*HP ENVY 17 & 17 3D (2XXX series) Owners Lounge*

Kind of funny...but I was sharing a thought with dlleno a few minutes ago and thought that what I proposed might be an interesting solution for those, like me, who are concerned about thermals on the Envy.

When we all started testing and using Throttlestop...we did so to keep the CPU from throttling all the way down to 800 MHZ. Well...I keep the program around, for as I learned from unclewebb...there are other uses...like helping keep the machine cooler...and NOT having it throttle...too badly.

With f.15, as we all know, the throttling is gone. Temps are a bit warmer than before the bios, but I was able to still see temps of around 97C. That is cutting it pretty close...so depending on what I might be playing (think something like original Crysis may still put the heaviest load on CPU and GPU)...I can open throttlestop and use profile ONE, which allows the CPU to work from 2.0 to 2.9 GHZ and then combine with a second profile for thermal protection...use Profile THREE, which slows the CPU to 1.6 GHZ. So in effect, I am doing the opposite of what the original bios did. I am actually underclocking the CPU when the temp reaches 90C and forcing it to cool itself down. When I have done this a few times...my temps would range from 84-88C and "rarely" hit 90. Kind of the best of both worlds....So what happens is that the CPU runs full "throttle' until it reaches 90C, then profile THREE comes into play and throttles the CPU between 1.6 and 2.9. In reality...it might top off at 2.6 GHZ...but still...the object is to keep the heat under control. Under NO circumstances does "underclocking" your CPU harm it. So as they say...no harm, no foul!

On my desktop, I have settings in my bios, where I can set CPU speeds at different temperature levels. Baseline fan speed on an i7 950 is something like 40%. I set my baseline at 50% and then for each 10C increment...I increase fan speed by 10%. In theory, I am running full CPU fan speed at 100C. I never ever see my CPU get that hot. Hightest I have ever seem my fan speed is 70%. On my GPU, EVGA GTX580, I use EVGA Precision (Authored by the same guy as MSI Afterburner). Again...I set increments as the temp of the GPU gets hotter...all the way to full fan speed of 85% at 90C. Again, my GPU never gets hotter than 70C...unless I don't use Precision...then I might see 85C-90C.

You can control the heat and NOT take too much of a performance hit. The Envy is a wonderful machine with one weakness...cooling. What are we talking about...separate heatsinks for the CPU and GPU, but they share one heatpipe and one fan. If our HP bios would allow us to control the fans on our own...I might set the way I did my desktop. Unfortunately, in this generation Envy...most of the advanced bios settings are hidden from us. I don't know what the default fan speed is...I just know that as I add load to my CPU and GPU...the fans ramp up. This generation is leagues advanced from the first generation Envy. KJ...I don't know if you ever really fired up your original Envy...but from what I have read...the heat was pretty intense. We are nowhere near that level of heat, at any time.

Just thought I would share the thoughts...might be helpful to someone

 

Where can i find temperatures. Based on all the work I did with Trottlestop and furmark and Prime...the "hottest" my machine ever got was 97C and that was a peak temp

Battery Life on average. I have the 2630M and on battery I keep my screen on 60% brightness while on the Intel GPU and my six cell battery gives me 3 1/2 hours

3DMark 11. Somewhere within the 500+ pages of this thread, I ran 3DMark 11. With the HP AMD Drivers I scored an 1855. Upgrading just the AMD drivers to Catalyst 11.4, I scored a 1945

I didn't test 3D Mark Vantage nor 3DMark 06. Hope what I have helps you...and my machine has NEVER overheated

Just as an aside..for those who tell you that the Envy isn't a gaming machine...I ran 3DMark11 on an Asus G73SW (Sandy Bridge model with Nvidia GTX460M), and it only scored an 1853. So the 6850 isn't a slouch by any stretch. That is when I knew the Envy was going to be something to reckon with. I am not a big gamer...but when I do play one...I want it right...and this machine doesn't fail on any level.

