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

The windows update "AMD Drivers" has bitten many of us. Once you are bitten once...you then look for it. Funny thing...I have been aware of this and last week...ran Windows update on Tues. Saw that there was a security fix for 64 bit Windows...wasn't paying attention and BAM! Caught the AMD drivers during the install...just wasn't fast enough to cancel them. Had to use driver sweeper and reinstall HP drivers three times before things got back to normal. I am willing to bet that is your issue. Keep us all posted...What is NOT to love about the Envy 17 / 17 3D. These are some of the finest Higher end laptops out there...

When you run Windows update...make sure to change settings to allow you to decide which updates to install...THEN...check each and every entry...normally AMD drivers are under "Optional" updates...but make sure and check every update.

 

I see nothing in my bios for the setting. I have it on my desktops...but it is not there for the Envy.

 

Quick question for you ENVY 3D owners. Is the screen running at the 120Hz refresh rate at all times, or only when playing 3D?

Just got my DV7T and want to return it for an ENVY. One reason being that I can definitely notice the 60Hz refresh on the LED panel and find it a bit fatiguing after awhile.

 

The screen is on 120 HZ 100% of the time that the AMD 6850 is running. When you are on the Intel HD3000...it is 60HZ. Basically, I have the system set up that it runs on the 6850 whenever the machine is plugged in...and on the Intel on Battery.

 

Perfect, thanks!

Calling HP in the morning to get this DV7T sent back.

 

is the update which came out on the 8th for HD graphics intel from AMD one of the forbidden updates?

 

The AMD, but to be safe...I wouldn't download drivers for either. Better safe than sorry... BTW...I have never seen the Intel graphics on Windows update...Hmmm!

 

here it is... I'm having a ton of wireless and display issues so I'm going to install it and see what happens.

 

black screen, system restored to before the update and it's fine now

 

Wow...will Microsoft ever stop trying to write drivers for other people's hardware! Over the years, with other laptops and desktops...their video drivers have never really worked.

 

Others have found that earler drivers for wireless helped a great deal. The issue is really a chipset (afterburner) type issue with high speed downloads. Earlier released Intel drivers seem to do the trick

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Sea...-N+6200&ProdId=3407&LineId=1784&FamilyId=1783

 

will this make a difference for Wireless Display? On the intel download page for Wi-Di it says to install in a specific order.

 

No...

I believe the WiDi drivers are part of the HP package that includes the AMD / Intel switchable graphics

 

good info Alf and good lesson here -- the HP drivers are what is tested and supported. if it doesn't work with the HP drivers, then hammer on HP. yes I get that sometimes you do what you gotta do (and wireless has been an issue), but the first chioice should always be to use the HP drivers, or follow HP instructions to do otherwise as needed. Intel SSD stuff comes to mid.

But, in particular, The Catylist Control Center software itself and the AMD driver comes as a package from HP -- at least on my DV7 that is the case. the point is that especially for switchable graphics using dissimilar vendors Intel and AMD, HP is the one responsible to make it all work

just curious though -- did you try to use a restore point?

 

hi everyone, I've been asking around and no one seems to have a suggestion, or to give a reply, but what I'm asking is simple I think:

Does anyone have a good laptop cooler suggestion for this model of notebook?

I just bought the Cooler Master SF-19 and it doesn't seem to help. I was hoping it would cool things down, but it seems to have made it worse.

Anyone have any suggestions or ideas? Maybe get a Zalman NC-3000S?

 

I tried the Targus cooler mat as well...with about the same results as you. The thing to keep in mind...the main air intake on the Envy is just below the CPU / GPU on the left of the keyboard. If you block it or don't help getting air to it...it seems to starve the machine for air. Right now, if I am going to do some CPU / GPU intensive things...I place the Envy in my lap, and make sure to leave the intake free to take in as much air as it needs...so far so good. I am also in search of the right cooler that will help all the time.

 

Hi Bobmitch,

I noticed that the cooler I have, I can swap or change the orientation of the fans. The fans and I think most coolers do this - push air from under the cooler, and then upward into the system.

Our notebooks don't really have but 1 intake vent. everything else is either a passive or active vent for pushing air out. I'm gonna try and put my fans in reverse, to suck air out of the system and away. That might be better. I noticed that currently the system is cool everywhere but where the CPU is, the hot air is actually pushed and spread throughout the top left side portion of the notebook because the air under it is being pushed in.

I would suggested a $60 cooler, from what I've read they do and can work well. The Cool Master one is nice. Unfortunately I have read that any usb powered coolers aren't well equipped to help much.

