*HP ENVY 14 SPECTRE (3XXX series) Owners Lounge*

So it looks like the Spectre has two half-height mini-PCIe slots. One occupied by the bluetooth / wifi card and the other occupied by a "wireless audio module" (page 50 of the service guide). What is this "wireless audio module" used for?

Also, does HP restrict what wifi card can be used in the Spectre like they do with the DM1Z?

 

I am looking to trim unwanted software from my E14S (Envy 14 Spectre) . I agree - not a lot of bloatware. In my case the first thing I got rid of was Norton Internet security. Interestingly after removing it, I see another Symantec product called VIP Access SDK remains. Seemingly this is Symantec Validation and ID Protection Service. Is this going to be of any practical use to me? I think not so I will bin it.

Then the MS Office starter pack went as I have a full licensed copy from another source.

I am also planning to delete my recovery drive eventually as I have backed it up. Although I may leave it onboard until I find out more about the process of adding a second SSD.

Given that I never plan to hook up an external DVD drive and play or burn disks with my E14S - Is there any reason to keep Cyberlink Powerdvd or Cyberling Power to go? ie are there any unintended consequences to removing them?

I

 

Well I removed power dvd, for that same reason. I don't think I would ever need to burn DVDs using the spectre. I am not sure on powerlink power to go, but I believe I also deleted that. Only cyberlink product I kept was the "youcam".

I kept Norton for its 2 year sub, so I don't really know anything about the SDK. However suffice to say, I don't think we have any other Symantec products on our computers so deleting that shouldn't have any repercussions in theory.

Double check your start menu, because I remember getting some loose links to pages there that I didn't need or want.

I do sometimes get the urge to delete the HP support assistant, but I keep it around for novelty I guess. Although the occasional alerts are annoying.

 

Good, that all makes sense. Have now removed cyberlink stuff other than youcam, which is of some use I suppose. I ditched Nortons in favour of Avira Free version which I have happily used for many years. Will check my start menu for orphans.
I agree the HP support assistant is somewhat novel. I figure it will let me know if BIOS updates become available and is an easy Link to the HP support areas.

Is it possible to turn off the Bluetooth radio while leaving the WiFi radio on, using just the F12 key. As far as i can tell it is not possible. So for now I have disabled BT in Device manager. Odd that HP went the all or nothing approach for the radio as most other laptops seem to have a toggle arrangement where you can individually enable radios.

 

I have actually looked into turning off BT through keyboard shortcuts and came up empty, even the taskbar/running icons don't have a quick way to toggle bluetooth.

I find it very strange as well, I guess HP didn't think BT took up too much battery to have a separate command key... Strange, considering battery conservation was the name of the game with this laptop.

I also turned it off through the device manager, but I agree it's a hassle going back and undoing it for mouses and headphones, etc.

 

Can't you just click the Bluetooth icon in the Win7 tray, then select the 'Turn Adapter Off' option? When you need to use bluetooth devices, go to the same place, but select 'Turn Adapter On'. Much easier than messing around in device manager, and it's an OS feature.

 

I haven't found such an icon in the tray. Perhaps you are referring to the NFC icon, or the wireless audio icon? I'll keep an eye out for it though.

 

NO. because when BT is enabled there is indeed a "bluethooth devices" icon in the taskbar - it has no option to disable the adapter. OTOH if I disable it via the device manager the BT icon disappears from the taskbar. There may be a registry key to make the missing option appear in the BT menu suppose. It is not a big deal. Just odd.

 

So it looks like the Spectre has two half-height mini-PCIe slots. One occupied by the bluetooth / wifi card and the other occupied by a "wireless audio module" (page 50 of the service guide). What is this "wireless audio module" used for?

Also, does HP restrict what wifi card can be used in the Spectre like they do with the DM1Z?

 

Oh right, if you check the box in the bluetooth options you can get the icon in the tray.

So in the device manager did the enumerator disappear when you disabled the BT? Just curious because mine did and I was curious as to whether this was normal. Thanks!

 

Yes it disappears leaving just the the "Intel centrino wireless BT 3.0 High speed adaptor". which is what I click on to disable/enable the device.