 

TheAtreidesHawk, lol. You didn't jinx anything, all is fantastic. Sorry for late reply.

Weight, oh yeah, HEAVY....I can manage, just gets annoying since I carry it daily to work and back home at night. I wish I had 2 Envys one for the office and one for home. My Bday is coming up soon, so you're welcome to get me another!

Compactness? Lol, of course that does not exist on our Envy 17s, still, I wll take it anyday (heavy), with its gorgeous display, sexy overall look, and features over a smaller unit.

KJ

 

Has anyone tried installing Linux/Ubuntu on this fine machine?
I can find a linux thread only on Envy 14, so I was wondering whether there'd be issues on the Envy 17.

 

That's exactly what I found out while I was researching which machine would be the right for me. The 6850 (DDR5) is as fast or even slightly faster than the mobile GTX460 which made me pretty confident that the Envy 17 is the choice for me. I am still a bit disappointed how fast the GPU is in general but even if I have extended knowledge about GPUs the gap to desktop GPUs performance is still much bigger than I thought. BUT there is nothing faster which makes sense. Every faster notebook for gaming is a fat bloke with low battery life and/or extremely expensive (alienware).

 

FYI after my fresh install I DID NOT reinstall coolsense and I have not missed it. Frankly, I cannot see what it did other than adjust the cooling settings built into windows 7 power mgmt. I am starting to think it should end up on the long list of HP bloatware. I have to say that the fresh install is working out great. I am getting over 4 hours battery life on the 6 cell with my ssd, it is rock solid stable, and it is crazy fast. The only problem I was having was throttling and hopefully HP addressed this on the F.15 bios. Havent had a chance to test it yet.

 

Hi everyone,

Being new here and after reading 500+ pages of this thread (pheeww!) plus other info here and there for the past two weeks, I decided to take the step and bought the Envy 17 SB (non-3D) 2000ef. This is the only pre-built one we can get here in France (no custom - that's a bummer), so had little choice about its specs.

I should get the laptop this evening (UTC+2 time) so I'll tell you more about it (with the definitive specs, BIOS version, etc.) at that time. I already planned to replace the HDD (laptop should be coming with 1 * 1000 Gb 5400 rpm) with an OCZ Agility 3 120 Gb SSD. HDD Caddy from newmodeus is on its way to install the HDD to the second bay afterwards.
I also plan to burn the HP Recovery Disks and do the same as slotti did (i.e. minimal system recovery on the SSD) using them.

So I'll be detailing here any issue I'm going through or any new useful info.

Thanks already for all the useful info I've been able to gather through this thread (thinking especially about Bobmitch, cam121 and fiver5 among others) !

 

fish1203...

Good luck. If you need any help, just know that we are here for you. Your plan sounds solid!

 

The f.15 will most certainly help. Don't wait any longer....do it! What is your brightness when on battery? I keep mine on 60% and usually get closer to three and a half hours...which in my case is a vast improvement over what I got on my old Dell Inspiron E1505

 

yep! Its a great design sweet spot of performance versus heat management. There's no way you could put a stronger GPU in there without a more robust cooling systerm, which would require a bigger package. Now that the throttling has been corrected, and with bobmitch's use of throttlestop to get the most out of this machine, The ENvy 17 is pretty close to the ideal machine. Even the 8GB RAM barrier, normally requiring 4 slots (and again, a bigger package) has been broken with 8GB sticks, and at least according to Kingston, HP is also testing these and intends to support the configuration.

Things are looking readl good for Envy 17. now we just need an updated clickpad!

 

I am usually around 50%. I think the real power savings is the SSD. I also spent some time tweaking the Win 7 power settings. I couldnt be happier with the battery life.

 

Hi
I am going to purchase the envy 17 3d quickship model sometime this month when they have a sale.
Could someone tell me how i should do a clean install? I am a techno turkey...

 

Some thing that i feel annoyed by the Envy 17 3D is the fan noise. When it is not on everything is so quiet. But when it is on, boy it IS loud. I heard it turned on first time when i did the throtling test and after it is turned, it ran for quite a while even i after i finish the test and the processor returned to 2Ghz and temperature is around 70+.

