ENVY 17-32XX Intel Ivy Bridge (AMD 7850M)

Thanks, and I'm not sure because I know when you make a backup image of your 750GB drive. You need to have you SSD running windows so that you can recover from the backup. Does this make sense... The easiest way would be using Acronis with a HDD enclosure... Maybe it will work for you...

 

You can keep the Adobe products either way, as long as it gets registered to an Adobe ID you can just install the programs to the computer again and login with your adobe id, activating the software.

 

Saving $803 with a final price of $1600 sounds like 33% off not 50%.

~$2400 - $800 = $1600 = 33% off.

 

He probably thought the the full price was $1600 not $2400 before a coupon was added...

 

If case anyone is wondering, this laptop runs Guildwars 2 very well. With every setting on high except shadows and view distance on high instead of ultra, the game runs at 35-45 FPS running around the open world. Higher inside dungeons. That's even when I've had 40+ players on screen. It can occasionally dip to 30 when there's a lot of particle effects on screen from that many players, but it's still more than smooth enough to play. 30 FPS is the minimum for smooth game play in MMO's IMO. Some people say 20 is acceptable.

Needless to say, the Envy 17 has performed like a champ. Even though I'm sad eyefinity isn't working, the game wouldn't really be playable anyways. A desktop GTX 680 barely gets above 50 FPS at 5760x1080 so I'm not too disappointed. I'm going to rebuild my desktop for triple monitor support.

 

AN UPDATE TO THOSE WHO CARE (LOL)

After wrestling with the whole SSD installation fun, here's my latest plan.

1. I returned the Intel SSD. I sent back the defective Sandisk SSD to Amazon and I'm getting a replacement sent.
2. I'm buying the full version of Windows 7 Home Premium.
3. When everything arrives, I'll install only the SSD and will do a clean install of Windows 7 (no recovery disks).
4. After I confirm the installation is stable and I'm not getting the disk read error I received earlier, I will add the original HDD in the second bay as a storage drive.

I'm really hoping this will do the trick. I've downloaded all the drivers from HP's site so I can install them one at a time once Windows is confirmed as stable.

My hats off to those who helped on this. After careful consideration, I will be fine with the clean install. As long as I have the necessary drivers for all hardware involved, I don't mind giving up the HP bloat.

I did some googling for installing SSD's on an HP comp and using the restore disks. I'm seeing all sorts of other users that are having problems. Maybe maverick777 just has good luck!

Mav, if you're reading this, what was the size of your HDD and the SSD. I've been reading that the image on the restore disks causes issues when restoring to an SSD because the SSD is smaller in size the original drive. You seem to defy all these exceptions though! I guess this is how it's going to work for me.....I hope.

 

I'm also considering a RAM upgrade. At this price, why not?!

Amazon.com: Corsair Vengeance Laptop Memory Kit 16 GB (2x8 GB) DDR3 1600MHz CL10 PC3 12800 (CMSX16GX3M2A1600C10): Computers & Accessories

 

I remember someone saying all you need to do is download a version of Windows 7 online and just activate it with the key on the bottom panel of the laptop. I don't think you have to shell out more money for Windows 7... I could be wrong but I do remember someone doing that in this forum...

 

That's very interesting! If I can do that, I certainly would. Hmmmm...

 

I'd recommend passing on it:

Other forum members have had no issues with Corsair RAM, though when I had two sets of RAM go bad in MemTest x86+ testing, I tend to avoid the brand.

I have other options I'm looking at for 16GB of RAM, though not that Corsair RAM.

 

I have used Corsair before and had good results. But....I don't want to have the situation you mentioned!

What other options are good? It's been a while since I bought RAM! Thanks for your feedback!

 

While I was comparing the new Mac book Pro Retina 15 against the Envy 17-3200, with the price and components I was almost convinced to get the Mac book Pro but then I remembered sometimes HP have coupons that weren't advertised so I went online and just typed HP coupons. I found a lot of different deals online. I tried everyone of them that were still active and NBY9121 gave me 33% off on top of another coupon already applied at the time of my build. I did not have a second thought . I changed the HD to 300gb SSD, added the 2.6 GHz and the 2 dimm 8gb DDR3 and I did not hesitated to buy. It's in Anchorage now :thumbsup: I just hope that it wont disappoint. HP advertised their new deals a couple of days ago. I went back and rebuilt the same system to see if it's going to be much lower. Sadly, the coupon is no longer active.

