My HEL80 - The Good and Bad

At some point I might write a full review of my machine but I have to put up something just to clear my head a bit.

Just a bit about me so you know I'm not a total n00b. I'm a .Net programmer by trade and I also have my own PC service business and run a web hosting business. I have been in the support side of things for over 15 years and have always built my own desktop machines.

I bought my HEL80 from rjtech.com a few months ago and have enjoyed it and been terribly frustrated by it as well. Please note that the comments here represent my personal opinion and experience, take it for what it's worth, which probably isn't much.

Good

- The machine is fast and starts XP quickly. I have done some tweaking of the startup with easy cleaner and hijack this but basically the machine starts fast, runs fast and opens my programs quickly.

- The construction is solid and dependable. I love the rigid lid, the strong hinges and the rounded corners. The machine might be a bit heavy but it feels like a high quality piece of equipment.

- Graphics are l33t. People can throw benchmark numbers out all they want but the graphics on this machine are fantastic (matte display). I couldn't be happier, seriously.

- The built in webcam works well and was easy to setup. Once I discovered the tweaking options I was even happier.

- The community is great. I found this website during my search for this lappy and several of my problems have been worked out by the generous people here. Without notebookreview.com I would not be as happy as I am now.

Bad

- Thin keyboard key edges. Ok you might be wondering, wtf is he talking about? Well I type really fast and my fingers are constantly getting caught under the edge of the key which is above they key I am currently pressing. For example I'll hit the K key and move my middle finger up to hit the I key and my finger catches under the edge of the I key. Yea I know it's minor but hey, it bugs me so I'm passing it on.

- The fingerprint scanner is a nice toy but ultimately useless. I've never had it work without failing the 'three attempt' routine at least twice. The password manager also reprompts you to enter website information every single time you go to that site, even if you are already logged in. I pulled this driver software off the machine and do not use it at all.

- Reversed CTRL and Fn keys really messes me up. Some folks state that it only takes a short time to get used to but I disagree personally as I am a .Net developer who works on a standard keyboard all day long. I then have to go home and adjust to my HEL80 which for some reason sports reversed keys.

- Headphone jack feedback noise. Plug in any set of headphones and turn the volume up a click or two, you'll hear it. The good thing is that I can't really notice the problem if there is some sound is playing, only during silences.

- Touchpad driver. Ok this is all over the forums too but the touchpad driver totally sucks. I tried taking it off and using the standard windows driver but then you can't disable tapping and the touchpad CONSTANTLY makes unwanted selections while typing if you don't have the tapping disabled.

I ended up putting the elantech drivers back on and disabled the tapping to get the functionality working in any sort of acceptable way.

- Bluetooth loses my mouse frequently. For some reason if I don't touch my bluetooth mouse for a few minutes the lappy stops detecting it. Then it gives me a 'bad bluetooth address' error when I try to search and reenable. I'm forced to turn the bluetooth off via the soft wireless switch config and then reenable it.

- The USB ports are badly located on the right side of the machine, right where your hand goes if you are using a mouse. The right side USB ports should really be located on the back or elsewhere that doesn't interfere with hand movement using a mouse.

- Regardless of any Microsoft XP patch posted in these forums my HEL80 still goes into Standby with no warning once per session and frequently will not respond after said Standby, requiring a hard boot.

Yes, I have my Power Scheme settings set to NEVER for every possible option and also have hibernate turned off. I've applied the 'fix' from MS with no success.

- I've experienced several heat related shutdowns while playing games like UT2004. Yes, I have my laptop on a flat lifter pad from sharper image that lifts the back side of the lappy for better air intake and yes the air output duct is clear. I'm also not overclocked in any way, it just seems that certain games get the machine too hot and it shuts off to prevent chip damage.

I might invest in a chiller pad but it seems unreasonable that a three year old game can push the temperature of my stock machine to the point that it shuts down.

- Unlike so many users here I had a horrible experience with powernotebooks.com. The company is run as an evangelical Christian business and has comments to the effect on their website and in email. Some folks might like seeing religion used to market retail products, I do not.

This company also called me three times within 1 day of my order regarding my personal information stating that they could not process my order until I called them from my home phone.

Come to find out they had already charged my Credit Card (not just temp authed) and were holding the order for no reason. When I questioned this the owner told me to 'take my business elsewhere' directly in email.

I then tried to post a review of my experience on resellerratings.com. I traded at least 10 emails with them as they would not post my review without screenshots of my credit card statement. Once I provided the screenshots I was still denied having my review posted and powernotebooks.com retains their perfect rating on this site.

