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HP has had another recent service enhancement officially starting around November 2007.

The primary symptoms were no video / no boot issues and lost wireless connectivity on specific notebook models. The effected models expanded to several other models by early/mid 2008.

The issue was also determined to be a motherboard issue showing primarily with AMD systems with NVidia cards.

HP's official limited service enhancement for this issue: Here

There's a big difference between what ought to be and what is.

I'm familiar with the is-ought problem. So how do I work to change "ought" to "is"?

Most people aren't going to have a computer set up in such a way that it's a good fit for party gaming. In general, the screen is small and the location is set up for 1 person to sit at it comfortably.

One of my co-workers uses an HP Pavilion Slimline at work. It isn't much bigger or much more expensive than an Xbox 360. (Mac mini is even smaller, roughly the size of a Wii console.) And like an Xbox 360 or a PS3, a PC can be hooked up to an HDTV through the VGA port or (using a $40 scan converter) even an SDTV. So why don't more HDTVs have a Windows PC or a Mac mini by them?

but with things as they (largely still) are, "indie party gaming" isn't a big genre.

So if I develop and sell copies of a party game for Windows and Mac OS X, will I find a large market of HTPC (home theater personal computing) enthusiasts and few competitors? Or how can I encourage HDTV owners to connect a PC?

I just bought a HP 2230s. Core 2 Duo, 3GB RAM with a 12" 1280x800 screen. Unlike certain netbooks it has bluetooth, which should be standard in any consumer device. It also has a HDMI port for when I purchase a 24" LCD!

For around $US1K, it has similar specs but in a smaller form factor at less than half the price of a notebook I bought 18 months ago - which has sadly just died, out of warranty :(

It's powerful enough for my professional uses (Java coding) and I couldn't imagine going any smaller with respect to keyboard width. YMMV but for me the netbooks didn't have enough grunt but around $1K seems like a sweet spot, price wise.

And, yeah, there's heaps of extra space in my old backpack!

But to prove my point, electromigration happens, and IS an issue within ANY time span.

You point is valid. On-point, even. But what makes Nvidia's alleged misdeeds significant is that electromigration, along with other factors, makes the interconnects in the 8xxx series GPUs fail in an unreasonably-short time span. Without elaborate external mitigation strategies*, within warranty.

And that's the other factor in the significance in this story: Nvidia is alleged** to have made a point of downplaying, denying, avoiding, and misleading all participants about the significance of their substrate and solder choices in the 8xxx series. An example? Blaming a laptop manufacturer for designing laptops with ineffective GPU cooling--shifting the blame for GPU failure to poor system-level heat management. In point of fact, the manufacturer in question (HP) appears to have followed Nvidia design guidance, but that doesn't seem to have deterred Nvidia PR.

Executive summary: it appears (facts yet to be confirmed, wait for outcome of the class action suit) that Nvidia made poor materials choices in the 8xxx series, leading to premature parts failure in consumer use, leading to high warranty rates, leading to furious PR spin, leading to class action lawsuit.

*An example: HP laptop BIOS changes to "fix this heat problem" which force cooling fans on all the time:

The BIOS updates the fan control algorithm of the system, and turns the fan on at low volume while your notebook PC is operational.

So the fan runs all the time, and your battery runs down faster than it should, but at least that may buy a few months until the laptop's out of warranty, at which GPU failure isn't the manufacturer's problem.

**I hate using lawyer-speak, especially since I ain't one, but this whole debate is entering the realm of the courts, so I think everyone involved needs to be clear what they know versus what they've read or heard. Everything I've cited is in the latter category. There's your ObDisclaimer.

Take, for example, the Fannie/Freddie debacle. Consider that Obama had 2 corrupt former CEOs of Fannie as economic advisors, one of which was the head of his VP search committee.

The truth is that although Jim Johnson was a CEO at Fannie Mae before becoming a leader of Barack Obama's VP search committee, he has not been convicted of any crime, but Obama accepted Johnson's resignation from the Presidential campaign anyway. In June, you hypocrite. Jim Johnson has also not been even accused of any crimes, just smeared for being associated with a corporation which operated in the lawless environment introduced by Gramm-Leach-Biley. Compare to Carly Fiorina, who was personally responsible for making a mess out of Hewlett-Packard. Johnson didn't sign Gramm-Leach-Biley into law. Measured by stock price, Fiorina was, in the eyes of the investors with enough previous financial success to determine stock prices, personally responsible for Hewlett-Packard's problems. If we're going to spend $700 Billion bailing out the country's wealthiest investors, we had better trust their judgment enough to uphold their verdict on Carleton S. Fiorina: as toxic as a portfolio full of foreclosed mortgages.