 

I've used multiple brands of RAM over the years, Crucial, Kingston, PNY, Kingston and G.Skill, with not much issue with any of them. I went with the Corsair RAM because others in the forum used it on their Envy 17 units without issue. When I buy new RAM I always test it with MemTest x86+ for at least 8 hours to make sure it works over time and won't be an issue. I did the same with the factory 8GB of RAM and had no issues with it.

The 16GB kit I'm probably going to buy is the CL11 kit from G.Skill, which is on NewEgg.com for about $75:
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 16GB (2 x 8G) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Model F3-1600C11D-16GSQ

Other kits are in similar pricing right now, on NewEgg, Amazon and other places.

The CL10 kit is on sale for $70 right now, though the differences you'd get with CL10 vs CL11 are so small it's not likely to be something you'd see, so yes, I'm spending $5 more to make sure I'm having no issues with compatbility. I talked with G.Skill about it and they said the CL11 kit is the default CL timings for DDR3 1600 RAM, so I'm sticking with that. I've had G.Skill in a desktop for multiple years and had no issues with it at all, so I'm going back to a brand I know and I'm happy with.

 

i am planning to buy one, do you think it is worth it?

 

All of a sudden, my phone won't mount - can't tether either - saying usb not connected. It's charging okay but cannot get it to mount. Tried changing cables, and went through every setting on the phone to try and force mount it. My other external usb powered drives do however mount without issue. The phone mounted no problem yesterday. Restarted phone and OS several times but to no avail?

Edit: Well, after much searching for solution, found a suggestion to pull the battery out for 5 minutes - and this fixed the issue. A restart of the phone didn't work, but this did. All good now.

 

This is what I did. I'm waiting on a replacement Sandisk Extreme 480GB SSD and I'm buying a new RAM pair to bring it to 16GB.

I'm not sure what HP uses for their SSDs or RAM. Since some companies are using Lite-On SSDs, I wasn't too interested in getting that! Plus the cost was WAY too much. They wanted $500 plus for the 300GB SSD. Even with a rebate and coupon, component-wise, that's way too much and you're getting much less.

Can anyone confirm what brand/type of SSD's HP uses in their Envy models?

I missed the boat on the 33% off deal! I think I got 25% or something similar. Still, that's good too!

 

I almost sent my Envy back over the weekend. Only two things bothered me about it to do so. The sound is just not the same depth as my trusty HP Pavillion DV7-6195. I had the two side by side (similar to what Maverick did in his awesome Youtube vids) and it's definitely not as good.

The other thing was the keyboard. The keys are more stiff on my DV7 where the Envy feels less so. I was entertaining sending the Envy back and getting an ASUS G75 gaming laptop. However, after some research, I noticed a lot of users having driver issues, some of the components are substandard (the networking card for instance), and other things as well. So, I decided against it and decided to carefully consider my decision to send back the Envy.

Then....I actually got to physically touch a MacBook Pro in an Apple store. If I closed my eyes, it was my Envy! There's no doubt that they were out to copy the design. For some reason, this made me feel better. In fact, I would argue that the Envy's keyboard is a bit better than the MBP. The keys were simply "lighter" than what I was used to with the DV7. I just need to get used to it that's all. The "W" key makes a louder noise than the others but it's not too much of an issue. I think that area of the keyboard must be directly under a component because the "2" key has a similar noise. No biggie.

For the sound, I played Half Life 2: Episode 1 for about 45 minutes (I know, I have to get with the times! lol). Frankly, it sounded great! Also, I was AMAZED at how cool this comp stayed during and after my time with the game. My DV7's fan kicks in about 4 minutes into the game and it sounds like a turbine engine in a plane. The fan never accelerated to an audible level in the Envy and the system, both top and bottom, was only slightly warm. I like to game but I'm not hard core so this machine will do great! I want the whole multimedia experience (which is why the sound bummed me out a little bit). The Blu-ray player was a plus as well (the ASUS I was considering didn't have this as a standard feature).

All things aside, I'm keeping the Envy. It's sleek and it's powerful. I haven't even put the SSD in it yet. Also, I'm researching RAM as well.

