HP DV8T Problems

Typical HP. I've had my troubles with them in the past, i.e. 3 HP laptops in 3 years. Chances are that it is a motherboard/interference/bad wiring issue(s). It's ridiculous, I know. My guess is that the wifi button is controlled along with the rest of the buttons on it (like most Dell's are). You probably cannot get away with disabling just one button. Unless you feel like taking it apart and yanking a wire, you may be stuck. If it is still under warranty, I wouldn't do that and just return the thing. If not, that maybe your best option.

I don't think that disconnecting the panel will do the trick, here. That panel (I think) also houses the power button - just disconnecting the cable won't do much.

You could surround the sensor in a faraday cage to help stop the static. Just get some aluminum foil, and cover the sensor with it best you can, being sure not to short anything out.

I have also seen this posted over a bunch of HP threads. My wifi and treble bar just started going wacko. I did a disassembly/cleaning of my dv8t and found the problem. When whoever at HP (hopefully fired) assembled the piece that goes around the keyboard connected the cable, they didn't seat it all the way before tightening. (Or maybe it gets loose over time.) In any case, when you disassemble it, clean out everything you can with a can of air duster. Use alcohol and some q-tips to clean the electrical connection on the ribbon cable. Clean the underside (shiny metal) of the ribbon cable as well. This makes an electrical connection to a metal piece on the laptop for ground. Clean these both so they are shiny. I modified HP's design slightly and taped the ribbon cable down with a small piece of clear tape to help it join to the grounding connection.

You can find disassembly guides for the dv8t floating around on the internet. Note, this information is for educational purposes only, disassemble the dv8t at YOUR OWN RISK.

Please see the pics below to see what I mean. I very carefully disassembled everything and the original pic is EXACTLY as I found it, this was not wiggled this way by disassembly.

Original:
http://tinypic.com/r/mk910n/7

Repaired:
http://tinypic.com/r/21ams8z/7

Cheers,
linagee

1) Open Device Manager, 2) Click on network adapters 3) Disable the driver for your wifi card. Done. You can do and undo this for any component that's giving you problems.

The final soluction is a Firmware update: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadInde...

With this update the touchpad is more slowly and working without flashing and blinking any more.