*HP ENVY 14 & ENVY 14 Beats (1XXX series) Owners Lounge, Part III*

Still using my Envy 14 with radiance and love it.

Im thinking about upgrading it with a SSD, but not sure what to get.
Am i correct that it would be a waste of money to buy a 6Gb/s capable drive since the chipset of the Envy can't handle those speeds, or?

If thats correct perhaps a dirt cheap Crucial V4 would do since its SATA-2 and would cost me around $190 for 256GB?

Really sad to see some of you got trouble with your Radiance screens.

 

Ha, I wish I still had my Radiance. My replacement screen is junk and hurts my eyes from its terrible viewing angle.
I would porbably just get a cheap Intel SSD. I dont stay up on all the latest, but I dont think a bit faster transfer rate in the new more expensive guys is worth all that much more.

 

I would definitely go SATA-II unless you can get the same capacity in SATA-III for the same price. A SATA-III drive will be a faster drive in general, and as such will generally outstrip older drives in SATA-II because it can max out the bandwidth, but the difference isn't going to be significant.

I'm seeing those Crucial V4's for $160-$170 (three models) on Newegg. There are also OCZ Vertex Plus, Vertex Plus r2, and Vertex 2 models in that price range with 240GB. Looks like at least some of their benchmark numbers are significantly better than the Crucial, but then again, to me an SSD is an SSD and they're all so damn fast I don't know how much of a real world difference it makes.

Incidentally, I'm also happily using my Envy 14, though it's been relegated to secondary computer status since I built a gaming/HTPC desktop a month or so ago. The fan buzz is back - not sure if I should take it in to the shop to have them repaired again, deal with it, or search for replacement fans (likely have to be shipped from the US - I'm in China). It's probably gonna be a hand-me-down to my girlfriend (currently running an Acer that cost a few hundred bucks in 2006) in a year or two when I can justify buying the perfect AMD APU ultrabook-alike. Honestly the ASUS U38N looks like it may cover all the bases, but it only means anything to me if it starts a trend in APU-notebook design for future product generations.

 

Thanks for the replies.

Did some read up on the cheap crucial v4 and apparently it sometimes gets really slow ie slower than a physical drive so will probably take the x25 from my desktop and move that into the Envy and upgrade the desktop drive to SATA-3 so I get the most out of the money ie upgrading both computers.

 

Sounds smart. X25-M's were the 160 GB drives that shipped with the Envy 14 in the first place. They're very good drives and there's not a lot out there that will beat them for speed and reliability in SATA-II.

As for the desktop drive, I'd recommend a Samsung 830 - between Black Friday and the release of the 840/840-Pro they should be pretty cheap.

 

Nice to see this thread come back to life. In regards to a SATA-III drive in our ENVY I posted some benchmarks awhile back when I swapped a 256gb Vertex 4 drive to my HDD and moved the HDD to the optical drive. See this thread. http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/677794-vertex-4-ssd-1-series-envy-14-benchmarks.html

 

Is there anyone here who would be interested in selling their Envy? :hi2:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/wan...hp-envy-14-14-5-radiance-display-finland.html

 

So can anyone with hybrid graphics chime in on using a SSD in their Envy 14? I have an I5 dual graphic with AMD, and when I tried to use a OCZ Deneva 2 SSD, it was a horrible experience. Basically, due to what I believe is a bug with the BIOS and the Intel graphics, the laptop would hang for 15-20 seconds when turning it on, which made one of the key benefits of a SSD useless, ie, quick boot up times. I ended up using the 250 gb SSD in my main desktop PC since it was larger than the 60 gb SSD I had in the pc, and I put the original 500 gb hard drive back into the Envy.

The problem could be an incompatibility with my SSD? This drive is normally an enterprise level drive but I was able to get it for cheap. I wonder if a drive with a different controller chipset would boot much faster? There is no issue with my desktop booting immediately with this drive.

Also, has there been any progress on fully working Windows 8 graphics drivers? I believe the AMD drivers wont wake from sleep?

