Compaq Presario v2000z Review (pics, specs)

Wallpaper - it is upto you
System Default Settings - Yes
hp OS enhancements - Not needed, but if you want
Help and Support Center -- Yes
Microsoft Zone Deluxe Games --NO
MuVee Autoproduce DVD Edition - Yes, not bad for basic capture and editing
HP User Guides -- May be
Quick Launch Buttons --No, Not required meant for DV1000 series
Sonic Digital Media Plus - Not that useful, but you may try
hp Wireless Asst --NO, not required
Intervideo WinDVD - It works, but I would stay away
HP Software Update - Yes
hp Image Enhancements --NO

 

Personally, I didn't bother installing any of it. I only installed the drivers.

 

Just snooping around and noticed my bios is F.20 11/30/2005

Also curious to know the make of my hard drive - I didnt know how to identify it using XP - tried msinfo32 (sys info) and device manager but no luck so I decided to open up the cover.... surprised at how easy it was to remove the hard drive - turns out its Hitachi, not Toshiba as some of you have received

 

Try http://hdtune.com/ . You can post the results on the web and see how your drive is doing

You can see the manufacturer of the HDD in the System Properties

 

I have a question. I just got my v2000...its the Best Buy exclusive...and it runs on AMD Turion 64...is it normal for the Compaq sign with the black background to appear when you turn the laptop on? Then the little line for typing comes up by itself on the black background...it takes a bit long for the window xp screen to appear. Is there a problem with it or something? I'm just kinda worried because when I first used it...the Compaq sign and the little line didn't come up before. It was just the windows starting up. Thanks.

 

Anyone do a format using fdisk before installing a clean installation? Do you gain a few gigs back?

 

I repartitioned my hard drive to overtake a "ghost" partition, gaining a whole 8 MB! That's about all you can squeeze out of it. My "60 GB" hard drive is reading 55.8 GB. This is normal. You will never get the full amount of GBs your hardrive is because manufacturers format their drives so that that 1 GB=1M bytes, but in reality it one GB= to 1,024,000,000 bytes.

 

hi
guys

i have my own laptop this afternoon
it is compaq v2000z, i am so happy to join you all.
and also i have some questions.
1.the one i have only has 256 PC2700 ram, can i upgrade another 512M one. and which brand should i take.
can you guys give me some advices, and also if it is to your convinience, please show me some good deals. hehe ( i have googled before and found someone said the notebook is pickness to the ram).
2. do i need to upgrade the system to windows x64 edition. it is more powerful than the xp(sp2)?

thanks for your reply. and again to say i am so happy to join you all.!!!!

 

Buy OCZ DDR400 512MB RAM from Newegg. It is compatible, faster, cheaper and can run along with your 256MB DDR333 stick.

 

thanks , but it seems out of stock
can you give me any other suggestions or options.

 

Any 200 pin DDR SODIMM PC2700 or PC3200 memory module will do. OCZ, Corsair, Kingston, and Crucial are some good choice brands. PC3200 would preferable, considering the small price delta plus the added option of replacing the 256MB you currently have in the future.

 

it seems i am a newer to doing this kind of business, can you show me where i can get cheaper ram? only newegg?

 

Look around, but I usually buy my stuff at Newegg.com or Zipzoomfly.com, whichever is cheapest. Even if I do find a particular product for a few $ cheaper elsewhere, I'd rather buy from a place I'm familiar with and trust for the most part.

 

I have ordered RAM off of both Newegg and ZipZoomFly. Newegg has a better memory section. But, you get free shipping with ZZF . . it's really a toss-up, go with the cheaper one.

Corsair ValueRAM is very nice for the money.

 

I have a total of 512MB Ram that came with it - 2 dimms. Ias 512mb sufficient? If I do upgrade - should I only replace one dimm - not sure how to go...

I also noticed as per system properties,it states I only have 384 MB Ram - the other 128mb I'm assuming is for video/graphics.. Also, my processor is a ML-32 1.8 Ghzz yet system properties states 1.58 ghz, but if i use dxdiag tool it appears as 1.8?

