ENVY 15-jXXX / ENVY 17-jXXX Notebooks (2013)

Hello,

I bought the HP Envy 15t-j000 with the 740M and 1080p display. My old laptop was a 14" 1366x768 one, so I was just wondering if anyone can give inputs as to how a 1080p screen would look like at 15 inches. Many people in different forums seemed to express different opinions, with some saying "it's going to be tiny, get the 768 one", which I didn't understand. We can always switch to 1600x900 in Windows, can we not? What do you guys think?

And can anyone shed some light on how gaming performance is with the 740M at 1080p? Is 900p/768p playable on a 1080p screen? I have 8 GB of RAM (2 DIMM) and the hybrid hard drive.

Thanks a lot.

 

Hey Maikky,

You go to the "manage devices" tab in control panel, and then select the display drivers tab, then disable the intel driver. This allows you to surf with a much better picture. However, on an older HP machine I had with the dual drivers, I lost complete control of the brightness control on the the keypad which was a bummer. Hope your brightness control still works. Good luck

 

I have some comments to make on the new quad 1080p Best Buy 17" model I looked at today. I was surprised the right click was "extremely" hard to push down. The keyboard was soft in the middle left hand area around the F key but now as flexible and soft as the 15" model. The screen was a glossy screen that looked very good, but I prefer a matte screen due to reflections. It felt very fast in the store.

 

I assume with wifi and bluetooth off

 

Hey I PM'ed you.....I will def provide all the help I can....

 

? My envy 15 just shuttered and poof died on me. Have tries connecting the power taking off the battery everything but it wont turn on at all? Anybody run into this? Im still withing the 21 return window though.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

The centrino 2230 is combo bluetooth/wifi? I did a fresh install and can't get working WIFI. I installed the realtek drivers from the HP site (which I suspected were for, and turned out to be, the ethernet port, not wifi). I also installed the broadcom drivers but don't believe I got anything out of that. Trying to do a windows update for the driver gets me nothing. There are no centrino drivers on HPs site.

BTW, this is a 15t-j000. I will give the intel drivers a shot.

 

Has anyone gotten their envy to update to 8.1? Mine just says pending for days...

Also when I had steam downloading a game last night I left the layout plugged in with the charger and I woke up this morning to find the computer never went to sleep even though the settings are set to sleep after 30 minutws and hibernate after 60minutes...

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

Is 8.1 officially out? I hadn't heard anything....

And can anyone confirm whether the Envy 15t/17t support Intel Wireless Display or WiDi as it goes by....?

 

Is that how you do it ? I thought to switch graphics you had to use the nvidia thing, I tried switching from "CPU" to High Nvidia Card and it didn't seem to do anything, DOTA2 was lagging like crazy .

 

I talked to the guys at HP, they confirmed that the GPU is GK107 but DDR3. Placed another order for the Lenovo Y410p, considering both laptops have a pretty nice return window. Mostly will be returning the HP Envy.

 

I believe 8.1 isn't meant to be installed as a regular update, as it is not officially "released" until later this fall (no hard date yet). It is for people to kind of mess around with, so I wouldn't install it on your main drive, especially over your main Windows install.

Did Steam finish downloading? The sleep/hibernate timers are after idle time, they are not sleep timers (as in go to sleep after x amount of time no matter what is going on).

 

Agree with madmook, probably not a good idea to install on a computer you need to be reliable, Win8.1 is in beta stage.

I have installed Win8.1 on my dual boot desktop and have had no issues with it so far. Actually like the changes they have made.

Finally got my Envy 17t-j,
Installed a Samsung 840 Pro SSD and Hitachi 1TB 7200 RPM data drive, played with cloning the drives, worked well but ended up running a Clean Install on the SSD.
It's running noticeable faster now.

Not having a lot of luck getting the nVidia graphics to run, might have to remove the Intel graphics driver.

 

Some of these new models I understand just have the dedicated nVidia graphics and not the dual with intel ,so you must have the touch screen model with the dual graphic cards. I know the older models had some compatibility issues so hope they got it fixed on yours.

 

I have a non touch screen 17t and I was able to install the drivers for both cards without problems. Not sure if its switching between one or the other but I'd prefer if it uses the dedicated graphics card alone for the time being....

