***ENVY 14 Gaming Lounge***

I didn't know I should. It's off now, but I won't have a chance to test until after work, and that's gonna have to contend with the wonky driver update and the post F.12 crashing of the Witcher (see Paradise Lost thread).

Though now that I think of it, the Witcher did crash one time before the update, but it was over a week before the update, and it was after 2-3 hours of playing on my lap, rather than 2-20 minutes of playing on a wireframe shelving unit with a floor fan blowing at me and the computer.

 

mighta just gotten to hot on your lap.

*shrugs*

needs more testing

 

I got 10 minutes in before I had to leave for work. It ran fine (no noticeable difference from Catalyst AI off, same framerates, same stuttering, etc), until I approached a certain cutscene trigger, where it crashed at the end of the cutscene. Three of my crashes have been on this cutscene (first time in the middle, second and third at the end) now, and the other post-F.12 was also during a cutscene, though a different one.

It definitely looks like the cutscene renderer might have something to do with it (or corruptions in those particular scenes), but I had no trouble with cutscenes before F.12, and the cutscene that caused three of the crashes has crashed in two different spots. I've verified the game's cache before (though it's gone from an external HDD and back in the meantime), so I wouldn't think it would be the result of corrupt files, but I suppose it's possible.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that troubleshooting software issues is a horrible, un-fun activity, since there are so many damn things that could have gone wrong.

 

First, let me apologize if this has been covered before. I used the search function and was unable to find any answers to my problem:

I recently got my Envy 14 and reinstalled the OS. I have it currently running at the 10.7a drivers and switchable graphics is functioning fine; however, whenever I attempt to use the GPU clocking tool found on the first page of the website, my computer does a hard freeze. Every time. The ATI card is the one that is active and the drivers are up to date. What can I do to get this straightened out?

Thanks!

 

Holy cow. I just got done running a round of Bad Company 2 and CPU reached 90C!!! This was not overclocked either. Last few times I ran it, it didn't exceed 80C. I updated the BIOS to F.12. Wonder if that has anything to do with it. The fans don't seem as loud, so maybe they tuned that, but CPU is still way too hot.

GPU was only 82C, previously it wouldn't breach 79C. Room temp is the same as it always has been.

 

kinda hot GPU

 

Try downgrading to the old bios version (you can do that, right?) and see if it runs cooler again.


either way *stays far away from F.12 and the new hp drivers...for whatever reason*


Mine isn't broke (besides that hard-drive) no reason to go around changing things.

 

ughhh i updated my bios to F.12 this afternoon didnt try SC2 afterwards..guess I will now

p.s htwingnut you ordered the warranty from costco right for the Envy 14? And everything was in order..I am going to order mine tomorrow I think

EDIT: did a game of 1v1 in SC2 everything seems ok GPU/CPU got to 71C max temps which is around what it got before I updated to F.12 BIOS

 

what program are u using to overclock and bios ver?

 

The only tool that works is MSI Afterburner. AMD GPU Clock tool causes the computer to freeze, and other programs just don't work.

 

I ordered the warranty from costco but wasnt able to register it online. I had to call them but they registered it fine over the phone

 

Warranty and LoJack registered just fine online. Just use the product number and serial number from pressing "fn+esc" key.

 

When I open SC2, my mouse will do this weird thing in game where it won't register my clicks. There is no movement lag at all, but it just doesn't register my left click/right click commands. It'll only register after I click furiously.

I have never had this problem before with my mouse. And I just put new batteries in it, and I also tried a different mouse with sc2 and it had the same issue. So I don't think it's a mouse issue, but a sc2 one? Cause I don't have any issues when I'm out of sc2 just using my mouse normally.

Anyone else have this problem or have any advice regarding? Thanks.

Edit: I'm using an Microsoft Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer 2.0, and the other mouse I tried was a Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse. I'm also going to try a wired USB mouse later just to test it.

 

I've been having major issues with SC2 crashing. I'm running on lowest settings with a 2.4 i5 and 10.3 drivers I believe, though I've tried the game on multiple drivers, and multiple installs of windows. The game will randomly lock up for no apparent reason, completely freezing my computer, requiring me to hold the power button to shut it off. I've turn off catalyst AI, I've run the game on multiple settings, lately on the lowest. I've added framerateacp and frameratecapglue lines to the variables file in my documents. I can sometimes get through a game or two before it freezes, sometimes it crashes faster, and it's crashed from tabbing out of the game as well. I'm seriously at a loss and considering returning the computer, it appears to have some serious issues. Anyone have any solutions to date? I've read through most of this thread and there doesn't seem to be much left to do but return it and go with a completely different computer that can actually live up to it's price/components. (underclocked GPU, ?)

 

Run HWMonitor and monitor temperatures and see if that's an issue. Also go to microsoft.com/directx and download the latest directx 11 for gamers, and choose the DirectX End User Runtime. DirectX is constantly being updated and its fixed issues for me.