 

Where is everyone??? No ones posted in an entire 2 days.... lol. I was able to boot from an sd card into Norton Ghost 2003 though I have not tried to do any backups yet. It didnt work in the card reader but it worked in a mini card reader attached to usb drive. (used HP's format utility and then added the ghost files manually)

Also considering a 7200 hard drive.... are Seagate and Hitachi the only ones that make it for notebooks? Is this too pricey? Also, should I get serial ata?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822146228

 

V2000z does not have SATA interface, so you have to buy only PATA. I thought Hitachi was little cheaper. I would go with cheaper one out of Seagate and Hitachi.

 

My only reservation with Hitachi is that I read reviews that the Hitachi was noisy, on newegg.

Btw, I ran HDtune on my 4200 Hitachi 80 GB. HD Tune:
Transfer Rate Minimum : 11.7 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 29.0 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 22.5 MB/sec
Access Time : 18.5 ms
Burst Rate : 75.5 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 5.3%

No idea if this is good or bad for a 4200

 

I've had three Hitachi notebook drives - and they are a bit noisy. Well-made, but noisy.

I'd go for the Seagate - much quieter.

 

What about Fujitsu, I think Fujitsu runs quieter than Seagate does, but it will likely be pricey.

 

My V2000Z came with a seagate 5400rpm drive, it is very quite.

 

i'm way late to the party, but i wanted to say nice review chinna. great info.

 

My V2000Z came with a Fujitsu 5400RPM. It was dead quiet but a bit warm. My new Hitachi 7200RPM is cooler, but as others have commented, a bit noisy.

 

Since the display is widescreens it appears to be somewhat flattened - what do you think is the best resolution and is there a way to make it look more normal??? Also, has anyone tweaked with the brightness, contrast and gamma settings in the advanced display settings window under the color tab? Curious if anyone has found optimized settings???

 

1280 X 768 is the native resolution, so that is the best resolution to run it at, although others will work. I have been tweaking the settings for different things, still haven't found the best balance for everything. Find what works for you.

 

very nice review!

I just got mine last night. I'm so happy! I got an ML-32 with 512 MB RAM, 60 GB HD, and combo drive. Just got it for $749 at Best Buy! promo only runs until tomorrow.

I saw the unit last weekend, and it was tagged as $899, which was still a pretty good deal. I thought it over the weekend, and when I decided to take a look at it again last Tuesday, there was a $150 instant rebate on that model! Talk about luck!

I bought right then and there. Only, I had to return it because it had one very very faint dead pixel. They were very helpful and accepted it immediately, and I checked the new one they gave me and the screen was now flawless!

I initially wanted to build a new A64 machine to replace my aging XP 2600+, but it wouldve cost me another $800 because I will have to replace the MB, processor, video card, power supply, up the RAM.. yada yada yada.. now i got the entire thing for just about the same cost!!

Can you tell I'm happy? ;-)

I am planning to upgrade the RAM on this thing because I just don't see it doing it for me in the long run. Right now I have to discard at least 1 of the sticks (I have 2x256). I may just go for 1 stick of 1 GB DDR400, and leave one slot open. I could actually leave 1x256 in there, but it may just hamper the performance of the DDR 400.

Another plan I have is to get rid of the 4200 60GB HD in there (put it in a HD enclosure), and go for a 100 GB 5400 drive. I'm not sure though if I would notice a big difference.

Anyhoo... I should really play around with my new toy first before I start thinking about spending more

 

That's a great deal. I got the one at Circuit City for $50 more but I have to send away for $180 in rebates. It seems like you don't. I wonder if you can get the $30 rebate on that one too from Compaq. The only difference in mine is the lightscribe and 20gb more on the hard drive - both I think are useless especially if you end up replacing the hd.

 

could anyone tell me why is it when I right click on My Computer to see the properties, I get this for the description:

AMD Turion(TM) 64
Mobile Technology ML-32
789 Mhz <------ WTF ?????

I KNOW that this has to be a misdetection, since it is definitely a 1.8 ghz processor. I'm thinking it has something to do with battery saving settings but the laptop was plugged when I checked it!

