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

Flyer...

Once you put in the new drive...you did a clean install, if I recall. When you look in Device Manager...you have the listing for ATAPI / IDE??? and No RAID storage controller?

 

Fresh install of Win7 x64 Ultimate with SP1 on a single drive Vertex 3.



I made no attempt to install any controller drivers or do any drive controller configuration. Just put in the install disk and pressed next. Drive was unpartitioned before installation.

 

Interesting. I wonder why ALL the machines, even with single drive have the SATA RAID Controller present...Oh wel...no biggie...my machine is working perfectly, so I absollutely will not complain. I ran an HDTach benchmark on the Intel...got 185/185, which is slightly slow. Now, I moved all my pagefile and temp files to the D drive...so as not to waste write cycles on the SSD. The SSD actually scores a 7.5 with Windows 7 Experience...so I just wonder if HDTach is a bit old for this technology. As I said...no wanting to mess with such a sweet running machine...

 

Hey all..pls post the 3dmarks06 and PCMark Vantage scores of your envy?

 

wow,
so the difference in between the 2630 and the 2870 is that much????

2870: Result
2630: Result

More than double on the 2870??!?!??!!
I must be reading something wrong. If not, my 2630 is going back and I'll reorder the 2870.

 

Another interesting tidbit...

I just installed the Intel Rapid Storage Manager package which I downloaded directly from Intel, now it is a named controller.

 

I don't think its just the processors. The score is made up of all those different categories. The 2870 has a nice ssd in it (look at the hd scores at the bottom) compared to a slow hd in the 2630. They're also running different video drivers, which will affect performance. And besides, its a synthetic benchmark, it's not going to translate into "feelable" real world performance.

Although, that 2630 number seems surprisingly low... shouldn't it be closer to 12k?!

 

The first benchmark is actually one that I ran, it has a Vertex 3 and 1600Mhz ram so it will crush pretty much any Envy out there.

Here is a "vanilla" envy 2820, when I ran this benchmark my Envy was bone stock with the exception of the WiFi card but that won't effect the score. I try to usually put something useful in the comments, I'll go update the comments on the V3 bench I was in a hurry.

Result

The second benchmark you posted was my old Envy that I returned due to a bad pixel.

 

I've been monkeying with my video drivers quite a but I've tried to post "stock" or "vanilla" benches for both processors with the OS, drivers etc in the configuration as shipped by HP.

 

Still a pretty big difference. I would have expected a bit less.

 

If you look at the results of the two I noticed under Detailed Scores the 2630 has higher numbers in some places like for "Gaming" it has 5994 but the 2820 has 5900. Why is that?

 

Wonder if we should start taking bets on my order..... I called HP yesterday and was told most likely I'll get a shiping email today. Did not happed. So I called HP right now, and was told I'm not on the delay list, so I should get that email by the end of tomorrow, which happens to be the date of my build completion.

The rep was very nice and attentive. I explained that others had delays and received 15% credit. If I will not have an email from HP regarding my ship status, I will ask for that full 15% credit! He seemed to agree, and I have his name. Ugh, what a journey. 7 months going strong....wonder if it will happen for me this time around.

KJ

 

Bobmitch was asking me about catalyst mobility 11_3 on a clean install a few days ago and I was able to get that working too. Switchable graphics works, no hacked drivers required.

There is a trick to the order of operations, you have to do it in this exact order or else the system wigs. Also this breaks hotkey screen brightness, but win+x screen brightness works so I can live with it if I don't find the fix.

1. Install Intel HD Graphics driver downloaded directly from Intel
2. Install ATI graphic provided from HP from swsetup or support.hp.com
3. Reboot
4. Install Catalyst 11_3
5. Reboot

 

Is this after uninstalling all graphic drivers? If so, did you use Driver Sweeper?

 

Clean install
Empty drive, installing Win 7 fresh, so there is no data on the drive.

 

When you lose the screen brightness, I wonder if it's possible to set up the brightness keys as hotkeys thru may autohotkey or something so you can still use em? When mine gets here I'll be doing the clean install and I'll see what I can come up with

 

Question. For the first time, I can actually say my machine is running hot! I am watching mlb.tv, in full HD and the cpu temps are 65C for all four cores, as is the temp of the gpu. Sound normal? As far as gpu temps...I can say yes...not sure about cpu. Guess full HD does pull a load

 

You are considering 65C hot? Wow, I thought anyhting below 75C is considered to be cool.

