*HP EliteBook 8740w Owners Lounge - PART 2*

Wow, mate, I'm glad to hear that Please, when you become a partner, let me know when is HP going to install the keyboard on factory in Europe (if possible, in Spain specifically). Thank you very much indeed, Aiki

Bear in mind that flex is more noticeable on the function keys row, specially between F4 and F9 keys. Some guys have reported that bending the keyboard around the F4-F5 and F8-F9 keys flex is less noticeable. But please, first test flex without that trick.

Actually it's the first time. Now I'm waiting a reply from my rep in order to send back him the old unit. I will let you now any news about this matter. Thank you. I'm going again to the agony of waiting

 

Hey what happened to my previous post about the display problems?
Did someone delete it? If yes, why?

 

Thank you Aikimox.
I ordered the M6500 several days ago but canceled that after I found this better display option.
I am gonna go with DC2, i7-840qm, 2G ram, 250G HD for the best performance/price

 

Nice suggestion ProdTog, Thanks!

 

Aikimox,
Can you send me the contact info of your sale rep.?
I tried to PM knight427 and you but the system says"you do not have permission to access this page"...
Quite confused...
I registered some time ago, however these are my very first posts.

 

Since you can't PM yet, send me an email.

[insert my user name]@yahoo.com

 

Sent you an email. Thanks!

 

I just checked, none of your posts have been deleted. See if you can find the post -- click on your name and click "Find more posts by . . . "

Welcome back.

I updated your permissions so you can send PMs now.

 

Yeah, I did that but it's not there.
The only thing I could find was a quote from notebookgrail (post #631) of a follow-up reply.
The original post was suppose to be just a couple of posts before that, but now it's gone.
Additionally, when I try to follow the quote from notebookgrail's post it says this;

No Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator

So both my original thread as well as my follow-up reply are gone.

 

There's definitely a case of missing posts; might have been related to the forum's hardware change? I recall that post. I replied to it. I mis-understood your wording and what you'd meant actually, and you replied, and I replied back. ...all that is gone now.

 

Ah ha!
See, I knew I wasn't just imagining things.... I didn't forget to take my medicine.

Oh well, I guess my post has disappeared into obscurity.

 

RampageII, M8o,...who else is brewing ayahuasca on this forum? :laugh:

 

yea, i use photoshop - it *is* working on the 260.99 driver. but, if you don't have the new Vbios you won't get the support. HP changed quite a bit in the 2800m's bios update - mainly supporting new driver code which is better than the ancient ones. i only have a DC1 monitor, but i get no banding at all.

the banding happens from time to time on our 5000M machine, though it's very sporadic. though no banding out through the displayport. I am still deciding whether or not to get a DC2 upgrade. though HP here have 'suggested' i wait to spend my £4300 on something new next year (as i have a high end HP already)


@Charles : no problems, i do a lot of things for customers out here, as i'm pretty hot on PC support. TBH some of the tests i've done were for chinese customers too lol, so it's no problem.

ATM i've ordered my 32GB RAM, it will be delivered late december.

Also, as i don't mind continually changing my CPU for our forum members, i have access to : 620M (mine) / 640M / 540M / 720QM (mine) / 840QM / 920XM (mine) / 940XM (in our beast hp), if anyone has questions about anything i have which another member doesn't, i don't mind chucking one in here to do it.

@Akimox again it's a pleasure to do testing. you can clearly see the stress furmark puts on the GPU compared to a fully loaded 3ds Max render. it's why i prefer to do 'real world' benches, but you are correct - not everyone else can do this. but i like the contrast with applications compared to benching.

 

Aikimox,
I get the feeling that maybe you've been using that hallucinogenic alkaloid for too long.
This whole time you thought you were staring at a dreamcolor display, when in fact the source of all those pretty colors was something else.
Is that how you're able to distinguish between the billions of colors?

It all makes sense now.

 

I wish that were true. Would save me some $$$$.

 

Multiple posts were lost in the server change. I believe the forum database was backed up shortly before it was taken offline hence everything that was posted after the backup was lost.
I must say for switching servers we had very little downtime and things have gone smoothly for the most part. We are still ironing out the kinks behind the scenes.

-----

I lugged my 8740w around all day, it sure is heavy. I measured about 2:20 on the battery, not too bad I suppose. Now, if my 5310m had the same battery as the 8740w, it would probably go for 10 hours or more.

 

Well, I'll just have to take your word for it. I did the vbios update last week (I now have 62.92.c0.00.03), so I don't think that's the issue. I tried once again just now, and had the same problem with it killing the MDA. Even in that state, I decided to try opening ramp.psd... it looks different with 260.99, but it's definitely still banded. I don't doubt that yours is working, but mine definitely isn't. Back to the previous drivers for me!

