HP DM1

n3tw0rk5 said:
Well you can tell i'm not one for reading manuals, managed to start the webos boot by accident(still not sure how but a canny surprise), is this on the hdd or on the mboard?
ie once I shove in a new hdd is it bye bye webos?
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Think it must be on the hdd as I didnt even boot my original drive and the one I put in has no webos
 
The webos is in a partition on the HDD. However, the last time I swapped HDDs using the Win 7 transfer stuff (my old Lenovo laptop), it copied the partition with the lenovo system restore stuff in. So hpefully Win 7 would do the same with the HP webos partition when transferring the system to a new drive. However, if you're doing a completely fresh install on a new drive then I suspect you'll have to live without webos. Alternatively, transfer now and install Win 7 64 bit over the top afterwards (if you're system came with the 32 bit version). All the partitions (for HP recovery and webos) were retained when I changed my DM1 from 32 to 64 bit.
 
Yes, so actually you probably don't loose that as its firmware, just the restore ability can't remember what the docs said on wiping the disc now.
 
sandys said:
Yes, so actually you probably don't loose that as its firmware, just the restore ability can't remember what the docs said on wiping the disc now.
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Was only firmware on certain boards iirc, the boards I had installed it on the hdd so seems the hp webos is the same, odd they dont offer it as a download then?
 
Nice to see this thread growing each time I visit.

Feedback, experience and mini-review

I bought my DM1-4027sa before Christmas fromNo competitor names, hehehe. It was £349 and considering the size, weight and specification, I was happy to pay that. I was gutted when it dropped to the £299 mark, oh well.

One thing I wanted to investigate was how easily I could do upgrades on it, i.e. can the backlid slide open, and are the components user upgradable? The answer was yes to both but I needed two trips to the shop, as I did some prior research online to make sure.

I think the two essential upgrades are: 1) SSD and 2) 2 x 4Gb 1333mhz ram

In the end, I bought a Crucial M4 64Gb and some Corsair ram. Since I had a spare copy of Win7 64bit, I installed that.

Some feedback...

1) the laptop has had a few bios revisions, all of which recognised the SSD and 8Gb ram. BUT, the latest bios is very much a view only bios, with many of the settings locked / greyed out. I remember the bios it came with actually allowed you to change IDE / AHCI mode. The latest, F13, is presumably (I hope) set on AHCI.

2) a weird one, which I hope I'd fixed. Upon a cold boot or reboot, and logged into Windows, the screen would quite randomly be full of white noise, which turns out to be a major crash. A reboot tends to make it go away but if I'm working on a document on the laptop, I'd half expect it to return. Not so brilliant. I didn't think it was the drivers (tried several). I've even reinstalled Windows a few times. I presume it isn't the screen itself. In the end, I wondered if it'd been the APU, either faulty or not being cooled properly. Reviews suggest the chip shouldn't be any hotter than 70c. So, I unscrewed the heatsink to reveal the tiny APU (great thing about APU = CPU + GPU on 1 chip). All looked ok, with plenty of thermal paste. I decided to clean up the generic paste on the APU and the heatsink, then applied a layer of Arctic Silver 5. Placed the heatsink back on, making sure it's seated and tightened. Downloaded the latest copy of GPU-Z (which recognises the E450) and ran a couple of stress tests with it. With AS5, the chip never went above 64c. I've run a few tests for 8-10 hours over a number of weeks, no crashes so far.

3) One of the great things about the DM1-4027sa is how upgrade friendly it is. You can even change your WLAN card should you wish (I'm thinking the BigFoot 1102, but I'll never game on this laptop anyway).

I can't see much difference between the 4027sa and the current 4125ea. They both share the same MT06 battery. They both have the same E450 APU and 4Gb ram. Without opening up the 4125ea, difficult to see if it's indeed a refresh, or just a slight tweak to some of the components inside (maybe a more efficient heatsink, or a different WLAN card, etc.).

If you're willing to spend an extra £200 for Win7 64 bit, 8Gb 1333mhz ram and say a 64Gb SSD, this laptop is extremely rewarding, albeit with the somewhat flimsy plasticky exterior / interior, which is a magnet for oily fingers. It's not much bigger or heavier than the current wave of Ultrabooks. The GPU is arguably better. This laptop is more than capable if the majority of tasks is web browsing, word processing / speadsheets, perhaps a bit of HD videos / streaming online and some casual gaming on Steam.

For a sub-12 inch laptop around the £349 region, the dm1-4xxx is hard to beat. Unless the components start to fail or the battery dies quickly, I don't feel there's a need to replace the laptop any time soon.
 