I wonder how other users think about it. and if there is a way to reduce noise when it is turned on.

 

I ran some interesting numbers:

There is certainly a realizable power saving due to the SSD but it is small compared to the overall power consumption of the laptop when it is used moderately, and yielding 3 hours life out of the 9-cell battery.

there are two extreemes to consider:

HDD actively seeking: A 7200 rpm HDD requires about 2.5 watts worst case, while seeking (ignoring the few-second startup time during which it requires 5 watts). The Intel 320 series SSD (the 160GB, 300GB, and 600GB) requires 150mw while active, worst case. This difference (about 2.35 watts), represents about an 8% overall drop in average power consumption, or about 14 minutes of battery life, given the above assumptions and assuming active writing/seeking all the time.

idle conditions, If the drive is substantially idle (not seeking) the difference in power consumption between HDD and SDD is even less, on the order of 1 watt, or a 3% drop in average power consumption, which is about 6 minutes of battery life.

By way of comparison, the display itself consumes approximately 6 watts when cranked all the way up, which is more than two 7200 rpm drives actively seeking, so just turning the brightness down to 50% will save substantially more than what you would obtain by replacing an HDD with an SSD.

on edit: if folks are getting 4 hours out on the 6-cell battery, then the SSD contribution to power savings will be greater. I'll run those numbers when I can find the specs on that battery...

 

fan noise is a compromize between cooling and performance. maximum performance = maximum cooling required = loudest fan. It sounds like you might wan to play with CoolSense settings -- this sofware is intended to help balance those things.

Another angle on this, since I can't hear your fan, is that its possible you have a fan that is louder than its supposed to be. Can you compare the noise with another laptop, perhaps in a store? are you hearing mechanical noises/drones etc. or is it just rushing air noise? If you think your fan is noisier than it should be when it is running, and you have tried to balance performance and cooling, you could call HP.

 

Here's some more complete numbers, re: power savings from replacing one HDD with one SSD

if you are getting 3 hours life from the 9-cell battery: savings range from 6 to 14 min depending on read/write activity.

if you are getting 3 hours life from the 6-cell battery: savings range from 9 to 20 min, depending on read/write activity

if you are getting 4 hours life from the 6-cell battery, then you are consuming only about 15 watts average, which seems very low to me, but believable if you never use the discrete GPU, the display is turned way down, and the CPU is loafing along and hardly utilized. But under these conditions, the power savings obtained by replacing one HDD with one SDD range from 16 to 37 min of battery life, depending on read/write activity

 

Okay... I got the baby, perfect condition, no gap or dead pixel (so far). Here are the complete specs out of the box (17-2000ef) :

Intel Core i7-2630QM
4 Gb DDR3
AMD Radeon HD 6850M (1 Go DDR5)
HDD SATA 1 * 1000 Gb (5 400 rpm) (which is a Toshiba MK1059GSM : Toshiba SDD - Product Detail)
Ultra BrightView Infinity Screen (Full HD 1920 x 1080)
CD/DVD Burner (no Blu-Ray in France for non-3D version... meh)

Other hardware is the same as all Envy SB 17 version...
The delivered BIOS was version .7

I'm currently in the process of replacing the HDD with my SSD, and... there is something strange...

Let me detail what I did exactly step by step:

