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

So i had my envy shipped to my work, and to my surprise, it arrived this morning! (Fedex does our drop off in the afternoon)... So thats the good out of the way, now the hmmm moment.

Hmmm... my envy has an inconstant gap going around the edge of the laptop. By inconstant i mean at some points (above the hdmi and the cd-rom) it is totally flush against the outside case, but everywhere else there is a gap large enough to put a fingernail inside of.
In some places you can even push the gap closed.

There is glue-left over on my left side of the laptop just above the vga out and the hand-rest area seems to be not perfectly level at that point of the case.

I also have the slightly-raised touch pad on the inside thing that TheEnthusiast had...

I am probably just worrying too much but does what i describe about the laptop seem consistent to everyone else? I really dont want to send it back so i'm probably going to stress test the crap out of this thing now, if it's fine i'll be happy.

@TheEnthusiast what did ever happened when you did settle up with hp? Did you end up sending yours back?
Thanks guys&gals

-Grafe

 

Thanks for the help VonCrisp...well since im sure this will affect many other users..After some tinkering around with my router settings I first had it at mixed abgn, which resulted in crappy speeds around 10-12 Mbp I then switched it to the BG setting which got me to around 20-24Mbp. I did a little research later on and found out that BG speeds peak around 25Mbp. So I switched it to N-band only and that got me to an almost constant speed of 39Mbp of the 40 I'm supposed to get I'm just relived that I could get my max speed back it was bothering the crap out of me

Edit: Btw I also downgraded to the older driver not sure if it made a difference but, just to let you guys know.

 

lol well I'll accept that as a compliment and thanks to bobmitch for your various contributions here as well! as for the gender confusion, well its been entertaining to watch, thats for sure! fiver5 it will be equally enlightening to see you clarify the whole issue!

 

Can you post a picture of what you're talking about? Do you mean along the palm rest area??

 

The only time I can put my fingernail in there is if I force it but Im not gonna be jamming things down there on purpose lol

Hope that somewhat helped

 

Could you possibly do a quick test? Open a lot of high seed torrents simultaneously.. around 5 or 6. I usually end up freezing after 30 secs to a few mins.

I am running the 14.0.2.2 drivers.

 

Actually, that does help ease my frears a bit then Thanks

When i get home today i'll max the dl on my laptop for you -- I'm at work right now and the guest network.. well lets just say it's not as fast as my home connection

 

ok gimmie a few minutes will do.

 

Of course! Our thread is not the same without you dlleno. Bobmitch also has become invaluble to our forums. Two for the price of one... oh wait, you guys are here for free, lol and very much appreciated. Also there are many others with great knowledge here, thanks everyone.

I'm just hoping that everyone getting the Envy shortly will report in with positive marks.

KJ

 

LOL, it makes me concentrate on capital letters and the such.

 

Ok I have six torrents going, so what exact am I looking for when you say freezing?? Slow speeds or wifi disables? Idk what im looking for lol

 

By the way im running the 13.0.0.107 driver.

 

Actually, i can post what i see currently, sorry the photo's are not perfect, my phone is being a pain /w the focus.

The first one shows what i am talking about the best, where it is flush at the bottom of the picture, and there is a gap (and in this case, some glue) in the top half of the image:

Left side of laptop

Right Side Front
Front of laptop, near touch pad That is a post-it shoved in there

Top right side, above power plug

 

I kinda have what you do in the first picture not as much but I think that has to do with the display port being there It takes away from the surface to which the glue can be applied.

I think everyones computer will vary in terms of how flush their envy's are, all I know is that except for the wifi thing I got a pretty good one. I don't have any real cosmetic problems. But it does seem as if some of the gaps you have are kinda big but that might just be the zoom on the picture.

One question, from you using your computer like you normally do how much do you notice those gaps without you really scrutinizing it?

 

The whole laptop freezes up and requires a reboot.

Going by your drivers you shouldnt have the issue. I suppose it is only the newer drivers that show this syntom.

Will contact HP and will try to get them to replicate the issue.

 

Actually i just got it this morning, still burning the recovery dvds actually lol, so i haven't been able to put it through it's paces yet.

But so far, not really noticeable, just curious if it is normal or not right now.

 

No srry Von that hasn't happened to me at all...you can always just downgrade your driver and give it a try. Only takes about a minute.

 

I believe no one will receive one that is completely perfect, but the way I see it if you can live with it (the slight cosmetic flaws) then there's no point in returning it.

Just my 2 cents.

