 (the fastest non-extreme mobile processor currently available)

Also, I asked the HP representative to put some comments on my exchange order to make some people who will build mine at least know that I had an issue with the hard drive. But, I think nobody will actually read that.

Anyway, I'm glad that you don't have any major problem!

 

just upgraded my memory to 4gb, man the covers are pretty tight...

the keyboard is neat,shiny,pretty,whatever you call it...much better than dell(no offence to dell lovers).im testing battery life right now, i got the basic 6cell n it seems going away pretty fast. well im not a big battery user.anybody who has the high capacity 6cell willing to share some info?

here's the ratings. does anybody know how much the 8400 gs rates?

 

oh glad to hear from you again.lol yeah think we all tend to put too much attention on the hard drive. i touch the bottoms every 2 minutes when i just got it...swear whenever it hits above 48 im ready for a heart attack.anyway, P8600's definitely enough for most people.you wont see ANY difference unless you max it out to see exactly how fast it will calculate..

well im a little disappointed when i saw my 250gb is a hitachi, not that hitachi sucks that bad....one thing i just dont get is why it heats up so quickly...overall im happy with it, although im still trying hard to ignore the hd thing.

hey you did a clean install right, what did you not install after it? i mean i only used the bloatware removals, now cant decide whether i should get rid of some of the hp softwares.

hope your soon new dv4t will do great!!!!

 

by the way thats kinda odd that you get a 3.5 score on Vista for graphics. i am getting 4.1 for the same graphics chip and i have the dv2700tv and 3GB of RAM.

by the way you probably won't notice much difference with 4GB of RAM since Vista 32 bit can only use about 3.2GB of RAM unless of course you dedicate the rest of that RAM to the graphics chip.

nice lappy there by the way.

 

I haven't seen people wih the 8400M GS in person, but I saw some people getting from 4.0~4.5 on the Internet. I really don't know anything about graphics cards... but the 9200M GS has a higher core speed and less unified shaders than the 8400M GS. I don't know what the "unitifed shaders" in them are, but the number of unified shaders might be a factor. I don't know.... But, what I can say for sure is that I also got 3.5 with the 9200M GS

 

Which just goes to show how worthless the WEI really is. The 8200M G in the CQ50Z I set up yesterday gets a 3.6 score, and that is with using lower speed ram than the specifications call for. In reality, the 9200M GS would eat the 8200M G for breakfast........

 

Thanks
Wow... you must be worried about your hard drive a lot! LOL
Well... I don't think the heat is generated becase it is a Hitachi hard drive. It seems like Hitachi hard drives are good hard drives according to other people on this web site. Maybe, there could be a problem with the design of the notebook itself or with the motherboard that gives an excessive amount of power to the hard drive. Anyway,,, it doesn't make sense to me, either.
I would understand if the hard drive heated up after a few hours of intensive use, but it just heats up to 48~50 degrees within 30 minutes!

Well, the only HP software programs you will need are Quickplay, Digital Persona, and YouCam (if you want). That's it. I can't think about other things right now, but I think that's it. It seems like you don't want to re-install Vista, but if you want to re-install Vista, you'd better save the folder that contains all the drivers and software. I forgot its name, but you can find its name in the "clean-install" thread in this forum.

 

The WEI benchmark means nothing. Take the 3.5 with a grain of salt.

 

Yeah.. WEI is worthless. I don't know what it uses to give those scores.

 

dv2700 offers 9200m GS too? yeah figured,im not expecting much of a difference,only that i had 2gb when i ordered it....

 

i opened the cover n touched the hd,it itself is just warm, but the wireless card is TOOOOOO hot to even touch on, i guess that might be the reason. i really wanna suggest hp to put a small fan or something under it.

 

Yeah.. that's right... That could be a reason...
But, some people are getting lower temperatures than I'm getting or you're getting...

