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

Sounds like a good addtion to the Envy 17 SB: Request guides here.

 

Just got my "love letter" from HP.... I must be naive...I really thought they were gonna send me a confirmation when I spoke to Resolutions today. I know some of you guys are very familiar with this letter. For those of you who are not, and I do hope you never have to get one of these, here it is, enjoy. Yes, I'm still keeping hope alive...

Dear xxxxxxx xxxxxxx,

Due to product constraints we will be unable to ship your order on the original estimated ship date. The revised estimated ship date for your order is 4/26/2011 or no later than 10 business days from the original estimated ship date. However, if we are able to complete your custom order prior to that date we will ship it out and you will receive a shipping notification e-mail.

If you prefer not to wait you may cancel your order by either replying to this e-mail message with your order number or calling our toll-free customer service number at 1-888-476-3988 option #3 between 7:00 A.M. - 2:00 A.M. Eastern Time. If you choose to cancel your order, your refund will be released by HP within 24-48 business hours of cancellation confirmation. The posting of your refund to your credit card, e-finance, or PayPal account is subject to your bank’s processing time which usually takes 3-5 business days.

If we do not hear from you before we ship your order, we will assume you have agreed to this shipment delay and still want your custom order. As soon as your order is ready for shipment, it will be assigned a tracking number with our carrier and you will receive a Shipment Notification e-mail from us. You can then check your tracking number online to obtain the estimated delivery date.

We apologize for any inconvenience this delay may have caused and thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,
Customer Service
HP Home & Home Office Store

Nuff said. The 26th huh? Well, its not so bad I guess. hyperboled aren't they delaying yours until May 2? And you ordered in early March too...wow. Just wow. If I were you, get a another credit, and don't take no for an answer because I got the $75 credit today with previous coupons as you know.

KJ

 

Yeah I'll wait until 11.4 too, and try again (wasn't able in any way to install 11.3)

By the way, do you guys think HP will update their drivers somewhere along the line? I had my old DV7 for 1.5 years or so, and they did not update the ATI drivers once in that period. They are probably going by "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

 

Consider yourself lucky! My delivery date was April 12th, and this is what I got (notice that I would be getting mine one day after yours!):

"The revised estimated ship date for your order is 4/27/2011 or no later than 15 business days from the original estimated ship date. "

 

+1 Rep

However I have a question...should I do this BEFORE I do a clean install of Windows 7? Also do we have a guide with all the drivers that we need after doing a clean install?

EDIT: My replacement Envy 17 is also delayed I'm sure....

 

I +1 Rep'd you - it's just cumulative for all these really great posts...I'm starting to think you need to place a tip jar out man!

 

Just got off the phone with support. I asked for compensation over a replacement. I could live with the blemishes for a couple hundred off. They said they couldn't authorize it but would have someone call me back within 48 hours to do so.
Here are a couple picutures of my blemishes. I also included pics of my Envy next to my roommate's XPS15 which I directed him to buy. (I knew he'd want a bit more battery over power).









Clearly the Envy is prettier. But not by as much as I would have thought before seeing both. There are a few things about it that I prefer. Note the power cord placement on the dell. Out the back and out of the way. On the Envy it's right where your mouse hand would be. Also, the XPS lights up when it's got power. Every cord should do that by now. Then there's the Envy's rightsided USB ports. Near the very front of the case! Completely useless if you want a mouse there.
Note: I am not trying to start a flame war. I'm still in the Envy camp. I'm just trying to put useful info out there to the many potential buyers out there reading this thread.

 

If you are planning to do a clean install, don't bother. The registry will be wiped and a new one created after you install a clean Windows 7 installation. Once you install Win7, go through all of the updates and driver installs first. Once the Intel RAID driver is installed, you can perform the same regfix to enable ahci mode.

 

Actually I think the Envy is more stylish than the Dell, but then again, to each his own.

As for the power cord, there was a thread awhile back on how to buy/create an "L" adapter to avoid the cord from sticking straight out. The TT slim power supply I have comes with "L" adapters by default. Also, since the cord is very far back, you should have enough room to use a mouse comfortably... but since I use a trackball, it causes no problems whether I use the TT PS or the stock HP one.

As for the USB ports, I place the mini trackball receiver there and it's well out of my way. However, I can concede that overall they are placed in a bad spot. Since the SS (USB3) port is on the left side of the laptop, it will see more use. Also the eSATA port doubles as a USB2 port on the left side. However, if you have a need for more than 2 USB devices, then you are stuck using the ones on the right unless you use a mobile USB hub.

