12.5" HP Elitebook 2570P Owner's Lounge

[xuhexiffi806]

MODIFICATIONS

so I got the stock 2570p as following:

i5-3320m, 8GB DDR3L, Intel 520 SSD 180GB, DVDRW, Intel 6205 Wireless-N, No Battery

I changed the CPU to an ULV chip, QD9R (i7-3689Y ES, BGA bridged to PGA), Intel 530 SSD 120GB, 9-Cell Battery and Weight Saver replacing DVDRW. Also installed a ExpressCard SD Reader because stock SD reader has half of the card popped out.

So the modified weight is about 4.2lbs with battery. if there was a 60w adapter I think it should be quite adequate.... At near 90% Battery this unit runs at about 8-9 Hours on Battery. (probably CPU is running ~6w @ 800MHz). The only downside is I cannot do restarts with this CPU (ES issue, couldn't find a QS or Retail..)

REVIEW

I came straight from ThinkPads and Latitudes. E6410, X200, X200t, X220t, X230t, E6420, T400s are the units I have used that are Elitebook competitors.

I have switched about 5~6 of them in the past 4 years. my first laptop is a DV2000 series which was terrible. But this time I'm not silly anymore and I'm only picking Hp's business line.

Case is sturdy.Software side is really bloat-ree and easy to configure. Screen is ok but lack of ambient light really hurts me... I was looking for one with a sensor, but almost nobody has it now.... performance vs. comfort problem. Case is really easy to open up/ for installation or odification.

Bads:

pgdn pgup is the biggest flaw I've discovered. using Fn combo to do these two is a pain. As you may see all these lenovo/dells have dedicated keys for these. Key quality is alright. not great. Night light is a joke, because the keyboard itself doesn't reflect the lights much. ThinkLight really lids up, and some Dells have straight-up backlit keyboard.

I think that completes whatever I can think of. LOL.<style type="text/css">.nobrtable br { display: none }</style><style type="text/css">.tablesmallfonts td {font-size: x-small;}</style>

[Tech Inferno Fan]

MODIFICATIONS

so I got the stock 2570p as following:

i5-3320m, 8GB DDR3L, Intel 520 SSD 180GB, DVDRW, Intel 6205 Wireless-N, No Battery

I changed the CPU to an ULV chip, QD9R (i7-3689Y ES, BGA bridged to PGA), Intel 530 SSD 120GB, 9-Cell Battery and Weight Saver replacing DVDRW. Also installed a ExpressCard SD Reader because stock SD reader has half of the card popped out.

So the modified weight is about 4.2lbs with battery. if there was a 60w adapter I think it should be quite adequate.... At near 90% Battery this unit runs at about 8-9 Hours on Battery. (probably CPU is running ~6w @ 800MHz). The only downside is I cannot do restarts with this CPU (ES issue, couldn't find a QS or Retail..)

REVIEW

I came straight from ThinkPads and Latitudes. E6410, X200, X200t, X220t, X230t, E6420, T400s are the units I have used that are Elitebook competitors.

I have switched about 5~6 of them in the past 4 years. my first laptop is a DV2000 series which was terrible. But this time I'm not silly anymore and I'm only picking Hp's business line.

Case is sturdy.Software side is really bloat-ree and easy to configure. Screen is ok but lack of ambient light really hurts me... I was looking for one with a sensor, but almost nobody has it now.... performance vs. comfort problem. Case is really easy to open up/ for installation or odification.

Bads:

pgdn pgup is the biggest flaw I've discovered. using Fn combo to do these two is a pain. As you may see all these lenovo/dells have dedicated keys for these. Key quality is alright. not great. Night light is a joke, because the keyboard itself doesn't reflect the lights much. ThinkLight really lids up, and some Dells have straight-up backlit keyboard.

I think that completes whatever I can think of. LOL.<style type="text/css">.nobrtable br { display: none }</style><style type="text/css">.tablesmallfonts td {font-size: x-small;}</style>

Congratulations on your acquistion. Interesting ULV CPU installation there that's for sure. Agree on your points. PGUP/DN, the screen, nightlight are the cons. PGUP/PDWN was initially annoying for me but I got used to it after a bit. Can even set up the trackpad to support two finger scroll to circumvent that issue. The 14" bigger brother from the same series, the 8470P does have dedicated PGUP/PGDN.

65W AC adapter is fine for even a 45W i7-quad upgrades 2570P. With your 13W ULV CPU you could use a 45W AC adapter as used by the Folio 9470M. According to the following review it weighs 365grams including cord. An amazon reviewer of one says it's half the thickness of the 65W version: Review HP EliteBook Folio 9470m Ultrabook - NotebookCheck.net Reviews. Think the ULV 12.5" Elitebook 820 G1 uses that same 45W one.