Former Fannie Mae executive Jim Johnson, who was a leader of the vice presidential search committee for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, resigned from that unpaid position today amid criticisms that Johnson represented a world of influence and special interests that stood in stark contrast with what Obama's campaign purports to stand for.
...
"We don't need any lectures from a campaign that waited fifteen months to purge the lobbyists from their staff, and only did so because they said it was a 'perception problem,'" said Obama campaign spokesperson Bill Burton.

And Franklin Raines was never any kind of adviser to Obama at all.

The Obama campaign issued a statement by Raines on Thursday night insisting, "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters." Obama spokesman Bill Burton went a little further, saying in an e-mail that the campaign had "neither sought nor received" advice from Raines "on any matter."

[If Raines offered Obama advice that was not sought, a lying sack of excrement might argue that Obama nevertheless "received" that advice, but unless that advice was the basis of subsequent action, we use the colloquialism that the advice was not "taken," thus anybody describing Raines as an advisor to Obama is a lying sack of excrement.]

Unless you have proof that Raines' statement above is a lie, you committed libel by asserting that he had ever been one of Barack Obama's "economic advisors."

So what evidence does the McCain campaign have for the supposed Obama-Raines connection? It is pretty flimsy, but it is not made up completely out of whole cloth.

99% cloth, but not completely whole cloth. The "supposed Obama-Raines connection" is not quite pure fabrication by the same standard that the statement "you are a violin" has a basis in fact, when addressed to a person calling itself "Stradivarius." The only connection to fact is extremely tenuous, and we all know that the statement "you are a violin" is a falsehood. Your accusation is no more honest, just less humorous.

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers points to three items in the Washington Post in July and August. It turns out that

The extremely-high-end Pro

Dell XPS

the tiny Mini

Dell Studio Hybrid
Asus EeeBox

the sleek, integrated iMac.

Dell XPS One
HP Touchsmart

Hah. True as this might be, this fact is not reflected AT ALL when looking at HP's driver support. Basically, if you're not using Redhat enterprise linux or Novell enterprise linux you are plain and simple out of luck. Reference: daily life and this site http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/433096-0-0-0-121.html
Note the vast differences between this page and the redhat matrix.
Sorry to say but this matrix underligns for me the sad truth, that is that HP advocates linux by mouth perhaps, but not by actions.

Their t5735 thin clients (and others) come with a properly configured and visually appealing Debian. It makes a good TC but can run a lot of software locally as well (I run Gnome, Iceweasel, audacious and xterms locally). While stock Debian always looks absymal wherever I try it (the fonts are badly configured etc.), HP's version looks really nice. They also use their own package repository for updates (ftp.hp.com/pub/tcdebian).

HP has had for more than a decade their own Linux distribution called "Insight Diagnostics". You can download it from HP.com and use it to do diagnostic tests on almost all the hardware that HP computers come with. It's special purpose and has no install to HD option. This disk includes at the least drivers for almost all HP provided hardware, even if it's third party. Most come with a physical disk, but you can always get the ISO from HP.com no matter what other OS the PC was shipped with.

I really don't understand why HP Linux wasn't mentioned in TFS. You can get all HP servers with Linux, and most desktops as well. HP has thousands of FOSS projects they fully fund. They partner with standards organizations at the highest levels. You can get many different distros from them including Debian, Mandrake, RedHat, RedFlag and SuSE. Almost all of the 36% of the top500 supercomputers that use HP nodes are Linux. They don't make a big deal of it, but the option is there. Is this a matter of complaining about the people who are on the fence so we can get them to change?

/Disclosure: I don't work for HP, but I fix most of 'em - laptops, desktops, workstations servers and blades (but not superdome or nonstop). My opinions are most definitely not my employer's.

HP has had for more than a decade their own Linux distribution called "Insight Diagnostics". You can download it from HP.com and use it to do diagnostic tests on almost all the hardware that HP computers come with. It's special purpose and has no install to HD option. This disk includes at the least drivers for almost all HP provided hardware, even if it's third party. Most come with a physical disk, but you can always get the ISO from HP.com no matter what other OS the PC was shipped with.

I really don't understand why HP Linux wasn't mentioned in TFS. You can get all HP servers with Linux, and most desktops as well. HP has thousands of FOSS projects they fully fund. They partner with standards organizations at the highest levels. You can get many different distros from them including Debian, Mandrake, RedHat, RedFlag and SuSE. Almost all of the 36% of the top500 supercomputers that use HP nodes are Linux. They don't make a big deal of it, but the option is there. Is this a matter of complaining about the people who are on the fence so we can get them to change?

/Disclosure: I don't work for HP, but I fix most of 'em - laptops, desktops, workstations servers and blades (but not superdome or nonstop). My opinions are most definitely not my employer's.

