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

What's this updated Envy 14 you're talking about?

 

HP Envy/Pavilion revamp, more touchscreens, 3200x1800 LCD, 20" tablet - TechSpot

 

I see. Other than the fact that there's no information but the resolution there, it's hard to judge anything about that machine. We know nothing about internals, battery life, build quality, or even screen quality. Other high-PPI screens have proven that PPI does not a great screen make. Since it's been three years and this looks like a flagship product, I'd say that it's probably going to be superior in most ways to the 1600x900 Radiance we know and love, but there's no guarantee. If it's really $699 for the base (1366x768) model, either the build quality is going to be inferior or the high-res screen upgrade is gonna cost several hundred dollars, or both...

I'd be happy for HP to prove me wrong: if it's a decently-customizable, small-bezel, thin-and-light 14" machine with a great screen, it could definitely be on my radar for a summer purchase. I'm having a hard time feeling convinced, though, since I don't think that HP's consumer line has done anything particularly well since the Radiance Envy 14 came off the shelves.

 

Hi All,

Apologies if this question has been posted before. I have the HP ENVY 14t-1000 and am thinking of upgrading my HDD to SDD. This laptop is compatible with the 2.5" SATA 1/2/3 SDDs out there right? Any compatibility issues with SSDs I need to worry about?

Thanks,
Mike

 

A SATA-III SSD will run at SATA-II speeds on the Envy 14, though that's the standard now so A) SATA-III SSDs aren't exactly expensive comparatively and B) a good SATA-III SSD like the Crucial M4 or the Samsung 830 will last you until the end of time.

Other than that, as long as you don't accidentally buy mSATA you should be golden.

 

Thanks Fat Dragon! Your help with my SSD question was just what I needed.

 

If you check out a few of my posts from awhile back I put a Sata 3 (Vertex 4) drive in my Envy 14. Its speeds have been good so far. I'd like a little more performance but can't complain! The Sandisk 240gb drive on sale for $150 today is tempting!

I'm in the same boat. I posted this without reading about the Envy 15 and 17. Seems like HP is sticking with cheap casings and lesser quality screens than the past. If I go with another high end mobile computer it will probably be a different brand.

On that note I'm torn. For ~$900 I can build a hell of a desktop and use it with my upcoming 2560x1440 display as well as using my existing Vertex 4 and ASUS Xonar STX card in it. Not too mention the desktop build would have a GPU capable of playing games on that resolution. I'd then probably sell my Envy and get a used/refurbed folio or other ultrabook for ~$500 with the portability and battery life.

On the other hand maybe I'll just spend the money I'd put towards the desktop/ultrabook combo on a new mobile powerhouse (Not gaming laptop - I still want a sleek metal case). The Razer 14 looks awfully sexy and the Nvidia chip would let me play some games at least on low to medium settings. I'd then have to factor in another $250 or so on a USB 3.0 dongle and accessories (external HDD, External sound card, Flash drive, printer, keyboard, mouse). Why the dongle? I want to be able to plug in a DP cable, power, and a single usb cable and tuck the computer under my desk so it's a clean desktop but still be able to unplug and have my main computer wherever I go.

I'm difficult, I know. But on that note I still love my Envy but I'm finally to the point where I will have some extra cash at the end of the summer to splurge on a setup I've been wanting for years. Sadly, the Envy just won't cut it for the advanced things I want.

 

The Razer 14, MSI GE40, and Clevo W230 are all gaming-capable laptops in smaller-than-typical sizes. For the sleek ultrabook look and probably build quality the Razer will be the winner without a doubt, but the others should probably be smaller (footprint, definitely thinner and lighter than the Envy 14+Slice) than our Envy 14's with much better gaming performance. Naturally the big advantages of the Clevo and MSI will be price and display quality.

 

Hello,
I just changed all thermal compound on my Envy 14 1010ef.
Results :





5°C, not exactly what I expected but quite pleasant.

However, since then my battery is not detected ! I probably messed something when repluging all cables, but I disassembled it once more and it couldn't fix it.
How can I know what's wrong and fix it ? I can still bring it to a computer repair shop, but I'm afraid they're not skilled enough ...

 

Hi guys, quick question.