Could it be because they have different wireless cards? I have the Intel 5100 one... We should ask what wireless cards other dv4t users have.
Instead of putting a fan, I hope HP to separate the wireless card from the hard drive.

BTW, aren't those covers very tight? When I first tried to remove the hard drive cover, I didn't know how to do it...

Anyway, I just got an e-mail from HP that says my exchange order will be delayed because I haven't returned my dv4t yet. I'll return it tomorrow...

I hope everything is good with my future dv4t Even if it has the same problem, it should be fine because I'm gonna buy a Zalman cooler! Yeah!

 

oh geez bad new guys, i think im going to return it....sorry to be an ***,i cant handle the heating thing too well anymore. since this afternoon it stays at 48 all the time no matter what i do .actually it went straight up to 45 when started, then when i began web browsing it climbed up to 48-49.i know it doesnt sound like a big deal but im tired of worrying about it all the time.

its nobody's fault, this is overall an above average laptop if you can stand the warm touching. hp customer service isnt that horrible either.

 

Oh.. you're having the same problem

One thing that is really sad about this is that once you know and worry about the hard drive temperture, you look at your hard drive temperature all the time! That's what I've experienced for the last one week.

I'll see what'll happen with my future dv4t. If it still has the same problem, I'll just use my Zalman cooler.

Yes, HP Customer Service isn't that bad when it comes to returning, exchanging, or getting a refund. If anybody has a problem with one HP representative, just hang up the phone. And, call HP again to get a different representative.

 

i don't really see what this is all about. maybe it's because i don't have the laptop yet but i still don't understand. the toshiba that i use right now gets pretty hot on the right palm rest and keyboard area to the point my wrists will start to become sticky. isn't the heat normal? but i hope that the dv4t will be better then my old toshiba laptop.

 

i know, i didnt wanna be such a jerk, i am really so sorry. but i still think this is a very nice laptop you wont be disappointed at all, only i personally dont like to see hard drive heating up too fast.cuz that might cause problem a year later.none of the laptops i had before had this kind of problem--you dont usually hear alot about hard drive heating issue...n honestly think its not about the hard drive.the wireless card is the cause.

so i think if anyone's thinking about getting a dv4t, better not choose the intel wifi link 5100.it's hot like a frypan on fire...

again im sorry about bringing more bad news. im still encouraging those who are about to pull the triger, do it.

 

like you said i think hp shouldnt arrange the wireless card right next to the hard drive. that card feels so hot.

guess people will hate me a lot lol.

 

actually its a 8400M GS i thought that was the chip you had.

 

If you're really planning to return it, tell the HP representative whom you'll talk to that HP should not put the wireless card so close to the hard drive. I think the HP representative will try to connect you to a technician, but don't allow the representative to do so!
Although they'll not listen to just one customer, they'll definitely listen if many customers return and complain about it!

I think it is just one disadvantage of having a 14.1-inch laptop. 15.4-inch laptops like the dv5t seem to have no problem with the hard drive.
Anyway, I don't want to carry around with a 15.4-inch laptop.

 

you guys all need to relax about the hard drive issue, i talked to a hitachi hard drive engineer the other day, and he said its fine for them to go up to 90. as long as it doesnt get to 90c you are good.

 

exactly, that's why im telling people not to think about it as an issue at all. its my bad cuz im personally scared of even a little heat.

DV4T IS REALLY A GREAT LAPTOP. we are going to see it bump up to be one of the "editor's choice" on some credible review sites!

 

yeah, well actually when the rep took my call she asked me whether i had talked to a technician, i said yes but dont remember the case number.. dont want to waste my time getting persuaded to hold on...anyway i told her about the whole thing including both of the card and the drive. but dont think she'll actually do anything...

ive already packed it, cuz i will totally regret about this tomorrow morning when i wake up,lol. its really a nice laptop,love the look and touch.i dont even want to think about so which i should go torture with later on,cant get it out of my head

anyway,its just me,wish you all the luck!!!i'd still hang around here