 

My Envy doesn't seem to hang as much as it used to on startup - perhaps it's a driver update you never did? It's not a particularly fast-booting laptop, though; even with one of the better SATA-II SSD's it still boots up slower than my work desktop running XP with 2007 tech. If that is the only advantage you see in an SSD, rather than the faster performance while actually using the laptop, then you might as well stick with the HDD. There's no incompatibility there, though, it's just one of the Envy 14's quirks.

I haven't heard any more on Windows 8 since a page or two ago when they had to use those modified GPU drivers (with varying degrees of success). Personally, it's nearing time for me to either reinstall or upgrade to Windows 8, so I'd definitely be interested as well.

 

The slow boot is due to the Intel graphics driver as far as I can tell.

As for Win8 drivers, the best bet is either latest stock HP driver (Has issues with Flash in IE), or Leshcat 12.9 driver (Has issues with waking from SLEEP on AMD card, Intel and Hibernate work fine)

 

Hello, I have been putting it off till now but I have to replace the thermal paste/pad in my Envy 14-1004tx (maybe 1002tx, no difference), I am pretty much set but the only thing I am worried about is that I am not sure what thickness pad would be used inside the Envy (I know for sure form the service manual that there is a thermal pad).

Are thermal pads all the same thickness? If not does anyone know what specific dimensions I need?

Are there any pad recommendations people have? Any advice will be appreciated.

(I will also be upgrading to a ssd but that is neither here nor there).

 

Thanks for the link, did you do any tweaking to get those figures or was it just a matter of swapping the drive and making a fresh install? Do you reckon it would work with just cloning my Momentus?

 

Not really certain what "figures" you're asking about, since I didn't mention any figures. I said the X-25m's were some of the quickest and most reliable SATA-II drives because that mirrors everything I read when I got mine, and most notable SSD releases since then have been SATA-III. Those Intel drives already use most of the capacity of the SATA-II connection, so it would be silly to spend a bunch of extra money for something that's going to perform marginally faster.

As for recommending the Samsung 830, it's for the same reason I like the X-25m: it's got a reputation for speed and reliability that puts it near the apex of its generation for both of those metrics as consumer SSD's are concerned, and it's very reasonably priced. I've heard the 840 might not actually perform as well as the 830, while the superior 840 Pro is significantly more expensive. That said, looking at Newegg and Amazon right now, the 840 seems significantly cheaper than the 830 (I hear it's inferior but don't really know much), while some 840 Pro's are within a margin of error of the same size 830 (and the Pro should be significantly faster), so maybe the answer right now is to choose whether you want maximum performance or a more budget-friendly drive and choose between the 840 and 840 Pro for your desktop - the dedicated SSD sub-subforum would be an ideal place to get the ins and outs of the 830, 840, and 840 Pro.

 

I managed to click the Reply-with-quote button above the post instead of below so ended up quoting your post instead of the one below. Ive edited my post above so that pjd2011 might see it.

 

Ah, that clarifies things a bit.

In other news, I've had my fans repaired this time. The shop actually found replacement fans this time, which was apparently a real pain since the Envy 14 was never released here in China. 200 yuan ($30) and I had to leave it with them overnight, but she's purring again, rather than buzzing like a cell phone on a kitchen table.

We're approaching OS reinstall time - certainly before my mid-February trip to Thailand. I'll repeat the question that's been asked a few times before: any word on the current status of switchable graphics drivers on Windows 8? Anything new now that 8's been official for over a month? I'm happy to stick with Windows 7, but upgrading to Windows 8 Pro for cheap (until January something) is an intriguing possibility because I could go to the Chinese language version of Windows 8 as preparation for handing the Envy down to my girlfriend (native Chinese speaker) whenever I move on to the latest and greatest.

 

Is anything here looking for a radiance display assembly? I was thinking of posting one up in the For-Sale section. Just needs a right hinge.