Oh, and I thought all of the 8740's with a DC shipped with the DC2. How did you end up with a DC1? Maybe I'm not remembering that correctly. Or did you install that one yourself?

 

I tried gradient tests on my machine fully in 8-bit mode; both machine and PS CS5 in 8-bit, meaning the latter was not using OpenGL rendering and not in 16-bit. I won't get banding then either. But I can zoom-in to a gradient 500% or more and I will see the spray of dithering that 'simulates' that smooth gradient, rather than the display rendering of PS CS5 giving me the 4x greater number of colors in-between the typical 256 [8-bit] steps in intensity of each possible hue that the 10-bit rendering is supposed to be giving us for actual smooth gradients. So maybe I'm totally off with this, but I suspect the smooth gradients you are seeing is a result of dithering.

 

ok,

I have a DC1 *Monitor* not laptop display i don't get banding zooming in to 500%. now this could be due to the fact i'm using it via displayport, not through the laptops own display. it is the only thing i can think of that is different to your cases.

However, i just did the 500% test on the 5000M with the DC2 - and it DOES band. so our test machine does have that issue, but it doesn't when i put the same thing out onto the displayport, ignoring the laptop display.

260.99 works fine with MDA on the 5000M but if i run it on my laptop here to use with the external monitor, it crashes ; so in effect i am having the same issues as yourself. Before i was just using MDA on our test machine. i don't use it on my WD941EA

so it looks like i am in the same boat as you, but via the displayport it seems to be working. very odd....

 

Oh... !!! I see. Thanx for that detail and your patience.

Wow, that's significant. I really wish Greg Stanton [of HP's DreamColor team fame for those who the name is new] would jump in and say a few words about this. HP employees... we know you read this board and thread. NotebookGrail has told us work is being done with ATI to resolve this. We see NVIDIA equipped machines are not imune. ...can someone say a few words please?

 

ho hum, i'm bored at work atm, so i'm going to compile a side by side comparison of CPU's that i have available. I've already done 3 sets of data, but they are mixed up i think it's time to put them all together in one big list so it's easier to see. i will also include battery life and draws from the PSU (as we have that weird thing you plug into to get the reading.

Sadly i can't take apart works beast, so they will have to be done on my WD941EA, with the 2800M. however, those people with the same CPU / GPU combos are more than welcome to add to the stats. I will write down later what i'm testing, and how. (draws aren't that important really, unless you are mad enough to O/C on the 8740w)

I will be using universal benches (thanks aikimox!) so you guys can add to it.

I feel information about useful things are lost in the abyss of the forum atm.

because i'm doing battery life data as well, i won't put it all up until i've done the dual cores.

Sio

Update:

Rather than post again, i'm gonna add the information to the bottom of this post.

Well my WD941EA got SSM updated by the server today to F.09 Bios.

Teach me for leaving my machine on the same net hub as the 5000M model.

I was gonna punch the IT guy in the face, but well it happens i guess.

linky is here:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...EnvOID=4059&swLang=13&taskId=135&mode=4&idx=4

it doesn't seem to have done much to be frank, but it might fix battery issues for those on 5000M machines.

I don't want to reboot ours to see if it's fixed (it's doing a long job atm)

Sio

 

Charles, could you do me a favor and check the available RAM in Memtest86+? I just received an 8740w with an i5-560m, like yours, and I'm experiencing a strange missing RAM issue. I'm wondering if it's a problem specific to my machine, or if it is normal for this build and somehow explainable by the integrated graphics we're not supposed to have.

 

Thanks for the updates, Sio. Your efforts are much appreciated!

It seems to me that there are at least four major players in getting 10-bit video working properly on these workstations:

• HP (workstation and DreamColor implementation)
• Microsoft (underlying OS APIs and system architecture)
• GPU vendor (hardware/drivers for video output)
• Application vendor (mostly Adobe at present; application-level support for video output)

Each company has critical pieces in the mix, and a vested interest in promoting their own standards and agenda. Getting cooperation between two companies is hard enough; four is exponentially more difficult. And that is just for one given situation! When you start substituting multiple vendors for GPUs and applications, it gets messy very quickly. I have no doubt that we will eventually get it all working, but I can't say that I'm surprised there are wrinkles in the current implementation.

Having said that, I do still feel that HP "owns" the largest part of making this work properly, especially since they are marketing a product that is supposed to support this functionality out of the box. Even more so, this is their flagship laptop (at present). That gives them even more reason to dedicate resources to making this happen. Hopefully they will resolve or at least facilitate the resolution of all issues soon.

