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

What is with the paisley design on the notebook? Are they going for the male or female market? As a female, I don't care for the paisley design nor the colors or look of the laptop (unforunately, this laptop meets my need the best of all other lines - 17"+, blu-ray, fullHD). It looks more like a male laptop, less the paisley designs

 

Thanks for the heads up!

I thought metal was pretty gender-neutral... But what do I know? Were you looking for hot pink? As for the paisley, I thought it was pretty feminine too, but it's a lot more subtle in real life (can only see it from certain angles). I still question it as a design choice but that didn't stop me from buying one.

 

I agree about the paisley design, it is a bit girly. I would have preferred the smooth metal feel a mac book, but maybe they were wanting to not make it look like an exact clone of the macbook.

anyway, its a great laptop, paisley and all

 

any update?

 

for hp envy 17 owners is this worth the wait ? does it do what you expected to do from a premium notebook ? im just having alot of doubts weather i should wait or cancel and search fro other types of notebooks. but i really want my first premium notebook like envy 17. i dont want to decide later on and want you guys to give me advice if its worth the wait to getting it.

thank you guys for advance

 

@smason

So, you only see one hard drive listed and do not see another listed at all?

Is this with the stock OS and stock hard drives (2 mechanical drives)?


If you later did a reformat/reinstall on your own, you still only see one drive listed?


What are you stock drive specifications? (Size, RPM, Brand).


Thanks!

I ask because there may be an issue with 3D Driveguard that we need to pester HP about. Driveguard is supposed to be on both drives based on their marketing and their configurator.

 

why didnt u try out reinstalling windows clean using the laptop out of the box thread ? i know if u try to restore onto the new ssd from the recovery options it will fail because it checks the drive size.

wen i installed my ssd it took literally 15 minutes to clean install...
windows will create 2 parts, one thats 100 mb and the other thats the os.

i used to use acronis in the past but got angry that some new features i wanted were rolled to the next version and i'd have to pay for an upgrade. hence my free software bunge began and found out about clonezilla. pretty powerful backup tool, rivals true image and its fast too. its worked great for me these past 2 years and awesome piece of mind for the cost of a blank cd ...

create a seperate ntfs part on your second hdd, maybe 25% the size of your windows install. you can use that in clonezilla to save the image of your primary hdd. or go with an external, up to u.

 

Got my ENVY from Amazon today. No wobble, no gaps. Seems everything is running fine so far. Love the laptop. Looks great, screen is beautiful, and it sure is fast.

 

I don't like the flower pattern on the hp envy 17 laptop and want to get a skin for it to put over. something black probably would look cool.

 

Sammy, I don't know about all of the others, but I am typing this on my new Envy and all I can say is WOW! Fast, no wobble, beautiful screen and Beats Sound is AWESOME, I even threw in a Blu-Ray to make sure it worked and Behind Enemy Lines looked awesome on the 1920x1080 screen!

No sure why so many have said that they are having so many issues with the track pad, it is simple to use with the 2 fingers, and I am not a rocket scientist.

Also, it does get a little warm, on the left hand side and since I am currently working with only the 6 cell battery and it is not unbearable. Working with the i7 Processor and running multiple applications at the same time and also running youtube in the back ground while listening to music while I am loading her up with all of Photography software.

Again, good luck with your hunt, but I believe that you will be happy with the Envy if everything else is a good fit for you. I do plan on getting a SSD soon, but I wanted to see how it all runs on here for a little bit before I start working on the upgrades.

 

Thanks, yes that seems to have solved the problem.

Ooops - spoke to soon, still getting the messages.... no time to do a clean install just for this.... maybe I'll delete the drive later.

 

You can always hop on a plane to Hong Kong, I saw a fully loaded HP Envy at Fortress (electronics store) in TST last week.

But seriously if you can't wait you can always order a Asus.

 

I ordered mine yesterday from Newegg got it today via over night shipping,i got the envy 17,core i7 720m,8gb ram,ati 5850 1gb,all for only $1499 plus shipping! you can't beat that price,there is absolutely nothing wrong with it,no wobble,gaps or anything else i have noticed,the only thing is it gets extremely warm in the upper left corner,but then again most quad core laptops do,i am getting a thermalake massive 23 laptop fan,that should take care of it.if i were you i'd wait for it,it is a Awesome machine and not much on the market can compare at the price.

