Hel 80 Owners Lounge

Thanks Donald, for the help. But I have a new problem, I looked at the software forum and donwloaded some of the freeware mentioned (spycatcher, AVG antivirus, and openoffice.org), and now for some reason, omnipass doesn't prompt me for a fingerprint ID when I login into windows. For my e-mail it still does just not on windows logon screen. I checked to see if the spyware or antivirus was blocking it for some reason and it doesn't seem to be. I also deleted my user profile with omnipass and made a new one and still nothing. Any help is appreciated. TIA

 

Try www.laptops4u.nl. They have both HEL-80 versions (VBI and non-VBI).

Btw, does anyone know some kind of fan control which is usable with the HEL-80's fans? I tried MBM 5, but I doesn't list any 945 motherboard.

 

Hmm, the fan is switched on when the temperature CPU temp reaches 50°C, and switches off when the temp is at 45°C. Quite annoying, because the CPU temperature is constantly going up, so it's sort of a loop. Can these tresholds be manually edited?

 

Are you still able to use McAfee? I use Mcafee anti-virus provided by Comcast and will want to set up Omnipass soon myself.

 

I could still use McAfee but i couldn't use omnipass, so I just switched to avast, and omnipass works. McAfee might come out with a fix, but I didn't want to wait.

 

I ordered one of these, but still waiting for it to arrive. Is that where you got yours? Any comments about the service there? (I live in Belgium btw)

 

Nope, I ordered it elsewhere (local shop), but I've heard nothing but positive comments on Laptops4u on other forums, so nothing to worry about. I had an order placed for the Asus S96J but I cancelled it due to the shipment problems.

Btw, you might wanna read this: http://tweakers.net/shopsurvey/6891

 

For this kind of help, please call our 24/7 Customer Service team. The number is on the bottom of your laptop.

However as you notice here there are posts saying that some anti-virus programs seem to cause a conflict, but it is not found using Avast, so I would start there.

 

Yes, the Zepto Znote 2425W is the HEL80.

 

service is fine for as far i could tell. i got it wednesday, took 7 workdays for them to deliver.

 

I'm having a problem with the touchpad. I try and disable it while typing, and it worked before I got my v200 mouse, but ever since I installed the software it doesn't. I tried to dl the touchpad.zip from powernotebooks.com but it says that it's corrupted when I try to open it. I uninstalled the v200 software but that didn't help. Any ideas?

 

I got my laptop today and it was followed later by a backpack and a mouse I bought for it. I've been playing around with this laptop for an hour... I'm still trying to get a handle on it and customize it the way I want, but so far I have no dead pixels and everything appears to be in working order. So many things you just get used to having I'll have to work on this thing all night

 

I've been using my laptop for 2 days now, everything is great except the fan that switches on every minute, for about 5 seconds. Quite annoying .

 

My fan is also behaving a bit strange. The first time I started it, the fan went on about every minute just a short while as described here by other users. The second, and now third time the fan is off for about the first 10 minutes. The temp then reaches about 48 degrees, and it starts. Then the temp stabilaize at 36/38 degrees but the fan keeps going.

Anyone who knows of some ways to manually manage this? I use nhc, but it says acpi control system is not configured for this system. Will that help if it is configured? I prefer to have the laptop completely quiet when just surfing on the net.

 

The HEL80's fan is really quite quiet. I've had integrated graphics laptops that were louder and hotter than this one.

I don't know if you want to mess with the fan's controls too much because you do have a go 7600 running in there and you don't want it to get too hot, just to save a little fan noise.

 

If the fan not is necessary, i would like it not to go. It seems the only thing to do is to program a acpi-setup for the specific notebook and it will be possible to manage the fan manually. If someone know how to make theese two necesarry files, please post them here: (unfortunately in german)

http://www.p35-forum.de/board/thread.php?threadid=4574

It seems there are many setups for other notebooks, but not yet the hel80.

Info about how to program theese files can be found here:

http://www.pbus-167.com/nhc/nhc_advanced.htm#anchor_acpi_programming

I do not know how to do this myself, but I am sure there are som clever people out there who will manage this

 

I don't know how to do this as well, but I just wanted to say I hope someone who can program reads this. I'm pretty sure it is possible to control the fan as the laptop uses a commonly used chipset and cpu.

 

Can somebody tell me what the importance of this Phoenix loading screen and is there any way to bypass it (if it should be bypassed)? I don't know if this is a common screen to the machine or if its strictly related to the company. I just wonder if its something that could harm the security of the machine.

 

Patman, Phoenix is your BIOS. That's why you see the screen before Windows loads and takes over. You have nothing to worry about.

 

ok, its just annoying and I'm curious if the computer would get to windows faster if it could be skipped.

 

You can turn it off on the BIOS.

 

The system has to do a Power On Self Test (POST). It's a quick diagnostic to make sure none of your hardware components has completely failed. If you can't wait the 10 or so seconds for this to happen, then I don't know what to tell you.

 

this is the first time I've owned a laptop. I've never seen such a thing before so my first reaction is to think that it is superfluous.

 

Every non-Mac computer does it, desktop or notebook, Windows or Linux. It doesn't matter. The POST is done at the most basic hardware level so there's nothing you can do to change it. Perhaps the process takes a bit longer now since motherboards and peripherals have become more advanced, I don't know.

 

I couple of weeks ago I got a HEL80, and, so far, I am very pleased with it. I only have two little complaints, and I'm wondering if anyone else has had them as well.

