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

I'm curious how you guys keep your machines free of bloat/crapware. Did you do the minimal reinstall off the recovery drive? And then do you let the HP Updater install whatever it recommends?

 

I and a few others did a clean install. So there's no bloatware at all unless we somehow installed it ourselves...

 

HP's repair technicians are idiots. I sent in my Envy for repair (CPU fan bearing bad), and all they did was stick some oil in it. Sure, it's quieter, but you can still hear an incessant"RR-R-RRR-RRR-RRR." Oil doesn't fix a broken bearing, HP!

 

hey, at least they didn't replace components that weren't broken for no reason whatsoever.

...why did I get a new wireless module. My touchpad is what was broken..or well..what I broke when opening the thing up and then there was that zif cable and..rip.

I'm lucky they repaired it at all.

 

Do you guys think that I'd be able to get a replacement Envy w/ Sandy Bridge if I called on June 15 (I have ADP)? I've had a broken Radiance screen for a while and I feel that there should be compensation for getting one of the 1366x768 screens. A new processor and some of the little upgrades should hopefully justify it. I also want to ask if they'll transfer my current 160 GB SSD to a replacement if they even let me have one, since I think they only offer the 256 GB one now.

 

Quick question for anyone who knows the answer.

I have been using a logitech MX5500 mouse and keyboard, and my dog got a hold of the bluetooth receiver and trashed it. I was hoping it would be possible to pair my mouse and keyboard through bluetooth. Is this even possible, I can't even seem to find out how to active bluetooth on the laptop. Any advice is appreciated, thanks.

 

to turn bluetooth on you need to enable the wifi button and then open up the hp wireless assistant and turn bluetooth on

once that's done bluetooth will remain on until you either turn it off from within that program OR until you turn the wifi off through the keyboard shortcut again

 

Thanks for the tip, I was able to turn it on, but my mouse and keyboard refuse to be discovered. It won't connect to my phone either. I'm starting to get a little frustrated . The mouse and keyboard have a bluetooth symbol and I've read that other people have connected through an internal bluetooth radio. I even made sure all the bluetooth services were running. Sigh

 

huh...

that sucks.

did the windows bluetooth icon show on on your system tray. If so, right click on it and open bluetooth settings. Try turning on "allow bluetooth devices to find this computer" It's under options, first thing at the top (has a warning sign near it)

 

The bluetooth icon shows up in my system tray. However, if I right click -> open settings, nothing happens. If I double click to open bluetooth devices, a window opens, and takes 20 minutes to load, and then hangs up before finishing.

 

...well that's not normal.


maybe your bluetooth drivers weren't installed properly. Go to your swsetup folder and try installing them again.

 

or actually, try these: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp52501-53000/sp52717.exe

(latest drivers)

 

Thanks for the effort. Still nothing after updated drivers and restart. Bluetooth Icon still shows in tray, but can't open any options. I'm not sure what else I could do outside of a fresh install. I feel like it has to do with a service not running properly. I have a few bluetooth devices and the computer is not recognizing a single one.

 

Fixed it!

Bluetooth service was running BUT Bluetooth SUPPORT service was not running. I had tried to start it before but I recieved an error stating that I needed a bluetooth device installed first (or something along those lines).

I had to start Bluetooth support service through services.msc and not through msconfig, my mistake. Now I just wonder how much battery life this will drain:laugh:.

Thanks for the help. (+1 rep for you)

 

You're welcome. Glad you got it working.

 

Hmm, the CPU fan no longer blows any air at all. There's also a startup message saying that one or more fans have failed. Hopefully HP will fix it this time :/

On a side note, because the two heatpipes are connected together, a single fan can still manage to keep temps at around 60C for an i7. Not bad IMO

 

Hi I recently reformatted my computer however I plugged in some headphones today and found out that my headphone jacks aren't recognizing that anything is plugged in. I tried reinstalling the audio driver but don't know if that is the problem because nothing happened. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

I know this is very unlikely, but is there a way I can get HP to fix the keyboard flex? I'm not tech savvy enough to open up the laptop myself, but the flex seems to be getting worse and worse...

