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

So you replaced yours with another wireless n card and there wasn't any issue right?

 

None, other the card is only half duplex. The Wireless and BT work just fine, but the speeds for the card are a bit low. Just make sure you grab the drivers from Intel. The Win8 drivers for it didn't work properly for me.

 

Thanks for responding....and just to be sure I'm purchasing the right item this is what I'm looking at on Amazon.

Amazon.com: Intel Network 7260.HMWG WiFi Wireless-AC 7260 H/T Dual Band 2x2 AC+Bluetooth HMC: Computers & Accessories

I just follow the instructions of HP's website and replace the WLAN module with the above correct?

 

I think that was the one I was looking at, but it's been a bit. It's really straight forward to replace. Unlike adding an mSata card you can get at the WiFi card just by pulling the back cover off (the one held on by just the screw). It's two screws and two little pop off antenna wires and Bob's your uncle to get that half card out, and then just reverse process to replace. Make sure you download the drivers ahead of time .

 

.... I had post this by error. ExcuseMe

 

Any new information on whether we can swap screens for an IPS display? I just bought an Envy 15-j100 with the 1080p display and it's everything I wanted spec-wise but this TN screen is terrible...especially coming from an Asus with an IPS display. I'm definitely willing to swap the screen if it will fit. I'm looking at the LP156WF4-SLB6 to replace my original AUO32ED...all of my research so far indicates that it SHOULD work but i'd like a little more confirmation before I order.

 

Ordered a LP156WF4(SL)(B6) LG screen off of Amazon...should arrive tomorrow. I'll post whether or not it is a success or not after tomorrow! Horray for voiding the warranty on a new laptop

 

Just been notified that my Envy 15t -j100 Quad Core Edition has been delayed by two weeks...grrrr!

 

I'm guessing this is going to be 100% if the ribbon cable part is exactly as the manual specifically says it is, and HP have not started to add some crazy whitelist for LCD panels as of recently.

 

Hello. Some pages ago, i was waiting for my envy 15-j104el to arrive. When it has, i took my time with it and now im ready to make an informed review for you all. Let's start with the actual detailed specs, something hp isn't exactly eager to give you:

HP Envy 15-j104el

Processor: Intel Core i7-4700 MQ Haswell on HM87 Chipset
Ram:12 GB in two banks, a 4gb samsung DDR3 1600 at 11-11-11-28 timings and a 8 gb elpida DDR3 1600 at 11-11-11-28 timings
Graphics: Intel Hd Graphics 4600 with 2112 MB ram, and dedicated Geforce GT 740 M rev 2 (GK208 chip, 980 mhz core 920 mhz ram on a 64 bit bus)
Display: AUO32ED 1980x1080 White led backlit panel, glare (no IPS, no touch)
Audio: IDT 92HD91BXX chip, 4 speakers and 2 subwoofer configuration
Network adapter: RALINK RT3290 802.11 bgn Wi-Fi, Realtek PCIe GBE family controller
HDD: 1TB ST1000LMST1000LM024 HN-M (931 GB Effective)
Bios : RSA Signed Insyde Bios (a nightmare for bios modders, keep it in mind if that's your cup of tea)
Preinstalled OS: Windows 8.1

FOREWORD AND BASIC SUGGESTIONS

First of all, i usually format all my hdd following this excellent forum post by our fellow thilleroftheearth http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-hitachi-7k500-benchmark-setup-specifics.html .

However, i decided to give windows 8.1 a shot, given i had never tryed it. Well let me say this: if the AUO32ED screen certainly isn't the best, windows 8.1 dpi settings and font rendering certainly didn't help making it shine. When i first booted into windows and installed chrome, i was greeted with such a fuzzy font rendering that for a bit i was wondering if i wasn't looking at a 640x480 screen. Fiddling with 8.1 display settings didn't help. If i lowered the font size to 100% instead of the 125% it cames, text looked a little bit better but it was too small to be read confortably.

