Unofficial HP Pavillion ZE2308WM Support Thread

[scottmil]

I'm getting ready to get my laptop for Christmas. I intend of dual booting it with Ubuntu 5.1. I planned on wipping all of the HP crap off the HDD and doing two fresh installs. I didn't know if anyone else has done anything similar to this. If so, what did you do and did you run into any problems.

Scott

 

[cornut]

I just have the one Windows partition but I did format it and reinstall to get rid of HP's junk. I prefer getting rid of the software with a format to get rid of every little trace. Sure you can just msconfig and set it not to load the stuff too but that wastes space.. I installed Photoshop, a few select games, adobe pro, nero, home site, dreamweaver, Office, and basic plugins/codecs for DVD's, various audio files etc.. Oh and most importantly... Firefox. Now the notebook suits me, and not HP and their partners

I don't see why a dual boot wouldn't work though.. shouldn't be any different from a desktop

key word = shouldn't

 

[scottmil]

I wouldn't think that a dual boot would be different from a desktop. When you did a fresh XP install were there any HP programs that the laptop needed for the wireless or power management or anyhting. I know I've worked on Gateways with that type of setup, but I didn't know if the HP did. I guess you maybe able to get them from HP's site anyway. Any suggestions?

 

[Slicedbread]

You might run into a problem with the broadcom wireless chipset and maybe the audio chipset.

 

[cornut]

well the Windows CD they give you is a windows CD... exactly that, with a different cover. You and I know that is great . PC's I have owned in the past would be 1 CD, it included windows, and the manufacturers software and you don't have much of a choice what ya get. Well HP supplies 2 CD's, the second is the drivers and software. When installing the drivers you can just choose the drivers and "uncheck" all of the software(besides the DVD software if you want that). I just did the drivers. I didn't even do the software for the wireless.. I got annoyed when I first had the notebook and I had both that software and Windows telling me the same thing.. I just use Windows to control the wireless. HP's site has the latest bios, and a download to fix the problem of the CPU saying it is only running at 800mhz. If you use Firefox, you'll also have to visit the Synaptec website in order to get their latest driver for our mouse pad. With HP's driver it only works under IE. Other than those, the CD has ya covered

 

[Slicedbread]

I was saying on linux you could run into those problems...

Anyways you can install everything from the cd into windows without anything slowing you down except the system default settings option. For what ever reason it slows the comp down enormously.

I recommend installing the hp help and suppor, windvd, sonic and norton stuff from the reinstall dvd. Then install openoffice from openoffice.org if you dont have ms office 2k3

 

[scottmil]

What are you refering to by the system defult settings option. I haven't recieved my laptop yet. Is this just an option that installs all original software, or is this a specific program/driver that does/doesn't need to be installed.

Scott

 

[n8r0n]

I have been running dual boot Ubuntu/WinXP on my 2308wm since I got it on black friday. The only issue I have not been able to resolve (besides the typical ATI driver issue) is the wireless. Rather than fuss over it too much I have been using a wireless PCMCIA card I had laying around. Aside from that, the laptop runs great with Ubuntu!

 

[Slicedbread]

Originally posted by: scottmil
What are you refering to by the system defult settings option. I haven't recieved my laptop yet. Is this just an option that installs all original software, or is this a specific program/driver that does/doesn't need to be installed.

Scott

After you reformat you can choose the stuff you want to install from the recovery disk, just dont install anything that says HP.

 

[PowerEdge]

With regards to the Radeon Omega Drivers, should I turn "FastWrites" On or Off?

 

[scottmil]

After i wiped my drive and did a fresh install i installed a select few items from the drivers disc. Afterwords there were two folders on my harddrive SYSTEM.SAV and swsetup. The firest one seems to be install logs, but the other seems to have dll's etc. I was wondering if anyone has had any luck in removeing these with out reprecution.

Scott

 

[Slicedbread]

They are the driver installation files and logs...

 

[xdeLitez]

For everyone who has this laptop... do you have any dead pixels? I found a couple, kinda pissed. What do I do now? I doubt they have replacements b/c it was a black friday limited deal.

 

[cornut]

i have 7-8 of them in a row... just a little line of dead pixels

 

[GreenMonkey]

No dead pixels here

But anyone else notice choppy performance when playing games? Seems like HDD lag to me...

PS I'm running 1GB ram.

 

[Gunslinger08]

Originally posted by: GreenMonkey
No dead pixels here

But anyone else notice choppy performance when playing games? Seems like HDD lag to me...

PS I'm running 1GB ram.

What game are you playing? Warcraft III runs like a charm at 1024x768.

 

[GreenMonkey]

Cnc Generals ZH
Baldur's Gate II
Heroes of Might and Magic 3

nothing that would tax the processor or video card, really. I suspect maybe an undetected HP program running or something. Seems like HDD lag to me, rather than video lag.

 

[mikechek]

Just wondering if anyone has done a cpu upgrade. I was thinking of putting a Turion MT-40 in. I did add a Gig of ram and a 100 Gig Hd(Huge performance jump).

 

[Reclaimer]

Sorry to dig up an older thread. I used this thread and the one from Hardforum as a reference to upgrade my ZE2308WM.
It just so happened that my kid brother who works in a computer store gave me a clawhammer 3000 mobile CPU and I didn't have anywhere to put it.. until I decided to try to put it my HP-Pavillion ZE2308WM.

Using the maintenance manual provided, I took apart the laptop.. which took forever, and I replaced the Sempron 2800 and installed the AMD 3000 clawhammer mobile 64 CPU.

It works and it works well. Temps are up a little bit, speedfan shows that I never get above 130F during a virus scan or defragging, and on "battery power" settings, the temps vary between 80 to 130 depending on what the thing is doing.
But using it for a week now with the clawhammer and a one gig stick of PC3200, things are working nicely.

Next I'll put a better hard drive in.

 

[PowerEdge]

Someone help me out here, I can set my laptop to Max Battery, but when I run CPU-ID it still says the PCU is running at 1.6ghz, and not 800mhz. I go through battery fairly quick. Even when I go to Control Panel-System under MAX Battery, it states my cpu is running at 1.6. Anyone else have a similar problem?

 

[Gunslinger08]

Originally posted by: PowerEdge
Someone help me out here, I can set my laptop to Max Battery, but when I run CPU-ID it still says the PCU is running at 1.6ghz, and not 800mhz. I go through battery fairly quick. Even when I go to Control Panel-System under MAX Battery, it states my cpu is running at 1.6. Anyone else have a similar problem?

How long is your battery lasting?

 

[PowerEdge]

1hr and 30minutes max...

 

[zeroedgesquare]

Does anyone know if a Athlon 64 mobile will work?

 

[Nitnoy]

The temperature of the hard drive gets pretty high at 53C ... Outside temp is 90F at this time of the year ... I have my laptop on a 1 inch stand, but that doesn't seem enough; and I turn off the laptop when the drive gets that hot ... Does anbody see the drive that hot, and how do you deal with it ?
Thanks,
Vinh.

 

[NeoPTLD]

Ok, so I got the Broadcom modem utility that allows better monitoring of wireless around the area. I'm having trouble getting it to work when I'm using locally assigned MAC Address. Whenver locally assigned MAC addressed is enabled, the Broadcom software errors out.