***ENVY 14 Gaming Lounge***

Excellent!

 

keep in mind that later means I haven't even started trying to do this yet since I'm working (I kinda procrastinated. Wasn't helping that the website you do the stuff on was down to 3pm today)

 

K, so GPU overclock seems no worky right now. someone with some deep technical knowledge needs to take a stab at this.

JJB recommended in the owners lounge updating the drivers using this process: http://www.overclock.net/ati-driver...8-how-install-drivers-use-driver-sweeper.html

has anyone tried this?

if that doesn't work. possibly posting on that forum might get some results: http://www.overclock.net/ati-drivers-overclocking-software/

How about pursuing CPU overclock?

SetFSB_HomePage
the guy that runs this can do it.

The information that SetFSB development needs is as follows.
a. the motherboard(/PC) name
b. the chipset name
c. the clock generator name

this and a 500YEN donation.

If the cooling is as good as the 3820tg(which it appears to be), a 450m could be overclocked to 3.2GHZ.

 

a 6800 3dmark06 is sad for this computer.

Getting the GPU and CPU OC will bring it near 10k, and make all of these gaming stats look sooo much better.

It has the cooling. It has the power.

this NEEDS to be done!

 

I didn't see any note of Bad Company 2. I'll be glad to give some feedback on that since that is my current game of interest, as soon as my unit ships, hopefully next week.

But a 3DMark06 score of 6800? Seems a little weak. Granted from other 5650 overclocks I've seen over 8000 is definitely achievable.

 

30fps is in the eye of the beholder, really. All depends on the game. I'm fine with 24-25fps in some games, some 40+ make it look decent.

Regarding BF:BC2, rather old game? Huh? It's only a few months old.

This thing ran rather well on my M11x I had with Core 2 Duo SU7300 and GT 335m CPU, but with low settings. The Core i7 (low voltage versions) dual cores in the new generation M11x help with the fps bring it above 30, some low, some medium settings.

I would expect a full mobile Core i5 to really help alleviate the CPU bottleneck and make it playable on mostly mobile settings.

Best settings for overall performance and visual appeal on any system is like this:



Should be decent visuals with good fps on Envy 14 too at native resolution. I'll try it with 1280x720 resolution too and see how it turns out. Will probably crank it up to 4xAA then.

 

If the 450M can be OC'd to 3.2ghz, what will the 520M look like? Or would 450M OC'd be adequate for most (including PCSX2 and Dolphin)?

 

I'm not sure. Too many variables to speculate and I can't find any data on google. Going to have to test it to find out.

Any Envy owners down with actively pursuing some OC goals?

 

Seconded and Thirded.

 

I've seen a few first look and unboxing videos for the envy 14 but I have yet to see anyone post any YT videos of actual game play on the e14. Be the first to post some game play videos for the e14 and it would be so appreciated. Thanks everyone.
BestWishes,
-mac

 

All of the overclocking utilities I've tried have failed to install, or have crashed the entire machine

 

in other news my initial messing around with pscx 2 is "AC5 runs slow and the ground textures are all messed up"

 

updating to Ati Catalyst 10.6 might make the gpu clock tool work. I know it says that switchable isn't supported, but The 3820tg users have been using it. I just asked if they still have switchable. I believe it is working for them, because no one has complained yet .

I'm 85% sure upgrading the drivers will be the fix.

 

So no ones been able to upgrade the gpu drivers?
The acer 3820tg has switchable and these are the instructions that work:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...nge-info-benchmarks-tweaks-mods-upgrades.html

The envy doesnt have an option to disable integrated graphics in the bios, but what if we tried this:
1) Install/keep whatever switchable driver HP has by default
(I would say Uninstall the old catalyst and GMA drivers completely using safe mode and driver sweeper/driver cleaner, but I'm worried this may cause problems. Try this after the first method succeeds/fails)
2) Install the latest intel GMA driver from here
i5 drivers
or heres the direct 64-bit exe link: Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Windows 7* 64 and Windows Vista* 64 (exe)

Restart the computer.

