*HP ENVY 14 (1XXX series) Owners Lounge, Part 1*

I have a question...so I got my e14 about three days ago. I got a program (batterybar) to measure my battery discharge and statistics. i did a full discharge to calibrate its sensors and it gives me that my 59mWh battery is only holding 56,521 mWh of charge as a maximum and already with a 4.5% battery wear...now I understand battery wear occurs after numerous charge/discharges but does anyone else have a significant battery wear on their 'brand new' e14 battery? i mean my battery is already runnig at 95.5% efficiency already

 

give me a shout if you find it

 

It really would be nice if someone made a list of the drivers that need to be installed/updated and any order that might need to be done on a clean install

 

Both of mine report some wear, as well. 6% on one and 4% on the other according to Battery Bar.

 

You pretty much need to install every driver in the swset folder located in C: drive for the laptop to work properly.

 

Anyone plan to just use Anytime Upgrade to go from Home Premium to Professional? I don't want to have to deal with nonexistant drivers for a month or two...

 

This did not work for me and I'm not able to get my ethernet port to work.

This is on top of the "unknow device" and the PCI Simple Communications Controller not having drivers.

 

Lvivkse, how did you get to that calibration screen? Also, are you some sort of designer?

 

Off course, but we were talking an "order" of which driver need to be installed first to avoid any problems that a lot of people seems to experiencing.

I rarely see people messing with this setting on their laptop display, usually an ICC profile created with professional devices and software would be the way to go. I assume the E14 might have similar screen profile like the E15, JJB calibrated his screen and post the ICC profile already, you might want to try that instead.

 

I would like to know how to set my envys screen to a certain ICC profile. I am a web designer, and on my old XPS m1530, colors always seemed to come out different on other screens. Can anyone post a guide or something?

 

I've been following this thread on and off. Is there a fix for the USB whine problems listed somewhere? Neither are listed on OP.

 

I just went down the list of drivers and everything went smoothly...

 

the fix for me is probably going to be rma lol
I don't think I can tolerate the whine
yea yea, call the whinebulance...

 

same here. no problems just following the list of drivers listed on the first page

 

After going through all the trackpad settings and tutorials and JJB's posts about settings, I am still having trouble with 2 finger scrolling. It's a crapshoot as to whether or not the 2 finger scroll will actually work and often times as I'm scrolling it'll jump in the opposite direction. It's as if because my two fingers don't stay aligned vertically it causes this jumpy behavior.

I want to upgrade the synaptics drivers but am a bit hesitant to do so because of everyone saying that on the envy 15 once they did a clean install they could not get their trackpad to behave as well as it did out of the box.

 

anyone know how to change setting so that it route power directly to computer when plugged in?

 

intel? right click on desktop and 'graphics properties' on the context menu

ati: advaned > click the black inverted triangle on the blue display picture > properties > color tab

and yeah, kinda, on and off

 

I haven't plugged anything into the USB ports but I haven't heard any CPU whine yet and can't even hear the fan. Maybe the fan is off in the BIOS by default, I'll have to check to make sure it's on. I asked alaskajoel several times to record the CPU whine but he didn't do so. I'm curious what the whine sounds like and when it occurs.

 

I was having the jumping problem with a clean install, then the synaptic driver installation fixed it, and it worked better then the out of box version. The mutitouch works great after the installation also.

 

yeah, this is because synaptics sucks

 

Check the BIOS. I believe some laptops have this option in the BIOS.

My Dell used to have a software application that controlled the function also.

 

Hey friends, I'm going to write a review soon.

I have a few points to make / ask about.

1) what are the four windows Live things that came with my computer? Can I uninstall this junk?

2) why are the icons in the bottom right pixelated D:

3) Is there a better way to sleep envy 14? when i open it form closing it, it yells with a clicking noise and takes a couple seconds to boot up...

 

I recall somewhere in the 800 pages that someone is able to change it in win7.

 

for me it's just a really high pitched noise, it's not that loud but it's so high pitch that it doesn't need to be. I can even hear it over music. I think it's only with something plugged into USB, so plug something in and see if you hear anything.

 

im so glad my cpu isn't a screamer

 

LOL, JJB insists that it's good so I'm holding out hope it's a driver issue.

 

Aww... I love that software.... ha.

 

Is anyone disappointed with the backlit keyboard? Maybe I shouldn't be comparing it to the MBP, but the light doesn't have that lit up look between the keys like the MBP, even in a pitch dark room

 

Seems like my fan is always on, even on light browsing, which keeps the system really cool(even cold on the left hand). Is it possible to change a setting to only switch it on when it reaches certain degrees?

 

I can't tell if my cpu is making that noise. Seriously some one help me figure it out, I kind of hear a high pitch noise, not really... UGH

 

Not me, I think it's dandy. Then again, I've never had a backlit keyboard before.

 

yeah me too, seems fine to me.

 

Its driving me nuts not knowing if the high pitch whine is normal or if its the whine you all speak of.

Does it frequently cut out?

 

hmmm...

you're on a clean install right.


whatever that unknown device is might be important.

also still not sure what the PCI Simple communications controller is.

