***ENVY 14 Gaming Lounge***

So I can play COD4 maxed out settings, does that mean I'm on DX11? Sorry, this is new to me.

 

nah. cod4 doesn't use DX11. It's on DX9.

really the DX stuff won't matter unless the game can swap DX modes.

like crysis (9 or 10) or civ 5 (9 or 10/11) or metro2033 (9, 10, or 11), or Dirt2 (mainly just 11 I think).

etc and so forth

 

SC2 works really good on E14. Well i Oced mine to 560/810 and in High settings at 1600X900 i get like 30-70 frames.

BIOS 13A actually improved cooling by a lot. After like 1 hour+ of sc2 i used to get 90s in both cores and 80 in GPU, now i get
CPU1: 81 C
CPU2: 79C
GPU:73C
HP did an awesome job on this BIOS lol

 

Anyone getting no sound after quitting SC2? I have to restart to get sound back.

 

After over 1 hour playing BFBC2 all medium specs, except for the screen, 1 down from 1600x900 (which still looks amazing IMO)

MAX CPU1: 76
MAX CPU2: 79
MAX GPU: 75

This time I ran HWmonitor while playing
Pretty low temps.
For some reason this is the first time my fan didn't go full blown high, it was medium/high, decent enough to play in a library.

 

Gah, why am I the only one crashing out on SC2? What driver versions are you guys running? I'm crashing even one "medium" graphics. High crashes before I even reach the game:

Firmware: 13
Video Drivers: 8.741.1.3-100728a-103285C-HP
Audio: 6.10.6265.0

Envy 14, i5-450m, 4GB, 320GB HDD, Radiance Display, ATI 5650

 

I never had a crashing issue regardless of what graphics drivers I used. (Be it the old HP 8.713, or the ati 10.8 drivers)

I never tried the HP 10.7 ones (your drivers) but well. they shouldn't screw things up.

maybe try reinstalling 'em again. perhaps something got screwed up.

do any other games crash like this or get artifacts or anything?

 

no other crashes. and how do you have 10.8 (or is that 8.741)? Whenever I download an ATI driver package from ATI/AMD, it says I cant install it. Is there a more recent edition than the one on the HP support website? Oh, and it did this with the previous version of the gfx/sound drivers (8.713) and the original firmware (F.06 i believe)

 

maybe your SC2 got corrupted when you installed it.


I'm not sure. Also I got ATI's 10.8 from going after a direct link of it (not the downloader on their website) and installing it on top of 10.3 (8.713). should install fine over HP's 10.7 too.

no clue if it'll fix your issues though.

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/920...mobile/10-8_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc.exe (64-bit 10.8)

 

I should also point out that when I installed SC2 it said "there may be an issue with your graphics" blah blah blah "visit this website for more info" and it had stuff on updating your drivers to the latest versions.

i'll give that a try. do you still get switchable gfx options with this non-HP release?

 

Damnit. played about 25 seconds after updating to 10.8 and then crashed. I got this weird like multi-colored pixelated screen that made like a wave motion across the screen then went black with like 20-some random colored pixels. GAH pissing me off!

 

i have never crashed either in any game

 

i hate you all so much. Do you have the new 1.1.? patch installed? Anything different than what I've got going on? For those with it working, can you post your Firmware, Video, Sound, and any other driver version info you think could be pertinent?

Also, is there ANY setting in the graphics menu that the 5650 shouldn't be able to run that maybe i need to scale down or disable? I assume even if i ran everything on max settings, it should just lead to bottoming out frame rates, correct?

 

yeah putting it on ultra just bottoms me down to 10 fps.


I mean maybe somehow your card is going crazy due to the lack of a frameratecap while in the menus and loading screen and the like.

but...that shouldn't burn it out.

does the whole computer crash or just sc2?

 

whole computer. i have to hold the power button down to shut it down. completely unresponsive. one thing that was suggested on the SC2 forum was disabling my webcam as apparently some people have gotten this problem from those. i did and seem to be able to play on medium settings now. Have you all who have SC2 running uninstalled the HP webcam software?

 

I overclocked yesterday to 550/850MHz and I crashed after an hour of playing battlefield. The screen froze for a few seconds and then turned a light purple colour. Is that because I overclocked to much or something?

 

yes it is.

 

Bumping. I'm playing 1600x900 all med settings and I'm getting freezing problems after an hour or so. Haven't updated any drivers so don't know if that will help. Anyone play this on their 14 yet?