- Unboxed the laptop (obviously)
- Plugged it and started it
- Windows starting for 1st time, registered to HP and so on
- Saved SwSetup folder on USB drive, backed-up Windows activation with ABRBeta
- Created HP Recovery Disks
- Updated the BIOS to latest version .15 (downloaded it on HP website)
- Reboot
- Set CD/DVD as primary boot drive in the BIOS
- Shut down
- Opened the hard drive and memory covers
- Installed a Corsair 4 Gb 1333 Mhz DDR3 memory stick in the second memory module
- Switched the HDD with my SSD (OCZ Agility 3 120 Gb)
- Reboot with HP Recovery Disk 1
- Launched the HP Recovery process. Now this is where it starts being odd: I chose the first available option out of the 4 displayed in the first column (first one was "Microsoft recovery" thing and it was greyed out), which was something like "Reinstall system image" or something like that, I can't remember exactly, but it was not the "install minimal system" stuff I initially planned (I decided first option was worth a try anyway). The recovery apparently did format my SSD and went through all 5 Recovery DVDs.
- Reboot
- Then I got the "no bootable device" error as expected
- I tried to get to a command prompt with the HP Recovery DVD, but couldn't manage to get there, so I started with a W7 disk I had and choose the option "Repair" then "Command prompt", and once there I did the two commands BootRec /FixBoot and BootRec /FixMbr
- Reboot without any disk in CD/DVD drive
- It displayed "Windows is loading files" again, then "Starting Windows" and now I have a HP software installation going on for about 15 minutes (green and white window with small subway image on a grey image background)... SSD led is frequently flashing (meaning it reads or write stuff I guess!).

So, here I am. I'm not sure anyone who chose the first option from HP Recovery Disk with an SSD went this far? I wonder if the process will eventually fail and I will have to go back from start and choose the third option ("minimal system installation" thing)...

I'll keep you posted!

 

Here's the screen I was talking about:



But... unfortunately the first progress bar was moving at the same rate for ~20 minutes over and over again, and the second progress bar didn't move a bit during this time. So I decided to force reboot. Windows tried to start but I got an error "Driver iaStor.sys missing".

Can't load Windows in any way (even through repairing the Windows installation with my Windows 7 disk - that did detect a Windows 7 installation though). So I'm restarting the Recovery process all over and choosing option 3 this time...

 

Well... this software installation screen also appeared during my 2nd try and finally it completed successfully... Got a beautiful windows on my SSD right now. Not too much trouble in the end

Time to go to bed now... more to come later!

 

Thanks for sharing....good to see you got it working again. You're gonna love the SSD...

 

Definitely something wrong, maybe driver issue. I have Envy 14, and my score is higher with i5. (3038 PCMarks)

Result

How about the score for PCMark 7?

I agree! Fresh install is the way to go if you wanted envy that running rock solid!

 

Going on with further info.

Just as a comparison price I got my Envy 17-2000ef for 1,139 € here which is about $1,660, without any coupon as we cannot use them here... (note that I didn't get my Envy directly from HP)

I would also add that I noticed something strange yesterday: When starting the laptop for the first time and looking closely at the screen (especially in dark areas of the display) it was all like "fuzzing", just like electrowaves were flowing all over the screen and the pixels were "moving" all the time. It was very noticeable when I started the HP Support tool.

Don't know what may have caused this and it didn't look like it was going away. But after I installed the BIOS v F.15 and rebooted... gone !! No more fuzzy feeling, display is steady now! So if anyone had a close look at their screen and noticed something similar... Not sure where it came from though.

 

It is because you have an SSD. My scores are better in everything except the storage tests. I will run it again when I install my SSD and I'm sure it will be more impressive.

 

hi guys!
what is the driver for the backlight in the keyboard and for the hotkeys for my envy 17 2090el ? thanks

 

Laptop shipped today should arrive Tuesday via 2 day fedex. Hopefully this one unlike my last is a keeper. If not maybe updated ssd will be available and I will get a good deal.

 

This is very weird. The dv7tqe has the SSD as an option!!!
Yet, the Envy 17 3D does not. I just used HP chat and the lady did not have information about future SSD updates. She just told me see the newsletter about product updates/news.

KJ

 

Back again, continuing to configure my Envy.

The SSD is slower than expected (or is it just my feeling?). I applied the optimization advices I could gather here and there though. Will run a small benchmark soon I guess.

