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Can’t find the specs for an HP Pavilion even knowing model and serial №. Cannot simply find out what kind of CPU it has before buying. I challenge ppl who are good at searching to find the answer! (infosec.pub)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by daveyOsborn@infosec.pub to c/AskUSA@discuss.online

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cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/51315327

I saw an HP pavilion 17-f048nb at a street market and cannot find the specs for this. I simply want to know if the CPU is AMD, and if so which AMD. It’s such a shitshow on HP’s website. Considering the same HP model can sometimes have either intel or AMD, do I have any way to find out?

Sometimes you can get /some/ details based on the serial number at https://partsurfer.hp.com/ but not the CPU.

A slightly different model (17-f048ca) reportedly has an amd chip. But what do the last two letters mean? Is that a country code for where it is deployed?

AskUSA: how in the US would you extract this secret information from HP, who presumably has their corp HQ in California?

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[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I mean... Just get it from old storefronts. Its right on the headers in Google results.

It appears to use an A10-5750M CPU and integrated graphics:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-A-Series-A10-5750M-Notebook-Processor.92882.0.html

So 2 bulldozer-derived richland CPU modules, 4 threads. VLIW4 integrated graphics, same as the old Radeon 6000 series like the HD6970...

Not gonna lie.

That is not great.

The graphics architecture is circa 2010, pre GCN, so not well supported. The CPU is not fast, idles hot, and is notoriously inefficient. And it is an HP Pavilion.

If you get it, it better be cheap as dirt. Because a lot of ewaste smartphones/tablets will outrun it, and it will use more electricity than other laptops.

[–] daveyOsborn@infosec.pub 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I mean… Just get it from old storefronts. Its right on the headers in Google results.

I would certainly be curious what result you got that from specifically.

I never search Google directly. I use a Google-fed searx instance which came up dry. If I were to use Google directly, it would not be the same results you get as Google is highly personalized. So I just tried the one (and only) Google syndicate: startpage.com, which gives a non-personalized but pure Google result to try to get neutralized rankings (the best approximation to what others would get). And only got two pages of nothing useful.

It appears to use an A10-5750M CPU and integrated graphics

HP pavilion 17-f048nb does not show up on that page, so I assume that link is just to show the CPU specs. Richland is indeed what I would be interested in generally.

The graphics architecture is circa 2010, pre GCN, so not well supported.

I appreciate the tip. I did not know what GCN was so you’ve got me thinking I should look for a Richland chip that has it. I suppose that should be possible because GCN emerged Jan.2012.

The CPU is not fast, idles hot, and is notoriously inefficient. And it is an HP Pavilion.

It’s probably fast enough for me considering I’m currently satisfied with a 2008 thinkpad. Idles hot concerns me for sure since I am not doing much heavy lifting.

A TDP of 35W seems about average for quad core richland, but I would of course prefer to find one of the TDP 17 or 19W richland quads.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

This is a fair criticism. Apologies, I was on mobile. To be more specific, I actually found several listings on Startpage mobile, on iOS, but... I can't seem to replicate the results on my desktop :/. It is tricky to find.

but I would of course prefer to find one of the TDP 17 or 19W richland quads.

Technically you can just reconfigure AMD APUs to any TDP/speed you want. They underclock well.

But (speaking as someone who owned several generations of AMD laptops), that's not the problem.

AMD bulldozer APUs were... special. Something about the manifacturing and architecture makes them idle hot even when they are underclocked, undervolted, sitting there doing nothing. The previous generation "llano" CPU with K10.5 cores (like you'd find in a ~2009 Phenom II X4), were more efficient under load, and idled more efficiently.

It is the worst CPU series AMD ever made. It was worse than their initial 2011 APU, which itself was already much slower than ~2011 Intel. This was when everyone thought AMD was going out of business, and their stock price was down to ~$3.

quad core richland

It's basically a Trinity APU, barely updated:

diagram of trinity APU

It's not really four cores. Its more like 2 cores that can split themselves into four, more akin to 2 Intel cores with hyperthreading.

My concern with the graphics side is that, at some point, the linux AMD GPU driver split support into "new AMD" and "old AMD." I'm sure it would run, but it's probably more optimal to get something even slightly newer, and GCN based, to run the new codepath.

I can't remember the details, but the split was almost certainly with VLIW4 since the next generation was a radical architecture shift for AMD.

VLIW4 was a good architecture though, certainly better than Intel at the time. It's just old.

Of course, all this is predicated on the listing I found being correct, which I now can't verify.

[–] daveyOsborn@infosec.pub 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I appreciate the insight!

Though it’s bad news indeed because I could really benefit from having SSE4.1 instructions which Bulldozer introduced. I need to do offline language translations which generally means using Argos Translate which depends on SSE4. So I wonder if I have some cognitive dissonance coming since I might like to get something Llano-based as you suggest. But then I would have to accept not using it for translation. Maybe I should do that and perhaps dedicate another machine to translation.

OTOH, piledriver and steamroller succeeded bulldozer. Are they much better w.r.t heat? (edit) Actually i’m confused because it seems Richland is based on piledriver, which is the bulldozer successor IIUC.

