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

It's much wider than I'm used to. but that's because I'm finally upgrading from an old square monitor

 

I'm in CA...and dont have Spyder3 software+calibration tools lol. The screen will look more amazing after calibration. I see a big difference on my Vaio and it has a bad screen.

If you dont want to hear the whine, turn off bluetooth and do not plug any USB devices, use the trackpad...which in my case, it doesnt apply since I have to use a BT mouse on this thing.

 

My thoughts exactly. If a higher grade battery becomes available from a 3rd party, I'll definitely consider buying it. Also, no one can deny the ODD is probably the main reason the E14 comes with 2 fans instead of 3. I honestly haven't used my ODD ever since I installed SC2 which can be downloaded easily.

 

I too found it bigger than I expected. Definitely in length, not height. It is very wide, almost as wide as my 17inch widescreen dell somehow. But it is very thin.

 

Yeah I did, its still there. But it's very subtle, and Im already starting to get used to it.

I also just ran HALO CE real quick and man did it look goooood.

 

Just plugged in some headphones. Great sound quality.

Performed JJB's sound tweak.....Awesome sound quality.

 

So here is my situation:
I currently have an XPS 13 with a 9400M GPU. The laptop is adequate, but after almost 2 years with the thing I am ready to hand it off to the wife and move on to bigger and better things.

My laptop (which will be my primary comp) usage consists of the following, ranked from most to least:
-Gaming
-Office work (PPT, excel, email, interweb, light photo editing)
-Movie viewing and light editing

Battery life is really of no concern to me since in most cases I will be near an outlet. I have no plans on gaming while on battery so as long as the thing will last for a couple hours without a plug, I'm good.

I'm very intrigued with both the Envy 14 and 17 and have been reading through both the forums here for a couple weeks. So here are my questions:

-Upon seeing my usage above, which Envy do you recommend?

-If you recommend the Envy 17, what about all the heat issues I have been reading about? I also saw that on Amazon, there was a message stating that due to teh overwhelming complaints they have been receiving on the 17, they have currently stopped selling them (though they are still available from hpdirect, just not amazon directly).

-What about CPU? Since gaming will be my primary use, should I go with the i5 520 or move up to one of the i7 quads?

-Regarding GPU, if I end up with the 14, is the 5650 a big step up from the 9400M? I mainly play Fallout 3, Dragon Age Origins and ME2.

Thank you in advance for your answers, your opinions are much appreciated.


BTW, I will be posting this in the Envy 17 Owners lounge as well to get some opinions from the other camp, so I apologize ahead of time for the double post.

~G

 

Envy 14 review by ComputerShopper.com

 

sadly jjb's sound tweak + my external speakers = a nasty buzz in the voices and stuff. So I just left it at default.

 

for some reason my envy keeps disconnecting from my wireless network and it won't reconnect, is there a fix for this? help!

edit: I think it might be a driver update issue. Can someone please link me to the correct update?

 

I'm mainly worried about the heat issue. If there are any i7 owners who would like to chime in on their experiences I would appreciate it. I may have to end up going the i5 route with the Radiance display.

 

Go to first page of this thread. scroll down to "Guides, Driver and Software"
There's a link in that gray box.

 

Update wifi drivers found in the drivers link on the first page.

 

Thanks guys! I think it's working now.

 

Is there a fix for the headphone fuzz atm? It's mildly annoying.

 

Did anybody run Pro Tools? on the i5? had any problems ? anything? music production thread aint responding back.. lol

 

Well my Envy was delivered 2 days earlier... It's awesome. Fast as hell too

 

After a clean install, what should I do to get switchable graphics and dedicated ATI installed and working? How do I install HP's switchable graphics driver?

 

Did you back up your SWSetup folder? It's in there. Go to drivers, then video folder and run the setup.

If you didn't back it up. Head over to the Driver thread, link to it on first page of this thread under "Guides, Drivers, etc."

 

MSpaint won't open .jpg files.

same with windows photo viewer. how do i fix?

 

Thanks for the quick reply. Yup I backed 'em up.

So I just install the ATI setup inside the Drivers/Video folder? Then I'll have switchable and ati?

Also, to update to 10.7 do I just simply install over the old driver or can I skip installing the old and just install 10.7?

 

Do I need to install the stuff in SwSetup/ESUW7 it says ESU for windows 7. Is this needed?

