An Update is in order…

Hp received my laptop around the 3^rd or 4^th of July. They replaced the motherboard and wireless card with another of the same model; then shipped the laptop back to me and I received it on the 15^th of July. Fast and great services; my communication with HP has been through interactive chat and I had to use it again.

After receiving my laptop from service in great order I noticed 2 things wrong with it.

The button near the mouse pad that turns the mouse on or off is very stiff to use. I have to really give it some pressure to operate it. This can be because of the de-and-reconstruction of the laptop case. They probably didn’t realign the mouse pad properly.

Then, HP didn’t return my power adapter. So I went back on HP’s service site and spoke with a tech. First, they claimed, they won’t replace my lost adapter because I was not suppose to ship any accessories with it. I asked for a manager and explained my situation. I don’t think I got a manager because I was never informed of such. I told them to review the transcripts of the conversation between myself and HP (on Hp’s side of the server) to verify my claim. HP then found the location that stated where the tech informed me to INCLUDE my adapter with the shipment. The support representative I spoke to, then issued and shipped out a replacement adapter for me.

I thought… WOW great service. Then the brand new adapter arrived and it didn’t have the 3 prong plug for the outlet. I gave up on HP, went to radio shack and bought the 3 prong plug for $8.00 USD.

Great service when covered under warranty.
Careless physical support with installing new hardware.
Willing to do anything to please the customer.
Their laptops overheat and run hot.

So, if you’re going to buy an HP because they are affordable, spend the extra money and buy the extended warranty.

This is the congrats on your new purchase. Let’s unpack and power up. This series of tutorials also relates to a re-installation of your machine (currently, this is my hell).

So you just bought the machine or completely re-installed everything! Now what? If you’re an experienced user, you know what you want and you will begin to customize your machine the way you want it. If you are a noob, you need help and you will most likely customize as you go.

Your first steps should be based on what machine you have and want you value. If you have a desktop, you could get right down to junk-ware removal and if you have a laptop (like myself), you could start off with the power settings.

The machine I will be working with is an HP DV6308NR Laptop.

The first thing I chose to handle after my initial power on of my machine, was to tweak my power settings. When I got past the initial setup screens and Vista was fully loaded, I went through the power options icon to tweak my power settings.

(Why do I value power options? Heat is a top killer of pc’s and laptops. Like many people who own the DV6000 and DV9000 series of laptops, my broadcom wireless adapter overheated and fried. I’m currently on the internet with a USB-wireless adapter that I keep in my PC tool box. I will now invest in a laptop cooler!)

#1= Edit HP Recommended Power Plan:

• In you lower right hand corner or your screen near your clock, look for your power options icon and click on it once. Here’s what you will see:
  
• The quickest way to access the power plan area through this window is to click on the “More power options” link; here is what will open:
  
• To tweak the “HP Recommended” power plan settings, click on the “change plan settings” link under the “HP Recommended” category. This will open the edit plan settings, within the current window you have open. Here’s the shot of what it looks like:
  

Please NOTE: I want my HP recommended plan to always be my high performance plan while plugged in and running on the battery.

• Based on my needs, I set the “Turn off the display” setting to NEVER, on battery and plugged in.
• I also set the “Put the computer to sleep” setting to NEVER, on battery and plugged in.
• Then I set the “Adjust display brightness” setting to half-way brightness, on battery and full brightness while plugged in.
  Here’s what the change will look like:
  

Just when you think you’re done, the real tweaking begins…

• To fully tweak the HP Recommended plan, click on the “Change advanced power settings” link and the Advanced settings window will open:
  

Here’s what I set all of my power options to, within the HP Recommended plan:

1. Additional Settings
   Require a password on wakeup
   On Battery: No
   Plugged in: No
2. Hard disk
   Turn off hard disk after
   On Battery: Never
   Plugged in: Never
3. Wireless Adapter Settings
   Power Saving Mode
   On Battery: Maximum Performance
   Plugged in: Maximum Performance
4. Sleep
   Sleep after
   On Battery: Never
   Plugged in: Never
   
   Allow hybrid sleep
   On Battery: Off
   Plugged in: Off
   
   Hibernate after
   On Battery: Never
   Plugged in: Never
5. USB settings
   USB selective suspend setting
   On Battery: Disabled
   Plugged in: Disabled
6. Power buttons and lid
   Lid close action
   On Battery: Do nothing
   Plugged in: Do nothing
   
   Power button action
   On Battery: Shut down
   Plugged in: Shut down
   
   Sleep button action
   On Battery: Hibernate
   Plugged in: Hibernate
   
   Start menu power button
   On Battery: Hibernate
   Plugged in: Hibernate
7. PCI Express
   Link State Power Management
   On Battery: Off
   Plugged in: Off
   
   
8. Processor power management
   Minimum processor state
   On Battery: 100%
   Plugged in: 100%
   
   Maximum processor state
   On Battery: 100%
   Plugged in: 100%
9. Search and Indexing
   Power Savings Mode
   On Battery: High Performance
   Plugged in: HighPerformance
10. Display
    Turn off display after
    On Battery: Never
    Plugged in: Never
    
    Adaptive display
    On Battery: On
    Plugged in: On
    
    Display brightness
    On Battery: 50%
    Plugged in: 100%
11. Multimedia settings
    When sharing media
    On Battery: Prevent idling to sleep
    Plugged in: Prevent idling to sleep
    
12. Battery
    Critical battery level
    On Battery: Hibernate
    Plugged in: Do nothing
    
    Low battery level
    On Battery: 5%
    Plugged in: 5%
    
    Critical battery level
    On Battery: 3%
    Plugged in: 3%
    
    Low battery notification
    On Battery: On
    Plugged in: On
    
    Low battery action
    On Battery: Do nothing
    Plugged in: Do nothing

TO BE CONTINUED…