I'm embarassed to report that my battery's problem was me: apparently I didn't put it in properly. The HP guy demonstrated how to put it in, but I can't figure out what he was doing differently.

The N53SN has had a lot of reported problems recently, if you look at the posts in the forum. Among them are GPU driver compatibility problems, hardware buttons stop functioning after removal of bloatware even if you don't remove the ATK driver, super-flexy keyboards, and most recently screen problems.

To be fair, the N53SN has been available for a lot longer than the dv6-6001TX, so people have had between 1-2 months to find all these problems. I'm sure that we'll start seeing problem reports for the dv6 in 1-2 months. Most of the N53SN's problems seem to be user-solvable though, so it's a question of how much fiddling you are willing to do with your notebook before you're willing to use it. If you're familiar with Asus notebooks, the N53SN issues should pose little challenge for you, and moving to HP can be quite harrowing if you're not prepared to do a lot of research and asking, as I have personally experienced.

Anyway, short breakdown of why I picked the dv6 over my initial choice of the Asus N43SL:

1) Supposedly better heat performance as demonstrated by reveephon. The Asus N series' vent design is largely non-existent because the air intake comes through keyboard and I'm not confident with that.

2) Better graphics card. I initially wanted the nVidia card because of the theoretical simplicity and automation of Optimus and I do find switching between the two video cards on the dv6 is harder than it should be, but I figure I can make scripts to simplify that.

3) Dimensions. The dv6 is one of the smaller 15-inchers that I've come across. The N53's size put me off, which is why I waited for the N43SL. Bloody numpad keyboard annoys me, though, because I'm used to notebook keyboards without them.

Catch is that if you turn off the Radeon manually, it's a lot of clicks before you can turn it back on again. I'm planning to write a little script to help with this. If it works well, I might stick it up here.

Hang on... How come Acid_RuleZz' HWMonitor has a HDD readout and mine doesn't?

@Vox: You have to switch manually. It's actually quite simply done: right-click and choose your graphics card. However, there is no indicator that tells you which card is currently active.

As for comparisons with other graphics cars, I would point you to notebookcheck.net, but apparently a lot of people here don't trust that site's ranking of graphics cards. It's still pretty comprehensive, though and should give you a rough idea of where the dv6's card stands in relation to the nVidia GT555M

This post has been edited by ThisIsBoletaria: Apr 25 2011, 06:58 PM


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To be honest, I don't know yet. I haven't found time to run a Crysis 2 benchmark for this, which should give enough info to compare the two in terms of real world frames-per-second performance.

Whatever it is, the dv6's Radeon 6770M is probably the most powerful available in the Malaysian market, because I haven't seen any other notebooks around with a GT 555M.

Depends on you, really. My eyes quite happily accept 15-16 fps as perfectly playable. Some people can't live with an fps below 60.

@Vox: I ran a quick and dirty test with Crysis 2's sub intro up to when you can actually start moving around with a gun in your hand. If you've played Crysis 2 before, you know that there's a lot going on in that section because Crytek likes to use the intro section to showcase the engine.

Settings used were the built-in Extreme graphics setting at 1366x768 resolution.

Fraps results was minimum 21 (at about the time Prophet lets loose with the light cannon at the alien Ceph), but tended to run around 24-33 fps in general. Remember that Fraps tends to reduce your recorded FPS from the actual ability of the hardware, so up that value by maybe 10%. I say this puts the 6770 on par with the GT 555M at least.

Heat reached a high of about 87 C, and this is without any notebook cooler in a relatively warm room with little to no air movement from the ceiling fan. System temperature returned to idle levels about 3 minutes after stopping the game, but went down to about 60 C almost immediately after stopping. Be warned, the edge of the chassis near the vent gets really really hot and the left area of the keyboard (around the "F1" - "3" keys) get a little uncomfortable, like you have your hand beneath a thick blanket with no fan on.

This is the first time I've run anything at full settings and maximum resolution and still got something playable. Holy s%#t is the phrase that came to my mind, but let's be honest, Crysis 2 isn't as demanding as Crysis was on the hardware at the time.

I'm also happily impressed with the dv6's cooling. It can work well without a cooler, but I think I'm going to get a U2 tomorrow for safety's sake.

@Acid_RuleZz: Yeah, my HDD is also a Hitachi. Maybe you're using a different version of HW Monitor? I'm running the 64-bit version 1.17.0


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@joonwei23: Of course, some people like me consider Norton to be a virus in and of itself.

@imryan: HP has always been known for heat problem and the dv6 has its heat issues. However, unlike older HP models, the dv6's heat problem seems to be only limited to somewhat uncomfortable temperatures under your left hand during heavy use.

It seems to have better cooling for the CPU and GPU than the N53SN, hitting an average max temp of about 86 Celsius when gaming (my tests were with Crysis 2's intro level and Mass Effect's Eden Prime mission, both at 1366 x 768 res and the highest graphics settings available in menu), and it will immediately drop to around 60 C after you tab away or quit the game. Idle temperatures average about 48 C and tend to max at about 52 C without cooler.

For comparison, N53SN users regularly worry about going above 90 C under gaming loads. Idle temperatures are comparable.

I had put up a test report a few pages back. Hope it helps.

This post has been edited by ThisIsBoletaria: Apr 28 2011, 07:36 AM

The left hand runs warm even under idle. It's not dangerous, just uncomfortable for people not used to it (eg. Ex-Asus users like me). Under load, it can get very very hot, but is still usable. Just don't touch the body of the notebook close to the vent.

As far as I can tell, no. I'm talking about it feeling uncomfortable to me and other people used to better insulation between the hard drive heat and your left hand. Your mileage may vary.

Noticed the workmanship issue too. Mine is at the curved corner near the DVD drive.

I think Imm the only sad bloke with no HDD temperature output for some reason. Maybe I need to jiggle some cables or something.

Still no joy, and I lose GPU temperature readout. Strangely enough, I get battery data.

Yeah, I noticed. So I don't know what's so different or unique about my system that I don't get any HDD temp readout while everyone else does. It's not mission-critical because I don't feel any heat near the HDD area anyway, but it's just annoying.

Device Manager gives my hard drive as Hitachi HTS547575A9E384, which seems to be what Acid_RuleZz has, and his HWMonitor gives a temperature readout for that.

Maybe your hard drive was doing something at the time. I notice that the hard drive on the dv6 seems to drag down the system a lot when under load. I noticed this when I was copying over data from my old hard drive the first time: everything simply went slower.

Bow chika wow wow.

You're still using Norton? Norton never switches off, even when you tell it to switch off. It's part of why people hate it so much. Uninstall Norton and get AVG Free or ESET NOD32 (paid).

@thieflord: Using extreme settings at 1366 x 768 resolution and no AA, Crysis 2's intro level leaves me at about 80+ Celcius. With no cooler. In a relatively hot room where the fan doesn't seem to be able to cool anything at all.

Your A53SV hits these temperatures with or without cooler?

This post has been edited by ThisIsBoletaria: May 3 2011, 09:57 PM

Um... I'm in a dv6-6001tx thread...

Anyway, I ask because my dad's gone and bought an A53Sv. Any useful heat control tips that I can pass to him? Not that he's a hardcore gamer or anything.

This post has been edited by ThisIsBoletaria: May 3 2011, 10:05 PM