 

I have no clue what esu is.

think it's just the energy star stuff and it doesn't seem to do anything (it's supposed to rename balanced to hp recommended or something).

for graphics stuff you install 10.3 and then install 10.7a on top of it since 10.7 is a bit iffy for some reason (10.7 beta'll work though and is the same as 10.7 but with some beta open gl 2.0 stuff. 10.7a is 10.7 but with the ability to force AA in starcraft 2)


as for jpegs not working I have no clue what happened there.

 

Great review over at computershopper...
finally a decent pic of the backlit kb...but it's white in their pic. Is it really white? It seemed kind of blue/green in the other pictures I've seen? If it really looks like it does in that picture in that review then I'll be even more excited abt the envy!

 

It is definitely white.

 

Beautiful.... thank you!

 

hey guys, just received my Envy and am typing for the first time on it...

Quick question regarding the track pad... when I try to left or right click in the very lower left and right corner of the track pad, the click will not register, in fact the pad feels pretty mushy out there. Is this normal? Is the click only supposed to activate to where the white lines on the trackpad end?

Also, when I use tap to click, the pad makes a pretty annoying clackety noise (like pastic hitting plastic), is that also normal? Am I just tapping too hard?

TIA

 

When you say 10.3, are you referring to the default driver listed as 8.713 (the own located in SwSetup/Drivers/Video)?

Thx

 

yes. that's 10.3 ....b (or 10.3 HP or whatever. it's the default)

 

Check this thread. Sounds like an audio attenuator will help. I guess low impedence headphones (i.e. cheap) will result in that issue.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/504259-static-e14s-headphone-jacks-5.html

I may pick up an attenuator because it's only like $15 shipped, small, and if it gets rid of that annoying hiss/hum whatever, it'll be well worth it.

 

Dont you have E14 before and RMA it?you mean you just received back from HP repair?Does it still have the defects?

 

Do you actually get any benefit out of the 10.7 drivers? I tried installing over the 10.3's and was pretty freaked out by the black screen. Then, like an idiot, I didn't wait long enough and shut down before setup was complete. Long story short I was getting bluescreens and was in a pretty bad way. I recovered back to the 10.3, but I am a bit leery of making the jump again unless there's a tangible benefit. Starcraft 2 is running fine for me with 10.3.

 

Quick question. I haven't been following this tread as closely as I had been. Has anyone actually performed a CPU swap yet? I'm interested in the E14, but would want to eventually upgrade to the i7-640m when it is released. Thank you!

ccie

 

Quality has virtually nothing to do with impedance. It's all a fine balance between size, weight, the kind of headphone, what kind of sound should be given, etc. You'll notice in the thread that many cheap headphones seemed to work fine in the thread while high-end earphones did not.

 

I returned one already, this is my 2nd machine, and looks like its going back as well. Hopefully 3 is a charm

 

There's a couple of nice CPU/Network monitor tools at
Most Wanted Windows Gadgets - Windows Vista and Windows 7

I just tried one out and it looks cool.

 

On mine if you tap to click a little bit harder than softly, it makes a clackety sound.

 

HP Envy 14 Review - ComputerShopper.com

Link to the review nu_D was talking about.

 

Thanks mate.

Wow, a 9.4 and editor's choice. That's sumpin'.

They gave the MBP 13 a 9.1, and the MBP 15 an 8.6.

I don't know. Anyone think the reviewer is now driving a Ferrari? <---ooo flamebait! (Come at me bros!)

So, I think I'm going to buy their review unit before they send it back to HP.

 

If everything is fine don't update. 10.7 doesn't increase performance for most. If your games run fine on 10.3, stick with 10.3. My games run fine on 10.3, so I'm sticking with it.

 

like 1 fps maybe.

I dunno. it's probably negligible unless there's a game that just doesn't work well at all on 10.3

 

I have that too, but I need to tap fairly hard and quickly. I think it's inherent to the design of the clickpad and honestly if you're tapping THAT hard, you're doing it wrong

 

What issue do you have on the first?Sorry, I forgot...but my advice is if its really small cosmetic issue that you can live with, keep it.

I have small scratch on the HP logo on the back (completely gone when it was lit up) and whine if I use USB/BT, but it is dead silent when I didn't use USB/BT. Some people here get even worse machine for the swap.

 

dammit, I just typed up a whole good post, and somehow managed to accidentally delete ALL THE TEXT I just typed. I'll try to recreate as best I can... sigh.

