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

Probably just a little price war with NewEgg.

 

I am really thinking of getting this at 1499. But do you think it is worth it? I have read a lot of issues for the envy 17.

 

they didn't have a clear understanding of the problem in the first place.
i was very detailed, told them the issue. they wrote down 'noisy drive' in the service order (when i look at it online, that's what it says). i went out of my way to call them and tell them that's not the problem, i also went out of my way to write a paragraph about it and include with the laptop. i also wrote the serial # on the paper where i described the problem. they didn't replace the drives either, because there's a sticker with the serial number on each hdd caddy.

so they went up to the bottom of my notebook with a screwdriver ! .. i remove the drive & memory panels with a plastic cell phone pry tool, never scratched it. gives a glimpse about their post-sales attitude.

i don't recall which department it was. but every time i'm speaking to someone with a heavy indian or indonesian accent, all i hear is apologies, wasted time, nothing getting done.

today i spoke to someone in north america. she told me that someone will call me back from the department that manages/handles these issues and has authority to replace/upgrade machines. i believed her because as i was on hold the phone hung up and she called me back to try to get me thru.

if the matter don't get resolved tomorrow, i am going to seriously consider putting something up on consumerist. i'll also email the ceo (i doubt she'll care until i mention consumerist and bad publicity, i'm sure then they'll wake up).

guess whether ppl have problems or not with products, corporations don't care much about you after you spent your money with them ...

 

I honestly don't know how HP or specifically the ENVY model stack up against other brands/models when it comes to % of defective laptops leaving the facility but I can say this: From reading online, you'd think that every brand and every model was complete crap. Why? Because the people who get a lemon are the most vocal.

I recently got my ENVY and this is the first time I can recall talking about its quality online, mainly because I haven't had many issues with it. Speaking specifically on the 3 main issues out there:

Warped Chassis/"Rocking" Issue - After reading about others with this issue i decided to try it for myself. I did see evidence of very minor warping but all five feet stay on my desk so as far as I'm concerned it's not an issue.

Heat - If you're getting ANY core i7 laptop I would gladly call you an idiot if you don't expect it to get hot. That's how I feel about the heat complaints; people need to be more realistic. Burn yourself hot is another thing, but warm to the touch under light use and uncomfortable under heavy use are just something that comes with the territory.

Chassis gaps - I swear my gaps were bad initially and have closed mostly down over the last couple weeks. When I first got it I was pretty leery about them but really didn't want to send it back in after the long wait. Now they are still noticeable in a couple places (esp over the VGA port) but seem to have quite magically gotten better to the point where the worst parts can barely accommodate a thin fingernail. I suspect that some careful work with a mallet could even get it looking better than this. Now I'm not at all saying that this is an acceptable issue--just one that, if you really like the features and design of this laptop, you can probably overlook.

 

Hello world. (and forum users)

As you can see I am new to these forums, but hope to become a regular as I have just purchased a new and sexy envy 17 which I am very excited about. Welcome me into the ranks of awesomeness among you all.

I'll tell you how my first experiences go once I get it. I expect to have it in my hand by next Monday. I am just too excited, that I made a forum ID and everything before even getting the computer. I have done months and months of research on differing notebooks and came to this notebook and the ultimate in sleekness and performance.

good day to all.

 

I just received my laptop today and I have to wait until I am back home to unwrap my Christmas Gift as I am out of state and will be flying in tomorrow night. I had my wife send me a picture of the box and it was nicely boxed from Newegg and there are no signs of abuse from shipping. Once I get home, I will attempt to take an unboxing video as well as a video of the unit to show if there are any noticeable gaps or anything that is mentioned. I do hope that it is a good one right out of the box.

As far as heat - I will have to run a few applications and also take a video of that and give my input as for the heat, but I also have an older laptop that gets pretty hot now, and it is bearable - although a little hot at times, but bearable.

It is pretty funny how some have mentioned it was too hot to touch, but at the same time, my usage is not going to be gaming, but I will be using multiple software applications for Photography Editing and some minor video editing. I really hope that it is all it is supposed to be, and I am pretty sure that it will be. I will try to give a full report by this weekend as my wife and kids will be flying to Texas and I will have more time to do the unboxing and give my 2 cents worth.

I hope to find out more information on BIOS update and also try to figure out how to take out some of the software that I will not be using and also the 30 day trials as I would not need them.

Stay Tuned!

