HP's Fanless Chromebox Isn't

[btarunr]

HP is alleged to be falsely marketing its Chromebox desktop as "fanless." The company in its marketing material (pictured below), describes its Chromebox as being "silent, quiet, and efficient," and "dust-free" due to its "fanless design." When tested by YouTube-based hardware reviewer Lyon Siedman, he noticed a hum and vibration caused only by the presence of a fan. When sifting through HP's very own disassembly guide (PDF), you'll find a picture that reveals its fan-heatsink, used to cool the 17W TDP CPU. Since when is "fanless" a figure of speech like "silent?"



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[Steven B]

I mean WTF, did they think no one would notice? Or did a marketing guy mess up? Either way I think someone will lose their job or get demoted if people have already bought this. They can be held accountable for that kind of false advertising, not a good move for HP...

 

[newtekie1]

Doesn't really matter, even with the fan the thing will probably overheat and die a few months after the warranty is up just like HP's laptops...

 

[Toothless]

Doesn't really matter, even with the fan the thing will probably overheat and die a few months after the warranty is up just like HP's laptops...

As I'm running a two year old HP laptop.

 

[PLAfiller]

HP is killing me . This is a very good case for me however, from a marketing perspective. I really want to see how are they going to explain this up. I don't know what their "Machine" is going to be up to 2020, but if its anything like their current line up....I'd be worried if I were them.

 

[pigulici]

"Since when is "fanless" a figure of speech like "silent?"", well , since pizza it is a vegetable...for laptops I find the brand to be mediocre, for home printers it still good...fun to see how desperate are, why not to use PR than R&D?, well not all of us are stupid...

 

[enborn]

Doesn't really matter, even with the fan the thing will probably overheat and die a few months after the warranty is up just like HP's laptops...

Haha this happened to me with an older HP laptop. A few months after the warrenty was out the battery and the charger both died one after the other.

 

[a111087]

i remember old HP laptops with AMD Turion cpu's... all the them a common problem - idle CPU temp was 60*C and fan was at 100% all the time... it was a piece of shit!

 

[THE_EGG]

i remember old HP laptops with AMD Turion cpu's... all the them a common problem - idle CPU temp was 60*C and fan was at 100% all the time... it was a piece of shit!

yep...I had a HP TX1000...the plastic slots covering the exhaust actually went malleable when I would play a game on it. The benefit was that if there wasn't a hair-dryer in a hotel room you could just use the laptop's exhaust lol. After about 1.5 years of ownership I had to bake it to make it work as the warranty was only for 1yr.

 

[1c3d0g]

Yup. HP is the worst when it comes to cooling. I live in an extremely warm, tropical climate (Caribbean), and most devices here do NOT go that well with heat, in particular HP equipment.

But going back to the ad in question, that is a very low and deceitful tactic by HP to mislead their customers. A fanless computer should be fanless (without a fan), that's the damn meaning of fanless. I'm certainly not amused by companies which purposefully mislead their customers.

 

[Nabarun]

for home printers it still good...]

I strongly disagree. HP sucks. Their service more than their crappy sh!t.

 

[a111087]

I strongly disagree. HP sucks. Their service more than their crappy sh!t.

don't know about their newer printers, but they older laserjets are a real work horses and still work just fine.

 

[Nabarun]

don't know about their newer printers, but they older laserjets are a real work horses and still work just fine.

It's not about a particular product. Particularly when it comes to after-sales service.

 

[Solaris17]

Doesn't really matter, even with the fan the thing will probably overheat and die a few months after the warranty is up just like HP's laptops...

HPs laptops are such trash i see so many overheats.

 

[kn00tcn]

am i the only household with an HP laptop that's 'fine' since 2006? only the charger & battery eventually had issues, which you can replace easily, & the internal wireless only turns on every few restarts, which you can use a usb adapter as an alternative

it's a dualcore old AMD with old ati x1250 graphics, 15"

people complain about every brand, it's not like hp is the one building the components

 

[Solaris17]

am i the only household with an HP laptop that's 'fine' since 2006? only the charger & battery eventually had issues, which you can replace easily, & the internal wireless only turns on every few restarts, which you can use a usb adapter as an alternative

it's a dualcore old AMD with old ati x1250 graphics, 15"

people complain about every brand, it's not like hp is the one building the components

If you actually work in the filed HP has some serious quality differences. Nor would I consider your problems "fine"

 

[NC37]

As I'm running a two year old HP laptop.

You have my condolences.

 

[Toothless]

So a friend of mine had an HP laptop. Ran whatever game he wanted to run reasonably. Fast. Good battery. Up'd the RAM to 8GB. He worked on CAD and programming on it. No issues, and he bought it refurbished.

One day he was riding his bike home and the laptop fell off the bike and into the street. The screen broke completely.

He was going to scrap it but then decided to give it to me. I fixed the screen and replaced the RAM with faster, matching sticks. 8GB total.

Now it is my current laptop. I game, work on school work, and go on this forum all the time.

It's a HP Pavilion G7-1368DX. (Link)


Now I'll say HP desktops are shite because my first (and last) HP desktop came with some pathetic Pegatron motherboard that really did nothing but bottleneck and overheat.

 

[kn00tcn]

If you actually work in the filed HP has some serious quality differences. Nor would I consider your problems "fine"

that's why i put it in quotes, but the machine itself isnt dead, it isnt overheated, it works for an unusually long time even though it's a regular (somewhat low end) laptop

i wouldnt be surprised if a larger chunk of failures comes from more powerful & hotter parts while consumers or designers obsess over making the slimmest lightest cases possible

my personal laptop is an MSI gt780dx with an i7-2670qm & 570m... but it's not light & not small at 17", making it easier to cool (my record is 94 cpu + 97 gpu during the first hottest days of this summer which was... a few days ago actually)

 

[newtekie1]

the internal wireless only turns on every few restarts

Ironically, that is a sign of the overheating issues. And while they don't build the components, they do design them, and it is their designs that are flawed.

 

[Mussels]

As I'm running a two year old HP laptop.

mines 4 years old now and working fine.

 

[RejZoR]

i remember old HP laptops with AMD Turion cpu's... all the them a common problem - idle CPU temp was 60*C and fan was at 100% all the time... it was a piece of shit!

Cleaning dust helps you know. Running a 2,5 years old Compaq (HP) with AMD E-450 without any issues...

 

[lemonadesoda]

As I'm running a two year old HP laptop.

So? Is your warranty not 3 years, like in the EU?

 

[cyneater]

I though HP was short for Highly Problematic...

I'm not surprised there chrome box has a fan..
As you can probably tell I'm not a huge fan of HP...

 

[Basard]

Doesn't really matter, even with the fan the thing will probably overheat and die a few months after the warranty is up just like HP's laptops...

i've fixed a couple just by cleaning out cat hair and putting new thermal paste on the cpu and whatnot.... just sayin.