If you went for a ULV CPU to reduce battery life then recommend you peruse the battery life tweaks, particularly the enabling ASPMs tweak to extend battery life further. Though admittedly, the newer Haswell ULT (i3/i5/i7-4xxxU) platform used in Ultrabooks is noticably better for battery life since it combines the chipset on the CPU, and has further SLEEP optimization such as DEVSLP. A 2570P's socketted CPU is imho better suited for i7-quad upgrades. There getting a stack of affordable performance in a small chassis.

[xuhexiffi806]

so add a few things... my SSD is now INTEL 530, so it's much more energy-saving than Intel 520. performance is about par.

and I do see that all the advanced saver features are not on the 2570p. A bit disappointed, and for now I'm trying to not mess with the OS after I configed for a good while. But where can I ask for refunds? Very interested.......

and costs: my base unit was bought for about $340. used for about 1yr based on warranty count.

I sold 3320M for about 100, bought weight saver, 3689Y ES & 9-cell battery for about $65 total. sold old SSD for the new 530 one. So it's about the same at $320 or something. expires Aug2016.

One last CON on the 2570p. From industrial design standpoint, HP should be moderately ashamed of themselves by putting HDD next to the CPU/RAM slots. Not the first time I see their HDDs being cooked by high-heat CPU and RAM parts on HPs.

I understand that sometimes it is a space constraint, being that this is 12in and it packs socketted CPU as others cannot. But it is just too close for HDD. If you have SSD you can pretend nothing happens, as SSD are temperature-stable. But for HDD, if it is over 40C is not a good thing. If near 50C it is hurting the drive's life actually. So if anyone has HDD + SSD, please put HDD in extension bay.

[darkydark]

Hello, I recently got 2570p of ebay for a nice price that my first intention was to resell in my country as i have a client that has been offering me double the price i paid to get him one but following this thread it seems more and more that my behemot M6600 (compared to 2570p) will have go away as it looks like i can match its performance and have a super portable system when needed. 2570p was a basic i5 3510m, 4gb ram and 500gb hdd, serial number checking says it still has 18 months of warranty left, already called hp in my country and they said warranty is usable regardless of ownership.

Some initial plan about upgrades is:

1) get mSata to 2.5 Sata adapter - as my crucial m500 240gb is not even 6 months old and reselling would be a waste of money. Does anyone have any input which adapters to look into? Still havent look into them and dont know nothing except they exist. Living without SSD will be a nightmare.

2) Use odd as a caddy for 1tb toshiba drive i have around. 500gb it currently has will be added to my router as a network drive.

3) Get an eGpu setup - was looking into gtx560/660 as i have absolutely no need to use anything faster, but would still like an easy option to play on notebook panel. Still have a ton of reaserch to do about eGpu setups but the wast amount of information that Tech Inferno Fan and others provided and sorted into 1st post of this topic is amazing. If i get stuck with anything this community seems an awesome place to ask questions. Now i'm actually quite sad i sold my old msi gtx460 hawk talon attack card that was overclockable to 1ghz stable with no modifications

4) Get a quad core cpu. I'm really not looking for maximum performance here, but rather lowest possible price and coolest chip to some degree.

Already have caddy, external monitor, some old 12v-16a noname atx psu and a radeon 7770 (which will be sold for a nVidia card) waiting. Now off to read last 30-40 pages of this topic and move onto eGpu topic for more information about what i need and where to order it.

[badbadbad]

Welcome brother! Good to have you on board.

1.) Are you referring to this adapter? They even have a dual mSATA to SATA adapter for RAID-1 maybe (untested)?

2.) Good upgrade!

3.) eGPU setup in the 2570p is relatively easy since it's mostly plug and play. My setup uses an old but effective PE4L 2.1b + ATX PSU (Might change to an HD-Plex Pico PSU) + a GTX 460 1Gb OC (Might upgrade to Maxwell when they're affordable). Some recommend the EXP GDC for easy setup without an ATX PSU, but the experience with that adapter has been a bit shaky. @jacobsson can help you out there.

Fermi/Kepler cards in general have been very compatible with the eGPU adapters. Feedback with the GTX 660Ti has been great in the eGPU community so you can go with that. Stick to NVIDIA if you want Optimus capability (projecting to laptop screen instead of external monitor+GPU). AMD is capable of that too but with some tweaking. Tech Inferno Fan is the best adviser here.

Now the GTX 650Ti and GTX 750Ti usually need a DSDT override first to work with the 2570p, which just makes things more complicated if you're not into tinkering with Setup 1.X or PCIe compaction. Avoid purchasing these if you want to have a simple plug and play experience. Though as an Extremebook enthusiast, I'd still recommend getting the Setup 1.X from Tech Inferno Fan since you can do a lot of tweaks (first page) with the program, including battery-saving strategies and UEFI-based chainloading (if you're into that).