 

Hi, does anyone know if envy 17 fits in Booq Boa squeeze laptop backpack?

 

Someone asked about the HP Drive Guard. Yea, it says both of my hard drives do NOT support it. ?! And as far as the gaps go, I think it comes and goes. I don't remember seeing the gap when I first got it. After using it for a week, I noticed the gap. Now a few weeks later, it's fine again. And for those of you complaining about the mouse pad, I don't see what the big issue is. Works fine for me. I like it better than the mouse pad on my old Gateway P-7811FX. Also like it better than the trackpad on my Dell Mini 10. Just use two fingers to scroll. It's not that hard. I prefer that then the side of the track pad being used for the scroll.

 

thank you guys for giving me advance id guess i have to wait for a bit to come...

 

I don't like the flower pattern on the hp envy 17 laptop and want to get a skin for it to put over. something black probably would look cool.

 

Hi,actually it's a paisley pattern which is not either overtly feminine or masculine i have seen paisley patterns in women's and men's clothing and designs,it really isn't that noticeable it's more of a subtle pattern,i for one think it's stunning,but if you don't like it you can get a skin from skinit.com they have 1000's to choose from.I sold my new mbp 13 2.66ghz to get this,I've been a mac user for awhile,but when i saw the price,only $1499 the same i paid for my mac for this,with i7 720m,8gb ram ati 5850 1gb,it blows the measly mbp 13 clear out of the water,heck i don't even game much,but the power is there if i need it and i won't have to upgrade for a long time,and my envy is fine no wobble,gaps,etc,it just gets quite warm,but a large laptop fan will take care of that,I've only had it for about 18 hrs but so far i love it

 

+1

I am very happy with mine so far. No wobble either and the heat doesn't bother me one bit and I was loading software up, running youtube for music, registering some other services and browsing the internet and I do have to say - there was heat on the upper left side of the laptop and it was not unbearable at all, and it was even on my lap when I was sitting in my living room. I do understand that it does get warm, but not unbearably hot, and from what I can feel on my leg, it was no where near burning my leg.

I am very happy with my purchase from Newegg, and I also have to say, that the Blu-Ray Drive works flawlessly and when I was watching Planet Earth, it was just stunning how clear it was on screen. Next, I am going to hook it up to my 63" LCD 240htz to see how it will look on that just for giggles.

 

Welcome to the non-defective Envy 17 club

I recommend you get the Zalman NC2000 or even the NC3000 to keep the left palm rest heat in check. Ever since I got my NC2000 hooked up, I've been experiencing little to no heat issues, even while putting my notebook under intense load.

 

Ordered my HP Envy 17 from amazon for the amazing price of $1499 for the 1011NR with the i7-720QM, 8 gigs ram, blu-ray, and 2 x 320gb 7200rpm hard drives.

The unit arrived yesterday and I immediately started testing it. I had a horrible experience prior with the Toshiba Qosmio x505 over-heating, with the CPU reaching 100 degrees celsius under load and becoming a gaming system you couldn't play games on, so I'm very wary of heat. I returned the Qosmio and decided to try HP.

I'm surprised at how hot this Envy 17 runs. Last night after updating all the driver/BIOS, running only internet explorer, the CPU was consistently running at 70-75 degrees C even after several restarts and long idle periods. Today I ran the HP Support Assistant and software updates in case I missed anything manually. CPU temperatures are improved to 60-70 degrees again with only IE running. I haven't installed any games yet to check temps under load, but plan on installing Fallout 3 to see how it holds up.

My main concern is the temperature of the front left palm rest. Though I don't have a temperature guage for an accurate measurement, it has to be near or above 100 degrees F and it is definitely uncomfortable even as I write this post. I understand this is a performance laptop, and were I running demanding applications, I would accept this, but this level of heat while only surfing the web is unacceptable.

I'm currently using the 9-cell battery to give some more distance for the intake and exhaust vents, which are not blocked in any way. The ambient temperature is around 75 degrees F.