Also, you said you've tried various drivers? Be sure to go to HP's support site and download their latest video driver package and use that. It seems pretty solid.

 

I have a problem like that, only with the trackpad an d for another game (football manager 2010). i have to do at least 2 clicks for my clicks to register, though drag and drop works fine. no idea why

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...p-screen-just-goes-black-why-please-help.html

I had the same issue :\

 

I had a similar problem as you two did...if you installed the TouchFreeze (from somewhere on official envy 14 forum) its probably that thats causing it. If thats not it, then just weed out the service that is causing it. Just have SC2 in windowed mode and task manager open, and terminate one process at a time (third party apps most likely).

 

Has anyone else noticed the e14 is getting more and more expensive to buy from HP? With w7 Home Premium, i5-450m, 4GB RAM, 160GB SSD and the 1600x900 resolution screen, it cost me $1,400 US ($1,600AUD). Now, with the exact same config, it costs $1,664 US which would cost me about $1,800+ AUD. Thats $200 more. I'm so glad I got mine when I did.

 

Yeah. I finally figured out a couple hours ago that it was Touchfreeze. (Darn you Trackpad thread with all your helpful tips )Was about to post the solution myself.

 

Will the e14 with i5 play Mafia II on full settings? I don't know if I should get it

 

i was playing Singularity and Sniper Ghost Warrior
Was running both games rather smoothly without OC

However the screen would suddenly show blue/green lines (after ard 5-10 mins of gamplay) and soon after my e14 restarted itself

When my envy14 restarted, win7 noted the error as BSOD =/
thinking it could be bad ram.. i ran memtest84 and found no errors

Any1 here can tell me whats wrong with my e14? =o

 

Could it be overheating? Mine goes in the high 60s to low 70s while gaming after an hour but maybe yours has a problem with the fan or something.

 

I guarantee this is your problem.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...p-screen-just-goes-black-why-please-help.html

HP's gotta do something about this.

 

alright thanks
will check it out later

 

Anyone else here play Bad Company 2 and what are your CPU temps? With my i5-520m, one core reaches 83C!!! That seems extraordinarily high to me. I know it's still 20C from max of 105C, but it's too hot for comfort IMHO. One of these days I will change the thermal paste, but right now the machine is too new to think about tearing it apart yet.

Also, what's up with the HD 5650 and smoke from exploding or burning vehicles? FPS can be running great and the fps just drops horribly low. Even with DirectX 9 it's still horrible. Anyone know if this is characteristic of ATI or if there is a way to fix it?

 

I've never had a video card, ATI or Nvidia that's worked well with smoke.


ever.


*glances at doom 3's steam* ...asjdfk; even then.

*look at counter-strike 1.6's smoke grenades* probably there too, not that I've checked.

 

The GTX 260m in my Sager plows through the smoke with no issue. It's really the explosions of vehicles that does it. And I just got done playing a round of BFBC2 on my Sager and CPU and GPU were both <78C max. I know the sager has good cooling and all, but its still a Core 2 Quad and GTX 260m and gets less hot than the i5 and HD 5650. I'm looking to sell the Sager though. Big and bulky. But after playing with it again, I'm strongly considering returning my Envy 14, heck maybe even selling it, because I can keep my BCB then, and still sell this sucker for a decent price. HP's given me through September 12 to return my laptop. BCB is due back September 10. Hmmm...

 

Have you guys decided how well the Envy 14 will hold up to games in the future? Like 2-3 years?

Also, I read that smoke is taxing on the CPU, not the GPU. Since it's a bunch of moving particles or something.

 

Mines reaches 90C when i play sc2 so dont worry about 82C lol

 

smoke os usually GPU driven....you can disable a lot of the effects in options for most games. Oh the good ol days of CS 1.6 I had a Geforce 3! So I would lob 10 smoke grenades and everyone else wouldn't be able to see anything because they'd be getting 5 fps!

As for how well the card will hold up....I'm not quite sure either, this a big factor for me deciding wether or not to buy. I think I need to lower my expectations for video performance especialy if I want to run any type of FPS games or anything with high end graphics. I'd say though by lower resolution and settings almost all games should be "playable" but not look good, that's my projection with the 5650 2-3 years form now.

 

Cool, thanks for your info on the 5650 in the future. Can anyone else add to this?

I googled about smoke and I found out a little more about what I was talking about. Apparently the smoke is PhysX driven, and ATI doesn't do PhysX stuff, so the CPU has to do it. I may still be wrong since I don't really know what I'm talking about but that sounds like it could be the problems since the other card was an Nvidia.

 

Yeh I play it. My temps reached high 70s for CPU and high 60s for GPU. And yes the fps drop a lot when there is smoke, but I am able to play it on full resolution and medium settings no problem. if I change it to high it becomes laggy when there is a lot of shooting going on.