 

I will try to downgrade my drivers. But I dont want this as a permanent solution since Windows 8 is just around the corner.

 

Guys and gals ,
be happy with those minor cosmetic issues. These units are hand assembled, so you will always have some minor differences in the gap size.
If you only have cosmetic issues, you should keep it and be happy, I would be.
Still fighting with hp about how they will handle my replacement. I actually was able to reproduce my keyboard scenario multiple times over the weekend.
Talked to a friend of mine, who is a hardware and software computer wiz, and he mentioned that he had actually seen something similar before.
He is suspecting a software rather than hardware issue. My first reaction was: "How can that be, they are burning all the same images for everybody" but then it dawned on me. Some of you might remeber that I did a recovery from the recovery partition within the 1st day of receiving my envy (after my SP1 update got stuck and screwed everything up). So there is a slight possibility that something got goofed up. The fact that my coolsense produces some error messages hints at the same.
So my friend is thinking that the win7 powermanagement in combination with coolsence might be picking up on some power address on the mainboard due to some corrupted registrations that might cause my throtteling. I know this is a long shot, but since the exchange is not happening in a way that would be satisfying for me, I might give this another shot. I have a C300 laying around that want's to be tested anyhow.

 

Let me know how it goes for ya.

 

Slotti you're right, im glad mine is awesome & already the best computer I've ever owned.

 

Yahoo!!!
Ordered April 8th.Recieved my shipping notice today.

HP Envy 17 3D - i7-2630QM - 8GB DDR3 - 750GB 5400RPM - 6850M - 17.3" 1080p - Bluray

 

Yeah...and seems like they have put in 2 day shipping coz est. delivery date is 28th April 10.30am

 

So after a busy weekend I returned to this issue. Working off my stock 120W HP power supply, as much as I tried, I could not get Prime95 or IntelBurnTest to push my CPU. While the CPU utilization would go to 100% on all 8 logical CPU's. the core clock would stay consistent at 800MHz with an occasional speed boost bump to ~3.1GHz. Temps stayed around 70C-74C.

This puzzled me, so I researched other CPU Burn in tools. I found CPU Burn in @ http://www.cpuburnin.com. This pushed the core clock of my CPU's to almost a constant ~3.1GHz, but system utilization ran around 20% with no one processor pushed more than 50%. However, temp's ranged between 70C and 80C so this program was pushing the system more using less. I'm still a little concerned and want to find a program that can push the core clock AND cpu utilization.

With regards to coolsense, using these tests, I found that:

• Coolest - Ramp the fan to max speed to keep things cool, then adjust the core clock to reduce temps to around 60C.
  
  
• Performance - Ramp the fan to max speed, keep the core clock at max until temps are near 80C, and then reduce cpu utilization to reduce heat.
  
  
• Quiet - Keep the fan at quietest setting and reduce core clock to reduce heat.

I'm still trying to figure out why Warcraft gets HORRIBLE frame rates on this laptop. At max settings, I am seeing a 30FPS standing still and drops to 5-7FPS while walking. This is on my HP power supply. Any idea's? I'm trying to keep stock HP drives to avoid incompatibilities.

 

I'm not concerned anymore. I found Core Damage CPU Stress Tester. OMG. This thing pushed my CPU's to 100%. Core clock pegged to 3.2GHZ.... UNTIL my temps hit 90C!!! Then coolsense (or something) downclocked the processor to 800MHz to cool off the processor. WoW. I was afraid I would fry my laptop so I stopped it. At least I know my laptop is capable of hitting max frequencies on all cores. Of course, I'm still concerned about WoW and graphic performance.

 

My NEW envy was just delivered but I'm stuck at work or I could be more helpful. I ran LinX (which pushes a processor harder than any other test out there) for 25 passes having coolsense on performance and Windows 7 Power Options on High Performance with no throttling at all, I'm slightly worried at all these reports of throttling now. I'm going to test my new laptop again for any signs of throttling.

Are you running WoW in 3d mode? I tried that and it was a pretty large performance hit (plus pretty big headaches after an hour of playing lol). On my previous Envy 17 3D I was averaging 50-70+ fps in Org during prime time in the Valley of Strength. First I put WoW into DX11 mode ( open the "Config.w t f " in "\ World of Warcraft \ w t f" and add the line SET gxApi "d3d11"), and I turned most things down to High and disabled sunshafts and set shadows on low. Personally I think shadows are quite useless, and they also are a GPU hog.