 

Guys, I think I have a dead pixel... On a radiance screen no less...

 

Try pressing the affected area or running one of those pixel flashers. Time may also randomly fix it

 

my buddy has two dead pixels. And I must say, the pixels are so small on the radiance, they are pretty hard to see.

 

I... think I might have hundreds of dead pixels. on my radiance.

Some of them are clustered into funny Conway-like shapes....

 

take a picture with a camera so we can see.

hope that didn't actually happened.

try some sorta stuck pixel remover if they aren't black (like if they're red or something) I'm not sure where you'll find one. The only I did find was 2 GBP (pounds, so like $3.5 to $4) for a license to use some java program.

either way that sucks

 

anyone knows how i can enable my notebook to start wireless adapter as soon as it boots up or wakes up from sleep mode? I have to manually press Fn + F10 every time i put the notebook to sleep or reboot. Thanks in advance!

 

huh.

my notebook saves that stuff between shutdowns.

 

Hey everyone, haven't posted in a while...
Anyway, just thought I'd bring a few things up since I've had my envy for a few months now-
1. Sleep mode/hibernation on this thing is screwed up.... Screen shuts off almost instantly after clicking sleep or hibernate, but computer runs for about 5-10 seconds until actually sleeping/hibernating.
2. Coming out of sleep mode, performance really slows down, noticeably if I try to play a game after 'waking up' compared to just starting up the computer.

Anyone else experiencing this?

 

Something's wrong with your computer coming out of sleep mode. The Envy usually takes a while to sleep.

 

Hey all,

I'm new to Notebook review forums (although I feel like I'm a long-standing member because I visit so often for research) and I just ordered an HP Envy 14 (i5-480M, 5650, 4GB, 500GB) from HP yesterday for $799.

My question is, is this a bad purchase? I keep reading and get a lot of reviews from Envy 14 owners that love their unit, and a few others that loathe it. It seems more on the 'love it' side, but I just thought I would ask. I sold a 2010 MacBook Pro for the Envy 14 because I wanted the slot-load, backlit KB, smaller screen, Core i CPU and faster GPU. It seems like on paper and in all the videos and reviews I've seen that it will work well for me. But you guys are the experts so I eagerly await your wise replies.

Thanks all!
ix

 

There's an updated envy coming out june 15th. It might have been a good idea to wait a bit longer, or at least find a coupon code (i got the same computer except with an i7 for the same amount).

Don't worry, you still have 21 days to return it if you don't want it or if the new SB envies are better. However, the new SB envies will start at 999$.

 

http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/8167/img0496i.jpg

 

Someone else had a similar problem. You'll have to send it back (and hope HP can replace it)

 

Not speaking about the weird striations but simply based on the number of dead pixels, I'm sure HP has to replace that screen.

Refer here: About LCD Panel Defects and Terminology for HP Pavilion or Compaq Presario Notebook PCs - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

 

Do you remember who that was / what the circumstances were?

That's my camera, if you're talking about those funny rings. My screen doesn't have any distortion when viewed by the human eye, apart from those numerous dead pixels...


Assuming that HP no longer has any Radiance screens, (and was it true that the second batch of Radiance screens from a month or so ago weren't as good as the original ones?), what have people gotten HP to "upgrade" to compensate for getting a BrightView 720p replacement?

 

Thank you for the quick reply! The main reason I went with the Envy 14 rather than waiting was because a) it has what I want in a laptop and b) I got $950 for my MBP and I wanted to come well under that. $999 just isn't going to happen, not right now at least, so I wanted to get something much better than what I had and be in that $800 price range. Is there something else in that price range that includes all the features the Envy 14 does?

Thanks!
ix

 

Anybody have an idea how I can change two finger scroll to one finger sidescroll?