4.) Based on Tech Inferno Fan's post INFO: How to choose the most efficient 45W i7-quad

INFO: How to choose the most efficient 45W i7-quad

Summary: recommend a i7-3720QM or i7-3740QM/i7-3820QM as best value CPU upgrades with at most 9% performance variation between the three. The i7-37xxQM or i7-38xxQM being more power efficient, if battery life is important than the i7-36xxQM CPUs.

(Powerful, Expensive -> Power-saving, Cheap)

i7-38xxQM >> i7-37xxQM >>i7-36xxQM

Just make sure it's the G2 socket (rPGA) instead of the solder (BGA) type. BGA-to-PGA converted processors are also available for a much cheaper price. But once again, risk in performance drops are more common there compared to the ES/QS models of the same processor. Just hope for the best when buying the cheaper alternatives or go with OEM and warranty to cherry pick an adequate-performing CPU.

You might want to clarify your daily use for it, as there is SO MUCH you can do with the 2570p. You can even easily dual boot to OSX if you want (after a BCM4352 WiFi-ac upgrade).

[darkydark]

Welcome brother! Good to have you on board.

1.) Are you referring to this adapter? They even have a dual mSATA to SATA adapter for RAID-1 maybe (untested)?

1.1.) Yea something like that but from fleabay and a random seller. Something like this.

2.) Good upgrade!

3.) eGPU setup in the 2570p is relatively easy since it's mostly plug and play. My setup uses an old but effective PE4L 2.1b + ATX PSU (Might change to an HD-Plex Pico PSU) + a GTX 460 1Gb OC (Might upgrade to Maxwell when they're affordable). Some recommend the EXP GDC for easy setup without an ATX PSU, but the experience with that adapter has been a bit shaky. @jacobsson can help you out there.

Fermi/Kepler cards in general have been very compatible with the eGPU adapters. Feedback with the GTX 660Ti has been great in the eGPU community so you can go with that. Stick to NVIDIA if you want Optimus capability (projecting to laptop screen instead of external monitor+GPU). AMD is capable of that too but with some tweaking. Tech Inferno Fan is the best adviser here.

Now the GTX 650Ti and GTX 750Ti usually need a DSDT override first to work with the 2570p, which just makes things more complicated if you're not into tinkering with Setup 1.X or PCIe compaction. Avoid purchasing these if you want to have a simple plug and play experience. Though as an Extremebook enthusiast, I'd still recommend getting the Setup 1.X from Tech Inferno Fan since you can do a lot of tweaks (first page) with the program, including battery-saving strategies and UEFI-based chainloading (if you're into that).

3.2) I did my homework and already placed "Setup 1.3" on my shopping list, getting 33% on battery with an easy software tweak is hard to pass on and it is a good investment for future. Also for the moment i only have AMD card available for testing so even if i didnt want it - i need to donate for it 25$ is not the end of the world and it would help Tech Inferno Fan who i believe spent countless hours to make it. But that can be done once notebook arrives, which is sometime next week. I have "el cheapo" dell 12v adapters available locally for something like 15e and getting a second hand psu is not an issue and like i previously said have a noname that is rated for 16 amps on 12v rail.

My main issue is (if i remember correctly, since it was a very late night read) that EXP GVC has issues with accepting and working with Gen2 EC - basically people are forced to switch to gen1 and reduce their pcie x1 bandwidth. If thats the case - I wont cripple myself for the future, potentially kill the performance of the entire setup and will surly go with some form of PE4. By the looks of things now - PE4 with its reliability and support that you guys said you had looks more and more interesting. Fancy design can be replicated with a little diy project. Since i'm still into "not 100% sure i'll keep it" i'm trying to keep cost down as much as possible. I'd like to keep the option for both dc adapter and atx psu.

4.) Based on Tech Inferno Fan's post INFO: How to choose the most efficient 45W i7-quad

(Powerful, Expensive -> Power-saving, Cheap)

i7-38xxQM >> i7-37xxQM >>i7-36xxQM

Just make sure it's the G2 socket (rPGA) instead of the solder (BGA) type. BGA-to-PGA converted processors are also available for a much cheaper price. But once again, risk in performance drops are more common there compared to the ES/QS models of the same processor. Just hope for the best when buying or go with OEM and warranty.

You might want to clarify your daily use for it a bit, as there is SO MUCH you can do with the 2570p. You can even easily dual boot to OSX if you want (after a BCM4352 WiFi-ac upgrade).