 

I have the non-touch screen, with dual Graphics.
The Intel graphics are running all the time, on the nVidia control panel, manage 3D settings, there is options for using either Intel or nVidia graphics but it won't let you choose for some programs.
Windows Media Player won't allow the nVidia graphics, which is strange.
The control for which graphics you want to use is lacking functionality.

 

I was thinking about picking one of these 15t j000 units up since I do a little bit of gaming (pretty much just League of Legends) and I multitask a lot so the 1080p panel would be great paired with my 1080p ASUS IPS monitor.

I live in the United States so we only have the GT 740m option as far as I know.

However, I am debating between the unit with the 3rd gen i5-3230M and the 4th gen i7-4700MQ. All I really do is play a little bit of League of Legends from time to time. I am an engineering major in college but since I am a biomedical engineer I don't really work with CPU intensive applications or anything that ever needs to get compiled. My specialization is not imaging or optics or anything so I don't need AutoCAD or anything either.

If I get the 3rd gen i5, that is $720 customized with the 740m and 1080p panel. The same specs on the 4th gen i7 is $920.

Is it really worth upgrading to the haswell i7 for my uses? I mean if it makes a substantial difference in battery life then I guess I will. However I have found that with my current laptop (GT 650m and 3rd gen i5) the CPU is NEVER a bottleneck in games, even in games like BF3. So bottleneck wise there would be no point in getting the haswell i7 unit.

 

Comrade,
You make sense and I agree there really is no point going to the i7 unless your using multiple programs at the same time. The i5 will also run cooler than the i7 and has a faster core speed.

 

I have to disagree on the running cooler bit. Haswell runs pretty cool in general, and can finish tasks faster. There is a race to idle effect going on here. Beyond that, haswell has lower power chipset.

 

Hp staff told me that the 15t-j000 on the hp website has optimus with 740m

did they lie?

 

No, they didn't

 

Someone said you can right click on a program and do Run as iGPU or Nvidia and I can confirm that works .

Anyone find a good fitting sleeve this the envy yet D: ?

 

Use the GeForce experience software from nvidias pages to help optimize your games for the optimal setting.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

Sorry man I havent run across any good sleeves for it....havectried looking online? Or at a Best Buy kinda place?

I have the 17t and I don't plan on getting a sleeve but I do feel your pain on the search aspect. I was struggling to find a great messenger bag for the 17t.

 

Yeah, most of the 16 inch laptop holders fit regular laptops, the 15 has a smaller width q.q .

 

Just received my 17T-quad non touch screen today and checking it out. After about two hours of operation I'm not finding any deal breakers yet. The touchpad is better than I thought and overall quietness of fan is very good. The 1080p matte screen is very nice and has much better clarity than last years model (7212nr) which I had for a while. The intel wireless adapter is giving me excellent reception and much better than the railteck in the last years 7212nr. I'm getting 5 bars everywhere in the house compared to only two bars with that poor railteck adapter. The only disappointment are the internal speakers are not as good as last years model. It sounds like they cut the amp power on this years model. Still gives decent sound but again not as good as last years and not a deal killer since I won't be listening that much to the speakers. If you are a strong audio buff, you may want to think about the audio, it does not have much bass.

 

If anybody is having issues with getting the Nvidia Control Panel - Manage 3D settings tab to select the Nvidia GPU for a program you can use Nvidia Inspector to change the settings.
It's a very detailed settings program and I haven't found a good guide.

This Video will show you how to do the basic settings change, it will allow a program to be changed to use the Nvidia Graphics card.

How to play games (e.g. Half Life) with Nvidia GPU [Laptop & Optimus] v2 PL

It's not in English but, there is enough information to make the changes. The saving profile (to the Desktop) part of the video wasn't needed to make the changes, they are still there after a re-boot.
The Nvidia control Panel wouldn't allow me to set Windows Media Player and VLC to use the Nvidia graphics, this program let me change it.

 

I wasn't too thrilled about the speakers too until I messed around with the Beats audio settings. Not saying it'll work miracles, but there is appreciable improvement to sound quality.

