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    nc8430 Questions: Battery life and Digital Audio

    Discussion in 'HP' started by Beltonius, Nov 24, 2006.

  1. Beltonius

    Beltonius Notebook Consultant

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    1. The S-video port on the side of my 8430 has the exact same extra pins as my old Dell XPS. On the Dell I had a breakout cable that let me plug S-video or composite video and also pull coax (S/PDIF) digital audio, which made it really simple and neat to connect my laptop to my entertainment system. I tried the breakout cable from my Dell on my HP and it fits, but it didn't seem to output anything useful as far as audio signals.
    Has anyone had any luck getting any kind of digital audio out of this thing? Lack thereof certainly wasn't a deal-breaker on this thing; I'm just wondering if it has the capability for it (the driver certainly likes to refer to it as HD audio).

    2. What do people do to stretch the battery life? I tend to get 2.5ish hours fresh out of a reboot, but I've sporadically gotten over 3 hours for reasons I can't seem to track down. I'ved tried running no 3rd party power management, NHC as well as RMClock (which seems to be the cause of sporadic temporary hangs), but no setup reliably increased the battery life. I have about 43 services running on startup. I'm using HP's default ATI CCC for running Powerplay.
    Anyone have any suggestions?
     
    Beltonius, Nov 24, 2006
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  2. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    I don't know about the audio here, but I do know that your battery life sounds about right. HP's estimates seem to be a little off...take 75% of the estimated life and that's what you get (75% not 25%). If you want (and I'm still considering getting one myself), think about getting one of those secondary batteries.

    Check out the CCCs PowerPlay options; make sure they are all at the lowest settings.
     
    Greg, Nov 25, 2006
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