Edit: A lot of manufacturers avoid using the rear side of laptops because ports in the rear can interfere with docking stations. While most consumer laptops don't offer a docking station option, most business laptops do; sometimes the manufacturer will design parts and cases to fit across several product lines which is why some consumer laptops mimic the external port configuration of the business class.

 

Thank you!

 

Thanks....I need to start compiling all the info I've gotten on this topic soon.

 

You are really on the fast track. I get my delays in 12 business day increments while your delays are in 4. Of course you have been at it more than three times longer so you are entitled to one third the wait. But I am now on my second delay so you have some catching up to do. lol!

Seriously, I am concerned that for whatever reason an order is put aside, it remains there. I cannot go another delay and do not know why I am putting up with this one. Hope this is the final delay for you and your system is on it way on or before April 26.

Thanks for your credit information. I intend to keep working on them for additional credits for these delays. I figured it was a waste of time discussing it further with the supervisor I spoke with yesterday. I believe everyone you talk to in resolutions is a supervisor.

 

I don't know much about hard drives. Can you enlighten me on what enabling AHCI does? Is it only beneficial to SSD or should I enabled it if I only have the 640 GB 7200 RPM HDD?

 

Whoa, that makes absolutely no sense what so ever! I don't think we will ever figure out the inner workings of HP.

KJ

 

You can enable it for your SATA HDD. It will help some.

AHCI mainly brings about three advantages (only one of which is useful to the laptops):

• NCQ (Native Command Queuing)
• Hot plug
• Staggered spin ups of multiple hard drives at boot time

NCQ is the advantage here. It allows a SATA device to dynamically reorder disk commands for maximum efficiency when performing I/O.

P.S. Does anybody remember when Novell brought about Elevator Execution in their Storage subsystem? Surprise... I give you AHCI!

 

AHCI stands for Advance Host Controller Interface. It is a newer technology to provide advanced features to the Serial ATA standard. It allows for access of the native functions of the SATA interface such as Native Command Queuing (which allows greater performance by optimizing how controller requests data from the hard drive) and hot swappable of SATA devices so that you may remove SATA drives from your PC without first having to shut down your computer.

That's AHCI pretty much in a nutshell. Yes...it benefits not only SSD but HDD as well

 

Got my replacement adapter today. FedEx overnight, pretty impressive. Unfortunatley, it did not solve the problme
I will run some other test over the weekend to make sure it is not software related, but I have a feeling this baby is going back to mama.

Haha, just got down to this post:

same here. I don't have the in home repair plan though.

 

Thanks to Fiver5 I now know for sure that either my MOBO or CPU is toast.
I am running Prime95 (only about 15 minutes in it) and my clock speed uncontrollably falls below 1GHz. It does not seem temperature related. At 75 degree it runs at 2GHz (does not go into power mode at all). Then it drops to below 1GHz, temps fall to below 60C, but speeds won't really go up. Temp rises to 70degree again, and suddenly I am up at 2GHz again, for a short time.
Again, under Prime95 it would not even go into turbo mode once.
You guys are the experts, but it sounds like some defect.

 

Well turbo boost is supposed to work based on the power, current, and temperature conditions present.

Since your temperature is not causing the throttling, my guess is that the CPU isn't getting enough current or voltage. I think you can safely rule out the power supply, sounds to me like a bad trace or some power bus component is failing/failed.

Sucks.

 

This is the Windows Experience Rating for the 2820 version, 8 GB RAM, with the OCZ Vertex 3 120 GB. View attachments.

 

That's interesting because I have the 640 GB 7200 RPM HDD on my Envy 17 3D, and my subscores are all the same as yours except the primary hard disk drive which is at 5.9. My OCZ Vertex 3 240 GB should be here any day. The drive caddy, 750 GB 7200 RPM Seagate HDD, and anti-static braclet are already here.

 

Yeap, not the power supply. They overnighted a new one, same issue. I have been chatting with HP support for about 45 minutes. These guys from india are killing me. They can't really do much more but read through their instructions.
Anyhow, he had me run the Intel Processor Diagnostic tool.
IT FAILED. Base clock speed failed.
So he tells me he will email me instructoins to fix it, but I have to restart my Envy (he just wanted to get me off). I read through the instruction and all it tells me is to update the bios.
First thing I did when I got the Envy. So now he is like: "Give me some time, I will have to talk to my supervisor"

 

Why are you talking to India. The Envy has North American tech support....

