tx2500 problems

[Neilsao]

Hi, I also write a review, please I am trying so hard to do whatever, did you get in contact with them? they told me they want $425 to fix their mistake.

[demetrius]

had the exact problem on my wifes after about 2 years worth of use, the laptop gets incredibly hot and the fans runs all the time and overheats

So spent the morning taking it apart, wasnt too difficult, took all the screws off the bottom, took out the cdrom (3 screws underneath that), the hard disk (1 screw in there as well holding the motherboard), the wifi card and the all the ram, then pulled out the keyboard, pulled out the top of the laptop, unscrewed the monitor (2 screws holding it in), and pulled that off and then removed the motherboard

had to take 2 screws out around the fan and the 4 screws around the cpu and removed the heat sink and lo and behold inside it was a mass of fluff blocking up all the vent ports (you cant see this fluff from the outside of the laptop), cleaned it all out, put the laptop back together and its good as new, runs cool, fan hardly ever runs now and the overheating issues have stopped.

My only wish is that hp would have made the fan more accessible to clean it in the future

[dminch]

My tx2500, after shutting down, I was never able to open up again.  It gives me a black screen and I finally got some Oxc? error but it will not start up, in safe mode or any other mode. Mine too is only 2 years old, always used a cool pad, etc.  My friend has the same tx2500, 2 weeks after mine happened, the same thing happened to hers...this definately is a defect especially if it is happening to everyone in the same time span..I have been a loyal customer to hp for years..(since compac) I too think you need to do something for your customer!

[ptownmustang]

I was and have been having the same problems. I thought that I was getting an awesome computer... for at least as long as my warranty was active, then boom... Here comes the HEAT!!!!! HP cant help either. What gives? Why are there so many complaints with this computer and HP has done nothing to rectify the issue.

[demetrius]

Guys

At some point all laptops get clogged with dust, it really depends on the environment you use the laptop in, I agree that there is a design flaw here which allows dirt to get trapped inside the laptop more quickly than usual but its not a big deal to fix it, all you need is a few hours and a screwdriver, alternatively take it to any laptop repair shop and ask them to clean it out.

Its a great laptop, just needs a bit of tlc

[Gary2082]

What I have done to my TX2500 to improve it (I have no problems with it now)

Let me start of by saying I am a IT and I purchased my TX2500 in 09 and I was disappointed. I paid over $1000.00 for it and it over heated, ran slow, battery live was less than an hour with a 6 cell battery, and it was to hot to use without a cooling pad. I took the TX2500 with me on deployment but it was so useless I bought a netbook half way through deployment.

When I got back from deployment, I loaded windows 7 on the TX2500 and it improved the speed. My wife broke her laptop so I gave her the TX2500 and fixed her broken laptop. A month later the TX2500 got the black screen but worked with an external monitor, so I used it as a media server in my house and gave my wife the netbook.

I needed a laptop powerful enough to run 3 virtual windows 8 servers and 1 virtual windows 7 client. So I took to the internet to build and order one that can (minimum spec, 750gb HDD, 6gb Ram, and Over 2.2 MHz muti-core CPU). The one I liked cost $1150 after rebates, but I did not want to spend over a $1000 for another laptop. I weighted my options and decided to upgrade and repair my TX2500.

Parts:

Seagate Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Hard Drive (750gb, 8gb solid state, $140 (on sale at fry’s)

Refurbished motherboard from e-bay ($165, if you can get a new one not from e-bay I had to return the first one they sent me)

1 4gb DDR2 PC-6400 Patriots memory ($72 at fry’s, I already has 2 2gb stick in the laptop)

Used AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology ZM-86, 2.4 GHz duel core ($65, from e-bay, the one I had was the ZM-82 2.2 GHz)

Copper cap from home depot ($3)

Thermal paste ($6)

I replaced the old motherboard with the refurbished one and upgraded the CPU to 2.4GHz. I replaced the thermal pad that was on top of the GPU with copper I got from home depot (make sure there is a littler pressure on the GPU). I then installed the 4gb and 1 of the 2gb sticks of ram, I originally installed windows 7 32bit, so I did a fresh install to windows 7 64bit on the hybrid drive. After all was put back together I downloaded the driver from HP website and installed them on the new OS. The Bluetooth driver from HP did not work with Bluetooth headsets so I reinstalled the drive using one from gateway. That fixed the problem. The next problem I ran into was with digital persona not recognizing the finger print reader. I decided to uninstall digital persona and install AuthenTec TrueSuite for $20. The next problem the dvd button did not work, so I installed QuickPlay and that fixed the problem.

