Wise

On another note, I just recently received my HP 2570p hard drive caddy! I'm thinking about swapping in a 128GB SSD to boot off of and using the HDD that it came with as my storage in the drive caddy. Do you guys have any recommendations for cheap 128GB SSD's?

Ah! I finally fixed it. Surprisingly, I had checked this earlier, but had made a crucial mistake. As basic troubleshooting, if you open up sound mixer, you can see all programs currently playing sound that has notified windows. However, I had several programs and one was hidden off the visible area of the sound mixer and I had forgotten to scroll to check all of the programs. Luckily, just as I was about to do a complete fresh install of Windows, I checked it one last time and this time noticed the program causing the errors. After I had done a fresh install of Windows, I had also installed all of the HP security tools so I could utilize the fingerprint scanner. HP security manager itself uses the DigitalPersona verification solution to implement the fingerprint scanner. This was the program that was giving me headaches. DPAgent.exe is one troublesome program. It was picking up keystrokes apparently (which is worrisome enough) and generating random noise (sounds like a malware). I had to go into the registry to change several key values in order to prevent it from starting up (It isn't listed among the run at startup programs). All in all, thank god I figured out the issue and now if anyone else has the same problem, I've saved them a whole lot of HEADACHES. P.S. @Nando So sad to hear about HP not continuing the 12" line. I guess we'll be owning this laptop for some time.

Has anyone else had this problem or any clues as to what might be causing it? It is driving me bananas .

The scary thing is that I almost made the mistake of purchasing the X230 because of those exact NBR posts. Thank goodness for Tech Inferno and Nando's comparison thread. My friend has the X230 that he purchased for $1200 USD and I have the 2570p i7 that I purchased for $450 USD and (despite my bias) ignoring price alone, I would pick the 2570p. Although I guess one benefit of having some many people in the market for ultra-portables look towards the x230 means that I can pick up really nice deals like the i7 for just $450. On a side note, I just purchased the G.SKILL 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) stick from Newegg and it works fine. I haven't run any performance tests yet, but my 2570p seems a lot faster. I most likely could have gotten another stick of 4GB for a lot cheaper, but I didn't want to be stuck with a bad product and bad customer service. Also, there has been something odd that I have been noticing and is bothering me to no ends. I wiped my drive and installed Windoze Ultimate 64 bit to accommodate the RAM upgrade. I am not very sure when it started (because I use a USB keyboard for most of the time), but whenever I am typing on the built-in keyboard, I get a series of beeps (that sound like a mix between the click sound you get from Windows and a blip, so a hard mechanical sound) followed by a Beep-Boop sound (sounds when you disconnect a device but less harsh and more electronic). I have tried several system restores to see if anything I installed might be the problem, but so far no dice. Through experimentation, I have verified that the problem only occurs when I'm TYPING on the built-in keyboard although there might be a slight lag time. I can use the computer with a mouse or an external keyboard without evoking the wrath of the Random Beeps but when I begin typing on the built-in keyboard the Random Beeps rears its ugly head after a variable amount of keystrokes. Has anyone had a similar type of issue to mine? I don't want to have to go through the hassle of a fresh install and all those drivers installations and restarts.

Hello everyone! I recently purchased a HP 2570p after Nando4's comparison confirmed my choice over the Lenovo x230. I have the i7-3520M CPU variant and am looking for a good eGPU set up. Should I purchase the PE4H with PCIEMM-060B cable or the A cable? I'll post my results based on your suggestions here and I might be trying out some mods. I don't have too much experience in laptop modding, but I am familiar with programming.