HP has had for more than a decade their own Linux distribution called "Insight Diagnostics". You can download it from HP.com and use it to do diagnostic tests on almost all the hardware that HP computers come with. It's special purpose and has no install to HD option. This disk includes at the least drivers for almost all HP provided hardware, even if it's third party. Most come with a physical disk, but you can always get the ISO from HP.com no matter what other OS the PC was shipped with.

I really don't understand why HP Linux wasn't mentioned in TFS. You can get all HP servers with Linux, and most desktops as well. HP has thousands of FOSS projects they fully fund. They partner with standards organizations at the highest levels. You can get many different distros from them including Debian, Mandrake, RedHat, RedFlag and SuSE. Almost all of the 36% of the top500 supercomputers that use HP nodes are Linux. They don't make a big deal of it, but the option is there. Is this a matter of complaining about the people who are on the fence so we can get them to change?

/Disclosure: I don't work for HP, but I fix most of 'em - laptops, desktops, workstations servers and blades (but not superdome or nonstop). My opinions are most definitely not my employer's.

http://www.hp.com/sbso/busproducts_notebooks.html

Many of those laptops that can be configured have "FreeDos" as an option for the OS.
Sure, that means it doesn't come with an installed Linux distro, but you can get a customized laptop without the MS tax.

I don't understand how they are calculating the numbers. The press release states breaking the 24hr barrier but the specs indicate the best time is nowhere near that:
HP Compaq 6930p UMA
Good: 6 hours, 15 minutes
Better: 13 hours
Best: 17 hours, 15 minutes

The press release says that using an LED screen is +4 hours, and SSD drive is +7%. That's still 17.25 * 1.07 + 4 = ~ 22hr 30min.

Here; http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13061_na/13061_na.pdf Apparently the ultra capacity battery is 95Watt hours, so average power consumption would have to be 3.958 watts (95/24hrs). It would be difficult to accomplish in Vista, maybe if you cut out all the non-essential background processes, classic GUI mode, had the display at the dimmest setting, and just had Microsoft Office 97/2K open.

Since I don't know anything about trust law, can someone tell me if there is an anti-trust issue here?

This is the question I sent.

Comments:
Sir/Madam -

I am interested in the TouchSmart. I read a blog post suggesting that you build a linux version of this device. Is this a possibility? For various reasons, I will not buy a Microsoft product and plan not to do so ever again. If there is no plan for you to provide some choice for this product, I can continue my search for an ideal device elsewhere.

Sincerely,

Here is the response that I received.

Dear :

Thank you for your interest in HP products.

Due to licensing agreements with Microsoft, HP Pavilion and Compaq Presario notebook and desktop PC series will ship with a MS Windows Vista operating system.

There is no option for any other operating system in any HP consumer model.

I apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced with this issue.

The CTO HP TouchSmart IQ506t and IQ506 / KQ437AA#ABA feature:

-Next generation touch computer

-22" diagonal Brightview widescreen

-Built-in web cam and mic for video chat and conferencing

-TV tuner, dual-format ATSC/NTSC, remote control

-Total memory slots: 2 SoDIMM

-5 in 1 memory card reader

-5 USB 2.0 (2 front, 3 back), 1 IEEE 1394 (front)

-Wireless, low-profile keyboard, wireless optical mouse

-Headphone (front), line-in (back), Digital Audio Out (back)

-256MB NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS HD

-ENERGY STAR qualified and EPEAT registered silver level

-Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g/n & Bluetooth(R ) enabled

-10/100/1000BaseT network (Ethernet) interface

-Touch-enabled HP TouchSmart software bundle

-HP Pavilion software bundle and HP Total Care Advisor

-One-year limited hardware warranty. 90-day limited software support.

-HP Ambient Light for your workspace built in

-Integrated High Definition audio speakers (2.0)

-Cleaning cloth

Information on these products is located at the following websites:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=desktops&a1=Category&v1=All-in-One+PCs&series_name=IQ506t_series

http://www.shopping.hp.com/product/rts_desktop/rts_desktop/1/storefronts/KQ437AA%2523ABA

You may purchase this product or other products directly from Hewlett-Packard. Please visit our web site at:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/

You may also call 1-888-999-4747.

To locate a Hewlett-Packard authorized reseller(s) in your area, please visit our web site at:

http://hp.via.infonow.net/usconsumer/index.jsp

You can also purchase an HP service agreement, known as a Care Pack. For more information and details about Care Packs, please visit our web site at:

http://www.hp.com/hps/carepack

The web sites above were sent out with no spaces in the addresses. They will sometimes arrive with spaces where they should not be, due to the way the email sends. You may need to copy the web site addresses, line by line, into your computer web address window and remove the spaces. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

I hope I have thoroughly answered all of your presales questions. Please reply to this message if we can be of further assistance.