So IMHO, the first thing you have to do is remove windows 8, format and partition the drive as explained in the article linked, and enjoy better font rendering and drive performance. In this regard, i have to say i haven't had difficulty finding the windows 7 drivers, as they are all provided on the HP website, if you don't want to search for them. I however searched for newer versions from intel for all the chipset related stuff, and from nvidia for the dedicated card.

LOOK AND BUILD QUALITY

The laptop is good looking and feels well built. I hear the older envys were built better, with a true alluminium case instead of the plastic one this has. However, coming from Acer, i must say the build quality of this envy is pretty decent. I haven't experienced the mushy keyboard someone else has and overall the laptop is solid.

PROCESSOR PERFORMANCE

The 4700 MQ seems to be the standard as of today for premium laptops. What can i say, 4 cores, 8 threads, 6 mb cache, all make for a good desk replacement. I don't want to speak much of the tech specs, go read some reviews for it if you want. I prefer to speak of it's real world performances.

At idle and low impact activities such as web surfing, the processor consume beetween 5.5 and 7 W, pretty good. Obviously if you run benchmarks or games this figure increase to 47 W pretty fast.

The cpu is tweakable with intel XTU Utility, where you have access to a maximum overclock of 200 mhz for every boost scenario, making the processor capable of 3.4 ghz boost for 4 cores, and a maximum of 3.6 for single core, giving it a pretty decent performance boost for essentially nothing.

You can also control the voltages of processor core, cache and of the intel graphics; in other word you can make the processor go faster producing less heat than stock, if you know what you are doing.

Oh yeah, the temps: around 45° degree idle and 85° under stress test, with and external temp of 25-35°.

Performance wise, this thing can defeat almost any normal previous generation dektop intel i7 of similar specs; i get around 9000 on passmark. Pleased with the performance.

GRAPHIC PERFORMANCE

Gamers beware! This 740m is the 64bit version. For the less tech savy, this means that while it's core run faster than the regular 740m, performance in games especially at 1080 p will be awful, because basically the bandwith is 14.4 GB instead of 25 of the regular version, so hi-res texture are a no-no.

Performance at stock clocks and stock drivers are around 1200 marks on 3dmark 2011, and 12 fps on unigine heaven with notebook check test settings (dx11, 1280x1024, tessellation normal). For some reason the stock hp drivers are a mess. Install tweakforce xtreme-g which gives you a loooot better image quality, and are more performant.

The graphic card is overclock friendly, and temperatures don't rise too much. With +135 mhz on core and +300 on mem, and tweakforce xtreme g drivers, i get increased performance and better IQ:

3d mark 2011 around 2400 marks
Unigine heaven 19 fps
3d mark 2013 icestorm around 70000
3d mark 2013 cloud gate around 8500
3d mark 2013 fire strike around 1500
passmark gpu test around 1300

So you can see that with updated drivers and the overclock you basically double your dedicated card performances, for maybe 3-4° more (no stability issues).

I have to say that the card could be overclocked more, and i'm sure of this (it runs right now at 1115 mhz core, 1190 turbo without a sign of instability, which is the max overclock and turbo allowed without touching the bios. If someone succesfully find a way to repack rsa bioses and flash them without bricking the machine, i say we are looking at another 100 mhz on the core of this card, maybe more with a little overvolt. If that's the case this means we can reach 750m performance i think. Right now with the oc it sits beetween 740m and 750m, it depends on the test) However the clocks and voltage are locked in the bios, and while it's easy to extract the gfx bios from the main bios and modify it with kepler bios tweaker, HP makes impossible to repack it and install due to the RSA signature. However, maybe there is hope; check donovan6000's Blog for updates about HP RSA bioses unlock.

DISPLAY

The display is bad and you already know. Viewing angles sucks, contrast sucks, brightness is acceptable (i tend to run everything at low brightness because otherwhise i strain my eyes, but if you like super luminous display, this isn't for you) and there is a strong blueish tint on everything.

