HDX18 COMPLETE SHUTDOWN

[drago65]

Just need to vent and express my dissatisfaction with HP as well as share my story with others who might be having similar issues.

I have seen a lot of issues on these boards regarding heating issues with peoples laptops, especially when gaming. I just had to write about my experience with HP and my HDX18.

I am not sure my core problem is a heating issue, though the laptop does get beyond reasonable heat levels.

My fan, ports and the area around it is clean. My laptop sits up and has ventilation underneath and completely around it . Still normal running temperature on this machine is around 130F with a 0-10% load. When I do anything on it the temperature shoots up and I have seen it get over 200F. Regardless of the temperature, the laptop shuts off with a loud popping sound intermittently. Mainly when I load up or during play of World of Warcraft. Any high graphics increases the heat considerably. But regardless of the current temperature it has shut off just loading the game. I think there is some issue with the graphics card but of course any contact with HP is like hitting your head against a brick wall. I even tried to get the information on who is a certified repair center for HP (without sending it directly to HP) and the rep couldnt help. Also on a side note I did have it in to HP repair under warranty in the first few months I owned it for an audio quicklink issue. The audio was popping and adjusting itself on my screen by itself. They fixed that issue by disabling the feature all together.

If anyone has had are is having similar issues I would like to hear what you have done to try to resolve or if you have resolved the issue.

I'm at the point of purchasing a new Dell and saying goodbye to HP forever.

[Gryazniy]

HDX18 here and same symptoms here the only difference is that I don't play World of Warcraft.. I play Starcraft 2..which I suppose demands the same from the laptop. ..,I initially thought that it was about dust on the motherboard.. I researched and managed to open up the laptop and cleaned the motherboard and all the stuff with compressed air,so I can tell that it isn't dust.., it seems to be that the HDX line has been discontinued... heat issues??  Also I have to complain about the first battery I received with my equipment.It was drained till death with only 2 months of usage,HP replaced the battery but delivery x wasn't that fast.

I'm really frustrated as it wasn't a Quad core cheap laptop and it is not that old , (may 2009),besides that I invested in extra ddr2 memory which will not be useful anymore. I cannot complain about its sound/video and power but not worth of the short life.. 

I should admit that the HP envy 3D looks really tempting but after this experience I am not sure that I want to risk , 

I'm going for dell too,My dell Inspiron in the past lived for 4 years and gave it for free to a friend who is still using it.

Im still looking for a new laptop if you already found one that can recommend me..you're welcome.

[drago65]

I just ordered a Dell XPS17 and will get it in a couple weeks. I have a Dell laptop (Latitude C640) its still running great but hasn't been able to handle any games on it for quite a few years now  and my Dell desktop (Dimension 4700) which I still play WoW on and works great.  My wife has a cheapie gateway laptop and has better results with than the HDX18 I purchased.

Anyways I bought a Targus cooling pad for a 17inch computer because I couldnt find anything that would fit the HP and it is working great, my heat has decreased atleast 15-20C. Still I continue to crash when playing WoW. So the crashing has nothing to do with heat. I have contacted Blizzard and run every diagnostic and reinstalled the game numerous times with no changes. Its unfortunate that HP was never willing to fix the issues of this laptop. All they did when I sent it in was turn off certain hardware or software that came with the laptop initially. They never fixed the issue with the power adapter input on the laptop even though they said it was addressed. 

Here's what I ordered, this should do the trick for me. Even with it being a Dell I am now gun shy and purchased the 3 year in home repair warranty. The video card is a WoW supported card but then again the one on the HP was as well. I looked at the Alienware but just couldn't afford the price even though they looked very nice. I also ordered a new Router from Dell and to my surprise it was delivered the next day. I am going to have to wait a few weeks for them to build  my new laptop but I think it will be worth the wait. Basically what I ordered was

XPS17

Win7 - 64bit

Intel® Core™ i7-840QM (1.86GHz, 8 threads, turbo boost up to 3.2GHz, 8M cache)

12GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 Memory

NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 445M 3GB graphics

1.0TB (2 x 500GB 7200 RPM HDD)

Tray Load Blu-ray Disc BD-Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD)

JBL 2.1 Speakers with Waves Maxx Audio 3

3 year service plan

Was just over 2k and I cant wait to get it.

