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

Does anyone else feel like their envy has a distinct smell to it?
It's like a mix between new shoes smell and new car smell.

 

It as my first unit that had a large gap, and it was in the RIGHT side. I am returning this one becasue the lod clackety clack noise when I tap to clicke.

 

Success! (dances around room) The offending piece of crapware that was preventing my lovely new computer from properly shutting down was none other than... HP QuickWeb configuration tool. Thank you for replying MagusDraco. Now all I gotta do is sit back (and hope) that my reliability starts climbing once again.

 

Love that new computer smell. That was the first thing I did *sniff sniff* lol

I am being literal here. Opened it up stuck my nose to the keyboard and *SNIFF*

 

I did the same, it was very addictive

 

Glad to know I am not alone in my love of new computer smell!, I thought I might be considered a weirdo lol!
Do yall reckon HP considered smell in the sensory aspect of the design philosophy MUSE?

 

No, we are pretty weird... lol

think if you saw someone else sniffing their computer

 

Do you need to create recovery cd if you backup the swsetup folder?

 

that goes away after a couple weeks.

or you get used to it.

 

Can I create recovery disks after I do minimal recovery? Or it has to be done before that?

 

eh.

sometimes HP denies warranties on account of "hey dude you don't have recovery discs..oh well, your loss"

or something. least that's what I remember 2.0 saying once ages ago in part one.


so make 'em, then get rid of the partition and just store 'em somewhere. you can't move/touch the computer while it's burning and verifying or just making it on a usb drive or else the program will go "you touched it, I'm failing, gotta reburn, enjoy your coaster"

 

unsure. you probably can make 'em still so long as the recovery partition hasn't been deleted.

 

You can make recovery discs with minimal recovery option, it still includes that software in the installation.

 

How do you delete the recovery partition? are you just left with a separate 15 gig partition or will it merge with your main partition?

Just deleted and extended

 

FYI (Notebookcheck review of the Envy 14)
http://2.ly/cke9
Cheers

 

Hah. That smell is a reminder that you got a brand spanking new toy.

 

Anyone know what that white rectangular impression at the bottom half of the notebook facing the user is?

 

that's your bluetooth radio.

it also creates a tiny gap in the metal just because.

least it does on mine. the seam gets a bit bigger but it's not a problem (it's still tiny as hell and causes no problem)

 

What happens if i change the number of processors in the msconfig boot advanced options to 2? It doesnt seem like my processor is locked at max speed? i checked and its running at 0 to 4% at idle

 

I must say I am thoroughly impressed by this machines performance. I must have played two hours of cod 4 earlier today and still managed to stay cool to the touch.

 

I have a usb headset for games(plantronic gamecom777 and for some reason my mic wont work, when i talk I'm almost positive its my laptop mic that is being picked up, yet my sound works fine. The headset is plugged in via usb. Any help?

 

Are you trying to lock your processor at max speed?? You can do that, but it's absolutely pointless. When your processor needs the power, it will use it automatically.

It seems that it sets the number of logical cores your cpu takes advantage of. Leave that option unchecked. Seriously, it won't increase performance and just causes issues.

 

I'm curious about this too, I heard it starts whining, but not sure if its for ALL laptops

Edit ^

 

Right click your volume icon, choose recording devices, and disable or enable device of your choice. Right click in that box to choose "disabled devices" to see all devices if one or more are disabled.

 

Did you touch the front part of your laptop by your LCD and the front right by the exhaust? Mine is like a friggin oven in those two spots. Everywhere else is cool though.

 

You smell that? You smell that? It's Napalm son! Nothing else smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning.... It smells like... victory!

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bPXVGQnJm0w&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bPXVGQnJm0w&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='480' height="385"></embed>

 

if you set that msconfig stuff to 2 or 1 it only shows 1 or 2 cores instead of 4 cores and well that is bad.


In other news. I think I figured out why my laptop is crashing.

Java is broken as **** and is hard freezing windows.

All I was doing was streaming something with PS3 Media and windows locked up.

twice.


'course it didn't lock up when my brother was streaming something else with it for a couple of hours....hmmmm...still the other times it locked up jdownloader was open (another java using program)


now...why the hell is java crashing the crap out of windows and hard freezing my computer?

 

So I finally opened my RMA. The battery cover slides off easily this time lol.

It seems to be running a bit hotter than the last one though. What are you guys' usual idle temps? Im at like 43/41 for the I5 450. I remember being it like 35 or so the last time. Maybe I'm just going crazy.

And I'm gonna try OCing in a bit, but it wont let me edit the Afterburner Config. When I try to save it, it says access denied?

 

make sure afterburner isn't running, that the cfg isn't read only (right click, properties), and ...well...I dun think UAC would cause issues but...eh.