The first is that a couple of times after I've woken up the laptop (by pressing the flashing power button) the keyboard doesn't work at all. The little media controls and shortcut buttons work, but the keyboard is completely dead. A restart fixes the problem, it's just kind of annoying to have to restart the whole computer because the keyboard didn't wake up.

The second problem kind of goes along with the first, in that the computer will start back up (i.e. the hard drive will start working in such a way that you can tell it's booting back up) but the screen doesn't turn on. Like the keyboard, it stays off (and pressing Fn+F3 doesn't do anything at all; the screen just doesn't turn on.) I know that Windows boots up fine, because when I press the power button (just a tap, not the three second hold), the computer shuts down normally, albeit without showing anything on the still dead screen.

So, am I alone, or has anyone else experienced these issues? Or maybe know of a cure?

(As a side note, I have also had a couple of BSOD driven spontaneous restarts when resuming from hibernation - not sure if they are related or not.)

 

I have personally experienced the black screen, though for me it is only on some occasions when i leave the computer sitting a long time then come back... i think the screen turns off (as per power settings) then won't turn back on. shutting and opening the lid gets the it back on.

I've a question for other hel80 owners too. have any software to view cpu and gpu temps? all i see in speedfan/nhc is the hdd. there must be a thermometer in there somewhere.

 

I have the wake up problem with the blank screen also, I just shut the lid also and open it up to get it working, I am guessing something in the BIOS needs to get fixed. My problem occured when the unit stopped tracking time when it was shut off or went into sleep mode but the keyboard always worked after just um, well it was really hard to tell time since it would be the same time as when it went to sleep. Oh well that is what warranties are for.

 

Glad to hear I'm not the only one with the black screen when opening the lid. Only a small issue.

 

Try CoreTemp: http://www.thecoolest.zerobrains.com/Hidden_Stuff/CoreTemp.zip

Btw, I didn't experience the black screen problems, but I have experienced the dead keyboard once.

 

i have experienced both black screen and dead keyboard many times. i open and close it to get around restarting for the screen issue, but i find the dead keyboard issue especially annoying. it seems to happen if i leave it on and unplugged for a very long time, but not when plugged in.

 

Lol, I never experienced the black screen problem until a few minutes ago. Quite a coincedence, as I previously stated that I never had the black screen problem.

 

Well, it's nice to know that I'm not alone (or imagining things.) So are we just waiting for a BIOS fix, or is this just an idiosyncrasy that we'll just have to live with?

 

We have passed both the keyboard and black screen issues up to Compal. We will post their resolution here once we have it.

 

Hopefully it's just a simple BIOS update that end users can perform themselves. I hope systems won't have to be sent out.

 

I'm having trouble running the touchpad.zip off of powernotebooks.com support page. Every time I try to open it I get an error saying that the file cannot open because it is corrupt or an invalid archive. I downloaded other files and they opened, and I also tried opening touchpad.zip on another computer and it also came up with an error. I was wondering if anyone else had a problem opening it.

 

We will look into this driver issue, but in the mean time just use the driver from your drivers CD...they are the same.

 

I'm having trouble installing the software for the tv tuner that I downloaded off powernotebooks.com. I was hoping that a newer version would be better than the one off the cd that came with it. The version from the cd is really slow to start up and I get a small bar of distortion at the bottom of the window where the tv is displayed.

 

I'm having the wakeup issue as well. I simply closed the lid to get into hibernate. When I opened it, the screen wouldn't power back on.

 

Im having a somewhat similar problem. If my monitor gets turned off automatically (power settings) I can't wake it up by touching a key or the touchpad. I'm pretty sure the machine is running since I when I press the power button I can watch the LEDS flicker while it shuts down. I have to close the machine to put it in to standby (not hibernate) then open it to get the screen working again. Anyone else having this issue?

 

Yep, got this as well. I turned off hibernate and Windows' function of shutting off the monitor automatically. That's a start until Compal comes back with a fix.

 

How long are you guys leaving the computer on before you experience this problem (either the monitor or keyboard issue)?

 

When the system is open, whatever Windows sets as the default monitor shut off time (20 min, IIRC).

Also, is there a way to disable the touchpad when an external mouse is plugged in? I have a tendency to brush it when I'm typing.

 

I'd like to know that too, clicking a chat window away while typing has happened to me more than once.

 

Ok, I have a slew of questions that I have regarding voltage, hope you guys can help me out with this:

Has anybody undervolted their Compal HEL80?
If so, to what degree have you guys dropped the voltage??
Does undervolting decrease performance? (if I were to play a game, would I have to up the voltage to get the same performance as the default voltages)

Thanks for your guys' replies!

 

How would you go about undervolting it? Do you know of a utility that will let you do this?

 

Regarding the monitor shutoff issue, are all of you who are experiencing it using the "official" 83.90 NVIDIA Forceware drivers? This may be a video driver bug, and I'm going to test using one of the 91.xx versions (a 91.45 set appeared on NVIDIA's FTP server this week) with a modified .inf when I get home.

 

From what I hear, the RM Clock utility can undervolt core duos while the NHC utility is incapable of doing it (yet)

 

@ saturnotaku
I am using the official drivers you mentioned, so using the 91.xx drivers might work.

 

So as soon as Windows shuts your monitor off, you are unable to bring it back by moving your mouse or pressing a key? It's not when you leave the computer unattended for x-amount of hours?

 

The undervolting capability is a hardware limit. The motherboard won't allow you to undervolt it below 0,950V (@ 6x). Maybe you can somehow disable this hard limit by a BIOS-flash.