*HP EliteBook 2560p Owners Lounge*

[nando4]

Originally Posted by SimoxTa

One sad news however; in the process of showing the eGPU solution to some guys, my express card insert disappeared. Anyone know where could I find another one?

INFO: obtaining an expresscard blank via plastics kit p/n 651376-001

If you've missplaced yours then the replacement can be obtained by ordering the plastics kit, pn 651376-001. Included is the expresscard blank, optical drive weight saver and a modem port insert. It's not possible to get the blank on it's own. The part details have been obtained from the 2560P Maintenance and Service Guide and are shown below:



Warning: insert the expresscard blank the right way!!

Also recommend being careful about how you insert the expresscard blank. I've been advised that if you insert it upside down and push it fully in then the only way to get it out is to disassemble the notebook or drill a hole into the blank, hook into it and fish it out. There are no markings on the expresscard blank to indicate which is the right side up and it does slide in when upside down. The only difference being it's a tighter fit when upside down. So if you not sensitive to the pressure being applied it would be easy to jam the blank in and not be able to eject it.

Purchasing the expresscard blank: Partsurfer.hp.com has the plastics kit (651376-001) listed for US$17.10-delivered.

INFO: FAQ about the optical drive weight saver



Above: pictures of the 2560P optical drive weight saver

1. Can the weightsaver's faceplate be removed and installed on a replacement 9.5mm sata optical drive purchased from ebay so don't need to order a matched, pricier one from HP?

No, the weight saver is a single molded piece of plastic with no removable parts.

2. Can the faceplate be cut off and glued on an optical bay caddy or optical drive?

This would be possible. The faceplate part of the weightsaver is a sold mass of plastic and could be cut off with the right cutting equipment. If the optical drive or optical bay caddy has a nice and flat mating surface then that part could be glued on for a perfect appearance.

Before attempting such a modification AND if you already have an optical drive then consider removing it's existing faceplate and mounting it onto either one of the following 9.5mm sata optical bay caddies with a removable faceplate:

$45 newmodeus' 2560P caddy with mountable faceplate

$20 Fenvi caddy with mountable faceplate. Good detailed photos are available in this thread.

Unfortunately the only other known source of a 2560p optical drive faceplate is to purchase a US$94 2560P optical drive itself from HP. Not an economical way of obtaining it.

[Kanuck]

Hi All,

I just bought my second Elitebook off eBay last week (I think I snached it from another forum reader, it was the only i7 on there, sorry).

I am looking to upgrade 3 specific areas to bring it up to maximum capacity & performance.

As this thread was started a while ago, I wanted to ask your opinions regarding currently available technology.

I am interested in:
1. Upgrading the 160GB SSD to a 512GB SSD. Should I get SATA II or III. Saw some comments about lower power consumption. More importantly which one should I get, saw a Samsung, Crucial, OCZ and Kingston out there but none compare the same specs.

2. Would like to put the outgoing 160GB SSD into an original HP Caddy, which parts do I need to order from HP? Will the HP caddy bezel fit properly?
(Wouldn`t it be great if it came with a USB 3 port instead of 2?)

3. I need to max out the RAM at 16GB as I run multiple VMs together. I saw that some posters are using faster 1866 RAM than HP advertises. Would be willing to invest to try this out. Any idea which RAM would be best? So far I found standard speed 8GB chips @ $150 from memoryx.

Your thoughts and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HP2650 | i7 2620M 2.7 GHz | 160GB SSD | 8GB RAM | Centrino 6205 WiFi | HP un2430 EV-DO/HSPA GPS and WWAN | 9 Cell Battery | Fingerprint Rdr

[nando4]

Originally Posted by Kanuck

I am interested in:
1. Upgrading the 160GB SSD to a 512GB SSD. Should I get SATA II or III. Saw some comments about lower power consumption. More importantly which one should I get, saw a Samsung, Crucial, OCZ and Kingston out there but none compare the same specs.

2. Would like to put the outgoing 160GB SSD into an original HP Caddy, which parts do I need to order from HP? Will the HP caddy bezel fit properly?
(Wouldn`t it be great if it came with a USB 3 port instead of 2?)

3. I need to max out the RAM at 16GB as I run multiple VMs together. I saw that some posters are using faster 1866 RAM than HP advertises. Would be willing to invest to try this out. Any idea which RAM would be best? So far I found standard speed 8GB chips @ $150 from memoryx.

Congratulations on your purchase.

1. You want SATA-III for maximum performance. Check the usual sites for the latest and greatest SATA-III SSDs: Intel 520 (SF2281), OCZ Vertex 3 (SF2281), Crucial M4 (Marvell 9128), Corsair Performance Pro (Marvell 9174).

2. HP doesn't sell the caddy but newmodeus has released a 2560P one only a few days ago. See:

2nd HDD / SSD Caddy for HP Elitebook 2560p [OBHD9-SATA-SATA-BU9] - $44.75 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

Note the 5% off coupon on their facebook page.

The faceplate is transferred from your existing optical drive and is mounted on the caddy. If want to keep your optical drive's faceplate then could either run the caddy without one OR would need the 'plastics kit' from HP (see my last post) from which you'd cut off the faceplate and glue onto the caddy frontplate. newmodeus can supply a 2nd detachable frontplate so can have a backup in case case glueing on the cutoff bit doesn't work out and you want to revert to using the optical drive's faceplate instead.