 

That's why I asked. Machine is normally warm, but this felt hotter than usual...good to know

 

Well 75C at idle would be too hot, but under full load it seems quite ok.
I'll have to do some more rendering tonight and will install some heat monitor to see what I am getting. It was feeling warm to hot last night, nothing compared to the underside of my wife's Dell Inspiroin though.

 

Mine is running at CPU and GPU temp 85c when I'm playing Crysis2 and have coolsense set to quiet
It's not dangerous, but it's definitely too hot to keep on your lap.
With Coolsense set to cool, it's noisy but it keeps it from running that hot.

 

I think I'd really like to keep those hotkeys. Is there a significant improvement by using the Cat drivers over the HP ones?

 

It's been a long time. Sorry I've been absent. I've been busy shooting footage, juggling school, and working on a software project. I have no intentions of leaving this forum any time soon but I do regret my recent absence.

I'm sure that most of you have already seen it but here's the link to the full and HD version of the unboxing:
YouTube - Full Unboxing of HP Envy 17 3D

 

I have found no benefit yet other than facilitating upgradeitis

Then again I haven't fired up any rocking games that have pushed the card either.

 

I keep the setting on performance. Quiet isn't enough nor do I want to ramp it up. I am pretty pleased...just the first time I felt the machine more than luke warm. Compared to my old Dell Inspiron...this was very very cool!

 

From what I understood...the 11.3's are supposedly pretty good, with performance enhancements. The Catalyst 11.4's are supposed to be pretty revolutionary...new CCC and all. That is when I will most likely upgrade at this point

 

Are you sure you have the new drivers? When I install them it says successful, but it's still running the old driver.

 

I'm a Envy 14 owner with radiance screen, and so far it hasn't let me down. My gf is getting her Envy 17 3D with 2820/8GB and dual 750GB HD setup and its in transit now, I'm planning to take out one of the drive, get SSD and fresh install win 7.

My questions :

1)Does anyone have the same setup?is it configured as RAID 0?

2)Bobmitch, I read it somewhere that you did create a guide how to break RAID setup, however I couldnt find the document. Can you provide me the link?

3)What would be the best SSD in consideration of stability,compatibility and performance for E17 3D?I know vertex 3 is best for performance, but not sure how it stack on the other categories. Was thinking of intel 510, any recommendation?

4)I have issue installing the latest ATI driver from AMD web on my E14, the most stable one is from HP but they dont update it often. Does this applies to E17 3D user too?

 

I had no problem installing 11.2 on another Envy 17 3D. The installation ran just like an Nvidia clean install...uninstalled old drivers and installed new ones. Some others have had issues...I have not experienced those. Just don't uninstall the older ones first. The new installer will ask...let it do it...this way the video card is recognized

Hope this is helpful

 

Ok, here is an interesting one for you, I am lost, can't make a rhyme out of it.
So I was running a couple renderings tonight. The notebook is running rather hot. I easily reached 82C. My coolsense is running on performance full cooling. The fan is quite speedy and loud at 85C.



Sorry, did not get a screenshot at the current high temp, but it shows on the right.

Now this is where it is getting weird. Very suddenly the temps drop back into the 50s to 60s and the fan runs slower. I have a feeling the rendering process slows down tremendously. Is it possible that the processor protection is already kicking in at 85C and slows down the CPU?

Just did another run...same thing. Temps go in the upper 70s and suddenly drop, but at the same time the rendering process comes to a crawl.
Is there a way to monitor the turbo boost performance of the CPU?

 

So I did some more testing. Thanks to Bobmitch, I downloaded the intel turbo boost monitor and ran it at the same time. What I had to discover is not good. It's actually really bad and I will seriously have to consider sending the Envy back to HP, since it renders itself useless to me.
Here is why.

This reading was taken about 15 minutes into the first rendering. Turbo boost was pumping at full blast and temps reached the 80s. My renderings were still going strong:




Now shortly after one core hit 83C, the processor turbo boost was cut, indeed it was cut below the regular 2.0 GHz:



Since the temps did not seem to go down significantly, my envy decided to cut the processor speed even lower. It is almost at 0. At this time, my 20 year old Texas Instrument graphic calculator seems to be faster.