3) Under device manager see if you can "disable" the intel integrated graphics (do not uninstall). Obviously make sure youre switched to discrete at this point.
4) Restart the computer (This seems like it would be very important here to make the settings stick)
5) Attempt to install the latest catalyst drivers (use the manual "have disk" method)
ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver
6) RESTART
7) Enable intel graphics in the device manager
Maybe restart again or just see if it works.

I've never had a computer with graphics integrated on the cpu, so I actually have no idea if GMA has a separate device listing. Someone try it at least.

 

thanks jamus. I think that'll fix the GPU clock problem. Not sure if that'll work to keep discrete going, though.

 

*shrugs, tries it*

what the hell I can always make my way into safe mode and reinstall the old drivers if I need to

 

Hmm so someone says that uninstalling the drivers leaves a blank screen w/ no drivers and then reinstalls 10.3b when they go to safe mode. There has to be some way to trick windows into thinking that 10.6 is the default driver to go to. Or maybe DOWNGRADE to 10.2 and then see if installing 10.6 updates it.

Just make sure yall are using the manual update driver method and not an exe.

On Monday when mine comes I'll do some playing around.

 

no dice.

disabling the integrated disables/breaks both gpus (you get stuck at 640x480 and CCC thinks you screwed up installing the drivers)


how do you manually install? I haven't tried that yet

 

Right click the inf and say "install driver"... I think.

 

well.

doesn't help that I can't FIND the inf

edit:

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/radeonmob_win7-64.aspx

I'm downloading from this page.

if you download the full software suite you get what's really a 1.7 mb file that refuses to download the rest since it detects that this vid card isn't supported by ATI.

if you download the catalyst control center, well it downloads the CCC installer (which I guess has an option to update the vid card) but there's no .inf file in there

 

Oh yeah theres no way i trust the auto installers to be able to do this.

When you run the installer that you download. It'll put a bunch of files into an C:/amd/catalyst folder. Open device manager and double click the vga adapter/radeon/whatever it says that isnt the integrated. Go to the drivers tab and click update driver.
Click "Browse..." then "Let me pick..." then "have disk" then browse for that catalyst folder. CLick okay and you should be able to install it that way.

The fact that it defaults to 640x480 and no drivers is GOOD thing. Thats whats meant to happen when you have the standard vga driver installed. I wouldn't even listen to what CCC has to say. Just install the catalyst over it using the manual method.

 

still don't have any inf files in that folder either.

also, it just says it's already up to date when I pick that folder too

 

Oh hmm I'm used to nvidia. I didn't realize that the installer is only a proxy that downloads the drivers for your system. Try googling for manual install of catalyst drivers. There should be a way to extract or get the full inf version.

 

yeah I'm trying to figure that out but no luck.


It seems like it won't download the infs unless your card supports the infs or something.

 

meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh



they don't exist.

anywhere.

they just don't exist.


we'd have to get someone who had a 5650 without switchable or something and find the infs from them.


or we'll just have to wait for ati to support intel switchable graphics (or for HP to update the drivers)


at least 10.3's a good set. better than 10.4 and 10.5

where's amd gpu tool. I wanna see if it works with CCC 10.6

 

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/mobile/10-6_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc.exe

when installing using have disk, navigate to
C:\ATI\Support\10-6_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF

Haha don't give up so easily magus. I know this can be done. I'll definitely get it when I actually have this friggin laptop on my desk.

 

oh crap the full version of that package.


thanks.


*tried amd gpu clock tool 9.26.blah* crashed the crap outta everything

 

oh wow. it might actually be upgradeable.

the main installation file finds it this time.

 

*tries have disk, gets a black screen that he had to hard shutdown from and then boot up with the last known good configuration*

...

right then.

that didn't work.


*just uses the executable*


edit: whelp that didn't work. same result.

*disables IGP, goes from there*

 

I'll take one for the team since I'm done dling. I'll try the latest CATs and see what I break.

 

whelp.

it took 3 or 4 power cycles but somehow the envy got back to being stable.


disabling the igp and installing latest catalyst broke everything.

forever and ever.

the end.

