*HP ENVY 17 & 17 3D (1XXX series) Owners Lounge*

Hi Guys

Right - an update for the UK people on here:

Spoke to HP this morning who said that the Envy 17 (1050-EA) will be available in the UK before the end of July. They won't necessarily be available from HP direct but will be in stores (Amazon UK, Pcworld, Comet) by then.

The UK model cannot be configured and they don't do a CTO (Configure to Order) model in the UK and won't do for the foreseeable future. This is a pretty crap considering virtually every other manufacturer does allow configuration.

Also, Using the part/model numbers that Yellojello kindly provided I checked and HP will not support the Envy 17 US model (1011-NR) either directly or through service partners so it represents a higher risk to international purchasers of the US model.

The spec of the UK model is:

Featuring Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium for a superior digital entertainment experience
An Intel Core i7 720QM processor for incredible performance
4GB memory for top system performance
500 GB Hard Drive for storing all your digital files
A 17.3" Full High Definition Anti-Glare LED display
ATI Mobility Radeon HD5850
Create silkscreen-quality disc labels with LightScribe, watch movies and more with the Double Layer SuperMulti DVD±RW and watch the latest High-Definition content on the Blu-Ray player

I think I'm gonna buy the UK model then upgrade the memory and hdd through Crucial UK to bring it closer to the spec I wanted from the US.


Anyway hope that helps

Cheers, Andy

 

Much better than the Australian model, which is also not CTO. At least you get BDROM and HD screen, we are stuck with DVDROM and 1600x900 screen, which are hard/impossible to upgrade. The RAM and HDD are easy to upgrade. So I wouldn't be complaining too much if I were you

 

lol yeh its not too bad for the UK, I dunno why HP sell this way for international sales - doesnt make any sense to me but then again I'm not a HP sales mgr so I guess they have their reasons

 

Jaxxy - you have to be joking. Your resolution on your laptop is limited only to 1600 x 900????

 

Anyone else feel that the keyboard kinda lags alittle when typing ?
I dont think its actually a lag, but rather that the keys are very soft and a bit hard to press down in a strange way.

Or somekind of jelly feeling.

 

I returned it to shop where i bought it so i have no idea why it died. But i can describe what happened:

Day1:
------

• I noticed that windows performance index did not work so i reinstalled it with the aid of ABR and swsetup folder
• After the reinstall everything worked fine and i started a long gaming session with stalker cs, crysis and fear
• The envy was lukewarm all day

Day2:
------

• Browsed drivers on HP's site, updated bios from F06 to F07
• Continued to game all day (stalker cs, crysis, fear)
• At the end of the day i noticed that the envy started to get extremely hot (frying eggs hot) and i got a couple of BSOD's (bccode 7e)

Day3:
------

• The BSODS started to come more frequently when gaming until it died completely
• Contacted the dealer who accepted the return for a full refund

I don't know if its a coincidence the problems started after the update from bios F06 to F07 or if the bios is the culprit. Since everyone else reported that there envys got cooler after the bios update i think i simply got a bad envy17.

 

Hi stefanp67

Where you using a cooling pad while you were gaming?

 

No cooling pad.

 

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...

Meaning new generation Envy seems to have the same heat problems as the old generation. You didnt even have a I7 CPU and it still got too hot.

Envy 17 = A gaming laptop that cant do gaming without overheating.

 

HP shipped my convection oven today. One day before the scheduled ship by date. Arriving on the 20th.

 

@stefanp67

It's possible that the heat sinks on your Envy were not making proper contact with the CPU or GPU. Thus, this would cause heat buildup in the space between the heat sink bottom and CPU or GPU.

Without proper heat transfer to the heat sink, the heat would dissipate to the next best possible medium; air. Thus, your Envy killed itself in a fiery death.

The Envy 17 does get hotter than the Envy 15 gen2, but it is manageable.

 

Metril,
Agreed. I too thought about a failure in a thermal paste contact point.

 

I was also thinking something like that. I guess the heatsink must have come unstuck somehow at the end of day 2 since it worked fine and suddenly started overheating and bluescreening.

 

The heat sink can't come unstuck just like that. Most probably, your processor was cooking during the 2 days you used it. As it keeps cooking, the processor's internal resistance actually increases. Thus the motherboard detects a voltage drop and ups the voltage to compensate. The cycle continues and the processor degrades.

In other news, I am in the market for a new kidney. I am willing to give you 10% of the profits. Just let me know whether to take the left or the right and I'll be sure to take them both. Sorry, only checks.

I got to pay for my computer expenses somehow.

