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

I saw that article months ago and thought about it. The reasoning makes sense except MS also glances past the normal wear and tear leading to SSD degradation. I have no doubt that for the average user, they will get the "normal" life expectancy out of the their SSD's. Most of us here on NBR will be upgrading to a new notebook before the SSD's that came in our Envy's are dead. However, for those people who invested as much as ~$500 for a large SSD today are obviously concerned about maximizing the life of their investment. As SSD's become cheaper and technology better, this argument will be moot.

I personally moved the pagefile to the HDD and limited it to 1GB. I have considered moving it back to the SSD now that I know how much space is left on it after I installed my programs. I would prefer to go without it at all, but there are still programs that check for it and don't work well without it, which is why I believe 1GB is a fair tradeoff to maintain compatibility.

 

good comments cam121. I'll have to see how my 160GB is utilized, and make a similar decision, but leaning towards leaving it on the SSD. I like your size suggestion.

On a simillar topic, what did you think of the article's comments on TRIM and recovery/restore points? The greater body of recommendations out there appear to favor disabling restore point (the ssdreview cites problems with TRIM), but given the MS comments I'm not so sure:

"The Trim operation is fully integrated with partition- and volume-level commands like Format and Delete, with file system commands relating to truncate and compression, and with the System Restore (aka Volume Snapshot) feature."

In any case, restore points can be important during the time period where system changes are frequent. I don't see any beneift in disabling system restore, except to conserve space. One might want to avoid keeping lots of them, of course, or can they be moved to the HDD as well?

 

Hi

I just ordered my new Envy 17 3D and I look so much forward to that day in september!

HP ENVY 17 3D customizable Notebook PC

• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• No Additional Office Software
• 2nd generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM (2.0 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 2.9 GHz
• 1GB GDDR5 Radeon(TM) HD 6850M Graphics [HDMI]
• 6GB 1333MHz DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 1.28TB 7200RPM Dual Hard Drive (640GB x 2) with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• 30% OFF! One 6-Cell and One 9-Cell Lithium Ion Battery
• 17.3" diagonal Full HD HP 3D Ultra BrightView Infinity LED Display (1920x1080)
• Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam
• Intel 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth(R) with Wireless Display Support
• Backlit Keyboard with numeric keypad
• Adobe(R) Photoshop(R) Elements 9 & Adobe Premiere(R) Elements 9
• HP 3D Active Shutter Glasses
• HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

Estimated ship date: September 5, 2011

After I have read almost all 600 threads through I still have some questions that I hope you guys would be be so kind to answer:


QUESTIONS:

1. I ordered only the 6GB because I think the upgrade to 8 GB was +60$. I have seen good branded RAM kits for around 40-50$. My question:
I remeber from my days, where I custom build my PCs, that well branded names like Corsair, Geil, Crucial, kingston etc. delivered much better RAM performance than the "Noname" ram that you can get.
Im going to use the computer to play alot and photoshop etc. and I wan to have good performance and run Dual channel.

What kind of RAM kits would you recommand? And does well knowned RAM brands deliver better performance than the installed one in the Envy?


2. I ordered 2 harddisks of 640 GB, are they automatically setup up for Raid?

I know that there is alot of questions regarding Raid, but do I have to do anything to activevate RAID and does it increase performance?

3. It says ready to ship the 5th of september which I find a very long time, but is there a chance to get it before?

Thanks for your help folks

Danny

 

Your answers will be with your questions...

 

Mine came with 6GB too and the two sticks were different brands (I forget them, they weren't name brand).

I replaced them with a Corsair 8GB kit fir $39 after MIR. No problems so far.

Alternatively, you can get the G.Skill for $45 with a free 4GB USB drive. Good reviews with that, too.

Spending $40 on a 8GB RAM kit is better than the $60 surcharge from HP. And you get to keep the 6GB as backup!

 

I'm definitely interested in seeing if your system comes configured with RAID.

I personally am hoping thats not the case but I do remember a while back that several people ordered Envy's and their systems were coming that way.

 

I personally disable windows restore. While I dread being caught in a situation where restore could actually be useful, I found that it slows a system down.