 

Depends on what hour. from my understanding late at night means foreign support. I've called at around 11 pm Central, and it was foreign but just 3 hours earlier it was American.

 

I will have to make note of that...thanks

 

If you see the names of the guys, including the supervisor....Amitava. G and Shibnath R.
Hardly North America. I am finally talking to the supervisor, at least he has not made any stupid recommendations as "turn off your computer, pull out the battery, replace it and start again" yet.

 

I had never used the intel proccesor diagnostic tool before so ran it out of curiosity.

Did they have you do anything special, or just download, install, and run it? Mine failed instantly. Rebooted and ran the test again, same result instant fail. I turned off the BaseClock test and then it passed.

Maybe my base clock is broken too ??

==========================
Detected CPU Frequency is --> 2.31988

CPU Frequency Test Passed!!!


--- FSB NOT Supported on this Processor ---


--- Running Base Clock test ---


Detected Base Clock --> 100

!!! --- Base Clock test Fail --- !!!

--- Test End Time: 04/22/2011 00:22:26---

 

Noop, they simply had me run it 'out of the box'.
I did some research, and the tool seems to have some issues with the latest SandyBridge generation.
The supervisor did not even go into it any more. He was telling me about throttle hack tools, that unfortunately he would not be allowed to use
Anyhow, they want to take it in for repair. I told them no. It is brand new.
I would be requesting a replacement. He told me he does not have the authority to do so, but he will escalate my case to HP Corporate Quality Case Management and they will call me back.
Wanna make a bet that they won't have a solution either?

 

Wow whatever happens it seems like you probably won't have a laptop for awhile

For giggles disable the base clock test and see what happens. I'd be curious to see if it still fails, and if it passes what it posts for flops and ops/sec

When it fails, click config->edit->uncheck base clock->exit saving then rerun the test

Here's the test results Envy 17 3D 2828 Processor Diag - Pastebin.com

 

Also here is all you have to do to get Crysis 2 working in 3D mode. Open TriDef ignition File->Add



Use the Generic DDD profile. You can also click the "find more online" link, which will take you to the TriDef forum. An end user has created a profile and posted it there, I did not try that one.

Played for about 30 minutes tonight. I'm actually not fond of the 3D effect and the game isn't quite my speed, but for those of you who dig it, enjoy.

 

Mine only gets 216mflops... that's almost half of yours. I wonder if something is wrong with mine as well then.

 

Here is mine:
Envy 17SB 3D 2630 Intel Processor Diagnostic Test - Pastebin.com
looks all good to me.

316.8 flops

 

This is all so strange.

Maybe when I wake up tomorrow it will make sense. Have a good night everybody.

 

If you make any sense of it, let me know and I will send you a morning coffee by email

I'll call it a day as well. Let's see what happens when QM calls tomorrow. I am determined to request a cross shipping replacement. Let's see if that works (probably not). But if I wait another 4 weeks for a new system, I'll find something else.
Btw. I had already canceled my XPS 17 order when my Envy was shipped. Funny as is, I had a consultant in my office today who had a Dell XPS Studio and he was complaining about crashes due to overheating
BUT, his partner brought a Dell Precision. They are actually decent looking these days, and what a power house. He let me test it. I did not manage to bring the processor above 75C and I ran 4 instances of V-Ray. Amazing.
Just a bit too pricy at those configs ($4,000).

 

Where is exactly the pixel located? Maybe something wrong on ATI BIOS that causing it, which explain why the BIOS update fixed it.

That 17 inches have so many rooms compared to my E14. The envy keyboard is one of the best keyboard I've used on a laptop.

On my E14 the AHCI controller is listed, maybe because I do not have RAID capability on my system. I dont use wireless, just once in a while but my E14 also have 6200 AGN card, however I do not have issue with it (updated to the latest intel driver).

WEI score is 6.7 on all of them except my SSD, my X25M score is 7.7

 

So I just discovered something that might or might not be of help to some of you, including slotti.

I've been playing Crysis2 for the last few hours, and it runs well, but suddenly it starts lagging like crazy for 1min or so, then goes back to normal. So I started windows resource monitor to see what was going in (it logs a graph of max frequency and current frequency) and it shows that the CPU does indeed throttle down once in a while.