It is my opinion that resellerratings has some sort of agreement with the resellers to block bad ratings but currently that is just a suspicion but a quick look at the positive reviews indicates that there seems to be no screening process for positive comments and, what was for me, an insurmountable screening process for negative comments.

I have also had the owner of this company jump in on my threads in this forum in an attempt to squash any conversation about this issue. I PMed a moderator on these boards asking for permission to post this review and was met with disbelieve that anyone could ever be unhappy with powernotebooks but I was given permission to post my own experiences and opinions.

I am not trying to discredit or steer anyone away from this company but I do feel that my opinion and experience is just as valid as any other customer so I welcome the chance to share my information.

To sum up I would say that I am happy with my purchase (I bought a second HEL80 for my wife a few weeks later) and will be even happier if I am able to work out some of the technical issues such as the unwanted Standby without recover, the Bluetooth mouse drop and the heat shutdowns.

Peace all,

D

 

What threads did the owner attempt to squash the conversation? some evidence please?

Try a few different Bluetooth devices with it before you pass judgment. Just because your mouse doesn't work with it doesn't mean its instantly a terrible Bluetooth module (thats the impression your review seems to give anyway). Your module could be faulty, or so could your mouse. What mouse are you using? I have the exact same Bluetooth module in my laptop, and it works perfectly fine with every device I've ever used.

The Standby without recover I have no idea about since the HGL30 doesn't have that problem

What is the ambient temperature in your house? Is your Nvidia card set to automatic over clocking? Are you only using the drivers provided on the CD?

 

I don't really feel the need to post any 'evidence' since this is exactly the attitude I've received whenever I've tried to post a negative review for this particular vendor. I don't know why or what his pull is but even though you didn't search for my username for threads I'll go ahead and link you:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=110343

I am doing this with the understanding that I am not going to respond to anyone trying to talk me out of my opinion, which seems to be the universal case. I will also (and have in PM) post exact emails and credit card screen shots which I also provided to resellerratings.com and which were also questioned, met with hostility and then completely ignored.

I don't see anyone challenging the positive comments at every turn so I don't see why it's so hard to believe that someone had a bad experience. This whole situation has made me ill and this post is an attempt to exorcise some of my residual feelings.

I also don't need to try a bunch of different bluetooth devices before I pass judgment. I bought the most common logitech bluetooth mouse (M/N: M-RBB93 P/N: 852295-0000) and it works fine with other devices, it's suppose to work properly and it doesn't. I also do not feel it's my duty to work my butt off in order to avoid a negative review of a particular component.

I've spent at least 40 hours of my time that I'll never get back troubleshooting these issues. Questioning my time, energy and commitment to troubleshooting a device that is suppose to work when I buy it doesn't really move us along. I welcomed and felt capable of handling the challenge of a whitebook machine, this post just represents the last few items I haven't been able to work out, to this point.

Temperature wise it's about 70 F in my house at all times. I live in the suburbs and have central air and animals so it's necessary (plus it's hotter than hell in the Sacramento area and I'm a Jersey boy).

The nVidia card is, in fact, set to auto overclocking which I have now disabled and I am looking forward to testing with the new setting. Is there a particular problem with the auto overclocking to which you could refer me?

Driver wise I'm using a later version of the drivers that came with my machine, same manufacturer.

Thank you for your response and thank you even more for the suggestion on the nVidia card, I will be firing up UT in a few to give it a go.

Best regards,

D

 

I claim shenanigan's!

Many of the problems you specify have been answered, or could be answered if you asked rather then just said "it can't work cause I can't get it to work". In fact, I know I've posted solution's to many of those question in other older threads. Some of the things you posted about there are unfortunatly no anwers to.

There are also a number of things in your list I could answer now, but from your attitude I think I'll pass.

As for one of your complaint's that strikes me very odd - The religious hint's on powernotebooks website... I'm not religious, but I see no harm in this. Nobody forced you to shop from them, and being the free country that we are here in America, there is no reason that a business owner can't do what they want. I've seen ton's of religious markers in just about every business in every country I've visited, from marker's on their materials, to cross's or whatever being worn by the employee's. End Thought - Lame poke at a business that you had a poor experience with.

Reseller ratings does nothing to block bad reviews, however they are at liberty to investigate a complaint when a company has a good track record. This is no different then the BBB.

As for Paladin44 trying to "shut you down"... That's a load of crap, he was handling that in the best possible manner he could legally, since it would be his butt on the skillet if he was giving away a customer's private information. Any dealer you were in public communication with would have to say that for topic's dealing in a negative light.

