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

Just how cold is the room you are in? lol.

 

So I went to order the Envy 14 yesterday since I got my check for my broken VAIO's warranty and saw the radiance display was no longer an option. Just my luck. Is this a permanent change? Anyone have any recommendations of a similar laptop with a high-res screen at around 14"? I know th discussion is typically MB Pro 15" vs Envy 15 but I can't stomach the Mac-tax. Any ideas?

 

I noticed something last night that has me puzzled. Well, I've updated my ENVY Software using the standard HP Update tools to grab the latest HP MediaSmart updates and I've installed the BIOS F13A without any problems. However, not really thinking last night I decided to press Function "B" to play around with the beats audio.

Well, that's when the fun started. Each time I pressed Function "B", instead of the little Beats audio "B" simply popping up (turning the audio amplifier off/on) I noticed in the Task Manager it was starting a new Beats process (Beats.exe). The mouse cursor shows the busy symbol briefly letting me know the Beats.exe was just started but the Beats audio active symbol never appears. At that point, I figured, I'll just re-install the HPToneControl software and that should fix things. Well, that amounted to achieving nothing.

I have not re-installed the "IDT High Definition Audio Codec". I suppose I could do this once I have the laptop in front of me, but I can't see the codec causing multiple Beats.exe to launch instead of turning the tone control off and on.

1) Does anyone have any ideas, how to get the Beats Audio working as expected again or what might be causing the conflict.

2) Has anyone else noticed this behavior with any of the recent MediaSmart software updates (Camera / Pictures/ Movie/ Audio)

I really don't want to wipe my PC, but the beats audio is supposed to be a selling point. It's nice for the few times I do use it while working so i'd like to know i'm getting my monies worth.

 

Okay ladies and gents, check this out. Reading the following post, you may want to hold off updating your MediaSmart software: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/505417-how-get-beats-audio-working-if-you-want.html

I havn't tested this yet, but it appears that if you want a fully functional version of the beats audio, you might have to stick with the default versions of ToneControl, "IDT High Definition Audio Codec", and the HPQUICKLAUNCH software. Honestly, this makes no sense. There were recent updates to the QuickLaunch Camera and Picture applications. Well if you install those, you may run into audio problems I mentioned above.

 

VIN87 how are your temps so low?
I'm serious?
I idle around 30/35 you idle at 22, that is so weird!
Did you re-thermal paste your cpu?

 

Beats audio is the IDT driver with an HP / beats graphic overlay on it's control panel. You do not need quicklaunch or HP tone control for it to function properly. The important thing to know is that the fnc + B is a total marketing scam and a useless feature. All that happens when you press the key combo is it adjusts the bass and treble controls to minimum when off and maximum when on. To see this just click the taskbar speaker icon > click the speaker symbol (above the slider) > click the 'Tone control' tab > watch what happens when you press the fnc + B.... As I said it's useless, just makes it sound louder so you think it's doing something 'good' but it just adds distortion when you engage it, especially if your connecting to external amp / speakers.

See my 'sound tweaks' on page 1 for a lot more info on how to improve the sound volume and quality....

EDIT: The Audio components in the Envy line are what makes it a premium sound system, they use high quality compnents (capaciters, resistors and preamp design) which gives you a much higher dynamic range, stereo seperation and less distortion than any other notebook I know of. So don't worry, you are 'getting what you paid for' you just don't need the silly fnc + B control to make it work.

 

thanks for that man

btw, is anyone having trouble with msi afterburner on f.13a?? My clocks just keep going back to 450/800

 

Thanks for that clarification, definitely helps avoid a whole string of posts on how the whole Beats thing is a scam...

 

I get what you're saying JB with regards to the EQ changes, but I would argue that the ENVY does have a better amplifier inside than most laptops and the GAIN is significantly higher than most laptops, meaning that when you up those Bass and Treble sliders, you are getting more than creative marketing. When hooking this laptop to external sources for music purposes, I've also noticed the sound is crystal clear on the outputs and very loud. That tells me that they've definitely done more than play with the windows standard EQ. I'll definitely reinstall IDT driver. I really hope it works because my ENVY is set up perfectly.

One thing I noticed you mentioned was distortion. Now I have not experienced any distortion when enabling the Beats Audio even with my "last resort" apple ear-buds. I can't crank the volume much because it gets a bit to loud with my ear-buds, but I've never heard any pair of my headphones distort even when the volume was pretty high. There is a clipping point but that' to be expected. Even the built in speakers play without really any distortion. I have SHURE and MODA headphones that aren't exactly what I'd call inexpensive, but they both were under the $200 mark. Having said that, maybe they respond to the sound curve better than the standard Skull candy or Sony $50 marketing garbage ear-buds.