My question is this: Is this normal for this laptop? What has your experience been?

I am RMA'ing this laptop back to Amazon for a replacement. Also, the screen has 4 dead-pixels unfortunately, however, no wobble whatsoever and only slight gaps on the left side which I have no issue with. I am very happy with the computer with exception of the heat issue. If the uncomfortable heat of the left palmrest is "normal" under minimal load, I may have to look at other laptop options. I would appreciate anyone posting your experience with this.

My sweaty left palm can't take much more, lol!


HWMonitor with system at idle running only IE after all software updates

 

thank you to all who answered my question about the drive caddy yesterday...very helpful and i appreciate it greatly.

 

oh but i do have another question....what is everyones experience regarding the envy17's track pad. i feel like its flakey...works great at times and then others not so much. should i uninstall before updating drivers, etc. any one know of any settings to tweak it or 3rd party software? thanks in advance!

 

RE: Temperatures

Your CPU temperatures are about 10-15 deg F higher than mine at idle and with no cooler. See the first page of this thread for a link to my temperature testing (Benny Pac). Your GPU temperatures are about the same as mine. Your hard drive temperatures are about 10 - 12 deg F higher than mine--this is a big puzzle.

You and I have different hard drives, so this may explain the difference.

My observation has been that the left palm rest temperature has never directly responded to drive temperature OR CPU/GPU temperature. My observation is that the palm rest will rise in temperature to its maximum after lengthy idle time (>2 hours) or only very slowly after long, sustained heavy usage.

I have interpreted this to mean that the palm rest itself heats by conduction through the metal and convection with the whole case heating from the internal air flow. I cite the high temps at idle as proof: CPU/GPU/hard drive are ALL at low temperatures so the fan does not need to run, leaving the palm rest to slowly heat up. Modest use triggers the fan, and the palm rest cools a bit. Heavy use overwhelms the fan and the palm rest will warm some more, but still to a peak below the maximum when the system is idle.

Now then, since your drives are running warmer, your experience will be different.

I'd look to the drive manufacturer's site to identify the safe temperature range. If 105/114 deg F are OK, then your concern is only to protect your hand with a pad and/or cooler. This assumes that the CPU/GPU are running at safe temperatures.

Ultimately, only your own tolerance for the heat can guide your choice. Maybe the replacement machine will be more kind. Best of luck.

 

i bought a 1011NR from amazon and it just arrived today. chassis is solid, no dead pixels, everything seems good. but that high-pitched noise i heard on my 1010NR is still there even on this new 1011NR.

i am convinced that HP either had or is having a quality issue with the main boards on these machines.

if you fellow owners can due me the favor, place your ear near the enter key (above the shift key) and listen in for some high-pitched electrical 'whine', it's sometimes intermittent like Morse-code.

as with the 1010NR, i ran an infinite loop batch file and that eliminates the noise, but it raises CPU temperatures.

so far i have documented this issue with both the i5 and the i7 Envy.

for those of you kind enough to write back, please post whether you are connected via wifi, what intel software you have installed, and what power plan you are using in windows.

this could be either the wireless module, or the main board. i suspect the latter because it's related to CPU activity and not wlan connectivity/activity.

the more that write back, the more likely HP may issue a BIOS update to fix this problem

 

@ zero7404

I have a whine too, but have found it is related to my power source. When I unplug the battery it will stop and when I plug it in, it starts again. Are these two different whines or do you think they are the same one?

 

I noticed this issue on my ENVY a few days ago. Exactly what you describe. Wifi and plugging in seem to affect the loudness.

 

Yes mine has the high-pitch whine, as did my last two.

I run off high performance power plan the entire time, I have a broadcom wireless card. Using the method of clicking 'listen to this device' in the integrated microphone array preferences works, the noise disappears altogether. Not the ideal fix but a suitable work-a-around at this stage.

 

irrespective of power source, mine is always present.
i am thinking of getting some thin foam insulation and placing it underneath the keyboard and in the memory module area to try and dampen out the sound because it's really annoying. it's very low volume, but frequency-wise it bothers me.

never experienced this before with any other models/brands. i've had a few pavilions, dells, etc. never had this kind of noise.