I have a feeling that one is the hp hdd protect stuff.

the unknown device might be some important chipset drivers or something

 

Ok so i just got my laptop today and after playin with it for a few hours im going to give all you potential buyers a review.

Specs: i7 720, 4GB RAM, 160GB SSD

Look/Feel : The box it came in was in perfect condition. Upon opening it there was no scratches of any kind on the laptop. Only by pushing down really hard does the keyboard flex so thats not a problem. The screen is beautiful and very bright. The keyboard is very nice to type on and there is no raised parts. Everything is smooth.

Performance: I decided when i bought this that i didnt need the battery life because im usually around an outlet so i decided to go with the i7 720. I do video encoding and use handbrake so thats one of the reasons i chose a quad core. Many people claim that the i7 causes heat problems but nowhere on this laptop does it get warm. I havent actually stressed it with benchmarking but from browsing and other casual stuff this laptop is cool to the touch. The only spot where it gets lukewarm is above the keyboard near the screen. Its not a big deal though cuz its barely any different than the rest of the notebook. The SSD is quiet and does not produce heat and it is also BLAZING fast. Im going to do a clean install to get rid of all the bloat so it should further improve the speed and lower the temps a bit.

Touchpad: This is my ONLY complaint. Idk why but it just plain sucks. Its not as smooth as others i have used. Of course i havent done any tweaking witht the settings so im not going to make a final judgement.

Final Thoughts: I was very sceptical of getting the i7 in such a small notebook but i cant say enough of how well the cooling system is. It doesnt even get hot in real world applications so no worries. Battery life is about two hours just by my estimates. Id give it a 9.9/10 just cuz of the touchpad. This laptop just plain rocks! No defects to it at all.

Hope i helped people decide if they are on the fence for getting an i7. You wont be disappointed. BTW im not very knowledgeable with regards to benchmarking and such so sorry but i wont run any programs to give you all numbers and temps

*EDIT* The backlit keyboard is amazing. I typed this mini review in the dark and everything lights up perfect!

 

I installed batterybar before my first discharge. Is there a way to measure how long the battery lasted using batterybar? I only see things related to estimated battery life in batterybar. Do I need to change settings preventing the system from hibernating when the battery gets to a certain level? I'm just looking to get an accurate measure of how long my battery lasted.

 

Well my late 2007 MBP is brighter. However it is a clear letter on a gray key; the Envy14 is still easier to see due to better contrast. The nice thing about the MBP is that the backlight is variable just like screen brightness. Not really a useful or important feature though.

Overall best keyboard I've used to date.

 

Only happen for some people...

edit: ugh still cant figure out to turn off this fan below the enter key on right side~

 

after a few minutes (as long as you dont force measure) BatteryBar should find the discharging rate of your batteries (based on your power scheme) and should be able to give you an estimate time of usage on that particular discharge. Keep in mind that it will measure your battery wear as well (though so far in my experience, it can be a little misleading), so perhaps maybe two cycles of normal use and charges it should be pretty accurate on the amount of battery charge you have whenever you leave the outlet. So far my BatteryBar gave me an estimate of 3 hours and 25 minutes of power on power saving GPU and power saving mode, which is less than I was told pre-release :[. buying a slice looks inevitable.

 

I have the whine.

I figured it out.

Also, the whine can be cut off by using the processor.

When you do something with the processor it cuts off, and when I go to a site with heavy flash (I used FF14) it sounds like it is stuttering the whine (which is silent, unless held to your ear)

Frustration/10

 

i tooooold you guys the i5 wasn't worth the upgrade

 

Lvivkse, do you have it? stop running everything, turn off bluetooth, put ear to cpu and listen.

Does it make a high pitch noise?

 

Hm, so there's no whine on the i3 and i7?

 

Just a suggestion, it would be nice if a checklist has been placed in the first page of this thread on what to check once you received your envy 14 (fan noise, hiss, heat, etc.) and a list of problems encountered and their probable solutions.

I'll be ordering my E14 later. Hope that I'll be one of the lucky ones who'll receive this w/o problems.

 

correctomundo

 

Correct. No whine on mine(i7 720).

 

wait, does it kinda sound like a printer? or old school computer sounds, but at dog-like frequencies?

 

thanks for the reply =p. i can't say i'm a computer veteran; maybe a "regular", if you may, but.....errrrr

i left this reply here for a good couple hours cause i went to play alien swarm that's free on steam...xD

i think i was going to say it seems like so many people are having trouble with this and that after clean installs, so i'm not sure if i want to do the same. but then again, i would love to have my first go at it, with my first laptop. but i still have that fear that something will go wrong =/

 

I saw another poster trying to use battery eater and it seemed to have a mode where you can let the laptop run until the battery dies and then when you power on the laptop again it tells you how long the battery lasted. That's what I was wondering if I could do with batteryBar.

 

I figured it out.

Okay, the two people who have just said they don't have whine;

1)
Did you do a clean install? Did you remove bloat ware?

2) Most key;
Do you have bluetooth on?

I figured it out, the simply bluetooth being on alone eats enough cpu to prevent the whine.

I can turn mine off with the flip of a switch practically