Hel 80 Owners Lounge

When I play wav audio files on my HEL80, they play in a different pitch from the normal pitches (I think it's lower). MP3 files sound fine. I have tried reinstalling the audio drivers that came with the laptop, but to no avail. Is there a way to fix this? It's really bothering my ears. =/

Also, is it normal to hear a really high pitched buzz? I think it's coming from the left side of the laptop. I have no idea what it is.

And thanks for making this topic guys. I've googled a lot of stuff on this laptop and this is the best result I have found.

 

I can't think of any which causes your first problem besides this:

It affects the pitches.

The really high pitched buzz probably comes from your hard drive.

 

Heh, I've tried playing around with that. It didn't affect wav files at all. It did affect mp3s though.

 

Then I don't know what's causing this. Maybe you can try another OS (Ubuntu live CD) and see if the problems occurs there as well? If not, then reinstalling XP might be a solution.

 

do you guys have any creaking on your notebooks? I have like three spots where it creaks. One spot right under my right palm, and the other one creaks under the panel of where the hdd is. Is it just me or did I get a crappy one?

 

mine creaks under the right palm, no where else that i have noticed

 

Mine creaks under the left palm and around the touchpad.

 

I've been using my PowerPro L8:15 for a month or so, and I just love it. Other than the bouncy keyboard, I have nothing but praise for it.

I just removed the keyboard and applied the double-sticky tape mod. Wow, what a difference! The keyboard now feels rock-solid. Both my screws were in place, so the problem was simply in the design. The mod took only five minutes to accomplish, and the pictures earlier in this thread were very helpful.

Donald, I suggest sticking the keyboard down with double-sided tape when you build these computers. It wouldn't take any more time in initial assembly, and would significantly increase perceived quality.

Thanks for a great computer at a competitive price! I'll probably be calling you next year for a Memron upgrade.

 

guys HEL80 is my first laptop .
i wasn't sure what to expect from a "gaming notebook"
i am running Winning Eleven 9 at medium detail 800x600 and while the game is fairly smooth i do pick up a "lagging" frame every 5-10 seconds or so.
those setting are far from demanding , i haven't tried first person shooters yet.
im running the latest version of XP pro with all the updates, and using stock drivers. i even tried to disable the camera, wireless and my antivirus (nod32).

what can be the reason ?
how can i gauge the frame per second when running the game (just so i can provide "harder" info)

 

If you have NHC installed, disable the dynamic switching and put it on max. performance.

 

emilem, have you read the Overclocking "Sticky" thread on this forum?

Have you overclocked as described there? Does that make any difference?

 

tweetr, our factories are ISO 9001/2 certified so we can't make those kinds of changes quickly without the support of Compal. However please know that we have been working it through the process and we hopeful to have a solution in place soon.

The good news is that just as you say it is a 5 minute mod that is pretty risk free, so those who want a more solid feel to the keyboard can do it quickly and easily. The feel of the keyboard is a subjective thing, so as you can see from some of the posts here, some people find the keyboard just fine out of the box while others prefer the more solid feel.

DON'T YOU JUST LOVE FREEDOM OF CHOICE

 

im sorry "NHC" ?

and donald i will try to over clock . thanks. just thought it wont be necessary for a soccer game

 

Notebook Hardware Control. You might try installing it and set the CPU speed settings at Max. Performance. You're CPU won't automatically switch to lower clock frequencies when it's at Max. Performance. The switching between CPU clock frequencies might cause the lagging frame. I experienced the same thing with Need for Speed Most Wanted. Notebook Hardware Control at Max. Performance solved the issue.

 

Well, there may be other issues with your soccer game just as TC03 suggests. Let us know your results after you install and set up NHC.

 

Emilem, Winning eleven 9 seems relatively new, but by the looks of the system requirements, the 7600 should be able to play it at 1280x800 resolution easy at full settings. See, Frames per second is the speed of the rendering of every frame on your screen by the graphics chip. The 7600 is a nice graphics chip. You are saying that it lags every 5 - 10 seconds, but that doesn't seem like graphics card issue. Usually you "lag" from there being more people or action going on on the screen.

Try putting it at native resolution and full settings, and see how choppy it is. If it is very choppy, try getting some free anti-spyware (Spybot Search and Destroy, and Ad-Aware are good choices) and running those, and also running NOD32 anti-virus. I lost 10 fps on games once because of spyware. If all else fails, OverClock. But this doesn't seem like a performance issue to me.

