DragonMasterAlex
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2005
- Messages
- 2,993
12/16/2005: Added Touchpad Drivers
12/16/2005: Added Recommended RADEON Drivers
This thread is intended to be the start of support for the (soon to be) famous Wal Mart Black Friday 2005 laptop, the HP Pavillion ZE2308WM. An excellent basic laptop on the cheap ($378 for those who got them on BF 2005), this little guy can be upgraded to get some damn decent performance for your buck.
Listed below are the actual specs and a list of items to upgrade the system with for better performance. I'm also including a link to the Service Manual.
Thanks go to Zerocoolok @ATforums for finding the first few recommended upgrades. As he pointed out in his original post, the hard drive is this machine's biggest bottleneck, followed by the memory. Upgrades are listed here in order of importance (with just a hint of price-consciousness included).
To my surprise and joy, this laptop uses a *standard* slim IDE DVD/CDRW drive! What this means is that we can easily upgrade the unit to a DVD burner!! I found a good deal on an NEC slim DVD burner at Newegg for $79.99 and added the link below. Enjoy!
SOFTWARE AND MANUALS:
HP page for all ZE2308WM Software Downloads
Service Manual for Upgrades and Repairs (lists correct ways to upgrade and part #s)
Broadcom Advanced Utility for the wireless card. Thanks NeoPTLD@AT Forums!
UPGRADEABLE EQUIPMENT:
1. Hitachi Travelstar 60gb 7200rpm HD
2. Samsung Spinpoint 40GB, 8MB Cache 5400RPM (a bit cheaper than the 7200, for the budget-conscious)
3. PQI 512mb pc3200 200pin Memory (order 2 of these)
4. PQI 1GB PC3200, CAS 2.5 200pin Memory A little more 'spensive, but the laptop WILL accept 2GB of memory.
5. AMD Turion 64 Mobile MT40 800MHz FSB Socket 754 Processor - OEM
6. AMD Turion64 Mobile MT32 1.8Ghz 800Mhz FSB CPU (A bit cheaper)
7. AMD Athlon64 Mobile DTR, 1MB L2, 800Mhz FSB (Maybe best 64bit bang for the buck at just over $115 as of 12/14/05)
8. NEC DVD Burner
9. Mini-PCI 802.11b/g and Bluetooth Combo Card Straight from the HP manual. A little pricy, but maybe worth it to some.
10. Belkin has a PCMCIA adapter and BlueTooth Compact Flash card that should work great with this laptop. Better, you can find it at the Geeks.com or even on Ebay for as little as $21 shipped!!
11. Hitachi Travelstar 100GB 7200RPM Hard Drive (Thanks CorNut!)
12. Hitachi Travelstar 60GB 7200RPM Hard Drive, just $128! (Thanks CorNut!)
DRIVERS
Video: ATI Omega Drivers If you want the latest catalysts, you'll have to use the Omega drivers, as the default Cats don't support the mobile GPU's. These should boost performance well over the defaults.
Touchpad: Synaptec Touchpad Drivers (thanks to Se7en1ne and ewker!)
FACTORY SPECS:
I'll update this thread as I learn more. Please feel free to PM me or post here with updates!
Jason
12/16/2005: Added Recommended RADEON Drivers
This thread is intended to be the start of support for the (soon to be) famous Wal Mart Black Friday 2005 laptop, the HP Pavillion ZE2308WM. An excellent basic laptop on the cheap ($378 for those who got them on BF 2005), this little guy can be upgraded to get some damn decent performance for your buck.
Listed below are the actual specs and a list of items to upgrade the system with for better performance. I'm also including a link to the Service Manual.
Thanks go to Zerocoolok @ATforums for finding the first few recommended upgrades. As he pointed out in his original post, the hard drive is this machine's biggest bottleneck, followed by the memory. Upgrades are listed here in order of importance (with just a hint of price-consciousness included).
To my surprise and joy, this laptop uses a *standard* slim IDE DVD/CDRW drive! What this means is that we can easily upgrade the unit to a DVD burner!! I found a good deal on an NEC slim DVD burner at Newegg for $79.99 and added the link below. Enjoy!