 

i recall trying this out with the 1010NR, but nothing happened.
trying it one more time with the new machine, both microphone and array to listen, also pulled the volumes and gains down to 0.
the noise has diminished ... i will test it out and see what happens

 

does it really matter lol? you cant think that the premium notebooks can be ugly but it will grow on you. no matter how ugly the notebook is in my opinion its what inside that counts not the outside. lol

 

No Whine in my envy 17,the only thing i can hear is the soft sound of the fans,in fact I've never had a laptop so quit as this one,the only issue with mine is it gets really warm,but nothing unbearable,but as any quad core pc user knows,they run hot as do high end graphic cards,I've never had one that didn't,last year i got the Asus W90vp-X2 and it really ran hot,that was one big beast of a laptop at 18.4",but was extremely fast with the Quad Core and the dual 4870 ati crossfire and 6gb ram,my envy may not have the dual cards but the 5850 is awesome,it can handle any game at high settings and with the core i7 and 8gb ram,i find it just as fast,but heat is just one of the things you have to get used to when you use these big beast as i call them quad core laptops.But anyways this beast is quit as can be.

 

it's more like circuit noise, electrical noise. i guess calling it a whine would not be a good term to use.

 

That's not true- just because something is a premium notebook, it doesn't mean that it can't be ugly for some (for example, I think Toshiba produced some of the ugliest notebook designs for their Qosimo line- looks really tacky to me). If something is ugly to someone, then it must be ugly to them. Aesthetics is all relative to individual opinion. True, the internal components do matter the most for techies, but you don't have to be superficial or lack computer knowledge to want a decent looking exterior design. I for one don't mind the lid design enough to be so conscious about it, but that's my opinion. If a Qosimo had the same exact internals as the Envy 17 and the Envy 17 never existed, then I would have seriously thought twice about whether I should buy it or not. True story- I skipped over a lot of "premium" notebooks (Qosimo, XPS, Alienware, etc) due to their lack of aesthetics. I skipped the new MBP for my Envy purely for cost effective reasons (Is it just me, or does anyone else think the new MBP looks soul-less compared to its previous designs?).


I did this just for fun to show a different perspective on things:

does it really matter lol? you cant think that the premium girls can be ugly but it will grow on you. no matter how ugly the girl is in my opinion its what inside that counts not the outside. lol

barf

 

Have you tried this possible solution?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/6347979-post1478.html

 

forgive me for being stupid lol but thats what i prefer from the inside of the machine. i think you are being arrogant for what you said withe the fun thing. or being too stuck up for that matter.

 

No Circuit noise or electrical noise,i just put my ear to it again it is totally quite in there,i guess it's hit or miss with these,most people forget that these are being put together by the thousands in a Chinese factory by workers who work 16 to 17 hrs or more a day and only make $300 a month,i researched it,the same company foxconn that builds for apple also does hp,dell and others,there have been like 7 suicides with the workers because they are overworked,underpaid,no breaks and have no social or family life.If you think about it it's probably hard to get things completely perfect if your standing there for hours with no breaks and no sleep and are putting together electronics hrs on end.I think their quality control department needs to be better to inspect these products thoroughly before boxing them up and shipping them out,and paying their workers better and better hrs and more breaks,maybe then we'd see better build quality.

 

@ zero

Hmm odd, it appears that I have two different whines. One related to the power source and the other similar to the one you described. I run on High Performance and also have the Broadcom card. My first envy did not make the same whine as this one and it had the intel wireless card.

 

Someone doesn't know how to take a joke lightly.

 

You should also try this possible solution as well (it'll at least fix the morse-code noise):

http://forum.notebookreview.com/6347979-post1478.html



@zero7404, tkmcguire1, macsrxpensive

Could you guys let me know if you hear noticeable static noise (instead of silence) when you're on head/earphones? I hear it through all of my ear phones and it's most prevalent when I have my pro grade monitors hooked up. Thanks.