 

my system is brand new
clean windows install with nothing running but nod32
there's no chance for adware/spyware or anything
i also have SP2 with all the updates

i am wondering can it be the driver ( i am running stock drivers provided by powernotebooks )
i am not even sure that "lag" is the right term .. the game does not pause not even for a fraction of a second . but i can clearly see that frame changing - its not smooth .

the game is very new , the last of the series but its still a sports game ...

 

its funny when i switched to 1280x800 and full settings the frame became less noticeable than the times when i used 800x600 at medium details.

however it is still there. how can i gauge the FPS ?

p.s
thanks tco3 for your suggestion . that prog definitely helped to better my experience .

 

1280x800 is a native resolution for the screen, so there isn't any translation going on like there woudl be for 800x600.

Not sure how to check the FPS in that game.

 

should i set my screen resolution to 1280x800 ?

any tweaking needed in the driver options ? i saw there's a bunch of performance "profiles" there and other "performance" modifications.

im not sure if people just install the stock drivers and forget it or is there any after market software i should get (not just for the video card). example "NHC".

 

emilem, the stock and "tuned" drivers doesn't make big difference in performance.

Install and run 3DMark06 or 05 and compare with other published results, if it differs to much then something is wrong... if not, then it's just the game..

 

That really doesn't look like a game that should be too demanding on this graphics card, stock drivers or not, overclocked or not. (Stock drivers won't make a big difference anyways).

Try some other demanding games or benchmarks, and compare the results. That stuttering sounds to me like something other than the graphics card is the culprit.

 

A lagging frame every 10 seconds or so isn't caused by the graphics card, issues like that mosly occur when you have too less RAM-memory.

 

i ran 3Dmark06
i received 1862 mark which is pretty bad considering the average for hel80 is 3300-3500.

whats my next step ? :/

 

It's not bad, you're just confusing 3D Mark 06 with 3D Mark 05.

 

return to proxycon 5.73 fps
firely forrest 6 fps

canyon flight 5.5
deep freeze 7.6

cpu 1 red valley 0.4
cpu 2 red valley 0.7

is that normal ? i was looking at the picture and it was barely moving and chopped up

 

Is there a place to download the hibernate hotfix directly? Or do you have to go through microsoft support?

 

3D Mark requires a lot of power in order to run it smoothly. Choppy framerates are something you can't avoid unless you have superdeluxe graphics card.

 

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers/ms_kbs/windowsxp-kb923232-v3-x86-enu.exe

 

That would be rather exceptional for 06, since HEL80's average in the ballpark of 1600 rather than 1800. That'd be about average for an HGL30, though.

@emilem:
Make sure your drivers aren't set to force AA/AF or anything. They should be set to "application controlled."

Thank you.

 

so if the 3dmark06 result is fine. how can you explain that annoying frame.
every time the screen changes i can see the frae changing, sort of like a wave going from bottom up. and during game play i see a "chop" every 5-10 seconds. the game just doesn't run smooth
i have FEAR, Hitman, Oblivion, Sniper
which game should i test it with next ? (in sense of reasonable expectations)

 

I just recently purchased my Compal HGL30 from powernotebooks.com. I highly suggest buying from this company and I plan to buy from them again; the staff is very knowledgeable and courteous. They offer 24/7 tech support which is not outsourced and although I haven’t had to call it, I’ve heard great things. I love the HGL30, however the flex in the keyboard (which was mentioned as minor in some reviews) was intolerable. On the left hand side by lightly pressing down “a” the entire left third of the keyboard would flex. The middle had some flex but wasn’t as bad, and the right had almost no flex unless you press down hard and then it flexed worse than the left side.

After reading this post “ http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=60006&page=32” I popped that tabs and removed the “Media Office” panel to access the keyboard. These tabs are especially difficult to remove, I suggest using a very long flathead screw driver to slide underneath the panel and gently lift upward releasing the tabs starting from left to right.



Upon removing the panel we realized that three tiny screw along with several tabs held the keyboard down. Donald and several other owners have suggested using 3M double sided tape to keep the keyboard down but I saw that as only a temporary solution because eventually the tape will give.



We found that by sliding a slim piece of steel (.365 mm) underneath the keyboard the flex was gone entirely. If you can’t find a steel bar then using a slim metal ruler may also do the trick. Anything that’s long enough, slim and will not give.



We used two pieces of slim double sided tape to attach the bar. As you can see we also placed the bar in the center making sure not to block the gpu fan. There were also several metal tabs placed for FCC regulations that weren’t making enough contact with the keyboard that we bent upward.

