*OFFICIAL: HP HDX DRAGON Owners Lounge*

2.0 · 06-23-2008, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crricha13

ah nice. so if no word on a new hdx, i will probly just order the one they have now. alienware is getting returned.

Yeah I was waiting for a new HDX, but at these prices there's no real incentive to wait. They may have a better GPU in the new one if there is to be a new one. But an 8800M GTS is high enough on the list to keep me satisfied for some time to come.

It's really an incredible machine. Have to say that it's the best notebook I've seen or owned.

You won't be disappointed.

xenodaedalus · 06-23-2008, 05:32 PM

So I am a noob to the forum and to notebooks. I've been building gaming desktops for a while, but recently sold my SLI desktop, and now I'm going to buy a buddy's HDX9010nr! Very Excited! (First gaming notebook i've owned!)

I'm not concerned with the drive, as I have no use for HD or BD yet. And when the time comes that I'll actually NEED BluRay, hopefully drives will be cheap enough, or I'll be buying a new notebook. I've been searching all over the internet for an answer to my question. I figured this would be the place to find an answer. I apologize if this has already been answered, but I searched through the first 30 pages of posts and decided to risk a re-post

I heard that there are two separate motherboards being used with the HDX. One for ATI graphics, and one for both. That being said, no one can tell me which mobo the 9010nr has. I would really like to be able to upgrade to the 8800GTS since I'm a gamer. If the 9010's mobo only supports ATI cards, would I still be able to upgrade to a newer ATI card? Is the HDX9010 PCIE2.0?

I am also wondering if anyone else with a 9010nr, or similar can tell me how well it plays games. (by the way, It's only the 1680x1050 model.) I love crysis, but I'm not gonna push my luck

I would be curious how well games such as oblivion, HL2, FC2, bioshock and assassin's creed run. I know that the 8800 gets much higher benchmarks than the 2600, but can the 2600 still hold it's own with current games?

I'd really like to pop in an 8800GTS. And a T9300.
If the board that's in the 9010 isn't compatible withe nvidia cards...I know I can order both motherboards from HPs part center. And all HDX's are the same size physically, but is everything inside the same? cooling, placement, etc. I'm wondering If i'd be able to swap out the mobo with the better one.

Although, if i'm going to be upgrading the mobo, I'd also be doing the GPU, CPU and RAM. I might as well buy a new one

(I wouldn't need to upgrade this stuff right away if the T7500 and HD2600 can hold their own for at least a little while)

Edit: Even tried calling HP. Since i don't have the HDX yet, i can't provide P/N or S/N numbers, which HP apparently needs before they give out part info. Uh...damn HP.

suland · 06-23-2008, 05:50 PM

I am looking for mine to arrive after tomorrow. Will let you guys know, how it is.

plucka99 · 06-23-2008, 07:45 PM

Problems with the Recovery manager on new HDX.

1. F11 on bootup (recovery manager) doesn't work, just sits there blank screen for 20 secs then reboots.

2. Try to make recovery DVD's using HP utiltily in windows- Burns the first DVD then says failed when it tries to verify, tried it with 3 brand new blank DVD's. Upon checking the DVD it appears files have been burnt ok but the recovery manager refuses to continue.

3. Decide to try and take a ghost image of C: Bootup with bootcd (Utlimate Boot CD) but cannot see the HD at all. Does the HDX use some kind of weird HD format or controller that a normal bootdisk cannot recognise?

HP really annoys me that they don't provide recovery CD's and a proper Vista DVD. What it saves them 50cents in a DVD/CD media? What if I want to reinstall Vista cleanly? I can't- no DVD. What if I need to repair Vista, can't no DVD. I paid for a Vista license as part of the price- give me the damned DVD with it!

2.0 · 06-23-2008, 08:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xenodaedalus

So I am a noob to the forum and to notebooks. I've been building gaming desktops for a while, but recently sold my SLI desktop, and now I'm going to buy a buddy's HDX9010nr! Very Excited! (First gaming notebook i've owned!)

I'm not concerned with the drive, as I have no use for HD or BD yet. And when the time comes that I'll actually NEED BluRay, hopefully drives will be cheap enough, or I'll be buying a new notebook. I've been searching all over the internet for an answer to my question. I figured this would be the place to find an answer. I apologize if this has already been answered, but I searched through the first 30 pages of posts and decided to risk a re-post

I heard that there are two separate motherboards being used with the HDX. One for ATI graphics, and one for both. That being said, no one can tell me which mobo the 9010nr has. I would really like to be able to upgrade to the 8800GTS since I'm a gamer. If the 9010's mobo only supports ATI cards, would I still be able to upgrade to a newer ATI card? Is the HDX9010 PCIE2.0?

I am also wondering if anyone else with a 9010nr, or similar can tell me how well it plays games. (by the way, It's only the 1680x1050 model.) I love crysis, but I'm not gonna push my luck

I would be curious how well games such as oblivion, HL2, FC2, bioshock and assassin's creed run. I know that the 8800 gets much higher benchmarks than the 2600, but can the 2600 still hold it's own with current games?