 

Had the weirdest things happen,i have been on my envy most of the night,can't sleep,and i have had the screen freeze a few times you know where everything you click on won't respond? so i decided to go to HP's website to check on driver updates,there was 1 for the ati graphics,which i started installing,and the ati catalyst box came up was going through the install and half way through it looked like windows went into safe mode the whole darn screen was magnified big time! so after the install i restarted and it went back to normal,although the gadgets i had installed were clustered in the middle of the screen on top of each other "weird",so i put them back where i had them,is that normal for it to do that when updating the graphics driver?

 

see my reply in that thread. one thing that needs to also be noted is that the hdd makes a sound thats very close to this type of noise. however that is consistent and steady and lower volume. the noise issue we are discussing is more like morse code intermittent.

microphone fix doesnt hold down the sound permanently. disabling the mic also doesnt do much. same with the array.

perhaps the culprit may have something to do with beats audio circuits on the board ? this laptop has a subwoofer which is a newcomer to laptops.

 

@ nohm well this comment says it all lol

but in all serious im in for the jokes too im just statin what you said that can lead from what i see. prob a misunderstanding thing im hearing but its all good lol

 

@ nohm

I also have the statics when I have headphones plugged in.

 

From what I understand this is a pretty common problem with any crappy onboard sound and most likley completely unrelated to the electrical whine issue. I haven't seen any mention of an ENVY soundcard anywhere so it's a pretty safe assumption that the headphone hiss is just a result of not-so-premium hardware.

The installer should've told you this already, but changes like that are normal when messing with a graphics driver. At some point during the installation your screen probably looked magnified because it revered to a default resolution (usually low like 800x600). Whatever graphical issues you saw, ignore them unless they are still present after installing and restarting.

 

I just had a crash this morning, screen turn a checkered black, white and gray and froze. This happened during Starcraft II. It seems like it would be a GPU issue, but I don't know a whole lot about them. This didn't happen on my previous Envy 17. So it looks like Envy #2 is getting RMA'd (I have all of the most recent drivers in case someone was wondering).

 

Got my UK spec Envy 17 yesterday. So far very pleased. A few notes;

1. The PSU is fuggly, I'll probably try and grab a replacement.

2. Heat is about what I would expect, quite comfortable on my lap for general dev use, not sure about gaming.

3. Some issues with wireless connection but I suspect this is interaction with Vmware, I always have trouble with wireless and Vmware....

4. Build seems good, I havent noticed any keyboard flex. There is some space around the perimeter on the top but I probably wouldn't have noticed it if others hadnt pointed out the issue.

5. Resting fingers on the trackpad buttons causes pointer problems. I'm guessing this should be fixable in the driver HP!!!!

Everything else, performance, screen, keyboard etc really good.

 

Hmm, then it seems that there are multiple culprits causing noises on this notebook. How stressful it must be for you.

For reference, my old Envy 15 2nd Gen had no static noise through headphones. I'm pretty sure they used they same if not similar quality audio hardware in there as the Envy 17. This leads me to think that zero7404 may be onto something about the subwoofer contributing to the issues (the 15 didn't have one). I think next time I disassemble my 17, I'll leave certain suspecting components unplugged and see if any of them were the source of the problem.

 

Interesting. You are using the same headphones right? Cheap headphones can be the cause of the hissing too.

Is the subwoofer unplugable?

 

the sound is strongest directly beneath the enter key (above the shift key) and around the wlan module. if someone could identify the hardware on the mainboard that's beneath this area (inside the laptop), that could give a better idea of what's causing it. i asked at work about this kind of noise in laptops and got answers along the lines of certain circuits causing noise like that, like a display inverter board or battery charging circuit. but this sound doesn't disappear when i pull the plug, or when i pull the battery, or when i change microphone settings, or when i turn on/off wifi/bt. has to be related to main bus.

i bet we can figure out what the problem area is before HP ever does...

it wouldn't be bothering me if i didn't know it was there, but upon discovery, and sensitive hearing, it's irritating. i could shut it up by doing the following:

create a .bat file using notepad with the following contents:

Code:

@echo OFF

:LOOP

Echo "stop noise........"

goto LOOP

then run the file. it's an infinite loop, it creates a load on the CPU. kills the majority of the noise, but also increases CPU temps and spools up the fan more often.