4.2) When/if i7 comes into play - i'll get the cheapest. I'm not doing any rendering, nor high end gaming. It would be my day to day computer. Some games, like wow, lol, wot - which are pretty much dual core optimized games. With rare expedition into something like Metro - to go trough single player once, or very little amount of bf3mp.

Since I got fired recently I'm started looking into photoshop/indesign tutorials, but stuff that i do now could be done on a single core atom netbook, and i wont be going into any high grade stuf that stock 2570p cant handle.

Basically 2570p stock would be enough for my needs at this moment.

Main issue is that I'll have to get rid of one of few machines next month, as i currently have m6600, 2570p on the way, 8530p, 6570b - but this M6600 is really great, 2720qm, 8gigs, 240ssd+750gb+1tb, fhd most important thing when my m8900 died it got replaced with firepro m6100 which is a beast. Downside to all this glory is size and weight and its still under warranty for quite some time. Still need to check with gf about which machine would she prefer, she still like 8530p and got so used to it that she dosent wanna switch to 6570b - hopefully 2570p will get her interested. That being said M6600 has EC slot and for testing needs i can just yank up mxm gpu out and try egpu solution on it.

Yesterday I got into a talk with a roommate and he's now interested into notebook+egpu solution and already listed his desktop pc into local adds so whatever my decision is 2570p will get egup and someone will be using it.

[Tech Inferno Fan]

3.2) I did my homework and already placed "Setup 1.3" on my shopping list, getting 33% on battery with an easy software tweak is hard to pass on and it is a good investment for future. Also for the moment i only have AMD card available for testing so even if i didnt want it - i need to donate for it 25$ is not the end of the world and it would help Tech Inferno Fan who i believe spent countless hours to make it. But that can be done once notebook arrives, which is sometime next week.

Thanks buddy! I'm appreciative of your support

My main issue is (if i remember correctly, since it was a very late night read) that EXP GVC has issues with accepting and working with Gen2 EC - basically people are forced to switch to gen1 and reduce their pcie x1 bandwidth. If thats the case - I wont cripple myself for the future, potentially kill the performance of the entire setup and will surly go with some form of PE4. By the looks of things now - PE4 with its reliability and support that you guys said you had looks more and more interesting. Fancy design can be replicated with a little diy project. Since i'm still into "not 100% sure i'll keep it" i'm trying to keep cost down as much as possible. I'd like to keep the option for both dc adapter and atx psu.

EXP GDC V6 gives a Gen2 link on a 2570P. Confirmed by jacobsson. US$53-shipped (without AC adapter) from banggood making it a huge bargain. http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/6643-exp-gdc-v6-discussion.html#post88642

Best if you can source a mating Dell DA-2/D220P AC adapter for it locally.

but this M6600 is really great, 2720qm, 8gigs, 240ssd+750gb+1tb, fhd most important thing when my m8900 died it got replaced with firepro m6100 which is a beast. Downside to all this glory is size and weight and its still under warranty for quite some time. Still need to check with gf about which machine would she prefer, she still like 8530p and got so used to it that she dosent wanna switch to 6570b - hopefully 2570p will get her interested. That being said M6600 has EC slot and for testing needs i can just yank up mxm gpu out and try egpu solution on it.

Yesterday I got into a talk with a roommate and he's now interested into notebook+egpu solution and already listed his desktop pc into local adds so whatever my decision is 2570p will get egup and someone will be using it.

The 2720QM, 8GB and SSDs/HDDs can be transposed into the 2570P. Just note that the Sandy Bridge CPUs are 10-14W less efficient at full load. A 2560P owner only managing to get x27 (2.7Ghz) on 4-core TS-bench test. That's 800Mhz less than I managed with high-binned Ivy Bridge i7-3740QM (3.5Ghz). Furthermore,each Intel iteration claims 5% clock-for-clock improvements favoring the IVB CPU again. Still. the SB CPU would be useful for testing purposes. How to choose the most efficient 45W i7-quad shows a IVB vs SB i7-quad comparison.

2570P is still unbeaten as the maximum bang-for-volume at a surprisingly affordable pricepoint. Well, upwards price creep has occurred presumably due to increased demand. Probably because of the performance features demonstrated in this thread (i7-quad CPU upgradability, eGPU connectivity, RAID-0 SSD/HDD configuration, no WLAN whitelisting) that are undisclosed elsewhere.

[darkydark]

Thanks buddy! I'm appreciative of your support

EXP GDC V6 gives a Gen2 link on a 2570P. Confirmed by jacobsson. US$53-shipped (without AC adapter) from banggood making it a huge bargain. http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/6643-exp-gdc-v6-discussion.html#post88642

Best if you can source a mating Dell DA-2/D220P AC adapter for it locally.

