Top 10 HP Pavilion zd8000 Notebook Questions & Answers

Sounds like the LCD display on the laptop is no good. If you hook up an external monitor, do the lines appear there? If they do, then the problem is with the laptop's video card. If the lines do not appear on the external monitor, then the problem is with the laptop's LCD display and it will need to be replaced.

I am using an Acer and my screen has over 25 lines now. Same vertical lines. Can anyone tell me what I can do to correct it??

Rasheed

From HP website- worked immediately for me.
This document pertains to HP Notebook PCs with Windows Vista. Understanding battery charging issues If the notebook battery is not charging or the notebook does not indicate that the battery is charging, the most likely scenario is that the battery itself is operating correctly, but its power management software may have become corrupt. In order to correct the problem, you will need to uninstall and reinstall the power management software by using the Device Manager. This document will explain how to uninstall and reinstall the ACPI Battery listings in Windows Vista, as well as how to obtain and install updated BIOS files, if needed to correct other battery issues. Uninstalling and reinstalling power management software in Windows Vista In order to correct problems with the battery's power management software, follow the steps below.

1. Click Start and type device in the search field, then select Device Manager .
2. Expand the Batteries category.
3. Under the Batteries category, right-click the Microsoft ACPI Compliant Control Method Battery listing, and select Uninstall . WARNING: Do not remove the Microsoft AC Adapter driver or any other ACPI compliant driver.
4. On the Device Manager taskbar, click Scan for hardware changes . Alternately, select Action > Scan for hardware changes .

Windows will scan your computer for hardware that doesn't have drivers installed, and will install the drivers needed to manage your battery's power. The notebook should now indicate that the battery is charging.

Go to Laptopkey.com

The problems with the HP Pavilion (Particularly the ZD8000) are sadly well-known by HP. It's not a problem with the battery or the charger or anything you can easily fix. The problem is heat. If you search long enough, you'll find hundreds of people with three problems: 1) the battery stops holding a charge after about 8 months, they buy a new one and get the same problem; 2) certain keys stop working on the keyboard, they remove the battery and the keys work again; 3) permanent lines start to appear on the display and never go away.

Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about these problems with the ZD8000, except stop using it as a laptop and ditch the battery. I have been problem-free since I ditched my third battery and just use it with a power cord.

Last year, I filed a formal complaint with the Better Business Bureau regarding HP's failure to acknowledge this problem and recall the machine. Each time I called service, I was instructed to follow the battery initialization procedure. All this does is allow support to get rid of you for 24 wasted hours, after which you have to call again and talk to some one new who tells you to do the same thing. The problem is, the procedure fails because the battery won't hold a chage in the first place. If you get to the end of the procedure with them after wasted days, they tell you to buy a new battery.

The HP ZD8000 is defective and never should have been released with a Pentium 4 processor. It's too hot and fries the battery and damages the screen.

Hello people! I have a solution for the resolution probleme, Please read.

As all of us, I have the SAME probleme with the graphics.

After having my computer crashed and out of warranty, (and after been requested from HP for 450 EUR as flat rate price for replacement of my broken parts), I started investigating.

At http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00291986.pdf I have found the HP Pavilion zd8000 Notebook PC - Maintenance and Service Guide (here to full zd8000 manuals http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/manualCategory?lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=1137817)

Well, with this manual I opened my broken computer. After remove the last part, the motherboad, I seen that my heat sink module was full of dirty! This caused my fans to work all the time and, probably, this fried my graphic card.

Try it for youself. You will be able to see that the dust is the main cause of the probleme. After cleaning the heat sink, the fans stop while I am working! Increible.

Well my ATI is fried. But I can tell everyone I am NOW in my notebook with a resolution of 1440x900.

The "solution" is as follows (hey, don't believe you will have hardware acceleration anymore! This solution gives you native resolution, true colors, but nothing else! Forgive games etc.):

You need to have the OLD ATI DRIVER and the graphic card should be enabled. If you have the new one your computer will not work after step 3 and will get freezed. The old driver is in the DVD provieded with the computer, containing all the drivers.

1) Boot your computer. Press F8 before windows logo, and turn it up in VGA mode.

Wow! Computer is on and monitor is working in 640x480 resolution (but Windows has disabled ATI in order to turn up in VGA, is this because you are able to see something).

