Coping with the Compaq CQ56-115DX - Life After the NVIDIA Settlement

[Deldrin]

I hope you keep us updated regarding your progress . . . or lack thereof.

So I haven't had a chance to do any research on the subject yet. But, I did benchmark it again and I guess I'm just getting spoiled as the numbers are a little better than when I first benchmarked them. Maybe the drive needed a bit more time to learn.

From the press of the power button to the appearance of the login:
Average of 35sec.

From the press of enter (at login) to desktop with startup apps loaded:
Average of 15sec.

So 50 seconds to a usable desktop isn't bad at all. Still the fastest boot of any machine I've ever owned.

[shinobi1]

So I haven't had a chance to do any research on the subject yet. But, I did benchmark it again and I guess I'm just getting spoiled as the numbers are a little better than when I first benchmarked them. Maybe the drive needed a bit more time to learn.

From the press of the power button to the appearance of the login:
Average of 35sec.

From the press of enter (at login) to desktop with startup apps loaded:
Average of 15sec.

So 50 seconds to a usable desktop isn't bad at all. Still the fastest boot of any machine I've ever owned.

Seemed like an eternity to me and I have no SS drives. But then I realized I almost never boot any of my computers. Always use hibernate instead. Do it to save the HDDs. But it's also quick.

[Roawat]

Greetings! I have upgraded to 8GB of RAM and a N640 (2.9GHz), all from eBay amd all for under $100. Everything was fine (and fast, except for graphics--but that's another issue), but when I went to boot up the other day it WOULD NOT BOOT. No BIOS, no screen, no options--all I had was a the Caps Lock LED blinking once per cycle. According to online docs, that means trouble with the CPU. I reseated it and even replaced it with the old V140, but still no boot. You guys are the experts, can you tell me what is going on? Like I said, the unit was fine and working, I hibernated and unplugged, and three days later it won't boot. I even tried the old 1GB RAM sticks and nothing. Battery/No Battery, no difference. even tried popping the RTC battery, hoping that it would reset some bogus status--but that didn't work either. I've put a lot of work into this laptop and upgrade, and am hoping there is some way to resurrect it.

Thanks in advance for any help. Whatever happens, I want to thank you all for giving me the courage even to attempt to disembowel the unit and make upgrades. Your discussions were what I needed to make the changes and I feel very empowered now...I'll feel more empowered if I can get it working again.... Thanks!

OBTW, when I ran memtest with the 8GB sticks, they fail after about 12%. Singly or as a pair, they still fail and produce BSODs, so I will send the RAM back for exchange. Was anyone else seeing this problem?

[roberto_minosa]

Hello CQ56 folks, I've been lurking around this thread since I got my CQ56-115DX a year ago, and I'd like to thank all the guys who posted information on upgrading my el cheapo laptop.

So far, I upgraded the RAM to 5GB, replaced the HDD with a Hitachi 750GB unit, and finally, swapped the V140 out for a P340. I like its performance now, and it's pretty decent for playing Starcraft II and rFactor. GTAIV also runs...barely. Well, it did run with the V140 lol.

One odd problem is that sometimes HDD activity shoots up, and the system freezes for a few minutes at a time. That was even before I upgraded the HDD. Anyone else have the same problem?

[fccgrant]

No BIOS, no screen, no options--all I had was a the Caps Lock LED blinking once per cycle.

When coming across a situation such as yours I'll usually remove the hard drives, CD ROM, WIFI card and USB card and see if it will get to the BIOS screen or self test. You'll need to have at least one memory module installed.

If after all that it still doesn't work then something went wrong somewhere on the motherboard.

Here's a link that might be helpful...

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...en&dlc=en#N215

[Deldrin]

Seemed like an eternity to me and I have no SS drives. But then I realized I almost never boot any of my computers. Always use hibernate instead. Do it to save the HDDs. But it's also quick.

I hibernate more often than not. I'll have to bench mark that one too. It is indeed much quicker. Every once in awhile I find that I'll have to reboot though to clear up resources.

