Quoting ranjitbhaskar

First of all, thanx for the thorough review you have made. Helped me make up my mind to for dv8000t after a long search in various forums and review sites. I have a few doubts about the same.

How did you upgrade the laptop with the 2GB OCZ RAM you bought? Can you provide me the exact model number of the RAM you bought, so I can do the same?

I have heard HP's warranty gets nullified if you remove the cover/seal or if you install a non-HP supplied hardware. Would that have happened in your case?

I would appreciate it if you could also give me the model number of the sound card you bought and how you managed to install it.

First off I am glad you found the review helpful, the soul purpose of me writing it was to fill in the gap of no Intel based Dv8000t reviews being online. Most of them are all based on the AMD platform.

For the purpose of Ram there are 2 options. if you want the best of the best OCZ you will want the 667Mhz if you want to save a few bucks you can get the 533Mhz models I have provided links for both below.

OCZ 1GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5400)
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16820227099

OCZ 1GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200)
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16820227110

As to the warranty Hp is very odd about, they will let you upgrade your computer on your own and they will even walk you through it on there online chat. For the most part I know how to upgrade laptops and PC's but to cover the warranty for the Laptop I logged on HP's 24/7 online chat for the Pavilion Laptops and asked them, they record the SN and the PN so they can go back and see you upgraded your tower with the guidance of a supposed professional "who really is a Joe blow copying and pasting pre written text." I just never told them the new memory being installed wasn't ram I bought from them.

If you ever need to send your notebook back for repair simply replace the upgraded ram with the stock ram that it came with. It is always good to keep the extra parts. The ram install is very easy, as you remove the middle cover "2 screws" and reveal the ram slots , there are two metal clips on both ends of the memory carefully push both of them at the same time and the ram should semi spring up. carefully slide the memory out. If there are 2 sticks of ram inside you will repeat the process. Now once you have those removed carefully insert the new ram sticks the same way the old ones came out. once clipped in place, boot up and make sure the laptop sees the new memory.

As for the sound it is a Plug and play device that will make use of your PCMCIA slot, which is on the left front side of your laptop. "make sure to pop out the filler that HP puts in there for you" I easily slide the card in and out of the laptop when I need it and when I don't need it I put the filler back in. I mainly got it so it will hook up to my 5.1 surround sound system at home. I use the standard headphone jack on the right side while traveling. Sometime I will slide the card in but it is really just using power for no reason... unless you plan on buying those 5.1 surround sound headphones.

Creative 70SB053000012 PCMCIA Sound Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829102185

Direct link to creatives site:
http://www.creative.com/products/pro...&product=10769

I was able to pick mine up for $40.00 online, with a little peeking around I am sure you can find a good deal.