Considering this is a trial run only I just might risk it and hope i dont get a defective product. There is a big difference between 50 and 100$ + 25% taxes for my country. I can get any atx psu and modify its output to fit gdc. Messing around with pinouts is not and issue - I saw some1 linked pictures with atx/dell d2 8pin conector and pinout in another topic so power is not an issue. Also there are lot of Dell DA-2's on ebay within eu and the price is right.

The 2720QM, 8GB and SSDs/HDDs can be transposed into the 2570P. Just note that the Sandy Bridge CPUs are 10-14W less efficient at full load. A 2560P owner only managing to get x27 (2.7Ghz) on 4-core TS-bench test. That's 800Mhz less than I managed with high-binned Ivy Bridge i7-3740QM (3.5Ghz). Furthermore,each Intel iteration claims 5% clock-for-clock improvements favoring the IVB CPU again. Still. the SB CPU would be useful for testing purposes. How to choose the most efficient 45W i7-quad shows a IVB vs SB i7-quad comparison.

I'm well aware of all components than can be mixed, but I cant leave m6600 without any cpu, if i decide to sell it I'll keep all of the original components in it (ram and cpu) as its still under warranty till 3/2016. I will give 2720qm a go and i know 5% cpc with every new thick-tock intel dishes out. I think my 2720qm is not the most effective sb quad out there - but it uses max 4c turbo 3.0 during all benchmarks, while under prime (max power, all cores) it slips down to 2.89ghz - temps always stay under 80c so i guess i'm hitting TDP limit rather than thermal one. I still have to see and find something that heats up cpu as hard as prime does. So my expectation for 2720qm in 2570p is 2.4-5 on 4c load. But time and testing will tell.

That being said - I will test 2720qm and give you that log everyone is posting on their quad upgrades as well as temperatures.

2570P is still unbeaten as the maximum bang-for-volume at a surprisingly affordable pricepoint. Well, upwards price creep has occurred presumably due to increased demand. Probably because of the performance features demonstrated in this thread (i7-quad CPU upgradability, eGPU connectivity, RAID-0 SSD/HDD configuration, no WLAN whitelisting) that are undisclosed elsewhere.

Yes it is. No question about it - thats why i'm thinking about going down the smaller notebook route and considering eGPU.

I really like my M6600, quad inside is good enough for me, in that department i dont see myself needing any more performance. Really dont need anything faster, 17.3" is big enough that i dont need any scaling on fhd, M6100 gpu has superb performance and it runs cooler than M8900 i had inside. Only thing that can be seen is a con is battery life with AMD card, on battery saver with my own tweaked profile i'm getting around 3h with wifi/no backlight for keyboard/minimum brightnes. Why it bothers me? When i had it for a week without M8900 and waiting for Dell to send me replacement i was able to rock around with 7+ hours and it was a sweet, sweet week. Not to mention i did try raid 0 with 2 1tb drives in m6600, with 2 samsung 830s 256gb ones and that was brutally fast. Too bad those drives were not for me, but rather for a client of mine

So I'm still on the fence -

1) smaller (or ultra smaller to be exact) with egpu, sell m6600 later. This one is gonna get tested soon. Selling my m6600 will leave me with a nice amount of cash in my pocket.

If i were to go down this round - keeping price on the maximum low would be a must. In case i start feeling nostalgic about 17.3" behemoth i was using.

2) Investing into nVidia card 680m/k4000m or 770m (will have opportunity to test 770m soon as internet suggests it will not work) and sell my m6100. Issue with this is lowball offers for M6100 and price premium for same performance using nvidia cards. This would end up in a net $$ loss

3) Get a 15.6" M4800 with dualcore and M5100 from fleabay, sell off my 2570p and m6600. - This one can be alot of hastle so i'm not reverting to it as of yet. But I'd stay with a nice amount of $$ in my pocket. And with EC port M4800 is a nice future candidate if M5100 wont be sufficient performance later down the road.

4) Grow up - sell M6600, keep 2570p, ignore eGPU and stop playing games

Each of those 4 options has its pros and cons except nr 4. that one is unrealistic but I had to put it there for myself to see it in writing

I'm now done with my rant and moving on to ordering GDC thingie so i get it within reasonable amount of time. any1 knows if pricier shipping options are actually any faster? my experience with stuff from asia is mixed.

Probook and Elitebook are out of the question for anything as my GF dosent want to let go of good old 8530p due to wxga+ screen we got her year ago and my sister has been bugging me to get her new laptop as her old acer is falling apart so Probook will go back to her.

I just received an email from forwarding company that they received 2570p and according to pictures it is in pristine condition Ahhh decisions, why am i not filthy rich...