Hey, Billio - what were the CPU temps before you cleaned and replaced with AS5?


Mine's on "back order" with HP (employee purchase site - I work for them for the next 3 weeks, anyway). 8th March.

really considering an SSD (could do with a spare largish HDD to use as NAS - so works well). But is the upgrade of 4Gb to 8 of RAM really that worthwhile on a machine with such a limited CPU?
 
Temps were near 70c pre-AS5. Just make sure the fan grills are clear for decent airflow. The fan is very tiny but temps in the mid 60s with AS5 is pretty good.

SSD is a no brainer these days, if you a) can afford one and b) doesn't require stacks of digital space.

When I bought the DM1-4027sa, it is really just something I can travel with so I can browse the web, check emails and use OpenOffice (and everything encrypted). That's it. And because the laptop gets a fair amount of physical abuse, I didn't want a mechanical drive that could fail on me. The cost of a 64Gb SSD (and the fast boot-up / shutdown time) was enough to persuade me.

4Gb or 8Gb. Officially, the DM1 doesn't support anything more than 4Gb. That didn't stop me from trying. In terms of performance, there's probably not much advantage in the extra ram but the increase in speed should make a difference. I believe the ram is shared, which benefits both CPU and GPU. The E-450 APU supports 1333mhz ram (HP provided 1066mhz with my laptop, which I've made use of elsewhere).

The reason for 8Gb, well, is because I can. I bought 2 x 4Gb for under £40, which is just ridiculous. I can remember ram being a lot more expensive not too long ago.

With the SSD and the ram, I don't think I'll need to buy another laptop for a few years. The components should be supported by Windows 8. It's sufficiently light without hurting my shoulders. One can be picky about the plastic exterior / interior, screen quality, etc. but there's nothing on the market for this price for a 11.6" laptop right now. I bought a good Targus case and an external DVD-RW with it. Everything pretty much covered.

I can't see Ultrabooks dropping to this price. The only alternative is an Android / Apple tablet with a keyboard dock perhaps. But the game changing moment could be the roll out of Windows 8 when the tablet and laptop market start to merge.
 
Fair point, RAM is cheap as chips these days. If I can make use of the 4Gb, say in my revo, then I might go for it.

I think I will go for the 64Gb Crucial M4 though - the 7200rpm HDD in the DM1 will again be great in the Revo, or in an enclosure as a NAS.
 
Bought one for my GF's b-day in Jan, can't remember the exact model but was the £300 one reduced from £500, a crooked idiot working at the 'Planet of PC's' at High Street Kensington tried to fob me off with the standard non-discounted version also sold at £300 instead, even though I'd reserved the last previously sold for £500 discounted one in London to my knowledge.

They look identical so I'm sure he'd conned a few clueless shoppers with that one. Anyway, it's a very sweet little machine, extremely cute and surprisingly powerful. I actually was a little envious despite having just bought a Dell Xps 15 l502 myself a week or two before (6g ram, i5 2430, GTX 525 1 gig) which is much more powerful but a lot bulkier too.

I'd go so far as to say that in terms of appearance and aesthetics it has almost mac levels of appeal to a lay person, and is a great laptop for a GF.


.
 
There is a strange perception perhaps that 'if it ain't chrome looking, it isn't hip and trendy'. What I like about the DM1 is precisely the use of the unfancy plastic, mainly because you only pay £349 for it. An 11.6" Ultrabook equivalent is around £800. If one isn't picky or interested in upgrades, the vanilla DM1 will be fine for most users.
 
ive been looking fo a while for something like this, this seems almost perfect for me, with the ssd upgrade and 8gb ram would these be ok for a bit of photoshop work?
 
adbp1 said:
ive been looking fo a while for something like this, this seems almost perfect for me, with the ssd upgrade and 8gb ram would these be ok for a bit of photoshop work?
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I wouldn't expect miracles.

If you are out and about and need to do the odd one, perhaps.

Windows Rating is apparently 3.9.
My Athlon Phenom II 840 gets 7.9 !
 
Damn. Turns out my Acer Revo only takes DDR2 RAM, and its DDR3 with the DM1.

Don't want to waste 2X2Gb sticks of RAM by spending £35 of 2x4Gb. Shame, the Revo could really have benefited from the extra 2GB

Ordered the Crucial M4 64Gb though and a eSata caddy for the other 320Gb disk. If its 7200 I might install that in the Revo instead though, as its really sluggish at the moment.
 
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