And now the worst part. It's about 30 minutes later and it still won't let the processor run even close to it's standard 2.00GHz speed.

I will stop my renderings and let it cool down a bit more. Let's see how long it takes before it allows me to go back up full throttle.

UPDATE:
so I let it cool down to below 60C and kept there for about 10 minutes.
Started my rendering again and it took no more than 30 seconds before the envy shut down the processor and went into energy saver mode. Sucks.
So I figured, take a closer look at coolsence, since I haven't really messed with it yet, but setting it on coolest for stationary mode.
Here comes the next weirdness.
So I press settings and get that screen where I am asked if I want a welcome screen and support hp with information, bla, bla,
I click next (which would be where I thought I'd be able to make some more adjustments) and I get an error message:



DOes that mean my coolsence is broken?

Actually, while typing this, it freezes up for a couple seconds in between (I would assume heat). You know when you type and it takes like 20 characters till your letter show up.

Also weired, I am only typing this right now, and the turbo boost tries to kick in. Temps rise above 80s in seconds and the processor shuts down. Shouldn't it just stay at 2.00 GHz for light work like this?

I don't know if I should call HP tech support, they will probably only tell me to send the computer back in for repair (that seems to be their general solution for everything).

Tell you what, HP does not make it easy to really love their products beyond design.

I give it one more shot and hope some of you guys might have an idea. Otherwise....I hate to say it, but I spent more time on the phone with HP or fixing cosmetic issues than actually spent working on it. Is this simply not a notebook for real professional use?

 

Slotti..... I had the same issue. My processor was turbo boosting all the time.

The fault was in a task (open task manager). Kill a process called hpdocstart.exe

Its about 900k and takes up 13% of the CPU and makes it turbo boost without stop. Looks like some kind of faulty code.

Please report back if turbo boost stops!!!

 

On another note! I have a headset (seperate mic and headphone jack).

I tried plugging the mic into the "mic slot" and the headphone jack into the headphone slot.

My "external" mic isn't working!!!! Would anyone please verify that you can't use an external mic headset without having a Y adapter?!?!

I fear that I might have a broken mic plug in the laptop!!!

 

|MG| Intel Turbo Boost Technology Monitor 1.04 Download

Here is the Intel Turbo Boost Monitor gadget 1.04. Install it and then you simply run as a gadget on your desktop by right clicking on your desktop...choose gadgets and it will be in your gadget gallery. Double click it and it will show up on your desktop...

 

So it's been a week since I've gotten my Envy and my biggest CON is this full of $hit trackpad. I hate it OMG. The pointer jumps, it stops. The 2 finger scrolling is garbage. Half the time it won't work. Wow!

 

1. I believe it is as others have reported but I can't personally verify.

2. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DHHGWUL4

3. OCZ Vertex = Best Performance, Fair Price, Bad Company Reputation
Intel = Good Performance, Highly Priced, Good Company Reputation
Crucial = Good Performance, Best Price, Good Company Reputation

4. IDK

 

So, my envy made it to texas and is on the truck for delivery. I ordered the recovery disc so the first thing I want to do is install my ssd and WD hdd. Here's the steps as I understand them:

Backup SWsetup folder
Backup tridef stuff
Backup win7 activation
Install ssd and load win7 on it
Use fivers steps to instal graphic drivers
Begin installing all other drivers and software.

Anything important I missed? Anything envy specific I need to remember to insure its working properly?

 

One thing I didn't explicitly spell out (though most people would probably figure it out) is that you need to run the hp.trideflicence script AFTER installing the tridef stuff. Basically after you install, it will open a registration key window. Just close the window and then run the script.

Also get the tridef stuff here you don't need the stupid envy check program they make you download DDD USA Inc::TriDef 3D for HP ENVY 17 3D - Verified

 

Well, I've found out that my order is still declined despite calling them about 7 times now and confirming all the payment information 4 times. The last time, I was assured that even though it still says "order declined" on the website status check, that the order is fine and it will be built on the date first estimated (april 26th). But I've contacted them again and they've informed me that my order is still declined and I need to call Sales and confirm my payment information.

I've been on hold for over 10 minutes. I'm trying to call the 866-217-6014 number to talk to resolutions and try to find out what the heck is going on. Is that the best number?

