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

Lenovo has a 15" 3D, but with a lesser graphics card in the HD5730 and very tacky design.

Whatever 3D display that they decide to put into the HP Envy 17, I doubt that it will be 1920x1080 and priced the same as the non-3D. Plus, you have to be pretty close to the display for the glasses to work on the upcoming 3D version. Personally, I c

As far as size goes, this is about as small and thin of a laptop as you will find in 17", much less with these kinds of performance parts. My BF has a brand new decked out W510 (15" HD display, multiple batteries, same performance parts as Envy - not as good graphics) and it is comparable in terms of size when packaged up and held (weight).

Honestly, the HP envy 17 is a steal. I got mine At Fry's because I like their service plan (even though it is $399 for 3 years like the HP plan, but after the 3rd repair they give you a brand new laptop and rentals if they need to spend more than a few hours with it) and their price was much better than online at $1650 for the 1011nr (i7, 8GB, 9 + 6 cell, 640GB, BT+N, etc.).

My laptop needs are probably different from most since I have a silent performance tower running games (MW2) and media on the big screen home theater, have the Netbook, Android tablet, Evo smartphone, etc. I needed a desktop performance laptop for my home office that also had connectivity for 2 additional displays.

BTW - LOVE this laptop. Wanted an HP envy 15 for a long time, but finally settled on the 17 due to needs. Beautiful, Sturdy, and an excellent value!

 

Yes, the Kensington one is pretty slim. About a little bigger than a 2.5" portable external hard drive.

Just FYI, I bought the older one on Ebay. Used it for about 9 months or so. Thought I was SOL because I bought it from Ebay. Kensington actually warrantied it for me with fax of Ebay receipt to them. I didn't even have to send the old one back. They just sent me the newer one (new graphics).

If you do buy the older one, I believe it's easier to call them for the tip to order it, it may be hard to find on site. I don't think Envy 17 is listed on their tips website either yet. Just check N30B (N30) tip.

I believe the 120w charger is a discontinued product, since it has not been on the Kensington website for quite some time.

2.5 Portable HD - Old Model #33197 - New Model #33197 - HP Envy Brick

 

that was pretty painless. the brightness is now adjustable. hope i don't have to keep doing this .... thanks Eurasianman

 

Wow that's a pretty significant size difference. Do you know the difference in weight? Are there any issues in using the Kensington model? Thanks.

 

According to HP: "The HP 3D Ultra BrightView Display is a 17.3" Full HD (1080p) display designed specifically to provide the best 3D visual experience without compromising standard 2D content."

Link: High Performance Laptops w/ Free Audio Software | HP Envy Features

It doesn't say specifically that it can show 3D content in 1080p, but since it uses active shutter glasses I see no reason (except processing power) why it shouldn't.

And why do you say you have to be close to the display for the glasses to work? The 3D effect should work at all distances, in fact the effect should be more pronounced the farther you are from the display. Or do the active glasses' IR-syncing have a very limited range or something?

I was about to get the Envy 17, but I am really excited about the 3D version. I just hope the statement "without compromising standard 2D content" is true (it has to be, or it is out of the question), and that it won't be too expensive (my guess is +/- $250 more than Envy 17 2D).

ETA: According to elektronikkbransjen.no, the HP Envy 17 3D will be available i Norway by December 1st at a retail price of 14990 NOK ($2460). The standard HP Envy 17 is currently sold for about 12000 NOK ($1970).

 

i use SIW to get system info often. i noticed that it's reporting my memory as PC3-10700, is this accurate ? i can't find any ram when i search google that's 10700. there is 10600, wondering if SIW is reporting it incorrectly ...

 

IMO, the 3D Envy will not be worth the extra price premium. Besides the fact that I don't think that the 5850 has the horsepower to push 1080p 3D effectively, 3D screens will improve rapidly over time. In less than 5 years, laptop screens will most likely be glasses free, with good viewing angles. As of now, I doubt they are that great. Also, mobile graphics cards will be up to the task as well.

 

I'm gonna repost since nobody answered me.

Does anybody know the difference between gaming performance from the envy 15 vs the envy 17? A 3dmarks06 difference would be nice

 

I read a lot of envy forums, but I cant say where is this written. But some people have gotten just over 10.000 3dmark06 wint envy 15 by overclocking (I dont remember their configuration), I think if I remember right the base score is somwhere mid 8.000 (envy 2nd generation with ati 5830).

So I would say the difference is about 2500-3000 in 3dmark06. I'm thinking on buying envy 17 if it ever gets here, but the main reason for it is the bigger screen and 2 hdd slots. I'm being tempted with envy 15 and 8740w as they are already here in my country.