 

So it looks like the Spectre has two half-height mini-PCIe slots. One occupied by the bluetooth / wifi card and the other occupied by a "wireless audio module" (page 50 of the service guide). What is this "wireless audio module" used for?

Also, does HP restrict what wifi card can be used in the Spectre like they do with the DM1Z?

 

Lid open does not wake Spectre?

Lid Close = Sleep
Lid Open = Wakes only some of the time.

if I close the lid the Spectre goes to sleep and if I open it again within a short time period it will start up again. But if I leave it for a longer period and open the lid nothing happens? If I then press the power button it will start very quickly

I was under the impression that the intel rapid start technology prevented hibernation occurring and it is not set to trigger in my power management profile

So what is preventing the lid opening from starting the unit when it has been left for a while? Can I adjust something to make it always fire up on lid open if it is other than fully off.

 

Mine does that too, although I specified that I want hibernation in the options. Opening it quickly enough for me gives me the login screen instantaneously, but if I leave it closed for more than a few minutes then it has to come out of hibernation for a few seconds. If you click the battery icon, then the "more power options" link you get a window, on the left pane there will be a "choose what closing the lid does" link, there you could try to tinker with it so it doesn't hibernate, hope that works.

 

I left mine at the default lid action which is Sleep for both lid close on battery and plugged in. So what strikes me as odd is that is seems to initially sleep then after some period it hibernates. So I am forced to use hibernate regardless. I can live with that. Just a little annoying that is does not start up again when the lid is re opened after a longer period of being left.

PS just typing "lid" in the start menu is a quicker way to get there.

 

I had the same problem with sleep, not turning on after i opened the lid and i had to hit the power button. In the power settings, I set the turn harddrive off to never and it starts instantaneously and faster from sleep.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. Will give it a go on mine and report back. Hopefully it has the same effect here.

I notice that you have upgraded your RAM so you are obviously an expert at gutting the device. I am about to drop a second 128GB SSD into my i7. Can you recall if you were able to remove the battery without damaging or tearing the label/sticker. On mine the sticker extends beyond the battery to the case and I would like to be able to complete the process with the sticker intact.

 

Lol, no expert. Not the smoothest tear down. Was obsessed with changing the memory and couldnt turn back. Not sure I'd do it again. You have to peel the sticker up to remove the battery but not completely. Just be carefully if you try upgrading, a lot of cables, plus so many screws and you have to disconnect the wifi card and antennae. The battery is held by hex screws. I have the ifixit tool case which works well and its magnetized. Not sure i did it or poor build quality, but the glass palm rest is lifting a little, looks like its glued down.

 

Bummer about you palm rest.
If I read the service guide correctly, I think I only need remove the battery to get at the SSD bay. So hopefully it will be relatively minor surgery for me.

 

@lightbulb

When you opened it up, did you happen to notice if it had two mini-PCIe slots (one for the wifi/bluetooth card and another for the wireless audio card)?

 

I tried this with mine and it doesn't work. Set both s "HDD Off" to never for both battery and mains and I still have to use the power button to wake it after it has been left for some time. Will keep looking for a solution.

 

@IsLNdbOi-sorry not sure if there are 2, I know the network card was one that plugged in to the mainboard

@smeegle- I think i disabled hibernation and some other start up programs. Not sure what did it for me, but it bugged me that the reviews said it would wake up from sleep in 2 secs, I think there is some program causing a delay because I have no problems so far with sleep.

 

Anyone know what targus apa69 power tip this system takes?

According to their site it is suppose to be L111 however that does not appear to be the casee.

 

Lid Open not waking Spectre
What I see happening with mine is it will stay in sleep for ~ an hour (not sure exact time). In this period I can wake it by tapping the trackpad or or a key or opening the lid if closed. I can see it is in this mode because the power button is blinking.

However after the sleep period of about an hour the power light stops flashing and unit will only start by way of the power button. At this point it is, I believe switching to the Intel rapid start resume feature whereby the system state is in stored in the dedicated partition on the SSD. This is not hybernation when the state is stored in the hyberfil.sys file in the root of C:

At present I have disabled the Intel Rapid Start Technology in the bios to see if this changes anything.
Edit.....As far as I can tell, this is indeed the smoking gun and is the cause of the sleep mode becoming disabled after a time interval. Will report further once I have confirmed it.