However, calibrating it with an xrite i1 display pro, things becomes a lot better, if not for the viewing angles at least for color fidelity. The blueish tint disappeared, the delta e becomes 1.4 average. Shadow and highlight detail improved a lot: if before calibration i couldn't see anything below rgb 15 15 15 and over 245 245 245, now i can distinguish even rgb 1 1 1 from pure black and rgb 253 253 253 from pure white. Basic checks with pantone spot color revealed an acceptable accuracy of the pantone colors on screen compared to the chips (i tested solid coated medium purple c, dark blue c, medium blue c bright green c, neutral black c, medium yellow c, bright orange c, bright red c, strong red c and pink c, and they all were displayed correctly).

Stock color temperature was around 7800k, with the calibration it succesfully reached 6540k.

If you want i can send you the icc profile; every screen is different but it would be almost sure that it will improve things compared to the awful default. Just remember to set the battery settings on high performance and to deactivate adaptive brightness from intel control panel. Otherwise the display has a weird tendency to change it's brightness in relation to what is displayed on the screen, making the calibration wonky. Just set your brightness to 60%, and tweak the high performance profile to suit your need on battery. Thanks HP to making everything easy as always.

VIDEO REPRODUCTION

If you are serious about video quality you may be interested on MPC HC with madvr renderer and lav filters performance.

With the overclocked card i can get 0 dropped frames with those high quality settings:

reduce banding artifact active
chroma upscaling 4 taps AR filter
no image doubling
image upscaling jinc 3 taps AR filter
image downscaling catmull rom AR filter
smooth motion active
ordered dithering, colored noise, change dither for every frame
all trade quality for performance tweaks deactivated
cuvid or quicksync in lav video

image doubling or NNEDI3 upscaling aren't usable on our dedicated card. Oh yeah, make sure that in the nvidia cp you are using the dedicated card for mpc-hc. To do this, you go into mpc-hc folder and change the name of the program to something else, otherwise for some reason nvidia cp doesn't let you select the high performance dedicated graphics for it.

AUDIO

Oh my god i don't even know where to start with this. The worst point of the laptop, even worse than the screen for me, because i somehow fixed the screen with calibration, but there isn't fixing for the audio.

You see, if you like bitperfect audio reproduction as i like, beats audio don't permit it. For who is in the knows i'll explain what i hear this beat thing is doing: your signal go through an ms equalizer and/or some type of widener, to make the sound more 3d. Unfortunately this effectively ruins the stereo image as intended by the artist of every track you throw at it. Do a simple test: go in windows audio settings and do the left-right sound test. You will discover that you can hear the left signal in the right headphones and the right signal in the left. How this can be good for stereo image, only stupid beats know.

But it isn't all. Your already messed up audio signal go throug a software compressor, which effectively kill's the dynamics, and if this wasn't enough the final stage is a limiter! So you get a messed up signal without a precise stereo separation and 0 dynamic range.

And the best part is that you can't deactivate all this. If you turn off beats audio from the control panel, well, it doesn't turn off.

The only way to solve the problem is to uninstall the idt audio drivers and install the generic hd audio driver that come with windows. Auto magically your headphones and external speaker audio quality becomes what it's meant to be, but you lose all your beats integrate speaker: only the two under the laptop will continue to function.

It doesn't bother me, because i have an external audio card connected to some good speakers, but it's a shame for hp that they don't provide a way to turn off that crap without having to lose 4 of your 6 speakers. Honestly they could have simply not put this beat crap and spent the money for a better panel, and i suspect we would be all good with it.

OTHER

Buy a mouse, the integrated touchpad sucks. When you try to click on something, it almost always change the mouse pointer location, because the mouse button are integrated in the moving surface. What an idiot design choice.
The wi-fi controller is decent. I get 4 lines of signal with the router in another room at 10 meter distance through walls. I get signal even on the floor under mine.
HDD does his things as every other mechanical hdd would. Nothing special. Replace with an ssd or a msata if you want better performance. I suggest a plextor m5m if you want to go that route.

