I bought this laptop in December 2006. It has stunning looks which is why I chose it over other similar configuration laptops. For a year, it worked amazingly well. Except for two things -
It would overheat after about 4-5 hours of usage. The portion to the left of the touchpad became hot. Sometimes it would become unbearably hot. I thought it was normal. But later the problem grew worse(described below).
The battery life is pathetic. Just 1.5 hours of battery backup.
Then came December 2007 and my warranty was up. That’s when things started falling apart.
First the DVD drive would pop out on it’s own. This happened if I was holding it on my lap. Later I figured out that if I pressed the underside of the laptop at a particular place, the DVD drive would pop out on its own.
Then about February 2008, my drive stopped reading CDs. April, it stopped writing DVDs.
In April, the touchpad stopped working. I started using a USB mouse
OVERHEATING. Started in June. Apparently, this is a problem with all HP laptops in the dv series. A search on google for "hp laptop overheating" will give many complaints in many forums. While, earlier the temperatures would go high after 4-5 hours of use and I could place my hand on the left side of the touchpad and work, NOW, it would be SO HOT that I couldn’t keep my hand there. Using a temperature sensor program, I found the temperature of the core would be at 65 degrees. To solve this, I bought an IN-TRAY and placed it upside down after cutting holes in it where my laptop had it’s grills so that the air would flow out. Then the temperature would remain at 56 degrees.
My laptop died a few days ago. The video card or something has burnt out due to the heat. When you switch it on, it gives one long beep followed by two short beeps.
So why didn’t I go for repairs? Because it would cost me less to buy a PC than to repair this laptop. Besides, I have got another laptop from work which is my primary machine. I have taken out the 80GB hard disk which I use as my external storage device