HP 8710w Workstation Review

An case anyone else has this problem, I found the answer. Answer slipstreaming SP2 into my XP install CD, I also has to slip in the SATA AHCI drivers for this machine. I downloaded them from the HP drivers page here:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...264&swLang=13&taskId=135&swEnvOID=1093#113100

Then I used nLite to add them to the install CD, using this tutorial:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...d-disk-drives-during-windows-xp-installation/

Hope that helps others trying to install XP from scratch on the 8710.

 

does anyone know the exact model number of of the lcd in these 8710's? meaning, lcd part number and not an hp part number.

 

Go to Device Manager -> Monitors -> Right-click your monitor & select Properties -> Details Tab -> In the dropdown select Hardware Id.

Google the part number to find out what it is. LG/Philips panels are the best IMO.

 

lol...i would, but i dont own a hp 8710 anything...lol

but just ordered an lg screen for kicks, to see if it will work in my dv9700 series. (res 1920x1200) fingers are crossed...

 

Ahh. I tried an 8710 for a while. afaik, WUXGA they use LG/Philips. WSXGA they use Samsung.

I returned my 8710 because it was producing strange visual "blurring" betweel colours in resolutions below native. Stuff I hadn't seen on other panels. Had the panel replaced but it was something else.

HP don't have part numbers for their panels that in any way identify what LCD it uses. At all. They have no idea, it's crazy.

 

what is afailk?

 

a.f.a.i.k = "as far as I know"

 

ah, now that was one i had never used before...lol afaik

thanks for the quick reply.

 

How did you resolve this? I am running InterVideo WinDVD Version 8.0 DXVA B09.313 on XP SP2 and it does not play movie. I just got the laptop couple of days ago.

Thanks!

 

I found out that I had wrong version of WinDVD (intented for different video card). When I uninstalled it and installed right version it plays movies but not on my DVI monitor since it does not have HDCP copy protection enabled. It does on laptop display and on external VGI moitor (with VGI quality). I am yet to test it on external HDMI that should have HDCP.
DVI attempt resulted in message that "my current display does not support playback of copy protected data" or something like that.

 

Tested it on external HDMI on my 120Hz 40" 1080p Samsung (25000:1) and it rocked.

 

Based on my experience with 8710w, I COULD NOT DISAGREE MORE with the author about the quality of the screen. The only word to describe the quality of the screen is ABYSMAL. THE WORST I HAVE EVER SEEN.

My 8710w was custom build with 512MB NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M and LCD 17.0 WUXGA WVA AG display with maximal 1920x1200 resolution.

I have owned business laptops from IBM, Dell, and HP before, and consumer laptops from Fujitsu, HP, and Apple.
HP always had the worst display quality compared to other manufacturers. But the quality of display on my 8710w is absolutely unacceptable. What especially pisses me off is that this is the most expensive laptop I have ever had ($4k+).


I cannot work on it for more than 20 minutes, my eyes start to hurt.

Brightness is uneven across the screen,it is very dull, dark spots when you change the focus and angle of vision/point of view, and you either have to move the head or the angle of the display to get a focus - you do not have 100% view of the screen. Everything washed out. Tried smaller resolutions - it gets even worse.

I am calling to HP to return the product.

 

You know that HP uses several panel makers for each laptop model right? Everyone else has been more than satisfied with their 8710w screen. Chances are you not only got the worst one but a defective panel as well. Sorry to hear that though...getting lemons always sucks

edit: lolspelling

 

Hello,

I'm having some problems with my HP 8710W laptop.
It was ordered with vista on it but I installed an extra windows xp professional version on it.

I disabled native sata modus in bios so I could install with a standard windows xp cd and enabled it afterwards after installing the drivers.

The problem is that I have an unknown device in device manager and that the computer sometimes freezes while booting xp (the screen stays black)

The missing device in xp is:
ACPI\HPQ0004\3&B1BFB68&0
which should be the HP Mobile Data Protection System according to google but I can't find a driver for it.

I noticed that the "ide ata/atapi controllers" section in device manager is different in xp than in the preinstalled vista.