In the meantime, we still have one of the best 8-bpc implementations on the market today. I'm still quite happy with my new workstation, and looking forward to it reaching its potential.

 

Just replied to your thread -- that's normal (well, as normal as missing a few MBs of memory can be ).

Sio -- do you want to create an 8740w benchmarking thread? It might be easier to consolidate results if we all post in one thread. Up to you.

I'll definitely run some benchmarks. It would be great to see how performances differ from machine to machine.

 

Finally ordered my 8740w...
DC display, i7-840m, 7820m, 28% off

 

Hi, ProdTog
I found in your signature that you also have LP2480zx DC Display. Is it noticeably better than the DC display on 8740w?

 

It will be done.

I will be running all my different CPU configurations with the machine i have.

I don't have access to the Firepro, so people running with the firepro can fill in the gaps.

I will write a process of the tests i did, so we can see if there is a variance in the different specs.

was a bit shocked about the F.09 bios though, didn't know they actually released it.

 

Congratulations. That is a great discount and a great config. Let us know your estimated ship date once your order gets confirmed.

 

I ordered my 8740w last Thursday, Nov.4th ( 28% discount ) and received the order confirmation yesterday, Nov.9th. Please tell me, what is the typical waiting time before I receive an Estimated Ship Date?

Here is the configuration I ordered:

• HP Elitebook 8740w Mobile Workstation - QUAD
• Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64
• Intel® Core™ i7-940QM Extreme Processor
• 17.0-inch diagonal LED-backlit DreamColor® WUXGA WVA anti-glare (1920 x 1200) with camera
• Webcam Integrated 2.0MP w/HP Skyroom
• ATI FirePro M7820 graphics
• 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (2GB from HP, will swap with 16GB purchased from NewEgg)
• 256GB Solid State Drive
• DVD+/-RW SuperMulti with Double Layer LightScribe Drive
• Backlit - Full-sized keyboard with numeric keypad and dual pointing devices
• HP Integrated Module with Bluetooth® 2.1 Wireless Technology
• Intel Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 (3x3)
• 56K v.92 high speed modem
• Integrated Fingerprint Reader
• 230W HP Smart AC Adapter
• 8-Cell 73 Wh Li-Ion Battery
• Limited 3 year standard parts and labor warranty (3/3/3)
• 9x5 Next-Business-Day On-Site Coverage, 4 Years

A few questions:

(1) I'm left-handed and it appears (based on photos from Aikimox's excellent review), I might run into a problem using a mouse on the left side of the 8740w because of the position of the power adapter plug (it connects at the middle left-side of case). Since I don't have my 8740w yet or any specs on the size of the HP power adapter plug, can you please tell me if this right angle converter will work with the HP power adapter?

CNT-LC90

(2) Also, since HP wouldn't sell me the WWAN card because of the DreamColor screen , I'm wondering how some of you are working around the "problem". Are you using a WWAN adapter in the ExpressCard slot? If so, which one are you using? Other suggestions?

(3) Finally, a similar question regarding a CompactFlash reader. I'd like plug the CompactFlash from my Canon DSLR into the 8740w to process photos. Can you recommend an adapter that seats flush with the ExpressCard slot? For example, would this work:

Amazon.com: Delkin Devices DDEXP54-CF-2 ExpressCard 54 CompactFlash Adapter: Electronics

Thanks guys.

 

those are some sweet specs wiz.

as for the power lead adaptor, I use a weird thing i bought out here in HK to bend it 90 degrees, however this isn't good, as the mains cable is a bit warped to the heat coming out of the fan. just bear in mind.

(what i do which is a bit more left handed friendly is use a Notebook cooler, which gives me about 15 degrees. the power cord then slips nicely underneath, which doesn't interfere with my mouse space. (and it give me about 5c width for cooling too!))

(i'll post a pic of my setup in a bit so you can see if it suits your needs)

There is an issue with people with the DC2 screen. I believe it doesn't have the extra antennae cables on the back of it. Though i cannot confirm this.

The 5000M machine we have here has a gobi 2000 in it, but the guys tell me they had to have a specialist put in the aerials because they weren't there.

so i'd need someone with the DC2 to confirm if HP used the same cable kit on the DC2 (there will be 2 wires with 5 and 6 on them which are not connected to anything)

as for alternatives, there are many usb/Express 54 cards out there which will suit your needs, but without the nicety of it being internal. I'd die without my 3G so i can see your pain.

