Help for my zv6000 Pavilion and I

[pous]

Hi there, I asked for help in the CE > HP forum earlier and the guy that helped me recommended that if I needed more I should come here. Here's what he advised based on my question regarding my video card: (I have more questions though... see below)

That video card is integrated into the motherboard, so no upgrading. Any ATi Xpress or Intel GMA solutions are integrated. That Xpress chip uses hypermemory which means that it borrows memory from the computer's RAM. I got this off of notebookreview.com: "Download ATI Tray Tools and install it if you haven't already - then go Tools & Options, General Options, Advanced, and uncheck "Enable ATT Shared Memory". That should disable it. To find out if you can use a higher speed RAM, go to www.cpuid.com and download either CPU-Z or PC Wizard. CPU-Z gives basic info about the motherboard, current memory and the CPU. PC Wizard will tell you just about everything you want to know about your laptop.

Ok so, I got CPU-Z and PC Wizard, they're great, and told me (more or less) what I need to know. The problem came after I installed ATI Tray Tools... and tried to run it... my laptop blinked to the XP blue screen for about .26 seconds and then rebooted... I tried it twice just to make sure, and it did the same thing each time. I then proceeded to uninstall it and log on here to find some help.

My other question is how to tell if my laptop has an open PCI slot (using those programs) and also if so... what type of video card could I get for it (or what type would I need maybe...) to play new games... (also that would fit in the current case of my laptop.

I really hope that made sense. If it was unclear let me know and I'll try to explain. Thanks in advance for any help I receive.

 

[lostandwandering]

OK, it looks like you're not getting much help. Let me give it a whirl.

Your BSOD problem makes it seem like you already had a version of ATi drivers installed which caused a conflict. You said you un-installed them, which should solve that problem.

Unfortunately, laptops are not like desktops where you can easily add and replace parts. To the best of my knowledge a laptop that doesn't come with a dedicated graphics card can't be upgraded with one. The easiest way to find out is to contact HP and ask them about upgrading it. In the mean time, I can talk to another guy who posts here who owns a laptop company called Killer Notebooks and see what he recommends.

 

[killernotebooks]

Notebooks do not work like you are thinking.
There isn't a PCI card slot to put a different GPU into.
The first quote of the integrated GPU means essentially that the GPU is a single chip solution soldered onto the mainboard.

As far as your troubles with the drivers. I have never liked the ATI catalyst, and would recommend you install only the drivers and not the ATI supplied utilities.

 

[lostandwandering]

OK, that's what I thought, Thanks for the confirmation and quick response.

 

[pous]

Notebooks do not work like you are thinking.
There isn't a PCI card slot to put a different GPU into.
The first quote of the integrated GPU means essentially that the GPU is a single chip solution soldered onto the mainboard.

As far as your troubles with the drivers. I have never liked the ATI catalyst, and would recommend you install only the drivers and not the ATI supplied utilities.

Thanks for the info!!

As far as catalyst etc etc... as far as I know I just have basic drivers installed... I'm not sure how to check though =/ (I'm more n00b at this stuff than I like to admit)

And another question... can Oblivion run on a laptop? And if so... what kind of a price would a guy be looking at?

I wouldn't be looking for high settings... low-mid would be fine... hoping to maintain a 50ish frame rate even in fighting...

What do you think?

 

[killernotebooks]

Oblivion can certainly run on a notebook, but I think you are going to be in the $2,700 price range to hsve an acceptable experience with it.

 

[pous]

Oblivion can certainly run on a notebook, but I think you are going to be in the $2,700 price range to have an acceptable experience with it.

Even just to hit the 50fp/s rate? Or is that "acceptable"?

Thanks for the quick responses by the way. I was just mentioning in the hardware/homebuilt forum how nice it is to find a forum community where people are so helpful.

 

[ToalMander]

if you don't care about look too much then dell e1705 is a good choice for you, right now they have $450 off coupon, so you can buy core 2 duo 7200, go7900gs with 1 gb of RAM (upgrade it later to 2 GB, dell charges too much for it) and with a coupon you looking at $1300 17 inch laptop which will be enought to run Oblivion at mid-settings. Also you can always clean all the bloatware it comes with overclock GPU and you have a pretty good gaming machine. Biggest bang for the buck these days IMHO.

 

[killernotebooks]

Probably the best deal you are going to get for something like that.

There's your machine.

 

[pous]

Probably the best deal you are going to get for something like that.

There's your machine.

Cool. I'll be looking into that for sure then. I like the mobility that Laptops provide, and am also looking into re-enlistment in the Navy sometime within the next 4-5 months... so if I have something that'll play the games I want, that'd be nice. (I could take it with me ^_^)

I actually found a few on ebay:

One
Two
Three

Something like that is what you're referring to... right?

 

[lostandwandering]

Of those, only option three would be able to play Oblivion at decent frames. The X1400 will not provide enough oomph. You might be better off just configuring a system off of Dell's site or odering one form the Dell outlet. If you configure off of their site, google "Dell coupons" and you can get extra money off of the laptop. I'm not sure if I trust e-bay enough to buy expensive electronics off of. Might just be me.

 

[pous]

Of those, only option three would be able to play Oblivion at decent frames. The X1400 will not provide enough oomph. You might be better off just configuring a system off of Dell's site or odering one form the Dell outlet. If you configure off of their site, google "Dell coupons" and you can get extra money off of the laptop. I'm not sure if I trust e-bay enough to buy expensive electronics off of. Might just be me.

You bring up a good point about not buying expensive electronics from ebay... I just wanted to make sure I had the right idea with the type of laptop.

Thanks for the advice/help from you guys.

 

[killernotebooks]

I agree, I would never recommend buying electronics especially expensive ones on Ebay.