For XP I have:
intel 82801HEM/HBM SATA Storage controller
intel ICH8M ultra ata storage controllers - 2850
Primary IDE Channel
Primary IDE Channel
Ricoh Memory Stick Controller
Ricoh SD/MMC Host Controller
Rico xD-Picture Card Controller
Secondary IDE Channel
Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller

while for vista I have:
IDE Channel
IDE Channel
IDE Channel
IDE Channel
IDE Channel
Intel ICH8M SATA AHCI Controller - 2829
Intel ICH8M Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 2850
Ricoh Memory Stick Controller
Ricoh SD/MMC Host Controller
Ricoh xD-Picture Card Controller
Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller

Can anyone confirm if he/she has the same under device manager in xp?

Thanks a lot!

 

Gezz - it seems most mfg'ers can't deliver a consistent display!!! I just returned a Dell 1720 for the same reason (too dim and shadows). I am scared to order anything that I can't see before hand due to this issue. Almost every major mfg'er in this forum seems to experience this same problem. For the most part it seems: LG = good, Samsung = bad, but there is no way to insure you get a good one.

 

Hello. This is my first post here. I am currently in my second year as a student at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. I also work for the Computer and Communications Service Department (tech support) on campus. At our school, we have a technology program and for the past 5 years, we have been leasing/purchasing laptops exclusively from HP. To the best of my knowledge, ever since the start of the technology program, we have always gone with HP's ~15" workstation laptops.

However, back in November, I was lurking around the net to see the laptops that we could choose to go with for next academic year from HP (full-time students get a new laptop every 2 years: I currently have the outdated nw8240). I went to HP's site and saw the 8510w. I immediately searched for some reviews on it. From the reviews I found, it seemed like an alright laptop. Nothing amazing. The only real upgrade compared to our current-year's freshman model (nw8440) is the nVidia graphics card (finally). But again, nothing to get me really interested.

Then I went back to HP's site and saw the 8710w, and I thought to myself, "Why haven't we ever considered a 17" laptop...?" It made sense to me to get a 17" model with our current resolution already being 1920x1200. So I did a search for reviews of the 8710w and ended up finding this exact review, which seemed genuinely positive about the laptop. I went to my bosses about this and asked them to consider it.

Not much has been said about the issue until this past week when we had a meeting regarding next year's laptops. Even after having the meeting, though, we are still undecided. Everyone seems to like the idea of a 17" laptop (especially with the number pad on the right and the bigger screen with the same resolution). What we're worried about is the size/weight of the unit itself. Being engineering students, for school, we live off of our laptops and bring them with us everywhere (meetings, classes, labs, etc.). We just don't want them to become a big hassle for us because of the difference in size and weight between the 15.4" and 17" models.

Knowing that we are inevitably going to choose either the 8510w or the 8710w, which model do you think suits our school best?

Thanks so much in advance.

 

I guess my question is what reason do we have to go with the 8710w over the 8510w? I know the performance will be better with the 8710w because it's designed to be a desktop replacement, but is it still mobile and portable enough to be used as a laptop on a daily basis by hundreds of college students? Keep in mind, our current laptop models are the 15.4" nw8240 and the nw8440.

 

I documented the same problem for myself (17" vs 15" for university) and I am still undecided. However, my advice as a knowledgeable person (a bit of understatement, right?) in terms of laptops and what people need for college is that I can easily say that you should offer the 15" model (as this is what most people will prefer), but think about offering the 17" too (even though the demand is going to be worryingly low).
The HP 8510W is a great laptop and I am sure it will fit almost everyone's needs, but some people might want a 17" to go with the high/higher resolution. This is why I think you should consider offering both 8510W and 8710W.

 

As far as the demand for the 17", you'd be incredibly surprised. We did a school-wide poll a couple weeks ago where students were able to check out these two laptops (along with a tablet that we're not even considering) on display. Of the students that took the poll, well over 80% of them chose the 17" 8710w. This was quite unexpected, as we were simply going to go with the 15" 8510w if the polls swayed its way, but this was not the case, which put us in a real predicament. We would probably go with the 17" if we were sure people weren't going to get irritated with its larger size.

I wish could offer both. That would make things much, much easier. Unfortunately, we are being forced to choose one and only one model for the freshman and junior classes for next year.

For those who have had much experience with the 8710w/p, did/do you find it troublesome to bring with you on-the-go, or is it not that big of a problem?

 

Well...the 8710w is pretty much the lightest 17" on the market today, so if anyone can carry around a 17", it'll be this one. Not much help to you though, I know.