Just thought I would share....

 

So, so far I am loving my new Envy, especially coming off of the original version.
However, I'm having some difficulties that I wonder if y'all could help with.

I'm trying to get Windows 8 Enterprise installed on here, and everything seems to be okay, except for the graphics options.

For a while, the device manager was giving me the message that the Radeon was giving an error and wasn't working, despite having all of the drivers that came on the Win7 install installed. I tried out the beta drivers from ATI's website, and the drivers available here in the forums. I eventually had to uninstall the device and restart with the drivers installed. Now there is no warning icon for it, but I cannot access the CCC because there are no settings for it to change and it won't run. I also don't have the switchable graphics option in the desktop right click menu.

Dunno, if its related to the video drivers issue, but I can't change the brightness either >_<

Have any of you run into these issues, or have any ideas as to what I might can do?

Thanks.

 

Has anyone done Msi afterburner monitoring in their games? I am trying to spread the word that the 7000m cards don't perform as they should with Enduro. GPU utilization is low and that results in low FPS. Here is the facebook page with info:
http://www.facebook.com/Amd7000mEnduroUtilizationAwareness
Please like and share!

 

So far I have only played a few games (TF2, Skyrim, Just Cause 2), but things seemed pretty good so far. I will load up MSI and see what happens.

Edit - any difference with drivers? 12.6...12.7...

 

u should probably post it in the envy 15 sec also. i have monitored gaming activity and it goes to 99% but thats with an OC. idk how much it applies to this situation

 

is driver windows 8 64bit for 17-3270nr out yet ?

 

How are people doing with the warmth and performance when gaming with the 7750m? I got a samsung chronos but it gets super hot in parts of the keyboard while gaming. I'm looking for another option, wondering how the new hp envy stacks up.

 

cellinator,

This reply may come to late for you but here goes.

DVD Recovery Discs: For you this is to late, but you might try contacting HP, I recommend anyone buying this system to spring the $19 for the OS and media recovery discs. Then you won't have issues from creating your own.

SSDs: I put in a 256GB Samsung 830. It came with Norton Ghost 15 for cloning and a HDD to USB interface cable. If you are still looking for a replacement SSD, buy one that includes some sort of cloning software. I didn't use the cloning software on mine since I had the recovery DVDs (see above). Had no issues with doing it this way.

RAM: I put in 16Gb of Corsair Vengeance. I had no issues with mine. Passed memtest86, I know someone else posting here had issues with theirs. My original configuration from HP came with 6Gb of ram. The 2GB dim was made by Samsung and the 4Gb dim was made by Micron, though both were the same speed. So they seem to mix and match brands.

Windows 7: If you can find an ISO and download the same version of Windows that came with your Envy, you should be able to use the license that came with yours instead of buying a new copy of Windows. Most likely you'll have to go to a file sharing sight like Demonoid (which has been out of service for about a month now) to find an ISO. Before you buy a new copy of Windows, you should try contacting HP and see if you could buy the recover discs.

Edit: Two other comments to questions I saw since I'd last been on the board.

Shipping: Mine came 1 day earlier than the estimated date.

Cooling Pads: I order the Cooler Master NotePal U2 Laptop Cooling Pad fist, said it would fit up to a 17". The Envy over laps it (about 1" on either side), foot pads on bottom of laptop do not rest on the surface of the cooling pad so it seemed to slide around on it. I replaced it with a Cooler Master NotePal U3 Laptop Cooling Pad, said to fit up to a 19" laptop. The Envy almost completely covers the cooling pad with about 1/8" of pad extending from the sides. Foot pads sit firmly on the cooling pad and the laptop doesn't move.

 

Heat is just fine, it gets a little warm on the upper right portion but that shouldn't be an issue.

On a side note, has anyone confirmed the whole Windows 8 compatible with the 3D switching graphics or is the 3D completely shot no matter what?

 

It's no issue to make the recovery disks as long as you don't use bargain-basement discs. You can certainly pay HP to ship them with your unit or after the fact, though I had no issues with making them. I also made a USB recovery drive and used that to install on my mSATA drive when it was installed.

