Would you buy another HP?

[XTORO]

Hmm. Perhaps I spoke too soon on the overheating... I'm not sure what fixed it though...

I did some updates. Made a few adjustments in CCC (V-Sync always on, PowerPlay on Maximize Battery Life Anti-Aliasing mode to AMSAA) and set the Windows Power Plan to "Power Saver". And I REMOVED THE BATTERY. I've heard that makes a difference for some reason...

I played Bioshock 2 on max settings for 20 minutes, and same with Fallout 3 (AF&AA off because the MSAA set in CCC does an ok job and is less of a performance hit).

My CPU Fan was on low, and temp never hit over 60*C and my graphics card was sitting at a max of 57*C!

With the vsync set to always on, the framerate in both games was dead steady at 30FPS. With vsync off, I got between 35-50 FPS depending on the scene.

I'm hoping this isn't a fluke and I'm going to try playing around with it some more. And I'll try it again with the battery back in. Happy so far

[zaanton]

Two business HP: 6715b and 6465b and no single problem for 4 years. I'd definitely buy HP ProBook again.

[Starrbuck]

Please let us know which laptop does not get hot and have a loud fan when under the stress of a video game. I'd love to find one!!!

[manchesterunited222]

my hp craptop overheats while using Notepad and calculator. lol

if I played a game i could probably use it as a burner to cook a meal.

on the positive side: the hot fan is nice during the winter...

[XTORO]

Please let us know which laptop does not get hot and have a loud fan when under the stress of a video game. I'd love to find one!!!

Mine seems to be ok now... Since my last post I've been playing some more. Highest temp for CPU was 62*C, highest temp for GPU was 57*C using the settings I mentioned earlier. Games play great now!

I have a DV7-6c07eg with a Radeon HD 7690M XT

[Starrbuck]

Great news, XTORO! If you set HP CoolSense to maximum cooling, it seems to help as well. It turns the fan on sooner, and it keeps the CPU from entering Turbo mode.

[wild05kid05]

Never ever again

[HTWingNut]

HP is no worse than other OEM's. I've had issues with Sager, Lenovo (and from my experience NEVER LENOVO AGAIN), Dell, Asus, Acer, Sony, and HP. Every one different, and every one unique, and every one taken care of either by a simple fix of my own, or a replacement / fix by the OEM, well except Lenovo.

I've had to exchange laptops a few times with both Dell and HP until they gave me the "perfect" laptop. Not an ideal situation, but no dime out of my pocket for the exchanges, and in both cases ended up with more/better hardware than what I originally ordered.

I have found CS to be particularly difficult to get through to anyone that can do squat from all the OEM's.

The one thing from a hardware standpoint that HP needs to work on is their cooling, I admit. Temperatures are all over the place from one machine to the next. In disassembling my laptop, I found the OEM thermal paste to be as hard as a rock. I don't know how that can be good for any type of decent thermal transfer unless it's a block of copper. But a repaste and my temps dropped a solid 10C at load. Not the best solution, but better than swapping my laptop (again).

[allfiredup]

I bought my first HP laptop in May 2007. It was a dv9000-series from Circuit City with a 17" display, 1.66GHz T5500 processor, 2GB RAM and discrete NVIDIA 7600 graphics. It set me back almost $1500, which wasn't unreasonable in comparison with similar 'entertainment' laptops. It was definitely the best looking system out of all the models I shopped.

A few months later, I made a career change and needed something much more travel-friendly. A good friend bought the five-month-old HP for her daughter for $800 and I bought a new ThinkPad R61. About nine months later, I decided to buy another entertainment-oriented laptop because the ThinkPad's display and audio quality were lacking. My friend had told me a few weeks earlier that the dv9000 was having problems, but she was planning to get it repaired and I didn't give it much more thought at the time.

I ordered a loaded HP dv7-series with a high-res FHD display, NVIDIA graphics, dual hard drives and all the other high-end options available. While I was waiting for it to arrive, my friend learned that the the dv9000 had a bad NVIDIA graphics card and was basically beyond repair. Then my new dv7 showed up and it ran HOTTER than any laptop I had ever used...even with the fans howling at high-speed.

I sent the dv7 back for a refund. HP never added the particular dv9000 model to their recall list, so a $1500 laptop was nothing but spare parts after just 14 months.

The way that they handled the NVIDIA defect and premature failures was more than enough to turn me against them forever. I even got rid of my HP LaserJet printers, which never gave me a bit of trouble, based on principle. I no longer buy anything HP....

[HTWingNut]

That whole issue with nVidia and bad solder was handled poorly by everyone, Dell especially, primarily because nVidia never really admitted to wrong doing. It was the OEM's that footed the bill not nVidia.