The thing is that I found the culprit. COOLSENSE. I had it on Cool mode, so it sacrifices CPU power to keep it really cool when the fans alone isn't enough. So basically I switched to the optimized mode, and now it shows my CPU running at full turbo boost and the game doesn't slow down any more. The PC runs alot hotter ofc, but I'll happily pay that price to play the games like they should be played. It's made for these temperatures afterall.

 

...which in my mind explains why the MBP with the same CPU that stays even hotter than the Envy all the time doesn't have these throttling issues that some people suspected were caused by heat. Yes heat indirectly connected, but it's coolsense that is causing the crazy throttling, which is why the MBP can be running hotter but still not throttling.

I wonder if others can reproduce what you found.

Slotti, want to try killing the Coolsense software in task manager, or however you can shut it down, and then seeing what happens? Or did you try that already?

 

Same over here, 2630qm

Fiver5 did your Envy come with the 2820 or did you install it yourself?

 

Yeah I know slotti has had some Coolsense problems. It might not be the reason, but for me it was throttling down my CPU atleast, so he should try to get it working, or uninstall it completely.

 

Fiver5 can correct me, but I don't the CPU has been touched. Fiver5 swapped the wifi card, memory to 1600ghz, and the drives to Vertex 3s, but I'm 99% sure it came with the 2820 from HP.

I think without question Fiver5 has the fastest/strongest Envy in the world besides maybe some secret freak HP test mule with crazy specs.

 

Well I received my ENNY and am loading it up with a computer guru buddy. It is hard for me to tell if the twin 5400's are "fast enough" but my buddy says they are suprisingly snappy. Iasked a HP tech (India) why they went with twin 5400's instead of 7200's and he replied for data integrity...thats a new answer. Not being as radical as some of you...I really hate to go breaking into a brand new laprop and am still irritated they did not offer twin 7200's but at the current moment plan to live witg them. No other defects that I notice. I went to the windows experience rating and all rates in the "7"s" exept hard drive. It only rates 5.9 for data transfer so the overall rating us 5.9. About the same as my HDX. A bit depressing but I dont know if it takes into account that they are Raid0 striped. Oh welll...at 30% off I can change hard drives later. I will try the 5400's for now.

 

Well i was curious, hp doesnt offer configurable Envies over here (germany). There is only a 3d and a non3d model, both have the 2630 .

If I were to add or even swap my Envy ram memory, what specs should I be looking for? It wont clock to 1600ghz with a 2630qm would it? Currently I got a single 4GB stick in, CPUZ says PC3-10700 from Samsung, CL 9... I wouldnt mind having 8GB . Im not sure what cl and even what frequency I can use tho (obviously for maximum performance)

 

Apoxxx ... I can only verify this. The engine that Black Ops uses is very CPU intensive and had the same issue until I fiddled with the settings.

 

Im getting random freezing. Wierd as no ryhme to it - once it freezes I have t switch off manually and reboot.

I downloaded through the night - no freeze then this morning Ive had 3 freezes.

Slotti I know you had alot of freezing issues and I know you fixed it - did you get to the bottom of it?

Help!

I did previously get bluescreens attributed to atimkg.sys which installing Catalyst Control Center 11.3 stopped that.

 

Virtua, did you install the 13.0.0.107 wifi driver? Before I did I was getting freezing all the time, it seems to have fixed the problem for me.

 

If it is a SB issue then it would appear in all SB notbooks using the same processors (HP, Dell, Lenono, etc.).

Based on what you describe wouldn't it relates to the Coolsense that is specific just to HP? The software checks for temparature and take actions when it reaches some thresholds...

Just got notification thay mine is shipped today. Hopefully i will get it by Sunday.

 

Thanks Trucha - Ill try it - my driver shows as v14, and the intel website shows the latest to be 13.5 which is an ofddity in itself. Seems like it could be the culprit - Im pretty sure that was Slottis issue too.

 

Just thought you guys would like to know, the next batch started shipping today -- Just got my tracking information:

Anticipated ship date Apr 22, 2011
Estimated delivery Apr 27, 2011 by 4:30 PM
For my:
• 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 DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 750GB 5400RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (standard)

(edit)
Squish72 just reminded me i forgot to give order date info:
Ordered April 7th, 1pm EST
Confirmed after RSA Check: April 7th, 10pm EST

 

blank message

 

i got an hp email last night and not the sad one thats been going around i got this one ORDER READY TO SHIP this is my first time ordering a custom laptop and to me i seemed to take forever but i wont complain because i know mine has shipped sooner then a buch of people that ordered infront of me which isnt right

ordered april 8th