2) Enter to Screen Propieties (at Control Panel) -> Configuration -> Advanced Options -> Probleme Resolutions (I am spanish, I have translated the descriptions, but it may vary slightly).

3) Hardware Acceleration: Put the slide bar to "Nothing". With this you will give to Windows all the graphic tasks. Now press aply.

4)The screen will become black. (Oh no! Again!). Start pressing fn + f4 in order to "switch" between displays. This will refresh a bit the screen (don't ask me why...)

Finally press fn + f4 (the keys that switch the monitors) a lot of times, fastly. This may crash your computer. (Don't worry, is part of the plan).

5) Reboot again in VGA as in step 1.

6) Go back to hardware acceleration as we did in step 2. Wow, hardware acceleration is still in nothing! ATI won't "run anymore".

7) We are near the end. Press "cancel" and get back to Screen propieties, where you will be able to change the resolution.

8) Put the resolution to the max (1440x900), with true colors.

9) Press Aply. The screen will go black (again).

10) Press fn + f4, one time and wait. The screen will flick.

Repeat step 10 until the screen displays normally.

If sometimes you turn up your computer and the screen is black, repeat step 10) until the screen displays normally.

As I said, now I am writing this from my crashed zd8000 with 1440x900 (the normal) resolution and with my fried ATI.

Hi, i noticed that when I unplugged my HP the screen stopped flickering. I then re-plugged in the power, when to the Nvidia control settings, to PowerMizer, and changed 'ac outlet' to Maximum Power Saving.

Not the world's greatest solution, but hey, working laptop now.

Cheers,
Andy.

To date, HP has refused to repair these defective laptops despite being fully aware that the problems do exist. The only real solution that I'm aware of is to write to the BBB (the one in California located near HP's Executive Offices). HP agreed to repair my laptop at no charge after I went this route. To the best of my knowledge, they replaced the display as I no longer have the vertical lines. It appears that they may have also reduced the processor speed as the computer runs much cooler than it ever did before HP made the repair. It's been several months since the repair was made and, so far, no problems whatsoever. Hopefully that will continue.

I found the solution - and implemented it, it works. The blue (ID) line needs to show 7.5v. The simple way to acheive this is to simply put a 47k resistor from the +19.5v line to the ID line. Apparently there is a pull down at the computer end that means it ends up at 7.5v.

I cut the cable about 6" from the old HP power supply. I then soldered a female power socket onto the loose cable and soldered the 47k resistor between the ID line and the +19.5 line. I then plugged this onto my two pin power supply and the plugged it into my computer. It works very nicely.

Not wishing to junk the HP power supply unecessarily - it was still producing the 19.5v - I then soldered a power plug onto that ignoring the ID line. That now works as well. It seems that the circuitry that provided the 7.5v ID voltage in the HP power supply became flakey. I could have just opened up the power supply (I have already done that) and disconnected the blue line from the circuit board and just tied it to the +ve line via the 47k resistor and then wrapped it with the usual insulating tape.

You have a number of options:

1. Make sure the wireless switch is in the "on" position. This means that the switch is slid to the right. If it is, and the light is blue, then the wireless is working just fine, you just need to connect to a wireless router. However, if the light remains orange...

2. If you have Vista, go into the start menu and right click on "Computer" (XP, right click on "My Computer" on the desktop or where ever you stashed it) and click on "Manage" in the drop down menu. After you do this, you will see a menu on the left, double click on Device Manager (6th item down). This will open another list of items. You need to go to "Network Adapters". This drop list will tell you whether or not the wireless card is being detected. Should say something like "Broadcam 802.11 b/g WLAN". If you see that, the computer is detecting the wireless card and your wireless should be working (however, if it is detecting it and the wireless light is still orange, check the switch again, if it is switched on, then you are about to have a motherboard problem). If the wireless card is not being detected...

3. You either have a HDD, wireless card, or motherboard problem (more often than not it is the motherboard, and you would be hard pressed to find one cheap). If you want to simply try to replace the cheaper parts first and hope that works, start with the wireless card, then go into the HDD, after that, obviously, the motherboard. But I will tell you from experience, that it is more often than not, a defective motherboard.