Simple way to settle this: take a screenshot of the temperatures for both the Lenovo Y560P and the HP dv6 under these test conditions in an air-conditioned room set to 24 degrees C:

1) Idle
2) Normal load (playing music, surfing)
3) High load (playing hi definition video)
4) Extreme load (playing very hi-requirement game/benchmark at max settings)

Then post the screenshots and we'll see lah. The question of heat management and cooling is quite important to us in hot Malaysia.



Also, can anyone with the dv6 check which of the SATA slots the HDD and optical drive are connected to? The Sandy Bridge problem affects only ports 2-5, so if the HDD and optical drive are connected to ports 0 and 1, the dv6 should be okay. See here for instructions on how to check it.

This post has been edited by ThisIsBoletaria: Feb 9 2011, 04:19 PM

Crap. I don't care much about the eSATA because I don't have anything that uses it anyway, but the optical drive is a problem.

Has HP said anything to you about replacing the motherboard once the fixed motherboards come out?

Question 1: Heat

Can you do a heat test to show how hot the CPU and GPU become under idling conditions (do nothing, a bit of internet surfing, maybe some torrenting or music playing) and heavy load conditions (gaming, etc)? Kindly note if you were using a notebook cooler during the tests, and the ambient room temperature at the time or if you were doing it with the AC on or the fan on.

Question 2: Graphics switching (method)

Can you tell us how ATI's system does it? Is there a hardware button? Is there a list that you can edit to tell the system to switch to the ATI GPU automatically if X program is run?

Question 3: Graphics switching (implementation)

nVidia's competing Optimus system does a theoretically automatic shift between the Intel GPU and the nVidia GPU with almost no visible transition (no black screen, screen distortion or short flash of weirdness). Does ATI's
solution also do it seamlessly, or is there still the old temporarily black screen/must reboot/etc?

Question 4: RAM slots

Asus' N53S series has 4 total RAM slots. Can you please check how many RAM slots the dv6 has? How was the RAM supplied out of the box (2x2GB, 1x4GB, etc)?

Question 5: Installed bloatware

What programs does HP install for you on the system? Are any of them critical to the normal functioning of the system (eg. Asus' ATK thingy - uninstall this and your hardware shortcuts stop working)?

Question 6: Heat architecture

Can you take pictures of the bottom of the notebook so that we can see where the intake vents and cooling fans are?

Question 7: Pictures

While you're at it, can you take a few pictures of the keyboard, sides (to see the layout of the USB ports etc) and so on, just to poison us?


Thanks.

This post has been edited by ThisIsBoletaria: Apr 20 2011, 07:18 AM

Thanks for the info. A few follow-up questions, though:



So, there is no hardware switch for this? Any indicators that can help you tell which GPU is being used?



Found the pictures, but missing a few views. I'd appreciate pics of the following:

- underside of the notebook
- right side of the notebook

If possible, can you also take a photo of the notebook with the lid closed and an A4 piece of paper put more or less in the centre of the lid? Good size reference.

Lastly, I might have missed it, but what material is the notebook body made of: plastic or some mystery metal?

This post has been edited by ThisIsBoletaria: Apr 20 2011, 11:30 AM

Guys, HP is also selling the dv4, with similar specs to this dv6, only with a 640gb hard drive for RM 2899. Does anyone know if it has simiular heat performance to the dv6?

The dv4 I saw had an i5 2410M, 4GB RAM, 640GB hard disk, same graphics card as the dv6. No Beats headphones was mentioned, and I'm not sure if it had Beats audio to start with. Free upgrade to 8GB RAM included in the RM 2899 price.

For heat, if it was using the i7, I would expect higher heat, but I wonder how the dissipation is like. Battery is in the middle of the machine, next to the HDD.

Note that it will only allow you to shrink the C: drive down to about 350GB because of how HP set up the computer. To get around this, I used a free partitioning program called MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Still trying to get used to the keyboard, and hoping the BIOS update will solve my battery charging issue.

Battery does not charge. Using System Diagnostics (F2 during startup), System Information shows that there is a battery, but Battery Test doesn't detect any battery installed. Quite annoying.

Also, for those of you who don't like HP's default "press Fn+F2 to actually use F2", go into the system BIOS (F10 during startup), and disable Action Keys.

Edit: Nope, didn't help. Still trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong

This post has been edited by ThisIsBoletaria: Apr 23 2011, 10:18 AM

I did nothing to the hard drive except shrink the C: drive from the original size and create two new drives for programs and data. Everything remained intact, and I didn't even have to fix the boot manager as I used to have to do when using other partitioning programs.


Battery issues: I think I got a dud battery. Taking it back to the shop to let them have a look at it.

Edit: Turned out the problem with my battery was me. I didn't put the battery in properly. I asked the Hp guy how to put it in properly and he demonstrated it, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what the difference was with how I had put it in. Oh well...

This post has been edited by ThisIsBoletaria: Apr 23 2011, 03:15 PM