 

Some thoughts about coolers. The bottom line is to look for one that:

1. does not obstruct the intake vent in any way
2. has large quiet, efficient fans instead of small noisy ones
3. constantly mixes the air under the Envy with room air to keep the air supply cool to the intake vent, rather than simply attempting to blow air directly into the Envy.

for clarity's sake -- the objective is to present cool air to the Envy's intake fan, not necessrily to attempt cooling the outside of the case.

Here's more detail -- there are two mechanisms at work, one more effective than the other:

1. The temperature of the air entering the Envy's intake vent is by far the most important factor -- much more so than its velocity. The enclosed nature of the space around this vent, when the Envy is sitting on a hard surface, causes air to travel under the Envy for some small distance before entering the vent. On their way to the vent, air molecules can be heated up as they touch the table surface and of course the Envy case itself. As both of those surfaces warm, over time as the Envy is used, cooling efficiency decreases because the air gets pre-heated before it gets to the intake vent.

For this reason, the 9-cell battery can actually provide some cooling benefit because it moves the laptop further away from a surface that might otherwise become determimentally warm.

cooling mats can be effective in the same way, IF they do not obstruct the intake vent in any way. IF they enlarge the space around it, fewer air molecules will have to touch something warm on their way to the intake vent. thats good. Additionally, the cooling mat with a supplimentary fan can increase the velocity of the air around the Envy so that air molecules spend less time touching those warm surfaces on their way to the vent. One overlooked factor here is that, in my opinion, a cooling mat's best contribution may be to keep air moving lateraly at some very low speed, under the Envy to keep that entire air space cool, rather than simply blowing air into the bottom of the case. In fact, simply blowing air onto the underside of the Envy could be counter productive because it forces air molecules to be heated by the warm Envy case. Another overlooked fact is that air at high speeds presents a low pressure to the Envy's own fan, making it more difficult for the Envy fan to do its job.

The best cooling situation would be to turn the Envy upside down so that a large amount of cool, low-velocity air is available to enter the vent. Or place the Envy directly over an air conditioning vent. However, not many of us find those options very convinient, so we have to find alternatives

As an aside, note that the physical action of a rotating fan blade itself heats up the air, so the more effective cooling mats will have larger ,quieter fans. noisy fans mean the blades are beating up and heating up the air instead of moving it. for this reason, lower speed fans may be more effective than higher speed fans.

2. To a small extent, an external fan can "stuff" (force) air directly into the Envy like a turbocharger stuffs more air into an engine. however, this effect is small or zero compared to (1) above because the Envy's own fan speed has the most influence. But -- if the external fan can actually blow cool air directly into the Envy's vent, it will be effective because this will (slightly) increase airflow through the Envy. But, as you can readily see, increasing airflow through the Envy won't work if the forced air is wam. In particular, an external fan might not be effective if it is a small noisy one that beats and heats up the air: We want more air molecules moving through the Envy, not just hotter ones

 

reversing the fans will work against the Envy's own cooling system, which is trying to draw air INTO the vent where it is routed past the CPU/GPU heat sink and/or heat pipes, and then to the outside via exit vents. you don't want to do this -- instead, try to present cool air to the Envy's intake vent with no obstructions. If you try to suck air out of the Envy, things will get worse.

the problem with USB coolers is that they cause the laptop to heat up more by drawing additional power from it! moreover, the USB power supply is not really sufficient for this purpose.

 

Since I'm reading some current post regarding coolers (and cannot seem to get results for "temp" on search) I thought I would post up some of my initial temps from this morning while getting ready for work. Since I didn't have the most time to do much gaming this morning I hope to do some gaming (2hours+) tonight and capture those results.

Idle at bootup;


Titan Quest (~5 minutes gameplay)


World of Warcraft (~5 minutes gameplay)


I am using HWMonitor on my Envy as suggested on the first page but I am curious if it normally doesn't monitor RAM temps. I could swear my old desktop application, SpeedFan, could capture that information but perhaps I'm mistaken.

Also, outside of the BIOS setting, is there anyway to make sure the Envy fan is running at max? Mine seems to be fairly quiet even during gameplay (which is hopefully a good thing) but I'm just paranoid that it may not be cooling as well as it should. Other than Speed Fan is there any other suggestions on an application to monitor my intake fan?