 

I received my 17-j000 Quad and am absolutely unable to tolerate Windows 8. I have a sealed retail copy of Windows 7 but see it's difficult to find the correct drivers for this notebook right now. Has anyone successfully performed a downgrade and/or has knowledge of the best resources for obtaining the drivers needed to run everything?

Configuration:
HP ENVY 17t Quad
• 4th generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4700MQ Processor
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M Graphics with 2048MB of dedicated video memory
• 17.3-inch diagonal Full HD Anti-glare LED-backlit Display (1920 x 1080)
• 12GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 1.5TB 5400 rpm Dual Hard Drive
• 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery
• Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner
• Backlit Keyboard
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam w/ integrated digital mic
• 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth

 

Yeah, I did play around with the eq in beats and only helped a little. Strange, but I get the best sound by pulling the treble all the way down to the bottom, boosting the bass up slightly and boosting the voice to about 90 percent. If I try and boost the bass up anymore, it begins to distort and sounds terrible becasue the amp is not strong enough to power those lower frequencies that the equalizer is telling it to boost. HP really messed up by cutting the power on the amp!

 

I find that windows 8 is not that bad after you go through the learning curve so give it some time. The memory manager in windows 8 is much better than windows 7 and will give you faster access to just about everything!

 

I use these settings:

Bass 100, treble 80, center 100, space 50, focus 80. I don't notice any distortion, and I tested with music at max volume. Again, I'm not saying these are the best speakers ever, but it's a lot better than the default, which is a setting of 50 across the board.

 

Have you tried the sleeves designed for the 15 inch MacBook Air or Pro? I sometimes buy those those because 1) They look a lot better than the rest for personal taste and 2) they often fit my HP laptops really snugly in the past.

 

I currently have the 17" dv7-7212nr w/ i7 3630QM processor. Is it worth it to upgrade the 2013 model and 4th generation Intel? All other specs seem to be similar for graphics, sound, etc.

 

sshams,

I had the 7212nr for about 3 weeks and returned it so I'm familiar with it compared to the newer model 17-j000. In my opinion it is not worth it to upgrade if it costs you more than $100. The speakers are better in that model and I don't notice any speed difference. I do remember the fan was nosier and it did not fit my lap as well with the 9 volt battery. The newer model does seem to generate a lower heat level and the matte screen is just slightly better. Good luck.

 

Regarding the poor sound from these newer models, I've been able to get much better sound by basically bypassing the beats interface, adjusting in sound card and selecting a higher bit rate. I know, most think beats is the greatest since sliced bread but it is just basically a glorified eq that adds noise in my opinion. Do these steps and you will hear a better sound! First go to the beats tab and turn it off. then, go to control panel, hardware and sound, change system sounds, playback tab, then double click on the blue device tab. Then select tone controls and move the bass volume slider to the top, move the treble volume slider about 80 percent to the top. Then go to advance and select 24 bit, 96000. Your Done. The laptop sounds much better when getting that nasty Beats out of the way.

 

Thanks for the info!!! I never even knew about these adjustments. I didn't use your exact settings, but I think the sound is better than using the Beats settings!

 

madmook,

Glad the sound tweak worked out. I've had my new 17t-j000 for a couple of days and just testing everything out. Post if you find any bugs in yours and how you think it is performing..

 

Hey madmook,

I've played around some more with the sound settings and my very best sound comes from a +4 on the bass and a -4 on the treble in the tone control section. The speakers are just very tin can sounding so you need to take as much treble out for it to sound natural in my opinion. I previously had my treble way to high.

The only other issue I'm having with this new laptop is that I find the scroll on the touch pad seem to freeze up when I first open a web page. I'm not liking that one bit.

 

I settled on +4 bass and -2 treble. And 24-bit 48000, I think I heard a bit of distortion with the 96000.

For the scroll, do you mean two finger touch scroll or did you enable the side area scroll? Using two finger touch scroll, I haven't noticed any pauses or hitches.

One thing I am slightly concerned about is my CPU temps. I have the 4900MQ CPU and no Geforce GPU (so games are run on the Intel 4600), and hwmonitor shows temps in the high 90's celsius (95-99) when I run a game. The fan does spin up to max speed when I game, and the games have been running rock solid stable, with no random framedrops or whatnot. Am I safe to assume that these high temps are just the Intel turbo boost or whatever trying to maximize clock speeds?

