Question about my DV7-6B56n

[wchamilton]

I bought this laptop back in December and did a reinstall with my own version of Windows 7 64-Bit Professional. I've run all Windows updates and updated all the drivers, but the performance, especially in games, seems to be a bit less than I thought it'd be. I understand that intensive games will require some settings to be turned down or turned off entirely, but after reading some reviews from people claiming they can run, for example, World Of Warcraft with everything set to high (I can do this but the video is noticeably choppy) I have a couple of questions. 

According to HP's website, the graphics driver that they have available for download for this PC are dated 11-18-2011, whereas the video drivers available from ATI's website are dated 3-28-2012. The drivers from ATI's website installed with no problem, but I've read numerous articles that say you should only install graphics drivers that are provide from the laptop manufacturer, as opposed to getting them from the graphics card manufacturer. Should I only be using the drivers for HP for this laptop, or am I correct in using the drivers from ATI?

Second, as I mentioned the first thing I did was wipe the hard drive and install Windows 7 64-Bit Professional. Again, I've read articles saying that you want to stick to the restore discs that the laptop manufacturer makes available (even though I downloaded and installed all of the drivers from HP, save the graphics driver, for this laptop). Were I to order restore discs from HP (I deleted the restore partition when I got the laptop), do a restore from those discs and just uninstall the various pieces of bloatware that the OS comes with, would I notice a performance difference?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

I am surprised to read that your notebook is not running better with just an install of W7 Pro without the "bloatware" that normally comes with a consumer PC.

I have always experienced personally that the opposite is true.

I have always installed the latest drivers directly from the manufacturer for my desktop and notebook PCs and I have never had an issue with that.

The only problem you may encounter is that if you have a driver issue, and since your notebook is probably still under warranty, and you were to call HP, they would not provide support unless you have the HP drivers installed for the device.

It is always nice to have recovery disks, for me, mainly to restore the PC to its factory state, so I can give it away to someone that would consider my hand-me down PC, an upgrade.

What antivirus program are you running?  I always use MS Security Essentials. I have found that application to provide more than adequate security protection and it uses very few system resources.

The only recommendation I can offer is for you to uninstall the AMD video driver and install the slightly older HP version and see if you notice any improvement.

I would be surprised if you did, but since you are not happy with the current state of things, what do you have to lose?

Paul

[wchamilton]

Thanks for the reply... in all honesty I never ran the machine to see how the factory installed OS behaved, so I don't have any frame of reference. And when I say World Of Warcraft is a bit choppy at the highest setting it's by no means unplayable but it's not smooth like you would think a game with 5 year old technology should be. And for what it's worth, other games (Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age are two examples) play fine, if not as fluidly smooth as my desktop PC is (which I wouldn't honestly expect this machine to be). 

When I get home tonight, just for amusement, I'll try putting the older graphics driver on the machine to see what happens. If it's better, yay. If not, I've lost nothing but a bit of time. I might just have to lower my expectations a bit, since this machine isn't a "true" gaming PC and I've read some articles that the graphics card really isn't meant for serious gaming. 

[wchamilton]

And I just realized I never answered your question about antivirus software... I'm also running MS Security Essentials.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Please post back, and let us know if installing the HP driver made a difference (good or bad).

I am not a gamer, so I am not familiar with the performance of GPU's in the gaming environment.

I only know that playing video games on a notebook puts a load on the GPU, which equals excessive heat output, which a typical notebook does not have the capability of dissipating the heat adequately.

This is the largest cause of GPU's lagging and choppy video, and ultimate failure of the GPU.

You may also want to order a set of recovery disks while they are available. I think a set will go for around $15.00.

On your notebook's support and driver page there should be a link to click to order recovery disks listed under the operating system drivers for the version of W7 that came with your PC (32 or 64 bit).

You can see if they change the performance, but I honestly think that would change it for the worse.

Paul

[wchamilton]

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Paul_Tikkanen wrote:

You're very welcome.

Please post back, and let us know if installing the HP driver made a difference (good or bad).

I am not a gamer, so I am not familiar with the performance of GPU's in the gaming environment.

I only know that playing video games on a notebook puts a load on the GPU, which equals excessive heat output, which a typical notebook does not have the capability of dissipating the heat adequately.

This is the largest cause of GPU's lagging and choppy video, and ultimate failure of the GPU.

You may also want to order a set of recovery disks while they are available. I think a set will go for around $15.00.

On your notebook's support and driver page there should be a link to click to order recovery disks listed under the operating system drivers for the version of W7 that came with your PC (32 or 64 bit).

You can see if they change the performance, but I honestly think that would change it for the worse.

Paul

---

Heat is honestly one thing I didn't think of... when I use the laptop I have it sitting on a laptop desk which in turn sits on my lap but there's no cooling pad under it; might not be a bad idea to pick one up. 

And I can't imagine a scenario where backdating something like a video driver would help... I've seen laptops before that physically won't allow you to update them from anyplace other than the laptop manufacturer's website, but ATI has a utility that searches your PC for supported hardware and it finds my GPU with no problem. 

One other question, if you would know... does this particular model have any dedicated graphics memory, or is it all shared with the system ram? I've read articles about it that seem to indicate both.  

[wchamilton]

I also realized that YouTube is good for things other than cat videos and looked up some gameplay videos of my CPU/GPU combo and the performance I get seems to be on par with what everyone has posted. 

So I think I just need to settle down a bit and realize unless I spend much more money than I spent on this laptop nothing will perform like my desktop. And honestly other than games looking a bit less-fluid than I'd like, I absolutely love the machine. 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

If I were a gamer, I would definitely invest in a notebook cooler. That should help dissipate the heat and in turn should help the graphics stay up to par. Do you notice a gradual degradation in performance the longer into the game you go, or is it choppy from the get-go?

If the choppiness/lag gets worse as you play along, then that is most likely due to heat-related issues.

Below is the link to the product specs for your notebook.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c03109898&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=us&dlc=en...

The specs indicate your GPU is a discrete-class GPU. That means it has its own memory.

That does not preclude it from using system memory, if the demand placed on the GPU warrants it.

You can see how much dedicated memory your notebook has, and how much available system memory can be used to supplement the discrete graphics memory, by looking at the detailed report of your Windows Experience Index in the control panel.

Paul

[wchamilton]

The performance doesn't degrade over time... it stays pretty constant and the bottom does get a bit warm, but not enough that I ever thought to worry about it. 

Thanks for your help with this... your responses have assured me that I didn't mess anything up when I installed a clean copy of Windows and the YouTube videos I saw have shown me that the performance I'm seeing is on par with what the laptop is capable of. 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Enjoy your notebook!