[null]

Originally Posted by ramkya1

HP 15R 007TX- all same except HD of 1 TB and screen 15.6". HP at 39000/- looks good as a bigger screen makes sense with a video card, though it's a trade off in increased weight of 200 gms more.
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Would like to suggest you to check the graphics card details on the HP one & its weight (with battery) before you decide to purchase.

My BIL bought a HP-15n259TX, with 15in screen (i3, with a lower grade graphics card compared to the Nvidia 820M on the Vostro) on the same day as mine in a store locally, paying more than me. Even though it was bigger, it was pretty heavy compared to the Vostro and my nephew decided to keep the Vostro (i5 vs i3, better graphics card, lighter to carry around).

[ramkya1]

Hai Null,

Tnx again for the suggestion. Yes the HP is heavier by 200 gms as the screen is 15.6 and the Nvidea card on the HP checks out on reviews. Yesterday evening gave cheque for 2 of them, will be delivered tomorrow evening, got an anti-virus 1 yr package thrown in through another official contact in HP.

--Ramky
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Originally Posted by null

Would like to suggest you to check the graphics card details on the HP one & its weight (with battery) before you decide to purchase.

My BIL bought a HP-15n259TX, with 15in screen (i3, with a lower grade graphics card compared to the Nvidia 820M on the Vostro) on the same day as mine in a store locally, paying more than me. Even though it was bigger, it was pretty heavy compared to the Vostro and my nephew decided to keep the Vostro (i5 vs i3, better graphics card, lighter to carry around).

[Desmosedici]

Hi,

I have a HP Pavilion DV5 Ltd Edition Laptop. Its approx 5 years old and running on Vista. 2 days ago the screen suddenly went white. The laptop is booting up but just the white screen. Has anyone experienced any such issue. Any remedies / DIY that i can try before calling in an engineer to check.

Thanks.

Raj

[Leoshashi]

Hello Desmosedici

Do try pressing near the left portion of screen/screen hinge/base unit. It might be a cable gone loose. DV5 and DV6 have a notoriously loose signal cable,which can become loose on slight impacts.By left side,I mean your left hand side when you are facing the laptop in working condition.

Regards,
Shashi

[ghodlur]

Experts,

I have a HP 630 laptop at home which while surfing the net yesterday conked off. The battery was at 50% level and the power source was on. Further attempts to switch on the laptop didnt work. The power on lamp remains on for 10 secs from pressing the power button and then goes off. Removed the battery and did the usual i.e keep the power button pressed for 30 secs and then connected the power source and tried to switch on but status quo. I cannot hear the HD coming live or the fan getting on. What could be the reason for the sudden conk off. The laptop is 3 yrs old.

Should I suspect the battery? or is there an issue with the power module? What expenses am I looking at to bring it back to normal?

[Kumar R]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

Experts,

I have a HP 630 laptop at home which while surfing the net yesterday conked off. The battery was at 50% level and the power source was on. Further attempts to switch on the laptop didnt work. The power on lamp remains on for 10 secs from pressing the power button and then goes off. Removed the battery and did the usual i.e keep the power button pressed for 30 secs and then connected the power source and tried to switch on but status quo. I cannot hear the HD coming live or the fan getting on. What could be the reason for the sudden conk off. The laptop is 3 yrs old.

Should I suspect the battery? or is there an issue with the power module? What expenses am I looking at to bring it back to normal?

I have faced this problem also few times especially while charging on railway coaches. It seems some power sockets have a output which does not agree with the laptop and it refuses to charge / draw mains. Also happened on two power sockets at my brother's house.

I suggest you change the power socket where you have plugged in the laptop charger. Also please double-check whether the battery has been fitted properly (because you mentioned having removed it).

If it still does not work, it may be a good idea to replace (1) the AC adapter ; and (2) the battery with an adaptor / battery from a similar / identical laptop and see if you can narrow down the cause.

Last suggestion: If the battery is very drained, it may not show the charging light when you plug it into mains. In that case leave it on charging for 20-30 mins and check.

PS - sometimes the AC adaptor has a loose connection (happens to me a lot). The main wire keeps coming out of the socket where it goes into the AC adaptor itself (the black box). Maybe that is loose.

[ghodlur]

Originally Posted by Kumar R

Last suggestion: If the battery is very drained, it may not show the charging light when you plug it into mains. In that case leave it on charging for 20-30 mins and check.

PS - sometimes the AC adaptor has a loose connection (happens to me a lot). The main wire keeps coming out of the socket where it goes into the AC adaptor itself (the black box). Maybe that is loose.

KUmar,

Thanks for the suggestions. The battery, power adaptor are all working fine, this was confirmed with another laptop. A fully charged battery was used in my laptop but the issue persisted.

The known source who is into chip level repairing confirmed that the IO and a Bios is gone (dont know what they mean and whats the reason). Total expense of replacing the damaged components Rs 2500 + 250 Service charges. Will be delivered in a couple of days. Hopefully the laptop is brought back to its previous glory.

[reignofchaos]

Picked up a new laptop - Asus ROG G56JR - Full HD IPS display, Core i7 4700HQ, 8GB DDR3L (upgraded to 16GB), Geforce GTX 760M, excellent touchpad and keyboard, all aluminium etc. Upgraded the storage from a 1TB hard drive to a 256GB Crucial MX100 SSD and now the machine absolutely flies.