Generally speaking, this slowness only occurs when trying to install/remove something that triggers a snapshot, but it is also at these times where we wish our systems were faster. Why should a 1GB service pack take an hour to install? With restore on, first the system has to purge existing files taking up space in the restore bucket, then it has to backup the 1GB of files being replaced, then it has to install the new files. The amount of reads/writes that occur during this process is enormous. Reducing the amount of space that restore uses doesn't help either because that only increases the turnover rate requiring more disk i/o to manage.

I wouldn't recommend everybody turn off restore, but I'm personally familiar with fixing windows and re-installing if need be.

 

I would personally hope that any system shipping with identical HDDs comes pre-installed with RAID. There is no reason not to configure it this way. Sure some people are buying a dual drive system and replacing one with a SSD, but (a) this requires a fairly competent technical person and (b) there are fewer people doing this than just leaving it be.

The RAID performance benefit is HUGE compared to single drive systems. As has been discussed before, the loss of a single drive whether RAID or not is a "disastrous" consequence that doesn't offset the benefit of using RAID for the other 99.999% of the time prior to the failure.

Now RAID'ing a SSD and a HDD, well that was just plain stupid...

 

Found a free CNET network speed test ( LAN Speed Test - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com) which I ran on my 2820QM/6300 w/3 antennae/NETGEAR WNDR3700 v2 using another computer on my LAN as a destination. Got these results with a 200MB file size:

@2.4Ghz writing = 65.6Mbps - reading = 65.1Mbps
@5 Ghz writing = 76.4Mbps - reading = 101.6Mbps
1000BaseT writing = 530.7 Mbps - reading = 791.2Mbps

I'm not going to put the 6200 back in (too lazy) but I'd be curious to learn whether these throughputs are typical. I'm about 8' from the WNDR3700 with no obstructions.

PS- What is the Mbps translation for "SCREAMIN".

 

Which is what they were doing if you'll recall....

But I understand your first point. Its just that I'd rather be given the option of whether to have the RAID 0 in place or not.

As you mentioned I may or may not replace the hard disk drive in slot 1 with an SSD so that's why I wanted the option....

 

Oh yeah, I recall that very much since I was one of the first people trying to figure out why the restore didn't work right.

Options are great, but unfortunately it's probably too complex to rely on a sub-$1/hour technician in some offshore factory to interpret a flag on your order as to whether you want RAID or not. Thus, since the majority of users will benefit from RAID, it should be standard (for identical HDDs, of course).

 

Too bad you'll never see those speeds over your internet connection...

 

well said cam121. HPs default now is to ship dual HDDs configured with RAID 0. its an automated process at the factory that appears (early hicups notwithstanding) to be very consistent now. thats the way it should be. and you're right that it takes some technical competance to undo the RAID and go SSD

I jumped ship to the DV7, which does not RAID dual HDDs. my plan was to simply replace the primary HDD with an after market SDD. Then I noticed the 30% coupon which made the price of HP-configured SSD about $1/GB compared to the dual HDD configration so I returned my DV7 and ordered another with the SSD option.

 

If you check LogicBuy, you can buy a Kingston SSD for about $1/GB. The deals come and go pretty quickly, but you can get them in 64/96/128 versions. I personally bought a 96GB for my home desktop which will give it another year or so of life. Now these are "yesterday's" SSD's, but they still offer a huge performance increase compared to rotational media.

 

yea the currently shipping Intel SSDs are not the fastest either but they too hit the rw performance that provides the greatest benefit. After all that analysis months ago when we were all debating the ~$500+ cost of adding the 160GB SSD to the Envy 17, I realized that with the 30% coupon, that $1/GB SSD might not be the fastest car on the road, but it comes with a 2 year warranty.

 

Guys,

I am using an Envy 15 1050NR and it gets CRAZY hot. I mainly use Adobe CS5. I am thinking about ordering an Envy 17 3d (sandy bridge). Does it get less hot? Has anyone also owned an Envy 15 like what I'm using and can let me know if the new 17 3d is improved?

Thanks!

 

I have an envy 15 with the i7 and my 17 3d gets nowhere near as hot as it. Speedfan says it does but it doesnt feel like it.