 

wow so no one answered my questions huh ohh well so much for helping others

 

Sammy, I am not sure what the question was, but I did go back a page or two and saw that you had asked about the shipping. I ordered mine from Newegg and opted out from HP as I got a WAY better deal with all of the upgrades from Newegg, and when I placed my order last Friday, they shipped it out and since I live literally about 15 miles from Newegg, I received my laptop today. Only issue is I am not at home and my neighbor received my laptop and gave it to my wife when she got home. Looks like I will be opening my box tomorrow night after I fly back into California.

As for shipping to New York, I would check to see if HP sent you a tracking number as I am not sure where they would be shipping your laptop from. Worst case scenario, I would believe you should get it by tomorrow or by Wednesday if they did ship it out on Friday.

Best of luck to you, and I hope as well that I received a good working and good craftsmanship laptop. I will post my views tomorrow and will try to upload video of the unboxing and also some video of me powering up the laptop for the very first time.

I had been searching for more videos on youtube and have not come across any that had any powering up for the first time, so I am hoping that I will be able to load them up by this weekend. As soon as I do, I will post a link so others can see.

 

Got mine from newegg last week. Didn't know about this forum until after purchase. Anyways got lucky. No wobble and not noticable gaps.

But after putting in a corsair ssd and updating the bios I am getting no hard disk messages when I first boot. But if I press ctrl alt del it will boot up immediately. Anyone have any ideas?

 

The second drive bay looks slimmer because like Poryhack stated, a strip of overhang covers a portion of the hdd bay. However, there should be no problems installing the second drive once it's attached to the caddy. And yes, both caddies are physically different, so you'll need to buy the correct one ( reference). It seems like NewmodeUS does a good job of labeling their products, and because both caddies look different, you shouldn't run into any problems come time to place your order.

FYI, the second drive SATA connector port is "hidden" in the RAM bay. Unscrew the RAM bay cover and you'll see the port right next to the RAM and under the WiFi card ( photo). This machine is definitely intended for two HDDs/SSDs.

 

Hello ENVY users!

I want to buy a 9-cell battery for my ENVY (in Europe it doesn't come with 9-cell) and found this one on EBAY: Genuine Battery HP Pavilion dm4-1000 dm4t Envy 17 PC (aukcja 260646776709) - aukcje eBay.pl | Zakupy bez granic!

However the voltage is 11.1V whereas on the 9-cell on HP's website its 10.8V. Can I still buy the battery or the difference is too high?

 

not sure how this ties in to me ... but gl ... i hear things about newegg stockpiles.

after observing this thread i think the best bet for an envy shopper is to buy direct from hp. that way u kno ur getting the most recent build of components.

prebuilt systems hitting places at discounted prices, who knows what problems to expect. i somewhat trust amazon, they delivered me a defect-free tv that retailed for 3000 and i paid 1250.

more often than not, a deal thats too good to be true is just that.

 

thank you so much for the info ^^ its just been frustrating for me that day so i kinda took out on anybody on the forum that made me feel like a jerk ...

i shouldnt get the worst feelings best out of me i got the other day to ruin it for others like that so my apologize for that remark

 

@metril

Can you test the temps with the Cryo LX vs NC3000? If it is only 1 or 2 degrees difference, I would go for the more silent NC3000... but if its a lot, than Cryo LX for sure.

 

I can't test it anytime soon because I'm leaving for campus in less than 1.5 days and I won't be able to get in touch with my friend that quickly.

It's not just a 1-2 degree difference from what I saw when I tried the NC3000 vs Cryo. The Cryo lowers the GPU and CPU about 5-6C and hard drive temps about 3-4C.

 

Ordered the Envy 17-1011 from Newegg. Should be delivered today, but I'm on the road for work until Friday.

Does anyone have any opinions on this 128GB SSD on sale for $200 at Newegg. I'm thinking about swapping out one of the 320 GB HDDs for this to use as my C:// drive. I've never done anything like this before, and am trying to look out for any caveats.

Newegg.com - WD SiliconEdge Blue SSC-D0128SC-2100 2.5" 128GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - SSD

Thoughts?

 

Hi, fellow Envy 17 owners! Today my Envy 17 arrived, but didn't have much time to play with it.

So far, what i remarked:
- no wobble
- little keyboard flex, the way it's meant to be i suppose
- no dead pixels
- noisier than my pre-unibody MBP when idle
- trackpad not as good as MBP's, but it's better than from what I've read
- OS HDD full of HP bloatware...

I have two 500GB HDD's installed, will replace one of them with Crucial C300 64GB SSD that should arrive later this week.

In the following thread, someone has a problem with his OCZ Vertex 2 SSD (SandForce!): Support Question My HP Envy 17 freezes with Vertex 2 installed......