I'd really like to pop in an 8800GTS. And a T9300.
If the board that's in the 9010 isn't compatible withe nvidia cards...I know I can order both motherboards from HPs part center. And all HDX's are the same size physically, but is everything inside the same? cooling, placement, etc. I'm wondering If i'd be able to swap out the mobo with the better one.

Although, if i'm going to be upgrading the mobo, I'd also be doing the GPU, CPU and RAM. I might as well buy a new one

(I wouldn't need to upgrade this stuff right away if the T7500 and HD2600 can hold their own for at least a little while)

Edit: Even tried calling HP. Since i don't have the HDX yet, i can't provide P/N or S/N numbers, which HP apparently needs before they give out part info. Uh...damn HP.

Service manual with all part numbers and disassembly is here: (It's a PDF) ...

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01279508.pdf

From here you can determine if the mobo is compatible with the 8800GTS MXM board. I hope you're getting your friend's HDX for cheap if you plan to do all these upgrades. These parts are pretty expensive.

As for the Radeon 2600XT, it's about 50% the graphics power of the 8800M GTS. Firgure than it's around the same processing power of the 8600M GT overclocked.

2.0 · 06-23-2008, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by plucka99

Problems with the Recovery manager on new HDX.

1. F11 on bootup (recovery manager) doesn't work, just sits there blank screen for 20 secs then reboots.

2. Try to make recovery DVD's using HP utiltily in windows- Burns the first DVD then says failed when it tries to verify, tried it with 3 brand new blank DVD's. Upon checking the DVD it appears files have been burnt ok but the recovery manager refuses to continue.

3. Decide to try and take a ghost image of C: Bootup with bootcd (Utlimate Boot CD) but cannot see the HD at all. Does the HDX use some kind of weird HD format or controller that a normal bootdisk cannot recognise?

HP really annoys me that they don't provide recovery CD's and a proper Vista DVD. What it saves them 50cents in a DVD/CD media? What if I want to reinstall Vista cleanly? I can't- no DVD. What if I need to repair Vista, can't no DVD. I paid for a Vista license as part of the price- give me the damned DVD with it!

What kind of DVD media did you use? Best is DVD+R for these sorts of things. And what brand?

xenodaedalus · 06-23-2008, 09:04 PM

Thanks for the manual 2.0! I already had DLed one, and it didn't say which models are which part-numbers...But I went on HP.com, and searched for the 9010nr and all part numbers, which gave me the exact mobo part number. According to what I thought, the motherboard in the 9010nr is the same part number as the "ATI Only" board. Yet, when I typed in 9010nr and listed all part numbers, it only lists the nvidia graphics card and not the ati. So, does that mean that I'm able to throw in an 8800? Or does that mean that HP had their head up their A$$ again, and just put nvidia part numbers on all the HDXs and took away the ATI replacement. I find it weird that the 9010nr, comes with an ATI card, but it only lists the replacement numbers for the Nvidia. (Man, I hope this board's compatible with the 8800.) I'm going to continue my search to make 100% sure it will work, but any help is appreciated.

And yeah, i'm getting a pretty good deal. Lets just say, that If buy this HDX off my friend, and go through HP to buy 4gbs of RAM, new mobo, 8800, and a BD drive, I'd still be under the retail price of customizing a new one. Not having to replace the mobo, and buying the RAM off newegg makes this a great deal for me. The biggest thing is being able to swap graphics cards with the current mobo.

Edit:Sweet! It's confirmed! I can replace my ATI card with the Nvidia! And if not, I can demand HP give me a newer model with one, because they said the nvidia part would work in my model number

8800GTS, a T9300, some extra RAM and I'll be "Playing the way it's meant to be played!"
(I've always been a big ATI fan, but for gaming how can you deny the 8800GTS?)

plucka99 · 06-23-2008, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2.0

What kind of DVD media did you use? Best is DVD+R for these sorts of things. And what brand?

Sony DVD+R

Like I said though the weird thing is when I check the DVD it appears to be burnt ok, there is nearly 4GB of data written to it.

wallace0134 · 06-23-2008, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by plucka99

Sony DVD+R

Like I said though the weird thing is when I check the DVD it appears to be burnt ok, there is nearly 4GB of data written to it.

Does the recovery manager allow you to create an image that you, yourself can burn to disc? I never actually used the recovery manager [someone else created the recovery discs for me

], but you might be able to burn the image with another application, preferably one in which you can slow down the burn speed and verify.

iceColdgin · 06-23-2008, 11:51 PM

@2.0 -- i have some questions. my HDX came with 2 HDD and one HDD was partitioned to 140G and 10G with the 10G partition containing the HP recovery disk/files of about 8GB. recently, when the HP software did a health check, it said that i do not have any recovery disks. so i proceeded to create the recovery disks and ended up with 2DVDs of recovery disk.

my questions are:

1. how come the HP health check did not detect my 10G recovery files on the partitioned HDD?

2. do i still need the 10G of recovery disk files on my HDD now that i have 2DVDs of recovery disk created and the HP health check software has not been bugging me anymore about creating a recovery disk?

3. are the contents of the recovery files on the 10G HDD different from that of the 2DVDs?

thanks