Back-lit Key Board HP Pavillion DV7 Laptop -- Possible..?

[Zeussy]

Hey Gents,

Basically as the title suggests, just wondering if you guys know, or have ever changed out a key board on a laptop?

Been wanting to do this for a while and been doing a bit of research into it, but can't really find anything definitive.

My Laptop model number is DV7-7008TX.

It looks exactly the same as this one in the video, he shows it has the function of a back lit keyboard.
Using key F5 to turn it on and off - his button has a symbol on it where as my button does not, just a blank F5 key.

The DV7 starts at 1:28

[video=youtube_share;SR3Em7RI0N8]http://youtu.be/SR3Em7RI0N8?t=1m28s[/video]

I've read elsewhere that the main differences between the keyboards themselves is the non back-lit keyboard has one ribbon to connect it to the keyboard, where as the back-lit version has the normal ribbon and a smaller one for the power of the LED's. Going by a few random guys from various places around the net, all of the laptops so far have had the two connections on the laptop itself.

New HP Pavilion DV7-7000 DV7-7100 dv7t-7000 series laptop keyboard backlit | eBay

Looking at this keyboard. I've just asked them a question on Ebay, so will see what they say, if they know. It says it will fit DV7-7000 series, which is what mine is?!

What does everybody reckon?

 

[87RB30VL]

I'm at work so I can't input too much but I have a Toshiba Satellite, and mine came out with a back lit & non-back lit keyboard versions, too, and all I need to do for mine is swap my keyboard for one with the LEDs and attach the ribbons like you mentioned & bam, lit up keyboard! From what you've posted the 7000 should work with your 7008, but yeah it's best to double check sinceI've never swapped them before so I'm not sure how far the compatability stretches through the ranges.

I dunno if you'll get the option of turning it on/off with F5, but then again I'm not 100% sure

 

[Zeussy]

Cheers for the encouragement! Haha, I wasn't too confident about it being possible, but you got me keen to find out - seeing as how it's possible on your Toshiba.

(now) I'm pretty sure the HP will be like your Toshiba, with the accessory being available off the base platform and just an upgrade for the better models etc..

I got an email back off the ebay seller:

Dear,
yes,
your laptop is dv7-7000 series ,
the keyboard fit your laptop.

this keyboard with backlit,
if you used keyboard with backlit,
please buy it,

if you used keyboard NO backlit,
please buy normal dv7-7000 keyboard,
HP Pavilion DV7 7000 DV7 7100 DV7T 7000 Entertainment Series Laptop Keyboard | eBay


thanks


So, basically, I was still unsure if my laptop would have the additional 'plug' for the LED power ribbon. From everything I could find online it should have.

Bit more reseaching... Found out how to remove the keyboard and check my own laptop. It was a bit tricky as you have to give it a bit of force to 'unclip' it from the Laptop itself. All good.

The little 'plug' circled in green is (what I believe to be) the additional power supply for the keyboard!!

So, fkn awesome news! Looks like I'll just have to try it out and see if it functions or not, would it need any drivers/software upgrades etc? I have NFI?! :rofl2:


Which then got me into thinking what else is there that I can upgrade/fck with. lol.

Looking into upgrading the RAM, so far I'm pretty sure mine has 8g, (2x4g) and want to get a couple of 8g sticks, giving me 16g.

Still not 100% sure on it though, seeing stuff like SODIMM and DIMM-CT etc.. I read that you can't put SODIMM memory in blah blah slots and vice versa etc... That's when I started scratching my head a little. lol.

When I was playing with the keyboard I took out one of the sticks and got the numbers off it, it starts with DIMM-CT: then a whole bunch of numbers and letters that don't come up on google. But on a couple of "Online Upgrade Stores" (RAM CITY and CRUCIAL) List the upgrades in there pages so I figure it can't be too bad? lol

More questions, what's an SSD drive? Would I need one if I get the 16g RAM upgrade? What size? Do I need that much RAM? Will windows regonise it, I have the 64 bit version of windows7.