For your convenience, you can also call our Presales Department at 1-800-752-0900 (8:30am - 8:30pm, Mon-Fri, and 10am - 7pm Sat, Eastern Time). Our Hewlett-Packard representatives are trained professionals who can help you decide

Since I don't know anything about trust law, can someone tell me if there is an anti-trust issue here?

This is the question I sent.

Comments:
Sir/Madam -

I am interested in the TouchSmart. I read a blog post suggesting that you build a linux version of this device. Is this a possibility? For various reasons, I will not buy a Microsoft product and plan not to do so ever again. If there is no plan for you to provide some choice for this product, I can continue my search for an ideal device elsewhere.

Sincerely,

Here is the response that I received.

Dear :

Thank you for your interest in HP products.

Due to licensing agreements with Microsoft, HP Pavilion and Compaq Presario notebook and desktop PC series will ship with a MS Windows Vista operating system.

There is no option for any other operating system in any HP consumer model.

I apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced with this issue.

The CTO HP TouchSmart IQ506t and IQ506 / KQ437AA#ABA feature:

-Next generation touch computer

-22" diagonal Brightview widescreen

-Built-in web cam and mic for video chat and conferencing

-TV tuner, dual-format ATSC/NTSC, remote control

-Total memory slots: 2 SoDIMM

-5 in 1 memory card reader

-5 USB 2.0 (2 front, 3 back), 1 IEEE 1394 (front)

-Wireless, low-profile keyboard, wireless optical mouse

-Headphone (front), line-in (back), Digital Audio Out (back)

-256MB NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS HD

-ENERGY STAR qualified and EPEAT registered silver level

-Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g/n & Bluetooth(R ) enabled

-10/100/1000BaseT network (Ethernet) interface

-Touch-enabled HP TouchSmart software bundle

-HP Pavilion software bundle and HP Total Care Advisor

-One-year limited hardware warranty. 90-day limited software support.

-HP Ambient Light for your workspace built in

-Integrated High Definition audio speakers (2.0)

-Cleaning cloth

Information on these products is located at the following websites:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=desktops&a1=Category&v1=All-in-One+PCs&series_name=IQ506t_series

http://www.shopping.hp.com/product/rts_desktop/rts_desktop/1/storefronts/KQ437AA%2523ABA

You may purchase this product or other products directly from Hewlett-Packard. Please visit our web site at:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/

You may also call 1-888-999-4747.

To locate a Hewlett-Packard authorized reseller(s) in your area, please visit our web site at:

http://hp.via.infonow.net/usconsumer/index.jsp

You can also purchase an HP service agreement, known as a Care Pack. For more information and details about Care Packs, please visit our web site at:

http://www.hp.com/hps/carepack

The web sites above were sent out with no spaces in the addresses. They will sometimes arrive with spaces where they should not be, due to the way the email sends. You may need to copy the web site addresses, line by line, into your computer web address window and remove the spaces. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

I hope I have thoroughly answered all of your presales questions. Please reply to this message if we can be of further assistance.

For your convenience, you can also call our Presales Department at 1-800-752-0900 (8:30am - 8:30pm, Mon-Fri, and 10am - 7pm Sat, Eastern Time). Our Hewlett-Packard representatives are trained professionals who can help you decide

Since I don't know anything about trust law, can someone tell me if there is an anti-trust issue here?

This is the question I sent.

Comments:
Sir/Madam -

I am interested in the TouchSmart. I read a blog post suggesting that you build a linux version of this device. Is this a possibility? For various reasons, I will not buy a Microsoft product and plan not to do so ever again. If there is no plan for you to provide some choice for this product, I can continue my search for an ideal device elsewhere.

Sincerely,

Here is the response that I received.

Dear :

Thank you for your interest in HP products.

Due to licensing agreements with Microsoft, HP Pavilion and Compaq Presario notebook and desktop PC series will ship with a MS Windows Vista operating system.

There is no option for any other operating system in any HP consumer model.

I apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced with this issue.

The CTO HP TouchSmart IQ506t and IQ506 / KQ437AA#ABA feature:

-Next generation touch computer

-22" diagonal Brightview widescreen

-Built-in web cam and mic for video chat and conferencing

-TV tuner, dual-format ATSC/NTSC, remote control

-Total memory slots: 2 SoDIMM

-5 in 1 memory card reader

-5 USB 2.0 (2 front, 3 back), 1 IEEE 1394 (front)

-Wireless, low-profile keyboard, wireless optical mouse

-Headphone (front), line-in (back), Digital Audio Out (back)

-256MB NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS HD

-ENERGY STAR qualified and EPEAT registered silver level

-Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g/n & Bluetooth(R ) enabled

-10/100/1000BaseT network (Ethernet) interface

-Touch-enabled HP TouchSmart software bundle

-HP Pavilion software bundle and HP Total Care Advisor

-One-year limited hardware warranty. 90-day limited software support.