At this point the computer is running perfect except heat from the processer. I decided to do a stress test on the processer with different room temperatures and with and without a cooling pad. The max temp for the AMD Turion 64 Mobile processers are 100˚c or 212˚f. So in installed Core Temp and its CPU monitoring gadget and stress the processor at 70˚f, 75˚f, 80˚f room temp:

                   Max temp with pad                   Max temp without pad

70˚f                  199                                               202

75˚f                   204                                               209

80˚f                    hit 212                                         hit 212

To fix this I went into balanced power plan and changed the maximum processer state to 90% (note because of the default clock settings it actually drops the clock from 2400Mhz to 1200MHz (so 50%)) that was a big drop in performance but you will not notice it because the processer is great. With that setting the processer will run real cool (under 180˚f at full load in an 80˚f room), the battery life is improved as well and the laptop stays cool to the touch. Since I did not mess with the High Performance power plan I can switch back and forth, which allows me to throttle the CPU from 100% power to 50% power. So depending on what I am doing (like taking notes in class or having the laptop unplug) I will use the balanced power plan otherwise I will use the High Performance power plan (as long as the room is cool enough). I also wrote a .bat script to switch power plan to the balanced power plan and configure Core Temp to run the script if the CPU temp reaches 210˚f

So to conclude the TX2500 is a great laptop with great potential. I am able to run 4 virtual computers with no problems at all on this laptop. I have also tried to max out the CPU and RAM by:

 running Skype, windows live mail, Adobe, downloading a movie, playing a movie with GOM player, playing music with windows media, Streaming 3 different movies and videos from 3 different websites using 3 different firefox windows, and running a speed test with internet explorer.

I still had over 2gb of ram free, the CPU fluctuate between 97% and 100% and at times fell to 76%. The sound was not distorted and the videos played fine.

[catriona6737]

i will never ever buy a hp laptop ever again i had the worst experince with the tx2500 model worst computer ever made . i only had it brand new for 4 months when the ac adaptor burned out , 2 months on the motherboard burnt out . since repairing these issues i have replaced the hard drive  cos it was no longer doing anything except crawling . now 4 years on the motherboard is over heating after two previous repairs  an replacement motherboard an heat sensor   i am sick of getting it repaired all the time . hp you have let your customers down greatly on this model . an you havent even offered a recall nor a refund  . i paid nearly 1200 euro for it an so far i would have been better off with a 300 euro laptop just wont choose hp . since then the charger has yet again failed an it isnt even used that much . the area isnt dusty or anything like that i use it always on a hard surface on a table but it still overheats . its absolute joke how this company can get away wit producing such a crap model of laptop . just shows how much they value their customers . well i wonder if all hptx 2500  customers  gathered together an posted up a review of this computer in every paper in the world would they be happy to give us a refund or a recall or even  give us a laptop that actually does it s job .hp is a disgrace no loyailty to its customers at all .  my keyboard has now stopped working an so has wireless assitant an i even updated drivers brought it for repair an same problem again .  its a joke . well done i will spread the word about this company as being the worst company an you guys in hp should all be trained in customer care as this is not customer care you never even offered a recall 

[catriona6737]

hey there is a reason you bought it , its because u wanted a laptop that actually does it s job ,so just because ur a tech head does not mean this company should be left off wit all the problems this laptop had ,  like seriously u paid prob over 1000 euro for a laptop u had to fix up  an buy  spare parts for an rebuild ,  u should have just bought a second hand one  for cheaper it would have made more sense but defo not the tx2500 model or defo not hp cos there crap 

[sank_it]

Woow.... there are a lot who have actually voiced out their problems instead of just dumping this good for nothing "tablet" pc.  I Bought this around thanksgiving of 2009 and noticed the overheating problem within the first couple of months. But i put the blame on the AMD processor and ignored the problem. BUt now, even if the processor is running, the screen just goes blank. So, i got my laptop professionally serviced and cleaned. There was some gunk in the cooling fan. BUt the problem persists. It runs for wround 5 min and display goes off.  It runs longer in SAFE MODE for around 15min. Im scared of backing up, scared if the pc turns off in the middle of the back up.

If the people at HP are listening, clearly you do NOT want to recall, but atleast can you provide a solution to this problem caused by the faulty hardware and design in this model.
My PC has been dead weight for the last 2 months. Been all over forums and youtube trying to find a solution.

I am no tech expert to buy and install a new motherboard/hdd/processor/ram on a laptop. I just want this to run for a few hours to back up my data, and then move on to a better company that can owe up to its mistake.

[LostLostHP]

I got this computer in 2008. Worked great till mid-2009. Didn't seem to have any problems whatsoever. Did a lot of programming on it, played graphics heavy games (completed Fallout 3 on it). Then (coincidentally?) in mid-2009 after working for some five to 15 minutes it started to exhibit the following behavior 

• Powers off on its own abruptly.
• Screen goes blank to black screen.

Ever since I lost a lot of work on it one day I said goodbye to it, I couldn't afford to tear my hair out or live in constant fear of the machine failing at any given moment. About three weeks ago I decided to have another go at it since its been just sitting around.

This time I decided to install Ubuntu on it thinking that Windows was probably causing it to overheat. Ubuntu wiped out my hard drive and did a fresh install. The installation procedure took more than 3 hours to complete. The laptop just kept chugging along great during the whole install process. I thought that perhaps Ubuntu had taken care of the problem finally.

But nope. Soon after installation the whole thing started to run hot and the machine just quit after around 40 minutes of email and browsing.

I know the machine works. Its just that it doesn't cool down properly which it causes it to blackout as a safety precaution. I have read how some on this forum has been able to break down the laptop and clean it from the inside. I think I am going to try that out after trying to run Ubuntu in power save mode. If that doesn't work then perhaps I will have to buy new components and reinstall.