 

No extra tweaking. Just a fresh install on the SSD and a wipe of the Momentus. I have been getting the occasional blue screen of death but everything starts back up and no memory loss has occurred so I haven't been too concerned.

In regards to an earlier post about boot time. Mine improved about 20 seconds switching to the SSD. I forget the exact times when I logged them but now it takes about 30-40 seconds from cold boot. Not bad considering the age of the machine in my opinion. Still nothing to write home about, though.

As other people are stating I too would like to have an update about driver support. My main concern is having the AMD driver working for HDMI output capabilities. Since I help people out with their computers all the time I would like to have insight with W8.

 

Just purchased a VAIO Z13 with an i7 3612QM, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD and FHD screen. My Envy 14 is going to be sold or given to someone as a present, so I will be leaving you guys. It was a pleasure being an owner of the Envy and it still is a great laptop with the ODD mod. It is time to move on.

Enjoy your Envys!

 

I have a sad/good Envy 14 story.

A year and a half ago I purchased the newer Envy 2XXX with a quad core upgrade. I really enjoyed the laptop, and if it were not the bright-view screen I wouldn't have anything bad to say about it. For the price, build quality, edge-to-edge screen, and the click-pad that worked great with the right drivers I truly enjoyed using it. Also, I really liked that it was a 14.5" rather than 14' screen. I honestly feel 14" is a tad too small, but that 15.6" laptops are generally a tad to big. Sidenote: I felt that the 15.4" laptops that were 16:10 were the perfect size. It might barely be bigger at 15.6", but the extra width was too much.

So about a year ago my laptop developed a problem where the screen would blink when it moved just a hair. Eventually the problem got a point where it became unusable. Fortunately I bought a year long warranty, so I sent it in. Due to replacement screen shortages it took over a month to get back to me. Of course this was absurd, but at the time it was summer, and it didn't affect me too much; my family has a desktop anyways. Shortly after I got it back the problem started up again. Reluctantly I sent it back. I got it back within one and a half weeks, but all they did is realign the connectors between the screen and the motherboard; this did nothing. At this point I am in the middle of the semester, and not having the laptop is making things harder for myself and team members in projects because I needed to send it in a third time. None the less I sent it in, and was told there are part shortages again.

So the good news is that they are sending my a new laptop, the bad thing is I don't consider it an Envy. Unfortunately for me HP has re-badged all their laptops as Envy, so sending me a dv4t now counts as an Envy. At least I get an Ivy-Bridge Quad Core, and a slightly better GPU.

In all honestly, I don't need the extra power, but hopefully it gets better battery life. I guess I am a bit disappointed that I won't be getting a premium replacement, which is the kind of laptop I thought I was purchasing when I got the Envy. It was meant to be a rival to the MacBook Pro unlike the dv4t.

Just venting about the situation to people who might see where I am coming from. It is not just about the specs when you buy an expensive laptop.

 

Hi guys,

My radiance screen on my 1st gen hp envy 14 just broke (my gf step on it by mistake)!

Anyone is looking to sell one? I'm in Boston... please PM

Thanks!

 

That's extremely unfortunate. The Radiance screens became a commodity only a couple months after the laptop was released, and they've been hard to track down ever since. If you can't find one, you can at least be comforted by the fact that 1080p IPS screens without any glaring flaws are starting to become available in pretty much every market segment, so you can replace the Envy 14 without stepping down in screen quality.

Personally, though, my Envy 14 will be my laptop for the next year or two, and then it'll probably go to my girlfriend to replace the six year old Acer that she bought because it was the cheapest laptop she could find back then.

 

Yes, that's what I started to realize. I will probably end up waiting a little and seeing if touch screens are worth it - I can use my work laptop in the mean time.

With that being said, it's kind of a shame to just abandon my envy 14 - if I find a screen, I will probably give it to my sister...

Thanks!

 

You should at least be able to replace the screen with the Brightview model, which should be pretty plentiful.