Any thoughts? This also happened to me before with my Dell latitude. Thanks

 

Your CPU throttles down when not being fully utilized. It's a way for your laptop to conserve power and keep the heat down. By the way.... your name... serioulsy....

 

also expect to see 384 mb ram cuz it gives 128 to shared video

 

Yah, I came across this article just after I posted my question.
"PowerNow! allows the processor to clock itself down when usage on the system isn't heavy, allowing for longer battery life and lower heat output. The Turion64 MT-34 which we're looking at today runs at 1.8 GHz @ 1.35V at maximum, whereas it will clock itself down to 800 MHz @ 0.95V when load levels are low. "

That's good then!

And my name... yeah, seriously.

 

I´m seriously considering buying this notebook with ML-37 and 1GHz of RAM and the 6 cell battery
But i've been loosing my sleep over wether i'll be or i won't be able to watch and entire film on dvd with the battery.
I woldn´t want the answer to be "it depends on the playback time", i´m sure you understand
Second great issue. Does it really have much worse wireless reception than the Centrino?
And third, would i be able to play old games such as Grand Prix 4 for more than half an hour with the battery?
I´m in beetwen both of them, don´t know wich way to go. But I guess I would prefer the Turion, so please think carefully before posting, you´ll be helping me decide.
Thank you all

 

Who said it has bad wireless reception? It has better reception than Intel wireless b/g and better compaitble even with atheros super G( I have super G router).

Next, DVD Playback time. As I mentioned in this thread somewhere, it lasted for me full 2:30 Min while playing DVD. ( winDVD supplied has some problem and taking too much CPU, so I use PowerDVD, very cheap $5).

If you keep the more brightness, probably it will last around 2 hours, which good for most english titles.

And about the battery life while playing game, battery will last about 1 hour to 1:15Min at full load, but for the game you are mentioning, 800Mhz or 1200Mhz should be enough which may last your battery around 1:30hrs.

 

Outstanding Review Chinna_n - very helpful. Mine will be delivered on Tuesday. A quick question that many posters may have also... when I receive my v200z I'll be immediately reinstalling the operating system (XP Pro) in order to purge all of the miscellaneous software that I will never use in order to optimize performance. How does one do this!? From what I've read, simply install the XP Pro CD in the DVD drive and follow the prompts. When do you install the drivers, and are there any road hazards to avoid? Thanks for any advice...

 

Thanks China.
I read about the wireless reception somwehere here, in another review.
But if you are saying so...
What´s wrong with watching dvds in the media player? Does it also consumes more power? Why don´t you use it?
And wireless conection also consumes to much power?
Well, thanks for answering and thanks for the review. Very usefull.
So, from what you are saying, I wouldn't loose for the v2000 in battery life nor in wireless reception, and still, I would have much better graphics processing, so, why go for anything elese, since the Turion is still cheaper?

 

Put in the XP cd, format the drive, install windows, after complete and you can get into windows, put the driver cd in and uncheck all the garbage - if you look in this thread, chinna responded to me about some of the software on the cd, whether crap or not - i think p19 or 20

 

About the DVD Playback, I used PowerDVD as I already have a PowerDVD CD with me. If you use MediaPlayer, it may work fine, as long as problem is not with winDVD codec. ( windows media player does not have built-in DVD codec, it uses installed codec by WinDVD or PowerDVD).

As per the wireless power consumption, no do not see difference, but if you are particular, there are many options in BroadCom driver settings to reduce power little more( it has very little power consumption anyway, so I doubt if we see much difference). And Turn-off wireless when playing DVD to save some battery.

Yes, currently Turion is better value, as we know typically AMD sells Procs little cheaper than Intel, and also HP does not spend/or hardly spends any money on advertising AMD. So, we get it cheaper.

BTW, keep in mind, average battery life is around 2:30Min to 2:45Min( I get around 2:50Min to 3:00Hrs with wireless browsing and screen brightness level set to 2).

