Wifi turning on and off & treble/bass indicator issues in HP Pavilion dv8t-1000 CTO

[TerryFromMesa]

I have been having a variation of this problem. For some reason the pop-up control for volume stopped appearing when I used the touch slider. Have no idea whether it was from something I did and forgot, an automatic update, or what. In trying to research this, I found some advice to update the BIOS which I did a couple of weeks ago. After this, the pop-up slider still did not work. My notebook is a couple of years old. The wi-fi connection has always been a bit unstable, shutting off at odd times but not very frequently. It seemed after the BIOS update, that this wi-fi turning on and off became much more frequent to the point of being very unpleasant. I tried a number of tricks within networking and nothing seemed to improve it.

In one of the discussions, I think in this forum, I saw a link to Microsoft support on a similar issue. It seems there can be an issue with TCP/IP that can cause this. They recommend resetting the TCP/IP in Knowledgebase Article 299357. I tried to do this manually as they describe but the process did not complete. There is also a button to push for them to do it and then the process completed successfully. Unfortunately, my Wi-Fi still went down intermittently at about the same frequency as before. Not being in the mood to face a support call, I just switched over to a hardwired Ethernet connection. That worked fine. I noticed that day that the Wi-Fi was still switching in and out, even though I was using Ethernet. A couple of days later, I noticed the Wi-Fi light was staying on (blue) continuously. I waited a couple of more days and never noticed the WiFi going off. So I disconnected my Ethernet connection and have now been using Wi-Fi continuously for several days without interruption.

My suspicion is that the WiFi problem might be a TCP/IP problem in Windows that does not properly correct itself. Resetting TCP/IP might have been a step in the right direction, but it took using TCP/IP continuously through another device to get it straightened.

I will repost if the problem comes back.

[SueFL]

Brian,

Great detective work. I've had this issue for some time, but it only affects my on my home network. I usually use an air card when I'm on site. It makes perfect sense - I've had the screen blow out on this laptop once since I bought it due to heat build up issues. HPs "home" support is worthless too - I had to send the thing back to them, sans hard drive as I have some business info on it and won't let anyone put their hands on it (nothing was wrong with the install anyway). I sure as heck hope the server equipment is not so flakey as their laptops since my one client may be replacing Sun equipment with it.

Just wanted to thank for your fix!

regards,

Sue

[mck3125]

brian220x

Thank you... It works and I'm error free for 2 months.

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Wireless-Internet-Home/Question-about-Pavilion-dv8-Wireless-issue/m-p/1...

[CovSyn]

Hi - I have the same problem and it is not getting any better - does hp have a fix available?  I love my Laptop but this is crazy - the wifi problem combined with the Bass/Treble issue is unbelievable - thank you for your help guys

[HaggisCat]

See my first post in this thread.

 http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware/dv8-and-HDX-Series-OSD-Pop-Up-Solution/td-p/816295

 Also note the original idea of adding the ground shielding belongs to Brian.

[adels]

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jowinarski wrote:

I cannot thank you enough Brian220, I dont have the words to thank you justly,I just completed your foil fix and so far its good.this problem has been so frustrating for so so long thanks to HP's complete lack of consideration to any Hp users.HP will never again see any of my money for any of there products.Just another greedy US company with no thoughts at all of consumer satisfaction.Once again Brian thank you so very much I almost threw it out the window after countless hours with india and bull**bleep** from HP.Brian you give me hope that ( WE THE PEOPLE ) if we come together to help each other , that we can resolve almost any problem this greedy ,corrupt  corporate america and goverment  throws at us.My thanks to all of you that write in to help.

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can you please give me the link that explains brian220 method to use the shield, I tried looking for it but could not find it

[HaggisCat]

Here are his exact words copied and pasted from one of his posts concerning the fix.

I just finished putting it back together and it works perfectly! On my system it was very easy to test because when I pushed just above the F9 key the mute and Wifi would go crazy %100 percent of the time. Well, it does not malfunction, no matter where I press or how hard. I can press any of the capacitive touch buttons without any issues for the first time ever.

There are two parts to the problem. The first is the static grounding and shielding. The second is the exposed metal end caps of the LIF connector. This is the connector that the ribbon cable plugs into on the LED board. When I pressed on the LED before the revision, the exposed metal case of the connector would transfer the static charge to the housing just below it and cause a misfire of the cap touch circuit, triggering an actuation when it was not desired. This also occured randomly when the static charge potential reached high enough levels and jumped to ground also causing an unwanted actuation.