=Jason-

 

I've played quite a bit of Civ V on my 14. I'm not sure what settings though...whatever the default was. All i changed was the resolution to 1600x900. It's a little laggy, but still gorgeous and quite playable (does lag/stutter really matter that much with a turn-based strategy game?).

I'll check my settings tonight.

 

any other ideas? i get these "lasers" from the SCVs which seem like graphic artifacts, so i gotta think it's the gfx card or drivers...

 

that happened to people in beta some.


not sure if blizz ever figured out the cause beyond textures maybe corrupting.

you can change texture size and stuff and/or model's from low to high or high to low or something and see if that stops it.

if it does, change it back, see if it still is going on.


I got the ground texture issue once. solved it by doing that (lower ground texture, raise ground texture)


edit: ugh. sc2 takes forever and ever to install from dvd

 

no kidding, i just reinstalled it as my system restore took me back to before SC2 was installed. I got this message:

"We have detected that your video driver may be out of date which may cause performance issues when playing StarCraft II.

Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit
Video Card: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650

Do you want to visit the Blizzard support site for more information?"

 

heh.

I got that message the first time too.

it didn't give it to me this time since I was on ati 10.8.

it's not really the vid cards fault all the way. it's a mixture of drivres, sc2 being weird, and..well yeah both of those.

 

here's a question for you then: did you clean install your Envy 14? I have a copy of Win7 Pro i got from school for cheap, but I dont wanna lose the free Corel Photo and Video programs. i dont really use anything that officially came with the Envy anyway (like stardock, MediaSmart, etc)

 

backup your swsetup folder. It has the installs for corel. It should reinstall without any issue.

 

is swsetup where all the install packages unload their files? seems like everything installs there. And yeah, i'm a new Win7 convert (had XP up until i got the Envy 14 in august). sure that'll work? i wouldn't be devastated to lose them, not like i havent pirated photoshop before, but it'd be nice to be legit for once.

 

it's where HP puts all the software and drivers that come with your computer.

it's unique to HP computers.

 

Can anyone point me in the right direction for overclocking the i3-370m? I haven't really found any info on people overclocking this processor.

 

geesh same crash playing tropico 3 demo after about an hour. what gives?

 

you might have a bad vid card and will need to get a replacement

 

how do i confirm such a diagnosis to get it replaced by HP (if necessary)?

PS- this would then be the second RMA i'd have to make (arrived with non-functioning left speaker, as did my friends Envy14). So if this is the case I will be very disappointed in the build quality of this PC, especially since it's "premium"

 

well. not sure. I know a few people had to underclock their gpu with msi afterburner or else they would get a crash after playing some game for an hour (since the gpu they got binned was bad). Think the two it happened a lot with for 'em were starcraft 2 and modern warfare 2.


are the artifacts the same in tropico?

 

no, no artifacting in Tropico 3 and was able to run with all settings on High. SC2 artifacting has gone away since I last ran system restore and reintalled SC2. Running that 10.8 driver package you posted. Oh well, I think I'm gonna try a fresh format and Win7 reinstall. At least I'll know there's no unwanted HP software lurking around. I should still be able to use the switchable graphics after formatting, correct?

 

yes. assuming you install the hp drivers first and then install 10.8 on top of 'em.

I'd go with the newer hp drivers (10.7ish ones) since they didn't give me that black screen issue like the 10.3 ones.

 

cool, will do that. alrighty, here goes nothing, wish me luck! Anything different about clean installs with Win7 or HP Laptops? I backed up all my docs, music, and the SWSetup folder. I've reformatted my XP desktop probably a dozen times before so this isn't totally unfamiliar territory.

Also, as far as drivers, i was gonna just download the ones from the HP Support website, since those would be the "newest" ones.

 

yeah those are the ones you want.


here are the issues you may have.

0: backup your activation with ABR. if you don't, you won't be able to activate win 7 and will have to call the microsoft phone number, shouldn't take too long but just use abr and back the activation up and then restore it.


1: you may be like that one dude who's disc was bad but only on his envy, do windows 7 from a usb stick. I think this is very rare.
2: you may have a black screen when you start up the install, reboot and do it again should work fine.
3: remember that win 7 only needs to boot from the dvd for the first part, parts 2 and ...well..that's it (after the first reboot) is off of the hdd. It may still use the disc for stuff but I dunno.