 

Whenever this happens to me I just double-click the trackpad disable button to disable then double-click again to re-enable and then keep on working. No need to send the Spectre back.

 

how do you guys like the spectre? is it heavy to carry around with one hand?

 

I'm debating on getting the Spectre. TheVerge gave it an 8.0. I was initially dead set on the Samsung 15" Series 9, but it only got a 7.1 in the review. Plus through HP I can configure it with 2 x 128GB SSD's and core i7 (both not available on the Samsung). I also hear this has an IPS display?

So do you know if the 2 x 128GB SSD's are setup as a RAID-0? That sounds like killer performance. Or is it JBOD or two physically separate drive letters. If the motherboard supports raid and that's how its configured, this sounds like a SWEET setup. Its a $300 upgrade.

 

Upgrading Spectre from 128GB to 256GB

I just did the upgrade on my i7 this morning and here is what I found.

The HP part number for the 128GB SSD is 675508-001. It comes with a cable to connect the SSD board to the MB that you will not need to use. There is already one installed to connect both SSDs. Important - You will need to source a single PM2.0x 2.0 screw to fix the SSD module in place. This screw does not come in the part kit and you will need it to hold the SSD in properly. Guess they assume the part is for a repair where the screw will already be fitted to the failed part. I was lucky to have another lappy in pieces from which I could rob the screw.

It is a simple task to remove the 8 screws that hold the battery in place including the one hidden beneath a cable. It is well labelled with a “Screw here” sign. Ideally a magnetic torq T06 or some blue tack on the end, as it is fairly easy to drop several of the screws further into the guts of the unit. Unplug the white battery connector. I found I could lift the battery vertically then roll it over itself towards me, so as to get it out, without having to remove the large sticker that bridges between it and the main unit.



Pop the SSD module into the empty slot which is the rear one. Screw it in and put it all back together. Took me about half an hour, but really you could do it in ten minutes.

There are no options in my bios to enable RAID so this could perhaps mean it is not supported by the motherboard. Anyone care to comment?

Rebooted and the second 128GB SSD has appeared as a new 119 GB HDD, E:

Warning message "Administrator privileges required to copy files to this folder" on the new HDD, so had to go into its Properties > Security and edit the permissions to allow “Full control”. Then all good.

Cost:
$150 only because I am in Australia and they rip us off here. If you are in the US you can get the part for $97 which is an excellent deal. It was delivered to my door in a couple of days.

@KJSTech While my 2 x 128GB SSD's are setup as two physically separate drive letters I am not sure if this has to be the case. Will be interesting to hear from someone with a i7 256GB from the factory how their unit is configured.

 

Hi,

also have a spectre here.
Did you tried using the Intel Rapid Storage program (which should be already installed) to see if you have the possibility there to modify anything?
Only have one 128GB SDD here so I can't tell. . .

Is SATA III (6Gb/s) supported by the controller?

 

No, I didn't even know it was there. But just checked and there appears to be no options in the "manage" area to change anything. Even though the help discusses raid and expanding volumes across drives. perhaps the help is generic and not sytem specific.

Don't think so. In the advanced section it lists the SATA transfer rate at 3 Gb/s.

My preference would be to have the two 119 GB volumes combined into one. Will have to wait til we find someone with a Factory twin SSD build. So we can compare.

 

Maybe this information is only related to the SSD, since the rest is also related to the SSD, like size, model, etc.?

Edit: Searched in the Help: It only tells the speed between controller <-> SSD.

Try to find something in the help section.
Maybe it helps if you exectue the exe as administrator.
C:\Programs (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology\IAStorUI.exe

 

Nah. I can see the info in the help re raid. But nothing regarding raid in the programs interface or the Spectre's bios. Therefore I assume it is not supported.

Just a thought - Could it be that the factory built i7/256GB Spectre ships with a single 256GB SSD module instead of 2x128GB as I had assumed?