VERDICT

The notebook as you buy it, is a 5/10. If you take the time to find the best drivers, tweak the dedicated graphics card, and uninstall the beat crap it becomes a lot better machine. However, when you think that for the same price you can buy an asus n550 which comes with a better ips display, a dedicated card with double performance compared to the 740m, and probably everything else better, in any case this isn't a very good deal. Or even a lenovo y510p, lot better than this.

I had to buy mine because the other two weren't disponible and i had the need to have the pc as fast as possible. Never again. Stick with asus and lenovo!

If you have any questions, or you want some tips to improve your system performance, feel free to ask.

ICC profile if you want to try it Zippyshare.com - D65 Native 100cd Giorno.icm (put brightness to 60% as it's calibrated for 100cd brightness, which is about 60% on the notebook; oh and obviously, you want the intel graphics control panel to have all settings to default for the profile to work, the only thing that needs to be changed is the adaptive brightness, which you want turned off. Also for video deactivate all the color corrections and activate the maximum color interval, and let madvr do all it's things. In madvr set pc 0-255 and my display is already calibrated if you use my color profile)

LAST TWEAK

Please remove the beats audio sticker from the laptop. Your sense of beauty will be grateful and you won't make free advertisment for dr. dre and his crappy technlogy!

 

Have you done this yet, what was the results?

 

Didn't get around to putting the screen in until today...it was a success though! The LP156WF4(SL)(B6) fit directly in place of my AUO B156HTN03.2 that was installed from the factory. The panel I recieved from Amazon was not a genuine LG...it was actually made by AUO but has the LG part number on it. I was expecting this though, as it said "compatible" screen. It is a nice screen EXCEPT they specifically said it was matte and the one i received was not. It's still much better than the original screen though.

On a side note...I read somewhere(i think in this thread?) that you have to take the screen assembly off of the base to get the bezel off and replace the screen...this is not true. I was able to swap mine out in about 10 min with just removing the screw covers and two outside screws a the base of the bezel.

 

I picked up this machine on special (although I have had the touch version before) just so I can try this out and upgrade from my A10-4600M to i7-4700MQ. Basically I transplanted my 2012 dv6 with FHD IPS panel directly into my Envy 15-j which came with HD 1366 x 768 panel (not FHD), no changing the ribbon cable, it is confirmed, one ribbon cable for all!

There is two screen on each side of the bottom bezel (total of 4 all up). I found the inner screws were bit tricky to get to, I just about threaded mine. I didn't remove the entire back either, to much work, and didn't want to start pulling other things apart, also heaps easier to test the panel working, as just put battery in and fire it up.

Huge improvement having a FHD IPS screen in the 15-j

 

Indeed, this computer is what I originally wanted in a 15" computer now that it has an IPS display and a SSD drive. Even with the upgrades I still have under $900 in it. That's weird about the bezel screws...my inner ones didn't require removal...the head was poking through the bezel but they weren't helping to secure it. Maybe a running change during production of the bezels?

Next upgrade/improvement when I get time--dissassembling completely to try to fix keyboard flex

 

Just to verify... is it this one? Amazon.com: LG PHILIPS LP156WF4(SL)(B6) LAPTOP LCD SCREEN 15.6" Full-HD LED DIODE (SUBSTITUTE REPLACEMENT LCD SCREEN ONLY. NOT A LAPTOP ) (WILL NOT WORK WITH LP156WF4(SL)(B1)): Computers & Accessories

 

Yeah I notice this too when I was replacing the bezel, the two inner screw did not need removing as the bezel is already fully cut out for them and are only superficial.
These two screws are pretty hard to get to, wish I didn't take them off and get back on, but I was not to know at that stage.

Q. What do these two inner screws do?
A. They part of a set that secure the hinge to the lid.

 

Finally mine LP156WF4 (SL)(B6) has arrived.
It's an LG (not a replacement) but it's a used (not new) one.
The panel is matte.
The viewing experience is very good: compared to the original AUO it's really another world!