What kind of headphone were you using when you heard that distortion? Did you modify the EQ from the default flat setting? I noticed there are two additional EQ settings under the beats control panel. I can see how changes in the EQ could result in distortion.

 

well.

HP's definition of replacement HDD is a pleasant surprise.


Time to backup and kick out the old busted Toshiba and break out the free replacement WD Scorpio Black 320 GB

edit: didn't even know they made 320gb scorpio blacks

 

Any amplifier produces distortion as well as amplifying any distortion already in the incoming signal. ALL bass and treble controls, EQ controls or ANY type of audio signal adjustments / processing ADDS distortion (both analog and digital). To avoid increasing the distortion levels the rule of thumb is to do as little processing as possible before the preamp / amp otherwise all the distortion will be amplified along with the music. In an ideal system you would never use any signal processing at all. So yes the crappy Bass and Treble controls add significant distortion to the signal before amplification the best option is to use the EQ integrated into the IDT audio driver / preamp curcuit.

Your 'crystal clear' sound in your headphones is because there is a very low noise level from the compnents in the envy's curcuits / amp. The actual music signal is very distorted by the time it gets to your ears by dozens of things (which would take hours to explain). Not to mention all the distortion already in the digital music files themselves (especially MP3's).

By default headphones are useless in trying to 'hear' distortion since they physically are incapable of producing a true stereo playback that reproduces the imaging of a performance. But I am now digressing into the realm of audiophile systems....

Bottom line is the envy sounds very good compared to most any computer i've ever listened to and with headphones it is near perfect without any adjustments (read as an almost flat response curve). With the notebooks speakers it's another story but that mainly because the tiny speakers cannot produce any low frequencies below ~120Hz .... When I hook the envy up to my reference audiophile system (Bryston amps, B&W nuatilus 802 speakers) it sounds good for 'easy listening' but like crap for any critical listening, but so do all digital music file formats....

 

To those that missed out Radiance display on ENVY15 and ENVY14 are NLA.

HP Envy 15 and Envy 14 with Radiance display no longer available through HP, new CPUs ease the sting -- Engadget

Looks like they couldn't manufacture them cost effectively. Seeing as it was the reason I chose the ENVY14 I'm certainly glad I got mine before this happened.

 

Install the latest HP Quicklaunch Buttons. That will solve your problem. Same thing happened to me when I hit Fn B right out of the box without all the updates installed.

 

Whoa. Scorpio, eh?

I've never had problems with Toshiba drives (old Dell's 80gb is still running strong as a backup HD and Envy's 320gb'er seemed ok), but I've heard nothing but good things about WD.


As for Seagate...hard to say. I hear they've had better years.

 

I've never had a bad hdd til that toshiba.

my dad's had a bad one or two but eh..I've lucked out.

 

Hmm.. out of nowhere, my battery drainage shot up. Up until today, it was like 11-12000mWh, but today in class I noticed it was nearly 20000 on the intel graphics!

I have no idea what would make it shoot up that much. I did install 10.8 today. Is there anyone my 5650 didnt turn off while on the intel graphics?

edit: Looks like it might be the ATI 5650 not turning off while on intel. I just switched to the 5650 while on battery and the power draw stayed relatively the same over 20 minutes. What could I do to fix this?

 

I'm really surprised about the radiance display. To me, that was the deciding factor to put this laptop above others. HP should rethink their decision, if not for this rev. of the Envy then the next.

 

I guess that they figured out people wont pay extra $400 for a good screen in US...maybe a slight percentage, so they ditch it. Since they tried to sell it as a $300 option before. People in US wanted cheap stuff but good, so its hard. Same thing with SONY, they did go cheap on their screen.

 

My Envy is box stock except for the clean install. The difference in temps could be because of a few things. First of all there is off coarse the ambient temperature, which is around 20 degrees over here. Then there is the fact that no two CPUs are a-like. It just could be that mine is running a little cooler than yours.

Thanks for the clarification. I got one question though, when plugging in my in-ear eadbuds (Sennheiser CX400) I hear a very soft noise when there is no audio playing, do you experience the same?

 

That seems to be an issue with the E 14, several have reported about it but it does not seem to affect all units. Since I have all E 15's, which have no noise issues, I have no way to begin to help ID the problem. Sorry....

 

Ok so how do u make that fn+B thinkg to work...
I have tone control and HP quick launch buttons but nothing happens..
even the beats.exe doesnt appear. Its abosultely does nothing.
Also, when i try to change tone control in property of sound thing, i feel like nothing is changing even if i put bass and tremble to -4.

 

Going through my 'sound tweaks' on page 1 should at least get all the default drivers working properly since it takes you through the setup for the audio drivers. If after reading my earlier post you really want the fnc + B to work then try my tweaks but without doing any of the actual adjustments to the EQ settings etc...