 

Hey guys I got the Envy 17 a couple of days ago.

I love this machine so far however I do have two important concerns.

First this thing gets really-really hot sometimes and since my last HP was burn due to hitting issues I am really skeptical keeping it. Is that normal for Envy 17? (latest BIOS and ATI Driver with i7-740.) sometimes runs cool other is hitting too much on the upper left side where the processor is.

Second the battery live is really lame. I am getting less than an hour in high performance and mid brightness!! Is that how it is or my battery is defective??

Isn't is suppose to give 2 to 2.5 hours in optimize battery and 1.5 to 2 hours in maximum performance?

 

Nope, I've gamed with it for hours many times, and no problems. The problem with the first one I had, was probably I overheated the Kensington because I layed it flat (not exposing both sides to air). But the 2nd one, no problems at all.

It's really light, almost the same weight as my iPhone 4 haha, not including the cord though.

 

Yes it gets very hot. Checkout the first page of the forum there are several heat readings done by people who have purchased a Envy 17.

What is "Battery live"? Do you mean Battery life? LMAO

When running the standard battery on full power I get about 1.5 hours doing Adobe Photoshop CS5. It's a desktop replacement laptop, it isn't a netbook. LOL.

 

Where did you pull these numbers from? Link please? 1.5 to hours in maximum performance on a 6 cell battery? HA! Unlikely. You have a high end mobile GPU and a quad core with hyper threading (8 threads altogether) and 2 hard drives (assuming that you got a build similar to the HP Envy 17-1010/11nr). 1.5 - 2 hours in maximum performance on a 6 cell battery is pushing it. Possibly why HP was nice to bundle the laptop with a 6 cell and a 9 cell battery. My Gateway P-7811FX had a 9 cell battery and lasted me 2.5 to 3 hours on Windows 7 Balanced settings.

And lastly... People! It is a laptop with a quad core processor with hyper threading and a high end mobile GPU all cooled by 1 fan!!! Good grief. Of course it's going to get hot. Blame HP for being cheap and not designing the laptop to have two fans, one dedicated to the GPU and the other to the CPU and chipset, like some of the other high end laptops. It'll be fine! Computer components are made to sustain high temperatures for long periods of time without degradation!

 

Ootb, gaming, the upper left part got so hot it stung my hand to touch it. A week in, it's not as hot now. If I put the 9 cell battery in and put it on a cooler, it doesn't run hotter than other high spec rigs. But it's fugly that way:



Anyway the heat does go down after a week. First day, I almost boxed it up on the spot to return lol, it got painfully hot when I was doing Burnintest.

I get about a minute per 1% of battery charge using the 9 cell, doing light stuff on Power Saver (watching a low bitrate 720p vid in dxva though; might improve if I do CoreAVC or something). Battery life is so pathetic it's basically a UPC not a battery as such.

If you're stressed about benches to begin with, mabe this isn't the series for you. They seem to score very low on benches. I've posted my 3dmark06 above btw (and also posted references ranges for the 5850), and you could find Envy15 benches on that thread. Also, the left palmrest (below the WASD keys) gets very warm.

Having said all that, I really like my Envy 17 and if HP continues this line I'll probably just keep buying Envys. Very nice look and feel.

 

Need to replace my current HDX18 and have decided on the Envy 17.

Couple questions:

I want the SSD drive option but would also like to include a second hard drive but I do not see that option in the configuration. Is this possible? Can I just add a hard drive once I get it if you can't configure it online like that?

Is there a fingerprint reader option on this bad boy? That is something I have come to really like on my HD18.



Does anyone see anything with this configuration below that they would change based on their experience with the unit?

Operating system Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit edit
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-720QM Quad Core processor (1.6GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 2.8 GHz edit
Graphics card 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 5850 Graphics [HDMI] edit
Memory 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm) edit
Hard drive 160GB (Solid State Drive Flash Module) edit
Office software Microsoft(R) Office Starter 2010 edit
Security software No additional security software edit
Primary battery 50% OFF! One 6 Cell (standard) and One 9 Cell (over-sized) Lithium Ion Battery edit
Display 17.3" diagonal Full HD HP Ultra BrightView Infinity LED Display (1920x1080) edit
Primary optical drive Blu-ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support (Slot Load) edit
Personalization HP TrueVision HD Webcam edit
Networking Intel Wireless-N Card with Bluetooth edit
Keyboard Backlit Keyboard edit
Included Software Bundle Corel(R) PaintShop Photo(TM) Pro X3 + Corel(R) VideoStudio(R) Pro X3

Thanks for the help in advance.