 

Hello all

well also just yesterday received my Envy 14 spectre.....
I am very happy so far but one question to the community hre...
The FAN Noise...when the fan of mine is operation on low speed it makes a bit of a whisteling sound - not very - but a bit annoying - is it "normal" meaning on all spectre´s ?

Thx fro your feedabck.

Else than that everything working very well - ok in reality I never reach 8 hrs battery life time - with normal usage (So not only reading) I get around 5-6 hrs .

Greetz

 

@Satego.x200
The I have acheived the 8+ hours by turning the screen brightness all the way down. turning off the wifi and bluetooth. disabling the proximity sensor, turning off the backlit keyboard, and turning off beats audio.

Still have know idea if can do 6Gbps...
however the 256 models do have 2x128 SSD that act as one drive.
I am not sure how to upgrade and make it act like this.

 

Do they really? I mean - do you know for a fact that the 256 has 2 x 128 SSDs fitted? I wonder if they might had a single 256GB SSD fitted therefore the single drive. I do hope that you are correct because that will mean I should be able to make my twin 128s work as one.

 

Yes I think it is "normal" for the Spectre. Everyone seems to report theirs as doing it. As an aside you can pretty much prevent the fan running at all if you keep the CPU temp below about 50C. There is a free tool called Core Temp that will allow you to see how warm the CPU is.

 

If Intel RST does not offer RAID as an option it doesn't look good for RAID-ing the two 128s. The RST program should give you a readout as to the transfer speed - 3Gb/s or 6. Just click on "Manage" at it shows it.

 

Just got my Spectre. There are 2 annoying problems with it:
1. Is the power connector supposed to be somewhat lose? Mine wiggles a little and comes off with minimal force. This is quite different from other regular HP power connectors.
2. The fan sounds like a jet engine. This is driving me nuts.

 

Don't think so and this sounds a bit odd to me. Mine is nice firm fit and never falls out. It is comprises two concentric cylinders. The inner the power connector proper about 1/2" long and a second alloy cylinder also around 1/2" of about twice the diameter (pencil thickness) that locates the lead in the laptop. Perhaps yours is missing the latter. Personally I thought the connector design to be good. The second cylinder makes it more robust than some of the other flimsy design like the Zenbook.

Cant argue with that. It is loud when it runs at hi speed.
About all you can do is to make sure that "Fan always runs" is off in the bios and to keep CPU temp down by not loading it up to much. So the fan does not run. Also turn Cool sense off and it will not run as frequently when the unit is not stationary.

 

how does the spectre perform for games? specifically diablo iii???

 

Ok, this was my fault. I was being too gentle to the connector, so the second cylinder didn't click in. It now fits snugly.

I really like the keyboard, trackpad and display of this notebook. Much better than other 14" laptops on the market, but I'm still undecided if I should keep this. It's a nice laptop, but knowing that you're paying as much as a Macbook Air is kind of depressing as there is zero value in non-Apple machines when I want to sell it for my next upgrade. I sold my beloved unibody Macbook for this beauty.

 

Spoke too soon. The backspace key got extremely squeaky and I couldn't fix it. Looks like this one's going back.

 

IMO, for what it's worth (FWIW?):

No laptop will retain resale value of a MacBook That said, one way to avoid too much depreciation is to be sure to buy with excellent discount - eg, when the Spectre finally qualifies for HP's 30% off coupon. Historically, new HP laptops - eg, the first Envy 14, 2010, with the original "Radiance" screen* started being included in coupons around 3-4 months after intro and I would predict that the Spectre will start to be discounted deeply in about the same time frame. There's just too much competition for it to retain it's premium-premium price - eg, the Samsung 900X3B equals or exceeds it in every respect at $1,399.

Sadly, early adopters - especially of HP products (not trolling here, I love HP stuff!) - get the double whammy of QC issues not sorted out and premium price not yet discounted. To avoid taking financial bath, you really need to wait for discount.

Keep in mind, the Spectre does have a far better screen and audio than the MBA, so if you don't need paper thin/lightest weight, the Spectre really is more bang for the buck - all the moreso when it will be available for $1,099 or less!