I have a Crucial m4 mSATA 256B as my OS/apps drive as well as a 256GB Samsung PM830 as a drive for games. 750GB hybrid drive was factory installed. I did the minimal recovery to reinstall to the mSATA drive as I'd rather go that route than cloning to a SSD. It certainly works, though as you did, better to reinstall from the recovery media.

I was the one who had the issues with the Corsair Vengeance RAM, which didn't make it through more than 6 hours of testing for one set and 30 minutes for the other set. I received my G.Skill CL11 16GB kit, which will be installed and MemTest x86+'d tonight and into tomorrow morning.

HP won't send you the standalone Windows 7 disc, it'll just be the recovery media. You can get a legit Win 7 w/SP1 ISO from Digital River. Links from here:
Official Windows 7 SP1 ISO from Digital River « My Digital Life

Mine arrived on the promised date, so they weren't late with mine.

My NotePal U3 also arrived today with my RAM, so it's good to know that it was the better choice than the U2 and that it fits correctly on the U3.

 

Thanks for the response! You confirmed what I (and others) have thought as well. Called HP and threatened to send back my Envy. They gave me a $75 refund and are sending me replacement recovery disks. I found an ISO image (from this very forum!) for Windows 7 Home Premium. I'm waiting for my replacement SSD and the recovery disks.

Once they arrive, I'm installing the SSD and trying the "new" recovery disks first. If I have issues there, I'll do a clean install of Windows 7 and will reload all drivers, updates, etc. One way or another, I WILL get this SSD up and running!

In the meantime, I've been using the 750GB hybrid drive and really enjoying the Envy. I'll have more info to report on my exploits soon!

 

My G.Skill RAM tested without issue almost 10 hours from last night and I left it running. Assuming no errors when I get home from work, I'd say that it's a keeper for 16GB of RAM.

 

Guys my computer broke down and I am offered a replacement unit.

I dont want to install everything again so I just took the HDD out of one and into the next one.

my question: How can I change the serial number and part number of the laptop in the HP support assistant program and other programs or websites?

where are those info saved and how do I change them.

Thanks

 

I got mine 2 days ago. Ran the memory test for little over 8 hours and everything seems to be good. I installed all my software and all set. This is awesome and actually much faster than my desktop at work.

I just noticed that the battery life is not that great. I haven't done the complete draining test yet. But based on what I saw, it seems to be draining faster even when the screen is set to 20%. I will run down the test over the weekend and post it here.

One thing that I noticed is that, I am losing about 8-10% on standby. I charged it fully and put it in on standby over the night (11p), and it had lost around 8% by the morning (7a). Is that normal?

 

Most likely normal... battery life is NOT great... I had the 9 cell with my SB and it did better... I thought IB was suppose to be much better on the battery?!? Why not hibernate when down for longer periods... that uses NO power.

 

Yes, I soon realized that and I think I have to put it in hibernate mode when I turn off.

 

That seems a bit excessive for standby, but I have not checked to see what happens to my battery life overnight. Interesting...

 

Ended up needing to run the test again due to a power outage at my house between the 10+ hour point of the test and when I made it home from work.

Re-ran the test and let it go over 24 hours, for 9 passes, all without issue. Keeping the G.Skill RAM since it worked like a champ like the other G.Skill RAM I've owned.

 

Shrike....I ended up with the G. Skill. G.SKILL 16GB (2 x 8G) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Model F3-1600C10D-16GSQ I got if for $69.99

Ran Memtest for most of the evening last night and all thru the night. Not any issues.

 

Those are ones with radiators and CL9 latency?

 

No these had a Cas Latency 10 I believe they put the CL9's on sale after I ordered mine for $59.99. I hate playing the bargain deal and then seeing that....but I am not going to let myself get too sad about $10.

 

Hi all,
I ran the battery test over the weekend. It lasted around 6 hours before I stopped with light operations like surfing (on and off). Display was set at 70%. Wi-Fi on, Bluetooth off. Overall battery seems to be ok under normal operations.

But I have been having this Wi-Fi locking problem that others have mentioned for the envy-17 in other forms, hp support site. Every time when I wake the computer from standby or hibernate, it would connect to my Wi-Fi network successfully, the network and sharing center showed connected and also the data being sent and received. But the browsers would not load any pages. I was able to ping the websites through the command prompt, but the browsers would not load. So I had to open the wireless properties and change something and click ok, and then it would reconnect and it worked.