 

I'd say your fans are quiet because your temps are great! they look quite cool to me

here's an off-center suggestion to maximize fan speed while gaming: set coolsense to "coolest mode". in my experimentation this setting allows the fan to run faster than "performance optimized", which I find kicks the fan up to high speed too late as temps rise. The penalty is that "coolest mode" (in my experiments) does not allow CPU turbo, but it does allow all four cores to run at maximum non-turbo clock. The fan appears to run at top speed while (for me) core temps stayed in the 70s (running prime64)

honestly I don't get why "performance optimized" would dial in slower fan speed ... silly

anyway, I'm not a gamer so I don't know if this will work well, but the presumption is that the GPU is more heavily used and that four cores running at 2GHz is enough CPU power...

as for the fan speed I don't have a slam dunk answer but here are some things to check -- go to power options, advanced settings.

system cooling policy: set to "increase fan speed before slowing the processor"

maximum processor state: set to 100%

 

Thanks for the info guys. I am going to play around a little bit with the cooler I have, it's AC powered so it should be fine from a power stand point, but I think the issue with air flow I am seeing is due to its Dual fan design. It has 2 140mm fans next to each other in the center pushing air up. I think I might move the fans around if I can to see what I can do to help channel cool air into the intake, which I hope helps push some of that hot air out through the ventilation channel.

Really wish HP would do better thermal designing into their notebooks. I love how Asus have air intakes under their keyboard for better cooling.

 

good plan. the objective is to advantage the Envy's own cooling system as much as possible. can you adjust the fan speed on the cooler so it runs slower? try getting cool, slow moving air to the intake vent. also try coolsense "coolest" mode -- that runs the internal Envy fan as high as possible.

alternatively, i'm interested to know how succesful "forcing air into the Envy" is. directed properly (no obstructions to the intake vent), and if the air supply to the fans themselves is cool and not too turbulant, you should get some benefit. if you want to get real anal, get a digital thermometer and measure the air temp entering and exiting the laptop, and on either side of the auxilliary fans.

I suspect one of the problems with the forced-air approach is that when the air enters the Envy (from the external fan) it is circulating wildly and quite turbulant and chaotic, if you will. if you had some fins you could make the air more of a "laminar flow" -- essentially calming down the air entering the Envy.

 

Still waiting for my Envy to ship...

Estimated date was the 16th. I hope this means they actually used care while building it and that it's handled with care on the way here...

 

Hey guys, got an issue.

For some reason when I have a video on my screen, whether it's playing or paused, full screen or in a window, I cannot control the volume. Mute does not work, when I press the volume buttons the beats symbol comes up but the volume bars don't move and nothing else happens. As soon as I tab over to a page without video, the volume works just fine again.

Any ideas?

 

Hi,

Is anybody interrested in getting my 3D glasses for the Envy for a resonable price? The glasses have been used just once and where bought in Mai. I live in Germany and would prefer to sell the glasses here. Please send me a PM if you are interrested.

Best regards,
DvP

 

I was able to do some more Temp checks last night after playing a variety of games for about an hour. Surprisingly I found the temps to be lower if not right around the same as my earlier tests that ran only about 5-10 minutes in-game.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...xxx-series-owners-lounge-627.html#post7911830

The hottest my CPU got to was around 62-63C while playing Diablo II (w/MultiRes@1080p). All of my newer games had it running from 55-60C and my initial guess is going to be since Diablo doesn't offer Vertical Sync*.

*I read somewhere regarding Laptop heat that turning on VSync can help keep it cooler so you're not overworking the video card.

 

dude your CPU cores are running at under 70C while gaming? thats crazy cool, and causes applause of epic proportions among Envy gamers j/k seriously with those temps you do not have a heat problem...

 

hi All

I had ordered a dv7tqe, then looked at the Video card, and decided i made a mistake. and on Tuesday i ordered an ENVY 17 3D. so i have read most of the post in the last couple of days. i may need glasses now(3D). so i currently have a Dv7-2273cl dual core T6600 with 8 Gb and BD player dvd burner.
been pretty happy with it(Costco purchase, i assume that's the CL in the name).

Thanks all
Karl
ordered :Envy 17 3D • i7-2630QM • 1GB 6850M Graphics• 6GB 1333MHz DDR3 • 750GB 7200RPM Hard Drive • One 6-Cell and One 9-Cell Battery• 17.3" 3D 1080p• Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner

 

IMPORTANT QUESTION PLEASE GUYS:

What program do you all use to watch all your videos in 3d? Do you use Tridef 3d? If so, don't you guys find it pretty low in volume?

 

I always use the PowerDVD! Never tried the TriDef to watch a movie...will play around with it today and see what is up...

 

I'm sure the answer is here somewhere already, but what model number is the 300GB SSD the ENVY ships with?

Trying to decide if I want to go with SSD or not. I have huge reliability fears in regards to storing my data on SSD.

 

The SSD included now is the Intel 320 series. With the new firmware fix that Intel ships with...things are fine! Intel may not make the fastest overall SSD's but no one can touch their reliability. I would have no worries about data on an SSD. Also...I say that because I am in the habit of backing up my drives every 7 days with Acronis True Image...

I have the older X25 SSD in my Envy and it is rock solid...

No worries...

 

Cool, I guess considering what the SSD goes for by itself it would be stupid not to buy it with the 30% off.

 

OK, just placed my order. Nothing like saving $627!