4: Driver installing issues. Bluetooth won't be recognized/on at all in the device manager. Fix it by installing hp wireless assistant and turning the bluetooth radio on (need the wifi on in general tooh.

5: more driver installing issues. Realtek ethernet driver won't install right since the ethernet adapter isn't in the device manager. It is in deep sleep mode. If you're on bios F.13, turn off ethernet deep sleep mode/powersaving stuff in the bios.

If not on bios f.13, install drivers, watch it fail, put pc to sleep, wake up, get lucky and have it work or don't get lucky and then reboot pc and it should then detect it. You have to have a cable in the ethernet port or else well, it'll definitely stay asleep.

6: the lights aren't working right (wifi right stays blue, mute light doesn't turn on). power off, take out battery, hold power button down with pc unplugged for like 30 seconds. should now work. If not, install HPQL and then it should work. If still not...ummm....whelp. It may start working eventually? Haven't really ever had this issue myself.

7: really not much else beyond uh the whole "if you get a black screen tha never disappears while installing video drivers wait it out for like 5 to 8 minutes for everything to install, then put it to sleep/power it down and then power it back up for it to work again.

 

oh right. make sure you install everything in swsetup --> drivers.


finally, the hp mobile protection center stuff (hpprothd or close to that) in swsetup is also a driver.


I think windows update finds and installs drivers for it now. you can't mess with the settings (turn it off if you ever want to) though unless you install the software too

 

oh and the wireless drivers that come with the US envy (unless they changed that with the later versions) are really terrible. download new intel 6200 advanced drivers from intel's website.

if you have the broadcomm/other wireless adapter ignore this. those drivers are fine for the non US envys

 

i have intel wifi, and the key isnt a problem as i have a completely separate windows 7 disk to install from (thank you school!).

Do i have to go through the SWSetup drivers? Part of the reason for the reformat is to install the latest drivers fresh without having to overwrite old ones.

ALSO, should the drivers in SWSetup be the ones that originally came with compy or does updating them on my comp update those folders?

 

swsetup is the ones originally.


you can use newer ones if you want and should (but there are some drivers that are only in swsetup/haven't been updated, etc)

also they don't get updated in that folder if you update 'em through hp's website.

they do get put into swsetup but in folders like sp249042 or something (folder named after the .exe file)

 

i'm back! Win7 Pro running with about 20 fewer process and 10% less memory usage. all the drivers i've installed are the ones from HP support online and ran windows update until there's nothing new to install. Bluetooth was actually up and running right off the first boot. The Realtek ethernet updated through windows update and was recognized right away too. Time for a little CCleaner action to mop up the installs?

BTW, what antivirus software is the thing to use nowadays? I used to run trend micro all the time a few years back.

 

I run McAfee, Only the best, a lot of people say Windows Essentials or protect, or whatever it is is pertty good and doesn't take too much resources.

 

I run microsoft scurity essentials. seems to do well enough for me.

haven't had a virus since I started using it.

'course that could just be me being smart about the internet and also noscript but *shrugs*

 

well everything seems to be going well so far, got my bluetooth mouse paired up. i dont have the SC2 disk with me so i'll update you on the results once it's on.

 

did anyone else see the HP customizable Envy 14 no longer has a Radiance screen option?

 

Yeh, they also got rid of the envy 13 and 15 for some reason. But there are more processor options for the envy now

 

yeah, that i5-460M looks nice, considering the same price as the 450m i have. but the lack of a radiance screen blows, that's why i got this compy! assuming the standard screen on Envy 14 is like the DM4T my fiancee has, there's no way i would have gotten this without it.

 

hey guys, off topic:

I just finished my Windows 7 Pro clean install and I installed all the drivers from the NBR download page and HP drivers' page, and by chance took a glance at the Windows Experience Index and it rated my Graphics at: 4.5 ??? I did some research and it seems that people on this thread said they were running 6.7's on their computers...

Do I need to overclock it? I even made sure i installed the latest ATI drivers!

 

You are probably running on the Intel GPU, which is rated a 4.5 . Switch to the ATI GPU and redo the Windows Experience Index.

Edit:

Just tried it myself:

Intel GPU: 4.5
ATI 5650: 6.7

 

finished first campaign mission with no crashes. but framerate seems much lower than before. Medium settings were smooth last time but this time seems choppier.