As usual the hp support asked me to reinstall the OS. Instead, I looked around the web and install the latest Intel wireless driver version 15.2 (Intel centrino ultimate). After the install, now that Wi-Fi issue same to be resolved, but now it takes over 2 minutes to connect to my Wi-Fi after the standby and hibernate. At least now the browsers connects without any problems.

This whole Wi-Fi issue is bugging me, because my $400 Toshiba laptop works like a charm and never had any issues whatsoever since I bought it last December, but this $2000 PC seem to be having lot of problems based on the search. Anyone else have these similar issues?

 

I went with the CL11 version of the same kit you had, as I emailed G.Skill about the CL10 issue and they said that CL11 was the default timing for DDR3-1600, so I went that way. In most cases, the difference between CL10 and CL11 is something you may not see in daily usage and may only net you a couple more FPS in testing. I thought the $5 was worth making sure I wouldn't have issues in the future if I ran into RAM probelms.

That's their desktop sets not the laptop memory.

Only Kingston has CL9 laptop RAM, as everyone else is CL10 or CL11.

 

Appreciate all the posts in this thread...Really helpful...I ordered mine from computer upgrade king since hp nor Amazon ship to UAE

HP Envy 17 3D 17t-3200 2.70-3.70GHz i7-3820QM 16GB 256GB SSD + 1TB Blu-Ray | eBay

the shipment is scheduled to arrive to Dubai next coming Monday 'feel's forever'.however Aanyone tried this laptop with CAD ( AutoCAd, Revit or 3d Studio Max)
I know this is not meant to be a workstation but I really like the build quality and my work does not envolve heavy scene with so many millions of polygons . 'was thinking to get the Lenove thinkPad with quadro 2000m but that one look damn ugly'. Also any one tried to hook up the xbox 360 wireless controller .

 

Hi Shrike. I had to go back and check to see if I was crazy (actually I know I am )

This is the pair of ram that I saw and it looks like it is a CL9. I also happened by a set of Crucial that was CL9. Just for future thought.

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 16GB (2 x 8G) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model F3-10600CL9D-16GBSQ

 

CL make no real difference with DDR3 anymore even for gaming
maybe 1% up or down depending on the application being run

 

Corsair Vengeance so-dimm 8GB DDR3 1600MHz seems to be nice. 2x8GB of those should be enough for few years

 

Please note this is 10600. Are you sure the Envy doesn't require 10666?

 

This set of ram was not posted to recommend it for the Envy..... it was in response to a statement that Shrike had made :

Only Kingston has CL9 laptop RAM, as everyone else is CL10 or CL11.

I did not post this in the spirit of taking Shrike down a peg. I just happened to remember seeing G. Skill Laptop memory lised as CL9. I got the :

G.SKILL 16GB (2 x 8G) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Model F3-1600C10D-16GSQ

It was listed in the NewEgg memory finder as being compatible with the Envy. I figured the return shipping would be on them if it wasn't. It appears to be working just fine Pasted memtest with flying colors.

 

Cool, thanks for the info. I want to replace my default 6GB with 16GB soon so I'll be in the market.

 

Hey guys,

I'm highly considering purchasing the HP Envy 17t-3200 3D laptop. With the 30% off deal running right now, I'd be getting quite an amazing laptop for a really good price. However, I'm hesitant to pull the trigger because of the fact that Windows 8 is just around the corner (which, I'm assuming, will be shortly followed by a new product lineup from HP).

Is my hesitation justified, or should I just go for it and pull the trigger now? Any thoughts/opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

prolly not gonna be a revision of the envy 15/17 series. and even if you order today, its gonna take a while to make then when its shiped you get 21 days were you can return or exchange so if something does come out/plans to come out u can just return it. or if you wanted to delay it even more than 21 days, u can just ask for an exchange

 

Well didn't the 3200 revision come out just 6-7 months after the previous revision? If that's the case, and they more or less stick to this kind of schedule, then a new revision is due to come out at the end of this year.

 

the original (3000) was supposed to have the 7750m in it but due to delays they couldnt put it in. thats why they refreshed it with ivy+7750m. the next refresh is going to be a redesign with haswell cpu+next gen cards. more than likely the next model is going to be "4000" not "3400" or some sort like that