I have an Envy 14 and the Radiance screen is dead. It just displays random white lines, but when I hook up the laptop to an external monitor, everything is fine.

I'm juste trying to overview my options.
- Can I easily replace my Radiance screen with a crappy BrightView screen ? (doubt it as the connectors are not the same)
- Can I replace my Radiance screen with another HP screen (from the Envy 14 Spectre for instance) ?
- Are there any 1080p screen out there that fit in the Envy 14 motherboard?

Thanks for your answers

 

Hey everyone,

I'm having issues getting reasonably new 5650 Radeon drivers to install on my system. Downloading the newest drivers from the AMD site just results in the computer forcing me to either use the integrated Intel chip or software mode.

I notice that nobody has tweaked the graphics drivers to work with this laptop since February-ish, but I can't even get that one to install. This is the thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/582545-drivers-ati-5650-6630-hp-envy-14-a-40.html

Has anyone had luck getting current drivers running on this thing?

Thanks

 

I think people have done the BrightView replacement, but I can't be certain. It's in the owners' lounges somewhere. No luck finding a Radiance display on eBay or busted Envy 14 w/Radiance like others have done in the past?

New AMD drivers are getting more and more problematic for the Envy 14 - it's probably reaching the point where it's not really worth bothering: I've had more headaches with newer drivers without any real benefit.

 

Hey, guys.
I did a reinstall of windows on my Envy, and subsequently had to reinstall all drivers. I'm currently running leshcat labs 13.4 v2 driver because, as we all know, HP never shared the love for support with us. Now, I'm having a problem with the lid. More specifically, If I close the lid and open it back up, I cannot get the screen to turn back on. The same case happens with sleep and hibernation. I have to hold the power button to force shut down at this point, which i really don't like doing.


Another question: I haven't followed the news on the Radiance displays for quite a while. Did anyone start making them again?

 

I don't think an equivalent display exists for our Radiance displays - I'm not sure how many current 14" notebooks even have the same screen dimensions.

I would avoid third-party drivers like that on the Envy 14 in favor of something that works a bit better natively, as per the relevant thread linked a few posts back. Otherwise, I've found (thanks to someone sharing their experiences here) that sleeping the computer from that black wakeup screen and then waking it up again often gets the screen to come back. Since I have my power button assigned to sleep, I just hit that button, wait for the light to blink indicating it's asleep, and hit it again.

 

I used the leshcat driver because this is a combination gaming laptop and school laptop. I need to be able to use the switchable grpahics. Are there any updated drivers that support that?



Edit: After trying what you suggested, any sort of situation in which the screen turns off (besides, apparently, when the lid stays open and the screen turns off for power), it's stuck on the blank screen. The computer wakes up and all, but not the screen

Edit: Ok, Ok. So if i sleep it on the intel card, it works. The ATI card doesn't/.

 

I've been asked 150€ to replace the motherboard. Is it a fair price ?

 

Just to double-check that you're trying what I suggested:

When the computer wakes from sleep, the case is open, and a black screen is staring back at you, hit the power button (assigned to the "sleep" function). Wait a few seconds until the light on the power button starts blinking, then hit the button again. The computer should wake up and the screen should come on like normal.

Here's what I did when I reinstalled Windows on my Envy 14 a few months ago:

I went to justinkw1's inimitable Envy 14-1000 drivers thread and got all of the relevant drivers for my machine. The most important for graphics was naturally this one. After installing those graphics drivers that set up working switchable graphics, I downloaded and installed the latest standalone AMD installer from this excellent (if somewhat forgotten) thread. I believe I'm on 12.10, which, in spite of the note on Ironman's thread that 12.4 is the latest working version for Envy 14's on Windows 7, works for me. Basically, the standalone AMD driver package overwrites all of the AMD drivers from HP's switchable package while leaving all of the Intel and switchable graphics stuff intact. Note that the installer that AMD links to on their site will recognize that your machine has switchable graphics and won't install; you have to get an installer like those links that Ironman found that will install without asking any questions.

