HP DV9653cl Lightscribe

I see that I have forgotten to write more about the Lightscribe feature of the Pavilion dv9500. It's cool. It's slow. I bought a pack of colored Lightscribe disks, and it really works. It takes a long time to burn the image on the top of the disk though. 20 to 40 minutes. I have done it in draft mode and in high resolution mode, and there really isn't that much difference in quality. The high res burn has a little more contrast, but seems to me like it has the same amount of detail. The Lightscribe website has a bunch of templates you can download for free. The kids especially like burning mix cd's from our cd collection with the lightscribe supplied templates.

back in business

HP got my computer back to me within a week, in perfect condition. I have played a few directx games and it didn't burn up. Cool, eh? I am very happy with the way HP handled the situation. I got to talk to an english speaking tech, they agreed with my diagnosis right away, and service was prompt and perfect. Way to go. Not that I am pleased with the fact that it burned out in the first place...having to deal with that cost me a lot of productive time. But the fixit process went smoothly.

Cautiously Optimistic and Waiting

HP sent me a box via Fedex overnight. That makes me feel like they are serious about getting my computer fixed. It took me a few days to finish getting all my stuff backed up and to 'shred' my passwords and email and stuff. Now the HP dv9653cl is at their repair facility. And I have my fingers crossed.

HP dv9653cl video card failure

The video card, an 8600m GS, in my HP dv9500 failed on Easter Sunday while I was starting Quake Wars. I called Costco concierge services and they put me in touch with an HP support person, who spoke english(Thank God!). They agreed that the video card had burned out and the support rep is sending me a box to ship my baby back to HP in. I bought a SATA hard drive enclosure to use to transfer, erase and archive my data with. The Rolling River has Very Generously loaned me his little Acer laptop, which is more than adequate for my needs and I am loading it up with my tools tonight. (THANKS Bro!) I am not happy about this. I am worried that it will just happen again when I load up a directx game in the future. I Searched the net for 'dv9653cl video card' and got 80 results; none of which related to a failure, so I am cautiously optimistic. More later