As for the C-Flash card, YES! thats the same one i use for my camera!

hope this helps

Sio

 

I acquired both the 8740w and the LP2480zx within a couple weeks of each other, and both are fairly new to me. That said, here's some initial observations:

- both screens have superb color rendition. Much has been said elsewhere on this topic, so I'll just leave it at that for the moment.

- the surface on the laptop display is a bit more glossy than its older sibling, but the anti-glare coating is effective enough that glare hasn't been an issue for me in my normal viewing environment. In fact, I'm actually glad that the laptop screen doesn't have the same finish as the 2480, as the closer viewing distance would make the slight shimmering effect of the 2480's matte surface that much more noticeable. I find the 8740's DreamColor to have a very high "clarity", with very little distortion effect caused by the surface finish.

- both screens share the same pixel dimensions (1920x1200), but the 2480 viewing area is about 15.4cm wider (and 9.6cm taller) than the laptop's. This translates to the laptop display having a much higher pixel density, which can make it appear to be even sharper and more homogeneous than its older sibling. But that assumes that you're looking at the two side-by-side from the same distance, which I don't think would be the case for most people. The 2480 sits further back on my desk than the laptop display, so that difference isn't as apparent as the numbers might suggest. For those wanting to know the density numbers, the 2480 has a pixel pitch of 0.27mm (as published by HP), and the laptop's display has a pitch of 0.19mm (by my measurement - I didn't see it listed anywhere).

- so far in my observations of the two displays, the 2480 starts to show its worth in two main areas. The first is in the detail visible in the extremes of the luminance range (ie. the brightest and darkest areas). The 2480 shows more detail in these areas, but you do have to look closely to see it. The second area of noticeable advantage for the 2480 that I've seen is in uniformity. On my units, the 2480 has better uniformity across the screen than the laptop display, which isn't surprising given the necessary differences in backlighting of the two systems.

- it seems silly to mention this, as it should be expected: the 2480 is capable of being set to much brighter levels, as it has more robust backlighting. This is of no great consequence to me, as I tend to keep both systems at about 110nits for most work. There are times when that even seems a little too bright for me, and I'm considering lowering that to see how it feels.

At the risk of shocking my audience here, I have to confess that I'm not a gamer. I think the last time I actually played a game on a computer was in 2004 when I tried out the Pinball game that came on my last laptop... so I can't really comment on lag/latency issues that may be very important to some. There may be noticeable differences on these two displays, or there may not. I have no way to know. The extent of my motion video experience on these systems is limited to Flash videos from news sites, youtube and hulu. So I wouldn't really feel comfortable offering an opinion on that...

In a previous post I mentioned that I've also got the Advanced Profiling Solution from HP that should allow calibration of both of these displays. Unfortunately my first few attempts to use that device have not been good ones, and I've actually had much better success using an X-rite i1-Pro for that purpose instead. As I commented before, that shouldn't be the case -- when work settles down for me a bit I'll spend more time troubleshooting this to see what I can determine. So far, the APS has consistently created profiles with a noticeable green/cyan tint on the 2480, although it seemed to do better with the laptop DC for some unknown reason. The i1-Pro profiles are much more consistent for both displays. There may be a physical problem with the colorimeter that came in my APS kit, so I'm reserving judgment on that until I can get to the bottom of the issues I'm seeing.

I know that it seems expensive to a lot of people to spend approx. $500(US) for a DC screen. When comparing to other laptop systems, I'm sure that seems like a reasonable conclusion. But there's another way to look at this: for only $500 you can get very close to a portable version of a display that sells for about four times that amount. But I still wouldn't recommend it to people unless they can actually make use of the wider gamut settings it provides by using color-aware applications that know how to deal with them properly. Otherwise, it's nothing more than a novelty capable of showing super-saturated reds and greens (and a slight amount more blue) at wide viewing angles. If you need it, though, I think it's worth the money.

Probably more than you wanted, but I get a little wound up sometimes... hope this helps!

 

I ordered my notebook on Oct 21st and it just left Anchorage, AK today. I hope to have it this Friday.

Here's what I got:

840QM, DC2, Quadro FX 5000M, 2GB mem (will get 16 elsewhere)
250GB 7200rpm HDD (putting in Intel 160G2 SSD when it arrives)
Internal Blu-ray burner, back-lit keyboard, 8 cell 68wh 3 yr battery
5 year NBD warranty w/ADP
4 year one time battery replacement service
28% discount

If anyone has suggestions about what potential problems to look out for when it arrives, I'd be grateful. I know I should look for dead/stuck pixels and there were posts a while back about it, but cant recall what/where they're at. Links, anyone?