8510w is 6.1 lbs, the 8710w is 7.5 lbs. Combined with the larger footprint, the 17" is pretty big compared to the 15.4" It won't fit in as many cases or backpacks, will be harder to move around, etc.

It does depend on a lot of variables though, namely the size/strength of the person carrying it, how far they have to go, how much they're already carrying on a daily basis, etc.

Another thing to consider is carrying weight. The weights I listed above don't include A/C adapter, cables, mouse, headphones, external HDD, or whatever else a person may bring with them. My 8510p may only be 6.1lbs, but when i stuff everything into my case and pick it up, it's gotta be 9 minimum. I'd guess the 8710w would be that + the extra unit weight.

I personally wouldn't go beyond 15.4", but my backpack is already pretty heavy and my campus is the size of a small city, so it might be a 20m walk from one class to the next (yeah...sigh).

One (odd) idea might be to create two wood blocks, same dimensions/weight as the 85/8710w and let people try them out for a few minutes. Unfortunately this isn't a perfect idea as the weight really gets to you after a half day on campus, but beats nothing I guess :\

A final idea would be to PM Greg, who owned an 8710p (or w I forget) for awhile. He used it at school, AND reviewed the 8510w, so could probably give you a better comparison of the two.

Anyway hope this helps!

 

The thing is, it is only 1.4 pounds heavier, and with the amount of books that we already carry around in our backpacks, I really don't think people will notice too much. Also, surprisingly, one of the guys in the tech department tried putting the 8710w in his backpack and it seemed to fit just fine. I just don't know what we're going to end up choosing...

 

Hi,

Im really in a doubt to buy the HP 8710w, the DV9790 or the DV9890.

Can someone help me out with this?

 

Thats a good point.

Why dont you guys go with 15.4" thinkpads or dell latitudes ? They offer WUXGA/WSXGA+ resolution, are lighter, offer longer battery life and are heck of a lot cheaper (under $1500 with a 3 year warranty).

 

We actually have a demo Thinkpad T61 that Lenovo sent us out at the our helpdesk and when people come in for help they can write comments about it. No one really seems to like it. They keep saying things like the touchpad is way too small, the buttons are too close to the front edge, it feels very awkward, the battery sticks out the back quite a bit, and the screen looks weird (off-center placement). People also keep mentioning how old it looks and how cheap it feels whether it actually is or not. The only real positive thing people have commented on is the nice keyboard. That's about it.

At this point, we have such a strong relationship with HP that it's going to take a lot to get us to go with any other company. The only laptops we're even considering are the 8510w and the 8710w. It all boils down to whether or not the student body would tolerate the extra size/weight of the 17" 8710w on a daily basis.

 

I think you should go with the 8510w. They are more widely deployed for mobile usage. Don't forget the power brick for the 8710w is large and heavy compared to the 90W adaptor for the 8510w. The larger footprint might not make the 8710w as practical unless you are using it 80% of the time as a desktop.

 

Hmm, have you guys thought about the dell XPS M1530 ? There is a terrific deal going on right now:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=238715
Without coupons and dpa, it'll be about 12-13% more expensive, but still an incredible deal, as it comes with a 3 year at home warranty with accident protection. Can be customized witj WSXGA+/WUXGA

PS: It just goes to show that people want flashy things. The T61 is very ruggedly built, it has a metal rollcage all around.

 

You clearly not reading this thread very attentively.
Not everybody is happy with the quality of the display.
Some people report the same exact problem.

Not sure what displays the people that are content have on their 8710ws.
What makes the situation even more ridiculous is that this laptop is touted as ideal for 2D/3D engineering and design.
LOL!

Regardless, I am convinced my laptop is not a lemon.
The horrible quality of the WUXGA screen on 8710w is how HP originally intended it to be.
Here is why...
I have purchased HP "next day" on-site support with this laptop.
It took 2 weeks for some strange-looking guy from Nigeria to appear after exchanging about a dozen of calls with HP. There is some major disconnect in their repair operations. Tech support is all in India, but repairs are naturally local. THEY WERE NOT EVEN ABLE TO MAKE A N APPOINTMENT AND KEEP IT. The guy looked like he was on drugs, or something. Everything was falling out of his hands. He replaced the original display with the spare one he brought with him. No difference whatsoever. However, in the process of replacing the screen he managed to scratch laptop in several places (it turned out its surface is very easily scratched) and could not put it back together properly. Now I cannot fully close the laptop lid completely. There are wires stuck between the body of the laptop and the lid hinges. When I pointed this out to him - he said that I need to ship the unit back anyway and he did not feel like redoing it again. Great. So I am shipping it back. The reason for that is that HP need to replace the unit or the trouble part 3 times before I can demand to replace the unit with a different model.

