Envy 15 2nd Gen - rigging it with 2 7mm 2.5" HDDs?

Hi,
since the other threads only talk about the 'normal' configuration with 2 1.8" HDDs:
Has anybody tried, succeeded or failed with rigging an Envy 15 2nd Gen (I believe first Gen should be identical in the HDD bay area) with two 7mm 2.5" HDDs stacked on top of each other?
Assuming you get rid of all the caddys, insulate well yourself and cram it in... will the case still close well?

And - any resources for the internal semi-proprietory HDD adapter cable?

Regards,

 

OK, I found out the following:
If you are OK with that you have to remove the caddy, be very careful, and have the notebook not close completely - there is some tension on the top cover resulting in about a 2mm opening where the drives are, then it works.
As said, you have to be a bit careful.
If you have an aftermarket 7mm SSD/SSD out of warranty I suggest looking into removing the outer casing of the SSD and then be able to fit the SSDs (insulate them though!) without tension, but I did not dare to try that since I do not want to void my SSD warranty.
As for cables, note that the Envy 17 3000 series internal SATA connectors are compatible.
In the OS I was able to get Intel Matrix Raid to work and enable a RAID 0 on the SSDs.
However, I have no clue if there is a way to get to them in BIOS setup.
I also do not seem to be able to delete the RAID configuration afterwards.

 

There is a separate bios for RAID.

Press CTRL+i at the initial hp bios screen. It should get you into the Intel raid bios which will allow to set up/remove hardware RAID.

 

When exactly am I supposed to press that? I do not seem to be able to access it.
Are there bios versions that do not have the RAID setup enabled? Do I need to get a different BIOS perhaps?

At boot I can press either
esc or the F1,...F10 options directly.
After that depending on my setting it goes directly to HP Quickweb or the OS installed.
If I keep hammering CTRL+I or keeping CTRL+I pressed it also goes to HP Quickweb or the OS installed.

 

Do it when you see the hp logo - i.e. when you would press f10 to get into the bios. This works for me. try doing it from a cold boot, not after restating the laptop

Just for clarification, by second gen you mean the one with the ati radeon 5830 graphics right?

 

yes, the one with 5830 graphics and USB 3.0
is it possible that my bios is botched, disabling the intel raid settings and not offering the option to enable/disable that?

and... I tried what you said dozens of time. Will try again, maybe powercycling it and removing the battery also

 

nope - no raid setup/raid bios comes up. I tried to reset the bios to default values, I tried all types of key combos - left ctrl key+i, right ctrl key+i... enabled or disabled quickweb, set the time for it to wait for me to press anything to a longer period to hit the key, with action keys, without action keys... nothing.

 

So we have the same motherboard, with the same bios version i assume (f2.b). I just keep the ctrl button held down and keep tapping the i key until i get in as soon as i see that hp screen on startup.

Not sure what it could be if it doesn't work for you. You could try reflashing the bios and trying again?

 

How is your BIOS modded?
My guess is that there is a "RAID enable" setting, as it is normal in many BIOSes, but in our case, the menu option got deactivated.
Maybe HP has a tool to enable the RAID functionality that they do not publish (only use at build/setup time). You got your notebook RAID configured out of the factory? Mine did not come as a RAID system.
Or maybe there are two versions of the BIOS? (RAID enabled, RAID disabled).

 

My bios has the wi-fi whitelist removed, c7 CPU state enabled, throttle on temperature increased to 90C. I haven't touched the Intel RAID ROM or the ATI VBIOS. They are seperate modules from the bios that you can access using F10.

As far as i know there is only one bios per motherboard, so the our bioses should be identical with respect to RAID. My laptop came with a single 2.5 inch 500GB HDD. The SSDs in RAID were added later, all i did was keep the ctrl key held down at startup and pressed the i key repeatedly until i got in. Took a few tries till i got it.

If you like i can upload the bios i am currently using for you to try, but I'm pretty sure it won't make a difference.

 

I figured it out... thanks for bearing with me
actually you are wrong about keeping the ctrl key held down. and I was wrong, about it, too - since it is the intuitive thing and normal 'pattern' to do.

I had to hammer both at the same time multiple times, then it worked.
the safest way to avoid a boot into windows and to get to the raid bios fast is:
1) press esc immediately, the system will then try to pause startup and display the options for f1, f2, ... on the screen, but that takes 2 seconds or so
2) during that time period hammer ctrl + i at the same time a few times
3) if the selection f1, f2, ... appears: reset, repeat
4) otherwise - RAID bios here you go.

That brings me to two more topics:
a) can you update the AMD/ATI vbios and Intel raid bios somehow? I noticed that the raid bios is pretty old.
b) what is the story with your BIOS? did you patch it yourself? why those settings? are those 'hard coded' into it or you have switches for them now in your modded BIOS? Is there a generally unlocked BIOS for the envy 15 (2nd gen)?

 

Good stuff! Although i get into the Intel option ROM using the method I posted earlier.

To answer your questions:

a). In theory you should be able to update the VBIOS and Intel option ROM (for RAID) by just replacing those modules in the insyde bios. I don't know how to do this, but it is possible and there are examples out there of people having done it - at least with the Intel option ROM, i haven't seen any examples of people having done it with the VBIOS.