-HP Ambient Light for your workspace built in

-Integrated High Definition audio speakers (2.0)

-Cleaning cloth

Information on these products is located at the following websites:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=desktops&a1=Category&v1=All-in-One+PCs&series_name=IQ506t_series

http://www.shopping.hp.com/product/rts_desktop/rts_desktop/1/storefronts/KQ437AA%2523ABA

You may purchase this product or other products directly from Hewlett-Packard. Please visit our web site at:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/

You may also call 1-888-999-4747.

To locate a Hewlett-Packard authorized reseller(s) in your area, please visit our web site at:

http://hp.via.infonow.net/usconsumer/index.jsp

You can also purchase an HP service agreement, known as a Care Pack. For more information and details about Care Packs, please visit our web site at:

http://www.hp.com/hps/carepack

The web sites above were sent out with no spaces in the addresses. They will sometimes arrive with spaces where they should not be, due to the way the email sends. You may need to copy the web site addresses, line by line, into your computer web address window and remove the spaces. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

I hope I have thoroughly answered all of your presales questions. Please reply to this message if we can be of further assistance.

For your convenience, you can also call our Presales Department at 1-800-752-0900 (8:30am - 8:30pm, Mon-Fri, and 10am - 7pm Sat, Eastern Time). Our Hewlett-Packard representatives are trained professionals who can help you decide

Since I don't know anything about trust law, can someone tell me if there is an anti-trust issue here?

This is the question I sent.

Comments:
Sir/Madam -

I am interested in the TouchSmart. I read a blog post suggesting that you build a linux version of this device. Is this a possibility? For various reasons, I will not buy a Microsoft product and plan not to do so ever again. If there is no plan for you to provide some choice for this product, I can continue my search for an ideal device elsewhere.

Sincerely,

Here is the response that I received.

Dear :

Thank you for your interest in HP products.

Due to licensing agreements with Microsoft, HP Pavilion and Compaq Presario notebook and desktop PC series will ship with a MS Windows Vista operating system.

There is no option for any other operating system in any HP consumer model.

I apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced with this issue.

The CTO HP TouchSmart IQ506t and IQ506 / KQ437AA#ABA feature:

-Next generation touch computer

-22" diagonal Brightview widescreen

-Built-in web cam and mic for video chat and conferencing

-TV tuner, dual-format ATSC/NTSC, remote control

-Total memory slots: 2 SoDIMM

-5 in 1 memory card reader

-5 USB 2.0 (2 front, 3 back), 1 IEEE 1394 (front)

-Wireless, low-profile keyboard, wireless optical mouse

-Headphone (front), line-in (back), Digital Audio Out (back)

-256MB NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS HD

-ENERGY STAR qualified and EPEAT registered silver level

-Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g/n & Bluetooth(R ) enabled

-10/100/1000BaseT network (Ethernet) interface

-Touch-enabled HP TouchSmart software bundle

-HP Pavilion software bundle and HP Total Care Advisor

-One-year limited hardware warranty. 90-day limited software support.

-HP Ambient Light for your workspace built in

-Integrated High Definition audio speakers (2.0)

-Cleaning cloth

Information on these products is located at the following websites:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=desktops&a1=Category&v1=All-in-One+PCs&series_name=IQ506t_series

http://www.shopping.hp.com/product/rts_desktop/rts_desktop/1/storefronts/KQ437AA%2523ABA

You may purchase this product or other products directly from Hewlett-Packard. Please visit our web site at:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/

You may also call 1-888-999-4747.

To locate a Hewlett-Packard authorized reseller(s) in your area, please visit our web site at:

http://hp.via.infonow.net/usconsumer/index.jsp

You can also purchase an HP service agreement, known as a Care Pack. For more information and details about Care Packs, please visit our web site at:

http://www.hp.com/hps/carepack

The web sites above were sent out with no spaces in the addresses. They will sometimes arrive with spaces where they should not be, due to the way the email sends. You may need to copy the web site addresses, line by line, into your computer web address window and remove the spaces. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

I hope I have thoroughly answered all of your presales questions. Please reply to this message if we can be of further assistance.

For your convenience, you can also call our Presales Department at 1-800-752-0900 (8:30am - 8:30pm, Mon-Fri, and 10am - 7pm Sat, Eastern Time). Our Hewlett-Packard representatives are trained professionals who can help you decide

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/pscmisc/vac/us/product_pdfs/6930p.pdf

2.1 kg it would appear. That's still a bit heavy for my taste.

http://h30187.www3.hp.com/ Is a great place to learn some basics such as Intro to Word, Excel, Windows, Photoshop, etc. I have an MCSE & MCDBA. The books for those are pricey. Having a cert is better than not having a cert. Give them the goal of getting an A+ cert, or at least training for it. Hardware is the same all over and not vendor specific. And yes, for MacBoy in the wings with a rebuttal, it still has a keyboard, monitor, harddrive, memory & CPU just like every other PC.