 

Okay can someone point me to a website that sells a hard drive caddy and whatever else I'd need to purchase to install a 2nd hard drive myself?

I just unboxed my Envy 17 3D and wow...its gorgeous in person. The pictures online and even the youtube vids don't do it justic. Yes the swirly pattern isn't the greatest but it really isn't that bad (again in person).

Anyways I ordered it with a 750GB 7200RPM so from what I know the 2nd caddy won't be in there right? I'm really debating returning it and reordering it with dual hard drives but I don't want to have to deal with the RAID 0 situation....

So if I can just get the caddy install it easily in slot 2 and put an SSD in slot 1 that would be great.

 

I bought the Intel 510 120GB SATA III SSD. It comes with a caddy. At least, I think that's the caddy you need. I didn't use it.

 

Thanks for the link. I'm currently looking at these models as far as the SSD goes....

1) Crucial m4 (256GB)
2) Intel 320 Series (300 GB)
3) Samsung (Upcoming Model in October)

The Intel is definitely the cheapest but they've been having software issues last I heard. I know they released some update that supposedly fixed it but still...
I just realized you had a link to the Intel 510....I looked up the Intel 320 and thats significantly more expensive. Any major differences between the 2 lines?

I've heard nothing but positive things about the Crucial m4 Series so I'm most inclined to go in that direction when I finally purchase the SSD. As for the Samsung model I'm referring to this one....

Samsung's 6Gbps SSD gets a consumer label, October release date -- Engadget

I'm probably gonna be patient and wait till I read some reviews on it to be sure its great quality and that the price is right. I like getting the latest and greatest so even though the m4 is tried and tested I may still get the Samsung model if it proves to be good.

Ran across these 2 things. More and more I'm leaning towards the caddy option....

HP Envy Caddy

Hard Drive Caddy & Cable for HP Envy 17 (also works with SSD) [HP-ENVY-17] - $38.55 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

Video for Install

Add a 2nd HDD or SSD to an HP Envy 17 - YouTube


Very excited right now. The trackpad is VERY wonky though. Kind of a bummer but I have a very good wireless mouse so thats okay.

 

For the record, my Vertex 3 120gb SSD was on a great sale at micro center, however it's been disappointing as far as performance goes. I've had tons of lock ups and freezes, even with the latest firmware. When it's on though it's faster than my 3 micro center branded (a-data rebranded) 64GB SF-1222 drives in RAID0 are in my desktop

 

Yeah I'm staying far away from OCZ cuz I've seen and heard mostly complaints when it comes to their SSDs. Both here and on Amazon....

Just ordered the caddy from that newmodeus website. They looked legit and trustworthy.

 

Hi...

Just purchased an Envy online on 8/21 with a delivery date of 8/29...

That date passed and I remember reading about posters who were in my shoes who called HP and got some SWAG (can't for the life of me remember what page on this 600+ page thread)....

my question is what number do I call and what do I ask for as compensation?

Thanks for the help and info in advance.

 

Got an OCZ Agility III on my Envy 17 and it's working just fine. Yes I had freezes but with some little search on Google you can settle this pretty easily.

 

OCZ Vertex 3 Freezes, Locks Up, Stutters and Crashes | Geek Montage

Since you weren't specific about what fixed it for you can you give me a hint as to whether the registry tweak in this post fixed it for you?

 

Exactly. If you search posts I wrote in this thread you will find my route through all this - and the fixes I found.

 

The difference is that the Intel 320 is SATA 2 @ 3Gbps, while the 510 is SATA 3 @ 6Gbps. As I understand it our Envys support SATA 3, maybe someone can chime in and confirm.

That said, Intel is supposed to have some of the best reliability numbers. Samsung and Crucial have good numbers, too. I've read too many OCZ horror reviews to consider them, irregardlessness of the speedy Vertex 3 drives.

Granted it's only been a couple weeks, but so far, I ain't had one freeze, reboot, jitter, jagger, whoopdidoo or razzel frazzle. The Intel 510 has the bamaster coveted stamp of "Pimptastic".