 

Thanks again man, and thanks for the patience

 

the v2000z seemed to fit my needs greatly as a college student. after reading this whole thread and i have ordered my v2000z:

– Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Professional with SP2
– AMD Turion(TM) 64 ML-37 (2.0GHz/1MB L2 Cache)
– FREE Upgrade to 14.0 WXGA BrightView Widescreen!!
– ATI RADEON(R) XPRESS 200M w/productivity ports
– 256MB DDR SDRAM (1x256MB)
– 60 GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive
– DVD+/-RW/R & CD-RW Combo w/Double Layer Support
– 54g(TM) 802.11b/g WLAN w/ 125HSM/SpeedBooster(TM)
– 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
cost(after taxes; free shipping and handling): $860 after $50 mail in rebate
on my own: upgraded to 1 gb ram and that cost me $102 more
total cost: $962

About how much does a 6 or 12 cell battery go for? And does anybody have a link to a battery that is compatible for the v2000z?

 

Congrats!
I think that is very wise and nice configuration. Hope you will enjoy you lappie as much as I do.

 

hii i ordered for a new compaq v 2000z on 17th jan and the shipping date is given as 26th jan. what is the probable date i will get it.

 

Probably by the end of jan, but typically before that.
It took 10-11day including weekends to get it to WA once ordered.
Generally they give two weeks+ shipping time, but generally it takes only 4-5 days in shipping and build time is around 5-6 days

 

First, big ups to Chinna for a great review and a great thread.

I just ordered my V2000z with the APP (Academic Purchase Plan) on hpshopping.com - total of $880, fully loaded except for HD and RAM which i'm doing separately.

Questions for Chinna or anyone else:

1. There's been a lot of discussion about swapping in 7200rpm hard drives - it was my understanding that laptops come with lower rpm drives to save on battery life because the faster spin = more drain. Thoughts?

2. I'm going to wipe and upgrade to WinXPpro - what drivers should be upgraded at that time? I'm for sure going to update the BIOS and Catalyst drivers.

3. I didn't get Lightscribe because I use my desktop for most burning - will someone provide a review of how the disks look, and whether it's actually a useful feature?

4. Because I'm wiping and starting over, will the CPU automatically throttle after reinstalling windows? I've seen mention of RM Clock; will this automatically take care of that?

Thanks!
Jed

 

1. Current generation 7200RPM drives as very efficient and takes similar power as 5400RPM drives. It mostly depends on manufacturer than just drive speed. Ex: My Toshiba 5400RPM drive takes more power thab Seagate 7200RPM drive. And about the heat, it also depends on manufacturer/model than just speed. But if can afford 7200RPM drive is the best upgrade you can do.

2. HP supplies a disk with all the drivers, so you do not need to worry.( Like Chipset, Card reader, Video, Lan, Wireles etc)

3. At this time LightScribe is more kind of bragging right than anything else. You need to buy special LightScribe enabled CDs and DVDs which are 5-10 times costlier than regular DVDR or CDRs. Burning Labels has been very slow process( take half-an hour to burn a label for a CD) Check CDR labs, they have some nice photos and reviews.

4. You have to install AMD Processor driver to throttle automatically or you can install and configure RMClock 2.0 to do that more efficiently and also helps with some undervolting.

 

PROBLEMS with OCZ DDR 400 2x512 MB of RAM
product number = OCZ400512VSO

I finally got my OCZ RAM.
But unfortunately, I think the SODIMMs are unstable ~_~

I installed both of them and my laptop just crashes. It gave me the options to boot in safe mode. Regardless of which one I chose, (5 secs later) a blue screen pops up filled with text. Then my laptop restarts before I was able to read one line of text.

Another outcome was when text occured saying I had a corrupted file and "\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM".
The BIOS did detect 1024 MB of RAM.

So finally, I decided to trouble-shoot each SODIMM separately.

SODIMM 1 : Just crashes. Once had a message with the header of "Exception" and some text that looked like variables being assigned values.

SODIMM 2: Actually boots to Windows desktop. But within a few minutes of opening applications, Windows crashes and restarts. Before restarting, a blue screen appears with text (then restarts before I could read anything). But at least I got to the desktop...(shoot me)

I dont know what the deal is. Did anyone else with this SODIMM have any problems installing it? Does anyone think they know what Im doing wrong?