Who reads computershopper reviews seriously anyhow? That review is one of the most basic nonsense reviews I've ever read. And if you get a quality built Envy 14 it surely deserves accolades, but its stll lacking in some areas. Besides the listed lack of blu-ray and requiring a dongle (tee hee) for VGA, here's a few other knocks from the book of HTWingNut. A lot of design is clear that the design studio won over big time over engineering:

(1) Cooling. While the cooling is pretty good in this machine, whoever made the design decisions to put the fan exhaust in the back needs to be shot. I mean, while the rest of the laptop remains reasonably cool to the touch, the back of the laptop gets quite hot and heats the laptop and the LCD considerably. Over time, this constant expansion contraction will probably lead to warping. Who in their right mind BLOCKS the exhaust port with the LCD.

(2) Lack of USB 3.0 ports. No it isn't really a necessity, but a flagship machine should support upcoming technologies.

(3) Video card choice. While the HD 5650 is fine, why not choose a nVidia with Optimus over an ATI card with manual switching. I'm ok with it, but again, a flagship machine usually showcases the latest tech.

(4) Use and location of status lights. First of all, who decided to put the HDD/SSD status light on the SIDE of the laptop instead of plain view so you can tell what the drive activity is. The guy or hot chic sitting next to you doesn't give a rip, but I do. Especially with SSD's when you can't tell if the drive is grinding away or not. Not to mention the trackpad light when you turn off the trackpad (I have it set to turn off automatically when my mouse is attached - which is 90% of the time). The darn thing is so bright, it'll probably get some people arrested when the authorities think it's a laser dot being aimed at aircraft.

(5) Lots of glitchy software, expressly media smart and the "activity" keys. I've had to use 2.0's trick several times already of shutting down, unplug, remove battery, hold power button 30 seconds, and plug all back in to get certain functions to work. Right now I can't dim my screen.

That's about all I can think of at the moment. I know this sounds like the machine is horrible, because it's NOT. It's actually quite awesome. But those are negatives that I see that people need to be aware of and should determine the overall score. Then again, IMHO, the MBP should score a 6.0 because of cost/performance primarily.

 

Ok guys and gals. I can't get my fn-F2 / F3 keys to work now. I can't change screen brightness with them. What process is responsible for this so I can uninstall and reinstall. All the others work fine. I've even tried shutting down, unplugging everything, holding power button, that worked for other key issues I had before but not this time. HELP!

Thanks. I'll give a backrub to the first person to help me.

Edit: Ok this is really irritating me. My wi-fi light won't turn orange now when I turn it off, although the wi-fi does turn off. I even changed the BIOS to just use the Function keys instead of fn+F2 etc. No go. My brightness won't work! Could this be a BIOS issue? Maybe I'll flash F.06 and see if that helps.

 

Apple?

Yes, at this stage in the game, USB 3.0 would be appropriate. But at least there's an eSATA port.

Considering the issues HP has had with Nvidia failures in the past, I sort of understand their gun-shy decision making.

Yep, dumb. It really makes no sense.

Long tradition of HP software being glitchy. One day I hope to be pleasantly surprised...

Agreed. Honestly, the Envy series seems to have one of the highest bugaboo percentages I've seen out of HP in a while. There is an overall decline in quality control. I own 5 HP computers in total and each has been trouble free from the get go. Well one was sort of a shock to my system as it ran really hot. But I remedied that with better thermal compound and undervolting (TX2500). Little niggles because of the undervolting like random bluetooth crashes or freezing if I pull the A/C out before it fully sleeps.

Hush yo mouf!

MBP is on my short list. The 13" in particular. I need a writing/editing/research computer that gets long battery life and has an illuminated keyboard.

Anyway, good retort to the Comp-Shop-Chop.

 

Hey guys, I checked off the Option for "System Recovery DVD's" when I ordered my envy.

Does this mean I can safely do away with the recovery partition on my laptop?

 

I agree. I don't know why people get so giddy anytime one of these sites releases a review. This thread and the related ones are the best reviews you can get.

 

So as you may know, the Envy 14 comes with 2 USB ports.
Knowing it wouldn't suffice, I quickly got a low priced USB hub, which is a great help. The problem is, whenever I try to plug in my two external HDDs, the Envy is never able to locate both, only one of them. For the other, it always says "Format Drive?" (which i dont want to do because I dont' want to lose my data).

Both drives work normally alone, but when both are plugged in, I keep getting prompted to format my drive. Help please? ><

 

Any resolution to this? I have the Fn F2/F3 not working now too and nothing seems to fix it so far.