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

If you select the 1900x1080 Flat Panel Resolution. You can alter the Screen Resolution after.



It might be garbage for YOU, but not for others.

 

Hey with the recently Windows updates (~15 diff updates), my fans and temp speeds have been acting a little crazy (20* higher than normal).
Is anybody else experiencing this problem after tues/wednesday's Windows update??

 

No, havent noticed any differences.

 

So i got my envy 14 now. I really like it. Getting used to it was quick and easy. I do however have a number of issues which I would like to know if ppl have found solutions to.

Firstly, and the most rediculous issue is with the the graphical interface that comes with the volume keys. When in full screen mode, game or video, and u press any of the volume related keys, it exits to desktop to display the the volume animation. How can something like this be approved by HP design teams? :S

Another issue I have is with skype. When i have my external speakers connected to the laptop through the audi out, and im listening to music say. If i get an IM alert on skype, it switches all audio output to the laptops speakers for a brief second. It can get very irritating when your speaking with multiple people.

Any input would be appreciated.

 

Has anyone tried to change their keyboard from one language to another ? I had my ENVY for service for 2 months now regarding the fan issue and scratches.. So I thought why not change the keyboard as well................

 

Cheers for that guys
I think i'll give updating it a go later tonight, there was a post somewhere that explained how to burn another set of security discs, if you've already done them. Might be handy after I update to F13, if I can find the post

 

Hey guys, I decided to get a vaio Z instead of an envy, but before that I did put together a folder full of documents and pictures of the envy14 from everyone who posted them in here. It's also got all the PDF files including the service manual. I thought maybe someone would want it before I deleted it, so here it is. Unboxing pics were mostly from erathostenes, I don't remember who else the other pics were from.
Download Envy14 Pics & Docs.zip from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way


I am mostly in the Sony section now, so before I go... thanks 2.0, erathostenes, ademmer, JJB, magnus draco, bronsky, and zeth for all your posts here in the owners threads and speculation thread.

 

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa? What about meeee?

 

Uninstall hp media smart smartmenu. that'll get rid of the volume osd. you can then install some 3rd party one, 3rvx (check the first page I think) to get an osd back.

you have to config it after installing it, it won't just pop up immediately. there are several skins though none exactly like the envy 14 osd.


For Skype, you can either go into the Options -> Audio Settings -> Ringing and set it to "Selected Speaker". That way it will always go to the correct speaker or headphones. Or you can just disable the independent headphones speakers.

if you play c&c 3 you'll have to do it this way, 'cause it also gets this issue.

sc2 sometimes get's this issue if you turn voice chat on, you fix it by selected the correct headphones (speaker) for the sound stuff.

 

Ok, I am just throwing this out there, but I was having problems with applications stopping resoponding like all the time for no reason, MMC, iexplore etc. So I had looked around and found that MS had a Hotfix for this specific issue. Something like the "computer stops responding randomly", anywho, since installing the hotfix I haven't had any of the application not responding messages, and the computer has been running much better. I installed it on 9/30/10 and haven't had a problem since. Hotfix KB2265716 if anyone else is having this problem.

 

I'm still running the stock HP install with all of the HP programs, which came with the F.06 A bios, and mine seems to run fine, though honestly I haven't used it hardly at all yet, and there could be issues I'm not even aware of. I've been building 2 new desktops, and messing with them hasn't left me any real time to use my Envy yet. I'm leary about trying a clean install just in case any problems come up. In my case, is it worth it to upgrade to the F.13 A bios? Will I gain anything?

 

I will give this a try. Ever since trying out IE9 beta and then uninstalling the 'update' (which is the only way to revert back to IE8) I have been having random freezes / not responding issues with IE8....

 

I ran with F.06 A BIOS for a while and didn't encounter any problems with it. I haven't noticed much difference with F.13 A. The changes they implemented were: "Updates the fan-control algorithm to lower the temperature of the notebook bottom, keyboard cover, and palm rest when the graphics processor is operating under a heavy load", "Enables the Intel CPU "Execute Disable Bit" functionality automatically, which helps to prevent some classes of malicious buffer overflow attacks when combined with a supporting operating system", and "Enables the Intel CPU low-power state (C3) automatically when the notebook is operating on battery (DC) power, which reduces the system power consumption when the system is not busy".