SOFTWARE AND MANUALS:
HP page for all ZE2308WM Software Downloads
Service Manual for Upgrades and Repairs (lists correct ways to upgrade and part #s)
Broadcom Advanced Utility for the wireless card. Thanks NeoPTLD@AT Forums!
UPGRADEABLE EQUIPMENT:
1. Hitachi Travelstar 60gb 7200rpm HD
2. Samsung Spinpoint 40GB, 8MB Cache 5400RPM (a bit cheaper than the 7200, for the budget-conscious)
3. PQI 512mb pc3200 200pin Memory (order 2 of these)
4. PQI 1GB PC3200, CAS 2.5 200pin Memory A little more 'spensive, but the laptop WILL accept 2GB of memory.
5. AMD Turion 64 Mobile MT40 800MHz FSB Socket 754 Processor - OEM
6. AMD Turion64 Mobile MT32 1.8Ghz 800Mhz FSB CPU (A bit cheaper)
7. AMD Athlon64 Mobile DTR, 1MB L2, 800Mhz FSB (Maybe best 64bit bang for the buck at just over $115 as of 12/14/05)
8. NEC DVD Burner
9. Mini-PCI 802.11b/g and Bluetooth Combo Card Straight from the HP manual. A little pricy, but maybe worth it to some.
10. Belkin has a PCMCIA adapter and BlueTooth Compact Flash card that should work great with this laptop. Better, you can find it at the Geeks.com or even on Ebay for as little as $21 shipped!!
11. Hitachi Travelstar 100GB 7200RPM Hard Drive (Thanks CorNut!)
12. Hitachi Travelstar 60GB 7200RPM Hard Drive, just $128! (Thanks CorNut!)
DRIVERS
Video: ATI Omega Drivers If you want the latest catalysts, you'll have to use the Omega drivers, as the default Cats don't support the mobile GPU's. These should boost performance well over the defaults.
Touchpad: Synaptec Touchpad Drivers (thanks to Se7en1ne and ewker!)
FACTORY SPECS:
US Product Number EC205UA#ABA
Microprocessor 1.6 Ghz Mobile AMD Sempron processor 2800+ with AMD PowerNow! Technology
Microprocessor Cache 256KB L2 Cache
Memory 256MB 333MHz DDR System Memory (1 Dimm, CONFIRMED:it WILL use PC3200 correctly
Memory Max 1024MB (According to HP. The chipset OFFICIALLY supports 2GB, CONFIRMED: this lappy can actually take 2GB)
Video Graphics ATI RADEON® XPRESS 200M IGP
Video Memory 32MB DDR (shared), user configurable up to 128MB
Hard Drive 40GB (4200RPM) Hard Drive (easily upgradeable to 5400 or 7200RPM)
Floppy Diskette Drive Not Included
Multimedia Drive 24X DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive
Display 15.0" XGA TFT Display (1024 x 768)
Fax/Modem High speed 56k modem
Network Card Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)
Wireless Connectivity 54g 802.11b/g WLAN with 125HSM/SpeedBooster support (Confirmed to be a MiniPCI card, we need UPGRADABILITY Confirmation!)
Speakers Altec Lansing Stereo speakers (good sound!)
Keyboard 101-key compatible
Pointing Device Touch Pad with dedicated vertical Scroll Up/Down pad (sucks, of course. Buy a mouse : )
PC Card Slots
* 1 Type I/II 32-bit card bus (also support 16-bit)
External Ports
* 2 Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0
* 1 headphone-out
* 1 microphone-in
* 1 VGA (15-pin)
* 1 TV-Out (S-video)
* 1 RJ-11 (modem)
* 1 RJ -45 (LAN)
Dimensions: 13.15"(W) x 10.80"(L) x 1.29"(min)/1.63"(max)(H)
Weight: 6.51lbs
Security
* Kensington® MicroSaver lock slot
* Power-on password
* Accepts 3rd party security lock devices
Power
* 65W AC adapter
* 6-Cell Lithium-Ion (43Whr)
I'll update this thread as I learn more. Please feel free to PM me or post here with updates!
Jason