 

Here's a screencap of my Intel Rapid Storage Manager and SSD benchmark. I have no idea why it did so horrible on the writing part but you can see the read speed is well above Sata 3gb/s specs and on par with SATA 6gb/s performance. I have a Envy 17 3d 2090-R

 

Yeah I looked on Amazon and saw that they have different speeds. I would def get the 510 over the 320 despite the huge price difference just on principle alone. In regards to the OCZ SSDs while I appreciate their speed I"m not willing to mess around and hope that it won't be one those that doesn't freeze, etc etc.

Anyways I'll be doing some research once I'm done with this very important exam I got next week. For now I have the Envy which I'm 90% sure I'm gonna keep and I've ordered the Envy hard drive caddy from newmodeus yesterday night.

Thanks for all the input/info tho guys.

 

The SSD market is in transtion and still in the shake down phase in my opinion. one of my freinds is a sales rep for enterprise storage systems, and he informs me that the shake down in this segment is approaching some stability,with only a couple of mfgs left. Alas I can't remember which ones... but regardless of the enterprise space, the consumer space is very different and has many players still. The big boys like Intel, Crucial, Kingston, and Samsung will probably be around a while, but in my oinion the folks like OCZ are going to fade because they have to buy their flash memory from someone and its probasbly going to be one of the others. So, just like in the HDD market there are only a very few mgs of rw heads and media, there are only a few mfgs of flash memory.

The folks that are going to fade are those that rush to market with buggy unreliable products that require a fair amount of IT competance to work around

Don't count out Kingston HyperX Here is one that comes with a kit of hardware instead of just a bare drive

Newegg.com - Kingston HyperX SH100S3B/240G 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (HyperX Upgrade Kit)

 

The Intel's get a bad rap because they appear a ways down the list on benchmark paretos. but they do well in the area where the SSD give the most user benefit. I went ahead and sprang for the venerable but old 160GB for my Dv7 for that reason...

 

@ dlleno

I"m actually reading reviews on that Kingston HyperX drive you mentioned. Do you feel like it will be one of the major brands/companies left standing once all is said and done?

Also Amazon has it for the same price that newegg has it but without having to send in that mail in rebate so if I do get it will be from them most likely....

EDIT: I read in another Envy thread after doing a search that HP uses proprietary connectors/caddies in their laptops. As in there's a "primary" and then there's a "secondary" one and that the 2 are different somehow.

The kit that you say comes with the Kingston HyperX....would I be able to use it to migrate the original hard over into slot 2?

 

I have great respect for Kingston; they make their own memory and have been a major player in the memory space for some time. I have Kingston memory in my 5 year old DV8000, and in my experiience they do not hit the market with preliminary products that have good specs but not proven reliability. my perception is that Kingston has a reputation to protect.

So In that regard yes I do believe they will be one of the ones left after the dust has settled.

 

Thats the cool thing about Kingston -- they should be able to answer that question and even tell you if this drive will work in the Envy. call their support line they are very helpful.

 

Thanks! Will do as soon as possible.

If it turns out to be the case I'll just return the one I ordered from Newmodeus. Still reading reviews but the performance looks quite stellar and all the reviews have been very positive.

The only thing holding me back is that I wish the Samsung model was out so I could read reviews on it and see how it stacks up performance wise....

 

let us know how that conversation with Kingston goes! that drive was going to be my solution too, until I decided to save some $$ and go for the lesser Intel 160GB. but holy cow if this Kingston kit SSD works directly with the Envy 2nd bay then you are in wahoo city if you ask me.

 

OK...just to be absolutely certain this is the item I'm looking at on Amazon:

Amazon.com: Kingston 240 GB HyperX Upgrade Kit Series SATA 3.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive, SH100S3B/240G: Electronics

Now this drive can be installed on a notebook PC correct?

According to the lady I spoke with from Support it should work just fine. I told her that I have an Envy 17 3D from HP. At first she told me that the drive was only meant to be used as an "external drive" but I said are sure and then she re looked and saw that she was looking at the wrong item.

She then looked at the right item (I hope) and said that yes it could be installed in a notebook PC. So then she asked if the hard drive in the Envy was 1.8 or 2.5. To which I replied that its 2.5. She then said that they are the same form factor and that it should work.