BTW first you should check and see if you have the IDT driver loaded and running, it almost sounds like you don't have it installed. Do you have the 'beats' logo in the system tray 'hidden icons' or in the control panel (need to select 'view by: small icons') list.

 

ahhh. clean install on a fixed hdd.


by the way on bios f.06 I had the black screen issue for the first part of the windows 7 install. Power button, restart, do it again, no black screen issue.


Also I seem to have solved my other black screen issue (the one where you update video drivers and your screen goes dead). Starting with nothing, letting windows update install some intel hd drivers, and then rebooting fixed it apparently.

'course skipping hp 10.3 and heading straight for hp 10.7 might of helped. either way, going to ati 10.8 from hp 10.7 worked fine.

 

I know the beat thing is a scam lol but i just want try it lol i think it kinda sounds cool. Anyways i did ur tweak except the EQs and it seems like its all set up properly. I also have beats logo IDT driver thing in my taskbar and it works properly too..I think the drivers are uptodate too.
I also didnt even clean install... WHAT IS GOING ON!!!

 

Are you kidding me? Geez!

The Radiance display was and is one of a kind. It was meant for photo shop power users and regular joes who like seeing stuff come out nice. The implications of ending this screen is our Envy 14s (first generation) are going to be one of a kind until they decide to reintroduce it.


I seriously believe HP would've been best off outsourcing production of the radiance display to some outside company like LG or Samsung that has expertise in mass producing high quality TN (and soon OLED) panels. I'm sure their patent lawyers could file the paperwork to retain the "radiance display" trademark.



Anyway, status update:

I just got notice that my Envy is about to be shipped back to me tomorrow Friday. I won't get it back until Monday.



I'm hoping and praying it comes back in the same cosmetic condition as when it left with the 2 teeny tiny dings on it and a flawless screen.

 

Anyone noticing these getting hot?

Speedfan is saying its at 130 right now, and its on a table, intel graphics, using internet and itunes....i dont get why its so hot right now....

 

While 130 is not really considered hot it does seem a bit warm for what your doing, unless you've been watching video while surfing. Open task manager and see what kind of load your getting on the cpu, itunes should just be using around 3 to 4 % on average for music... I have also read that firefox and chrome run much warmer than IE8 FWIW, I have been on IE8 with 11 tabs and iTunes music for hours now and my temps are around 95/75 F average.

 

I'm normally 77-89, that's why this is shocking me as it is

 

Again check your cpu usage in Task manager, in the processes tab click the small 'CPU' column heading once, it will change the listing to show what processes are using the most CPU load. The only way your CPU temps will increase above normal is if something is using the CPU (or a fan problem which would be obvious). Note: System idle will show a big % as that is what is not being used, at idle (no music) it should read 99% most of the time.

 

Anyone know how to control fan speed?
when on my battery my fan keeps going up and down like every 2-5 seconds. It's pretty annoying.

I tried turning "always on" in bios on and off and no such luck.
I also went to Power options > advanced settings > CPU > cooling nd don't know what to change.

Is there a software that lets me control it?
Is anyone else having this problem?

 

I was looking at CPUID and it said max storage is 59777mWh. But when I took out the charger and ran it down a bit and recharged it to full, it won't charge past 59762. Is there a reason for this?

 

your battery naturally comes with a little bit of wear from the factory.

so long as it isn't like stuck charging up to 45000 or 55000 or something it should be fine.

it'll eventually lose the ability to hold a full charge but that's just how rechargeable batteries work.

 

I haven't been able to charge past 56,000 since I got it. I didn't really think it was a big deal when I got it, but now I'm wondering. Should I ask for a replacement?

 

eh. you're still within the 5ish% limit on factory wear for a new computer.

I mean mine charges to 56862 so I'm like .06% away from 4% wear. Still have good enough battery life (4 hours or so)

 

yeah I just thought factory wear was more like 2% or 3%. 5 doesn't bother me that much. I still have over 4 hours, so I'm good.

I am thinking about getting the slice though. Does it have any heating issues? i.e. does it make the envy run much hotter?

 

I'm not sure. don't own a slice.

I saw someone mention that connecting the slice causes the fans to ramp up some (probably to suck in more air since the intakes aren't as big)

 

noisier fans wouldn't really bother me, as long as the machine doesn't overheat. I'm gonna have to look into it a bit more.

 

FYI on battery life and charging. HP uses a 'smart charge' circuit that senses voltage levels when you start the charge cycle to estimate the full charge voltage needed. You will see a big variance in the charge capacity from time to time depending on what the voltage is sensed when you plug into AC, if your using a heavy load (lower voltage) when you plug in it will show a different capacity than under light load (higher voltage).

Bottom line is the capacity will change over time both up and down. No need to worry about it unless you see steady decrease (more than ~7%) over a short timeframe.

