I recently sent my HP Pavillion DV2000 series laptop into HP for repair service. The computer doesn’t post consistently, and show the BIOS splash screen every 3 or 4 restarts. When the computer would not post I would have to manually restart the system by holding the power button.
Low and behold when the product was returned to me they said they replaced the motherboard. They specifically said they replaced the motherboard because the computer would not post, and the technician could not get to the BIOS splash screen. Does HP test the product before they return it? The same exact problem is occurring!!! Did they even test the power supply? Did they restart the computer several times to make sure it posts? I highly doubt they did any substantial testing because they returned the dam product back to me in the same condition it was in when I sent it to them.
Why doesn’t the technician call the client (me) to talk about the problem? I could have told the person it most likely was not the dam mother board. If the motherboard was malfunctioning there most likely would have been crashes, and general malfunction. I was experiencing proper function when the computer actually booted.
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For a year now I have been using a Gnome desktop environment. KDE is now in place and I’m finding it refreshing. Its mouse events trigger slightly different, and KDE seems to operate with increased performance on my particular HP DV2000 hardware. My favorite KDE applet it kpowersave; it allows for easy frequency scaling. I also like the look and feel of knetwork manager as compared to network manger for gnome. Overall KDE has a increasingly glass like interface and a luxurious overtone.
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Desktop PC’s typically have a clip on their motherboard where the CMOS battery sits. On laptops sometimes the CMOS battery is unreachable. On the HP DV2000 The CMOS batter is located under the hard drive panel, and has a 3 pin connection to the motherboard. The connection clip is attached to the battery via solder points, and therefore to replace the CMOS battery in this machine you will have to remove the soldered connections, and re-solder them to the new battery.
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With more recent Linux Kernels, such as those included in Gutsy Gibbon, the HP DV2000 Laptop had a couple of issues, which could have stemmed from PCI BIOS BUG #81.The bug remains after the update, but system stability appears to improve. The improvement may be subjective, but it cant hurt to have an updated BIOS; it is indeed the job of the company to provide security, and functionality improvements for their software.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=2093&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=1817074〈=en
The new Bios is version F.34. You can check you bios by booting into your system configuration menu; press F10 while booting. The BIOS installation file must be run with your pre-installed Windows Vista Home Premium; I consider myself lucky that I saved my Windows installation on another partition.
I encountered this BIOS situation as a result of buggy system operation leading to poor system restarts and boots. It seems, and I highlight seems, that the system is now functioning predictably.
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Enabling the NVIDIA drivers on my HP DV2000 with an Ubuntu Gutsy OS causes system instability. With the driver disabled the system appears to operate stably therefore I have high opinion of Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbion; some new additions on the part of Canocial are rather refreshing.
While the effects associated with use of the NVIDIA driver, Beryl in particular, are enjoyable, a reliable system trumps all. I have had the best experience using Debian Etch; the NVIDIA driver compiled perfectly with the software package they provide on their website. It also operated completely stable for many months.
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My HP DV2000 laptop works great with Ubuntu and Debian. The only thing that is not completely functional, with an out-of-the-box install, is the monitor mounted web cam. Frankly I don’t use it. Some DV2000s come with the Intel wireless chipset, and this works out-of-the-box, and for wireless cards, with the Broadcom chipset, NDISWrapper works flawlessly. Keyboard shortcuts, including the proprietary media button panel, works fine with Ubuntu, and can be fully configured on Debian.
Overall I have great experiences with Linux on my Laptop. It is a power machine, that worked great with its pre-installed Windows Vista, but after the installation of Linux noticed a speed more comparable to Windows XP. On my Debian Gnome Desktop I have a Windows XP virtualbox, and it boots, and operates as a VirtualOS much faster than Windows Vista. Frankly the only reason I have the Windows XP virtualbox OS is because the dam printer drivers only are for Windows. All in all, I like having Windows XP installed on Linux, it provides the best of both worlds; the speed and stability of Linux, and the program compatibility associated with Windows 
Ohh, and on a side, note, one major reason Linux is generally much faster is because Linux requires no spyware tools. Also note that if you have a router, there is no need for a software firewall to eat up your ram and processing power; most routers have built in hardware firewalls!!! Ehh, and anti-virus, I happen not to use it on my HP DV2000; although there are indeed viruses for all OS walks of life, the need for continuous virus monitoring, and scanning, is not necessary due to substantially less vulnerable nature of Open Source Linux distributions. Open Source projects, well most of them, provide excellent vulnerability updates and support.
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