D630 Owners Thread

My D630 just shipped out today after about a month wait. It's coming with 2gb ram and XP. Overall would you recommend upgrading to Vista? I bought Vista Ultimate through my school for less than ten bucks and am unsure if it is the wisest thing to upgrade. I'm just expecting a slower running machine and not much of a benefit other than a little more bling and added security (which I'm not so concerned about).

 

thebug--

I'm sure that your new system would run Vista with no problems if you decide to upgrade...

I'm running XP Professional on my D630--and am very happy with it. I haven't been tempted to upgrade, as I'm perfectly happy with XP. For me it wouldn't be worth the effort and potential for problems to upgrade...but that's me.

dordale

 

I'm running xp as well (alongside Linux) and definitely have no desire to go to Vista. From my experiences with Vista it's buggy and simply more annoying to use. Plus xp does everything I need.

 

Hey guys I finally decided on the d630.
Right now mine looks like this:
T7100 1.80 Ghz (I noticed i'm the only one on this thread to not upgrade)
WXGA LCD
512mb Ram (will hopefully upgrade to 2gb for <$80)
120GB 5400 rpm
Win XP home (have the disk to upgrade to pro)
Intel X3100
9 cell
3 year warranty/accidental care

$1,057 (no tax cause live in NH)
So with the ram upgrade will be around $1,140

I don't game, but I'm a little concerned i'm the only one who didn't upgrade to the 2.0ghz. If I eventually upgrade to Vista Home Premium will my 1.8ghz and Intel X3100 be able to handle Aero with ease?

Thanks

 

Yes. You're not going to notice any major difference between the 1.8 GHz CPU and a 2.0 GHz one (even with the difference in L2 cache). The only applications where things would even become somewhat noticeable would be media encoding, etc.

As for the GMA X3100; yes, absolutely it will handle Aero. It seems like some people seem to be spreading this idea that Aero requires dedicated graphics or something, and it just isn't true; Aero even runs fine on GMA950 graphics.

-Zadillo

 

Aero is perfect on my X3100 unit. Of course, I DO have 4GB so I don't know if it makes a difference.

As an aside, I am experiencing sporadic stability issues on my D630 under Vista, I am tempted to just install XP and see how it runs but once you run Vista on a fast system, it's tough to go back.

A weird but very serious problem I have is with the Wave Security Suite and my Biometric sensor. It seems to randomly log into Windows when Biometric or Password authentication is enabled WITHOUT going through the logon prompt. If I didn't have the Biometric authentication enabled in the BIOS, it would scare the bajeezus out of me. Very annoying and not at all secure.

 

I got a D630 the first week of release: T7300 CPU 2.0, 4 mb cache; 7200 rpm 80 gig drive; wxga+; x3100 gpu; 2 gb RAM; and, Vista Business. Every business application runs faster than I've ever imagined. Worry not, Grasshopper.

 

Just out of curiosity, I was running CCleaner program yesterday on my laptop, and in the uninstall portion was this program called "32 bit HP Components CIO"

I wasn't really sure what that was, so i uninstalled it. Is this an important part of windows by any chance?

Thanks.

 

Anyone have the...

120GB Hybrid Hard Drive, 9.5MM, 5400RPM ?

Any advantages over this drive :

120GB Hard Drive, 9.5MM, 7200RPM [subtract $40] ???

Thanks.

 

Battery life should theoretically be higher with the hybrid drive, if I'm not mistaken it works like the Robson technology, but instead of being built into the motherboard it's in the HDD. I ordered the 120GB 7200 drive instead, I wasn't able to find any definite reports on battery or performance increases with the hybrid drive, and there should be a relatively significant speed over a standard 5400RPM drive increase with the 7200RPM. Seeing as I've been stuck with a 4800RPM for 3 years, both would be an improvement for me. And your laptop is $40 less expensive with the 7200, always a nice thing. Currently though, if you configure it to over $2000, you'll get $500 knocked off once you add it to your cart. I don't know how long that deal is on for.