If anyone interested I have quite some news (saw it nowhere yet). If you want to get back Photoshop / Premiere with their working serial after a clean or a minimal system recover install:

You might wanna look in the SwSetup\ folder from the original C:\ drive (provided you saved it somewhere). Install the Photoshop / Premiere Elements 9 from there, and then check out the following files to get your actual working serials:

Photoshop : C:\SwSetup\PhotoPIN\AdobePSE9.cva

Premiere : C:\SwSetup\AdobePE\AdobePremiere9.cva

Open the files with notepad and check the line starting with

Code:

SilentInstall=

It will contain a serial number. That's the stuff!

Launch the apps and enter the serials you got when prompted. Et voilà!

 

Did you use a coupon? I too saw the 2 day free shipping for envy 17 quickship, but the price is a bit high for me at the moment.

On a broader topic, do any of you good folks know the number to call if i want a discount?

 

I find it very odd as well that the Envy is without SSD. Odd part is that the SSD available on the Pavillion is even bigger...

 

Ok, to start the weekend off right, I'm going to download and run Crimsoned's Throttle test to see what this here Envy can do.... (pleae no throttle, please no throttle... ) Will check back afterwards...

KJ

 

Will keep an eye on you to see the results...

 

Bobmitch, great. Oh, not sure if I asked, but anyway, does it matter if I install CPU-Z, Prime95, and FurMark on the SSD? Will my results/performace/throttle if any be affected if on SSD or HDD?

KJ

 

I had everything installed on D:

Created a folder D:\Program Files (x86) and installed it all in there. You will have to create a folder for Throttlestop and unzip all the files to that folder. Furmark I ran from a temp directory D:\Temp and Hwinfo32 in it's own folder. I didn't use CPU-Z because every time I tried it, it made my cpu default to Speedstep speed. Use either Hwinfo32 or Real temp

 

Ok, I ran the test for a good 30 minutes. Before running the test, with just CPU-Z, it was at 798.3 MHz.....
With Prime95 and FurMark, it jumped to around 2,400 something to no less than 2,100 something.. Mostly stayed at 2,295MHz.

I am a bit curious as to why on the 2820 it never got to the max turbo rating of 3,400MHz much less over 3,000MHz. Why is that?

Temps never got higher than 82 c.

Note: Also posted this on Crimsoned's Thottle Test Thread.

KJ

 

I know I saw that word here before. What is speedstep speed, and is this the reason my MHz never went above 2,300MHz because I used CPU-Z?

KJ

 

When on battery, your CPU will run at ...you guessed it...798 MHZ. For some reason, whenever I use CPU-Z, I always get that and on my earlier Dell Inspiron...it would leave the cpu there and I would have to reboot to get the 2.0 GHZ back...Not sure if CPU-Z would keep your processor that low...perhaps it doesn't read the CPU properly during the test. No need for a 30 min test...but try Hwinfo32 and the secondary screen will have LED's for your CPU speed. On mine...I went as high as 2.6 but pretty much maintained 1800 to 2000MHZ. I wonder if when HP fixed...they figured that at that much load they would leave at rated speed. You have to remember...that furmark and prime95 really stress the system...beyond most normal circumstances.

 

Maximum turbo boost only happens when 1 core is in the active state and you usually only get this for a few milliseconds at a time. When you are stress testing and all 4 cores are active, you get less turbo boost.

Killa Joe: What CPU do you have and I'll look up the turbo specs for it.

When lightly loaded, take what CPU-Z says with a grain of salt. If you want to see how your CPU is doing, run ThrottleStop in monitoring mode so you can watch all 8 threads in real time.

Edit: OK, I noticed that you have the 2820QM.

Max turbo boost.

1 Core Active - 3.4 GHz
2 Cores Active - 3.3 GHz
3 Cores Active - 3.1 GHz
4 Cores Active - 3.1 GHz

This is the maximum rating. When your CPU is fully loaded, if the power consumption is over the TDP limit, long term, Sandy Bridge CPUs are designed to throttle back to keep within the TDP limit. Run ThrottleStop and keep an eye on the power consumption number while testing. When fully loaded if that is dropping down way under the turbo TDP value then that could be an HP related problem with not enough power being available to run at full load.