He wanted me to sign a repair order which said that I was satisfied with his repairs. I just laughed in his face. OK, it's not his fault that HP ships sh*tty display with $4K+ business model laptop and the problem is not fixable in principle. But he managed to damage the laptop and even could not put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. After I refused to sign the paper saying I was satisfied with repairs that jerk was walking around our office asking people to sign for me. Pathetic!
Overall horrible experience. Will never buy another HP product. Tech support is all in India. Hard to understand their accents and the phone connection quality is horrible. No more HP for me thank you very much!

 

Jeez... I try and give you some sympathy along with the truth, even though it hurts, and this is the reply I get. I appreciate you're frustrated but show some respect.

My point (in case you missed it the first time), is that if you actually paid attention to this forum, you'd notice that of all the posts by 8710 owners, there are at most a dozen complaints about the screen. Therefore I logically deduced that you unluckily received a) the worst panel of the 2-3 makes possible and b) maybe even a defective panel.

Because yes, HP's laptops each have multiple possible panel makes. One is terrible, the others are fine. You got unlucky, end of story. Saying HP intentionally and maliciously ships out poor panels (which they don't even make) is grounds for a class action lawsuit, but good luck with that.

If it would make you feel better, I can edit my post to say "most other people have been satisfied with their 8710 screen." I personally know 3 8710 users who all love their screens.

I've received a lemon before, and it sucks. You have my sympathy, despite insulting my reading comprehension. Furthermore, I do agree with you about HP and screens. I feel they should never ship a unit with a crappy screen made by say, Samsung for example.

However, you'll soon find out that every major laptop manufacturer follows the same policies as HP when it comes to screens. Dell, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, etc...All of them buy from only a few LCD makers, thus they can and do ship with bad quality panels. It's just a fact of life.

Bad experiences with HP business support are nothing new and I'm not even going to discuss it, because that had nothing to do with my original post. But again, sorry to hear you've been so unlucky. Good luck with your next purchase and I hope you don't get another bad panel!

 

Where are you based?

 

WARNING ...

HP now puts low quality LCD in 8710W. I got an horrible samsung LCD (SEC3448) with big light leakage and grainy ...

Picture here : http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=262075

For information I bought it on 15/06/2008 and it is an
WUXGA model 1920x1200, 2.6Ghz, 4Gb RAM ...
more that 3000Eur ...

Shame on HP for this "Business" expensive model ...

 

How do I maximise the screen brightness? How do i turn off the dynamic screen brightness? I think I may have read this somewhere but may someone refresh my meory please?

 

How can I changethe color temperature of my screen? Now it is blue, which is not uited for graphic work...

Btw I also Installed windows xp 64 bit, works just fine.

Thanks

 

You guys are not gonna belive what happened to me. I own a 8710w from march 2008. Everything was exceptional with it until yesterday when i discovered a hair underneth the actual screen and the protective matrix that comes in touch with the exterior...that's right a HAIR. How do i know its a hair? Well...i easly touched the pannel and i actually made it move. This says alot about the build quality ...... how in the hell something like this can happen.. and what is the solution for this ? how do i get it out without having to send it back for warranty ?

 

Call HP, they will fix it for you.

 

TD/MS CashBack has a good deal on the 8710w right now. $899 - 15% cash back = $765 + $2 shipping. I snagged one. Hopefully the screen is decent.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4788859&CatId=2289

 

That is a great deal! but I'm worried that the resolution would be just too high for me...

 

It won't, it actually looks really nice on a 17''. Once you use it, you'll never want to go back.

 

I'm slightly worried about Ndia graphic card since there was faulty 8000 series that burned out occasionally, did anyone encounter such problem?
graphic card died on you that you had to repair it?

 

With the 3 year warranty, you don't really have much to worry about. While the FX 1600M is based on the 8700M GT, most of the complaints have been about the 8600M and 8400M cards.

 

I'm looking at potentially picking up a new 8710W.