I'm sure if I could re-paste the thermal compound on the CPU I'd get better temps, but I don't know if the CPU is easy to get at in this laptop.

 

I would think that CPU would run hot. Also uses the same heatsink as all other single CPU without a dedicated GPU. Basically your model has a single heat pipe, where as the dedicated GPU has dual heatpipes which both actually is attached to the CPU heatsink. In theory the dedicated GPU model should run a bit cooler when stressing just the CPU side of things.

Yeah the CPU is way easier to get to this year when compare this to a dv6. Once you remove the entire bottom you will be able to remove the heatsink.

 

Thank you for the feedback. The 9 volt battery hump is irritating.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2

 

Oh no you're gonna make me feel adventurous...

But it's been super stable thusfar, too.

Edit: tried undoing some bottom panel screws, but it all still seemed pretty solidly stuck together, so I'm not gonna pry any further unless someone else who's more technically proficient with an Envy 17 does it and goes over it step by step.

 

I would recommend you get one of those laptop cooler mats to use when you are gaming. My last laptop got really hot and things started failing, I think because of the heat. The screen started acting weird and the power to the laptop eventually just gave out. I think the heat fried some components over time. I have yet to purchase one of these yet so I'm not recommending this one in particular, but something like this I plan on getting if my new laptop gets hot:

Amazon.com: Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim Ultra-Slim Laptop Cooling Pad with 160mm Fan (R9-NBC-XSLIA-GP): Computers & Accessories

Something like that should help keep your laptop living longer.

 

Hey madmook, I don't seem to have any temp issues but I do have the upgraded card so maybe the heatsink is a little different. I'm not a hard gamer so can't really give much insight. The issue I have is the finger touch and side area scroll both pausing from time to time. My wife just said she is having the same issue so it's probably not the computer. I never noticed this before and I'm wondering if two laptops on the router might cause this issue. I will try that 24-bit 48000 to see if I can hear a difference in the sound. Thanks!

 

I just got one of these as a birthday present and the laptop compartment doesn't fit my 15t-j000 but I can put the laptop in the bag and still carry it so it works out. Anyone have any good messenger bag recommendations?

http://www.brenthaven.com/collins-collection/collins-messenger-bag

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

So I'm curious if anyone else has tried to use Intel's Wireless Display technology with the Envy 17 or Envy 15. According to Intel's website my laptop has the required hardware:

1) Intel HD 4600 Graphics Card
2) Intel Centrino Wireless N 2230 Adapter
3) 4th Generation Core™ i3/i5/i7 Mobile and Desktop Processor

However when I go to this portion of their website: Intel Driver Update Utility for wireless networking

It only detects the nVidia 740M that I got with the Envy 17t. So it won't update the drivers for the 4600 (which I'm sure the Intel one is probably more recent than that from HP's Drivers site).

More to the point must i disable the 740M completely and only run the 4600 if I wanted to use Intel WiDi? Curious if anyone has used it before and what their thoughts/knowledge on the subject are.

 

Did you try using the WIDI as configured from HP? According to Intel site their drivers are very generic and might not work with OEM equipment. What are you streaming it to? Sure your model supports WID? Also have to make sure you are using the Intel graphics when you set up the WIDI or it won't be recognized.

As to your question about disabling the dedicated GPU, this page from NVIDIA says it "should" work seamlessly with the Intel graphics.

OPTIMUS WORKS PERFECTLY WITH INTEL WIRELESS DISPLAY (WIDI)

 

Found what I believe to be the service manual for the Envy 17t-j000, and welp it looks like getting CPU access might be more involved than what I'm comfortable doing. Manuals for HP ENVY 17t-j000 CTO Select Edition Notebook PC | HP® Support
or direct link: http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03733756.pdf

 

Last time I tried downloading the Intel WiDi software from HP's website I received this message.

Intel
Wireless Display Software (sp62309) ---> The platform is not compatible with Intel WiDi or the application is in use

I don't know if I should first update the nvidia card from the nvidia website in order to make sure Optmius software is working properly. Then try to install the WiDi program