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

Are your temperatures normal? You can check the temperatures using HWMonitor which can be found on the first page.

 

The temperatures seem fine to me.

Not sure what ACPI is (32-34 degrees ), Cores at 20-33 degrees

 

Oh cool, thank you 2.0!

 

I am planning to buy a HP ENVY 14. The model which is available with the HP reseller in my city is HP ENVY 14-1015TX [i5-450/4gb DDr3/ 500Gb@7200/ ATI 5650 1 Gb/ Radiance display].

Is it the latest Envy-14 model ?

 

Yeah, nothing wrong with those temps. About the fan, I notice a difference in behaviour of the fans when changing either of these two settings:

In the BIOS: Fan always on: disabled/enabled. Allthough like many users 'disabled' gives me a fan that cycles on and off every ten seconds.
In Windows 7: Passive/Active cooling under Power Options > Advanced settings > Processor power management > cooling policy.

You could play with these two settings and see if it makes a difference.

 

Gah, might take it for a return tomorrow and go for the mac since hps seem to have a fair share of issues with alot of warranty horror stories

 

Hi all, I'm looking for some advice. My Vaio just died and I got cash back via my Visa warranty and am looking to get an Envy 14. My co-worker's brother is looking into employee pricing on it and has offered to order one for me.

Does anyone know how much discount HP employees get on the Envy 14?

Also, I keep hearing rumors about a processor and HD refresh. Looks like Acer and Sony released some models yesterday with the new i5-580M's. Still late October for the rumored Envy refresh? I'd hate to order now and miss out on that albeit a minor spec boost.

Thanks for the help!

 

Has anyone tried fitting in a Mobile Broadband card in the vacant mini pcie slot ?

does the envy 14 has sim card reader built in or it needs to be bought with the card?

The compatible model is

HSPA EV-DO WWAN module 531993-001


Qualcomm Gobi 2000 HP UN2420 WWAN Card 531993-001 4 DM1 - eBay (item 280502486479 end time Oct-01-10 23:40:03 PDT)

 

F13 BIOS on HP FTP

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp50001-50500/sp50247.html
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp50001-50500/sp50247.exe

 

Woah, nice find! The last bullet point seems to indicate that battery life when idling might go up? And the first bullet point seems useful too.

 

in germany they just released the Envy 14-1100...(they have both the 1100 and 1000 versions available)

however the downgraded the screen to the infinity display as well as the hard drive to a 640gb 5400rpm but upgraded the processor from a 520 to a 560... leaving the notebook at the same price :S not an improvement at all..

 

I was afraid they would do that as there were some rumors in this thread about shortage of Radiance screens and the fact that HP did the same with the Envy 13. The first released it with a brilliant screen and then downgraded it. That made me buy the 'old' 10XX series a few weeks ago when they finally appeared for a reasonable price in the Netherlands. It was a small batch and they are already sold out.

The whole point of the Envy 14 being so great is the Radiance screen. When I compare it to the other laptops around it has much better colors, viewing angles and resolution.

@DanH

Thanks for the new bios. Gonna try it asap.

EDIT:

Just installed the new bios. Although I did a clean install on this Envy and removed the recovery partition (note: I kept the HP_Tools partition) I was able to install the bios update by just running the .exe. The system seems to run a few degrees cooler but that could just be coincidence . I'll report back on batterylife and such ( was getting 4 - 4,5 hours of batterylife on the F06 bios)

EDIT2:

I've just got the "you changed your hardware you have to reactivate Windows message" presumably because of the bios update (nothing else was changed). I had to reactive by phone.

 

Might be a silly question, but those of you running BIOS F13, would you say it's worth updating to? Im still using F06 and purposely didn't upgrade to F12 because of the problems with the recovery discs

Cheers guys

 

4-4.5 hours of just light browsing right?
Cause that's what I get right now with f.13 at lowest screen brightness.

 

Well, my day certainly isn't getting better. Just got notification that my Envy return is delayed until October 12th. That'll be 3 weeks from the day it arrived at their repair depot and an extension of 2 weeks total.

Can someone please tell me if there are any remedies I can claim for this? I understand that their October 28th date was just a rough estimate, but a 3 week wait? I'm well aware I'm outside their 21-day return period before some genius chimes in with the obvious.

On a side note, what could possibly require up to 3 weeks? Are they purposely understaffing their repairs department?

 

Hmm, I had originally cloned the HP_Tools partition over from my retail drive to my SSD, never got a chance to test whether that works for the BIOS updates but apparently it did. Now time to see if this actually helps with anything.