16GB kit (8GBx2), 204-pin SODIMM, DDR3 PC3-12800 upgrades for HP - Compaq Pavilion dv7-7008tx Laptop/Notebook, CT3257214 from Crucial.com

^^^ 16g RAM Upgrade, from Crucial.

128GB, 2.5-inch Solid State Drive, upgrades for HP - Compaq Pavilion dv7-7008tx Laptop/Notebook, CT3257210 from Crucial.com

^^^ 128g SSD

Looks like I have 2TB of Memory, so that and a 2TB external drive is plenty for now, lol.

Can you upgrade the CPU at all, or is that part of the mother board? ie: not worth changing/buy another laptop..? I have a INTEL CORE i7 3610QM, 2.3GHz.

Is it worth getting a cooling platform for my Laptop?

And lastly, can you upgrade the wireless modem on these? If so, any idea's on a good size etc?
I've got a stupid USB drive/wireless internet thing off Telstra and its the biggest POS. It drops out constantly, so I have to reload everything I just downloaded... And costs a fortune...

Cheers in advance for any help any one can offer, it's all relatively new to me!

 

[GEN3RATD]

RAM depends on what you are doing, it will help you multitask better. People tend to exaggarate RAM requirements, 8GB is plenty of RAM for the average user/gamer. More RAM is required if you are photo/video editing or anything like that... RAM tends to be cheap, i just bought 16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM off ebay for $120. So then answer is no, you dont need more RAM, but it wont hurt if you put more in. Windows 64GB can recognize up to 32GB of RAM.

An SSD is basically a HDD that uses flash memory for storage so there are no moving parts. Ever noticed a whirling sound from you laptop while loading something from the HDD? thats because they spin, SSD's dont. The advantage there is that SSD's are LIGHTNING quick, i load windows from a cold start, logged in and surfing the net within 10 seconds... no lie. they also produce less heat which is very important in laptops and tend to last longer due to no parts moving. Obviously the negative is the HUGE price increase over a HDD... its not a bad idea to get a smallish SSD, like a 64 or a 128, to run the OS and programs you use all the time, then a 1-2TB HDD for just general storage...

Changing the CPU and GPU is laptop dependant, MOST are inbuilt, you might have to look deeper in to it... i personally have an Alienware so they are fully customizeable, i did have the same CPU as you but ive now got a i7-3920xm which is 3.8Ghz overclocked to 4.2Ghz...

I have a cooling platfrom (Coolermaster U3) i ran a few tests and deduced that i got a few degree drop when using it with the fans cranked, might be superficial but because my laptop stays in one place usually I thought i might as well use it, heat is the number 1 killer of electronic componants.

 

[Zeussy]

Cheers GEN3RATD, lots of very useful info in there. That's about the price I found for the (16g) ram for mine too. I do a bit of photo's and that, but nothing like on a 'professional' scale.

I was checking out to see how much ram I am currently using, and it was roughly only like 2.5g, just browsing and crap.
Then I spent the night looking up tips for 'performance enhancing' your computer - LOL.

Ended up just going through the start up and deleting most of the HP "bloatware" and deleted a heap of random programs that I haven't used since we got the laptop. Ran CCleaner and a disk defrag.

It loves it!! It's hard to believe that just simple stuff like that makes a fair bit of difference.
After I did all that was only using around 1.8g doing the same sort of stuff, so whether or not it actually made a difference or if it's just in my head I'm not too sure, but it definately feels faster..!

I like the idea of the SSD. Again, like you mentioned for the O/S for fast boot up times etc.
I was going to wait until the capacity got up a bit more but like Wraith was saying it will probably take a little while, so may as well benefit from it now, rather than wait all that time..
Might have to look into that a bit more.

Overclocking is, I'm afraid out of my league at the moment..! LOL.

Is it just basically, the manufacturers set up the CPU to run at a certain speed etc and be able to handle a certain amount of heat 'safely' with a fairly generic 'buffer' - much like manufacturers do with car engines.
And 'over-clocking' is essentially 'tuning' - (for lack of a better word) the CPU to run within it's own safe limits, depending on it's individual application?