Luckily I ordered another SSD?

 

@smason

Could you do me a quick favor? Before you reformat and install the SSD, please go to the control panel on the factory installed Windows 7. Navigate to the HP 3D Driveguard panel and tell me how many drives it has listed there, what they are called, and whether they are supported or not.

Thanks!

 

unexpected shipping delay im really angry with hp...

can anyone give me advice on how they can ship my envy fast? i really need my laptop quick...

since its there fault can they do one day shipping? can i ask them too? i need to know the answer by end of today so i can call them up for one day shipping tomorrow...

shipping revised date is august 20th 2010. i have to wait for another week now which is fn ridiculous..

 

They emailed me a $25 coupon/store credit when my laptop was late. If you don't see anything or if you wanna upgrade shipping I recommend calling.

 

There is no one day shipping. If your order is delayed, they should automatically up the shipping speed, but do call them.

 

has anyone had any issues with the 1011NR model ? anyone got one from Amazon and using it now ?

 

@metril

thanks i really appreciated that because im fed up with hp now. i was supposed to get my notebook this week which i really need it for but this was so unexpected.

@ Poryhack

did your laptop arrived earlier for delayed shipping? i got a 50$ off coupon code for the delay. which i will never use. id guess i have to stay home till tuesday and Wednesday next week. 2 days off from work not good at all

 

Not sure what you mean. It came via "standard" shipping service. No express or anything similar. There's a way you can presign for delivery so you don't have to sit and wait for it. Check the FedEx website.

 

Anyone having troubles getting dolby digital out over HDMI?

 

@zero7404

there are a few of us who have the Amazon model 1011NR, i forgot, but u can search through this thread... for me, my first one had a dead pixel, but no wobble. I'm on my second one, and no problems, no wobble. Someone else said they had a wobble with theirs. It is hit or miss I guess, because I compared the batch numbers and it seemed like my first and second one were from the same batch.

 

I decided to purchase one from Amazon today!! Nice deal at $1499. I am officially an ENVY 17 owner. Should arrive tomorrow evening. Hope it comes with no problems!!

 

thanks for the info ... where can the batch number be found ... related maybe to the serial number ? which series is the batch you had the problem with ?

regarding my 'battle' with this 1010NR, i am going a different route. HP has agreed to look at the notebook again, this time around i am in touch with the accounts manager who will follow the notebook thru the repair. in the meantime, i am going to buy a 1011NR from amazon and keep it. when the 1010NR comes back repaired, i will sell it on ebay.

figure i'll lose a little money because i won't get what i spent on it, but i much preferred the 1011NR's specs in the first place. my loss will be someone else's gain i guess. i hate to part with the machine only because the i5 is more desirable for me, but can't imagine the i7 would always be cooking even during idle ...

 

I dunno about you guys, but in this situation, I would never settle for measly coupons that were designed to make us spend more on their company. When my order got delayed and they handed out the "f*** off" discount coupons, I called in and convinced them that the delay was seriously detrimental to my workflow (because it really was). I ended up receiving an instant $100 off on my notebook, and some of the members here followed suit to gain their $100 off as well. I was one of the first here to order the Envy 17 on the release date, and I found it unacceptable that HP wasn't prepared at all to ship their "flagship" products on time to meet customer satisfaction.

If the delay is causing your workflow to suffer as you've stated, then you should never settle for coupons.


Keywords for incentives issued upon shipment delay:

Return/Credit- Compensation due to the full acknowledgement of company error. Result: win/win situation for customers.
Coupons- Primarily serves as a PR tactic disguised to advert direct blame away from the company at fault; provides no real compensation to customer, and actually requires more spendings. Result: win/win situation for company.

 

I think since I am one of those unfortunate folks who needs to purchase a secondary HD caddy/cable I am going to seek out more proper compensation when I order them. I don't plan on paying more than $15 out of my own pocket. Even with the $25 coupon that'd require someone taking $50 off my purchase.

Quite frankly I don't think I should have to pay more than $15 for the cable without calling to hassle them, but that's a different issue.

 

Hello.

I've upgraded my Envy17 which came with a 500G HDD which I'm now using as a secondary HDD and I run my system on a 80G SSD (Intel X-25 G2).

Have anyone made a clean install and gotten everything to work properly? Everything works fine except the function keys and the beats audio. The function keys DO work but the on-screen sliders does not appear, and the beats audio logo (on/off) does not appear when pressing Fn+b.