The solution was to shield the ribbon cable with high temp thin foil tape and increase the surface area of the existing foil tape ground pad that it rests on. I also secured the ribbon cable to the ground pad with additional strips of foil tape. Next I covered the LIF connector with Kapton tape to insulate it but left enough room to still plug the cable in. Once the metal connector housing was insulated I placed thin strips of foil tape over it still leaving the connector open for the ribbon cable. A good reference to use is the plastic slide lock that is pushed in to secure the end of the cable to the LIF. Cover only the plastic/metal housing of the LIF but not the slide lock or else you will not be able to secure the cable into the connector. Cover the kapton with foil tape to shield and ground it. You also do onto want to cause anything to short out on the foil tape that is being added.

The idea of taping the ribbon cable down to the existing small section of foil shielding is not a new idea but the exposed metal end caps of the LIF has not been mentioned. This is the main reason that most people have failed when performing the "tape down" method of the cable to the foil ground pad. My cable was actually secured well to the pad with adhesive. The only problem was that the shielding on the cable was not long enough and the ends of the LIF (low insertion force) connector where exposed.

I also placed some shielding on the under side of the entire cap touch board (LED board) and over the round mini sub woofer as well as wrapping the power and wifi harness to limit the EMI to the cap touch board (LED board). This can be done by placing foil tape over the channel that the wire harnesses reside in. I am not sure how much the shielding over the harness really had because usually that kind of problem causes a lack of response and not auto actuation. The foil tape shielding that I placed on the under side of the LED board did help to provide a nice path to ground for any residual static charge so I would be sure to include that step but you can likely omit the harness wrap.

After taking X-rays of the LED board I could see that the design and fab was actually very good so that left the static issue. performing the above will resolve the problem as long as you do not have some other underlying issue such as a defective LED board or power supply. After finding the cause I can almost for certain conclude that the Blu-Ray drive is not part of the problem.

On another note, I found a lot of loose screws and adding in the thin layers of foil tape made the entire keyboard and LED button panel feel much more robust and rigid. Almost as if it was designed correctly. Unfortunately the loose screws did not end up being the cause of the problem nor did the flexing of the LED board. This is ruled out due to the fact that I could trigger a false actuation without coming in direct contact with the panel. Just getting close enough to it with the tip of my finger would cause it to go nuts, all with no actual load being applied to the assembly.

That is all I can include for tonight but I will post some more info later. I did not take any pictures since I had planned on taking it apart again not expecting to fix it on the first try.

I am looking into trying to design & manufacture a kit that would come with die cut shielding gaskets or at least put out the info for anyone that wants to get the capacitive touch buttons working once and for all. It is not very hard to apply the foil tape but it is not fool proof since everyone may interpret and apply the fix differently. The goal is to put out a kit as well as the needed information that would allow a repeatable retrofit.

The panels are a little scary to take off since you feel like they are going to break but they do come off with a little patience.

Let me know what everyone thinks.

Thanks,

Brian

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 Brian hasn't been here for a long time, in fact the last time he visited was in June of 2011. I made some youtube videos of the procedure since then.

  http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware/dv8-and-HDX-Series-OSD-Pop-Up-Solution/td-p/816295

 The links for the videos are in the first post of this thread that I started.

 Brian and I discussed this for a while about why this is occuring and Brian told me where exactly to place the foil and how to ground it. Brian is an engineer and therefore very busy, so I made up the videos.

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 I was also working with another user and he reported that the actual bezel itself failed. (this was according to an HP engineer who finally admitted that the bezel itself was at fault) The bezel is held together with this industrial tape, The adhesive on the tape becomes old and "creeps" causing the "on' and "off" problem. In this case the only fix is to replace the bezel. Note that when the bezel has failed the foil/grounding shiled may not work.

[jowinarski]

The real problem is that HP laptops are not properly insulated and or grounded.

The fix I came across in this HP message board involves removing the touch panel and then insulating

and grounding some ribbon cable. This is to prevent any stray signal/power from going where it causes interference.I believe the theory of this to be correct by I was unsuccessful when I did it.

there is still something sending interference on my laptop causing the wireless to disconnect intermittently.

I am very thankful and applaud those of you taking this into your own hands to fix a very serious problem that HP has completely ignored.This problem is on different models and has been for years and HP offers no real fix it doesn't matter if it is under warranty or not.if you send it back to them it will come back with this problem.

Just another example of corporate america with no ethical responsibility at all and a political system that

is just as corrupt and supports this behavior.This is what we get when our businesses and government are controlled by criminals.Wake up America

[Elix545]

The final soluction is a Firmware update: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-96360-1&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&...

With this update the touchpad is more slowly and working without flashing and blinking any more.

[jowinarski]

If only it was that easy to fix as a download,this is a hardware design issue that HP has known about for years

 and chooses to ignore. why, you got it ,greed-complete lack of ethics and complete lack of responsibilitie to customers. Wake up America