With regards to updating the Intel option ROM, i am struggling to find any advantages to updating to the latest version.

b). Wild05kid05 made the initial request at bios-mods for help in unlocking the bios. Here is his thread

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/623647-envy-15-unlocked-insyde-bios.html

We use the insyde bios editing tools to change the parameters that you would usually find in the advanced menu. Activating the advanced menu on the bios, so that you can change those parameters from inside the bios itself led to problems, so you have to edit those settings in before you flash. Info on the process is on that thread i linked to above. Be careful with that though, as we have both bricked our motherboards by messing around with settings that we knew nothing about - hence why both our first gen envies are running with second gen motherboards

 

As with all firmware it is usually a good idea to have a recent version of it. So, the Insyde BIOS contains the other BIOS'es? I thought you could flash them separately.

So it is risky business, it seems.
What improvements did you get out of it? I understand that otherwise you would not have been able to use your WiFi adapter?
You mentioned the 90 degrees, but what was it before? (Does the tool display that)?
And what did the C7 CPU state setting (compared to before) get you? My guess is that it should have been on "Auto" setting before, right? If C7 is in line with the other C-states, then it should just get you more power savings in some cases, right?


Just activating the advanced menu still does not work, I suppose? (that is how I understand the 'cannot save' comments in the thread you referred me to).

I guess BIOS modding is one of the edge cases where you really take a risk


Regards,

 

Wait a sec - isn't C7 state only available in 2nd gen i7s / SandyBridge?

 

That's my understanding of it. You need to replace the relevant modules and then flash the whole bios with the modified bits.

You're right, the primary reason for the use of a modded bios is to allow for the use of the new wi-fi card. The other mods are experimental at the moment, still trying to get my head around them.

In theory, raising the throttle limit to 90C (was at 85C) means higher performance when i'm doing something that works the laptop hard (video, gaming etc). Has raised temps a bit to 91-92C, need to find some time to run benchmarks and see if it has made a difference.

C7 was disabled before so i enabled it to see if it would make any difference. Hard to tell really. Battery life was rubbish before and is still rubbish now. Its a good thing I don't really care about it really. have no idea if our first gen i7s have c7 support, have had a bit of a look around and there isn't much info on it. EDIT - just had a look on Intel ARK - you are right we don't have c7 support

You're right about the advanced menu. Our bios can be modified to show it, but no changes are saved.

The tool that modifies the bios is actually pretty easy to use if all you want to do is modify the settings that you would find in the advanced menu. It's just a list of settings with a drop-down box next to each one which in most cases allows you to enable and disable them.

 

Did you see a tool for that?

I just ordered 4 slice batteries for the two Envy 15s I have. They were on a clearance sale in the US and really cheap. $34 per battery (sale ended Saturday) - AND you could use some coupons if you combine it smart.

I read through the thread but still did not quite get how to get started.
I will be quite cautious about modding, I think - unless I find a truly awesome setting in there.

What I love most about my Envy 15s is the fact that I was able to rig them with two SSDs and that they have 4 RAM slots, something rarely found in notebooks in this form factor at this price point.

 

I did. You need Andy's tool to decompress and extract the contents of our bios (the fd file).

Tool to Insert/Replace SLIC in Phoenix / Insyde / Dell / EFI BIOSes

Reading through this thread is recommended. There is a guy who has done this on an HP laptop with EFI/Insyde Bios.

AMI bios option ROM modding [old title: Intel ICH9R 7.6.0.1011 rom] - Page 71

You can find alternative Intel Option ROM files here

AHCI und RAID ROM Module - bereits extrahiert - BIOS/BIOS-Modding - Win-Lite Forum

You need a hex editor to overwrite the ROM we already have with a new one.
Something like this will do.

HxD - Freeware Hex Editor and Disk Editor | mh-nexus

Run andy's tool and open our bios with it (147D.fd). It will create a dup folder in the same location as 147D.fd. Our rom can be found here in the f2.b bios: 501737AB-9D1A-4856-86D3-7F1287FA5A55.

you will see the words Intel (R) RAID for SATA when you open the file up with the hex editor. This is how you know the ROM is in that part of the bios.

Now, there are no other ROMs that are exactly the same size as ours, but andy's tool will is supposed to compensate for this, by shifting offsets around and so on. I have tried one of the 9.x ROMs but it didn;t work and i lost access to the SATA ports until i reflashed, from a usb hard drive running windows as outlined here.

Ordering “Windows to Go”: how to create a bootable Windows 8 USB thumb drive | Ars Technica

In other words Andy's tool worked, because aside from the SATA ports which went AWOL, everything else in the bios worked, allowing me to reflash from my portable windows install. It's just the Intel ROM which refused to play ball.

That is a very good price for a slice. Might keep an eye out if I need another one.

Truth be told, there isn't a setting in there that makes a huge difference. I've gone back to running with just the whitelist for the moment.

I love my envy . It does everything well. 2 years ago when it came out, there was nothing else like it. Even today, there aren't many laptops i would trade this in for (new Envy 15, MBP w/ Retina Display)