Like on a Diesel, throwing in as much fuel and boost as possible while still not increasing EGT's into a dangerously unsafe level, causing failure..?
Or am I completely off target with my rationale..? :rofl2: (Plant Mechanic, not a computer whizz here!)

Might have to look into the cooling platform also, at time's I notice the laptop gets pretty hot, can't be good for it..

Cheers for all the input and Wraith you too for the P/M's. Greatly appreciated!!

 

[Demonica]

You sound like what you really need to do is build an actual computer instead of playing around with a laptop.

Def invest in an SSD, I was really surprised the difference it made when Wraith upgraded my laptop. Mind you he also changed it from an i3 to an i7 and upgraded the RAM from 8GB to 16GB as well lol.

 

[GEN3RATD]

Cheers GEN3RATD, lots of very useful info in there. That's about the price I found for the (16g) ram for mine too. I do a bit of photo's and that, but nothing like on a 'professional' scale.

I was checking out to see how much ram I am currently using, and it was roughly only like 2.5g, just browsing and crap.
Then I spent the night looking up tips for 'performance enhancing' your computer - LOL.

Ended up just going through the start up and deleting most of the HP "bloatware" and deleted a heap of random programs that I haven't used since we got the laptop. Ran CCleaner and a disk defrag.

It loves it!! It's hard to believe that just simple stuff like that makes a fair bit of difference.
After I did all that was only using around 1.8g doing the same sort of stuff, so whether or not it actually made a difference or if it's just in my head I'm not too sure, but it definately feels faster..!

I like the idea of the SSD. Again, like you mentioned for the O/S for fast boot up times etc.
I was going to wait until the capacity got up a bit more but like Wraith was saying it will probably take a little while, so may as well benefit from it now, rather than wait all that time..
Might have to look into that a bit more.

Overclocking is, I'm afraid out of my league at the moment..! LOL.

Is it just basically, the manufacturers set up the CPU to run at a certain speed etc and be able to handle a certain amount of heat 'safely' with a fairly generic 'buffer' - much like manufacturers do with car engines.
And 'over-clocking' is essentially 'tuning' - (for lack of a better word) the CPU to run within it's own safe limits, depending on it's individual application?

Like on a Diesel, throwing in as much fuel and boost as possible while still not increasing EGT's into a dangerously unsafe level, causing failure..?
Or am I completely off target with my rationale..? :rofl2: (Plant Mechanic, not a computer whizz here!)

Might have to look into the cooling platform also, at time's I notice the laptop gets pretty hot, can't be good for it..

Cheers for all the input and Wraith you too for the P/M's. Greatly appreciated!!

you dont need excessive amounts of RAM, for more people 8GB is enough, 16GB for photo editing and stuff. I have 32GB but its more for wank factor then for anything else, i had 2 spots free so i just chucked more in there. Computers arent any different to cars in that respect.

SSD's. On saturday i fitted 2 240GB SSD's in RAID0 and now my laptop is ridiculously quick, its awesome. boot times really have to be seen to be believed.

Overclocking isnt as hard as you might think, i had my first crack at it on the weekend and had no troubles. Basically its accessing the bios and changing the multiplier of the CPU to up the clock speed. Push it to far and your CPU is going to chernobyl but with slow, steady increments you can push your CPU to lightning fast speeds, with a laptop you cant push it as far as a watercooled PC rig but you can still go alright... my stock clock was 2.9GHz with a turbo boost up to 3.8GHz, ive got it up to 4.4GHz stable now. when i tried to push it further i got all sorts of programs crashing, you can even blue screen if you go to far... the best way to go about it is move it a nudge at a time, then run 3Dmark and see if your scores improve, while running aida64 to check your temps in the background and make sure that nothing overheats. then once you are happy run a prime95 stress test for 10-15 minutes keeping an eye on temps once again, if nothing fails that time try some Crysis 3 or something for a bit, if nothing fails then its stable.

i literally cannot run my laptop now without a cooling platform, its like a sandwich press now. check out the coolermaster U3 if you want a good one.