Make sure to be careful placing the “Media Office” panel back in place. It took us several tries getting the tabs to lock. Brute forcing it will only cause the tabs to break. Starting form the outside and working your way to the middle seemed to work best.

And there you have it, no flex what so ever. It’s more solid than my friend’s Macbook pro.

 

Great how-to! I will consider it when I finally get the right keyboard .

 

Excellent innovative solution iamsamwood! I generally use an external keyboard and mouse unless I it's not possible to do so and am one of those who feel the flex/bounce isn't that bad.

This is a great option for those who really need that keyboard to be firmer.

Is there any potential problem that you can see by introducing a foreign metal object into the system?

 

I see no reason why you couldn't replace the metal with wood or plastic - it doesn't need to be particularly strong, and both wood and plastic weigh less too.

EDIT: I've just done it with a piece of 1mm-thick balsa wood (because that happened to be readily available). It works perfectly!

 

Just got off the phone with Justin at Xotic PC and they are starting on my HEL80. I can't wait

Oh, hello to everone.
I have been hanging around reading for several weeks. Time to add my name to thelist of owners

 

I'm excited as i heard to day my hel80 has just left the store. Ordered it couple weeks ago with a t2400, but they decided to change it to t5600 , well i hope it was worth the wait, and hopefully it'll be here tomorrow...

 

How big is the difference bewteen T2300E 15W and T500 31W in RL performance. Mostly from gamers viewpoint. Also isn't they with go 7700 cards? Atleast my local computes store told that they should be, but they are not sure. Also is there any way to sawp fn and cntrl key? By bios mod or smth?

 

The difference between the T2300E and T2500 is about 20% (raw clock speed). That should be quite noticeable in tasks which actually need a fair bit of processing power.

I don't know why they don't ship with Geforce Go 7700 cards. Presumably it's because they weren't available when the laptop was designed, and they run too hot (the current card is already underclocked to reduce heat/power).

As far as I know, there's no way to swap the Fn and Ctrl keys.

 

That was actually a typo on Intel's sight; the Core Duo T2300E doesn't have a different TDP than any of the other Core Duos. It is 31W.

After a while, you will get used to the Fn + Ctrl key swap.

 

But difference between T2300E and T2300 is? Intel® VT only? I can't understan what does Intel® VT stand for.. My english isn't so good... As you can probably see from my mistakes, but is it possible to run 2 seperate OS at once? Without shutting down one to boot into another.(IF u have Intel VT)

Edit: Yes i will, but it would be more ergonomical for me if i could swap them. Got quite long fingers lol.

 

The T2300E lacks Virtualization technology - the ability to run two operating systems simotaneously. It's not a feature the vast majority of consumers are going to care about.

 

So basically i can boot into windows and linux at the same time. Dedicating one of the cores to linux and other one to windows? That would be awesome.. Ill try to get t2300 instead then or t2400 maybe...

 

Depends. Virtualization tech is still in it's infancy, but read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xen_(virtual_machine_monitor)

You should also note this: http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenFaq#head-cb7861c9865fc8fbae3bb472f04c5d0819fa8273 and this: http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenFaq#head-32e7c80b02d8130b7745f86d456eda9f9debb3c4

 

Also how much would t2300e affect video performance compared to t2500? In my opinion the gpu is anyway the bottleneck over here.. So there wount be any change, but i could be wrong...

EDIT: What thermal paste is Compal using? Would MX1(i know its also crap, but could get it for free) be better than the one they use?

 

Why worry about free? Get a good tube of paste for $10 ( AS Ceramique or AS5) if you really want to replace the stock paste. If you're gonna do a job, may as well do it right the first time.

 

Hello everyone,

been reading through this thread for a while now.
Seems I have made the right decision buying a compal.
Im getting it next week, should be delivered by then.

Is it possible to hook up another monitor on the compal?

Greets

edit: never mind... Right side: Headphone and microphone jacks, 2x USB 2.0, optical drive, VGA monitor port.

 

There is also an S-Video-out port of if you would like to hook up a TV. In case you wondered.

 

thanks for the reply

Something different:

I see here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=1478869&postcount=56 that the core duo and core 2 duo dont have a big difference in the benchmarks. Can i make the conclusion that it is not worth buying the core 2 duo at this moment in a study/gaming pc? I do tend to play the heavier games, but im not really into 64bit apps.

Im buyin a T2400 with 2gig, but can still change the proc for a T7400

Enlighten me

 

The T7400 is defintely faster, but it's not like the T2400 or something. The T2400 on its own is already a superfast processor.