So it looks like it might run cooler and consume less power, although I never ran any tests to compare the two.

So you probably won't gain much, but you will lose the ability to run System Recovery if you upgrade to F.13 A.

 

Another thing I did with regards to ie8 is uninstalled the compatability view update. Not sure if this one had an effect, but I had read that for some people, uninstalling it had gotten rid of some application not responding issues too.

 

what do you guys set your beats audio equalizer to for the best all around sound quality? (eg. classical, techno, alternative, rnb, rap)?

I use the WMP equalizer to change to the specific genre i'm listening to at the immediate moment and leave the beats equalizer settings at:

31 Hz: -4dB (way too much bass)
62 Hz: 1dB
125 Hz: 1dB
250: -1dB
500: -1dB
1kHz: -1dB
2kHz: 0dB
4kHz: 0dB
8kHz: 3dB
16kHz: 3dB

 

I am about to get my new envy, just wondering if it is worthy to pay extra $100 to upgrade to i5 560 ?

 

You really should use just one EQ, using multiple audio adjustments before final amplification just ads distortion that gets amplified as well. Using the beats (IDT) only is the cleanest option. And if your outputing to an high quality external amp / speakers then NO sound adjustments should be made in the computer at all, use yor final preamp / reciever to make any adjustments...

 

Anyone know how to get the microphone to work? Do I have to install that giant HP package?

Thanks,

 

microphone on the webcam?

will depend on what you're using it with and you just need to install the idt (beats) sound drivers

 

I'm currently on Bios ver 12. Is there any reason to upgrade to ver 13?

 

*shrugs* improved fan algorithm.

ability to turn off power saving deep sleep mode for the realtek ethernet jack.

improving the c state stuff a bit for the processors (though this could possibly give you the cpu whine or make it louder)

 

Ok i narrowed down my problem...

If i right click desktop, and i go into switchable graphics, and switch from Power saving to High Performance GPU, the screen just resumes but in black, i can still here audio though (I can hear the windows sound it makes after switching)

I have to open and close my laptop, and log in again to complete the switch.

EDIT: Would uninstalling and reinstalling drivers help? Whatexactly do i uninstall? Just go to device manager and Uninstall "display drivers"?

 

What's the general reason for CPU whine again? Power management under-voltaging?

I tried the "mic fix", and it helps a bit sometimes. In addition I tried the "hidden advanced power settings" used in the JJBs SSD tweak, which helps a lot (even though I haven't got my SSD yet ). It was never a huge whine, and it's definitely improved now, but still there when browsing.

Any other options? i5-460M's any better? My best fix is to put music on

 

it's a power management under volting causing the capacitor to whine or something.

 

thanks magus

 

I uninstalled my graphics card drivers, reinstalled and i cannot find the graphics switching option in my right click menu now.

 

i have the 460m and it has a slight whine but it does not bother me enough to try and fix it

 

you gotta install the hp drivers first. (and from the hp driver executable thing not just the drivers themselves)

 

From what i can see, only the intel gpu drivers are being installed, that is why the graphics switching is not even showing up now.

How/where do i find the Hp drivers? Are you talking about the drivers off the website? I installed all of those when i did a fresh install, I uninstalled the graphics drivers only but now i tried installing them again and only the intel ones are installing.

 

weird.

and I mean the drivers from hp's website when you go to support and drivers, type in envy14, and pick envy14 cto 1000 or 1100.