 

Does anyone know what max memory speed is supported? Ive got the i5-520M model.
,
The 1333MHz memory suggested by Kingstons configurator costs more than Kingston HyperX 1600Mhz, but perhaps that speed is not supported?

 

The HyperX should downclock itself if it can't run at its full speed. There's a discussion going on elsewhere in the site where the assertion is being made that higher-speed RAM will make your system faster even if it's not supported. I don't know if that's true, but it won't make it slower, so go for it.

 

Thanks, will give it a try and order a kit.

I checked the specifications and they seem to have better timings than my current modules so even if they downclock themself to the same speed (1066) they should be be faster.

Would be nice if they could run in 1333MHz but I guess our Envy's wont support that?

 

I'm at work for the next eight hours, so I can't check at the moment, but my Envy's got two 4GB 1333MHz sticks in it - I actually tried to buy 1066MHz but the shop didn't have any at the time and they told me 1333MHz were the same price and would run just fine. If you know a good, free program I could use to check the functional RAM speed I could report back when I get home. I know of a bunch of free system monitor programs, but I don't know which ones will report the RAM speed rather than its manufacturer rating.

 

Pretty sure our Envys run at 1066. I have the i5 520 also. When I was thinking of adding ram the 1333 was as cheap as the 1066. Was told as others mentioned that it will just downclock to run at the proper speed. Never did bother to add the ram but still might at some point This tool is good and easy and will give the RAM speed. DDR so remember to double the rate.

CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting

Glad this old forum is still active--more hits than a lot of the newer equipment. Still lovin' my Envy 14.

 

Wow, how did I forget about CPU-Z?

They're running at 1066 7-7-7.

 

Got my Kingston HyperX now and they also run at 1066 even though they are rated at 1600, timings are 6-6-6-18 so still feels like a good purchase. Came out cheaper than the modules suggested by the Kingston memory configurator and was just 4 dollars more than a generic 1333 kit with 7-7-7-21.

I went from 2x2Gb to 2x4Gb so im not sure how Windows Experience Index is calculated, perhaps the memory size matters but my score rose from 5.9 to 6.7.

Now im just waiting for a Intel 320 SSD from eBay, hope it will work fine. Just hope the rest of the family wont get jealous now that the Envy gets the nicest christmas presents. =)

 

hi i have an HP envy 1030us i want to reinstall the OS but when i boot from usb i can't see any partition to format and reinstall, only when i make de installation from windows i can see all partitons

 

Are you booting from a Windows installer on the USB drive? Maybe you haven't progressed far enough in the installation options. Do you get a window with partition tools (format, delete partition, create partition, etc.) but there are no partitions to select? If that's the case, can you try using the 'make a new partition' tool and see if there's any storage space recognized from which to create the partition?

If you're getting to that point in the installer and there's no partition data available, it sounds like the installer doesn't recognize your hard drive. Maybe your drive is dying and needs to be replaced.

 

Got a used Intel 320-series SSD off eBay at a bargain price and just finished the cloning.

Havent done any tweaking other than updating the Intel Rapid Storage Tech driver.

Old drive took about a 1 minute to desktop and then another minute to finish loading all drivers, the SSD is done in 40s.

CrystalDiskMark:

 

Glad you got the SSD installed. I've used SSD in my last systems and it would be hard to ever go back to the spinning platters for the boot drive. Since you bought Intel you might consider installing the Intel SSD Toolbox. It is Intel-specific and has some good functions. Will optimize the system for SSD, can manually run the TRIM function, monitor SSD health and other things. I've used it with all my Intel SSD and those are the only brand I've ever used. Pretty good reliability from Intel. Here's the link to the Toolbox:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18455&lang=eng

 

Thank you, I checked the SMART-stats of the drive and it seems almost brand new. It came with a HP sticker with their part number on it so was probably removed from a laptop, only had 500Gb of total data transfer on it. =)

 

I had the exact same problem, and after ages of trying to remedy it through various boot procedures and finally getting the partitions recognized the drive failed horribly every installation attempt.
I bought a Momentus XT and haven't had trouble since.