You say your are pleased with yours, but the DV6000 series is plagued with serious problems, related to heat primarily, but can also kill the slot used to hold the wireless card. Some discussion groups claim that as many as 1 in 7 have had serious issues requiring motherboard replacement.

Here is HP's page on the issues.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&docname=c01087277&product=1842155

If yours is under warranty, check your serial number. Either way, installing the latest BIOS update is highly recommended.

While Macs are not immune to quality control issues either, comparing one of their machines to this engineering nightmare isn't terribly fair.

Theoretically, you are correct. But there is no time to read everything, especially when under pressure to finish a project on time.

Yeah, I'm just crazy that I read the boost docs for fun ;)

I am talking specifically about C++, which has most values allocated in the stack. That's the reason C++ produces the fastest code anyway.

The use of the stack in C++ is fairly limited. It's really only for small objects that can be passed around by value, and not for long-lived objects. Like I was saying, anything complex enough to have a non-trivial destructor is probably going to be too complex to be useful allocated on the stack.

The one great thing in C++, and the reason I don't give up on it, it's that destructors are called at procedure exit. That's so great! it helps with a lot of problems.

Well, that's the whole point of smart pointers. You get the EXACT same kind of determinism with your destruction, without having to use only local variables.

Your definition of RAII is wider than mine.

That's Bjarne Stroustrup's definition. He coined it as a general design pattern that should be used whenever possible.

Smart pointers are not for collections only. I am surprised that almost everyone has such a narrow scope, as if no one has ever made a complex program.

For example, in my current project...

Memory pools? Now clearly you know the project better than I do, but for situations like you describe, I don't think standard smart pointers OR garbage collection are really appropriate. Large scale allocation/deallocation of homogenous data types, that really sounds like something where you want all those resources in a pre-allocated memory pool that you can just draw from and release to at a whim with virtually no overhead compared to memory allocation in either system. Then again, maybe there are factors preventing the system being designed around memory pools? Anyway, that's certainly the solution I would choose given those criteria.

Well, I hope that after reading this last post of mine, you understand what kind of situation I am into. C++ is considered a systems language, and so our customers demand it. But their problems are big and complex, and if C++ had GC, the solutions would be better from all perspectives (faster coding, less debugging, less expensive, etc).

Is there a reason you can't use the very excellent Boehm garbage collector library for C++? Obviously if there's a reason your particular project will benefit from it, it might be worth considering. My argument is really only against how appropriate that functionality would be as a core feature of C++.

I want to like C++, heck, it was the first language I learned. But after so many hours of memory leaks and pointer-induced errors...

perhaps you didn't learn it very well. Check out RAII for one way round your problem, learn about references and destructors for another, and learn about auto_ptr/shared_ptr if you still have difficulties.

If you absolutely must have a GC, put one in. Mono uses this one, so I assume they think its quite good. Stroustrup says that GC has a place in memory management, but it should be the last resort not the first. I agree - if you can't program without getting so lost you lose memory all over the place, GC will not magically help you* as you'll end up losing track of other non-memory resources instead**.

* - unless you're an ex-VB programmer, in which case you need all the help you can get :-)

** - eg. you create an object that opens a file, if you 'leak' that object, the GC will collect it for you when it feels like it, so you may end up trying to reopen that file only to find that its still in use. There's still 'soft leaks' that the GC will not manage where your objects are still referenced even though you think they aren't.

And get an answer from HP?

The NEW HP35s is the first classic RPN calc released by HP in years. It is a pretty good calculator, not without its own quirks. But it is the first HP calculator in years that is truly in the spirit of its illustrious ancestors.

Slightly different thread, perhaps, but I just wanted to poin out: this is NOT the first laptop with a Core 2 Extreme CPU.

HP has one (though it's 20.1 inches - a real beast): http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1

Dell has one (17"): http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=dycwm90&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&kc=category~notebooks

There are probably at least a few others. Not to say it isn't awesome, but please... a LITTLE reasearch before making such wild claims? I realize that's a lot to ask of many people here...

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Category&v1=Entertainment+powerhouse&series_name=dv7z_series

That's $799, and on NewEgg you can even find them cheaper from time to time.

>Moreover, there were lots of teething problems with DVD in the old days.

Which is why I say buy a PS3. Sony pushes out the latest BluRay updates to the PS3 first and foremost. With built-in wifi, it is quite easy to download and install new firmware. The PS3 was the world's first BluRay 2.0 player, and as the spec continues to evolve, the PS3 will probably remain the most future-proof.