I also noticed that the fan went to full speed and the unit became very hot and since I wasn't actually running anything it was distressing. I ran the task manager and noticed that every time I had pressed Fn+b, beats.exe had started running so I had now like 25 beats.exe running which overloaded my CPU.

I contacted HP support about this and they said that retail windows7 was missing out on the drivers and that no such drivers was available for download. And of course that it was not recommended running a retail win7.

Has anyone made a clean install and gotten these functions to work properly I would be grateful to hear how you did.

Regards.

 

I'm not sure about those specific functions but there is a clean install guide here.

 

thank you so much it seems hp is losing alot of credibility to support there claims. i had talked to several online live chat staff and they seems scripted. one of them where very rude to me calling me dumb because of my native background. id guess she hates asians... but that should be dealt with and i had called the manager itself by phone and told them my story with online staff. he said give me proof of what she wrote and stuff and i did took pics on my comp and sent the entire thing to his email. i hope this matters everything to him because hp support staff do suck.

yes it made me feel very angry on what hp has done to delay shipping. i am going to call them tomorrow morning to see what the manager/ me can do to solve the issue. another week to wait? thats unacceptable for a premium notebook. after my envy 17 i will never shop hp products again ever. worst customer service i had to deal with in years.

 

No, I did a reinstall and followed that guide thoroghly (it didn't differ that much from my original MO) and I still get the same result. Fn+b starts beats.exe each time I press it rather than switching it on and off and the On-screen graphics for volume and brightness does not appear when using the quicklaunchbuttons.

Except for the beats audio, everything else seem functional though. Anyone got a workaround for this. HP claimed that their factory-set win7 contained integrated software made special for this laptop and a retail win7 would limit the functionality of the unit. *shrug*

 

I swapped my Amazon 1011NR o/s 320GB HDD out for an Intel 160GB SSD. I used Acronis to clone the original. Now on the SSD I have 4 partitions (SYSTEM 102MB NTFS, OS (C) 132.79 GB NTFS, RECOVERY (E) 16.12 GB NTFS and HP_TOOLS (F) 39MB FAT32.

My problem is the E: drive continuously alerts me the drive is almost full. How can I remove this warning but keep the warnings operative for other partitions?

 

Hi,

I've got my envy 17 on the way, direct from HP, UK spec. I'm considering ordering an X25-M G2 or similar SSD to use as the main boot disc. I was wondering if anybody has done any benchmarking or has anecdotal evidence for the speed-up I could expect.

Thanks,

Andy

 

hey guys i wanted to install a second harddrive into my envy 17. where do you get the cable/adapter to do that? i cant find it on the HP site unless im looking for it in the wrong area. any help would be appreciated! thanks!!

 

Purchasing the caddies from HP is not a great idea.

1. Up until a month ago, they sold it only as a bundle of both the primary and secondary drive mounts + SATA cables (and not seperately!). After I called them a few weeks ago, they said they only sell one mount in this kit now, but it's still sold at the same price! Which leads me to the pricing issue...

2. It costs $88.35! Include standard shipping costs, and you're paying quarters short of a Benjamin. Pricing is non-negotiable and you will waste your time as the HP reps will keep telling you that not even Jesus has control over pricing or dividing up the kit to be sold separately.

3. On the bright side, a third party company, NewmodeUS.com, will begin selling the secondary drive caddies come the first week of September. Their caddies include all necessary parts for installation (caddy, screws, SATA cable). Price will at worst be as high as $42, but that's still half the price of what HP is asking.

FYI, I'm not going to provide you the direct link for ordering via HP. Think of it as me doing you a big favor.

Reference posts:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...hp-envy-17-owners-lounge-144.html#post6345922

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...hp-envy-17-owners-lounge-301.html#post6524675

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...hp-envy-17-owners-lounge-347.html#post6589902

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...hp-envy-17-owners-lounge-349.html#post6595821

 

Is the partition read-only? I would think that that would solve it and it's not like you'd ever want to write to it.

Bench - SSD - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

That should give you a much better picture of real-world usage then the manufacturers will provide. Makes comparisons easy too. I have a Vertex 2 and my ENVY flies. You probably already know this but as HDs are the bottleneck in most situations speeding up the HD results in very tangible performance gains.

 

Thanks, I'm aware of general speedup's. I really just wanted to check there is no issue with the Envy 17 being a bottleneck etc. It sounds like your pleased with performance so I'll probably give it a go.

 

No worries Sammy, I just got back to California last night and I felt like a kid opening a Christmas gift! I unboxed the Envy and it was very nice, didn't notice any wobble nor did I see any huge gaps or anything that was an eye sore.