 

How can you tell if an Envy 14 is a model 1000 or 1100 or 1150 etc.? Where is this displayed?
Thanks

 

Reboot it , then open the bios by pressing F10, there is all the model information you need.

Yes, thats on light browsing. This F.13 seems to give me some more batterylife though. However that could be just a placebo effect ..

 

i installed bios no problems yet

 

people with f.13 bios, has the cpu whine gone? do your recovery discs still work? has heat gone down? main stuff i'm hoping that bios has addressed

 

I installed f.13 and my recovery discs still say that this computer is not supported... Anybody else try to use their recovery discs yet? I wonder if it's just me or if everyone will still have the same problem as f.12. It just seems a bit silly to have recovery discs that don't work with the computer. Almost like HP wants us to have to buy more discs from them...

 

f.13 whine was still there, what worked for me: disable blue tooth, use firefox instead of chrome and config some settings, The whine comes back when watching flash/ itunes but less noticeable than it was before.

I havn;t tried my recovery disks, I might when I get home from work and school which will be 11PM. I love my 9am-11pm days NOT!

 

Huh? Just take good care of your stuff!


Anyway, could you provide a link to that fix? I'm going to save it for when I get my notebook back.

 

The Tweak is here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-intel-series-4-5-965-chipsets-jjb-tweak.html

That's the one for improving the slow SSD R/W speeds that also seems to work on eliminating or significantly reducing the CPU whine...

 

just wondering two things..

is there anywhere I can still get radiance (1600x900) screen in Canada? Everywhere is look it says only lower quality screen available.

Are these manufacturing issues only on the 14? How does the new generation of Envy 15 stack up?

 

I got mine about three weeks ago from a local future shop and it had the radiance display, despite what it said on the website. The actual box it came in however shows the listing for the radiance display. And as far as I know, there is only one configuration option for the envy 1050ca, and it includes the radiance display!

and also, I had none of the manufacturing issues as of yet either, and I use it everyday, both at school and at home.

 

Zeth my friend, you must make it a habit to look on page 1, first post. A good number of your questions, though not all, are answered there.

Spread the word.

 

The F.13 A BIOS is now available from HP Software & Driver Downloads
I just updated from F.06 A to F.13 A. I had done a clean install removing all partitions except the Windows C partition. I had created an HP_TOOLS partition on a USB drive, which I inserted, then ran the installer SP file. The BIOS updated without any problems.

I still can't run System Recovery after booting from the recovery disks. I get the message: "The system recovery media does not support this computer. You are not able to restore this system with the media." It looks like F.06 A is the last BIOS that supports System Recovery. I was able to revert from F.12 A to F.06 A quite easily, so I don't see why I couldn't revert back from F.13 A if I needed to.

Also, my Windows OS was still activated after the update to F.13 A, no need to reactivate.

 

Alright, so my Envy keeps freezing for a reason that I can't figure out. It freezes are random times it seems. Everything just freezes and nothing works not even "Num Lock" or "Caps Lock". There's no BSOD or black screen after, everything's just frozen there and the only thing I can only do is a hard shut down by holding the power button. It's starting to occur more often now than before... I know for sure that it's not a virus or anything, most likely some software problem? Does anyone know what I can do to find out what's causing it? Help is appreciated, thanks.

Edit: I have a feeling that it's a video driver or sound driver problem... But, i'm not sure.

 

I did. Didn't find it there. Just warnings about the noise and a fix by PeterDLai that has potentially negative consequences.

 

I think we all tried to do that but with more exposure, it will have higher chance to get damaged and accident does happen!

Yea, definitely tried JJB tweak. Running F13 now, just run the setup and it updates it the "HP way" instead of the run around technique needed for F12 and below.

 

It's under SSD tweaks in the guides section. Suppose I should also add it to the CPU whine section.

 

you got a few options.


option 1: somehow you have two ati sound drivers in your device manager fighting each other and breaking things.

option 2: your hdd is borked like my hdd (run the system diagnostics check and the bios check)

option 3: I have no idea why

 

You should run the hard disk and memory tests in the system diagnostics just to rule hardware out. You could run in safe mode for awhile to see if it does it in safe mode maybe. Freezes could be either hardware or software. The Event Viewer may tell you something about what is happening. Just remember what time it is when it does it and see if anything is logged with Event Viewer.

 

Okey dokes. With the 2-week delay, would it be of any avail if I were to call HP tech support and give them a piece of my mind (and my insanity), or would I just be wasting phone minutes?

 

this happened with bacchus.

he had no luck and eventually got the broken computer (cpu whining computer) back...not sure if he got any benefits like discounts/whatever.

