HP 6930p owner's lounge

Hello all.

I just bought a 6930p for $80 off fleabay!

2.4ghz, intel video (battery life is better), 2gb ram. all it needed was a hdd and a power charger! i was up and running for under $150 in total.

the only problems now are the lid has a lot of dents in it (the rest of the laptop seems brand new though... weird), and the webcam doesnt work. the indicator comes on but there is no video.

and i did the screen latch trick. i bent the metal tab over on the right side first, and it worked great. then i go to bend the left side tab and SNAP. F$%#*$#K! i thought about jb welding it, but i decided to leave it alone because those tabs see a lot of pressure... i doubt glue would hold. the screen locks down just fine with only the one side working anyway.

i wish it was led... i dont like the 15 seconds it takes for the bulbs to get fully bright.. but other then that, i really like this laptop! i love the feel... its so solid and doesnt flex.

last, i did the bios upgrade before i saw the warning so i was thinking about trying to get a WWAN card working, but if i have to use stock ones then i dont think it will be worth the hassle. im on tmobile 4g... so... yeah...

 

Hi resinis welcome to the owners club
Today I also almost bought another 6930p like that on ebay (with right trackpoint button not working, no batt and hdd, about the same price when finished) but the seller unfortunately didn't ship to my location If you see one with international shipping stated you can let me know!

You know only after I read your post I noticed that my latch doesn't work now as well, but actually I'm thinking why this would be a problem ... not worth to actually fight with this to me ...as I haven't actually noticed this
with your webcam it might be that the cable within the screen case is damaged. maybe your best bet will be to replace the whole screen part later to LED version (I think there was one with 1280 resolution)

By the way my warranty expired in february so I started wondering what faults may the 6930p's start to develop. I'ts a good machine but from previous experience with HP business notebooks I don't believe these will be lasting 5+ years on average without major problems on the motherboard (I dare to bet on power/charging issues as in previous generation :/ )

If any problems appear for you let us know!

 

i bought this because from what i can tell they will last as long as you take care of them.

i find almost no common problems to elitebooks. what you mentioned in your OP covers all the major problems, which none of them are that major!

these things are built like tanks. i have worked on quite a few laptops, and i came to the conclusion that they are ALL terrible. all the consumer ones. they are designed like crap, built like crap and even the motherboards are crippled- missing protective capacitors is a major game they love to play when trying to sell cheap products.

this elitebook doesnt flex. it has a nice bios system. it has quality components throughout. and its designed to be worked on. i freakin love this thing! i think i found my next 3 or 4 laptops honestly! ill just keep buying used elitebooks until someone comes out with something way better.

and the screen latch isnt that hard to fix. there are only a couple different sizes of screws in the laptop (another high quality feature of a business laptop like this), and its not hard to take apart or put back together. you dont have to take the motherboard out, just the expresscard slot.

just be really careful when bending the tabs! what i did was i got the top cover off the laptop, and screwed the screen back on. that way i could bend the tab a little, try it, and bend it more.

the 1st time i tried that process worked perfect. the 2nd time i tried to bend it all at once and it just snapped. it bothers me a lot, because i cant find a replacement bar! i mean it works just fine, the lid stays closed... it just bugs me i broke it when i knew i really didnt want to.

 

Hello everybody,
I discovered this site a few days ago and i would like to ask a question about a problem i faced recently.
Well, the story, i am owner of an hp 6930p and the last month i decided to give a little boost to my laptop; so i bought a 256 Gb ssd (Kingston V300) and an AKE USB 3.0 express-card (Nec 720202 chip). I have installed the ssd and the o/s (win7 64bit) and everything runs fine. When i install the usb 3.0 adapter (with the latest drivers of course) the card recognizes only usb flash disks and no hard drives (either usb 2.0 or 3.0). Actually when a hdd is connected to the card then the card disappears from the device manager. To further test, it i have put the card to another 6930p and the behavior was exactly the same. However, when i installed the card in a 8530p (same generation laptop with 6930p but with 15 inch display) the card was able to pick-up and operate any hdd that was attached to it. I have also tested the card in my laptop with ubuntu 12.04 and i had the same results (ie it was working only with usb flash disks).
I also ran the utility hwinfo to both 8530p and 6930p and the only difference that i noticed was that on the 8530p machine the card was assigned IRQ18 while on the 6930p an Interrupt N/A was reported.
So, any ideas what might the problem be? (hardware incompatibility, bad usb 3.0 card?)
Has anyone success with usb 3.0 adapters with the 6930p? and if yes with what brand?

Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance.

P.S. Please excuse my English since it's not my native language.

 

Hi,
As you have tested in two laptops and two OS'es I think that you have most likely excluded driver and particular laptop related problems. It might be a time waster.
I would bet there is not enough power going through express card to the hard drive in 6930p. Did you check if the 8530p has the same chipset ? are the drives actually spinning when you connect them ? (even if so, there might be still not enough power).
you could also check the specs of your card and power requirements for those hard drives, but that will be theory It's either the card or the laptop not making it.

or IRQ issue? If so you may not be able to do anything about it, unless there some other/older drivers (like maybe for winXP just to check.)

maybe you'd better try another usb 3.0 adapter - if any will do.

btw your english complexes are wrong

 

yeah that sounds like a weird problem, and i wouldnt be surprised if it is power related like already said. find a way to power the harddrive separately and see how that goes.

your english is good. i didnt even notice until you said something

 

Thank you very much for your replies.

To check if it is a power related problem, i have performed the following tests:

a. Provided usb to dc cable not attached to the express card.
3 different hdds were connected (1tb usb 3.0 my passport se, 1 usb 3.0 hd case with a wd1600bevt 5400rpm and 1 usb 2.0 hd case with a wd3200bjkt 7200rpm). All 3 of them had the same behavior (i.e. the express card disappeared from the device manager). However, all 3 disks operate perfectly when they are connected to a usb 2.0 port and without feeding them with extra power.

b. Provided usb to dc cable attached to the express card.
None of the hard disks was recognized

c. Provided usb to dc cable not attached to the express card.
A usb 2.0 hdd case with a y cable attached (data from usb 3.0 port and extra power from usb 2.0 port), result: the express card disappeared from the device manager

d. Provided usb to dc cable attached to the express card.
The weirdest of all: Usb flash disk is not recognized which is working when the extra power is not attached.

I have also tested the provided usb to dc cable with a multimeter and it is ok, it delivers 5v on its round end when connected to a usb 2.0 port.

Finally, I have also tested the card with my brother's Toshiba M70, and guess what?! It works perfectly.

Conclusion: It finally seems that there is an incompatibility between the HP 6930p and the AKE express card (Nec 720202 chip)

Solution: I donated it to my brother .

 

So mine is now about 40months old and my fan seems to be dying ..occasional whirling sound came to a constant noise.

Just ordered a replacement. Actually it my first laptop/computer that I didn't take apart for so long since buying it (like 20months now)

 

Would anyone happen to have a copy of the Dual IDA BIOS? Would like to gain the extra CPU multiplier if at all possible!

 

If any one needs one of these, I have a bunch available.