Hope I like the ENVY better than the two days I spent with the DV7T.

 

guys the SSD with 30% off is as bargain, compared to the dual disk configuration when you consider street prices for the latest, but yet-unproven products. bobmitch is right about the reliabilty. you can go after market and spend about the same (or even more) money for something that will win benchmark scores, but for the things you really need there is little incremental benefit in most cases -- unless of course you have a specific need/app who's performance depends on a certain benchmark score

and when you get the SSD from HP you will have a fully supported SSD configurastion for 2 years. yea thats good.

hate is great you will like the Envy I think, and that comes from someone who just chose the DV7... I like my DV7, but Envy has better wireless, slot load optical, backlit keyboard, 1600MHz "front side bus" if you really want to use that in the future, larger SSD, and more. sure there will be something better, later, but that will always be the case!

just be sure to tell us if yours comes with that stupid goofy RAID0 set up...

 

Oh, I didn't get the HDD combo so I don't have to worry about the RAID0 issue.

300GB is more than enough storage for me and already paying $280 more than I did for the DV7T is really pushing my budget. Plus I have a 160GB 7,200RPM spare drive here if I think it will be useful performance wise (putting games on it, etc.)

 

Hi All - So far, so good on my Envy 17 3D that I received a couple of weeks ago. This one doesn't seem to have the wireless lockup issues that the previous Envy had. I didn't change my WAP or roll back the driver. In fact, I use the most recent driver that came up as a recommended update on HP Support Assistant. I may try the Cisco E4200 WAP and 6300 card for speed, but my old Netgear WNR2000 is now working fine with the 6200.

The only benchmarks I've done so far are:
3DMark Vantage: P8039
3DMark 11: P1843

One possible issue: When I turn on the computer, the blu-ray drive makes a sound similar to the sound it makes when you insert a disc into the drive. This is presumably coming from the mechanism that pulls the disc into the drive. Is this normal to hear if I do not have a disc in the drive? The sound only lasts a second, and the drive is otherwise performing well.

I'm just trying to put this system through its paces while I'm in the 21-day return period. Gonna pick up a PC game today, probably a nice RTS, to test gaming performance. I've been a PS3 gamer for the last 3 years, so I'm glad to return to the PC gaming world!

Thanks,
Kevin

 

A couple of people have reported this and the consensus seems to be that this is normal. The onboard bios of the drive probably causes a disc detection process when power is first supplied. As long as this isn't constantly happening, I wouldn't be worried myself.

 

Hi guys.

Been reading the lounge for quite sometime. Anyway, I'm planing to do a SSD upgrade. My system comes with a dual 1TB HDDs in RAID 0, so I need to use Bobmitch's fix to unRAID the drives when I get the SSD. The problem is that megaupload is blocked in my country, so if anyone could send me the document at [email protected] or upload it to a different site that would be great. Still didn't decide what SSD I'm gonna buy. What do you guys think of the Kingston HyperX 240GB? Is it really unreliable compared to the Intel 510?

@billfark
I don't think thats a problem, mine does that too. Even my old dv5 does the same thing, I think it is something standard to most notebooks.

 

This is Bobmitch's thread

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...ay-fix-hp-envy-17-3d-pavillion-notebooks.html

 

Thanks Cam and Xz -I think this one is a keeper, then!

-Kevin

 

Thanks for responding. So you use powerdvd just to watch videos off your hard drive in 3d or actual dvds? Also do you not find the program glitchy in 3d? Or do you put your battery on high performance? I have the 6850 radeon card.

Thanks

 

I use PowerDVD for most. Files and DVD's. I have had very few issues with Cyberlink in 3D...actually pretty good. I am mostly plugged in. Haven't really used the machine to view videos or DVD's on battery. Also 6850...

If you want to run 3D...you may want to plug in. 6860 is going to drain your battery pretty quickly...

 

Update! If nobody would be interrested here I would put it to the bay

 

Has anyone tried Windows 8 with their 17 yet? I'm installing it right now, I know the Envy 14 people had problems with graphics drivers and whatnot. I'll update if I figure out anything useful

 

Super....keep us posted!

+1 rep

 

So I burned it to a DVD, installed it. Everything's looking good, says it wants to restart. Restarts, loading screen, then black screen. Nothing.

Tried re-installing 3 different times, not sure what the problem is. Maybe I burned a bad copy, it's the only thing that makes sense. It has to at least be able to get by on some generic video driver so I don't get why there is a black screen...

If anyone has any ideas I'm willing to try them

 

Odds of HP sending me 603791-001 (the replacement keyboard) for my laptop? The support rep is saying they wont send it and it's not user replaceable.

 

micro center ordered it for free and it will be here Thursday. My envy 2090 was $1329.99 from them BTW