With that simple install path - stock Windows drivers --> HP's sp52180 package --> 12.10 from Ironman's thread, I'm working mostly fine. I get intermittent and not always predictable occurrences of non-working brightness controls (both function buttons and Windows' software brightness controls) and waking from sleep to a black screen (which is fixed in every instance by sleeping and waking back up), but for the most part it's all good. I generally doubt that any of the fixes made to AMD drivers since about the beginning of 2012 will have much effect on our older-generation cards anyway, so I'm not really worried about getting the latest and greatest drivers when they're just likely to mess things up.

By HP, or a third-party repair specialist? I would trust HP a bit more because they've probably got a small stack of new Envy 14 1XXX motherboards sitting around, while a third-party is more likely to pull a motherboard out of a broken-down Envy or give you a motherboard they refurbished themselves.

That seems like a fairly typical price for a motherboard replacement in the West. You could also try your luck on eBay to see if you can get a replacement motherboard cheaper and then install it yourself. Installation of a motherboard can be a pain, and you need to keep close track of which screw goes where and which cable plugs where, but if you can afford to spend the time making the swap yourself, and if the possibility of messing something up on accident doesn't scare you too badly, that's what I would recommend, as much for the learning experience as the money saved.

 

It's a replacement by a third-party, I'm pretty sure I broke something while replacing thermal compound as I said last page.
I'm afraid HP would ask a steep price to replace it, and thermal paste would be applied the same awful way.
But as you say, I don't know if repair shops can be trusted, maybe it's just the little power supply PCB that is broken and they want me to pay full price of motherboard ... but I have no way to know.

 

Fat Dragon I'm sure you're the only one who is still on here often but what are the bugs with Windows 8 on our machines now? I know switchable graphics are borked but it seems like some people can get them working. What about audio?

I'm OK with only using the 5650M as my 2560x1440p monitor gets in today. If the DP works in Windows 8 than I may just upgrade. I want to build a desktop but still think this could hold me over for awhile yet.

 

I haven't used Windows 8 on my Envy 14, and wouldn't recommend it based on what I've read elsewhere. You can't use the touch features of Windows 8 on the Envy 14 and you're more likely than not to have driver issues. What's the point?

 

Easiest thing is to just stay with the .771 stock drivers. Extract the drivers, run the setup.exe in Windows 7 compatibility.

Doing that, everything works except flash in IE Metro as I recall. Just dont use IE Metro.

I've done it at least 8 times and have been using Windows 8 since the dev preview.

 

I fixed my driver issue. I just used an earlier release of the leshcat driver after much finagling with the provided drivers. No issues found as of now


However, I am now experiencing an issue I have determined to be shutdown/sleep due to processer coming too close to the temperature limit. Any ideas?

 

Simplest/least effective solution: Get a straw and blow in the vents to clear up some of the junk.
Better but not great: Do the same with a can of compressed air.
Very good: Open up the machine and clean all of the junk out of the fans and heatsinks (i.e. get it out of the machine, not just blown around inside the chassis)
Best solution: Open up the machine, clean the fans and heatsinks, and apply new (preferably high quality like Arctic Silver 5) thermal paste.

Now for my own question: Does anyone have any insight on completely disabling the 5650m GPU? I'll be passing this machine on to my girlfriend in a few months and she will have zero use for the GPU. Since switchable graphics can be a pain and she's not technically-minded enough to learn how to manage them for optimal battery life, I'd prefer to have the machine use the Intel graphics at all times. If I get no answers, my first attempt will be replace all GPU drivers with an Intel-only driver, i.e. one that doesn't have switchable graphics or a Radeon driver. I'm worried that will just lead to Windows downloading a three-year-old Radeon driver and running the 5650m full-time, but it's my first guess.

 

I opened it up already. I was going out to walmart about 30 mins ago to buy a can of air. I got the air. I went to checkout. I'm not 18 yet (turn 18 in september). I leave all my items on the counter for her, with 100% rustled jimmies.

I don"t want to do a straw either cause i'm recovering from wisdom tooth removal, and don't want to overpressurize my mouth and cause a dry socket.


Soooooooooo... I put it back together, having done nothing to help. I'll have my dad pick up some air on the way home from work.




You can disable auto driver dl's.

Go here: UnifL Manual and go to Introduction, and in intro, go to Preparations. Its in there.




Am I the only one who uses an ENVY 14 as a main (and in my case, Gaming) machine anymore?