 

I thought there was a built-in thermal protection and that the CPU & GPU would be throttled down when approaching maximum operating temperatures?

If the heatsink would become separated from the CPU or GPU, then their reported temperatures would throttle down the system, no?

 

Recovery disks take a while... 5 dvds!

Anyways, this is my first time with a Slot Loading drive, is everyone else getting light scratches on the discs? I think from loading/unloading, not circular spinning scratches.

 

"...Since everyone else reported that there envys got cooler after the bios update" - Actually BennyPac ran several benchmarks before & after updating the BIOS on his Envy_17 here and reported:

 

Does anyone use the envy 17 for school? How did it work out? Also, does the bing cash back apply to canadian adresses as well, and will it ever get back to 30%?

And how does the 5830 compare to the 5850? I was originally set on a gx640, but the envy is SO sexy that if i can get it at the same price, i'd definately choose it hands down.

 

Just wanted clarification...

A clean Windows 7 install is done with a Windows 7 DVD or ISO from one of the stickied threads, not using the Recovery Discs... correct? Thanks.

 

Correct,,,,

 

I haven't had any overheating issues at all. I haven't used a cooling pad or anything. I have played WoW fully juiced for several hours at a time and no issues. Palm gets warm but not hot to the point of me having to move my hand. Only part that is actually "hot" is the exhaust on the side but not scalding hot. Within 10 minutes of my exiting the game it is back to normal temps. Seems to working fine for me!

 

What were your numbers? What temps do you consider "normal" and "hot"?

 

BennyPac, did you notice CPU throttling that metril mentioned here when you ran your CPU + GPU stress tests?

 

Truth is I didn't think to track that metric when I did my tests. That said, after my tests and after reading here about this variable clock by the i7--which I have a vague memory of reading about some months ago--I upgraded my gadget, CPU Usage--in fact I did so just a few days ago.

The latest version of CPU Usage includes the CPU speed.

You can find this gadget here. You want version 3.0 (or later). You will see speed (labeled, Clock) and % activity in the top of the gadget window:
Most Wanted Windows Gadgets - Windows Vista and Windows 7

Over the last few days, I have noticed the CPU speed vary from 1600 Mhz @ 0% - 20% CPU to 9nn Mhz @ 35% CPU.

Note: I have NOT seen a direct correlation between CPU speed and CPU usage. Sometimes I see 1600 Mhz @ 40% CPU and sometimes I see 1000 Mhz at 20% CPU. Yes, high speed with relatively high % CPU usage.

Either there is a lag in the CPU Usage display or I am seeing the natural lag between the CPU's activity that generates heat that remains after the activity diminishes and triggers the CPU's response to heat which is a reduction in the CPU speed.

I have made NO effort to correlate CPU speed with core temperatures, but this is an interesting idea.

By the way, with the exception of my stress tests described here, I rarely push the CPU to > 45%. This is true even though I may be watching an HD TV show (external tuner) and processing another HD TV recording (VideoRedo software) and browsing with Firefox.

I don't game.

I mention this because my CPU speed varies under this workload. Since I know this behavior is designed into the chip and my computing activity is still much faster than my prior hp dv9700, I am sanguine.

I will casually monitor speed and heat to see if anything interesting suggests more systematic testing.

 

'

Yea it's frustrating why HP don't offer CTO outside of the US. The NZ model 1006-TX and now 1019-TX were also very low-end. But luckily I now have a close to maxed out Aus model that works great.

 

Yes it sux...although as I have not seen the HD screen, I don't really know what I am missing, ignorance is bliss?

 

I'm having trouble getting my Vertex 2 to work. It doesn't seem to be recognised as a drive.

Can you tell me the steps you went through to get yours up and running?

Or anyone else help?

 

Are you referring to the Envy17 in general as the "new generation" or in fact the new generation of Envy17s?

 

New review of E17 on youtube, search "hp envy 17 review" 4min 20sec video.

 

I'm getting your last session status from Youtube with that link mate

 

Thanks and sorry, now I have corrected the post.

 

Where?

Why not simply repost the correct link? (preview your post & make sure the link works)

 

I'm sure someone on here will be able to help me..

I have inserted OCZ Vertex2 drive into the primary bay. Booted Windows 7 from DVD drive using upgrade software. SSD isn't found/displayed on drive screen during Windows setup.
It is recognised in the BIOS as I can do a hard drive test and it works on the SSD in the primary bay.
But not found during Windows install.

Why.. how to fix this??

 

Because I am using the iPhone and the previous link is correct from my phone but wrong for you, so you can do the search written on my post #2581 find the correct link and post it in the right version.
Thanks and sorry for inconvenience.