I have 2 quick questions:

1) is the optical drive interface PATA or SATA? I'm guessing PATA as it's the same generation as my wife's DV9000

2) Does it support multiple harddrives?

 

I apologize that I am pc illiterate and self taught on their software (not the most productive method), however have just picked up this HP 8710w for my job, I use AutoCAD and calculation software daily. As published I found this for $899 from TD on-line, did not get the discount I have heard of, and upon receipt yesterday I wanted to post my discovery. (1) Mine was shipped with the correct transformer, yet the incorrect line cord, I had a cord in-house that worked, but that is a bummer when someone may be looking to start work upon receipt and you don't have a cord on July 4. Reading another's review on this website it seems perhaps this should have come with two power supplies, if so that would explain my shipment, I got the transformer from one and the line cord from the other. (3) I picked this unit after reading a number of on-line reviews dating back to '07, however until I upgrade my '07Cad it was a no-brainer. (3) It is listed as dual install XP-Pro and Vista, I wanted XP Pro and out of box that is how it booted up. Some have written that there is a "choice" made at initial start-up, if so mine did not offer that. (4) I spent several hours on my dsl line loading all the updated software, and now when I shut down is taking some time, and mainly due to HP pre-installed software. To their credit HP was working a full day yesterday (July 3) and I had a tech rep working in their chat to try and resolve the issues. Nothing fixed as yet, but still it is a pain to shut down as I manually end six progarams.
All in all for the price I couldn't beat it, I had a less powerful workstation with integrated graphics made for me 1 year and 11.5 months ago, it died last week, this replacement is less than 1/2 the price, more powerful, and the on-board nvid is tested for AutoCAD. All the ports and monitor output make this a great machine for my needs. Thanks for allowing me to post-

 

I don't still get to understand why bussiness laptops tend to be equally priced as home consumers but less powerful specs wise. For instance, an HDX will be better equipped than his 8710w. Anyone ?

 

It's durability. Business laptops usually have, standard, a magnesium alloy inner chassis, a spill resistant keyboard, and a shock mounted hard drive (often with a 3D accelerometer for drop protection). They also have better product support.

 

Wow, thanks for clarifying.

 

I know that Windows XP doesn't scale text and OS very well... but OSX does. If I were to get a computer with the 8710w kind of resolution, I'd need the OS to do something like that. Does Vista or Windows 7 have that capability so it won't be too hard on my eyes?

 

I just got an 8710w very inexpensively from tiger direct via amazon.com and am very pleased with it, including the price, which came to a total of $762 after all was said and done. And that is WITH a three year warranty on this thing.

I am able to get about 4 hours and 15 minutes battery life with the standard battery that comes with it. I have read a few posts in this thread mentioning larger size batteries.

Here are HP's offerings for extended batteries:

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/e...23-329260-329223-3718658-3718659-3771629.html

and

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/e...23-329260-329223-1839591-1839592-3315649.html

The laptop I have is running Windows XP.

Can anyone give me updated feedback on how well these batteries perform on this machine under windows XP?

 

I really don't know how u get over 4 hrs of battery on this thing....maybe u close the lid light and turn everything else off.
I own this machine from march 2008, i installed windows XP on it and the battery is about 2.5 hrs on regular usage and medium display light. Maybe you can squize 3 hrs "somehow" but then again is this a benchmark or a real life scenario? In real life scenario i open the damn pc, work on it then close it. I don't have time to tweek every aspect of power consumption.
Bottom line is this is indeed a mobile workstation....and it's mobile not because you can surf countless hrs on the internet but because you can easly move it from A to B.

 

There are a lot of good deals on the 8710w on eBay, and it's almost exactly what I want. The thing is that I'm worried about the WUXGA resolution being too high for me. Is this a moot point with Windows 7, does the OS have some good scaling so that the resolution would be tolerable?

 

What size and resolution screen do you use now?

 

I dunno about you but I've been using 17" business workstations forever. My first was an HP Compaq nx9420. WXGA+, so everything was huge. But I acclimated to it, and when it started breaking, I replaced it with a WUXGA display. What a difference. Absolutely breath taking. I wasn't used to having so much stuff being on screen, and had to move my head to view it all at first. But after 5 minutes, I decided I wouldn't settle for anything less than WUXGA ever again. It's the only right resolution for a 17".