HP ENVY 15 unusually high heat in palm rest?

Hello all,
I just received my new envy 15 today. I love everything about it...accept that it's hot as heck! Especially the right palm rest. It's at least double or more the heat of the left one, which is really not hot at all. I have the lowest core i5 - 450 i think. My first question is what is in this area of the laptop?? GPU?

Secondly, is this normal? Also, when I run MSI afterburner it shows the GPU at 50 degrees at idle...while doing nothing. Is that normal? The fan control is blacked out and it does not display on the graph. So, is this all normal? Is the envy palm rest really just that hot? I'm really hoping there is a problem that can be fixed because I love this laptop!
*i should note that this is a second gen envy 15, brand new*

 

Yeah, I had that same setup and mine was that hot too, but it wasn't really the palm rests that bothered me, it was the bottom. Not getting anything that hot near my balls.

I returned mine and got an Envy 14 instead.

 

I'm just starting to notice those horizontal lines on the screen too! Is that a common problem? I guess this will be going back I would love to get the envy 14 but $300 for the screen upgrade is too much I'm afraid. There aren't any issues with horizontal lines on the envy 14 radiance display are there?

 

I replied to your PM but its your HDD. I have SSD and have no heat on the right palm rest.

Also that sucks with regards to the horizontal lines! God I am glad I didnt get that issue, it would cost me a fortune sending it back to the US

 

I also have SSD and no heat on the right palm rest. If I run demanding apps while on AC power for an extended period, (especially if overclocked), the left side palm rest (which is where the CPU is located) gets quite hot, but the right side (where the drive bay is located) stays cool. I usually use the Zalman NC1000 cooler when plugged into AC and if I want to use it on my lap for an extended period I sometimes use the slice battery as insulation.

Regarding the horizontal lines, are you talking about screen tear? That has to do with the 60 Hz refresh rate for your display conflicting with the frame rate for videos or games. Most media players and games have vertical sync settings that should reduce or eliminate screen tear. You may also want to check to see if you are updated to the latest Catalyst Suite and video driver.

 

It's the hdd?? Wow it is incredibly hot...hot enough to return I think. But the horizontal lines...they are there all the time. In the bios, on the desktop background etc... I did notice that my monitor refresh rate is set at 59hz instead of 60hz. When I set it to 60 and apply and then go back in, it still says 59. I did update to most recent catalyst drivers (from ati's site) and no change. These lines are super tiny and thin, and you have to be pretty close to see them... but once you notice them you can't stop seeing them!
They look like tiny thin white lines repeating horizontally across the entire display.

Anyway...it's looks like I might be going with the e14. Is there any heat issues what so ever on the e14 with core i5??

 

The E14 does run cooler, but you will notice a hit in performance if you game.
That said I can even game with the E14 on my lap as long as I dont block the bottom vent.

Have you considered getting an SSD for the E15?

 

Ok, that does not sound like screen tear. Screen tear is when there are invisible horizontal lines that may appear during 1080p video playback, for example, where the camera is panning horizontally and the frame rate for the video conflicts with the refresh rate of the display. The screen tear lines don't have any color, they are just a very thin line where the image in the frame is slightly shifted. Perhaps you have a hardware display problem. Especially since you mentioned they are visible in the desktop and BIOS screens. Screen tear only appears during video playback or gaming, as far as I know.

 

Ok. So it might be a bad screen which a replacement might fix. How about the heat issues from other e15 owners. Is High temps in the right palm rest def normal? An easy point of reference is, is it at least twice as hot as the left palm rest...either when idle or doing something? I really like the envy 15 besides these 2 issues and if a replacement could fix them I would much prefer the e15 over the e14.

I wish the e14 kept the design features of the e15 such as, single piece deck lid (not separate keyboard cut out), no back-light on lid, no optical drive, and hinge design (seems sturdier than the 2 separate hinge design). Basically an e15 with the cooling of an e14!

 

I don't know if the e14 necessarily has better cooling, I think it's mainly the processor and (non-switchable) 5830 GPU in the e15 that generates more heat in a thinner package (1.04" vs 1.11"). The metal chassis actually acts as a sort of heat sink, so unfortunately, the hotter it gets externally, the better it is cooling the interior.

In my case, apparently due to the SSD, the right palm rest is always much cooler than the left side. When running demanding apps on AC power, it becomes hot near the AC plug, along the left edge of the keyboard and in the area of the left palm rest. I imagine the i5 processor would generate less heat in this area than the i7-820QM.