I tried to start it and the battery had no juice, so I charged it over night and started it up this morning and did a few steps of the registration, then I had to shut it down until I get home from my office to actually tinker with it.

Does anyone have any advice for the first time on the net? I was told to go to Microsoft and do the update, is this a good way of starting up on the net for the first time?

I also plan on burning a back up copy, VIA HP Back up software, but I did want to do things right.

Honestly, I really wanted to bring it to the office with me today, but I knew I would not get any work done as I would have been tinkering with it all day long, so I will have to give my first review a little later today or by this weekend for sure.

Cheers, and Sammy, best of luck to you with HP and there shipping. Since I ordered from Newegg, I got it on the next business day (Ordered on Friday and Delivered on Monday). If they are late, I would also look to HP for an additional discount, I would ask, that's for sure.

 

!@sammywantsya

Why not just order from amazon or newegg? You can have it shipped over night if u want, and it will get to u in 1 day. LMAO

 

Anyone else noticing an increase in temperature output and fan speeds after a clean install? Anyone?

 

well i would but i like to purchase things directly from retail because i am buying a premium notebook. plus i checked both sites and they dont have any customizations that i needed. the customization i want i think in my opinion should shop directly to the retail. it has more options even tho on other sites its cheaper but thats what i prefer.

@ Revhard191

thanks lol i appreciate that coming from you ^^ ii just hope it comes.

 

Could someone do me a quick favor? If you have 2 hard drives in your envy 17, before you reformat and install an SSD, please go to the control panel on the factory installed Windows 7. Navigate to the HP 3D Driveguard panel and tell me how many drives it has listed there, what they are called, and whether they are all supported or not.

Thanks!

 

Yesterday I called HP for warranty repair of the keyboard and the dead pixels I found later. They are very happy to work with me.

But what surprised me most is that today a guy from their research department called me and offered me a new computer for the old one with major upgrades. They will give me a brand new computer with i7-820, and 500Gx2. My old one has i7-720 and 320Gx2 (from Amazon).

This is really beyond my expectation, anybody has any ideas why? Thanks.

 

So I got my Unit from newegg yesterday (super speedy delivery btw, ordered on Sunday).

No wobble, only very minor gaps in seams, around 1mm or less, and just in two places on the left side of the unit. Barely noticeable and not a problem at all. Screen is perfect with no dead pixels.

The unit does get very warm, especially with even minor loads. Having looked at the unit I am convinced this is a thermal design flaw. The intake and output vents for the fan are placed very close to each other. The fan intake is underneath the unit, this gives it only a few mm clearance when placed on a flat surface. It just cannot get enough cool air into the cooling fan. Whats more, the position of the exhausts means that hot exhaust air gets sucked into the intake, which means it just gets hotter and hotter over time, even with minor loads.

I am pretty surprised they did not think of this when designing the unit.

What does help is using the 9 cell battery that I got from newegg. This raises the back the of the laptop around an inch and gives more room for air to get into the fan. Still the position of the exhausts means that air gets sucked in and the heat increases after around 10 mins or so, just not as bad as with the 6 cell battery.

Placing the unit on a laptop stand (no fan) that I have, raising the back 6 inches clear of the desk makes a HUGE difference in the temperature. If they had designed the unit to have the air exhausts further away from the intake, I am sure it would not have any heat issues.

Only other thing I really do not like other than the heat is the trackpad, its awful! Played around with the settings a load and still could not make it usable. The integrated buttons seems to constantly be registered as mouse drags whenever you try to click them. Very frustrating. Expect to buy an external wireless mouse to use this.

Overall I am very happy with my purchase, very happy with the deal from newegg. The screen clarity is amazing. Its a real shame about the heat however, fine for home use but will be annoying when traveling and having to use at a client site.

Also bought this hard body laptop bag : HardBody PRO 15.4" and 17" Laptop Cases by SLAPPA Fits the unit with plenty of room and is very solid to protect it.

Next step is to install the SSD I purchased to really make it fly.

oh one last note, do not place a chocolate bar anywhere near the left of the laptop unless you want a giant mess like I just had

 

Metril,

When I open HP 3D DriveGuard, I have only ONE HDD, that is supported.

Like:
HP 3D DriveGuard
--> Hard Disk of notebook computer - supported

Is this what you wanted to know?

 

Ignore/Delete please.

 

More on Envy 17 Harddrive Caddies

The following quote is from an email from NewmodeUS received today. The first link is to the actual NewmodeUS caddy (with future availability date). The second link is to a Youtube installation video.