 

I was thinking of buying an Asus G73 to replace my broken Envy17 but after reading the Asus section i see that even those have problems with overheating, gsods, bsods and doa's. I am gonna go bother the G73 lounge and see what i can dig up.

 

Anyone able to help out?

 

This is from a previous post of mine: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...hp-envy-17-owners-lounge-202.html#post6384903

This is another for the GPU: http://forum.notebookreview.com/6353797-post1608.html

 

Such an unfortunate fuss over what is a lame review--more of an ad, really.

Here's the link: YouTube - HP ENVY 17 Review

 

Has anyone found a source for a cable for the second hard drive?

I ordered with a single drive thinking it would be easy to upgrade later; it easy was for the DV7 and DV8. $80 for the kit from HP is way too high.

I could likely hack something for the caddy but the cable is harder. Any found one?

Unrelated note: the DV8 with i7 was even hotter than the Envy 17. The DV7 with i5 was much cooler. I ordered the Envy with the i5 after that experience and it's not as cool as the DV7/i5 but quite acceptable. Since the CPU is not soldered, I will consider a swap out when the 35nm i7's come out. But given the DV7/i5 comparison, I suspect much of the heat is the packaging and GPU. Too bad about no GPU switching.

 

What would be really awesome is an option for a less powerful GPU for the next gen Envy17s...

 

Staff at NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks have told me that they are working on Envy 17 brackets (they use the term, "caddy").

As of the following, older, post of mine, they were waiting for their own Envy 17 to allow them to do the design: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/484905-official-hp-envy-17-owners-lounge-160.html#post6353463

As of now, an Envy 17 caddy is not yet listed on their site.

Until it is, this old post of mine offers detailed pictures of what you don't want to spend ~ $100.00 on . . . for the dreamers amongst us: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/484905-official-hp-envy-17-owners-lounge-144.html#post6345922

 

Anyone who thinks "1600 by 900, which is more than enough for a 17 inch screen" is not qualified to do a laptop review imo...

 

I think you will find complaints on any forum For what it is worth, although I am a happy envy 17 user and do not find the heat bad at all (even when gaming), I am SURE that the Asus G73 should be even better in that department. It's got more size and weight to put in a better cooling system.

 

Not sure at all, as far as I know there is no special driver required for the OCZ Vertex 2 -> it should look like any normal hard drive to your install DVD.

For my SSD upgrade I did it differently, for what it's worth. I used the Intel 160gb SSD drive but did not use any upgrade DVDs to reinstall... I just cloned my original boot drive using Acronis True Image.

After that I booted up with no issues

 

I do believe 1600 x 900 is more than enough for a 17 inch screen myself. People buy (and still have) 720p HDTV's around the house. 720p is 1280x720, and some would be fine with that. However, 1600x900 is taking the same 16:9 ratio and making it bigger. To me, 1080p is almost unneccesary for a laptop. It also cuts down on a lot of FPS for games like crysis or BFBC2.

I have an e17 on order, and it's got the 1080p LED display, but I believe that consumers should purchase an external monitor if they really want to be comfortable with 1080p and higher. My current laptop is a 15.6" nc8430 with 1680x1050, and I honestly have not been comfortable with how small the everything appears.

I think the HP DV7's are very nice after seeing them in stores, and they have only 1600x900 displays. I actually miss those bronze models.

Just my two cents.
-Ian

 

Agreed.

Anyways, I was kind of sad switching from 1920x1200 to 1920x1080...

...I just finished a clean install, and Windows booted into 800x600... then I switched back to 1920x1080... I don't feel sad anymore!

Actually, 1920x1080 is still nice... the problem was that the Envy out of the box had the 1920x1080 at Medium (125%) font display, but after switching back to Smaller (100%) font display, it looks like the real deal.

 

I know this flies in the face of an "engineering solution", but you can affect the same thing by just dialing down the graphical settings on your games. This will have the effect of lowering the GPU temps since it's not being stressed as much. If you were downgrading the GPU, most likely you'd have had to downgrade the graphical settings anyway.

 

No kidding!! I hate it when they give you a "non-standard" windows setup out of the box.

They had the desktop font at 125% and then my Internet Explorer default seemed to be at 80%... very bizarre.

 

Did anyone else get the Square Trade extended warranty for their Envy? I'm actually considering it because of the possible heat causing problems in the future. Has anyone used Square Trade before?

 

I haven't seen many reviews of the envy 17, so users what r ur thoughts? would u recommend it? i heard about heat issues..