 

It is completely normal for that area of the palm rest to get warmer than the left side. As noted, it is due to the HD dissipating its heat through the body. It is actually a good thing when all things are considered. Every laptop heats up in different areas. My girlfriends MBP heats up just as much but in different spots.

 

When people say "this thing is scorching", I think that some actual quantitative numbers would be useful. Buy a cheap thermometer, or one of those kick- IR gun thermometers and post the numbers. When people say "it's hot enough to scorch" that means that the temperature has to be in the 140+ degree mark.

I'm getting this data from the 'MIL-STD-1472D, "Human Engineering Design Criteria for Military Systems, Equipment, and Facilities" Paragraph 5.13.4.6, Thermal Contact Hazards' - ie the system the US Military argues items must adhere to. Well, the 140+ is for momentary contact - prolonged contact is 120+ degrees.

So just how how is the case of your laptop getting? I'm quite impressed that you can tell "twice as hot". I certainly can't. What scale are you measuring on?

 

WOW really? Thanks for the useful input. I guess I should restate my question. Does the right palm rest feel hotter than the left one on your envy 15? Just to clarify I'm only looking for peoples subjective opinions on this. Thanks.

 

So I guess it's the hdd...It's too hot for me to keep the envy 15. Anyone have a comparison of an envy 14 with a non ssd? Is the heat any better in the palm rests? Thats kind of a deal killer for me.

 

As people have said, "hot" is subjective. That said, yes the right palm rest will be warmer than the left. However, I have never felt that it is so warm that my wrists would sweat, unless I had been gaming for a while. A good amount of the heat comes from the hard drive, but some of it does come from the GPU which is located on the same side. If I run some Flash which clocks up my GPU for hardware acceleration, the right side would get warmer, even though the hard drive isn't being taxed.

50 C for the gpu at idle is a bit high. I don't know what your ambient temps are, but for reference, the hottest it's been this summer for me was about 97 F and I remember my GPU would idle in the low 40 C. Right now I'm sitting in a 65 F room web browsing and the GPU is at 37 C. The right palmrest feels mildly warm, but my hands are also kinda cold.

I can't say much about the Envy 14 but it should run a lot cooler at least on integrated graphics. I know some people with MPB 15s and they run very cool on integrated, cooler than my Envy, but they do get quite toasty on dedicated graphics.

 

Yes I have been afflicted with the dreaded "scorched groin" in the past when running FCP for an extended period on my wife's MBP. ;-)

 

Exactly...

 

The problem is the heats on the palm rest. I could deal with it anywhere else on the laptop...but not the area I'm touching most. I could care less if the bottom or near the back etc is hot... but I don't want sweaty palms when I'm surfing the web

 

It's warmer, sure. I have the SSD +spindle drives (160+250). While gaming, I definitely feel the warmth on the right side. It's not unbearable, however, mostly because most of my games are mouse driven - the left side isn't too hot for me to rest my wrist on. I've almost never actually put the laptop in my lap for any extended period of time (though today, I was skyping with my sister, and the underside was warm, but not overly so. I'd estimate about 80-85F, but then again, I'm a bad judge of heat.

Usually, if I'm using the laptop on my "lap", I put on the extended slice battery. That has the added benefit of making a nearly unobstructable air vent all the away around the base of the laptop. Plus, I can put it on my lap while I surf the intartubes in bed without any "fear" of covering up any vent holes. In that case, the bottom never really feels warm to the touch to me.

I apologize for any "scolding" I might have come across as typing. I'm just tired of people claiming that a laptop is way too hot when there's no actual data to suggest what's considered warm or cool. I can say that the Envy 15 is, when under load, quite a bit cooler than my wife's MBP 15" (last model to have a removable battery). Now her laptop is too hot to hold on my lap while, for example, playing WoW. No, I sadly don't have any actual heat numbers to back it up, but it's so warm that I can't actually hold it on my lap for any appreciable amount of time - it's about as hot as my Radeon 4850's heatsink is under normal conditions.

 

I guess I've never really owned a laptop where the palm rests even got warm. I have a feeling the envy 14 might have the same level of warmth if the hdd is in the same spot. I think it was so hot yesterday because I had just received the laptop and was adding / removing software like a madman...and it was freakin hot! Today I fired it up and just surfed the web...while still too hot for my tastes it was certainly cooler than yesterday.

I had the newly refreshed macbook pro 13" and just surfing the web and watching some flash the palm rests were cool to the touch. Thats what I am looking for...but I don't like osx so I sold the macbook Also I'm looking for something with a little better gpu.