 

I use my Envy 14 almost every day I'm a frontend developer, and I bought the Envy to have a mobile platform to work. The screen resolution is fantastic, and the main reason I'm not switching for a modern ultrabook. The AMD/ATI card is enough for an ocassional game, and thats good since I don't have a dedicated PC/console.

 

Well, the BIOS switch is not reliable, and besides, the advanced mode is now locked on the new firmware.
About installing an Intel-only driver, I believe this can cause that both cards are left running at the same time, aka, heat and very low battery life.
On Linux you can do this kind of things using a script to disable and power off the AMD card (even at boot time), but on Windows I believe you need the catalyst driver just to interact with the second card :-/

Perhaps a good solution could be to switch to the Intel card using catalyst, uncheck the automatic switching, and then hide catalyst center and any contextual menu.

 

Has anyone done a writeup on replacing the thermal paste? This is the first time ive done it on a real computer (did it to my xbox) and i'd like to see what i'm getting myself into...

 

There have been folks who replaced the thermal paste and several threads on it. Here is one with some pictures and instructions. The maintenance manual is on the first page of the forum I think. Shows how to tear down the machine.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/522539-has-anyone-reapplied-thermal-paste-yet-envy-14-a.html

 

@ Fat Dragon

"Does anyone have any insight on completely disabling the 5650m GPU?"

How about just disabling it in Device Manager? Don't uninstall anything in case you/she needs to use the 5650 again later? If it doesn't work correctly doing it that way then you can just re-enable it and try another plan of action. I know I lost the 5650 in a failed driver update attempt and the Envy worked fine with just the Intel graphics until I was finally able to reinstall the 5650 and get the drivers updated.

Still amazed how much activity still takes place in this aging Envy 14 forum! What an excellent machine it is. Hp seems to have lost the art of high quality laptops except maybe in the business class machines.

 

Thanks, I'll give disabling a try, though if I remember correctly it just reinstalls its most basic driver upon the next startup. Maybe with the above advice on disabling automatic driver updates I'll be able to finagle it out of use. Hopefully that doesn't leave it always-on like Somnio suggested.

Unfortunately, I need the GPU available in the short term and I'm too busy to try these solutions out and then set things back up as normal, at least for the next few days, so I'll have no short-term feedback on these solutions.

 

I can't seem to start up my envy 14. When I press the power button, I hear the click from the CD drive (normal) and I can even hear the HDD spinning. However, that is it. The fans are not running and the screen remains black. Just before this happened I opened the case to clear out dust from the fans (I do it regularly). I've never had a problem like this before though. Any ideas what could be the problem?

More info: The pc will turn on (as I said before with just the HDD) and only stay on if the power is in. Once it is unplugged, it seems to shutdown after about 10 seconds. The amber charging light does appear when the power is in. However, the HDD and power lights on the right side do not go on. Another interesting thing is that the HP logo lights up. I don't think this is a power issue...though I've never had a problem like this before so I suppose it could be. I also read somewhere that if you take the RAM out and turn the computer on, the motherboard will make the pc beep, letting you know something is wrong (aka no RAM). I did this and got no beep when I turned it on. Is my motherboard fried? Is there a way to be sure of this? Any help would great!

 

Shoot shoot shoot!

I did the thermal paste replacement and put my comp back together
And now it won't charge... I have double checked with my sister's universal charger. What could have gone wrong?

No indication in windows and no little amber light. My computer died in the middle of Breaking Bad!


Edit: i got home for lunch and looked for myslef and the thing is charging. Apparently my sister missed the orange led i was talking about :/

Carry on

 

Has anyone been able to successfully get the switchable graphics working in Windows 8?

 

Posted on last page

 

I posted that in the other thread but noticed that thread is almost a year old and apparently no one is having this kind of issue, so...

I'm having an issue with the Beat Audio on my Envy 14t-1000 lately and I've tried to reinstall everything from scratch.
Whenever I press Fn-B I see a response from the laptop with a brief running icon next to my mouse indicators as it seems its activating and deactivating something. But, I don't hear any changing in the sound, no changing in the HP Tone Control Utility Bass/Treble as some HP support team mentioned it the bass should be changing as Beat being activated and deactivated, no change in IDT Beat Equalization, and nothing is displayed.