I have 5 Envy's and 12 batteries that have had heavy mobile use all summer and they have all fluctuated more than+/- 5% at times, on average they all seem to stay within 4% of rated capacity and oddly sometimes end up significantly above capacity.... Just use them and don't worry about it.

 

*swaps to IGP, lets it cool for awhile*

well that's nice. 36/37 on the cpu. almost think that's a little bit cooler than what it was with the older bios but *shrugs* who knows.

probably just a placebo and ya know, my never checking temps with the ati disabled

 

Fans are a little noisier, but the temps stay in the same range with the slice on/off.

 

Very weird, but HPs website lists the standard Envy warranty is now 2 YEARS no longer 1 year. I confirmed this with a call to HP. So those of you that bought your Envy before last week, I'd call and ask to get another year added on your warranty.

 

Woah, interesting. Did they do that for you? I wonder whether it's worth it if I already got a 3 year SquareTrade warranty. At least with that, they'll just refund me the money if my laptop dies and I'd rather just get a new one (I keep backups) than deal with a repair process and HP's hit and miss repairs.

 

Yea, I got a two year warranty, then another year added on (because I escalated one of my support calls to a case manager). He threw in 1 year warranty additional as well as an extra envy battery cover for the bottom (the envy that I am currently rma'ing has a battery cover that's not flush on the bottom. Every time I pick up my envy from the bottom, the plastic battery case clicks, because it doesn't seem to sit right in the opening.

 

Well.. there goes my plan of RMA'ing my Envy 14 because of the noisy trackpad if they were to start shipping the E14's with new trackpad before my 21 days was up! (since theres no more radiance)

I wouldn't have minded the getting the i3-380 though!

 

Did you call and get another year added?

 

Well the Envy 14 with Radiance I bought on eBay 2 days ago came in today (talk about fast shipping! and it came from across the country).

My initial impressions are that it's even better than I imagined. My favorite thing surprisingly is the keyboard. My last laptop was a Macbook, so I thought the keyboard and the trackpad would be a definite downgrade, but I really really love the feel of the keyboard. While the trackpad is great, it is a small (very small) step down from the Macbook, but I've already adapted.

One thing that worried me is the Intel Wireless card suddenly became disabled as I was installing IM software, and it wouldn't let me re-enable it. I had to reboot. This could be because I had installed something like 40 updates through Windows Update, so I'm not too concerned about it.

I haven't done too much other than installing software and tweaking the look and feel of Windows, so I still definitely need more time with it to assess performance and function. Right now I'm getting ready to uninstall some of the bloatware, but I have to say, at least on wall power it boots very quickly and runs very well even with all the bloatware still intact.

The screen doesn't appear to have any dead pixels, the trackpad seems to be perfectly aligned, and the HP logo on the back doesn't have the misaligned problem. Also the left speaker seems to work just fine, so I appear to have lucked out with none of the problems discussed on the forums. Maybe there's a CPU whine? I can't really tell, so I guess that's a good sign.

 

The SSD tweak from JJB actually bump WEI score by 0.1, it was 7.6 and now 7.7.

PS lanning to upgrade my memory to 8GB, currently have 4GB. Question, I wanted an identical RAM, mine is

M471B5273CH0-CH9 - Samsung DDR3-1333 SODIMM 4GB Original Notebook Memory
Mfr Part Number: M471B5273CH0-CH9
Type: DDR3 SODIMM
Capacity: 4GB
Speed: PC10600 1333MHz
Pins: 204pin
ECC: No
Registered: No
Chip: Samsung

However I see another similar stick that seems to be more popular but dont see any difference between both.

M471B5273BH1-CH9 - Samsung DDR3-1333 SODIMM 4GB Notebook Memory
Specifications
Mfr Part Number: M471B5273BH1-CH9
Type: DDR3 SO-DIMM
Capacity: 4GB
Size & Bit: 512M x 64
Speed: PC10600 1333MHz
Pins: 204pin
ECC: No
Registered: No
Chip: Samsung
Rank: 2
CL9

Anyone have any idea?

 

No, luckily the one being built (for my rma) has one of the last radiance displays and it was ordered after they changed the warranty to 2 years. The weird thing is that each defective envy i send back, the next one takes longer to build.

After I get my new envy (hopefully without problems), i am going to call the case manager and get the additional 12 months for a total of a 3 year warranty.

 

Quick Question
WHy can I only use HDMI with the 5650 and not the intel GPU?

 

'cause it's part of the ati video card...or something.

I mean the video card is built into the motherboard and on the other side of the computer, but it's only enabled for the radeon.

'cause the igp can't do sound with it so...I guess it's radeon only (the vid card handles the sound partially when it goes through the hdmi cable)