So if I order the Kingston I'm gonna get the kit and use the kit to move the 1st original hard drive over into the 2nd Bay and then install the SSD using the cable/hardware that HP already has in the 1st Bay.

Is there anything from a software/hardware/BIOS standpoint that I need to do/know? I think I remember someone saying that they had to download a program or driver from OCZ or Intel in order for their drive to be recognized by the BIOS? Is that true or not?

 

The mount for the Envy' second drive is very specific in shape and I doubt Kingston would make it, I'm thinking that it's a generic kit, but I could be wrong. With the correct enclosure, it will definitely work though. You probably need to format the SSD drive before you can install Windows on it. I would first install it in the second bay and format it. Also you can update the firmware this way. Then you can switch the drives and have the SSD in the primary bay and install Windows (or do a recovery or what have you).

Let us know how it goes.

 

For those of us who upgraded our Envys with Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 cards, here's a fairly recent and very informative article reviewing wireless 802.11n 3-stream capable routers:

Three Stream N Performance: A First Look - SmallNetBuilder

I'm using multiple WNDR3700s which don't support 3-stream operation and my earlier posted throughput numbers reflect that.

 

Well I did order this from newmodeus just in case....

Hard Drive Caddy & Cable for HP Envy 17 (also works with SSD) [HP-ENVY-17] - $38.55 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

So we'll see if the 2 match up. Hopefully I won't need the one from newmodeus in the Kingston one works just fine.

So you suggest putting the SSD in bay 2 first, updating the drivers, and formatting it (in those 3 sequential steps)? Then put in bay 1 and do the fresh install of Windows 7 right?

 

thats good advice TheAtreidesHawk use the SSD in bay 2 first. you can update the SSD firmware if needed, and prove out all the cables and bracketry. and call Kingston support if things go wrong. test it in bay 2 before you move to bay 1.

formatting can be done there as well, although you can pick that option during the clean install using windows disks. I"m not sure about this, but formattting during the windows install might be necessary to create the boot sector and master boot record, which windows recovery should manage well.

 

Actually, I think you need to format before you update the bios. Then I would use the recovery partition off your regular HDD to burn recovery DVDs and use them to restore your system to the SSD. Once that is done, switch the drives and make sure everything is working. Then you can wipe your HDD and use it for data.

 

I'm not using recovery DVDs. I'm doing a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate which I got from my job at a very very very cheap price...as in $10.

And what's the verdict. Do I update the firmware on the SSD first and THEN format it?

Or is it

1) Install SSD in bay 2
2) Format it completely.
3) Update firmware from manufacturer's website?

Then once all that is done switch it to bay 1 and install another HDD into bay 2. I've decided to not format the original HP hard disk drive just so I can keep it for any time I may need to ship it into HP.

 

I would update the firmware first. It has been known that data has been lost during flashes of the firmware...

Flash first...then Install Windows...it should format it for you...properly with good alignment

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/607699-envy-17-2xxx-thermal-paste-replacement.html some help?

 

Sorry I don't know much about that part of the computer....

And thanks for the input bobmitch...that's what I was thinking the order of those steps should be but the other guy confused me....I'll stick with updating the SSD while its in the 2nd Bay and then switching it to the 1st one and allowing the Windows 7 Ultimate disc to handle the formatting of the SSD.

 

That is actually what I first tried with my setup but the computer never recognized the SSD (in either bay) without formatting it first. Maybe you will have better luck. After formatting everything went smooth, but I had to return it because of a couple other problems so new one should get here on Friday.

Edit: And by formatting I mean simply formatting, not installing Windows. So basically I install in bay 2, format, update drivers, switch to bay 1, install windows, and done.

 

I see your hard at work Bob... you guys are in good hands with Bob!

 

So frustrating......thanks for the example tho. I'll weigh the pros and cons. I just don't understand how you can format (which erases everything right) and THEN update driver for a drive thats completely blank....but then again I'm no expert so if most of yall believe that this is the right way I'm willing to follow your advice.

 

You saw nothing.