Costco Members: HP Pavilion Plus 14" OLED Laptop: Ryzen 7 7840U, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD Expired

I noticed the fan noise too but I found there is a big difference between unplugged and plugged in. When unplugged, the fan noise is almost non auditable when browser web and streaming videos. I even installed MS office when unplugged and the fan only turned on a few times during the install. When plugged in, the fan almost immediately kicked in and the laptop if quite warm to the touch.

Then I researched a bit and found the default power plan (balanced) has a big difference in the "processor power management" between plugged and unplugged. When plugged in, the minimal processor state is set at 80% and when on battery, the minimal processor state is set at 5%. For the maximum processor state both are set at 100%. I set the minimal processor state to be 5% when plugged in. Now the laptop is very quiet no matter if I plugged it in. It made a big difference to me. Please give it a try before returning it if this could solve your problem.

To change that, you need to go to Control Panel -> search for "power" -> choose a power plan -> change plan settings -> change advanced power settings -> Processor power management.

How to make the video "FULL screen"?
I am watching Youtube on Edge browser and when I go full screen, I see black border on top and bottom. The full screen doesn't extend to bezel of the monitor.
Anybody has the same issue with this HP?
With a 2880 x 1800 resolution, it has a 16:10 aspect ratio.
Thanks!

What did you expect when watching 16:9 content on a 16:10 screen?

even I changed to 2560x1600，a 16:9 ratio，still not working 😭

Does this laptop have fingerprint login?
I have installed the updates through usb flash drive, and when I go to sign in options, under fingerprint recognition, it says 'This option is currently unavailable, we couldn't find a fingerprint scanner compatible with windows hello fingerprint'

Key is locked to the board now, so no new key needed.

Have a USB plugged into a second computer

Media Creation Tool:
https://www.microsoft.com/softwar.../windows11

Drivers:
https://support.hp.com/us-en/driv...2101718068

Create a bootable Windows 11 drive on the USB, using the first link provided.

Once you've created the USB W11 boot, download the drivers from the second link (i used Windows 11 22H2 as the option, not just Windows 11), and move them to the root of your USB drive. There are 8(sorry, said 6 earlier) different drivers for this model, plus a Bios. You don't need to update the bios, but if you feel it needs it, you can (bios updates are riskier than updating drivers so don't do it unless you see instability that you know is from the bios).

Plug in the USB into the laptop, and spam ESC during boot, and then select boot option, and then boot from USB volume (probably D:/, may be different in your case)

Select Advanced options for Windows installation, and then click on install a new copy of windows.

When you get to drive selection for the windows install, delete ALL of the prior volumes, so you have one unpartitioned drive. Select the unpartitioned drive to install windows on, then proceed with installation.

During installation, when you get to downloading updates, you won't have network drivers, so you won't be able to move past this point without updating drivers.

Hit Shift F10 to open command prompt, and select the volume your USB is under, by typing D: (or whatever drive your USB is)

the drivers you downloaded are executables, which means you only need to type the name of the file (sp148662.exe is the wifi, sp148295.exe is the bluetooth, or vice versa, can't remember which) and the driver will run and install itself. Once your done, you can close out the CMD window.

Continue with installation. If your computer restarts, and goes back to the start of installing windows, just unplug the USB drive and restart the laptop. You can plug it back in when your finished to complete driver installation. It should revert to booting off your main drive once you've started installation, but some devices will prioritize USB for booting, I don't believe this did.

When your finished, open file explorer, and install the rest of the drivers by double clicking on them one by one. Then do your Windows Updates. There is one device that your computer will not recognize without updating the rest of your drivers.

Good luck!

Thanks for the detailed steps.

By removing HP unwanted software, will it make it difficult for HP team to debug any issues incase this needs a tech support in the future ?

Also will it affect Windows OS license in any way since it is installed directly from website ?

For what reason? The item is still available for ordering online now (at increased price obviously) which seems indicating it is still in stock to fulfill existing orders.

Zenbook 14x is fantastically solid and durable and it has 2x Thunderbolts.

Here you get much better iGPU and $100.

Also, my guess would be that speakers and battery are slightly better on Asus, while camera is better here

Overall, both of them are the best laptops you can buy at this price if you need 120Hz OLED and are OK with 16GB and no dGPU