 

I've installed a OCZ Technology 60 GB Agility 2 Series in my envy 14. At first I was tring to do a recovery using the recovery disk i created before the upgrade. However, during the recovery process, I was given message that the recovery could not be done and the error code: 0xe0ef0003. I contacted hp support and was told the problem could be the recovery disk and that he wasn't sure if the recovery would work on a ssd, and I might should consider purchasing windows 7 from a retailer. After purchasing windows 7 pro 64bit, I get an error Windows could not format a partition on disk 0 when trying to install. I also notice that the ssd is not listed in the bios, but windows detects it during the install attempt.

Any help would be appreciated.

Also during window install, two locations. 100mb unallocated, 68gb system. Error happens when selecting 68gb for install.

 

@ACT - you dont have to install any other video drivers . Uninstall all the drivers from the control panel , uninstall/delete the display adapter by booting to safe mode . Boot into normal mode and install the driver with filename sp50027.exe

 

If ati next week announces the new 6xxxx series of graphics cards as expected than how long it will take hp to refresh envy with new ati chips?

 

The recovery disk definitely works with an SSD. Could it be a problem with your SSD? Trying exchanging it. I'm also a little curious as to how your 60GB disk could have a 68GB partition.

 

Yeh was wondering the same. deleted all partitions and created one partition with with maxium capacity which was 55gb. things seem to be moving smoothly now.

Thanks.

 

6 months, a year? No one knows. Also, I'm pretty sure they'll be announcing the desktop variants first, and the mobile variants will come later. And besides, the 6xxx series aren't going to actually be available until the end of the year, they're just announcing them now.

 

Maybe i picked the wrong envy 14 version, i just chose the top one.


but i downloaded from HP before and everything installed properly. Now it seems that only the Intel graphics drivers are being installed. I have no clue why,it says that the installer is for both drivers.

 

I believe you are supposed to be on the ATI card when you go to install the drivers. Maybe this is why only the Intel drivers are being installed. Unfortunately if this is the case, I don't know how to get the ATI card back on. Have you checked in device manager for the ATI card. If you see an unknown device under the display adapters, maybe you can manually install the driver by going to update driver, let me choose the driver to install and direct it to the location of the driver file. Sorry I can't help much, I don't really know if that would work or not, but it may be worth a try.

 

I got it everything back on now. Now im going to check if this fixed the issue with the screen not waking up.


Basically, windows 7 kept updating my intel drivers, everytime i rebooted, and would also install a generic vga adapter driver. I turned off the updating, and installed the sp5XXX.exe (forgot the name lol) and everything is working now. I just got to check if its still going black.

Thanks for the help.

EDIT: the uninstall and install again managed to fix my problems with my screen blacking out whenever i switched my graphics manually. I did run into a problem while reinstalling though, my screen went black like halfway through, i had to power off my computer and go through the whole uninstall/reinstall process again.


SO for future reference,

If you are having any issues with switchable graphics (like in my case my screen would turn black after choosing high performance gpu) just 1.disable your automatic driver update 2. Uninstall all your video drivers and 3. Install package sp50027.exe ( available from Hp support website)

Hopefully all is well after doing this. Again, Thanks for all your help. Hopefully this^ helps many people in the future. (those smart enough to use the search bar )

...now if only there was a way to turn off the "Do you want to switch your graphics?" prompt. It gets a bit annoying, but i guess it is necessary. lol

Today's my 21st day with my envy and tbh im looking at my other options. Im thinking about returning it for a refund, but im on both sides of the debate. The only real competitors i can find for it are lenovos, and macbooks (which i really dont want to get)

Im looking at what lenovo has to offer, but im still not sure wheter to keep it or not. I mean i really like everything about it, the screen is wonderful. Im just not so sure if all was worth the 1300. Then again there really is no other good competitor. I really like the Envy's nonplastic body. I cant find anything other than mackbooks with no plastic.

 

What is the brand of RAM installed?

 

It's prolly Crucial or Patriot.

 

hello,

I've got an Envy14 i5 2.4Ghz 4GB RAM

I'm trying to connect it to multiple displays. I'm using an HDMI-->HDMI cable and a DVI-->Minidisplay port.

The problem is I can only get one of the monitors working, not both at the same time. When I try to extend the display with the 2 additional monitors I get the error "Unable to save display settings".