 

Hey two questions for you guys.
1. Having problem with the switching my graphics from ATI to integrated at times. Just won't do anything when i unplug it or when I select power saving option. Do i need to upgrade the graphics card driver? (haven't updated since i got it back in 2010)
2. Kind of the same note, worth upgrading BIOS? (still rocking F.05 from back in 2010)

side note: any good cheap external hard drive on sale right now that you have seen

 

Check out JustinKW's driver thread for the latest HP-supported GPU drivers, then, if you want to, download the manual installation package for 12.10 or 12.11b from AMD and upgrade to the latest thing. I haven't had any switching problems with these drivers, though waking up from sleep has been an issue, especially if I put it to sleep unplugged (Intel) and wake it up plugged in (AMD) - it just goes to an irresolvable black screen and I have to hard reset.

Does it hurt to upgrade the BIOS? I know they made some fan profile adjustments in one of the BIOS updates that should help with cooling and/or fan noise. I don't remember about the other updates. Either way, it shouldn't be a problem to update the BIOS so I don't see why not.

 

Had quite a scare this morning. The maid who clean my apartment twice a week (it's cheap and I'm helping employ somebody, don't judge! ) called and told me that the standing desk I use for my Envy 14 (and the box on my desktop/HTPC) had fallen over. No idea how a cat can knock over such a big, bottom-heavy piece of furniture, but that's the only possibility I can think of. I spent an hour with images of a kaputt Radiance screen dancing through my head before I was able to go home for my after-lunch break.

Fortunately, everything was fine. The Envy fell hard enough to bend a corner of the display casing down about 2mm and knock out the locked-in slice battery, but the design hides the cosmetic damage well and the battery locked back in just fine.

Still quite a scare - if that display goes while I'm in China, my Envy is a miniature desktop or a piece of scrap.

Actually, that would be kind've cool if you needed a low-power desktop. Remove the screen and mod the wifi antennae and the webcam onto an external structure (wire coat-hanger anybody?) and plug in a monitor. I might have to look for a laptop with a broken screen at the local computer shops sometime soon to try this out - maybe use it instead of my work desktop (about 1/3 the speed of my Envy 14). If you could somehow jack the external monitor into the notebook screen's power source, you'd have a fully-capable miniature desktop (no external keyboard or mouse needed) with hours of battery backup built in.

 

Man thats annoying about the sleep problem. Mine every blue moon or so can't wake up from sleep when I open the lid back up, but its not really a problem since I just close the lid again -> let go to sleep -> open lid and it works fine.

Probably should download that BIOS, forgot the rare random problem I have where the fan goes crazy and the screen goes black although the power light is still on -> usually no problem after restarting that crash. But i feel like the crashes can add up and hurt the laptop in the long run.

 

Closing the lid for sleep is the first thing I turn off when I get a new laptop or reinstall Windows, but that's a good idea. I use the power button to sleep, and the last time my Envy didn't wake up I held it for a hard reset but let go early. The Envy went back to sleep and when I hit the power button to wake it back up it came back just fine. I'll have to consciously try that again next time I run into this issue.

 

Does anybody remember how HP packaged the included photo and video software (I think it was Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements)? I'm getting into photography and would like to check out my PS Elements, but I've fresh-installed Windows a couple times and can't track down an installation CD for them in my CD-ROM case. Were the installers and keys possibly located somewhere else, like the user manual SD card or in the initial installation?

 

As I recall, they came pre-installed on the machine. If you made recovery disks for your Envy you could reinstall everything back to factory and they should still be there. If you have updated the bios then I think it broke the ability to use the recovery disks. I deleted the Photoshop stuff and the recovery partition after making the recovery disks so no longer have any of it installed on the laptop. Don't recall the SD card having anything on it about Photoshop but then, I haven't used it since I got the Envy. Do you still have the recovery partition or anything in Windows old after the reinstalls? Might try digging around in there. The keys were stored somewhere in the software and some users were able to find them after reinstalls but think they used the "minimal install" which didn't destroy everything.

