bunchesofroses wrote:I repair HP laptops for a living. The first thing you have to remember, is to make an informed decision when purchasing any electronic device. Look at the competition for similarly equipped units and read reviews, lots and lots of reviews. See what the most common issues are and how satisfied the end user is with their purchase. HP's in general are nearly always very poorly engineered and every series they make has horrid problems.

Where to begin? Lets's start with the power button. The circuit board is integrated with the Lid Switch, the component that disables the LCD panel whenever the magnet in its bezel comes within range of it. This small circuit board is capable of causing the LCD cable, Motherboard, Processor and BIOS chip to short out, and sometimes catch on fire.

The combination of the i7 (in select models) along with the integrated graphics controller will cause issues of no video when the hardware switches between the built in AMD HD GPU core on the i7 and the on board GPU. Among these issues are the RAM and HDD, which are very likely faulty before your first anniversary. The hard drives (often 750GB SATA) are likely to go out with normal usage, so if you decide to game or use heavy file transfers, you will be replacing it sooner than most.

Though this is a small list, there are other issues that will plague you, some of the ones that you can prevent however:

1)Update the BIOS FIRMWARE often

2)Pop the LCD bezel off the front @ the webcam and TAPE the hell out of that small cable that plugs into the webcam module. (I see this issue once a week, if not more, as the cable has doublesided tape, securing it to the back cover, however, they did not leave enough slack when routing the cable, causing it to unplug itself through normal usage)

3)Very regularly blow compressed air through the heatsink/fan vents to remove any dust build up, HP likes to use cheaper thermal paste that if allowed to overheat, will turn to cement and loose its thermal conductivity.

4)Speaking of thermal paste, if you are capable, go ahead and remove that junk they use in the manufacturing process. Also, behold as when you lift the HSF off the CPU, the ENORMOUS amount of thermal paste they use, often spilling over the CPU die, and across most of the CPU itself. Remember, thermal paste is there to fill the microscopic imperfections on the copper plating of the HSF and the CPU die. Excess thermal paste actually reduces the effectiveness of itself by absorbing too much heat and spreading the heat across the chip, away from the copper contact plate where it should be going.

5)HP uses proprietary software and drivers that will cause many features to become unavailable if you intend on installing any form of operating system besides the one HP uses in their restore media. Speaking of that restore media, they often do no package this media with your unit, and will charge you for copies of these discs. ALSO speaking of the restore media, these discs will take the better half of an entire day to install the operating system. Always use the supplemental disc when asked, and, if your restore fails at the end, a very common issue is the wireless toggle key on the keyboard, will deactivate the wireless module, causing the unit to detect a "missing wifi card" and crash the restore at the end of the 8hour process. If this happens, you will unfortunately have to watch the entire restore, toggling the wifi on during the "Installing Software" screen. As much as I hate the HP restore media, you will often be using these discs to correct ridiculous issues with your operating system due to the terrible drivers HP releases. I recommend ordering the discs as early as possible to have on hand for those situations.

6)If you have your HP serviced by a 3rd party vendor and they do a motherboard replacement, you will need to flash the BIOS, to rebrand the board with your Serial Number, Model Number and PCID. If this is not done, you will not be able to restore your operating system with the HP restore discs.


Despite how this sounds, I have nothing against HP. Without their laptops, I would have no work. This post is a warning of "POSSIBLE" issues you may or may not have. I speak of the most common, non-abuse/customer inflicted issues that I have come across working on this unit. The actual rate of failure will vary from laptop to laptop and you may even end up with one that never breaks down. I wish that were the case for most, however, as I am not homeless and make a decent living, this is not the case. Take proper care of your laptop, don't drop, shake, run, spill, dance upon, toss down the stairs, toss at your kids, toss at your wife, or shoot with a gun and you will avoid some of the most common failures.

This is radically absurd... you back up none of your allegations with any readily identifiable scientific procedures... Flipping things open and taping things down is not what I would call adequate technological servicing. If you are so disgruntled working with a specific product, then why don't you simply say, "I don't feel justified working on this particular product and suggest you return it to the manufacturer."?...

Not to mention he talks about a Core i7 when that is clearly not what's in this laptop.

Hi,

From personal experience, I just want to say the following:

1) Do NOT BUY HP laptops
2) Do NOT BUY HP Pavilion dv-7 series laptops
3) Please, for the love of god do NOT buy a REFURB HP dv-7 laptop.