Voted this thread down for the simple fact that someone needed to blow off some steam, and decided to waste everyone's time by turning what appears to be a decent bulleted review into a public complaint box.

 

Everyone is free to post their opinions and experiences. But as this thread has the potential to become a flame-war, I will nevertheless be keeping an eye on it.

 

I found with my Compal that the auto over clocking option that came with the stock drivers put the speed of the GPU too high, and I had the same problem as you: the computer would shut down. Since mine is a bit smaller than the HEL80, mine probably also shut down earlier than yours too .

The newer drivers don't have the 'auto' function; you have to manually set the clock speeds. When you do, it forces you to wait for it to test system stability before it accepts the new settings. This forced test takes.. i think about a minute (haven't sat there with a timer). As you probably are aware though, a 1 minute stability test is pretty inadequate. You can do tests for any length of time you want after that. I think it's pretty handy, I highly recommend.

As far as where to get good drivers, www.laptopvideo2go.com is a great site. Make sure you download the .INF file along with the drivers you download. They seem to make my games go faster, hopefully they will for you too.

And as far as your experience with power notebooks, if nothing else it is a learning experience for you (and me too). Don't believe everything you read, and always phone, or better yet, visit the retailer your buying from, no matter how 'secure' or 'reliable' they are.

Are rating's sites rigged? Since some website start up businesses depend on a good rating to help get their name out to the public, I suppose there is an incentive if your desperate. Keep in mind though that if a lot of people had a bad experience with a highly rated company, the news would leak out that the rating site had a false rating.

It would be quite a conspiracy theory if moderators on this website were given some kind of compensation by power notebooks to delete threads that bad mouthed them. No, you didn't take it that far, but my point is, the respect that people on this forum show to that website, and others like it, didn't develop overnight. They respect those businesses for a reason.

No one is ignoring your complant about it, we've read it, and we'll remember it. This thread will be here for years.

I Hope those suggestions help.

 

Yes sir, extremely helpful. I played UT for 2 hours straight with no shutdown at all. Excellent suggestion and very cool of you to boot!

I'm sorry if I appear defensive but as you can see from Pyro9219's reply I have good reason to feel that way from experience. This is the type of person who has no respect or understanding of any opinion other than their own.

My distaste for such drama is what caused my extreme reluctance to even posting this information. In the end, it was my desire to help others with my experiences that finally convinced me.

I really appreciate the help of good folks like yourself and do beg your pardon for any offense that might have been given. I also very much appreciate chrisyano's tolerance of what could possibly be an unpleasant thread.

I'm hoping it will result in some good information moving forward such as the nvidia automatic overclocking toggle. As I said in my post, I do like my machine and am looking forward to loving it if I am able to work out a few more stumpers.

Best regards sir,

D

 

What you are calling drama I'm calling fact's + common sense...

What is the purpose of posting about religious beliefs? If it bothered you that much you shouldn't have bothered going past their website, not bring it up as another thing wrong with your experience. It also isn't some huge secret that they spring on you just as you go to hang up after an order

The rating's you say are rigged? Go check out the BBB, they have the exact same investigation when bad claims are made against highly respected business's. You weren't singled out for anything other then perhaps your approach to your complaint (assuming you sounded the same to them as you do here). They do this to keep kiddo's from ruining reputation's because it might be fun. For all they know your wife just filed divorce because you bought the notebook after she told you no

As Lt. Glare posted, they didn't get their 15 green boxes of reputation on here because people have issues, and it wasn't the mod's doing it for money either. Surprise to your claim is because none of us have seen a problem with the folks over at powernotebooks, and on more then one occasion I've read where they bend over backwards to get thing's right when people are having troubles.

I have no problem with you stating your unsatisfied experience, by all means I know I'd do the same, however I think your approach is a bit weak, and some of your fact's are lacking integrity.

Again, there are several solutions for many of your issues that you either haven't found, aren't trying, or didn't say you tried. (refer to above about a weak approach).

 

Hey pyro, watch it there.

He didn't say that, I did, and I wasn't being accusatory. I only said it to emphasize my point...
I think this tread needs to be closed before it gets any worse

 

This is what he said that I was referring to "It is my opinion that resellerratings has some sort of agreement with the resellers to block bad ratings" <- Rig.