EDIT: Looks like EXP GDC EC is out of stock on Banggood.com

EDIT2: Just placed order on Aliexpress and ordered a Dell PSU from UK to be delivered to forwarding company and sent together with laptop.

EDIT3: Everything is shipped now let the waiting game begin.

[Tech Inferno Fan]

So I'm still on the fence -

1) smaller (or ultra smaller to be exact) with egpu, sell m6600 later. This one is gonna get tested soon. Selling my m6600 will leave me with a nice amount of cash in my pocket.

If i were to go down this round - keeping price on the maximum low would be a must. In case i start feeling nostalgic about 17.3" behemoth i was using.

2) Investing into nVidia card 680m/k4000m or 770m (will have opportunity to test 770m soon as internet suggests it will not work) and sell my m6100. Issue with this is lowball offers for M6100 and price premium for same performance using nvidia cards. This would end up in a net $$ loss

3) Get a 15.6" M4800 with dualcore and M5100 from fleabay, sell off my 2570p and m6600. - This one can be alot of hastle so i'm not reverting to it as of yet. But I'd stay with a nice amount of $$ in my pocket. And with EC port M4800 is a nice future candidate if M5100 wont be sufficient performance later down the road.

4) Grow up - sell M6600, keep 2570p, ignore eGPU and stop playing games

Each of those 4 options has its pros and cons except nr 4. that one is unrealistic but I had to put it there for myself to see it in writing

Given you need for performance and size, I'd say there are better systems thaneither the M6600 and 2570P. M6600 is large and bulky, 2570P is small but sees compromised x1-linked eGPU performance and comparatively poor resolution LCD. Better than either would be a 2013/2014 15" Macbook Pro with Iris graphics + 16Gbps eGPU. Guess you could look at a 15" ZBook as well though they are larger.

REF:

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/7580-%5Bguide%5D-2014-15-macbook-pro-gtx780%4016gbps-tb2-akitio-thunder2-win8-1-a.html#post103029

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/4109-egpu-candidate-system-list.html#post57511

[darkydark]

Getting mbpr is a no go, dont like 0 upgrade options for it other than egpu via tb also add price premium, no warranty options in Croatia and no easy way to cleant or repaste it.

If i end up selling both, ill end up getting precision 47 or 48 due to nbd inhouse warranty. Which is just super sweet once you get used to it and cooling system is just superb.

Personaly 900p on 15.6 is ideal, 1080p is too tiny and i dont like how scaling works in windows anything over that is just stupid to me.

I dont need performance but i do like to have it :-)

Zbooks are tiny compared to m6600, well everything is.

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Getting mbpr is a no go, dont like 0 upgrade options for it other than egpu via tb also add price premium, no warranty options in Croatia and no easy way to cleant or repaste it.

If i end up selling both, ill end up getting precision 47 or 48 due to nbd inhouse warranty. Which is just super sweet once you get used to it and cooling system is just superb.

Personaly 900p on 15.6 is ideal, 1080p is too tiny and i dont like how scaling works in windows anything over that is just stupid to me.

I dont need performance but i do like to have it :-)

Zbooks are tiny compared to m6600, well everything is.

ZBook 15 would be similar to a M4700/M4800 in size. Same sort of specs and probably NBD warranty for you too. It betters the Dells by offering a Thunderbolt2 port.

I sold my 2570P to get a 14" Dell Latitude E6440. i7-quad upgradable,. HD8690M dGPU option, expresscard slot for eGPU, 900P LCD, mSATA slot, RAID-0 capable across primary and optical bay drives. Maybe be the compromise between size and performance you are looking for? I'm loving the 900P LCD REF: http://forum.techinferno.com/dell-latitude-vostro-precision/6980-14-dell-latitude-e6440-owners-lounge.html#post95555 .

[darkydark]

Thing is - money is rather tight. So ZBook is not an option, at least in EU. Yes that thunderbolt option is nice and if I could get my hands on a ZBook even basic model for under 1000$ total cost I'd be getting that.

I've been looking into Dell both M4800 and E6440, sourcing then in EU is expensive, at least for what my idea of going to a smaller form factor and spending less is - So the only option is to either get a lucky auction within EU for one of those and I missed one for m4800 which ended up for 500e while I was on the trip and 3g coverage was a disaster. Also some ebay reseller was selling m4800 for 600$ with warranty transfer for basic model a month ago which for some reason I did not end up buying so i'm hoping once school year notebook purchase stops in US some nice deals will pop in the next few months.. Thing with buying now from Dell outlet or usa is 25% import tax (vat) and 100-150$ shipping.

Problem with e6440 is its priced so close do m4800 (talking about refurbs here) its only logical to buy m4800 in my eyes, as size between 14 and 15 is irrelevant in my opinion. Other options include getting hp 6470b or using 6570b which left my hands yesterday and my little sister dosent want to part ways with it. Both can be sourced here for a acceptable price so thats not an issue.