So the HP is turning into an very very expensive web browser and word processor.

[jsantoli1000]

Yeah I don't know what my options are. The computer shuts down  after like a half hour of most games. Then every time I play the game again after turning it back on will shut the computer off immediately.

I am out of warranty so I don't know what type of support I can get.

I don't know my best option other than that.

[goaldith]

With it being out of warrenty already. I would suggest taking it apart, and removing the heatsink from the processor and video chips, clean off all the old thermal paste, and put new thermal paste on there. They may have used crappy thermal paste that dries up quick, and doesn't last.

[funky2nite]

Eyy Guys I encouraged myself when I noticed the date of your post being just weeks ago... This is my first public complaint on my laptop.

I'm in the same exact ridiculous situation as we all happen to be thanks to HP.  Mine's a custom HDX18T 1200 bought on Oct '09 and costed circa $3Grand!!!!

My god such a disgrace!! I would like to express my utter disgust to HP. Upon arrival of the laptop I had the volume issue by the conflicting driver having the volume adjust byitself with the volume bar showing up continously on the screen JUST LIKE A GRAPHIC EQUALIZER... I couldn't do anything with the laptop with this showing in the centre of the screen. When someone gets to see the laptop they always asked what's wrong with that esp when they get to know it's a new laptop.

The list is endless, so I'm just not gonna take it all the way. But the WORST of the WORST is the graphics card issue!!!

I'm currently an honors student and obviously we bring along our laptops, on personal initiative I bring host games during breaks with friends...obviously I select 'old' games as to be supportede by everyone... do you know what?? everyone plays together and the majority of my mate's laptops have INTEL FAMILY GRAPHICS ADAPTER which I'm sure how 'dedicated' these are..... Whilst we're playing with me hosting the game..do you know what...'scchpppahh' Laptop SHUTSDOWN with no notice whatsoever. Everyone got used to hearing my complaints because I'm done with the concept of playing but happens to be the one that cannot play due to this absurdness from HP.

I'm at all disappointed Incredibbly!! and I shall not stop making bad name to HP, I spent everything on this laptop as I have previously believed in HP projecting itself globally as a reknowned company, as I required a powerful laptop to accompany me in my duties throughout my studies in the I.T field.

 Please I hope not to be taken wrongly on this aspect, but at the time I purchased this custom notebook, it was the most expensive notebook available on hp.com which I personally was encouraged with to proceed with my purchase. Now that I've been down this lane, I can confirm that HP doesn't even prioritize production quality in particular to most expensive production lines sold on their official website.

I cannot accept the fact that my $xxxx hdx18T 1200 shall never be able to play games EVEN OLD ONES without crashing and crashing being complete shutdown.

I hope this gets to other hdx users in the same boat, maybe getting to know that they're not the only ones might sooth their anger...

My projections on notebook functionality were all obstructed by this laptop which I happened to risk a condierable sum of hard-earned money speaking personally.

Thanks for reading,

Ian

[GRRRRRRRRRRRRR]

i have the same issues as you and more. HP's recommended repair shop were absolutely useless! I have had it in the shop 5 times in one year the usual volume button popup. tv tuner stopped working  and kept on erroring they wrote an update to disable it so it did not work anymore.media smart panel stopped working after being intermittent for 6 months and been put in the shop 3 times to get fixed but never did get fixed. It has dual 250 gb hdd's that was supposed to have fall protection hdd's but upon later inspection noticed they were only standard hard disks without fall protection and it has had both hard disk drives fail in one year. in the first year i owned it i only had it in my possession for 8 months. the other four were in the incompetent repair shops shelves.wifi and bluetooth touch panel light used to turn on and off when ever it felt like it and make that annoying sound whenever it did turn off and on. battery failled in 6 months had to wait about 6 weeks for a replacement battery. i paid 3 thousand dollars for a total {Content Removed: Language Filter Evasion} LEMON. I asked the seller for a refund after 3 months and he laughed at me. I am a very tech savvy person. everyone who knows me asks me for my opinion about electronic merchandise and sadly i tell them to stay right away from laptops especially HP products i have had the laptop since sept 2009 . IT network administration diploma student