 

Yeah, event viewer keeps saying something about ATI so that's why I said i'm thinking it may be a graphic driver? Are the new drivers stable and better than the default ones?

 

I've been assuming that the 10.8s are stable.

I hope they are. I mean my hdd is failing and I hope the hard freezing I'm getting is from the hdd not the 10.8 drivers (I think it happened while on 10.7 too so...*shrugs*)

also, you could just try uninstalling the 10.8 and seeing if it screws up while on the HP drivers (original 10.3, and ya know if you want the newer 10.7 that HP put up)

 

Was Bacchus's only problem a whiney CPU?

The reason I ask is my Envy 14 has a real hardware problem. It just won't boot up, so now it's sitting at the repair depot presumably waiting for a set of hands and any necessary part replacements to arrive. I don't mind CPU whine as I've noticed lately it's also present with my Asus G50VT with its ancient P8600 processor.


That said, this article is enough to make Envy 14 owners proud:

HP Envy 14 'best all-round laptop tested in years' | Otago Daily Times Online News Keep Up to Date Local, National New Zealand & International News

 

I think so.


so..who knows. wait around for a bit longer. give 'em a call if they delay it a third time. keep in mind that the reps probably don't know any more than you know

 

Alright, it passed the Hard Disk and Memory test. I also updated my video card drivers to 10.8. None of this did anything and it's still freezing.

 

Hey guys I seem to have a problem with my E14's radiance screen. The colors are not uniform. If I display the color white or gray on the hole screen, I can see 5 or 6 large vertical strips (of about 5 cm - 2 inches large) that cover up the hole screen, the first one is green, the second is red, the third is green, etc.

It's not very detectable (I meen it's not like it was REALLY green or red strips, it's more of a shade) but whenever I read documents with a white backscreen (like 99% of the documents I read ) I can distinguish that the color is not uniform.

It happens when I'm on Intel chipset AND the GPU, and it's not Windows related since it appears also when I use the BIOS or the HP quickstart OS. All my drivers are up to date.

Any idea of what it's from? Are there softwares that allows to recalibrate different areas of the screen? Thanks guys.

 

Hello hello,

I recently did a clean install of Windows 7 and everything went smoothly. There have been no problems whatsoever and I am very pleased!

I noticed early on that Device Manager displays an "Unknown device" under the category of "Other devices" between "Network adapters" and "Processors." I read elsewhere on these forums that this "Unknown device" is actually a place holder of sorts for HP Driveguard. As I have an SSD in my Envy, I have followed the advice of the applicable drivers thread by justinkw1 by not installing Driveguard. However, I have noticed that lingering in my optional Windows Updates is "Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. - Other hardware - HP Mobile Data Protection Sensor." I understand that this is just another name for HP Driveguard and so my questions are these: Am I correct in not installing this software because of my SSD? Is it safe to use the "Hide" feature on this update in Windows Update so that I don't accidentally end up installing it later?

I've never used the "Hide" function before and am a bit apprehensive. But I figure if I will never have a need for this software there is no reason to allow Windows Update to prompt me about installing it for the life of this computer.

Thanks as usual!

 

Has anyone managed to go back to f.06 after going f.13a bios? mine just refuses to go back to f.06

 

You could check in reliability monitor to see when exactly the problem started and uninstall some software or updates to troubleshoot. Is it only on the ATI graphics card that you have the freezing? Does it happen with Intel too?

 

@random15
You could hide it in Windows update. You can always unhide Windows updates later.

 

Curious, has anyone had any creaking noises coming from their laptop?
Basically, whenever I pick the laptop up from the sides, It'll make a ton of creaking like noises. Haven't dropped or thrown it or anything similar.

 

Olive,

Nope, and I just tried it .

 

Any way you can take a picture of this or is it too subtle to make it to camera? My Envy seems to have some trouble with, say, a gray font on white background. (If I go to notebookcheck.net and look at all the graphics cards on the right hand side I can *just barely* detect some red interlaced with the gray -- is this the sort of thing you are talking about?) That is one of the few places I've noticed it though. And I don't want to become paranoid enough to start looking for it in Word! But I haven't ever noticed it before!

 

Looks like they added the new processors to both the regular 14 and the beats, but took off the radiance screen. Oh well, I think I'm just going to go for the regular E14 anyways. I have a 1920x1200 monitor in my room, and I'm used to a netbook's resolution for mobile computing. The E14 still looks too sexy for me to pass up.

It looks like they might be updating the E15 since I can't seem to click on it. Huh.