 

I made recovery discs, did a Macrium Reflect of the recovery partition, and did a minimal install which preserved the programs, but as you say, the recovery discs don't work with an updated BIOS - thanks HP. I've since done a full-on reinstall from fresh Windows 7 discs. I checked the manual card and the packet it came attached to with no luck. I might see if there's some way to observe what's on the recovery discs or to mount the recovery partition on my external hard drive and browse through it for the installers. I'd really like to see what I have available to me for free before I dump $200 on something like Adobe LightRoom...

 

I guess it is theoretically possible to re-flash the bios to the original version then install using the recovery discs. That would be a lot of trouble but at least you'd have the Photoshop programs and keys and then you'd probably want to do another minimal reinstall of the OS. I've thought about going back to the original bios just so's I could use the recovery discs. Not sure the upgrade did anything of importance. Cannot believe HP pulled that stunt and don't think any of us knew it until it was too late. What's that they say? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Still running the original bios in my desktop and haven't found a good reason to update it yet. At one time Adobe had some free, watered-down Photoshop programs that weren't too bad--at least could give you a feel about whether you want to spend the big bucks on the full program. Also some good open-source photo editors (GIMP for one) but they of course don't have all the bells and whistles of Photoshop. You might try some of those programs.

 

I thought about reflashing and reinstalling Windows that way via the recovery discs, but decided that was too much trouble. I really can't understand why HP built such a heinous flaw into their recovery program, unless it's purely a business decision ala "if they can't use their own recovery discs, they'll have to buy new ones".

I might see if Adobe has anything free or maybe a free trial of Photoshop Elements so I can see what I'm missing by not using that program. If it's a big enough improvement over Picasa and PhotoScape, I'll figure out a way to recover it. I love GIMP for editing the coloring-book-style line drawings I do for the books I write for my kindergarten students, but I hear that it's got a much steeper learning curve than Photoshop and it often takes a lot longer to do the same things with photos. I'm not afraid of a learning curve, but I'm a total newbie to photo editing so I feel like I need to learn what kind of results are favorable and what alterations are needed to get there before I can learn to get those results with a tool like GIMP.

 

the adobe.com site has free 30day trials of photoshop elements.
I do basic photo editing with paint.net, i suppose it depends on the level of editing and image manipulation you're after.

In other news, just in case people are thinking of going for Windows 8, I took the plunge, its working well so far. Took me an age to figure out how to get switchable graphics. Suprisingly enough, running the install under comparability mode worked for me.

I upgraded to Windows 8. How do I get switchable graphics t... - HP Support Forum - 2213275

Its solved the running hot issue which is nice, the fan is barely on now (turns out if you don't have switchable graphics working, both graphic cards are powered which really drains the battery and makes the computer run hot)

 

I'd have to check but I think the adobe stuff was actually in your swsetup folder.


...now whether or not it'll validate I don't know.


Also also Adobe currently has Creative Suite 2 as a "free download because the activation servers are dead: Adobe - CS2 Downloads


It should work on windows 7. (but ya know if it doesn't Adobe did warn you in bright red text on yellow background at the top of the page)

 

I want to reapply thermal paste to my 3-4 year old i7 processor and graphics chip.

Are there any tutorials on how to do so, or which screws I should remove first?
It seems as though I have to take apart most of the laptop itself.

 

This is the service manual from the first page of the Envy 14 thread. It shows how to disassemble the laptop and how to remove the fan and heatsinks.


http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02835360.pdf

There is also this thread about doing the same thing from the Envy 14 forums. Several people have done this over the years. Don't know if it is worth the trouble or not.
[
URL="http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/522539-has-anyone-reapplied-thermal-paste-yet-envy-14-a.html"]http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/522539-has-anyone-reapplied-thermal-paste-yet-envy-14-a.html[/URL]

Well, that hyperlink didn't work. Copy and paste into your browser or just search for the topic.