Do check out that Samsung - not the original Series 900X3 A, same model but 3 B. It's a total re-do, not a refresh and it's even thinner than an MBA but with much better screen and audio. It's been available on CircuitCity.com (clone site of TigerDirect these days) for as low as $1,299 with 128GB SSD/4GB/1600X900 PLS (same basic tech as IPS, which the Spectre screen is not), allegedly excellent audio. See this review

I still love the Spectre because it is the most unusual and elegant design of a laptop - ever!


*(seems that the Spectre's is pretty much the same screen, same specs; don't know why it took them over a year to have it made by someone when their previous supplier went belly-up late 2010 )

 

Wonder if they're going to update the Spectre w/ Ivy Bridge and HD4000.

 

Squeaky! Now that's a first. Never heard of that before.

 

D3 should work according to the minimum requirements, but can't confirm since I don't have a Beta account.
Dota 2 / Leage of Legends works ok on the spectre (i5).

@FAN Noise:
It's quite noisy when playing games, but normal usage is ok! (office, virtual machines and other programs).
I have deactivated HP CoolSense. Works better for me. Noise is more annoying than a little bit higher temperature.

 

Well I'm happy to come back to the Radiance screen with this model I just bought a couple of hours ago..

First impressions are really nice, including packaging and presentation, screen is better than expected but worse than I hoped for.

Keyboard is the same if not better than the Envy 14 first gen. I'm really starting to like the glass palm rests. They're comfortable.

Only thing that I find funny is how Cyberlink DVD came installed with the machine, where there is no drive! I had a good lol about this.

 

I have been enjoying my E14S for about 3 weeks now. Overall I am happy with it.

I am a bit disappointed in the Intel Rapid Start Technology. Maybe I do not understand it properly. But is seems to me that its main benefit of Intel Rapid Start is allowing the unit to wake from suspend/sleep for several weeks while on battery. But is does this at the expense of a true rapid start on screen open.

So you have a choice of disabling Intel Rapid Start Technology in the bios and using Windows inbuilt Sleep feature which will allow the unit to wake in about 2 seconds when you open the lid . This is really convenient. Downside it that after 2 or 3 days the battery will drain and you will need a power supply to get going again. However the sleep state will get written to hyberfil.sys and the unit will recover when you provide it with power.

OTOH if you use the default arrangement and keep Intel Rapid Start Technology enabled.... the unit will wake on screen open for the first hour or two after you put it to sleep. But thereafter, somewhat annoyingly it will need a press of the power button and a much slower wake which sometimes take 15sec to get it up and going. It will however last in this state for several weeks on a single battery which may be of benefit to someone. From what I gather this relatively slower start is the Intel Rapid Start process recovering sleep state from the SSD.

If you have used hibernate at some stage and revert to using Intel Rapid Start you can regain about 3GB of SSD space by deleting hyberfil.sys although you need to do this from an elevated command prompt. Otherwise hyberfile.sys will spontaneously return and pinch 3GB if you just delete if from explorer.


To get an elevated command prompt. Orb > cmd > CNTRL/SHFT/ENTER
POWERCFG -H OFF
Will remove hibernate form menu and gain you 3GB by deleting hyberfil.sys
POWERCFG -H ON
to reverse this step and enable Hybernate again. These commands are case sensitive.

 

I'm now coding heavily on my machine and loving it. I've installed cygwin and have zero complaints about battery life coming from a MBA 11".

Screen resolution and clarity is amazing for long nights with walls of code.


The sound is the best I've found on any laptop, and after some tweaking sounds better than (headphones) my asus transformer with the patched kernel.


I do wish the keyboard backlight came in different levels, maybe I'm missing something.

In all honesty, this is a laptop I can enjoy for the screen, sound and battery, as well as be proud of as not a MB clone.

I was holding out for the Yoga, but I have a feeling we won't be seeing those laptops until late summer. As well as knowing this is probably the best of the best for the dGPU'less Sandy clones.

 

It comes in three levels. Hold down F5 and tap page up/down.

Interested in your positive comments about the sound. I am definitely no muso, & have no real understanding of how to adjust the beats graphic equaliser other than trial and error, but I find the speaker a sound light on for bass. To my mind the sound is a bit tinnie. But I have some Beats head phones on the way that came as freebie. Maybe this will improve things for me.