Of course, all this is predicated on the listing I found being correct, which I now can’t verify.

It’s possibly dicey anyway. Even if one 17-f048nb has AMD, another of the same model could have intel, considering how HP models often seem diversely spec’d with a range of processors.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Steamroller is... slightly better, but AMD really fixed things with the first gen Ryzen APUs. Those were awesome.

Intel was golden in the 2011s and on though, and they got newer instructions earlier.

I dont know if this is appropriate to offer, but if you are in the US or somewhere I can ship to, I have two PCs I have been meaning to sell anyway.

One is a Intel 4670K desktop with a Nvidia 980 TI, 12GB RAM.

The other is an Asus ROG G14 with an AMD 4600HS and Nvidia 2060 TI, 16GB RAM. It has a broken display I've tried and failed to repair (bad mobo header, I think?), but it works perfectly with HDMI or displayport out. They're... just right here:

It seems Argos is CUDA accelerated; the GPUs would be useful for that.

I realize I'm just a random internet stranger, but I could put one on Swappa/eBay or whatever and you could just message me here about them. I'd be happy to try things or load stuff up. I also have knowledge on tuning them, and could ship them with whatever you want.

Sorry if that was unsolicited, or if thats not what you are looking for. I am really not trying to spam, it just seemed like they fit your workload.

[–] daveyOsborn@infosec.pub 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It would have to ship overseas and would not want anything with an IME or PSP anyway. Shipping alone would exceed what I would pay at my local street markets.

I appreciate all your insights. I was originally open to any of the 15h chips but your feedback has me thinking I should really be more narrowly focused on Steamroller-based chips. Which is not ideal because I think steamroller is dicey as there are contradicting claims about whether steamroller chips have a PSP.

[–] WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I wouldn't buy any second-hand PC without booting it up & running a utility that can validate its specs and that they're all in working order. There are any number of Linux distros you can throw on a USB drive to do this (and confirm the USB ports are working while you're at it).

[–] daveyOsborn@infosec.pub 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

This is not generally an option in my case. I go to a street market where stuff is dirt cheap because it’s untested and has risk. Sometimes there is someone at the market who will rent their power generator for a buck to test something, but most laptops do not have their power supply. So I would have to be equipped with the correct PSU (and the universals don’t usually do 19.5v which is what many HP’s are, plus HP has some lock-in tech that forces a PSU to be HP). Some don’t even have the RAM and thus would not boot even if I had a Knoppix drive.

I’m signing up for some risk. But what I don’t want is the risk that the CPU is not even what I am after. It’s central to my buying decision so I need to know early before wasting time and money.

Worth noting that we ~~know~~ think/suspect from this page that Elitebooks and Probooks possibly indicate AMD or Intel in the 3rd digit of their model number. And it seems likely because some Lenovos also use a 0 or 5 to make the same designation in their model numbers. But this is apprently useless for HP Pavilions AFAICT.

It would be nice to force HP to talk. I wonder if a FOIA request could be used somehow, perhaps targetted at the FCC who licenses the radios in a laptop and thus may have some info on the specs.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

in this scenario for me it would have to be I don't care if it works level of cheap.

[–] f4f4f4f4f4f4f4f4@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 days ago

This. Untested scrap at untested scrap prices. It's also HP; they should be paying you to dispose of it.

[–] daveyOsborn@infosec.pub 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Seller basically quoted the cost of 2 big macs. I might offer ½ that considering the display is apparently 17″. I would still feel stung if it were a brick (coupled w/potentially having nothing to salvage from it like RAM or HDD). But it’s a regular seller at this market so there is a slight chance of doing a sympathy return (though strictly speaking it’s an as-is txn).

[–] WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Under the "time is money" mindset, if you strongly suspect it has what you're looking for, how much time are you willing to invest before deciding? I've tried a few avenues already, and am likely hitting the same roadblocks you have (Pepperidge Farms remembers when all the info one could need was maintained on manufacturer Web sites, even for ancient products - enshitification indeed).

And good luck getting anything out of Trump's FCC. I'm afraid you're likely just going to have to decide uninformed.

[–] daveyOsborn@infosec.pub 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Under the “time is money” mindset, if you strongly suspect it has what you’re looking for, how much time are you willing to invest before deciding?

To quote RMS (who was quoting someone else): “time ain’t money when all you have is time”.

I need some certainty on the CPU; not just on this particular one but to generally be able to know the CPU of anything I look at. If you open an HP manual for an arbitrary laptop, it lists ~4+ possible intel CPUs and ~4+ possible AMDs. So it’s like a coin toss AFAICT. A 50% chance is not good enough. I already have an unreasonable number of laptops and cannot tolerate expanding that with anything useless.

And good luck getting anything out of Trump’s FCC. I’m afraid you’re likely just going to have to decide uninformed.

I’ve never done a FOIA request but read that they are not gratis. Since it’s compensated maybe it would be one of the few things Trump’s FCC would be willing to do.