Dont worry, after first post i made here i've read up on all candidates for egpu and i'm calculating too much about what to switch to for the last two-three months since I've got the taste of 7hour battery life.

So many decisions and too much options and each one of them has at least few big cons. But all decision making will have to wait for Elitebook 2570p to land. I'm really super excited for it. Just got my hands on nvidia gts 450 its rather slow card but its for testing purposes so i can test how both green and red team work with egpu and have information first hand as many of my customers asked me quite a few times about it and i didnt know what to say to them other than to google it up.

I did some testing on efficiency of my 2720qm if anyone is interested.

TS Bench 4c - x30 is max for my cpu and 4 core turbo.

multy 4cVid 4cTDP 8cVid 8c TDP

x12 0.8756 11.5w 0.8706 14.2w

x22 1.1108 25.5w 1.1058 31.8w

x23 1.1259 26.9w 1.1259 33.9w

x27 1.1959 35.5w 1.1959 43.5w

x30 1.2560 42.1w 1.2560 44.5w - clock isnt stabile - jumps down to 2.7-2.8

When using 8 core, all of those TDP values rise up quite a bit.

When comparing mobile to desktop in sb teritory i've noticed when they run at the same clock speed they use pretty same voltages - i was able to underclock quite a few desktop chips that use 1.2 at their stock speeds 3+ ghz for at least 0.1v, some even as far as 0.2v - too bad all workstations have their vid controls locked and no undervolting is possible on them.

Now i'm off to do some overclocking on this m6100 to see whats possible.

EDIT:

I'm geting core 2 going up to 82c during bench testing, while others max at 75 for c0 and c1 and c3 at 74 and fan isnt spinning anywhere close to maximum.

Also since recently i got myself 2 extra sticks of 4gb memory and 1 of the memory slits isnt playing nice. Not sure if its due to memory or due to slot itself. Something wierd is going on. Either mbo is up for replacement or cpu is not playing nice with 4 sticks since mc is integrated...

[Tech Inferno Fan]

I did some testing on efficiency of my 2720qm if anyone is interested.

TS Bench 4c - x30 is max for my cpu and 4 core turbo.

multy vid tdp

x12 0.8756 11.5w

x22 1.1108 25.5w

x23 1.1259 26.9w

x27 1.1959 35.5w

x30 1.2560 42.1w

When using 8 core, all of those TDP values rise up quite a bit.

When comparing mobile to desktop in sb teritory i've noticed when they run at the same clock speed they use pretty same voltages - i was able to underclock quite a few desktop chips that use 1.2 at their stock speeds 3+ ghz for at least 0.1v, some even as far as 0.2v - too bad all workstations have their vid controls locked and no undervolting is possible on them.

Now i'm off to do some overclocking on this m6100 to see whats possible.

Please repeat TS-bench test using 8-threads (4-cores). When hyperthreading is enabled there will be two threads available per core. Your test above only stressed two cores!!

[darkydark]

It did test 4c i disabled ht in bios for the duration of the test :-) will ad 8c details to my previous post once i get home.

EDIT: Tests added.

[phillofoc]

All, a new BIOS is out:

Drivers & software for HP EliteBook 2570p Notebook PC - HP Support Center

Biggest thing to note is that you can't go back to previous versions! If the following issues affect you, might be worth an upgrade:

- Fixes an intermittent issue where the system stops functioning when the system is powered on with a USB 3.0 hard drive connected using the USB 3.0 port.

and

- Provides improved security for UEFI EDK2.

NOTE: HP strongly recommends transitioning immediately to this updated BIOS version.

Must be a bug somewhere if UEFI is fixed. Is anyone brave enough to test this version to see if it works with eGPU, new wifi, and non-standard CPU?

[Tech Inferno Fan]

All, a new BIOS is out:

Drivers & software for HP EliteBook 2570p Notebook PC - HP Support Center

Biggest thing to note is that you can't go back to previous versions! If the following issues affect you, might be worth an upgrade:

- Fixes an intermittent issue where the system stops functioning when the system is powered on with a USB 3.0 hard drive connected using the USB 3.0 port.

and

- Provides improved security for UEFI EDK2.

NOTE: HP strongly recommends transitioning immediately to this updated BIOS version.

Must be a bug somewhere if UEFI is fixed. Is anyone brave enough to test this version to see if it works with eGPU, new wifi, and non-standard CPU?

If they are updating the me fw then downgrade prevention may be in order. Dell does provide rollback after flashing bios with newer me fw but the me fw won't downgrade. Maybe HP just blanket prevents running such untested configs so prevents any rollback?

