HP ZBook 17 G3 Owners Lounge

I have a heat sink available to anyine 2ho wants it. Free of course all you need to-do is pay postage

 

I owe an G3 17" with the ATI M6150W graphics.
Did someone installed Linux and managed the graphics switch discrete (ATI) / IGP (Intel HD 530) ?

The only option I've in order to use the ATI graphics is to set "Discrete Graphics" in the BIOS.
But in this case, the computer get much more warm (about 15°C more, and 63°c idle).
I might have trouble with the graphics drivers (i've tried open source AMDGPU and RADEON kernel modules) --
Unable to install any proprietary AMD drivers for this card. Did someone found a way to install them ?

Running over Fedora 27

 

Has anyone had any issues with the new TPM upgrade not installing or something

 

Hey guys. Just read through this whole thread and boy there's a lot of interesting data points here. I'm just commenting to add some of my own experiences. I'll just do it in bullet points to keep things straightforward.

• GPU related stuff:
  • Someone mentioned the ZBook 17 G2 could be upgraded to a 980M if it does not have a DreamColor panel. While I can't confirm this, I can confirm that my experiences so far do not contradict this either. One of my friends has a G2 with a DreamColor panel and the system would boot with no graphics (we could hear system audio w/ a black screen) when my GTX 980M (which works with no issues in my 8770w) was installed.
    • At the time, I didn't know that this may be due to the DC panel. Does anyone know what exactly about it causes this limitation? Is it just the panel that causes the issue, or do DC models have differences in other components (maybe the motherboard) too?
  • Glad to see someone was able to get a 980M to work in the G3, but I see that a modded driver was used. As of several months ago, I no longer had to modify the drivers from Nvidia to get them to successfully install on my 8770w (with the aforementioned GTX 980M installed). (You can read more about this in my numerous posts here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...0m-8gb-they-work.786791/page-18#post-10707347) I'm wondering if this is the case now with the G3 too. Hopefully Nvidia is loosening up on these restrictions across the board.
    • The success here makes me hopeful about my ZBook 17 G4 as well. Has anyone tested one of these? Unfortunately there's no Owner's Lounge for the G4 yet and data about these seems pretty scarce on these forums. Would be interesting to see if any of the nonstandard form factor 10 series cards are compatible (or even fit) as well.
• Battery recall:
  • Can confirm that the G4 was affected too (though not mine thankfully).
  • Not sure if it was mentioned here and I missed it, but do keep in mind that HP is offering on-site service to anyone with an affected model so you shouldn't need to go too far out of your way to get the replacement done.
• DreamColor:
  • As there's no G4 thread, I'll mention this here too for anyone who's interested. I purchased my G4 without a DreamColor panel and ordered the 4K DreamColor display assembly (the whole assembly, not just the panel) separately to install myself. Doing so was easy and straightforward, and the display runs perfectly on my system. The only problem is that I could not get the calibration tool to install. I would just get an error saying that an HP system with a DreamColor panel was required to install it. After many hours on the phone with HP support (as I have the business warranty on this system) I found out some interesting things.
    • I didn't specifically mention I made the replacement myself. As they could see from the serial number that the system did not originally come with the DreamColor model, they just assumed the corporation that owned this previously (I bought it used off eBay) had made the upgrade themselves. Apparently though, this in no way affected the warranty on the system, and I was told that if anything ever were to happen that required a display replacement, they would still do so, but with the original display model the system was sold with (in my case, the 1080p touch screen).
    • It turns out that on the 17 G4 (I don't know what other ZBooks this applies to), a feature byte is coded into the BIOS which indicates whether the system was sold with a DreamColor display or not. This is used to determine whether or not the calibration tool can install or not.
      • From the way they were talking (I spoke to multiple people who gave me different parts of the story), it looks like if they wanted, a technician can easily modify the feature byte to enable the DreamColor functionality, but they refuse to do so. After several people first told me that it was possible, and that they'd have to escalate the issue to see if that can be approved, I was then met with several other people who (rather bureaucratically) said that it was not possible.

I hope this information is useful to someone.

 

Hello,

Have someone ever tried putting M5000M from Dell Precision into a HP Zbook 17 G3? What should I do to ensure before buying, that it's possible to make that configuration?

 

Hello guys - quick question - is there a way to change keypad layout (e.g. from Turkey keypad layout - to the UK) - without voiding the warranty?

Keen to still have warranty / the laptop has depot warranty and they usually don't like it if there is signs of keypad change I imagine? e.g.

-To replace the keypad itself on the 17 G3 = a complete disassembly (inc MB - hence I think it might void the coverage).
-To strip each key off individually will probably be a nightmare. Is there any other solutions? (e.g. soft key stick on?)

 

I assume you meant keyboard.
According to the service manual ZBook 17 G3 page 75-77 (Here's the link: http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c06107030 ) you would only remove the service panel and few screws to detach the keyboard from the main chassis. Take note about using the thin tool (eg screwdriver) to push the keyboard out as shown in the manual.
As far as taking each key out and replacing them individually; I wouldn't advice it. I had done this one time before and the result was few broken key-mechanisms.

 

My hero .

That helps alot. I'll go and order the keypad now. Last time I swapped the whole top cover of another ZBook 17 G3 / which took alot of work / for some reason I had it stuck my head that the keypad wasn't easily removeable / phew.

 

Some additional information to add to my earlier post. My other friend who also has a G2 (dreamcolor) wanted to upgrade his GPU from a K1100M to a K4100M that he purchased online without doing much research. I feared that we might run into some issues, and I was correct. The system booted fine and the screen was running, but only using Microsoft Basic Display Adapter. Windows actually automatically started installing the correct drivers though, but the screen would go black partway through the install and not turn back on. Multiple reboots and driver wipes with DDU resulted in the same behavior. Upon checking the IDs of the GPU, I determined that it was in fact a Dell model. I was able to find an HP vBIOS for it online, and after flashing it, the card worked flawlessly on the latest Nvidia drivers.

 

So I've been seeking something new and fresh, but still with dream color.

My current laptop is a ZBook 17 G1 with a dreamcolor screen. Works quite well, however, A. 1080p is a little old hat, and B. it's just kind of old.

With that in mind, I started looking for a new laptop, and found, for 920 dollars (ouch) a Zbook 17 G3 Dreamcolor with a M3000M (which is basically a GTX 970m)

I'm hopeful that Maxwell Cards will work in this DC based unit, as the quadro cards they shipped with were all maxwell. I'm trying to test that theory out. Worst case scenario, I end up with what's basically a 970m anyway, on a 4K dreamcolor screen, a 6th gen i7 (only 6700HQ, but I can get a 6820HQ or a XEON seperately), and DDR4 memory.

So once I get the laptop, I'll update here with how the installation of my 970M goes. I'm hopeful it works, and if it does, I may seek out a pascal MXM-B card.

My reason for going with a 17 was purely support for MXM-B. I got my hands on a Zbook 15 g3 with dreamcolor, but the cards are highly restrictive at MXM-A spec, and the performance left a little bit to be desired in gaming terms. No possible upgrades means no real gaming can be done.

I'll update with more when I get my hands on this.