Here is what I've done so far as installation prior to this post:
-Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
-IDT High Definition Audio Codec, 6.10.6454.0, SP61258
-HP Quick Launch Software, 3.0.6 (3.00 A6), SP59927
-HP Tone Control Utility, 2.00 A, SP45617
-HP On-Screen Display Utility, 1.30 REV:A, SP55152

-If there are any recent updates for the above drivers/softwares please let me know.

Notes:
-IDT is working, Beat icon is presented. (How do I hide it?)
-Quick Launch is working, tested with Fn-Esc.
-Tone Control is presented under Speakers settings.
-On-Screen Display is displaying volume and brightness


Thanks,
X

 

For what it's worth, you can do that switch in the Beats Audio Control Panel (i.e. reskinned IDT Audio control panel) - in the equalizer section. I've not had Fn-B working since my first reinstall, but it's just an equalizer tweak so I've never really missed it.

Edit: Forgot to mention: I was watching some of the latest season of Parks and Recreation, and in at least one episode Leslie uses a first or second generation Envy 14 (can't really see the difference between the two). I was excited when I saw that. Our baby is still getting some exposure, even if it's only brand name product placement with the lit-up HP logo.

 

Not sure if anyone else has run into this, but in the last four days, my Envy 14 has been acting up with the graphics. All of a sudden, the screen has developed a ton of noise and off coloration. I didn't change anything with the drivers though. If I uninstall everything and install just the Catalyst drivers, things look fine, but if I try any of the siwtchable graphics from HP, I get this problem. So I can use my comp currently with just AMD drivers, but no switchable graphics, no brightness control...

If I update through Windows Update it also does this, so some of my suspicion is that windows update is to blame, but I can't see any update that would cause this. Real frustrating.

 

Did you try to do a fresh installation for the graphic card?

Uninstall it, run ccleaner on registry couple of times, restart, then download the driver the driver page on this forum and check for results.

 

Might be the power saving features like auto brightness on the Intel.

 

Since I've upgraded to Windows 8 my computer feels fresh and fast as ever. Boot times are phenomenal.

One major caveat, though! It does not idle!! Even switching to HD graphics instead of ATI's keep the fans on low. Open up Chrome and all hell breaks loose with the throttling. If I can fix this I'll be a happy camper.

 

As a follow up:

After I switched to the Intel graphics and installed a few of Intel's management tools the fans subsided. Chrome browsing fluctuates anywhere from 10-92% but the fan stays low the vast majority of the time.

Battery life has actually INCREASED from about two hours to 2:15 in my usage scenarios. Obviously not great but I've got my slice for long trips and this thing is ALWAYS plugged in when I use it as a desktop so I'm sure the battery has taken a big hit.

Real world performance has been fantastic. Very snappy and really feels like a new computer. I'd do a Windows 7 refresh every year and obviously the computer felt new again but this is a bit different. Looking forward to Blue/8.1 next month.

 

My original hard drive died so I am planning on getting a SSD to replace it. Now that the Samsung 840's are out I was wondering if those are rated as well as the 830's are and if so what are the differences between the regular, pro, and EVO editions. I am not only interested in Samsung so any advice on what the current best SSD would be for my 14t-1000 envy knowing that I will be only getting SATA II speeds but willing to pay slightly more for the reliability that seems to come with some of the newer SATA III drives such as the 830s. I am looking for 250gb but really am new to the whole SSD market so don't know which drives I should be looking at.
Thanks for any thoughts or help - JP345

 

You do not need a Samsung Pro drive because of the SATA II bottleneck. I'd recommend the Agility 3 Series.

Amazon.com : OCZ Technology 120GB Agility 3 Series SATA 6Gb/s 2.5-Inch Midrange Performance Solid State Drive (SSD) with Max 525MB/s Read and  Max 85K IOPS- AGT3-25SAT3-120G : Computer Internal Solid State Drives : Electronics

Any SSD is going to be pretty reliable at this point. Just shop around for the cheapest you can find. $180 isn't bad for that Agility, though.

 

ahhh, I can't seem to find the .771 stock drivers. Where would I find those? Computer's running super hot all the time now.