Anybody wanting to test F.50 and report what happens is advised to take a full bios dump as documented in the modded me few section on opening post using the fpt/fpt64 utility. Then you have an alternative rollback mechanism.

[peter.andrukhovich]

Done updating...

Actually noting have changed to a standard user...

[alyosa2001]

Just asking, because I do not know how to make a bios dump, any changes regarding the whitelisting in the new version?

[badbadbad]

I would like to second that. Can a F.50 user try checking if Whitelisting of WiFi cards is still removed? And is the ME Firmware still flashable?

[Tech Inferno Fan]

I would like to second that. Can a F.50 user try checking if Whitelisting of WiFi cards is still removed? And is the ME Firmware still flashable?

The instructions to take an existing BIOS backup by unlocking the flash descriptor and using Intel FPT.exe/FPT64.exe are at http://forum.techinferno.com/hp-business-class-notebooks/2537-12-5-hp-elitebook-2570p-owners-lounge-12.html#post65904 . Suggest do that, then flash F.50, do testing and advise if any of the great features are disabled (CPU upgradability, WIFI whitelisting). If not keep it. If anything is disabled then flash back to your original BIOS using FPT.exe/FPT64.exe

[darkydark]

The eagle has landed. My 2570p is in the house and the first impression is that i effin love it. Earlier this week i had lenovo x220 in my hands and it didnt leave such strong impression. Its plastic seemed somehow cheep compared to Elitebook. Super awesome. Now i just need to wait for damn exp gdc to arrive.

Edit: how is win8 and dsdt owerride, same process? Since this machine has w8 key embedded into bios i'm thinking of finally trying that...

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Edit: how is win8 and dsdt owerride, same process? Since this machine has w8 key embedded into bios i'm thinking of finally trying that...

Win8 DSDT override can be done in the same way as a Win7 if you enable testsigning with bcdedit. Full details at http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/7476-%5Bguide%5D-dsdt-override-fix-error-12-a.html#post102517

[Dewos]

Win8 DSDT override can be done in the same way as a Win7 if you enable testsigning with bcdedit. Full details at http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/7476-%5Bguide%5D-dsdt-override-fix-error-12-a.html#post102517

By the way @Hrvoje Gregur it seems that enabling UEFI-GPT fixes error 12 on windows 8/8.1. @see http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2109-diy-egpu-experiences-%5Bversion-2-0%5D-345.html#post102643

[darkydark]

By the way @Hrvoje Gregur it seems that enabling UEFI-GPT fixes error 12 on windows 8/8.1. @see http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2109-diy-egpu-experiences-%5Bversion-2-0%5D-345.html#post102643

Cool stuff - now i'm waiting for w8 recovery dvd, as i didnt receive any. Just called them and they are sending me one free of charge.

BTW how to check if that battery tweak with software 1.3x is working, i did some checking about idle power consumption and lowest reported value was around 7wh - according to hw info and battery discarge. Keep in mind i'm using stock hdd drive, wifi and everything. I didnt fiddle with throttlestop as of yet to lower minimum multy.

Ok: windows now report 8h when machine sits in idle on battery. I guess thats it.

EDIT: i requested that my nick changes from my real name - a late night tapatalk error was made so from now on its darkydark, same as in every forum i use - even the bad one you all dislike

[xuhexiffi806]

so I had the weird 2570p, i7-3689Y ES, 8GB, 120GB Intel SSD, 9-cell battery.

and then yesterday I locally picked up another laptop, it is a Thinkpad T430 for $200 USD... i5-3320M, 8GB of RAM, missing one key on keyboard, no webcam, no fingerprint...still 36 months warranty left..... crazy deal, but I don't want to waste my time and waste a ton of time to put my ULV into T430.....

and I added another $15 myself to get the lost key and another 2GB RAM to make 10GB of RAM total....... and it now has my 750GB WD Black inside..........

it drove me crazy that T430 couldn't really fit the 9.5mm drive when 2570p still could.. and then T430 I can control its currently 98Wh battery to charge up to 87% only (Save long-run battery life, or the cell capacity stays about constant with that setting). The only thing I find annoying is that T430 is a tad heavier....

And then my 2570p is rugged, just as solid as T430, (actually for the metal frame I admit a bit more solid), but the battery 100wh is already down to 90wh after the last two charges, and I even manually unplug the battery when it gets up to 80% or so, (very annoying)

performance wise I will bring SSD to the one that I put into backpack...I may swap a 4GB ddr3L into T430 but in reality I set them up to have minimum differences in usage.

but now 2570p is only 6-8 hours per charge, after losing 10wh on the Battery cell....

So now the issue comes... Which one is the more optimum choice for my backpack? CRY CRY CRY

any opinions would sound great...