I have owned and am currently, barely, using a HP dv7-2185dx. In the 3ish years that I first bought it brand new, I've had to (thankfully for free from 3rd party extended warranty) replace almost everything. This includes everything affected from heat produced by the laptop, including the motherboard, fan, and graphics card, screen, keyboard, and battery.

After much research myself, I learned that HP dv7 series laptops are notorious for overheating problems and for basically a series of design flaws that lead to things such as static electricity overloading the "volume-touch" buttons on top of the keyboard. I even recall a lawsuit was being started last time I looked. And you can bet HP won't give a damn about your problems. I could write a book on the headaches this thing has caused me, but I'll just leave it as saying that the repair place I bring it into will basically give me another laptop the next time this thing decides to explode/stop working on me.

Please buy something, anything other than an HP laptop. Seriously, buy those energy packs or a spatula or something. And if you do buy a REFURBISHED HP DV7, well I hope someone has mercy on your poor soul.

HP Overheat google search:

https://www.google.com/search?q=hp+dv7+overheating+issues&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&sclient=psy-ab&q=HP+Pavilion+dv7+overheat&pbx=1&oq=HP+Pavilion+dv7+overheat&aq=f&aqi=g4&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=65572l66160l2l66477l4l4l0l0l0l1l289l650l0.3.1l4l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=ac7a725a7b565edc&biw=1600&bih=743

Also, for those you of thinking about getting this for gaming: don't. It WILL overheat.

I've had this laptop for a couple of months now and love it... true, the GPU can be a bottleneck, but for the kind of gaming I do it works fine. It plays Star Wars The Old Republic, WoW and Kingdom Of Amalur, for example, with no lag or stuttering, as long as you turn off anti-aliasing and are willing to set some graphics options to medium or low.

I don't regret the purchase at all.

I'd like to second this. Too many design problems for the average user to cope with. I've had to do a lot of work on my DV6 to keep it alive. I'd never buy another HP laptop again.

This is my favorite laptop because...bigger is better:

Full-size (mostly) keyboard plus numeric keys - you can actually use it for long periods without typing your hands into knots.

Big screen - you can actually see it. You can actually do proper PhotoShop editing on it, you can watch DVDs on it. etc.

Big battery life - so far so good, many hours worth.

Big processor speed - very good for usual mundane tasks and render time for modest video is just fine. I'm not a gamer but flight simulator is dandy.

Big form factor - this slab of aluminum is obviously built from the horizontal stabilizer of a recycled 727 (equal to 37,000 PBR cans) - puts fanboys and other uber-hip weenies in their place. Good as a riot shield or to replace the hood in your Lagonda.

(And yes it has a camera. A tiny one)

I own one also. Ditto the comments posted and will add one comment. I get a BSOD every couple of days. Haven't traced the problem but it looks processor-related. Mine is not a refirb. unit. Would also add that "heavy" does not describe it. It is a boat anchor for an aircraft carrier.

I guess it's official. Woot is now 100% Amazon. Woot is dead.

sykottik wrote:I guess it's official. Woot is now 100% Amazon. Woot is dead.

Stop being such a drama queen. Back in the day, there was not a Bag of Cuuuuuuuuuute! in every woot off. It harkens me back to a return to earlier days.

ionoff wrote:


I opened the screen embezzle

Autocorrect strikes again? Bezel, perhaps?

We're supposed to list this for important bid'ness stuff — cease and desists, corporate take-over attempts, and collection notices on our unpaid bar tabs. In other words, things we should ignore. If you have something you want us to read, save a tree and use email, folks.

Woot Inc.
4121 International Parkway
Carrollton, TX 75007

They say if you feel betrayed to write here. I say every person that does feel betrayed writes!

alex94kumar wrote:quad core notebook with 1.4ghz processor? my phone has dual core 1.2ghz lol...

You sir are a lucky man.. lol,lol,lol,lol

mechanicsc wrote:I have this exact laptop, bought refurbished from a big-box retailer's website (the one where the greeter loves you) for $60 less than woot's price, though mine doesn't have the blu-ray drive.

It is a very nice laptop, and has really good audio. However, it is big and heavy.

One thing which is not immediately obvious from the pictures is that the 9-cell battery protrudes from the bottom of the laptop -- notice how in the pics that the hinged end of the laptop looks like it is "floating"? That's because the battery protrudes a good 3/4 of an inch from the bottom of the laptop. Not bad if using this on a desk, but not so good when using it on your lap or carrying it in a case. One nice thing about the protruding battery is it can act somewhat like a carrying handle (the metal case is slippery).

Battery life is really good, I regularly get 4+ hours on high performance settings with full display brightness.