 

Should be on this page:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-drivers-software-forum/496027-drivers-hp-dm4-1xxx-dv5-2xxx-g32-cq32-envy-14-1xxx-intel.html

 

Hi,

Noobie here. Just been handed down this Beats Envy14-1113tx which I intend to use for home Photo editing. It is slow as a dog with the stock OS W7. I've wiped it and reinstalled the OS with W7 Pro from scratch but it is still slow as, considering it an i7. I have an i5 lappy I use for work and its quick as anything.

Anyway, I did a windows score card rating and it was like 5.7. The bottle neck was the HDD(500G) and the memory. I have just increased its memory from 4G, to 8G(DDR3 1333) and replaced the HDD to a Fujitsu 256G SSD(I wanted a Sammy 840 Evo, but none in stock). Seems to be relatively quick now on a fresh install and score card is now 6.7, with the bottle neck at the Graphics now.

Anyone know if this beats lappy is any good for photoshop editing? I thought being an i7, it would be. Although only a 1.6GHz, maybe the amount of core would help?

I'm hoping it would replace my home desktop which is a PentiumD 3.20GHz which is terribly and slow....

Another thing is, could this lappy drive a 30inch Apple Cinema screen? Battery life with the old HDD was about 1.5Hours which is not all that. I do not know how my work lappy i5 can stretch a 10hour battery life.

Any tips or tricks would be greatful

 

I've never thought of my laptop as being slow in any situation and I 'only' have the i5. The i7 should have no problem handling photoshop. In regards to battery life, remember the i7 does not have integrated graphics. It's all discreet so you lose a lot of power. Having been a hand me down its battery is also probably worn. Your work i5 probably has a bigger battery, less screen resolution to drive, an integrated gpu, and may be a newer i5 (2nd or 3rd gen).

Another factor is that your ssd will only work at SATA 2 speeds which severely bottleneck any SSD on the market.

As for your cinema display - it'll be no problem if you use a mini displayport cable. I run a 2560x1440 all the time no problem.

 

Wow, thank you for the information. Will have to ebay the mini displayport cable! I've always wondered what that tiny port is on the right hand side next to the hdmi port.

Yeh the work i5 has all gpu and such integrated and ssd. Current generation also.

But yeh, I knew the bottle neck of SSD's would be at SATA2, but that is no big issue. It beats the regular HDD by 10 folds by my rating. Unfortunately this beats lappy doesnt have a docking station so I have to rely on unplugging cables to the 30in display.

Do/Did you get much juice from a full battery charge on your beats lappy?

I was tempted on replacing the mem with 1600 DDR3, but was not sure if it was beneficial.

Also, anyone have any experience in adding the bluetooth module? I can't believe this 2010 lappy does not have bluetooth. According the BIOS, it looks like it is there, however I can't detect it in W7.

 

When I first got my Envy 14 (i5 with integrated graphics), I got a little better than 10 hours with the external slice battery, which means about 5 hours on the internal battery. With dedicated graphics (your only option), it was more like two and a half in good circumstances. However, after more than three years, the battery capacity is about 70% of what it used to be, which means I'd be lucky to get two hours on dedicated graphics without the slice battery. Long story short, the first-gen i7 Envy 14's rarely ever pushed beyond 2:30 new, so 1:30 three years later makes sense. If you're aggressive about power saving measures (low brightness, eliminating unnecessary processes, etc.) you might push it to two hours or even beyond, but what you've got was never a long-battery machine. If you can find a slice battery that still has good capacity, you can double your battery life, but you'll add almost 2 lbs. to the weight and half an inch of thickness.

In the past three years, battery life has skyrocketed with a lot of notebooks. Batteries aren't getting bigger, but systems are getting more efficient. The Sony Vaio Pro 13, for example, has a smaller battery than the Envy 14 but easily cracks 10 hours; and don't even look up the new MacBook Air 13 - it's disgusting how long that thing can run...

1600 DDR3 would be a miniscule upgrade - there's no point unless you can do so for free.

 

Thank you - majority of its time will be plugged into the wall anyway since I need performance with photo editing and connected to the 30" panel. I'm sure it is hard to find a genuine battery out there for this aged lappy, other than those from China with cheaper cell/after market kind..

For everything else, I will use my work lappy.