*HP HDX18 Owners Lounge*

[RTL]

Greetings,

I was wondering if anyone here can guide me on a MAJOR problem I'm having with my HDX18.

So about a month ago, it was running fine, I went to the start menu and shut it down, and then went away for a while. When I came back, I noticed the HDX was still on, and when I opened the display, I just saw my desktop wallpaper. Start menu and icons weren't there, so it looked to be in that "transition" mode when explorer.exe is not running. I tried CTRL+ALT+DLT and everything, but it was frozen. Then I tried doing the hard shut down (holding down the power button), and it STILL wouldn't shut down! Finally, I had no choice but to detach the power cable, and take out the battery to close the computer down. Since then, my HDX has been DEAD.

Originally, though the LED power indicator next to where you plug it in lights up, the lightning bolt "charging" LED indicator on the front never did. Pressing the power button did nothing.

So after some research, I concluded that I needed a new motherboard, so I ordered it and replaced the old one. Reassembling the whole thing together (and upgrading the memory), it still doesn't work. The only difference is, it now powers on for about a half second (or at least the LED lights on the touchpad/the LED power indicator lights on) before shutting down immediately, so at least that's something...

Any ideas on what it could be?

[RTL]

My battery release latch is stuck in the locked position and won't move at all. The battery is NOT in, because I haven't put it in since dis-assembly & re-assembly of the HDX18.

Has anyone had this happen after re-assembly? I'm wondering if something inside is jamming it. I'd prefer not to take it apart again without some idea of what might be causing this. Any ideas?

I've been Googling and am not really finding much help for this problem so far. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Having this exact same problem after re-assembly. Used a flathead screwdriver to push the latch and after some effort, got the battery out. Gonna leave it out till my power problem is fixed.

[zeba]

Hi all

Just joined coz I need some advice from you experienced guys

I have my HDX 18t 1200CTO NK146Av for 3 year now and it is an excellent piece of hardware. Sure it is getting hot but everyone who is expecting to have their laptop for a longer time should have cooling pad under their laptop.

Until now I added extra HDD inside (had to buy that special cable for hdd and some compatible caddy for it, but it work just a little bit of ACME tools )
I know that GPU is connected with MBO and nothing u can do about it but as I was going trough service manual I noticed that they are mentioned 2 memory module types, DDR2 and DDR3
How can tell if I can use DDR3 memory modules.
At the moment I think I have DDR2 PC2-6400 2x2GB inside and it would mean a lot if I can use fasted module with larger capacity 2x4GB
I saw somebody mentioned that there are 2 types of MBO, and GPU is different.
Mine if the one with 9600GT 512MB RAM - if this helps

THX

[Kuu]

From my understanding, if your board has the 9600m GT then it uses DDR2 (like mine has), but if you have the GT 130m (I think its that one), then the board uses DDR3 RAM. In either case its still limited to 8GB total, but DDR3 is a lot cheaper than 2 is... bleh.

[zeba]

From my understanding, if your board has the 9600m GT then it uses DDR2 (like mine has), but if you have the GT 130m (I think its that one), then the board uses DDR3 RAM. In either case its still limited to 8GB total, but DDR3 is a lot cheaper than 2 is... bleh.

So it seem that I am stuck with expensive DDR2 memory

Not only it`s expensive it`s also unavailable in most computer stores.

[Eliyah]

Because my HP HDX18 laptop runs so hot, a friend of mine suggested I install and use Speedfan, which I installed. It's telling me what I already knew, and that it's running hot. But in order for the software to do more than tell me that, it wants some information I can't seem to figure out: The motherboard manufacturer & model, the clock manufacturer & speed. I'm having trouble finding out where to find this information. I keep Googling, but am not having a whole lot of success. I even installed Belarc Advisor because it was supposed to be able to tell me the motherboard info, but I don't see it listed there, unless it's "Board: Quanta 3610 15.15" under Main Circuit Board, which isn't on the Speedfan dropdown list anyway. Well, I did find something that said I can find the motherboard information upon start-up, so I'll try that next.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you

What kind of HDX 18 do you have, give me your model number, Fn+esc. or better your serial number
What is the speed of your processor if you know it qx9000, qx9100, qx9300.
Maybe i can help you but i can not promise you anything.
By the way it is my first time in this forum.

[Eliyah]

Hi everyone. It's been almost 3 years since I got my HDX 18T. I am having a problem and hope someone can help me out. I have always noticed that it gets pretty warm just with internet useage, but the last few months or so it has started to just shut off entirely. After a few minutes of cooling I can use it again. Sometimes it will go for days and not do it. I know the CPU, if it gets too hot, will shut down the machine. I'm wondering if it could need a new fan? I usually cannot hear the fan blowing. Sometimes it really doesn't even feel too hot and it will shut down. The battery is strong and the adapter is good. I have always used it with a raised stand with 2 fans and try to be sure they're positioned under the vents. It just doesn't seem right that it should get so hot without strenuous usage. No big games or such. Any ideas? I wouldn't think the hard drive would cause the shut down, would it? No error messages or reports anywhere I have found. I'm kinda stumped. Any thoughts?

I read that if you go in the BIOS , by default the cpu fan are always on, maybe yours are on off. check.
Another thing you may want to clean the inside of your computer using a vacum cleaner with an adapter and a soft brush.
Be careful around the subwoofer and the speakers area to not damage anyting with the vacum.
Concentrate on the vents area and the fan using your brush.
Take out the covers from underneath and vacum, be careful to not touch any electronic components with the nozzle of the vacum cleaner.
Buy a good cooler fan and put in under your laptop living it on all the time, my computer runs cool most of the time.
Try that..

[darengibo]

the screen of my hdx18 is dim and flickering. sometimes I can move the lid a few degrees back and forth and this fixes the flicker but is there a way to check lcd cable? external monitor works with no issue. thanks! just wondering if I can fix it or bring to a shop.

[Kuu]

the screen of my hdx18 is dim and flickering. sometimes I can move the lid a few degrees back and forth and this fixes the flicker but is there a way to check lcd cable? external monitor works with no issue. thanks! just wondering if I can fix it or bring to a shop.

It might be either the power cables running to the inverter or the LCD itself, the only way to check is taking the laptop halfway apart to check the cables and connections (the top half of the HDX basically, keyboard, speaker grill and lower panel with the touchpad embedded in it).

[Eliyah]

the screen of my hdx18 is dim and flickering. sometimes I can move the lid a few degrees back and forth and this fixes the flicker but is there a way to check lcd cable? external monitor works with no issue. thanks! just wondering if I can fix it or bring to a shop.

Blaze-Senpai is right, you may have a bad connection. Be sure to clean well your connection, you can use a contact cleaner and plug and unplug a couple of times.
You may also have a bad inverter, you can find them at Ebay for a very reasonable price.
I hope that helps...