This laptop has the best screen and sound I've seen on any 15" machine bar none. The apples which are lauded for their high res screens are not even remotely close to this once it is calibrated with caiman or xrite. Along with the GPU/CPU and RAM, its an ideal mobile workstation. After the SSD upgrade, battery lasts around 5 hours.

Some pictures:

[amitk26]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

What could be the reason for the sudden conk off. The laptop is 3 yrs old.

1. Heat , If the laptop MB is heating up then due to heat MTBF for components reduces.
Heating can be due to several reasons one is poor quality of components and second is due to bad power line. Reason (2) is in your hands and explained in more detail below.


(2) Harmonics in the power line , I have observed if there is a Diesel Generator set and you charge using it then many components conk off.

Similarly if there is a cheap inverter which is not giving pure sign wave then it will create very high frequency harmonics in the wave which can damage electronics components.

Ideally the laptop DC power supply is an SMPS ( Switched mode power supply) so harmonics at source end should not impact output.
However ideal world situations can not be emulated always. Some of the high frequency harmonics may sneak in the DC supplied and damage the components. Sometimes due to high frequency components heat up the capacitors and reduce life.

You can do the following

a. Buy a good quality UPS / Inverter with pure sign wave , It will pay it's cost itself slowly . You will observe your ceiling fan's create less hum.

b. Buy a good quality generic laptop power supply ( SMPS) , HP build quality is pathetic and their laptop components fail more often then others.

PS : I had HP laptop earlier which failed very soon and has mother board heating issues . Where as ASUS / lenovo laptops at home and Samsung , Dell at work are working flawlessly for years ( Our replacement cycle is 3 years)

[Gannu_1]

Turned out to be incredibly lucky today!

It was pouring and the internet connection's RJ45 cable was connected to my Lenovo system directly. Water seeped through the innards of the cable (in short, LAN cable = pipe) and by the time I returned home from work, the laptop was sitting on a pool of water! And it was on (turned on 24x7).



Quickly disconnected the cable, detached the power cord, shut down the system, removed the battery, kept the laptop atop a cloth to soak all the water from the vents, dried it under a fan. Works like a charm!

Just look at the water coming out of the LAN cable:



And this is from the inside! Please take care of your routers and systems.

[HydroFuel]

Originally Posted by reignofchaos

Picked up a new laptop - Asus ROG G56JR

Some pictures:

Is the keyboard backlit, is it ultraportable one? Once when I asked at croma store, they said backlit keyboard only comes in ultraportable ones.

[carboy]

Looking for a Thinkpad which can be used as a developement machine (i.e.for serious programming). I was thinking 15.6" screen would be the best option. Any recos on what model and what specs I should look for?

[joslicx]

Originally Posted by carboy

Looking for a Thinkpad which can be used as a developement machine (i.e.for serious programming). I was thinking 15.6" screen would be the best option. Any recos on what model and what specs I should look for?

whats the budget in mind? If upto 70-80k then Lenovo Y510p is an awesome machine.

[carboy]

Originally Posted by joslicx

whats the budget in mind? If upto 70-80k then Lenovo Y510p is an awesome machine.

Yeah, budget is around that range. But isn't the Y510p a consumer grade laptop? I was looking for a business grade one - the Thinkpad T & X series have a magnesium reinforced chassis while the consumer grade ones have a regular plastic one. Plus, I thought the Y510p was a gaming/multimedia kind of laptop.

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by carboy

Looking for a Thinkpad which can be used as a developement machine (i.e.for serious programming)

Sure, I can help you with this one but let me give you the full story. I've a T430 (14), which I upgraded from a 6 year old SL series which gave me zero problems, and was built to last like all Thinkpad's are. Didn't service it even once and except the battery everything was fine. The keyboard is industry gold standard, soft yet precise, and little bumps, shakes and spills do not even tickle a TP. That's the whole reason I decided to upgrade to a T Series & also because I got a very good resale price on the old one.

I'm not a coder, I use the laptop to do e-mails, some work on Word/Excel and then some occasional multimedia usages. First let me get to the pro's of the T Series, first one being sound. Sound? That'd be shocking to hear from what is basically, a business machine but it's true. The surface speakers with Dolby Surround provides immersive clear sound which can fill a room easily, its not bass heavy (which no one expects) but its crystal clear and truly immersive. The keyboard also still retains some of the old TP feel although it's now Chiclet style. The warranty is 3 years standard on-site with 1 year comprehensive insurance (best). The negatives, this is going to be a long one - build quality is nothing like old Thinkpad's, progressively Lenovo has destroyed the legacy of IBM machines by taking numerous shortcuts in each generation. Lenovo does slick advertising focussing on its survival ability, carbon-fibre/mag-alloy build etc etc. Here are the shortcuts they have taken : removal of Bluetooth-on light indicators (bundling it into wifi-light), using the cheaper Chiclet style keypad, when closed there's a 2 mm gap on the sides (due to making it flat and not having the traditional bezel curvature). What you have to know further is that the T430 is no longer available (paid about 61k after exchange of 12k). The latest T440(14)/T540(15) have followed in the tradition of shortcuts. Mouse key buttons replaced by a clunky click-pad, no surface speakers, no processing/Wi-Fi light indicators, although they come with Haswell processors and 4G/NFC ready and dual battery. One thing is sure, my prev laptop being cheaper was a 9/10, this is 7.5/8 at best. TP's are still miles better in performance though, the fan noise and HDD noise is non existent. The optical drive is pin drop silent even when writing a CD.