Dictionary.com has this to say...
rig /rɪg/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[rig] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, rigged, rig·ging, noun
–verb (used with object)
1. Chiefly Nautical.
a. to put in proper order for working or use.
b. to fit (a ship, mast, etc.) with the necessary shrouds, stays, etc.
c. to fit (shrouds, stays, sails, etc.) to the mast, yard, or the like.
2. to furnish or provide with equipment, clothing, etc.; fit (usually fol. by out or up).
3. to assemble, install, or prepare (often fol. by up).
4. to manipulate fraudulently: to rig prices.

and...

rig (rĭg) Pronunciation Key
tr.v. rigged, rig·ging, rigs

1. To provide with a harness or equipment; fit out.
2. Nautical
1. To equip (a ship) with sails, shrouds, and yards.
2. To fit (sails or shrouds, for example) to masts and yards.
3. Informal To dress, clothe, or adorn: The costumer rigged out the actors in peasant clothing.
4. To make or construct in haste or in a makeshift manner: rig up a tent for the night.
5. To manipulate dishonestly for personal gain: rig a prizefight; rig stock prices.

 

You know a conversation is in depth when a dictionary is pulled out.

His last post seemed to have a tone of finality to it that seemed to me that he is done with this topic regardless. Hopefully the tone of this post is the same.

 

I thought it was a good, well balanced post. I personally had a great experience with powernotebooks.com, but it's good to log the bad along with the good.

His points about the machine are valid as far as I can see, and have generated discussion around a solution or two. Hopefully Compal will note some of the bad points and improve the next time around.

 

Tonight after my machine going into standby right under my fingers three times in a row I'd had enough. I wiped my machine, reflashed the bios and started the long process of reinstalling Windows XP, drivers and related software.

In the process I have solved my standby problem!

It turns out that the 'Smart Watchdog' software was the cause of all my problems. I installed each component one at a time then tested for the standby issue (it was fine after initial windows reinstall, no standby problems). As soon as I loaded Smart Watchdog and rebooted, boom, standby all over the place no matter the setting of my desktop power functions. Pulled it off, rebooted and the issue is fixed immediately.

I sincerely hope this helps someone else out there because it was the one thing I hadn't resolved that was basically a 'deal breaker' as far as keeping the machine.

Peace,

D

 

pyro, cool it. locker is entitled to his own opinions as are you. no need pull out a dictionary...jeez.

 

You realize this was a few weeks ago right? And did you read the entire thread? The dictionary was about the wording between me and Lt.Glare, not Lockers opinion or right to opinion..

 

Woah, hey, like Pyro said it was a few weeks ago. Rather than insult him (or anyone) just give a negative rep, or disregard his opinion in future posts. People who read the forum can make their own opinion. Ultimately this is a forum to help people, not bash people.

Once any one us start doing so, it will stop becoming constructive, and turn into what many very popular forum sites turn into: one or two posts that have a person's interesting opinion, and the rest are of people bashing the first two people's posts. Of course, this isn't the case always, but anyone who's spent any length of time on those sites probably knows what I mean. I really dread the day this forum goes the way of digg.com, slashdot, and others.

 

Didn't mean to revive any drama, just wanted to post my Unwanted Standby fix.
Peace all it's cool,

D

 

Watchdog was causing the problem? Any idea why? Sorry you had to go through an entire reload to find out that you might have been fine just removing the application.. :/

Anyways, glad you got it fixed.

 

Thanks for sharing your findings. I hope your hard work will help others in the future.

 

The Smart Watchdog of better Idiotic Watchdog could very well have been your problem. In my first clean install last year in October when I bought it, I installed everything and within hours I had a BSOD. Then I decided to leave out all the rubbish and since then no problems.
All the driver versions I installed are in this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=84039

BTW about the religious stuff, you are not the only one who seriously detests irrational behaviour and that of course includes religion.
I luckily live in Belgium and don't get that stuff stuffed down my throat every day

 

come now, nobody's shoving anything down anyone's throat here, it's a free market as some have already mentioned, as for the shoving you're probably better of scavaging the example near-schelde neighbourhoods of antwerp within certain lines of business with probably a slightly higher success rate as regards your findings

cheers,

//m.

 

huh?

 

well you wouldn't know if you weren't belgian as the previous poster so I guess it was a bit of an inside humor there ;]

regards,

//m.

 

Actually I don't understand the wording... it doesn't seem.. english..

 

better now? (this be kings of offtopic, this thread, i reckon closing it soon would be a wise move? )

 

Sure, why not

 

I second closing this, it's off topic, and painful to read. It's also full of emotional (pointless) posts that helps no one fix, learn about, or use their computer

 

I learned a lot from this thread. I have fixed, learned about, and used my computer because of it!