 

damn. This is annoying.

 

I used Option 2 at ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver.

Pre-install



Post-install

 

oh and btw.


broke everything means "IGP and Radeon fighting for control, both on at the same time, screen swapping back and forth bakc and...oh...well it died.....awww hell noooooo"

 

voodoo it didn't give you the graphics driver.


try the one in here (installer or have disk)

be prepared to crash the envy...though you know. with no igp it may actually work

 

what version is the one on here?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-drivers-software-forum/496027-drivers-hp-envy-14-intel.html

it came out 7/1 so it's pretty new.

 

Stock.

effectively it came out on 6/18/2010

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp48001-48500/sp48434.html

it's a modified 10.3 driver. Which well...those were the best drivers sorta until 10.6

so I mean...it's not a bad thing we're stuck on 10.3 We could be stuck using 10.5 or 10.1 or something

 

Did anyone experience random freezes while playing Dragon Age? It's not that the whole computer freezes, just the game crashes and freeze, I can still get back to desktop and everything else works great.

 

Magus can you describe exactly what you mean by the 2 gpus fighting for control. So you disabled the IGP in device manager and updated the radeon driver. You rebooted. then what? Was it stable until you re-enabled the IGP?

 

Can any one pay Just Cause 2. Even on low setting and super low resolution it has low FPS.

 

Does overclocking the 5650 void any warrenties from HP? Because this thing runs super cool at stock settings...

 

Does anyone notice any freezing during game play especially around loading times? I was playing Burnout Paradise and it would freeze right when I win. SUPER FUN GAME.

 

More research:
I looked into the driver package that comes with the envy (it's downloadable on the drivers thread). HP does somehow combine the 2 drivers into 1 package.

Some googling:
T500 / Switchable Graphics ATI driver update - lenovo community
Remnants of old switchable intel drivers will prevent upgraded radeon drivers from working.
I would suggest trying to completely uninstall and remove every part of the default ati/intel driver and see if you can get to a basic vga adapter in device manager. Use driver cleaner and driver sweeper in safe mode. If it still reinstalls maybe a clean windows will do the trick. After, install ati drivers first then the intels.
Make sure you uninstall the intel first, then the ATI. Don't disable either. Keep uninstalling until you just have a vga driver.

Eh I'll do a clean install and try it myself

 

You still have 10.3b installed

 

So can anyone post some other games result on envy14. would help a lot.

 

It wasn't quite stable.


after I disabled the IGP and installed the new drivers it crashed mid install of the newer ati drivers. Top 5% of the screen turned black. what's left froze.


I rebooted with last known good config. That was fine and stable minus the uh...640x480 'cause I was still locked to the vga drivers. I renabled the IGP and then rebooted again. THEN the two gpus fought for control and I got an error message saying some ati file wasn't working right. if I hit ok it would pop up again forever.

I went to uninstall the drivers but before I could get that far it started freaking out until finally the screen went black.


went to safe mode. found I couldn't uninstall or install ati drivers in safe mode (installer couldn't find things).

went back to regular mode and prayed things would work right and I could have enough time to uninstall. Things worked right, but well it was all back to stock already somehow (sorta).

just to be safe I uninstalled, then rebooted, then reinstalled, then rebooted.

back to CCC10.3 and 8.713 drivers, etc

 

Make sure you didn't start the game on the integrated graphics...I played the demo at high/medium and it looked great.

 

Yeah i switched it to The ati one, is there something else I have to do?

 

Has anyone tried replacing the stock thermal compound with some AS5 or ICdiamond yet, or is not even worth the hassle? I was considering it just for stability purposes and maybe getting some extra headroom for overclocking down the road.

EDIT: forgot to mention that my envy14 is coming in the next few days, so I can't say anything about my temps yet.

 

i installed wc3 frozen throne and when i open it up the game only stretches out to the 1024 max resolution wc3 has. how do you get the game to stretch out? i feel like you need to adjust some setting for the graphics card but im not sure where this setting is.