 

Well, my 2070 arrived about 10 days ago....
I turned it on....looked at it for 3 or 4 minutes, (long enough to put my name in as the user) and turned it back off. I switched back over to my old DV6...which seems faster. I held on to my 6 until yesterday.....so now it is just me and the Envy and about 10 days to figure out if I want to keep it. I don't know....we will see.

I have not really tested it...and outside of a couple of auto-updates, I've done nothing to it.....but it seems slower than my dv6....which really grew on me. I'll play with it tomorrow....
But being that I got such a good deal on it....it may not matter. Under $1100 shipped....with a 3 year House Call and ADP.

 

I'd look further into it. A previous Envy of mine booted to Windows slower than my dv7 from Costco. After some testing, the Envy tech told me my Envy had a bad pathway on the MOBO. Sent it for exchange.

KJ

 

up thanks

 

Okay I finally was able to have a stable system on my installation.

After correctly installing Windows 7 on my SSD the system was freezing occasionally, with the SSD led always on. It took ~30 sec (sometimes more) to give control back. After spending some time searching the web for this I finally got the answer that fixed it for me (it seems so far anyway!), which is here: Solution: C300 Disk Freeze-ups in Windows 7 solved... - Crucial Community

The registry keys (and /PortX keys) didn't exist in iaStor/Parameters path but I created them and it seems to be working.

I'm still a bit concerned about the speed of my SSD which I thought would be faster. Here's what I've got from CrystalDiskMark:



That is a bit far from what OCZ states in the SSD description (or is it?): http://www.ocztechnology.com/res/manuals/OCZ_Agility3_Product_sheet.pdf

Does anyone have some advice about what to check or tweak about this?

 

My Envy stops responding all of a sudden even without doing any heavy work in fact it doesnt respond even while I am browsing with only to tabs open... has anyone faced with the similar problem? To check the temp of your system you need to use realtemp software right?

 

Hi guys...

I really like the hardware specs and design of the HP envy 17-2090eo 3D machine. I really want to buy it, but Ive read all sorts of negative customer reports about their machines heating to much.
Do you guys feel that this problem has been solved with the newer models?
How much is it affecting your overall feeling towards your Envy computer?
Would you recommend me buying one of these machines?

If not, I am going to buy the MBP 17"

thanks

 

Please dont ignore me!
Sorry, what is the number to call if i want a friendly rep who gives me discounts?

 

I have had mine for like a month, and so far everything is perfect, no issues. Remember that everybody here are mostly modifying their laptops, or the few people having issues.

 

I don't think anyone is ignoring you. I do not believe that any special numbers exist. Its all about getting a good rep on the phone. If one says no, then hang up and try again. Try resolutions, they can transfer from hp customer support. I for one believe I had the best deal of anyone on here. But that's neither here nor there. Just don't give up. You just have to be persistent...

I got a envy 17 3d will be here 6/15/11
2820 processor
8gb ram
1.5 tb dual 750 hard drives
4 yr in home accidental warranty

Hp printer b210a
2yr warranty next day shipping

And 320gb external hard drive

2 day fedex shipping

Grand total $1636.23. That's what persistence gets you!!!
Keep trying...

 

Hi all,

Please help me out. I've noticed recently that when I copy or move files, the dialog box flickers. Has anyone experience such issue? Does anyone know the solution?
Thanks,

 

Thanks...what a great deal for you!
Sorry, I've already posted this question a few pages back and seems nobody saw.

 

Not for me, the 2xxx model is more than reasonable temp wise.

 

The heat issues are more with the original i7 series 17t-1xxx. The new Sandy Bridge systems are very cool in comparison. You should have NO worries. Feelings about the Envy 17 / 17 3D....I, personally, don't think that there is another machine like it. You can pay more...but pound for pound, feature by feature....this is one of the best systems for the money. Lighter than the competition...and no slouch performance wise