Jacek Pliszka's HP Pavillion ZE4101 KA page

You may want to see my more up-to-date page about ZE4100 first.

2003-5-3: Alan Cox wrote that a lot of isues with Athlon+ ALI/ATI notebooks were fixed and they work pretty well now. See the original Alan's post. 2.6 kernel is recomended.

I also got another e-mail from the author of this website - he succesfully got PCMCIA and other things running that I had problems with.

I no longer have this notebook! After many hours wasted on PCMCIA I returned it to the store because of 'not compatibility with my software and hardware' and requested replacement by ZE4101 KB or ZE4100. I got ZE4100 and PCMCIA works!!! Se my page about ZE4100.

First look to my main page about notebooks

For HP info click here (enter ZE4101 then look at more topics)

KA is Athlon XP based for hardware details see HP site above.

Haven't tested this notebook for long, so far I have following problems:

What is working:

Links: Some Links from Oleg(e-mail see previous section).

Installation

Here I will give short description of Dual-boot XP-Linux installation. Removing XP completely is simpler, you just skip to Linux installation instruction.

Preparing partitions

First boot from any Cd with fdisk on it. Can be Linux installtion CD (Ctrl-Alt-F2 before package selection in RH), can be Windows boot Cd (skip start with F8). The notebook comes with 2 partitions: hidden /dev/hda1 and NTFS C: /dev/hda2. Just delete /dev/hda2 (all data will be lost so if you have any - backup it first) and isntead create a smaller one - of the size you want to spare for XP.

XP installation

First complain to HP that you do not get installation CDs but some junk recovery CDs. I hate Windows but unfortunately I need some Windows for Spanish, hardware testing and DVD. So I installed it from REcovery CDs - remember to choose Advanced option and then select the middle option - install only on C: drive. This will install only on partition you selected, without creating one huge 20GB partition (it is actually 18GB). This is actually much more convenient than Toshiba recovery CDs which do not allow to install to given partition but simply destroy the whole drive. Install XP. Potentialy helpful hint from HP: "There is a way to reinstall windows without having to recover and erase the hard drive. To reinstall windows close any applications running. Go to Start, Run. Type in C:\i386\winnt32.exe and click OK. This will start the windows install similar to installing windows from a retail cd. Follow the instructions and choose the default answers (OK or next.) Have your Windows ID ready in case it asks for it. (It will be on the bottom of the computer below the battery.) This will reinstall windows and possibly fix any windows related issue, but it is still a good idea to back up data first." - this maybe will allow easy resizing with fips (for me using fips destroys XP)." This is hint how to set up Linux-friendly FAT32 partition: " You can setup a FAT32 partition. Boot to recovery cds. Choose Continue then Advanced. Choose not to install the Operating System. Choose FAT32 and let the recovery setup the partition as FAT32. Restart the computer. Leave the cd in if you want to run the recovery again. This will install Win XP in the FAT32 partition."

Linux installation

This is for Red Hat 7.3 but other should be similar. First boot from CD and at the initial screen type in:
linux nopcmcia
Install Linux - use vesafb as ATI U1 is at the moment not supported. Pick Generic 1024x768 laptop screen (unless you have SXGA+ version). When installer asks about boot loader and boot options - give option:
nomce
Then install and boot to Linux. Now you should remove pcmcia from startup as it locks machine solid (reset hole is underneath on the left). Either press I in redhat and do step by step and not run pcmcia or boot from install CD and at the moment when installation option is selected pick upgrade and when packages to be selected appera: do: Ctrl-Alt-F2, use df to find where is your ./ mounted, and then go there and rename S45pcmcia to K55pcmcia, in the /etc/rc.d/rcA.d directory where A is yoru run level (3 or 5).

Minor Linux issues

xine crashing - use esd audio driver: xine -A esd

General comments

General opinion: I really like it. Much more than Toshiba Satellite. HP is my favorite notebook manufacturer - however this may change due to lack of Linux support and crappy BIOS.
  1. This is the low-end of HP notebooks in the multimedia line
  2. Big minus - there are problems with BIOS and Linux - PCMCIA does not work, IRQs are assigned in a strange way - probably buggy crappy BIOS from which Ali is well known
  3. Installing Linux (apart from PCMCIA) is much easier due to better "Recovery CD" than on Toshiba
  4. It has ALL ports like parallel, serial and PS2 !!! Big plus! Especially since my USB 2.0 Cardbus card needs extra power from PS2 (this was a huge problem oin PS2-less Toshiba)
  5. HP is more Linux-friendly than Toshiba - user support at least tried to give me hints (however not usfficient they were) - all what I heard from Toshiba : "We do not support Linux."
  6. Unfortunately strange ATI U1 Radeon M6 chipset is not working with Linux at full speed - just in vesa mode. Yet this is sufficient for DVD/divx.
  7. At the beginning I considered it ugly - now I love the blue techno-style lights - chicks totally dig it
  8. Small minus is that it is designed for 15" while I got 14"
  9. I love HPs CD on the side - at home I have external keyboard and front-CD in Toshiba drives me crazy
  10. USB floppy from which you can boot!! Lovely!!! No more stupid bay switching!!! ( I hate this in Toshiba)
  11. Cardbus is on the left! PS2 is on the right! Perfect!
  12. Unfortunately USB and power is at the back unlike in my old ergonics-wonder Omnibook 4150
  13. Also the drive caddy is very hard to disassemble. :( Special ultra-small screw-driver is needed.
  14. Lion battery - good.
  15. I love Athlon - this baby is fast ! - on the other thing it gets hot, uses a lto of power and it is noisy ....
Summing up - if PCMCIA worked with Linux it would a very nice notebook. Sicne it does not - I am returning it ...

Updating BIOS without floppy

This hint is also from HP:
  1. Connect to the Internet.
  2. Click Start, All Programs, HP e-DiagTools for Windows.
  3. HP e-DiagTools for Windows should now be loaded.
  4. Click BIOS at the top, then Update, check Download New, click OK, Change Settings, check LAN, click OK, and click OK again in the Connect box.
  5. The latest version of the BIOS will begin to download.
  6. The update BIOS window will pop up. At this point, the new BIOS is downloaded and all peripherals should be unplugged. Be sure that just the AC adapter is plugged in, then click Yes.
  7. The notebook will now restart and run the BIOS flash. Do not do anything to the notebook while this is happening.
  8. The BIOS update takes approximately two minutes to run through.

Jacek Pliszka
Last modified: Fri Apr 16 17:28:33 CEST 2004