I'm not a gamer, so I can't comment on gaming performance, but I have heard others say it is "pretty good" (read: average). The 1.4 GHz processor spec is a bit misleading, in that the AMD A6 throttles up to 2.3 GHz as needed.

Overall performance for most everyday tasks is pretty good. This thing is not a mega-speed-demon, but you aren't going to get that at this price point anyway.

Windows Experience Index ratings:
Processor: 6.6
Memory (RAM): 7.3
Graphics: 5.8
Gaming graphics: 6.5
Primary hard disk: 5.9

Display is clear and bright.

Bonus: this laptop supports two internal hard drives (without removing the optical drive). Nice if you want to add a SSD for the OS but still have a large conventional drive for mass storage.

Woot's writeup doesn't mention it, but this laptop does have a fingerprint reader as well (rectangle on lower right just below numeric keypad).

Weird: the hard drive activity light is on the side of the laptop case (beside the right-side USB ports), so you can't see it easily when using the laptop.

All in all its a solid buy (new this model is in the $700-ish range), as long as you don't mind a big, heavy laptop.

I agree - I have the same HP laptop features but with stepped up Intel quad core. Same unit with different CPU. The battery makes for a good handle which is needed because of the weight. A lot of good features but not a quality gaming machine. Sound is good, great for movies. The price is ok, but remember that these are units that were cheaper on black Friday.

Oh, another benefit to the battery protruding from the bottom, it acts like a massage bar when I put it on the lap-dogs back.

You guys need to stop complaining about the woot off! They sold leak frogs this time!!!!!!!!!!

The touchpad has a handy feature - you can double-tap at the top left corner to disable it or re-enable it. That prevents odd cursor movements when typing.

ThunderThighs wrote:Bump

Thank gawd,we have a grownup in the room!!

Processor Specs:
Stepping: B0
Cores: 4
Frequency: 1.4GHz
Turbo: 2.3GHz
L2 Cache: 4x1MB
Memory Support: DDR3-1333
GPU: HD 6520G
GPU Frequency: 400 MHz

Note: this is not discrete graphics, it is built in to the CPU (APU).

GM, wOOters,

The rooster crows no more.

Its been an interesting 3 days.

ThunderThighs wrote:Again, just trying to keep the thread so that people can find information about the laptop on sale. I get that many of you are upset and I'm sorry for that.

Understood, TT. No apology needed.

bunchesofroses wrote:I repair HP laptops for a living. The first thing you have to remember, is to make an informed decision when purchasing any electronic device. Look at the competition for similarly equipped units and read reviews, lots and lots of reviews. See what the most common issues are and how satisfied the end user is with their purchase. HP's in general are nearly always very poorly engineered and every series they make has horrid problems.

Where to begin? Lets's start with the power button. The circuit board is integrated with the Lid Switch, the component that disables the LCD panel whenever the magnet in its bezel comes within range of it. This small circuit board is capable of causing the LCD cable, Motherboard, Processor and BIOS chip to short out, and sometimes catch on fire.

The combination of the i7 (in select models) along with the integrated graphics controller will cause issues of no video when the hardware switches between the built in AMD HD GPU core on the i7 and the on board GPU. Among these issues are the RAM and HDD, which are very likely faulty before your first anniversary. The hard drives (often 750GB SATA) are likely to go out with normal usage, so if you decide to game or use heavy file transfers, you will be replacing it sooner than most.

Though this is a small list, there are other issues that will plague you, some of the ones that you can prevent however:

1)Update the BIOS FIRMWARE often

2)Pop the LCD bezel off the front @ the webcam and TAPE the hell out of that small cable that plugs into the webcam module. (I see this issue once a week, if not more, as the cable has doublesided tape, securing it to the back cover, however, they did not leave enough slack when routing the cable, causing it to unplug itself through normal usage)

3)Very regularly blow compressed air through the heatsink/fan vents to remove any dust build up, HP likes to use cheaper thermal paste that if allowed to overheat, will turn to cement and loose its thermal conductivity.

4)Speaking of thermal paste, if you are capable, go ahead and remove that junk they use in the manufacturing process. Also, behold as when you lift the HSF off the CPU, the ENORMOUS amount of thermal paste they use, often spilling over the CPU die, and across most of the CPU itself. Remember, thermal paste is there to fill the microscopic imperfections on the copper plating of the HSF and the CPU die. Excess thermal paste actually reduces the effectiveness of itself by absorbing too much heat and spreading the heat across the chip, away from the copper contact plate where it should be going.