Tom's Hardware has a great review of WoW optimizations that I use World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm--Tom's Performance Guide : Welcome To The World...Of Warcraft: Cataclysm

Hope that helps...Once I inspect my new Envy and back it up hopefully I can give you some more tips.

 

Slotti, you amazin'. That brain of yours.

In case you guys forgot, I live in Vancouver, so had to order the Envy to my best friend in Seattle. I told him to run a few diagnostics and do a cosmetic check on it before sending it to me, so that if he found anything terrible, it could be sent back with less hassle.

Can you folks help me with a list of diagnostics I should get him to run that focus on the issues we've identified so far in this thread?

 

Oh and a great tool for monitoring your processor frequency is called Tmonitor which is developed by the same people who make CPU-Z. Shows a graph of the frequencies of each core (and turbo is colored differently). Very useful in trying to track down those throttling issues.

 

The throttling is being done by the laptop, not by the program so I bet even LinX will throttle back if it pushed the CPU to max and the temps reach 90C. I'll run some tests just to see. This is probably built into the laptop or some monitoring software HP has installed. I'm running a stock Envy build with all HP programs minus the bloatware.

No 3D here, it gives me headaches so I doubt I will ever use 3D mode for anything but the occasional movie. It's been so long since I actually played this game, but I'm only using it for benchmarking. I had a low level tauren sitting in that village near thunderbluff. There was nobody around... I know that area is quiet so FPS should have been high and easily playable.

I haven't done anything special with WoW config. I'm trying to keep things are stock as possible right now since every program will behave differently depending on how you tune it. I want a base optimized system first.

I'm using Open Hardware Monitor. It gives the Clock Frequency, Temperature, and Utilization of each core. It also gives info for your video and HDD/SDD. It's also free. Open Hardware Monitor | CPU Temperature, Fan Speed and Voltages in a Gadget

 

wooohooo i got mine so far everything as far as fit and finish is perfect, i was shocked now im gonna flog it then throw in my patriot inferno 60gb

 

I have no idea what you are implying. I never stated any programs were throttling your system, throttling can be caused by temperature or work load settings in the power options in windows 7, coolsense, or perhaps some hidden bios values. I brought up LinX because its IntelBurnTest with a nice clean front end. If it doesn't throttle in LinX (or IntelBurnTest) it wont throttle anywhere since it is an artificial benchmark/test tool designed to push the processor. My previous Envy never throttled under any temperature or workload.

I have no idea what the default base settings are for WoW these days, but if you haven't played in a while a lot has changed. The WoW engine has been enhanced with many DX 11 features as well as large high def textures. If you haven't played in a while you probably wont get a good baseline (since WoW's graphic engine has gone through changes) or good framerates if your settings are on ultra at the native resolution.

 

When I first downloaded Cinebench to test processor and graphics card, the processor did fine, but the graphics were horrible! about 20 fps on the test. I then ran intel burn for about 2 hours, then tried it again, and my fps went up some... Well eventually I figured out that my card maxes out at 155 degrees and then it throttles, kind of a low temp. So I pulled my double window fan out of the window, put it under my laptop and turned it on high. My fps shot through the roof! I got about 56 where as before I was at 20. 56 is the highest performing specs listed on the cinebench test so I was happy. with the fan on, the temps don't go above about 130 farenheit. Maybe you can try something similar.

 

BTW, I called hp to see if they would possibly send me a 6300 wireless card, and they said no, but they would give me a 60 dollar credit to buy my own. I agreed.

 

Which division of Hp did you call?

 

Ya know...I kinda think I started the ambiguity of Fiver's X/Y chromosomal arrangement with this comment and I never got an answer with it LOL!!

Not that it matters at all...just being of the female persuasion, I like the idea of having a brainiac female on this thread, but alas, I am probably the loaner.....

 

Cam121

Thanks for the great program. I downloaded Open Hardware Monitor and the CPU burn program. Ran the CPUburn for 20 minutes just to see what it would do to my 2630M and the CPU never got over 70C and cores never moved. When in a restful state, my CPU seems to run at 800 mhz, but the minute any activity ensues...I am at 2.5 GHZ or higher...

 

I didn't say you did, I was just pointing out that chances were high that LinX would perform the same as all the other programs I used. I loaded up LinX and it wouldn't do much. The core clock would deviate between 3GHz and 800 MHz, cpu utilization was low, but the temps never got more than 70C. When I use IntelBurnTest, it would at least perform the complete throttling cycle and show the core clock changing with the temps.

