*HP HDX 9000 DRAGON Owners Lounge, Part 2*

[Burke]

Good news. In other news, I honestly didn't know that the HDX had 2 different heatsinks. I did a swap for a friend who had a HDX 9200 with ATI and it was the same heatsink as the Nvidia one. So I'm thinking that the first run HDXs (HDX 9000) which were ATI only must have had the ATI only heatsink.

The newer Nvidia/ATI heatsink for HDX 9200 and up, is 448176-001.

Might be tricky to find in the UK.

Unfortunately I was one of the first to buy one in early 2007; therefore ATI sink.

You should put the part number on the first page in case another poor schmuck does what I just did.

[DRAGONe]

Its great that no one has ever mentioned that. I've asked how to do it. What I should know. Talked to people who did it. I hope I did'nt brick the gpu. It doesn't start anymore. I've looked in the manual and there was no part number for the other heatsink. What's the part number? If I've bricked it. I guess it's time to sell this old heap of junk

When I replied "No" to a "new" heatsink I didn't think to verify you already had the "correct" heatsink; it seemed that you were asking was there something wrong with your present one (which if you were using the one for an ... older, as 2.0 has pointed out ... ATI card would be the case). Originally I read you were "replacing" your MB & GPU (didn't understand you meant "upgrading").

I also have the 2nd gen MB with ATI in DRAGONe and Nvidia in DRAGONy - so they didn't look any different to me. If at this stage 2.0 is still acquiring knowledge about these I won't hang myself for not knowing more than he.

[2.0™]

Ok I hate my life,

Yesterday when I finally fixed the bios mod issue only after my checkdisk on bootup screwed up my system, I had some problems with my system however I dismissed them at the time for something minimal.

Anyways whatever happened during that boot error during checkdisk components on my system just stopped working. First off, probably the most important is my biometric fingerprint scanner doesn't work, I can get the program up and running but rolling my finger does nothing, almost as if it's dead. In addition my "windows updates" fails to load, like I click on it and nothign happens. Similar issue when I try to run services.msc, it won't run unless I have it on standard cuz when I tab the extended I get a script error. Other weird things when I try to right-mouse click "my computer" nothing happens there. running msinfo32.exe reveals that it can't access that information. Just weird things mostly, but that's the kind of stuff I'm dealing with.

So naturally I try to do a system restore but upon rebooting I get another error saying it failed along the lines of it saying error 0x80004321 or something like that I forgot to write it down. I've run a chkdsk again after i hot fixed it, but the cbs log says there were errors it was unable to fix, but since the log is like a thousand pages long, it's just way too complicated for me to fix.

Also, Iono if some of you are familiar with "microsoft fix it center" but since my problem yesterday, that fails to load as well. What I don't get is at least 80% of my computer functions normally, I can surf the web, play games, listen to music, run programs ie: photoshop, office products, everything pretty much functions fine but the biosensor issue really has me worried because I have dozens of pw's on the digital persona which I don't remember from memory, so I don't know how to back it up in the event I attempt to reformat. But I really don't want to do that because I have at least 3 years worth of personalized stuff on there that simply re-installing would actually hurt more than help.

TLDR attempted solutions I've tried.

ran sfc /scannow - no luck
ran chkdsk on boot - no luck
ran recovery disk on boot - some sort of hardware error so it did not initialize
system restore - failed to execute upon reboot (even on safe mode)
with windows 7 cd tried to restore but the disk I have says that it's not the right one, go figure.

What I can conclude at this point is this issue which I'm almost certain is registry related because trying to decipher my cbs log shows that there's a lot of problems regarding wow64 files missing, corrupt, or unable to fix, and all the issue's (minus the fingerprint read) are all windows related, and not with the third party stuff. So something must of happened to my registry where some or lots of registry files got deleted or corrupted beyond repair. Like I said, for the most part my computer runs fine, but these kinds of issues over time, or when school starts back up in January will become very annoying, so if you guys have any ideas, or would like to attempt to read my cbs log I'll be more than happy to upload it later on. Main thing is this though, I really need to gain access to my passwords from the fingerprint sensor software but I can't for the life of me remember the password which was like 3 years old when I first got my laptop, so if you guys know a solution to figuring out or simply just saving the files themselves in case I do have to reformat that would work to. In the meantime I'll be banging my head on this for the next 15 hours....

SKI, I don't recall which version of Windows you are running. But be it Vista or Win7, you can do what is called an upgrade install of the OS. What this will do is reinstall the OS while keeping all of your programs, data, and most of your settings. I had to do this once when Firefox got borked by an experimental add on which in turned borked a number of OS components.

IF you don't have retail install media. let me know and I'll give you the links to D/L install media. It's perfectly legal and are from DigitalRiver.

I just used one of them for my sister's DV7 because she killed the OS doing some crazy optimizations a "friend" told her about.

[Burke]

531455-001 NEW HP HDX nVidia Heatsink (Thermal Module)

this is part 531455-001 and it looks different than mine. The adhesive is spread differently as well. Are you sure it's not this part number?

[DRAGONe]

Ok I hate my life, ... I'll be banging my head on this for the next 15 hours....

So you have a complete backup already, right? Got a second HD you can use to do a complete new install on? Then recover to it.

[2.0™]

Unfortunately I was one of the first to buy one in early 2007; therefore ATI sink.

You should put the part number on the first page in case another poor schmuck does what I just did.

Indeed, added to front page.

Next time you go in, could you take a picture of the ATI heatsink and post it. I'd like to add a link that shows the difference between the two.

[2.0™]

531455-001 NEW HP HDX nVidia Heatsink (Thermal Module)

this is part 531455-001 and it looks different than mine. The adhesive is spread differently as well. Are you sure it's not this part number?

That's the correct one. Sometimes HP has multiple part numbers for the same part. Usually when they use a new ODM for the part.
That's a good price for it. Vivo tech is a good vendor. I've bought a lot of parts from them.

[S_K_I]

Yea 2.0, my OS is windows x64, so I'll definitely keep your method in mind, in fact I just might have to do that if this keeps up. If you don't mind however, elaborate further on what "retail install media" actually is, I think I know what you're talking about, but lets pretend I'm stupid for a sec and humor .

and dragone,

Yea I did have it backed up on my external but that was before 5 months ago when I parked my car in a rough neighborhood, and some bad men decided to have an early xmas and proceeded to relieve me of that very same hard drive along with my audio system and my car insurance, so in hindsight I haven't had a chance or was just lazy since to back it up :/. But now i know what to ask for xmas this year, thanks hehe....

[2.0™]

Yea 2.0, my OS is windows x64, so I'll definitely keep your method in mind, in fact I just might have to do that if this keeps up. If you don't mind however, elaborate further on what "retail install media" actually is, I think I know what you're talking about, but lets pretend I'm stupid for a sec and humor .

By retail, I mean actual install media. The HP restore discs are not the proper type. Those just re-image your HDD with the original partition.

The retail version can be OEM, Upgrade, D/L'd ISO, or Retail Box version.

The upgrade install method will take about 30-45mins. You can download the retail ISO (which you will have to burn onto a DVD) from Digitalriver or from torrent mirrors.

BTW, is that Vista or Win7 you have there?

[DRAGONe]

... hindsight ....

"The ability to understand and appreciate just how much a mistake has cost you."

Foresight:

"The smarts to prevent needng hindsight."

No truer words ever spoken by a father to his young son.