Envy 14 internal pictures and such

I decided to take a few pics for the masses while i was under the hood of my Envy 14. I swapped the keyboard surround to the beats one because i like the black so there's a pic or two of that.

The third pic shows the wifi card (lower left) which is a pcie mini card.

The fourth shows my hdd caddy install in place of the factory cdrom.
I moved the stock hdd there and replaced it with a Mushkin Enhanced Callisto Deluxe 240Gig SSD....and yes it hauls !

Specs for the laptop:

Regular Envy 14
580m i5
8GB ram
240G SSD
500G HDD
Radiance

 

is it possible to separate the touchpad from the keyboard surrounding? Or is it glued?

 

Waleed786-

No glue...see the first pic. One screw on each side and it just pops out the back. Note the one push button on the undersided of the trackpad, that's why when you push in the middle it still clicks. The trackpad uses position of the finger to determine right or left click....the click is only one signal regardless of the side.

 

thanks for the tip, now maybe I can fix the problem with my touchpad being raised on one corner..and that also explains why the clicks never register if you click outside of the bottom rectangles

 

Hey thanks! I have an extra ssd now maybe I may stick it in my dvd bay or just sell it. Where did you get the caddy?

 

Right HERE

 

You can find those caddies on eBay cheaper. I bought one for $12.50 shipped.

NEW Sata 2nd HDD Caddy Adapter IBM Thinkpad R400 DV16 - eBay (item 250710608227 end time Mar-11-11 18:25:57 PST)

This one has a removable faceplate so that it will fit properly.

 

Was this difficult to do? I also want to fix my trackpad - it's slightly loose and makes a hollow plastic sound when i lightly tap it. I was thinking of just opening it up and putting some thread seal tape there. Any guidance you could give would be great!

 

I saw that one, it's a good choice for the masses but it wouldn't work for me because of my future plans. I'm gonna internalize all my components like i did with my netbook. The NewModeUS caddy gives me the most free space at the back of the laptop to hide a usb hub, alfa wireless adapter & antenna cable and usb transponder for my mouse. Yes, i will fit it all inside, just takes a bit of soldering and trimming.

Very easy. DL the service manual if your unsure, i think it shows how to dismantle the whole laptop. As far as the trackpad i had that problem with the original case, all i did to get rid of the odd click was loosen the two screws and shift the trackpad so it lined up and wouldn't get caught on the surround but i can tell you that if you pull the keyboard surround off the laptop, alot of your questions will be answered. The trackpad is right there in all its glory, and there's really nothing to it.

 

I'm curious to know if the eject hotkey does anything now.

 

bumpity bump. anyone have an hd caddy that can test this please?

 

Nope, that key is in the abyss now, doesn't do a thing...although i haven't tried to bind it in linux.

 

So, I've looked at the service manual on how to take the unit apart to swap the optical with a caddy, but one question: Is there any step along the way at which HP will know I've opened the unit and void my warranty? For example, any tape or stickers I'm taking off?

 

no theres no tapes or stickers, you just have to make sure not to mess up/scratch any other component while doing the swap so it doesn't look like it was opened

 

Yea, i didn't see anything either. Only thing i can think of is that the ribbon cable to the cdrom's daughter board is taped to the drive but you can easily pull it off and re-apply it without it being noticable...oh yea, don't strip out any screws

 

There are steps the service manual skips.

The big one is some double sided tape holding the sata cable down and if you're not careful it is pretty easy to damage the cable.

 

Oh, good to know. Are there any resources online with a step by step or is it just common sense?

NVM, found it:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/499592-envy-14-uk-thread-55.html#post6695204

Any other tips would be appreciated.

 

Does anyone know if ACHI and TRIM are supported by the Envy 14 chipsets? I'm seeing some conflicting information.

 

From what i gathered, AHCI is the default for the envy and i couldn't find any way to change it in the bios if i wanted to. Trim is supported by windows 7 as long as the the drive is capable. My mushkin ssd is hauling and all i did was plug it in and load windows, no other special crap really. Read the sticky threads about the envy 14 as there's some ssd setup and tweak info.

 

Thanks a lot.

I'm pretty much sold on this plan (swapping the optical out for a SSD) I'm just wondering if putting an SSD on the optical port will mean I need to make different tweaks or anything. Like, does the optical port support everything the regular hdd port does?

I'll keep looking for answers....thanks again.

 

As far as i know, it's just another sata channel. The cdrom drive has a regular sata connector on it. There's a small circuit board that plugs between the cdrom's sata port and the motherboard that's you'll need to reuse on the drive caddy. You can swap boot devices in the bios. I put my ssd next to the battery to negate any vibrations where my wrist lays. They should run the same no matter which channel they're on though. Here's a pic of the a$$-end of the cdrom drive.