HP Pavilion dv5z Review

Should the blue wireless indicator light be on all the times? Are you able to turn it off by simplely pressing the indicator light?

 

When i say turn off, I mean... turn off the wireless connection

 

Yes, when you touch it, the light should turn orange.

 

Did anyone ever find out if it is worth the upgrade to the ATI 3450, for example, is the gaming better or video quality that much better?

 

Can you switch between ATI 3450 (if u upgrade for blueray) and the HD 3200 on the go ? If you don't need the 3450 all the time..

And now all we need now is for someone to finally come up with a new gen of batteries so we can stop thinking about it so much. The only problem with that is that if they do come up with new batts car companies might start puting them in cars and then we have a problem with the oil companies...I hate this game. Hopefully Formula 1 teams can push this issue further next year because they will have to use the ancient lithium bats also..but even then I have little hope

Anyway...superb work by AMD and ATI.

 

Im thinking about getting this lappy.
So does this thing do crossfire or not?

 

Not. Maybe down the road HP will release a BIOS that allows it, but currently, no.

 

They better release that new BIOS soon.
So, if I understand correctly, this laptop has both gpus?
Some people have said that only one gpu comes with the hd 3450.

 

hmm.. i was reading through the thread and people says that the wireless card is bad? is that true? i just bought this laptop and hope it will come in within the next week, and i hope the wireless card doesnt suck lol. Is there a way to get a new wireless card for the laptop if this one isnt efficient?

 

The HD3200 is integrated into the chipset, so it's impossible to "leave it out." But apparently it's possible to leave it disabled...

The wireless card in mine works fine. They're on mini-PCIe cards, so you can certainly swap them out if you want to. I don't think there's any pressing need to swap it though.

 

HP just fixed my wireless issue. My wireless button was not turning off. I reported it to HP and they made me downloaded some drivers and it now works like a charm.

 

I have a d-link wireless N router, and my dv5z literally flies on the Internet. I get up to 30mbs on Cablevision Optimum Online, and have achieved from 15 to 25mbs on my dv5z several rooms away from the router.

 

well i got the wireless card that came with the laptop. i didnt upgrade the wireless card. i hope that would be okay. thanks for the info guys it helped

 

I just purchased a DV5-1002US (DV5Z) off of Newegg. There were 2 negative reviews out of 4, one mentioning a display driver failure. I just couldn't pass up the deal ($916.99 shipped with a $50 MIR... sounds like I may have missed the boat on better B2S savings earlier this season) and have been looking for a new laptop for a while now. Should be here next week.

CPU: AMD Turion X2 ZM80 2.1 GHz
RAM: DDR2 4gb
HDD: 320gb SATA 5400rpm
Video: ATI Mobility HD3200 IGP with 15.4" 1200x800 non-infinity HD Brightview LCD
OS: Vista Home Premium 64-bit

Crossing my fingers that it comes with 800 MHz RAM and a firewire port, but not a dealbreaker. Found one site that specified DDR2-5300 667 MHz RAM and that it does come with a firewire port. Other sites don't specifiy. Oh well. Do most of my video editing on my desktop anyway. May upgrade later if I need to.

 

You only get the firewire port if you get the HD3450 option. Pretty sure they're all shipping with 800MHz memory now...

 

i had a question. i bought this laptop for school but also to play WoW but it doesnt seem to run wow great at all. i am averaging around 8 fps in wow and i think it is ridiculous. is there something wrong with my laptop? should it be running this low? i have 3gb ram and the 3200 hd and is there any drivers i may need to dl or something?

 

Certainty there is something wrong.. The IGP is more than enough for WoW. If you explain to us more details around this? Did you touched some of the drivers etc ?

 

Hey, when people talk about the 'heating' issues on the dv5z, can I have a brief context? Does it heat while gaming(or any kind of heavier graphics demanding task) or while doing simple tasks like browsing the web or word processing? Because if it's the latter, I'm kind of scared, since my old laptop had that kind of problem(it'd tend to overheat while running more than 1 application at a time then slow down exponentially, even with undervolting).

 

I love this laptop. Ordered mine shortly after I read this review and I've had it a couple months now. I upgraded it myself to 4 gigs of ram and I have the slowest option processor and it plays Wow flawlessly. I love it. Everything looks beautiful. I have a notebook usb fan aparatus underneath it. It doesnt' get that hot. I have the Integrated graphics card also. I would recommend this to anyone.

 

According to HP's service manual

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01550108.pdf


dv5z models with HD 3450 comes with AMD M770 chipset instead of M780G. So HD 3200 is not available and Hybrid Crossfire is not supported.

I have a similiar spec Compaq Presario CQ40 notebook with Turion X2 RM-70 and HD3450. According to the service manual, mine comes with M770 northbridge, hence hyrid xfire is not supported. Only those models with integrated HD3200 comes with M780G chipset. Can anyone open up the notebook and confirm the chipset?