 

Uhm I am really starting to wonder what kind of people come here to post about the trackpad.
From my experience, the clickpad is pretty smooth, the only thing that needs work is the 2 finger scrolling since you gotta position your two fingers a little farther away then usual. Other then that it's fairly good now that they added the ridge between the buttons and the rest of the clickpad.

Work on your technique, if it works for others it should work for you. You can't blame the keyboard if your typing sucks, well you can't blame the trackpad of your clickpad tracking skills suck.

 

Hey slotti I had a very similar situation with my Envy 17 only it was with games. Please ask HP for a new power supply. Also redo the tests you did, I can assure you the throttling will happen at different temperatures.

 

Got mine this morning!

Turned it on, took freaking forever to load with all the crap hp had on there. checked out the 3d... looks pretty cool. Turned it off, installed ssd, switched hdd, and reinstalling windows right now.

 

Well, my problem is not that it is running in turbo boost (I would expect it to when I do heavy rendering work), my problem is that it is being kicked out off it for no reason and won't get back into it. I will try your approach tonight though, and see what the result will be.

Somebody hit reply too soon, before reading all the post (happen to me all the time). See my second post, I post temp right next to the monitor (and as I mention in there, it is really scary, since it is being throttled close to zero, though thr work load is heavy). I actually tried to render the same scene when the notebook was very cold (powered up this morning after being turned off for the night) compared to running hot last night.
Last night (when I was reporting those temps): 45 minutes.
This morning (fresh boot): 27 minutes!!!!
So this tells me that the Envy becomes a mule after runnign for more than 2 hours straight

Interesting approach. Power supply. Did not think of that. But that might be possible. I'll call them later. Probably have to call like 10 tens before they are willig to send me a new powersupply rather than me having to send in the entire system.
And of course the throtteling is happening at different temps, but it should not happen at 100% CPU load. It actually never did happen to me at lower temps (below 70C) as long as the CPU process was at 100%. If CPU is below 100% work load I would expect it to throttle down to keep temps down and battery life up.

I'd like to point this one out once more though:



I have a feeling that something is messed up with my coolsense software (would not know why) and that it might actually cause the throttle down. Can somebody please check their coolsense to see what the next screen would say and what the settings to be adjusted are? If there is any processor control in the settings, I know this is what's wrong with mine.

Thanks guys.

 

This is my next screen! Read some articles that the throttling is more due to temperatures than load. The CPU is designed to throttle down at 70C and again at 85C. I think we can all blame Intel for this...

 

Bobmitch, can you hit settings on the lower left corner? The error message I am getting is after I hit settings and then next on the lower right.
Crap. It is supposed to throttle down at 70C already??? That is really bad news. Guess I will have to get my coolinf pad much sooner than intended. I might get some better high performance cooling paste as well. Might have to look into the 1xxx Envy thread to find out what those guys have come up with to bring down the temps. Not that the 2xxxx would be runnign anywhere close to the 1xxx temps, but to be working efficently, I'll have to find a way to keep the temps below 70C.

 

Could somebody please check if a microphone headset (with 2 male connectors) works on the envy!! It would be greatly appreciated!

I fear that I have a fried mic socket so I have to send it off quickly if the Envy actually supports normal headsets!


P.S .. I did talk to support and they mentioned that it might not be possible to connect normal headsets but I am not sure if I can trust them!

 

Here you go! Have you tried reinstalling Coolsense? Reinstall the HP Support Assistant

 

I have to say, "Mr. Patience" (me), is loosing his patience....

No, I did not get the dreaded delay email, but I feel like I might as well. Called HP again, and they tell me that I should give it 24-48 hours now to get a confirmation email? Really?!?!

Today was the ship/build date. I don't know what I'll do if tomorrow I get no confirmation. I asked the HP rep if I don't get a confirmation then what? Of course she said, just calle back...yeah.

P.S. Yeah, I know, excessive use of smilies...don't sue me, thanks.

KJ

 

One more step, sorry. Can you click "OK" on the lower right corner? Pretty please?!?!?!

I have not tried to reinstall it just yet. I am trying to get a small job done for a friend of mine, so I did not want to go through all that hassle before the weekend. Plus, I am trying to narrow down the cause. I am getting my C300 on Saturday (hopefully). So after that I have to reinstall anyhow. Man, I love the beast, I am just not ready to give up on it.
Btw. I installed Fiver5's intel driver for WiFi. No problem since then.