Point them to this, might help:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01087277&lc=en&cc=us

HP has extended the warranty on certain affected laptops to 24 months. Mine had this problem and I had the motherboard replaced this March, 3 months after my warranty would have expired.
Here is the info:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01087277&lc=en&cc=us

I have been aware of this problem since early January when a friend's dv6000 series died and I managed to find this article. http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&cc=us&lang=en&docname=c01087277&product=1842155&dlc=en HP has extended their coverage for these laptops to two years and replace and/or fix them for free under warranty. Although the affected models, dv2000, dv6000, and dv9000's to have a wide range of chipsets, the majority of the dv6000's are nVidia chipset based, and at the workbench I work at all 3 cases I have seen and printed that Extended Warranty sheet for have been dv6000 series with nVidia chipsets and all had replacement motherboards put in from HP for free.

Hp Pavillion DV9000 series certainly is (mine is on holiday at HP again, gone for a new mobo) According to their site HP Pavilion dv2000/dv6000/dv9000 and Compaq Presario V3000/V6000 UK HP Support Article at hp.com

A note for UK readers. Don't let HP fob you off with the old "your warranty's expired BS". In UK (& most of EU) law says goods must be of "merchantable quality" at the time of sale, which means free of manufacturing defects and able to fulfil "reasonable expectations", including expectations of product life. In the case of "high-tech" electronics, this has generally been taken by the courts to mean five years, not 12 months.

Note that they conveniently prevent you from downloading the old BIOS to revert the upgrade, by removing old version from their web site, if the increased fan noise is a problem for you. Under the pretense of "avoiding confusion", they will not allow you to get the original version:

I do not see the previous BIOS version on the HP Support Web? What happened to the previous versions of the BIOS? In order to eliminate any confusion on which BIOS version is the latest, only the latest version is available on the Web.

I called HP and, after convincing the tech support guy that removing Vista and installing XP on the laptop did NOT cause the problem, sent it off for repairs in the middle of June. I was given a 2 week time period for it to be finished.

After a week and a half they sent me an e-mail saying that parts were on order and it might be another week. So July 8th was the new date.

After the 9th I called HP again and again was told parts were still on order. I was given a new date of July 22nd! I e-mailed HP's CEO and was contacted a few days later. HP said that they had been authorized to replace this series of laptop and asked me to fax in the specs from the broken one, which I did. About 2 weeks later a laptop was shipped to my old address (after having given HP the new one on 3 occasions: when I first called tech support, when I e-mailed the CEO, and when the case manager contacted me).

The laptop arrived and so far the only thing that doesn't work is DVD burning. Sure, it gets about 92% done, then dies. I've given up though and decided to just not buy HP products anymore.

To those who are having the problems mentioned for HP I strongly suggest sending an e-mail to Mark Hurd, the CEO. He doesn't write back personally obviously but someone contacted me just a day or two later.

It's just too bad HP has come to this (whether it's nVidia's fault or not is open to debate) but after an issue arises it is up to the manufacturer to take responsibility for their products. Man, I remember the days of HP meaning quality, the 2, 3, 4, and 5 series of laser printers were slow, sure, but they were steel and lasted forever. Now they sell these plastic pieces of crap that die after a year and, when contacted, all HP will do is give you $50 off of a new one. Wow, did Carly destroy HP or what?

Not to mention their workstations.

HP is also quite popular for their laptops.

Looks reminiscent of the Structured Visual Navigation Widget from 1994, and SVN itself is older than that. And there are certainly various apparently-similar displays around various DECwindows and X Window applications.

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/globalcitizenship/environment/contactemail.html I asked them what they were going to do about this. If they get enough complaints, maybe they'd just do something about it. Of course you can also choose to spend the next two minutes writing a smart comment instead of trying to do something about it. If you do what you did, you get what you got.

It's like finding 'hypocrisy' in the dictionary: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/globalcitizenship/environment/index.html

Someone named John Robson commented on the story linked by the Slashdot story. He said, "HP should be penalised for that."

No need to worry, John. HP is in a Slashdot story. There will be very capable people, I think, who say to themselves, "Maybe I should apply for a job at HP. Nah, maybe not."

The parent comment says, "My experience[s] with HP have been increasingly disappointing. Recently..."

That's been our experience, too. HP seems to be getting a little better, however, now that Carly Fiorina has left. Before, it was REALLY ugly.

How does excessive packaging happen? It happens because people become so unhappy working for a company that they slip into becoming robotic drones. Nothing matters. They just try to get through each day. Illogical packaging is only one of the many, many illogical things that happen every day. Those people never go to hell, because if they arrive there, Satan says, "You've suffered enough. You don't belong here."