 

Logically Crossfire Works.

 

How could Crossfire work if there is no HD 3200 integrated since the chipset is M770?

Btw, The latest version of Everest reports that RS780 is onboard but no HD3200. Im not sure which is correct now.

 

I opened mine up but didn't note the chipset part numbers. However [SMAN] already posted some hi-res photos of his chips a few pages back in the dv5z thread in the HP forum.

 

what wireless-n card is being used?

 

Mine with 802.11abgn is an Atheros AR928x. I think on Windows it identifies itself as a 5009 something or other.

 

The 12 Cell battery is now being offered by HP online, with the purchase of a new laptop for an extra $49 (or $20 more than the $29 they charge for the 6 Cell Extended Life Battery). I get less than 2 hours of use with my 6 Cell Extended Life Battery (just surfing the web with a wireless "N" connection using a modified Economy setting) and, in my opinion, an Extended Life Battery that does not last 2 hours in normal use is a defective design. I therefore contacted HP Customer Service to see if they would allow me to exchange the so-called "Extended Life" 6 cell battery for the 12 cell for the $20 difference. They said they could not do this but would be glad to sell me the 12 Cell for $250!!! This of course is a ridiculous price, especially since I only paid $590 for the Laptop in the first place. I told them this is a classic case of "bait and switch" -- selling an inferior battery and offering to upgrade it at an exorbitant price. All I want to do is get the 12 Cell for a fair and reasonable price, but HP is unwilling to meet me half way. Customer satisfaction seems foreign to this Company.

Has anyone been able to get the 12 Cell and how much usage do you get?

 

Can I run WoW well using this notebook?

 

Yes, definitely.

 

Very nice review.

 

Just picked one of these up on Black Friday. I haven't had a laptop for the last couple years since my crappy Dell Inspiron caused me to lose all confidence in laptops.

This deal was just to good to pass up. In addition to the free hardrive, ram, webcam fingerprint scanner upgrades, free shipping,$150 instant rebate, I also found a $30 internet coupon code, and got $25 cashback when I purchased with my credit card. The total came to $495.

I was originally going to get a netbook which would have been almost the same cost.

Some Questions I have:
>Has anyone actually used the fingerprint scanning function? It seems like a gimmick to me, but I am curious as to how well it works.
>Also would this wireless N card be compatible? intel Wifi 5300 MIMO 802-11N Wireless N Mini PCI-E-Card I would post a link but this forum will not allow me to. It is selling for $5 with free shipping from ebay.
>Anyone have experience playing DoD:source, and CoD4 on these things? I didn't get it to play games, but after hearing these reviews it seems like it may be able to.

One word of caution, when I went to customize my laptop it defaulted at Vista 64-bit. That is not necessarily a bad thing if that is what you want, but I am guessing most people will find the lack of supporting drivers and compatibility issues with 64 bit more hassle then it is worth. Likewise the lack of 64-bit software lessens the benefits.

$30.00 off Coupon SV2132

 

Assuming that the recently posted $250 off coupon code still works on the dv5z for an $899 configured system - any recomendations on an optimal $899 configuration for mostly home office use?

 

I doubt that the coupon might be still valid after 3weeks but give it a shot anyway. As far the spec for home office use for around $899, this should be decent...

Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (32-bit)
AMD Turion(TM) X2 Dual-Core Mobile Processor RM-70 (2.0GHz) (should work fine for home use, upgrading the Turion Ultra's wont bring any drastic improvements in performance)
15.4" diagonal WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800) (get the WSXGA+ if you need more screen real estate but text would be smaller)
FREE Upgrade to 2GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm) from 1GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)!! (easily upgradable part and HP overcharges for memory, if you need more you would be better of purchasing aftermarket from newegg & installing yourself)
256MB ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3450 Graphics (includes firewire, ehternet & HDMI ports)
FREE Upgrade to 250GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
Webcam + Fingerprint Reader
Networking Wireless-G Card
Integrated 56K Modem
FREE Upgrade to Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer
High Capacity 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery

This works out to be $914 without the rebates. You can probably add or drop some features depending on your usage.

 

Would the HD3200 be able to run Team Fortress 2 at a playable framerate?

 

Ok - Stupid question. I have this laptop and love it. but.... now don't laugh, when I'm on Explorer, explorer only fills up the center of the display, not the entire screen. When I lower the resolution, it looks stretched out and wrong.

What am I doing wrong? Thanks!

 

Truth revealed.

just talkd to HP the most senior person.. they say dv5z or atleast my machine dv5-1030ee has ati hybrid crossfire technology ...
we can use this technology on notebooks. adding another 4xxx series gpu...
they say RS780M chip with hd 3450 mobility radeon supports ati hybrid crossfire technology .

i give 10/10 if this machine supports ...atleast they made me hopeful...
they provide me this link for all informations i need .

http://www.digital-daily.com/mobile/amd_puma

for reference my chat activity id = (2833643).

regards
ammar saood