 

Have you a better quality picture of the left hinge?
Mine has no screw installed, instead the right has one.

 

That's all I have I took it with my phone, all I had at the time

 

Do you remember if the left hinge has no screw installed?

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In order to help who wants to replace the panel, can you tell us which is the part number of the AUO you have received?

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I'll try to take some when my panel arrives.

 

Here are 4 screws, you don't have to remove the 2 inner screws, only the 2 outer screws on the left and right hand sides

R = remove
D = don't remove
O = bezel holes

Like this then:

RD DR
OO OO

 

Thank you.
I'm asking about the screw installed on the left hinge, not about the screws to remove the bezel or the LCD.

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Be careful when removing the bezel in the bottom side. Between the bezel and the LCD there's a double side tape and, while using a credit card in order to unstick it, I've irretrievably damaged the original LCD panel. In that place there's the LCD glass without any rigid protection but only a black plastic tape.

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Those 4 screws are the only screws that I removed. Not one needs to remove anymore than that for the out side.

On the inside just the 4 screws holding in the panel.

 

Is there anyway to optimise the touch pad, mine is pretty crappy, it never use to feel like this on the original Windows 8 version of this laptop. My new laptop came out of the box with Windows 8.1 and the touchpad really is not actuate. I have updated the BIOS and downloaded the latest touchpad drivers, seems pretty bad, anyway to improve it?

 

I know.
I'm asking about the screws on the left hinge because I found that my laptop has some assembling defects.
When I have removed the bezel I have seen that the right hinge has a screw installed but the left one hasn't any.
Is this normal?

 

No longer available

 

I would love to know, actually lol. They covered it with a "warranty void if removed" sticker and all I could see was AU______________v0 so I wasn't able to deduce what the actual part was. I ran Moninfo and it calls it a LP156WF4-SLB1 for some reason. I have contacted the seller and they said they have a matte one coming for me but it will take 10 days. Fingers crossed

 

Yup that is the one I ordered(I was the one who asked if it was matte, lol). It didn't come in matte though...I got a glossy one. They are supossed to be ordering me a matte one now. I went ahead and installed the glossy one I recieved just to make sure it would work and it's still way better than the factory one simply because its IPS.

 

Cool. That's the one I ordered. I don't care if its not matte as long as it works.

 

Mine has NOT the left screw.

 

I had an assembly problem on mine as well...when I went to put the ssd in, I noticed that the screw holding down the mSATA ssd was cross-threaded. Easy fix...but definitely a sign of the build quality.

 

That's HP for you. I had a sticky R key and my up arrow key was sticking up in the air. I had to fix these myself.

If you can do what you have done, then just source a screw from another old laptop. Even borrow from somewhere else on your laptop. The hinge is likely higher priority than other areas.

 

I never had an HP, and never had a so bad assembled laptop.
This is my first and last HP.

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Got mine today and installed in about 30 minutes. I got a matte one and it looks absolutely incredible. I did notice that its not as bright as the stock screen. I have it set at full brightness and it looks a tad bit darker than the the stock at 85-90%. I don't mind since the colors are just absolutely gorgeous. Angle is great and I am so glad you guys pointed out the replacement panel.

Now this is the lappy I always wanted.

 

Seem like mine was not as bright, as I reused a panel I already had. The display ribbon cable looked really cheap, leaves me wondering if maybe the amount of power is limited thought the output connected on the motherboard side.

I found that the bezel pushes pretty hard on the bottom corners of the actual panel and creates a bright kind of washed out area on very dark colors like black.
This could just with the dimensions of my panel although, so something to watch out for, but compared with stock panel who cares.

In my case the pressure of the bezel pushing on the screen was making my panel worse than what I borrowed it from, so I moved it back. No ones else will have this though, as pretty much everyone are buying new replacements.

I'd still be a bit weary of the bezel pressure on the panel corners when the bezel is clipped locked shut, as it looks pretty tight when stock out of the box.