 

Anyone's trackpad stop responding to taps and other touch input? It's happened to me twice now and I've had to put the notebook to sleep and when I resumed it was ok again.

 

Okay I restarted and it worked fine.

One thing confueses me though. I asked you a couple days ago about updating the drivers and you said that the screen will go black for 5 or so minutes and I will have to hard restart but that didnt happen to me.

I downloaded the file from your link and ran it. It went through without a hitch til the end and then had me restart normally. I checked the Catalyst center and it says Version 10.7.

 

maybe it depends on the video card.


did you check your driver version? (8.573 or something is 10.7) 8.713 is 10.3b (the hp ones)

 

Driver Package Version - 8.753-100706m-102501C-ATI
Catalyst Version - 10.7

Also. What's the usual OC achievable by the 5650 in the envy?

 

This has probably been covered it's a big thread....can anyone tell me the practical differences between the i5-450 and i5 520? Any difference in battery life, performance? I'll be using the laptop for a little bit of everything including some gaming.

thanks

 

can someone tell me how to do the minimal system recovery thing? I am trying to find it in the thread but there is wayy too many pages hah

 

Quick question to you Envy 14 owners out there...

I've seen a bunch of pictures of the Envy 14 touch pad, and it confuses me a little. I know the buttons are touch sensitive, but can you click them in as well?

I think I would prefer the mechanical click of a traditional touch pad. For some reason, a pure touch interface doesn't seem tangible enough.

 

I am pretty sure that the difference is in the turbo boost speed, i5 450 dosen't support virtualization, i5 450 dosen't support WiDi (wireless display). My i5 450 is actually reported as an i5 520 by CPUID hardware monitor, not sure if it's a bug or just maybe the same processor with some features disabled. Probably slightly better battery life out of the i5 450 just because of the turbo boost difference.

 

You can click it as well. The white lines on the trackpad divide the left and right clicks, but the farther you move from the center, the more mushy the click feels. Just left and right of center the clicking action is very good, while at the edges of the white lines it is quite mushy

 

Just go into the recovery manager, there will be a menu with the minimal recovery listed as an option. Choose that option and you'll be waiting about 1hr and a half to 2 hrs.

 

The Envy 14 touchpad does physically click down (you will hear and feel the click when you press down). If you've used a Macbook Pro touchpad (the newer ones), it is very similar to how that one operates. It has a hinge at the top which allows the touchpad to click down.

 

Could there maybe be a thermal paste issue inside the laptop? I only ask because mine dosen't seem to get overly hot there, just slightly warm to the touch nowhere near an oven. The i5 450 isn't too much different from the i5 520. The right side gets pretty hot when I am on the ati graphics, but the internal temperatures don't get to out of whack.

And to whomever asked about idle temperatures mine stays in the 30's when I'm not doing much and on integrated graphics, the ati graphics card idles at about 44 degrees celcius

 

My idle temps are CPU ~35C, GPU ~45C. At peak CPU and GPU are mid 70C.

I was thinking that the thermal paste is working great if it's getting hot there instead of CPU or GPU temps going crazy hot. Better to have it transferred than stay on the silicon.

 

i5 450 doesn't support HARDWARE virtualization which means using hardware to do pci card stuff instead of software.

450 100% supports virtualization

 

So, does the Envy with i5-520m have WiDi? Or is the support a moot point, as the system won't take advantage of it, anyway?

 

I cannot say as I do not have an i5 520, can someone with a 520 comment?

Thank you for clarifying MagusDraco, I did not know that there was a difference. What do you mean pci card stuff?

Probably not a thermal paste issue as those temps seem right in line with the higher turbo boost. Do you tilt your display back very much? My LCD dosen't actually get hot, though I will do some gaming tonight and check it to be sure.

 

to access pci cards and the like (your system hardware) you go through software usually.

VT-D (what the 520m has) let's you access it directly through hardware but the virtual machine has to support it...so generally it's a moot point.


there's some other stuff but eh. big whoop.

also I don't think the envy 14 has widi support

 

So if I skip making recovery disks my warranty will be invalid? I already backed up SwSetup and the windows key, I much prefer clean installs and therefor don't need a recovery dvd.

 

Anyone know how to set the screen calibration while on the Intel graphics?

 

I dunno.


it supposedly was used as an excuse before but *shrugs*

 

Okay HP, you've done well. I'm happy with my RMA machine.

Installed 10.7 without a hitch, overclocked to a stable 525/950. Wont go higher.

Ran 3Dmark, got 7875 with pretty good temps. The 5650 didnt even break 70C!



Then I figured I'd try the FFXIV bench again after OCing and got decent results. Score of 1715



For a
sleek 14 inch body with an awesome screen? Color me impressed HP.