5)HP uses proprietary software and drivers that will cause many features to become unavailable if you intend on installing any form of operating system besides the one HP uses in their restore media. Speaking of that restore media, they often do no package this media with your unit, and will charge you for copies of these discs. ALSO speaking of the restore media, these discs will take the better half of an entire day to install the operating system. Always use the supplemental disc when asked, and, if your restore fails at the end, a very common issue is the wireless toggle key on the keyboard, will deactivate the wireless module, causing the unit to detect a "missing wifi card" and crash the restore at the end of the 8hour process. If this happens, you will unfortunately have to watch the entire restore, toggling the wifi on during the "Installing Software" screen. As much as I hate the HP restore media, you will often be using these discs to correct ridiculous issues with your operating system due to the terrible drivers HP releases. I recommend ordering the discs as early as possible to have on hand for those situations.

6)If you have your HP serviced by a 3rd party vendor and they do a motherboard replacement, you will need to flash the BIOS, to rebrand the board with your Serial Number, Model Number and PCID. If this is not done, you will not be able to restore your operating system with the HP restore discs.


Despite how this sounds, I have nothing against HP. Without their laptops, I would have no work. This post is a warning of "POSSIBLE" issues you may or may not have. I speak of the most common, non-abuse/customer inflicted issues that I have come across working on this unit. The actual rate of failure will vary from laptop to laptop and you may even end up with one that never breaks down. I wish that were the case for most, however, as I am not homeless and make a decent living, this is not the case. Take proper care of your laptop, don't drop, shake, run, spill, dance upon, toss down the stairs, toss at your kids, toss at your wife, or shoot with a gun and you will avoid some of the most common failures.

So you guys have a lot of Intel i7's with AMD graphics cores?

I've decided I don't blame woot, I blame all of you! I didn't even know what a bag of crud was until yesterday and now I WANT IT!!! I WANT THIS BAG OF CRUD YOU SPEAK OF! WHY WAS IT STOLEN FROM ME!?!?! I DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT IT WAS OR WHY I WANTED IT, BUT I REALLY WANTED IT! Crappity Crap crud crud crud!!!
......
Sorry, everyone, my apologies. I feel better now.

You people and your reburbishments....

Just ordered the Toshiba from the other day with the same specs for $20 less ... and it's a more highly rated machine!

Wish I could get the wife to let me pull the trigger

Ahhh...to have been a Wooter when woot was young. There ISN'T always a bib off center with every woot-off. Just on Most wootoffs. But there always used to cool electronic stuff you didn't know existed and just had to have. And never the same poop twice. I used to stay up until the new stuff posted every nite before going to bed. Now I only check if it's convenient. Too many laptops and tablets and I-pod aftermarket crud now.

I like Amazon for what it is, but they changed Woot into something that just isn't worth a penny buried in a turd.

17.3" is too big for me. (That's what she said.)

Old games and programs (even newer ones) that can't use more than one core only get 1.4GHz to work with. That's how I look at these low processing 'puters.

mechanicsc wrote:
It is a very nice laptop, and has really good audio. However, it is big and heavy.

One thing which is not immediately obvious from the pictures is that the 9-cell battery protrudes from the bottom of the laptop -- notice how in the pics that the hinged end of the laptop looks like it is "floating"? That's because the battery protrudes a good 3/4 of an inch from the bottom of the laptop. Not bad if using this on a desk, but not so good when using it on your lap or carrying it in a case. One nice thing about the protruding battery is it can act somewhat like a carrying handle (the metal case is slippery).

Never ever use the battery as a handle, it is a weak link, even when locked.

When I get my Mr. Beer, and six weeks after that when that beer is ready... I'm totally going to drink my face off to help forget this painful woot-off.

sykottik wrote:I guess it's official. Woot is now 100% Amazon. Woot is dead.

Woot is dead. long live Woot!

So where to now, former woot minions?

And to amazon... why not now, since you made it official with this last woot off, go 100% amazon and offer PRIME FREE SHIPPING with the woots?

I have no way to explain my 3 days of poor productivity. If I had a barrel of crops, at least I'd have something to show for those 3 days. Woot, I hope you're hiring if this goes bad.

tatterbits wrote:A nice different end to a Woot!off..I love it.

This is typical wootishness. If Woot did things the same everytime they did a WO, then woot wouldn't be WOOT!

lichme wrote:

Excellent.

This is a great deal!

All these great bells and whistles and correct me if I'm wrong (and I know you will)...no bluetooth??

my first experience with the woot-off is finally over, despite the bucket of catnip lacking. At least I got my first woot (Mr. Beer) out of it.