The Envy has a "ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650" graphics card.

Is the issue simply that my envy14 cannot support more than one additional display or is there some way around this..?

thanks

 

Does anyone know how to upgrade to the latest Audio Drivers (IDT) without killing the beats interface (I.E. having multipe Beats.exe processes running when trying to enable or disable the Beats Audio interface)

The Beats setup appears to only work correctly with the drivers originally installed. Yeah I know that technically Fn + B is tweaking the windows Bass and Treble settings, but there must be a way to install the new Audio drivers without causing the Beats.exe to go haywire.

 

what exactly does beats.exe do? I just killed all of the processes since they were each taking 25% CPU and causing my fan to become obnoxiously loud...
I presume it's some sort of audio enhancement software, but how exactly does it work?

 

it's the thing that triggers when you do fn+b (or should trigger) upping or lowering the bass and treble.

it's kinda pointless really.


it also may break if you update to the latest audio drivers.


I'd try uninstalling hp tone control and/or getting rid of beats.exe from the startup menu in msconfig

you can reach msconfig by typing it in that run bar on the start menu.

then hit startup. search for I'm gonna guess beats.exe (hopefully that's what it will be labeled as. if it isn't in there we're gonna have to figure something else out) and then stop it from loading at the start.

 

Pointless, well considering that the Audio portion of this laptop is one of the main selling points, i'd say that not being able to upgrade the Audio drivers without breaking the Audio interface is truly unacceptable.

We all need the enhancements to the audio drivers but the drivers can't lead to spawning multiple processes that needlessly eat cpu and battery cycles. Someone inside HP had to test the driver update. It's not like this hasn't been mentioned before. I think this is the third Audio driver update and each update causes the same problem. I'm running the original drivers simply because i can't update and have my PC work like it's supposed to. You can't market a feature heavily while knowing any updates will break it.

I've tried multiple combinations of uninstalling Tone control and the IDT driver but the minute I install the latest driver in any order, the multiple process spawning begins. It's almost like the API the audio driver uses for enabling Fn + B has changed and instead of adjusting the EQ it's restarting the entire audio interface.

 

well. no.

the beats thing is what's pointless.


the fn+b is marketing bs.


the thing about the beats that isn't bs is that the headphone jack and audio components are higher quality letting you get better output from them than an average laptop. ('course the second jack needs a 3.5mm add-on thing for it to work right ...for some dumb reason)

idt stuff is fine. it doesn't control fn+b.

either hp quicklaunch or hptonecontrol, or a mixture of both do fn+b

 

You're correct, hp quicklaunch, hptonecontrol and the IDT driver all work in conjunction to have the system work as advertised. The upgraded internal amplifiers and audio components are the real enhancements HP's selling the public. However, unless you hook up an external audio interface you'll never really know the full benefits of those upgraded components unless at some point you actually do hit Fn + B with a set of headphones on. You'll simply think huh, this laptop has pretty good bass when using headphones.

All that aside, this isn't really about the components, it's about the software working the way it should and the facts prove it doesn't work the way it should. Maybe the bass and treble settings are the same and there's no difference in sound if you install the new drivers and never hit Fn + B, but as a software engineer I wouldn't be so sure about that. Considering the adjustable EQ available in the beats interface, i'd say Fn + B is probably doing a bit more than just Bass and Treble adjustments on the windows EQ side. I'm just looking to find one person that has upgraded to the new Audio drivers that can say they can still tweak the EQ by pressing Fn + B. I wan't to know if they're doing something I haven't tried.

 

*shrugs* personally I don't want fn+b to work and change treble and bass to something else.

it's not like fn+b controls any other EQ stuff besides what's in that one tab on the sound properties menu (it doesn't touch the stuff in the idt control panel)

edit: that being said it is kinda retarded that the software will break if you update the drivers or do something weird like that.


in the end I've just clean installed and not installed anything but the drivers and the wireless assistant so I can turn bluetooth off.

 

A more specific