 

So far I have not seen any issues with bezel pressure but I will keep my eyes open. BTW, the apparent brightness difference might just be the fact that the new panel is matte compared to the super glossy on the stock one. Glossy always look brighter.

 

The original AUO is declared 300cd/m2, the LG is 250cd/m2.
There is only one LG with 300cd/m2, the LP156WF4 SL C1 but I don't know if it is compatible.
The "C1" has also a better contrast (800:1).

http://www.panelook.com/B156HTN03.2_AUO_15.6_LCM_overview_20476.html

http://www.panelook.com/LP156WF4-SLB6_LG Display_15.6_LCM_overview_18873.html

http://www.panelook.com/LP156WF4-SLC1_LG Display_15.6_LCM_overview_18825.html

Ps: Anyone can download the datasheets ?

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What about the SL B5? Seems to be the same as the SL B6 but with 300 cd/m2 brightness. The panel I just sent back was a glossy SL B6 and it was noticeably dimmer than the stock display. Totally worth it though for the increased viewing angles. I've inquired about getting a SL B5 matte display as a replacement

 

I don't know if the "B5" is compatibile.
The "B6" is the replacement of the "B2" which had red shifted to orange.
Let we know if the "B5" works.

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I had very bad experience with an Italian seller. So if you are in Italy and you want to buy a LCD, write me and I'll tell you the seller to avoid, if you like to known who is.

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It's time for a new laptop. I'm not a gamer and I want something powerful but light. I've settled on the Envy 15-j181nr. I was looking at the 2014 models that just came out but I don't see any real improvement over the 2013 ones. Very little difference between the 4710HQ and 4100MQ. I don't need or want an optical drive...just more weight. I've had my Dell XPS for 3 years now and I've used the DVD drive 3 times I think. It comes with the standard 1366x768 panel. I'd like to upgrade that to a 1920x1080 panel in short order along with getting a backlit keyboard and putting in an SSD. Anyone know what full HD panel I can put in this model? If it was mentioned in the past 135 pages sorry. Just too many pages to read though.

Just saw my profile pic...haven't been on here in a while..LOL

 

The only differences between 2013 and 2014 models is the Windows version (8 vs 8.1) and RAM (DDR3 vs DDR3L).
The model you have choosed has not the NVidia video card (only integrated Intel).
If think that the LCD can be changed with a FullHD (1920x1080) without any problem. The best you can have is a LG with IPS technology.
I have a LP156WF4 SL B6, but probably also SL B2 or or SL B5 or SL C1 could be good.
If you can, wait someone else's reply.

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I don't do PC gaming anymore so I don't need the separate GPU. That model can be ordered with a Full HD panel so I'm assuming it's just a drop in. The panel you have goes for ~$80 on Amazon..not bad at all. Normally I wouldn't go HP but after reading the service manual they are very easy to work on and upgrade. Thanks for the help, ordering one tomorrow.

 

Be warned the touchpad in the 15-j is one if not the worst I have ever used. Under the windows 8.1 preloaded 15-j it is pretty much broken no matter what drivers or bios you upgrade to. The main reason to adviod is the touchpad has almost zero slip and your finger will never glide freely, it sticks and grips to your finger like a muthaf**ker.
Strongly suggest not buying the 15-j as the 15-q is only 1 week ETA selling in stores. HP new Touch Zone touchpad should fix most issues and is very smooth with glass surface, feels much like a Apples glass coated touchpad which are very nice to use. Personal experiane here too using both already.

With the CPU the 37W TDP version runs generally much cooler and the fan does not ramp up much under load, however the 47W TDP version ramps up like crazy in a few seconds. I have had both so I am speaking from personal experience.

 

After some days using the IPS panel I can say that it's great!

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My matte replacement display is coming in tomorrow...can't wait to see if the SLB5 is better than the other one I had(hopefully it fits!). Been using my old TN display in the meantime...just a terrible display

 

I'm curious to know if it works

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