*HP EliteBook 8740w Owners Lounge - PART 1*

[m8o]

..., but I'm waiting till some reviews come in and your initial findings. My systems in my (ever changing) sig are my home/play machines. ...

I have a review for ya; this just in. HP bit off more than it can chew with this 8740w offering...

[f4ding]

And of course it will be delivered to your front door on a rainbow colored flying pony...

My date was given as 04/27 or something like that the first time they released the DC2 and were phishing for orders to gauge interest.... Heck, if I can incur a few more delays and get 10% off each time, it won't be long 'till I get it for the price is a netbook.

I seriously thought he was joking.

[m8o]

I seriously thought he was joking.

I know he was. I just couldn't pass up an excellent opportunity to use such a comical line and put in some more digs @ HP's expense. I'm quickly going from indifferent to pretty p/o'ed with the latest delay.

[f4ding]

I hope this delay won't affect non-DC2 8740w or 8540w.

[Thecla]

I'm quickly going from indifferent to pretty p/o'ed with the latest delay.

Yah, I must say I feel the same way...and how on earth can HP put DC2's back up on their website only to discover two weeks later than they actually don't have any to deliver??

I was ok with some delay but this is past ridiculous (or rediculous, as it's more commonly called in that great virtual ball of wax known as the internet).

[m8o]

Wondering if the DC2 fiasco was to do with this report (If LG was the DC2 supplier).

AUO scores patent lawsuit decision over LG Display

edit: better coverage: http://www.ag-ip-news.com/GetArticle.asp?Art_ID=8208
I just spent a lot of time scanning this thread for this post above. I thought it worth bumping it to ponder HP's ablity to deliver on a promised IPS display ...
... is HP lying to us? or is LG lying to HP?

It does seem like LG would have trouble delivering IPS displays to HP if there were an injunction put on them by AUO

So far AUO is indicating that it will seek an injunction preventing LG from shipping its potentially infringing HDTVs, monitors, notebooks and even phones to the U.S, plus some other legal tough talk for good measure.

[as far as I know, the DC2 was going to be an LG display as as far as I read they're the only one to offer it in this form-factor/size]
[not saying this delay is cause of or proof of an injunction, just that maybe it is].

[knight427]

I wanted to give regular updates on the crashing issue as it gets resolved, but things are going very slow. I called "the guy" (henceforth referred to as J...the tech at HP trying to solve this problem) asking for an update.

There is an update for Nvidia drivers coming soonish, but that does me no good. I reminded him I have ATI at which point he audibly sighed and commented how ATI pushes all the driver updates onto HP. He looked and saw there was an updated driver dated April 15, file name sp47969. I later logged onto HP's website to find it, but they still have the original driver with a different file name. I followed up with an email asking for that driver but have not received it yet.

I had previousy told him about Mass Effect crashing my new system quite consistently in full-screen mode. He put in a requisition to buy the game for $5 at a big-box store but is still waiting for approval.

I had also called him to let him know I had tried re-installing the other 2 sticks of RAM and got tons of crashes. He said he already requested 2 sticks of RAM and was also waiting for those. (note that HP had a replacement laptop at my door within 24 hours, but they can't find 2 sticks of RAM for their tech to play with... )

So, at this point I'm getting the impression that HP isn't giving J any kind of urgent priority to fix this problem, which is pretty frustrating. I sent him email with several questions and even offered to let an on-site tech come mess with my computer (specifically to install those RAM sticks again to observe the crashes). Waiting to hear back on that too.

[knight427]

I measured the sound levels of the 8740w. I understand that it might be difficult to put this into context if you aren't very familiar with sound. But here it is anyway.

I measured the sound levels at my normal head location with the laptop set open on top of my desk in its normal use position. All levels are Equivalent Sound Level A-weighted (LAeq). Results are reported in overall level (includes all sound energy across all frequencies into a single number) and 1/3 octave band levels (breaks frequencies up into bins that are 1/3 of an octave wide).

I measured the following conditions:

Heavy - running 3DMark06 (CPU test), this is as loud as it gets unless it is about to crash...so it's not the highest fan setting, but the highest you will encounter in normal use. It is also the fan speed which runs most often while playing Mass Effect.

Medium - running 3DMark06 (graphics test), this is the medium load condition, it also kicks in rarely under light loads if the CPU temps creep up high enough, but a short run cools it back down very fast.

Light - running Firefox and some other stuff, but not doing anything, the fan is running, but you can't hear it unless you get your ear very close to the keyboard.

Background - computer turned off





Results:
The Background level was actually under the noise floor of the mic I used with the sound level meter at most high and low frequencies. If you compare the Background levels to Light levels, you will see that the Background measurement included some transient sound (around 1 kHz) which wasn't in the Light measurement. I trust that the spike around 800 Hz in the Light measurement is actually the fan, but it is unclear. But basically you can see that under Light loads, you will not hear much unless you have a very quiet space. Most open office cubicles should have levels well above these.

As the load increase, so of course does the level. You may also note that the spike in each curve moves to the right due to the higher fan speed making higher pitched sounds.

Under the Heavy condition, the overall level reaches nearly 42 dB. That is quite good in my opinion, but certainly no one would consider it "nearly silent". The highly tonal character of the sound will make it even more noticeable as people are more sensitive to sounds that have a strong pitch associated with them.

Overall I am very pleased with the sound levels of this powerful laptop. As I have mentioned several times though, my previous laptop was very loud, so I come at this system with a different perspective than previous Elitebook owners.

[nbr99]

knight427 - you're the man!

Thanks a lot for sharing the results of the test. It's telling a lot. I wish that that all manufacturers provide such measurements up front to their perspective customers.

I suppose that your 8740w has a common HD (7200, not SSD) and it is a major source of the sound contributing at Light load. Right?

Have you tried to measure sound level with BIOS option "Enable/disable fan always on while connected to an AC outlet (enabled by default)." turned off? I guess it will put it somewhere between Light and Background levels. Or may be it will be close to Light, I guess?

What is the ambient temperature when you made those measurements?

Does keeping the back of 8740w lifted (one or two inches) above the desk surface make it more silent (I suppose the fan will not go from Light to Medium time to time, as you've mentioned, and still be on Light all the time)? I know form my experience - I used to lift the back end of my laptop on the desk all the time and it helps to keep it silent. So I guess it's the same with 8740w too

[NotebookGrail]

May be a dumb question - Does the 8740W's QM57 board support esata port multiplier? Hope it does. before i pull the trigger to buy a esata multiple HDD bay.