 

I don't see the need to close this thread. But I do want to reiterate that everyone has a right to choose their own religion. They also have a right to be proud of their choice to follow certain religions.

You as individuals have every right to disagree. But I ask that we keep from condemning those with different beliefs, just because they have different beliefs than those of our own.

Thanks.

Oh, and yes--let's try to stay on-topic as much as possible .

 

Was it really necessary to write another post about it?
Now it starts to feel like you really are promoting religion.
And now that I checked it out the site, it really seems worrysome:
"
The mission of the “PowerNotebooks.com Scholarship” is to help develop a cadre of leaders and scholars who possess a desire to serve God, to serve others, to serve the Christian communities, and are followers of Jesus Christ, and:

1. To help cultivate leadership potential in undergraduate students who will meet the challenges facing the United States in the 21st Century.
2. To sustain high levels of academic interest, motivation, and performance.
3. To strengthen the pool of high-achieving Christian students in all fields.
4. To increase the quantity and quality of academically talented Christian students in Colleges and Universities at the State, Regional and National levels.
"

If it goes to so called universities like Liberty and Regent where they promote stupidity then I can really understand the concern.

 

Well I don't know much about the mentioned Uni, but I see nothing wrong with promoting one's faith in what you do. I'm actually well pleased with seeing people doing a good job setting a good example for the faith they follow and also doing good deeds in the world. As far as I know, the powernotebooks.com shop has very good opinions by the people who bought off of them and sustained service from them. Nowhere do I see written that they wish not to help non-christians, as long as they are relatively 'good' people (I suppose basing goodness on the 10 commandments here would be a good source for the basis on which the judgment is passed), and if you do so in seeing any of the writs pasted above by you, I suppose you're a bit prejudiced perhaphs.

You must remember that church != religion, which in the case of the Roman Catholic church would be a very important thing believe it or not. Also I guess the Christian church looks a bit different in USA, since it's probably pretty much a 'joint-venture' of all the beliefs of christians from europe, similarly as the usa is a 'joint-venture' of different nations.

Also do look that it says Christian. So not even as closed as Catholic itself.

Regards,

//m.

ps. as regarding the thread, maybe not closing it then would be a good suggestion, but perhaphs moving it over to some 'off-topic' forum part, that would be a bit wiser since I suppose something ought to be done about it. If not the entire thread, then at least the part of it where it branched off to the religion-related topic, and all that follows it.

 

For starters, it seems like discrimination to me that scholarship, only for christian universities.
Here in Belgium they would make a problem about that and with reason.

 

Ayuh, I don't even know if I should feed the troll, but alas, a chip for you...

Here in the U.S., private entities can determine who they will and won't give money to. If you don't like it AG, then don't buy machines from them. I personally don't like people preaching at me, but had no problems buying from Powernotebooks, it's not like they asked me to recite the 43rd psalm before they shipped or anything.

 

sure, it sounds a bit 'off' but you must admit that no one should tell you how to spend your money. that wouldn't be directly freedom. this is a scholarship, so you can do it whatever the hell you want and I find that logical. as long as it's nothing illegal that the scholarship supports, and the Christian religion is by far not one of the illegaly marked activities in USA and other places in the world too, there really isn't much to do about the way the scholarship is placed. that's the scholars' and theirs alone business.

 

Probably, but to me is seems a bit strange.
BTW now I know partially why powernotebooks has very good ratings
I sure hope the christians lurking around here have no problem being helped by an atheist, otherwise watch out for things made by me

 

Ignorance is nothing to be directly happy over I suppose then again in this case it looks more like pride which being a wicked thing by design, give or take a few exceptions, I guess goes well in hand with ignorance...

regards.....

 

Ok, this thread has now gone completely off-topic. Let's try to stay somewhat on-topic (as much as is possible). I also ask that we respect the religious choices that others have made.

Just because someone has a different belief system than your own (or lack of one), it does not justify making insulting comments about their decision.

 

I guess there just isn't a lot bad to tell about the HEL80 and there has already been numerous reviews that mention most of it's ups and downs so this thread is pretty much useless from the start..... hence the off-topic'ness.

I'd really ask to either close it or move it somewhere where no one will be bothered.

Regards and sorry if I broke any forum laws with my posts, please let me know first before booting me off of here, tas

Cheers,

//m.

 

No sweat. Nothing that can't be fixed has been said here yet. It's just that the topic of religion can spark a flame-war just as quick as any topic.

I only ask for tolerance.

 

Wow... this topic got turned upside down.. or inside out.. or something