 

Skip the SSD/Hard drive question and the fingerprint question, HP answered my questions for me.

 

Yes the two hdd bays are standard 2.5" and it's easy to put your own in. But you need a caddy, and the caddies are different for hdd bay 1 and bay 2. Here is bay #2 for example (i think): Hard Drive Caddy & Cable for HP Envy 17 (also works with SSD) [HP-ENVY-17] - $38.55 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

You can also order it from HP, which iirc sells them in two-packs, left and right. Point is, it adds to the cost of installing a drive.

Where are you ordering from? You can get preconfigured models from Amazon, Frys, etc, for better prices than HP. It might be cheaper in fact to buy from Amazon etc and then put in your own sdd from Newegg or something. The Amazon model for $1529 is everything you list except it has two 320gb 7200rpm hdds. Even if you toss one of those out, you get the caddy, which is a $40-50 value.

 

There is no fingerprint reader that I know of.

You will need to buy a second harddrive caddy for an additional drive. HP sells only a kit of two caddies for about $85.00 (the primary and secondary caddies are different).

Since you only need the secondary, you can go to this aftermarket provider:
Hard Drive Caddy & Cable for HP Envy 17 (also works with SSD) [HP-ENVY-17] - $38.55 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

 

about heat: simply put the laptop does not have enough space for decent airflow when it's on a flat surface.

even though forced flow from a powered notebook cooler is ok, you really don't need to add fans to cool the laptop effectively. a simple angled pedestal will give plenty of room for the laptop to draw in ambient air. the problem with selecting something suitable these days is that you need to find a pedestal or cooler that has enough openings so that the laptop's intakes are not blocked (as would be the case when the laptop is sitting on a flat surface).

i would bet there isn't much difference in temps if you removed the fans from these notebook coolers completely.

my simple fix has always been to prop up the back of the laptop about 3/4"-1" ...

 

I use this:



It has three fans you can adjust yourself (I put mine one beneath the center vent, and then stack the other two at upper left corner), and the base is vented throughout with no casing on the bottom to obstruct airflow. I haven't measured, since the U3 is great to angle the kb up and the fans are almost silent, I figure why not. But just to touch, it feels cooler when gaming if I use it. But heat is manageable without the cooler if you use the 9 cell, which elevates the back. My blurry pic above shows the 9 cell and the lift it gives.

The heating issue, seems to be that the whole unit funnels hot air toward the vent in the upper left corner, but leakage sends some of the hot air to the bottom left corner, where it gets trapped and just cooks. I personally think the heating issue isn't that bad. The early MBs were worse imho.

 

this stand would be nice without the fans there, basically a vented table
there is also a poorly placed exhaust next to the left monitor hinge behind the laptop.

honestly i don't like powered cooling pads. because the laptop itself has fans, so forcing air into a fanned chamber may result in back pressures and stagnation of airflow.

 

Anybody else having problems with Office 2010. It will not load and will not uninstall. This was preinstalled and i get no help from HP with Problem. It just starts to load then stops and says "will get back when we find a solution to your problem."

thanks

 

find and download ccleaner. it will allow you to remove the software. or if you already have jv16power tools, use that.

 

office 2010 uninstall now when I try and reinstall 2010 from disk I get the Message:

"Setup Language is not supported by your system"

this is a 64 system

rich

 

Thanks Guys for all the advice. I will look at Amazon.

 

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to say how disappointed I am with HP and their quality control in the UK, right now I am typing on my 3rd Envy 17 replacement and it is still far from perfect.

First one had about 6 stuck pixel, 4 on the bottom left corner and 2 near the centre of the screen.

Second one also had stuck pixels, 2 close to the centre of the lcd and a huge scratch on the lid .

The last one is the best of the three, no stuck or dead pixels but there is a strange small white spot on the screen, only visible on white and other bright backgrounds, it doesn't bother me as much as a bright pixel but it's still there looking at me every time I use the laptop... Oh, I forgot, the base of the laptop is slightly uneven, maybe 1mm.

I'm probably going to keep this one cause I can't take HP CS anymore .

 

Hello. My Envy 17 has defects too, like a slight gap in the casing at one point, and the hinges aren't perfectly lines up on either side, etc. I think HP was just really ambitious with this and many units have slight cosmetic defects. I like this model a lot, and the blemishes don't bother me at all.