Basically, I can easily prove the throttling using the Core Damage app. That app pushes the CPU's to their limits and like I said, I can get temps in the 90C's! However, once the temps get that high, the laptop throttles the CPU to cool it down. Since most apps don't watch CPU temp and throttle their needs, I can easily see this affecting a game or a large workload (like some of the rendering other people were doing). Personally I would rather see the CPU operate at a constant 2.3GHz @ 80C than the cycle of switching between 3.2GHz @ 90C and then down to 800MHz until ~70C is reached.

P.S. My numbers are approximates.

Well the last time I played we WoLK and even then I didn't play much. While I am trying to play on Ultra, I'm told WoW is nothing compared to Crysis. I'm just using WoW as a simple test. On my home pc which is 4+ years old now, I get 60+ FPS with "High" settings using the same test (sitting in that low usage area around thunderbluff). I know more populated areas are going to reduce FPS. My desktop was getting around 24fps in Dalaran during highly populated times. I'm just thinking that the changes to DX11 shouldn't affect my simple test and are mainly targeted at improving user experience under highly populated or raiding situations. I haven't had a chance to play much with this because it's not a major focus of mine, but I figured it would be nice to tune it now in case i find myself out on the road and don't want to lose a night to researching how to fix it then.

Well I have a notebook cooler which I was planning to use but it adds so much bulk that it doesn't fit in my laptop desk. I do use the 9cell battery to lift the air vents and provide better airflow. I'm still working on the graphics testing and just barely scratched the surface of it. I generally don't have time to play games so it's not as important as getting the most out of my CPU.

 

Thanks Joe. I just try to share what I learn as I go. There are a good many people here that share both large and small tidbits. The object is to learn and share with one another. All in all...we all get a more enriching experience from what we learn here.

 

I first called home and home office, they then after trying to talk me into just sending the laptop back, sent me to resolutions. I told them that I didn't want to be without a laptop so I just wanted to repair this one "at home." They understood.

 

Has anyone that installed the Intel Centrino Ultimate N 6300 had any freezing issues afterwards? I also heard something about a Bios White list. Will someone talk about what happened as they were installing, and also the results afterward? Thanks.

 

fiver5 and me have done it, and for me the freezing is completely gone, and I think fiver5 said it's gone for him as well.
I can now use any driver without problems.

 

I will upload some picture maybe this weekend, stay tuned. Might call the resolution to compensate for this cosmetic issue. They offer me $50 for not canceling my order.

True, might get even worse one if I decide to go with a replacement...plus a headache dealing with HP. See slotti, if only you listen to my advice before, you wont get all these troubles lol. Its most likely software.

The females are catching up here, they even spend more on gadgets! What on earth is happening? lol.

 

Hey Slotti, this made me think, have you tried booting off a Linux Live DVD for testing purposes? Not sure of your computer prowess, but a Linux Live DVD allows you to boot your PC from a DVD and delivers a fully functioning system without the need to reformat your HDD/SDD. This should be mainly used for testing you freeze issues. You also need to know enough about linux to download CPU burn in programs for it and possible save them on a formatted USB stick (when you reboot a Live DVD, you lose anything you didn't save to some permanent storage, like a USB stick).

 

Since my laptop is on the way I am planning on ordering new memory. What is the best memory I can buy for the envy 17 3D 2820? I was looking at crucial or Corsair, but thought I might be ahead to ask in this forum before purchasing.

Thanks in advance.

 

so i just off the phone with HP resolutions after being put on hold for like 48mins. they finally honored their word and HP gave me all the credits that they promised. Bottom line for my laptop including tax i am paying a little over $1900. I thanked HP for stepping up and doing the right thing and honoring all the credits that they promised me. It was a hassle to get them all but in the end HP did good.

now gotta wait by the door for the Fedex guy

 

what kind of error messages? indeed, if the failed SP1 update corrupted registry entries or device definitions, coolsense will get cranky (coolsense needs an accelerometer device...)

 

LOL chromosomal arrangement; this just cracked me up. Thanks Peaches07 for lightening up my day

 

I am running linux on my cell phone, so I am familiar enough with it. And to answer the question what cell phone can run linux: Nokia N900.
I might give it a shot, have to find a linux boot CD (should be somewhere)

Nothing that would make anymore sense. "Coolsense has stoped working due to an erroe. Windows is checking for solutions". This happens when I try to go beyond the coolsense main screen.

 

Anyone had issues with updating the Power DVD 3D player?