[shinobi1]

Greetings! I have upgraded to 8GB of RAM and a N640 (2.9GHz), all from eBay amd all for under $100. Everything was fine (and fast, except for graphics--but that's another issue), but when I went to boot up the other day it WOULD NOT BOOT. No BIOS, no screen, no options--all I had was a the Caps Lock LED blinking once per cycle. According to online docs, that means trouble with the CPU. I reseated it and even replaced it with the old V140, but still no boot. You guys are the experts, can you tell me what is going on? Like I said, the unit was fine and working, I hibernated and unplugged, and three days later it won't boot. I even tried the old 1GB RAM sticks and nothing. Battery/No Battery, no difference. even tried popping the RTC battery, hoping that it would reset some bogus status--but that didn't work either. I've put a lot of work into this laptop and upgrade, and am hoping there is some way to resurrect it.

Thanks in advance for any help. Whatever happens, I want to thank you all for giving me the courage even to attempt to disembowel the unit and make upgrades. Your discussions were what I needed to make the changes and I feel very empowered now...I'll feel more empowered if I can get it working again.... Thanks!

OBTW, when I ran memtest with the 8GB sticks, they fail after about 12%. Singly or as a pair, they still fail and produce BSODs, so I will send the RAM back for exchange. Was anyone else seeing this problem?

I agree with the above poster, fccgrant. His ideas are worth a try.

For me personally, though, and I hate saying this . . to me your problem has a "bad MOBO" stench. Sure hope I'm wrong!! And certainly I could be wrong.

Some MOBOs are bad right off the production line. Barrel cracks, marginal multi-layer contacts, blah blah . . it could be anything. But those are actually the good boards, in an odd way, because they never reach the customer!

The bad MOBOs are the ones which almost are bad, but not quite. The barrel is hanging on by a whisker, the interior layer soldering is close to contact failure, etc.. The board makes it all the way through final assembly and QA and out the door . . . still working . . . just barely.

Then, later after even shipment, along comes somebody and re-opens the laptop and changes a CPU (or whatever), disturbing the MOBO again to where that whisker finally is severed or (what was a tenuous to begin with) contact is lost.

If fccgrant's suggestions don't work out, you might be looking at a warranty repair. Just be happy the laptop remains within warranty and be happy you did not modify it to the point where the warranty might have been voided. Also pat yourself on the back for not selling your V140 before the warranty expired. You were smart.

[Roawat]

Thanks to fccgrant and shinobi1 for your responses. I will try to simply my setup and see if it boots. If not, then I will have to reset the unit to factory hdwr and send it in for warranty repair. I didn't realize that it was still under warranty, but I have two weeks to get this back in...

[nambinhvu]

Thanks to fccgrant and shinobi1 for your responses. I will try to simply my setup and see if it boots. If not, then I will have to reset the unit to factory hdwr and send it in for warranty repair. I didn't realize that it was still under warranty, but I have two weeks to get this back in...

I'm guessing it's the gpu, not the cpu. You replaced the thermal pad for the gpu correct? Perhaps there was an air bubble trapped underneath or something that caused it not to transfer the heat properly, causing it to die. Let us know how the return goes.

[nambinhvu]

Hello CQ56 folks, I've been lurking around this thread since I got my CQ56-115DX a year ago, and I'd like to thank all the guys who posted information on upgrading my el cheapo laptop.

So far, I upgraded the RAM to 5GB, replaced the HDD with a Hitachi 750GB unit, and finally, swapped the V140 out for a P340. I like its performance now, and it's pretty decent for playing Starcraft II and rFactor. GTAIV also runs...barely. Well, it did run with the V140 lol.

One odd problem is that sometimes HDD activity shoots up, and the system freezes for a few minutes at a time. That was even before I upgraded the HDD. Anyone else have the same problem?

When you swapped hard drives, did you clone the drive, or install from scratch?

First, I'd go to the start menu type Resource Monitor, go to the disk tab, then sort Total (B/sec) decending. This should allow you to see what is causing all the HD activity. I'm guessing it's some antivirus/malware program. I recommend getting rid of your (Norton, Avira, Avast, Kaspersky, Mcafee, etc) If you have more than one antivirus program, that's a big nono and could be the cause of it. After you get rid of that, install Microsoft Security Essentials, and Malwarebytes, if you want you can get the pro version of Malwarebytes. Malwarebytes doesn't conflict with antivirus software.

If still you have the issue, do a clean install of Windows 7, get all the important hardware drivers from HP, mainly the graphics driver, the rest I believe will be fine through Windows Update. Then see if you have the same issues. You can use the old hard drive for testing, then clone it over if it work fine.