I got the Thinkpad track pointer Aikimox had mentioned from his review. I'm still looking for a way to connect the blu-ray drive externally (without an external power source), but since the 8740's eSata port is not powered I've had no luck finding an adapter that will supply the 12v(?) needed to power the optical drive externally; I may have to just connect a second HDD by a USB 3.0 port...

 

optical drives if they are slimline (laptop ones) only need 5V @ about 1-2A.

 

I dont' have a link to it, but I imagine you can use search to look for posts by NotebookGrail in combination with the word dead or stuck in this thread or the original one.

 

Here you go.

Dead/stuck pixels are very tiny. Look for those in a dark room, switch to a black background color. They are usually located on the edges and in the corners of the screen (mostly red and green color).

 

I contacted HP support last night via chat; I'm having my keyboard replaced. I did not order the backlit keyboard yet my 8740w came with one anyway. The reason I did not order the BL version is due to comments from a few owners; the regular one feels supposedly better and is sturdier.
I don't think the BL keyboard is of very high quality; at least, not to the level I would expect on a three thousand dollar machine. The one on my sub-$1k ProBook is a lot nicer to type on.

 

At first I though the BL keyboard on my new machine was a little better than the last. But I've changed my mind. There is still flex in the fn keys and this one has a squeaky space bar. A few points feel a tiny bit sturdier than my last one, but overall this one bugs me more because of the squeaking. I've been delaying contacting customer support hoping they would release a better a BL keyboard, but maybe i should complain to get another one on record.

 

At least this way you won't need to rely on 2nd-hand reports regarding the BL keyboard issue in your review! I think it all worked out perfectly.

 

Thanks a lot Prodtog!
I think many people choose 8740w over dell m6500 because of the DC panel, which is supported by the config poll that over 2/3 people who got a 8740w configured DC for their laptops. I will probably not buy an external display so I am happy to see this portable version of DC is quite close to its desktop counterpart. Anyway, nice review!

 

Actually, it's [close-to] 75% of the voters ordered DC2. At the present time the total voters = 46, but only 42 of them shared which screen they got. 10/42 got non-DC2, 32/42 got DC2.

 

That's right. Thanks for pointing out.

 

indeed, DC2 was not available in the UK when i bought mine sadly. so i had to make do without.

The BL keyboard on the 5000M machine also has flex, we never use the on board keyboard, we use usb lol.

 

Welcome to the backlit keyboard haters club!

Welcome too

I totally second that. As many of you know, I had a backlit keyboard for my 8740w (yes, HP finally launched international layouts) and I cannot stand it. I told this to one technician of HP Iberica (Spain) and he didn't know anything about the backlit keyboard behavior (nothing!). Then I told him that "It's likely I'm the first customer with a backlit keyboard". Then he didn't any comment. Flex is very noticeable as you described.

Guys, we, 8740w owners wanting (or needing) the backlit keyboard must complain. The more complaints, the more importance HP will give to this issue. I complained and although I'm not absolutely sure if that will be useful, I hope so. The solution is NOT to bend the keyboard in order to minimize the flex, the solution is to RE-DESIGN the backlit keyboard a bit better. HP engineers, are you reading this? . My next replacement will have the normal keyboard, and I will not order the backlit version until YOU minimize the flex a lot.

 

For those who got the BL Keyboard.... specially if you got it at no extra cost. For example, a free upgrade.
Wouldn't it make more sense to sell it and buy the regular KB?
The backlit KB goes for $132 at the HP part's store, while the standard KB is only $50.

There's bound to be a few people who would like to have the one with the pretty lights, as evidence by the amount of people who initially ordered it.

Just saying....

 

I need backlighting more than I need a no-flex keyboard. I'm just hoping someday I can have both on my $4,899 laptop.

 

I hear you man.
Some people can type without looking at their KBs, while others still need to take a peek.

$4899!?
That's a lot.

 

Yeah, I'm not a touch typist and at 32, it's looking like I'm never going to get around to relearning that skill I gained in 6th grade and lost by never touching a keyboard until 3 years later when suddenly I had to type papers.

Oh, and note that I never said I paid $4899 for my $4899 computer.

 

It's all good, I still need take a peek once in a while also.


I know you didn't pay that much.

 

Same here. Also, I believe it's easy to mod the BL KB to make it even better than the regular one (I did some prep) BUT, -
1) I really don't have time for such projects right now.
2) It's HP's fault and they should fix it. You don't pay thousands of $$$ for DIY package.

 

Mine was 4,041€ ($5,525) with the backlit keyboard, and it's a bad joke that keyboard on a very expensive machine like this I need it, it's NOT a whim for me, as I mostly work at nights.