 

Search for "mouse" in Contol Panel. Select Change Mouse Settings. Go to the Synaptics tab (the red icon tab). Click settings and drill down into the scrolling portion. Should be self-explantitory from there.

 

anyone knows how i can enable my notebook to start wireless adapter as soon as it boots up or wakes up from sleep mode? I have to manually press Fn + F10 every time. Thanks in advance!

 

Depending on the exact problem, a couple of things to try are update drivers for wireless to latest or a different version to see if that fixes it. Updating the BIOS would be something to try too. You could also try installing Wireless Assistant if it's not on your computer, it may help.

 

Well it is weird because I think going from ATI to integrated is ok (or maybe the other way around). Anyways, you or someone else mentioned with the new graphics drivers this issue doesn't exists but I have the latest ones from the driver thread installed and it still exists. Are you guys using some other version of the ATI drivers not from HP?

 

I don't think I said it never existed.

If I did, whoops.

all I said was that if you turn gpu rendering off it won't crash.

you can turn it off in the options somewhere

 

Thanks for the suggestion zman. I tried updating the wireless drivers and installing HP Wireless Assistant, but it still doesn't work..

I'm trying to avoid updating the BIOS since that would cause the Recovery Discs to not work anymore.. The weird thing is, it used to start on its own just 2 weeks ago.. Do you know which startup in msconfig or services.msc represents the wireless adapters? Thanks again!

 

oh.

it used to work but now doesn't?


go with plan b.

turn it off. pull out the battery. unplug it. hold down the power button for like 30 seconds (30+ seconds) to reset the computer.

This is the old HP stand by and fixed several issues way back when "Why is my wifi light always blue. Why is my sound muted light not coming on anymore"

though yeah a bios update would probably fix things too.

 

so i havent had time to play games for a long time with school and all but it is now summer so i thought id come back to sc2 and im lagging balls right now! i usually run sc2 on medium but i was starting to lag in ladder games during the big battles so i switched down to low for the first time since buying this game (i actually started out on ultra...then high but this laptop has let me down so much). so i played a ladder game on low today and closed all other applications and processes that didnt look necessary and I STILL LAGGED and I mean A LOT. i could barely move it was ridiculous. so whats going on? surely i shouldnt lag on freaking low. i thought this laptop was suppose to handle sc2 on high but now it cant even handle low?

i ran a virus scan and it came up empty.

 

ummm.

possiblity one: "yo dude, your powerplay is doing what my powerplay does and is stuck at 300/300 clocks, go to it in the catalyst control panel, declick use power play, hit apply, retick use powerplay, hit apply"

possiblity two: "....umm crap something broke or you're on power saving modes or something"

oh right. that powerplay thing will happen everytime you unplug the computer from the wall and/or swap to the integrated gpu (..which happens automatically for me now without any sort of warning. not quite sure how I did that but fine by me)

 

also. I've found that a few spots in SC2 maps just make things lag more than on other spots on those maps.


Like on Medium I'll get 50fps at one spawn on metalopalis. But only get like 26-30 fps on the other spawn.

it's ridiculous enough to make me just play on low (fps in those certain spawns STILL drops down from 60 to like 40 or 45)

 

ill try that powerplay thing and no im not using the power saving graphics even though it feels like i am sometimes. i guess ill just stick with low settings. its pretty unfortunate considering when i bought this laptop the only game i was sizing it up to was sc2 and i thought id at least be able to run it smoothly on high now im reduced to lag on low.

 

what sort of lag?

do you display the fps while it's going on.

(is it fps dropping or could it possibly be actual lag lag)

 

the type of lag where every unit moves a second then stops for a second and repeats. i didnt check the fps when that happened because moving my mouse around was an enormous struggle

 

that sounds more like lag lag.

like "aww crap my isp hates me" lag


then again I don't think lag lag stops the mouse from moving.

Just play with the fps turned on and see what happens to it.

 

I wanna try this since my Mute light also dosn't work anymore (but maybe i accidently uninstalled a driver?) But when you say "reset" do you mean back to factory settings? o_o