I couldnt even get 5 minutes into an episode of Family Guy with SODIMM 2.

 

I am using the same ram. Had no problems whatsoever, It was recognized just fine and my system is rock solid. What bios version do you have. Try loading the setup defaults in bios. Alway possible it could be bad ram.

*also try doing a restore to a point before the ram change, as well as trying old ram again.

 

OCZ 512MB is proven to be working stable on V2000z,

did you try to load setup default in bios once?
Which version of bios you have?
Which chipset you have RS480 vs RS482?
Can you post all tabs of CPUz shots?(CPU, Main Board, Memory,SPD)

 

Yes I loaded the default settings on each sodimm install, but the results were the same.

Report from CPUZ.htm of sodimm 2. Thanks to everyone willing to help.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CPU-Z version 1.31.


CPU(s)
Number of CPUs 1

Name AMD Turion 64 ML-37
Code Name Lancaster
Specification AMD Turion(tm) 64 Mobile Technology ML-37
Family / Model / Stepping F 4 2
Extended Family / Model F 24
Brand ID 10
Package Socket 754
Core Stepping SH8-E5
Technology 90 nm
Supported Instructions Sets MMX, Extended MMX, 3DNow!, Extended 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, x86-64
CPU Clock Speed 796.0 MHz
Clock multiplier x 4.0
Front Side Bus Frequency 199.0 MHz
L1 Data Cache 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L1 Instruction Cache 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Cache 1024 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Speed 796.0 MHz (Full)
L2 Location On Chip
L2 Data Prefetch Logic yes
L2 Bus Width 128 bits



Mainboard and chipset
Motherboard manufacturer Quanta
Motherboard model 3093, 47.0E
BIOS vendor Hewlett-Packard
BIOS revision F.20
BIOS release date 11/30/2005
Chipset ATI Radeon RS482 rev. 01
Southbridge ATI SB400 rev. 00




Memory
DRAM Type DDR-SDRAM
DRAM Size 512 MBytes
DRAM Frequency 199.0 MHz
FSB : DRAM CPU/4
CAS# Latency 2.5 clocks
RAS# to CAS# 4 clocks
RAS# Precharge 4 clocks
Cycle Time (TRAS) 8 clocks
Bank Cycle Time (TRC) 11 clocks
DRAM Idle Timer 16 clocks
# of memory modules 1
Module 0 OCZ DDR-SDRAM PC3200 - 512 MBytes



Software
Windows version Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
DirectX version 9.0c

 

Yours is exactly same as mine except for Memory. I was wondering if it has anything to do with bios?

Is Original Memory is running without any errors for longer times( memtest86?, prime95)

Couple of our members have same OCZ ram and does not have any problems, only difference is they have bios F13.

Test with OEM Ram for errors(Memtest86 and Prime95 atleast for 12 hours), if it has no errors, then we should try with F13 bios, if it is not , likely a Mother board problem.

EDIT: It could be problem with your memory modules also.

 

The ram that came with the laptop from Compaq is pretty good. Never had a prob once. This laptop has never crashed, froze, etc. (and I use it a lot and Ive used it for more than 8 hrs straight a couple of times). I just wanted more RAM. There are some slow downs definitely.

Memory
DRAM Type DDR-SDRAM
DRAM Size 256 MBytes
DRAM Frequency 159.2 MHz
FSB RAM CPU/5
CAS# Latency 2.5 clocks
RAS# to CAS# 3 clocks
RAS# Precharge 3 clocks
Cycle Time (TRAS) 7 clocks
Bank Cycle Time (TRC) 10 clocks
DRAM Idle Timer 16 clocks
# of memory modules 1
Module 0 Infineon DDR-SDRAM PC2700 - 256 MBytes

I noticed the bios version i have isnt downloadable from compaq website (bad Compaq, bad). And I dont want to go from a F20 to F13.

I think the ram I got are faulty. I'll have to resend to newegg. Hope I dont get a restocking fee. What are the chances of getting 2 defective SODIMMs. One semi-works (bootable), and one just doesnt (gives me the finger).

What else can I do? ~_~