 

Same for me. Also running 900p with medium settings except low for shadows, DX10 and HBAO and Bloom off.
Also tried these settings at 1080p but it was laggy

 

Ninja, hows gameplay in SC2 compare between the 14 and 15 at native resolutions?....also random Q, does your envy 14 have 2 HDD's or is the 500 an external?

Thanks

 

It's not as much smoke as it is explosions. Maybe that's also PhysX driven so with a dual core CPU could cause issues. I'd be curious to hear how an i7 handles BC2.

Regarding longevity of the GPU, I don't expect it to handle new releases after a year or so very well. It's already a mid-range card. Depends on the game too though. Actually I expect Crysis 2 to be be able to play with medium settings for the most part. They've stated that the technology is very scalable based on your hardware.

I'm seriously considerng returning my Envy. As nice as it is, all its little niggling issues are getting irritating, and I expected a little better performance out of the GPU than what its doing. Not to mention an SSD without TRIM, and I'm still very underwhelmed with its performance also. I should have opted for a 160GB but I really didn't think I'd be able to get by with that little amount, and HP said they can't swap SSD and refund difference.

 

I've been playing spiderman web of shadows, and it seems to run fairly well. However, every 10 seconds or so or when im swinging around alot, the video lags a little bit. Are there any settings I should change in the CCC or anything that would help stop this. Everything is still at stock.

 

Just played an hour of sc2 custom games at med-high settings at 575/800.
OMG the game got so laggy that fps went down to 1 and i was afraid that it will break my laptop so i left the game lol.
The temp was ok tho, CPU at 85,81 and gpu at 77.

 

SC2 does play at higher settings at 1080p on the E15, but TBH, unless I put them side by side I dont think I would really notice any difference.
If you want I can put them to the same gfx settings and run fraps for performance difference?

And I removed the ODD and shoved a 500gb HDD in there, means I have SSD but still have my movie/music collection with me whilst working away.

 

Off-topic: Is that possible? Can you point me to some guide telling me how?

 

Thanks ninja, if you have time to do a quick FRAP's run I'd appreciate it. I'm waffling between the two right now. I like the 15's option of SSD and mech like your 14 has, but I wouldn't want to lose the optical for it.

For some reason the lack of a backlit keyboard is killing me!...more of a cool factor, but I also could use it when I'm laying down in bed and trying to type something quick and I'm guess as to what keys I'm hitting!

I thought the graphics would be an issue in the 14 but then I figure the 5830 has to drive 1080p so it might balance out.

 

the backlit keyboard and better key layout is a big plus on the E14. I use the E14 as my travel and bedroom laptop and the E15 is my desktop replacement.

The graphics power is much better on the E15, and it also overclocks amazingly, I get 550/1100 out of it and it still runs cool. and I can run BFBC2 at 1080p on high with shadows low, where as the E14 I can only play 900p medium.

What I was trying to imply with SC2 is that although the E15 is at higher settings to the E14, I wouldnt notice unless I sat the machines side by side and looked for the differences. E14 plays at 900p medium settings at over 30fps and the E15 plays 1080p high settings over 30fps.

I will set them both to 900p and high settings tonight to compare the power of the two machines gfx cards

 

I installed Catalyst Control 10.7a and I'm thinking about rolling back to 10.6 to see if it helps my SC2 framerates. How do I go about rolling back to 10.6? Can anyone lend some insight?

 

I think your best bet is to uninstall the drivers completely and run driver sweeper.
Then install stock HP drivers and finally install the 10.6 over the top of HP drivers.

 

Does anyone else have issues with the sound? Whenever I'm on teamspeak the sound from any game I open up does not go through the headset I plugged in. For example, I would have TS open and fire up SC2. The sound from TS will go through my headset, but the sound from SC2 will go through the speakers. I'm using a head with a mic and audio jack with only the 3.5mm audio plugged into the headset receiver (not the combo thingy one).

If this problem was already posted, sorry, as I couldn't find it. Thanks

 

SC2 is an oddity as you can choose which speakers it uses in the options menu! I found this out when I had my logitech usb speakers plugged in but wanted to use my headset.

For other games just go to control panel and choose which device you want to use (ie headset) right click it and select 'default device' at present I expect your headset is set to 'headset' and your speakers are set to 'default device'

 

Dude, if you wouldn't mind doing a sc2 performance difference, I think many of us (including myself) would appreciate it.

Also, how difficult was it to remove ODD and replace with HDD?

 

I tried setting my headset to default but nothing happens. As for the SC2 sound options, there's only default and no other sound devices. Also this problem only occurs when I have teamspeak running >>. If it helps I have HP beats running too (because I don't know how to get rid of it >:[)

 

How do you know BCB is due back September 10th ?

 

Sorry, I meant, my BCB payout is due back to me September 10.