Great thing about the U3 is that if you don't want powered fans shoving air into the fanned vent, you could place them in the intake vents that don't have fans. There's that square one in the middle, and then the two long rectangles above the ram/hdd bays. And of course without the fans is fine too; it's only $30 total, and as a stand it looks better than other options out there.

edit, not much of a test, but watching a 720p vid while browsing, with the fans off temp is e.g ACPI 133-136 degrees F. With the fans on it's 125-128 F. Very small I know, but turning the fans on and off keeps returning values in those ranges. Oh and I have my Envy17 on the U2 atm, which is for a 15", and the fans don't line up like I'd like. I'll test this further with games and such. But I really do think a fan under that vent helps.

 

Just a note, no matter what cooler you put UNDERNEATH the laptop, the palm rest (HD side) will always be HOT... unless you have another fan blowing across on top.

 

I disagree with this statement. I run my laptop the whole day with my coolermaster laptop cooler. The entire laptop is cool to the touch ambient temp is around 75 degrees

 

The number I gave was based on HP site and other reviews. Also my previous DV7 with i7 processor was able to score about two hours in high performance with mid-level brightness. I am fully away of what is a desktop replacement and how energy hungry are they as I am using them for almost a decade and of course we do not need to discuss how powerful but yet how much power hungry is the i7 to operate. But again other laptops are doing just fine. and are able to give an 1.5 to 2 hours battery life.

You are so right on the one fun issue. My DV9700 suffer the same stupid design and it end up burn its nVIDIA Graphic card. That was a $2000 laptop and so my Envy this is why I am getting such a big deal out of the hitting issues. I do have a bad experience and the last thing I want is to have another laptop burn due to hitting issues.

Why you are stating HP is giving 6 cell and 9 cell batteries? Mine came only with a 6 cell one. Am I missing something?

Thanks for the pic and your information. I was thinking of getting the 9 cell. But again paying for a 9 cell battery to get only an hour and a half extra battery life is not worth it for me... I love the laptop overall I like it, it was the best one for me in the 17 inch category but this battery life is killing me.

However this is a brand new laptop, I did notice that the battery life is improving just a little day after day. I am hopping I will get something decent after a couple of full cycles of charge/discharge, as it is well known all lithium batteries are providing there full performance after a couple of charge/discharge cycles.

LMAO on Battery live, loool.

You manage to get 1.5 hours in a 6 cell?? May I ask what processor you have? Do you remember getting that amount from day one or if your battery improve after a couple of weeks??

 

Another alternative for you

Go to properties---> Auto Hide the task bar---> then you will have full screen viewing without small font, if this does not work, you can try it again.

 

@nMIK-3

not to be nit picky but I think you meant to say Heating instead of hitting.

Many of us purchased our HP from Amazon or Newegg the model number is 1011NR which comes with a extra 9 cell battery for FREE.

 

i have a question, do you guys know if where is a monitor profile made from spyder3 or something, for the envy 17?

 

I posted a monitor color profile a few pages back.

 

I posted one a few months ago here. I haven't heard if it worked well for anyone though. It would be great if you could try it out and/or divertankado's ( here) and let us know how it went.

 

What do you mean by "ambient temp"? My ACPI temp runs 120 degrees F doing light work. My airflow temp is 82 F (not on cooler atm) according to CPUID but isn't that just for the hdd compartment? Taken just now:



Is your left palmrest really not noticeably warmer than the rest? Mine gets warm, not any worse than other laptops imho, but the positioning is bad (under the WASD...)

 

well i dont have any problems with it, the screen is very good, but my friend has a sony vaio 12 something, and a guy calibrated his sony vaio 12 with a spyder3 and uploadet it to this website. so my friends screen looks better and more realistisk then the envy 17. the black in my screen is moving alot in HD, and it is a little annoying, i dont know if is just my screen or all envy 17 screens that have this problem. BTW i have the 1920*1080.

 

screen calibration is something best done by eye ... the settings used on one monitor dont necessarily apply to another (even on the exact same model)

 

Purchased the Envy 17 from HP and had Office 2010 pre-installed. It never worked. Was told that MS Office is not supported by HP. Very disappointing that I was referred to Microsoft for resolution. Needless to say I was referred back to HP. When HP installs a product, HP should support when a case of the product never functioning. The lession learned was never have any software preinstalled even if you get a discount.
rich

 

m$ software is so widely used, if u googled your issue i'm sure u'll find others ... eventually leading you to a solution ...

 

I think I can get 1.5 hours out of the 6 cell battery as well as long as I'm doing light Internet browsing and using Office 2010.