3. The 1866Mhz RAM helps HD3000 iGPU performance, but it's not by that much. The % premium over 1333Mhz RAM certainly not reflective in performance. A $150 i7-2630QM or $200 i7-2720QM quad off ebay as a user-installed upgrade will give you far more performance improvement. Changeover costs from your i7-2620M might be as little as $50-$100.

RAID-0 to boost SSD performance yet again

The HP RAID User Guide indicates that RAID-0 is supported using our upgrade bay (optical drive bay):



So running two identical SATA-III SSDs in a RAID-0 arrangement can effectively double IOPS and seq read/write performance.

UPDATE: Found here that RAID-0 (striping) isn't possible in latest bios version F.22. Only RAID-1 (mirroring) is possible.

[SimoxTav]

i7-2630QM mounted
It's working like a charm. The only downside: Temperature.

I run 8 threads of "toast.exe" and after 45 minutes of load, the peak temperature was 95°C (with turbo boost enabled @ 2.4GHz). Probably in game should stay between 85°C and 90°C. In a couple of hours i should have the answer

[Atavism]

Originally Posted by nando4

So running two identical SATA-III SSDs in a RAID-0 arrangement can effectively double IOPS and seq read/write performance.

Maybe in Benchmarks, but effectively? What sort of application would it require to be capped by either IOPS or read/write performance of a modern SSD?

[SimoxTav]

Originally Posted by SimoxTa

i7-2630QM mounted
It's working like a charm. The only downside: Temperature.

I run 8 threads of "toast.exe" and after 45 minutes of load, the peak temperature was 95°C (with turbo boost enabled @ 2.4GHz). Probably in game should stay between 85°C and 90°C. In a couple of hours i should have the answer

Ok then:

If HP didn't put a quad core inside the 12 inches notebook, was surely for a temperature reason. Running AIDA64 stress test for 15 minutes increased the temperature to 100°C (with a total config power consumption of 70W with max screen brightness and HDD loading, so during normal scenario, the 60W power cord would be enough). Playing BF3, the highest temperature reached was 90°C that is a more reasonable value (compared to mid eighties with stock thermal grease and i5-2520M). I'll test Mass Effect to compare with vnwhite results. Surplisingly the notebook didn't turn off on 100°C even if it's the TJunct, probably because core 0 (the one that should have the DST thermal sensor) was at 96°C
I used an industrial white thermal grease with no-name (but quite expensive from what my purchase office said ) In the following days i'll try different thermal greases to see if the temperatures change.

In the few game tested (Settlers 7, Battlefield 3 and Batman Arkham City, no performance gain in the EGPU setup compared to the old i5-2520M, so probably even with 2 additional cores, the lower operating frequency doens't grant better results.

[prosetheus]

Originally Posted by SimoxTa

Ok then:

If HP didn't put a quad core inside the 12 inches notebook, was surely for a temperature reason. Running AIDA64 stress test for 15 minutes increased the temperature to 100°C (with a total config power consumption of 70W with max screen brightness and HDD loading, so during normal scenario, the 60W power cord would be enough). Playing BF3, the highest temperature reached was 90°C that is a more reasonable value (compared to mid eighties with stock thermal grease and i5-2520M). I'll test Mass Effect to compare with vnwhite results. Surplisingly the notebook didn't turn off on 100°C even if it's the TJunct, probably because core 0 (the one that should have the DST thermal sensor) was at 96°C
I used an industrial white thermal grease with no-name (but quite expensive from what my purchase office said ) In the following days i'll try different thermal greases to see if the temperatures change.

In the few game tested (Settlers 7, Battlefield 3 and Batman Arkham City, no performance gain in the EGPU setup compared to the old i5-2520M, so probably even with 2 additional cores, the lower operating frequency doens't grant better results.

yikes. Those are some crazy temps. Maybe one reason why it does not shut down is that your proc could be an Engineering Sample. Like you said that may be why there is no quad option for these 12 inch laptops.

[SimoxTav]

The CPU came from an Asus G74 so i think it's a retail piece. Simply i think it turn off going beyond the temperature, not matching it. Anyway this evening i'll try mass effect 2 to see the temperature compared to vnwhite ^^

[nando4]

QUESTION: Does a Folio 13 backlit keyboard fit a 2560P?

The 13" Folio 13 ultrabook keyboard is backlit and does appear to be very similar in dimensions to the 12.5" 2560P keyboard. If anybody has access to both machines could they see if we can retrofit this backlit keyboard to the 2560P? I find the 2560P's nightlight spread is insufficient to see the keys easily. From this angle it does look like it would fit.

12.5" HP 2560P



13" HP Folio 13

[SimoxTav]

Originally Posted by nando4

QUESTION: Does a Folio 13 backlit keyboard fit a 2560P?

The 13" Folio 13 ultrabook keyboard is backlit and does appear to be very similar in dimensions to the 12.5" 2560P keyboard. If anybody has access to both machines could they see if we can retrofit this backlit keyboard to the 2560P? I find the 2560P's nightlight spread is insufficient to see the keys easily. From this angle it does look like it would fit.

12.5" HP 2560P

13" HP Folio 13

No more pointing stick and...what about the electrical connection for the backlit?

(i would trade happily anyway the pointing stick for the backlit option )