At first I thought this was just a prank pulled by someone who didn't like HP, but after reading the comments I seem to have to believe it's true. It makes you see this in a whole new light.

Dont buy Dell for that class of Laptops. They dont serve that specific market well.

But HP does.

Go to http://www.hp.com/

Click on the Notebooks & Tablets link in Small & Medium Business tab on their website front page (at least in the US).

Then click on the 'Performance' notebooks links.

Every single one of those supports 8GB of ram, 802.11abgn cards, and Vista/XP both in the box.

Then go back and click on the 'Balanced Mobility Notebooks'. Nearly half of these support 8gb, all support 802.11abgn, and Vista/XP.

HP specializes in 'engineering workstation laptops' for folks running x64 windows and very high-memory-use cad/cam/cae use.

I'm writing this from an HP Compaq 8710w, and its literally the best laptop I've ever owned (C2D2.4, 4GB memory, Nvidia Quadro w/ 512mb, fast hdd, intel 802.11abgn, very nice 17" widescreen). The Dell's are great for vanilla corporate road warrios who spend most of their time in MS Office, Outlook, and the institutional apps. They're a great mid-level vendor for corporate laptops (latitudes).

But HP is the best, IME, in the high-end laptops.

Good luck!

PS, you're going to get financially pwned to put 8GB of ram in your laptop. Nearly every laptop on the planet only has 2 memory slots, so you're forced to buy 2x4GB chips, which is going to be very expensive.

May be better off to get 1x4GB now, or better yet, 2x2GB, and just be prepared to put bigger sticks in there 2-3 years from now when the 4gb sticks are much cheaper.

They don't even have a Vista option. They're all Vista licensed "with Windows XP Professional custom installed." Prices from <$600 to over $8k. No, I don't work for HP.

Memristors and how they work: HP Labs Memristor FAQ.

I agree with the "used" approach.

I spent $100 on a deal for two used Compaq Armada M300 machines (PIII) and a docking station. They're small (barely bigger than an Eee PC in one dimension, because the screen is 4:3 aspect), light (magnesium shell), 1024x768 12" displays, run various version of Linux and PCMCIA wifi with no problems, and even run Windows 2000 fine (I haven't tried XP). What more do I really need for web browsing and e-mail? These things aren't for gaming or heavy-duty stuff anyway. The only downside has been the battery life and the cost of it: ~$100 more for replacement batteries that give only ~2.5hrs, because the batteries that came with the units were dead. Still, 2 laptops for the price of one EeePC ain't bad, and the form factor is fairly similar. Oh, and the wifi sticking out of the PCMCIA slot looks a bit ugly, but so what.

I bought an HP2133 with Vista even though it is available with SUSE. When I bought it the only way to get the most powerful hardware was to buy the Vista configuration. It was my first experience with Vista so I played with it for a few days, but now it is happily running Kubuntu. It is not even dual boot; 100% all Linux. If I could have gotten the big iron with SUSE I would have.

Are IBM, HP, or Sun on the scale you require. Honestly there are many, many options out there when you deal with Linux. It is no longer just an OS for hobbyists.

i still can't buy a PC without windows on it (unless it's a mac) that has to be much more anticompetitive.

Sure you can. Dell sells PCs with Ubuntu, and PCs sans OS (N-series). HP sells machines that can be preloaded with FreeDOS or SUSE Linux.

Most small OEMs offer PCs with either no OS or FreeDOS and some will install just about any OS you request. There is even one small OEM that I know that sells nothing but machines pre-loaded with Linux.

Why wasn't this included in the review?

It starts around $500, has a great keyboard without the bastardized right shift key, is smaller than the three reviewed, and gets great battery life.

http://h40059.www4.hp.com/hp2133/

Cheap and dead good setup: ProLiant DL180 + 1TB disks w/ compatible trays + Linux + Zumastor

The HP ProLiant DL180 server is a 2U rack server with 12 SATA 3.5 slots starting at US $1299. You may also use the older DL320s but its processor is less powerful, it only admits 8GB RAM and the machine is more expensive.

Buy the server, then buy 12 empty trays at US $25. I've always bought them at SCSITray (you are looking for part number 373211-001

Now, but 2x80GB SATA disks for system in RAID-1 and 10x1TB SATA disks for data in RAID-5 (if you want RAID-6, you need a P400 controller with BBWC or a P800 controller with BBWC, the P600 won't work with > 2TB volumes).

For the software part, install Linux and Zumastor, which provides ZFS-like features on top of any Linux filesystem (I'm using it on top of ext3, some people prefer XFS). In case you want to have several replicated fileservers, Zumastor does replication automagically for you.

After all, we've been able to plug in a decent garbage collector into sloppily written C programs for 15+ years now ...