Ambient temp - room temperature. And this Envy laptop reminds me of the last HP laptop that I had that was an HP dv6t or whatever (AMD Turion X2 with GeForce Go 6150) and the palm rest/track pad use to get warm during intense HDD activity. This isn't too bad. My Gateway P-7811FX had a similar issue, but it went away when I installed an Intel X-25M SSD and used that as the OS and the 200 GB for data and games.

I would like to also add that I installed Office 2010 Professional 64-bit on my Envy 17-1011NR and have had zero issues.

 

Did they not give you a backup DVD of office 2010?

 

Hey all, first post. I'm finally upgrading from my HP Pavillion dv9000 laptop.

Being in Canada, I cant configure to order from the HP site, so I plan to buy the model being sold on bestbuy or tigerdirect. Basically I'm happy with all the specs, they are miles above my dv9000, but after reading around I really want to put a SSD into it.

So my 5 questions are,

1 To confirm, it is possible to put an aftermarket 256gb SSD drive into the Envy correct?

2 How difficult is it to install? and are there guides available?

3 (possible dumb question) If I remove the existing hard drive, then install a SSD how do I reinstall my Win7 operating system, isn't it on the hard drive that I would be removing?

4 Can the hard drive I remove be sold?

5 I've read that there is a second space for a hard drive or SSD in the Envy 17, is it worth getting another SSD, or moving the hard drive to the second space?

Regards,
Peter

 

Haha, one of the world's most widely used software packages and HP claim to not support it? Bizarre much?

 

1. Yes. I have an SSD running with no prblems -- it is fast.
2. Easy. Yes. I found an HP maintenance manual for the Envy that shows component removal/installation. Newmode link below shows how.
3. Yes. You'll need a Win 7 install disk or you need to create a recovery disk from your HP recovery partition before switching drives. I installed a clean copy of Win 7, make sure you have chipset and networking drivers before you re-install.
4. Yes, but I wouldn't sell it until the warranty was over. You don't want to return your computer for warranty work with your shiny new SSD in it.
5. You need a bracket and cable to install a second hard drive. I ordered two hard drives to get the bracket/cable, but newmodeus now carries them.
Add a 2nd HDD or SSD to a HP Envy 17 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks
Hard Drive Caddy & Cable for HP Envy 17 (also works with SSD) [HP-ENVY-17] - $38.55 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

 

I'll do pix, hwmonitor screen grabs etc later when I have more time, but, the Cooler Master U3 lowers my temps 10+ degrees F in idle/light. I installed Mass Effect and temp never went above 111 F. That left vent that's usually rather warm is cool to the touch. The left palmrest is the warmest part of the laptop now, which makes me worry a bit, because I wonder if the cooler is trapping hot air there while helping ventilation elsewhere. I don't know of a way to test that though. edit to add quick glimpse of temps. Compare to temps I posted a bit earlier.

Install is easy. Here's a youtube clip showing how to do the second hdd bay: YouTube - Add a 2nd HDD or SSD to an HP Envy 17

You can use backup & restore to put the OS as well as the recovery drive (E:, which is a partition on C: drive) on a new hdd, but afaik you can only go to a bigger hdd, not smaller. Since this is a 320gb, you won't find an affordable ssd that size to put in. Unless you have your own Windows 7 disc, you might have to use Acronis or some other 3rd party app to move the OS to that ssd.

I'd do a decent sized ssd for OS and apps and then put in the biggest data drive you can find for D:. I plan to go 240gb ssd + biggest 5400rpm I can find, for music movies and pix etc. Also, check out the Seagate Momentus XT hybrid, that might do you for now until ssds fall in price more. Whole huge thread devoted to it in aftermarket components forum.

 

Another prelim rough comparison of cooler v no cooler:

Idle, cooler fans off, but back way elevated due to cooler ventilated stand:


Fans on, running Photoshop to set up a wallpaper:


None of this at great length, but restarts and cooldowns in between. There seems to be a consistent 5-10 degree F difference if the fans are on, so far.

 

The HP Envy can be customized with a 160GB SSD. Can anyone who bought the Envy with this SSD tell me more info about this SSD? Is the Solid State Drive the Intel x25-m g2?

thanks!

 

Thanks for the info and links deljohnson and taetertot, I'm a bit confused on what chipset and network drivers are, and the idea of copying an operating system seems a bit strange.

I'm gonna look more into it before committing to grabbing it. I'm actually thinking of buying a configured HP with an SSD, and getting it shipped to a US address, then just bring it or have it shipped here. I believe that may void the warranty it comes with though..

 

hey guys is it safe to flash your bios to an older version. im on the F13 one and i feel it gives me less smooth gameplay! or is this just me?! thanks!