*HP Envy 15 (11XX / 12XX series) Owners Lounge!*

ya i am perplexed as to why quad core is so popular on the Envy. what are people doing on these things that benefits from the extra cores? the additional heat and power draw is significant.

 

Your question was answered by 'moviemarketing' who has a 820QM model, you must have missed it:

 

take it easy. i got that from my personal experience and from others who can hear the same thing. there's been several threads on this already. so, not rare. the high frequency squeal is definitely coming from the CPU, or some component directly related. when the CPU is running full speed, no squeal. when it clocks down (what i meant by throttled, that was not the correct term) you can hear it, and you can hear the pitch change as clocks change while watching CPU-Z. it's not terribly loud, I can only hear it in a quiet room when the fans are not running.

 

Well you are not hearing the CPU itself, at minimum clock speeds of x 10 (plugged in) the bus speed is still running at 133Mhz and the clock is at 1.3Ghz, so unless you have bionic hearing it's impossible to hear those frequencies. Humans can hear a maximum of 22Khz. It is something other than the actual CPU....

 

I just would like to clarify my previous post that the i7's won't overheat your Envy as moviemarketing and JJB pointed out, but it does gain a significant rise to your surface temperatures and battery life might still get reduced a bit, but since the Envy couldn't even hold at most 3 hours to start with, the reduction is pretty minimal to the league this laptop is in.

 

Hey Guys,

Proud owner of 2nd gen Envy here (15). I've been browsing the HP parts store, since.. as with all things rubber, they fall off and get lost.

I don't know the part number. It's the rubber, a few inches in height, on the right side of the screen. Anyone have an idea?

Also, what about the slice battery? Where's the best place to get one of those, and does it require anything additional to work when I get it (adapter? screws?)

 

Hp usually has a 20% off accessory sale and with student discount you can get another 5ish% off of that. The battery just plugs into the bottom of the laptop... If you flip the laptop over you see a small black piece of plastic, just pull that off and the battery connects via that...

just wondering my self, I lost that black cover, was it important to keep the cover over that when i am not using it? just wondering

 

Bah, after taking all the feet off and trying it on a flat surface, it was still wobbly. Ended up putting two strips of electrical tape under the rubber and it fixed. Maybe it's an issue with a certain chasis run... like 1 mm off.

 

Also, what's the part number for the slice? I'm looking here :

HP Parts Store - HP Computer Parts - HP Printer Parts - Compaq Parts

I see the extended batteries, but no mention of slice.

 

9 cell Theres the link to the battery itself

 

poo, I've just seen some comparison videos with Physx enabled in Arkham asylum, Mirror's edge and others and I definetly want a piece of that on our Envy...what are our chances?

 

Not gonna happen. ATI is faster with lower power use, so there's no way to cram an even relatively equivalent Nvidia chip into an Envy.

Go look at some DX11 games, and then be happy that the Nvidia laptop users won't get that for at least a year

 

unfortunately DX11 mode causes a big hit to the frame rate and visuals aren't all that much better than DX10. except for tessellation, which looks great in the Heaven demo, but i haven't see that implemented in any games yet. on the Envy i get like 10fps running Heaven in DX11 mode.

 

has anyone found that there are high pitch sound from the left side? the CPU??

 

known issue with a lot of Envy's including mine. it's the CPU or some component that is directly related like a cap or coil, i don't know exactly. pretty damn annoying in a quiet room. i haven't decided yet if its worth risking a return since its the only problem i have with my Envy.

 

I wasn't implying a GPU change, simply physX compatible ATI drivers or something..or heck, nvidia making it openly available..I dunno, a guy can dream
googling ATI physX bring up a lot of mostly old and vapour-y articles.

 

Nvidia bought Aegia, which made PhysX chips (which is more than just drivers) and integrated their technology requiring the CUDA processors vs. the Stream processors ATI has. So... no. It won't happen. ATI will never have PhysX.

PhysX - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

That happens to me every now and then. I've been fortunate enough that simply closing the lid (which I've configured it to put the notebook to sleep - not hibernate) then reopening the lid brings the laptop back to life. Strange indeed.

 

I find it odd that game developers would use PhysX over Bullet, which is GPU accelerated via standardized OpenCL, or even Havok, which is owned by Intel. I think something fishy is going on. Sorry to go off topic.

 

So I take it that the Ageia PhysX Drivers that installed with 3DmarkVantage are actually doing nothing for my GPU except when I run the benchmark?

Here is the control panel it installed, but the settings options are greyed out:

 

It should be using the CPU implementation then, so yeah they should do nothing for your GPU.

 

Is there a way to manually turn on the infrared lights on the webcam? Usually they turn on automatically when it's dark enough but for some reason it isn't turning on tonight

EDIT: OK, figured it out. In skype if you go to the webcam settings (Capture Properties) and click on Camera Control tab there is a button called 'low light compensation'. Apparently this is the button that enables and disables the nightvision. So if anyone want's to manually disable the infrared you can do so there.

 

Mine is getting louder even...thinking changing a CPU will help...how can others tolerate that sound...

 

I can't hear it. That's how I tolerate it. Plus, it's probably not a "common problem" if only a few people have it. I'd WAG it at less than 1% of all users either notice or have the problem.

Then again, my ears are getting older, so maybe that's why I don't hear it.

 

Hey everyone, just received my envy 15 about 2 weeks ago and i noticed mine shipped with a 5850. Are the envy 15 now shipping with 5850 or was this by luck?

 

Everest sees the gpu on the hp as the 5850... If you run a app like gpuz or cpuid you will see that it is a 5830....

 

That model has been discontinued and being replaced by K38031US

Amazon.com: Kensington K38031US Wall/Air Ultrathin Notebook Power Adapter: Electronics

What puzzle me is on Kensington website, the no longer have a 120W brick, these are all 90W. I assume it will work all the same?

Also the N30 tip? does it come standard in the package or have to order that?

 

you definitely want a 120W adapter for the Envy, not 90W. even if K33197 is discontinued there is a dealer on Ebay with a seemingly endless supply and they are very cheap, i think i paid $29 shipped (BIN price). it does not come with the N30 tip but you can email Kensignton with the serial number on the charger and they will send you any tip you want for free, i think up to 2 per year.

 

Not true. The HP 90 Watt adapter will work with full performance on all i5 model envy 15's. They are now shipping 90W units with the quickship models and that is all that is spec'd with the 1200 CTO version. As far as 90W aftermarket adapters it all depends on if the tip gets the proper signal to the envy through the center pin....

 

want ≠ need. it takes longer to charge via a 90W adapter. so if you have a choice between a 90W and a 120W and things are otherwise equal, why take the lesser of the two?

 

Just as an FYI, I just received this adapter (K33336US) and it works perfectly with my i5 Envy, and it's 120W. Powers it while the GPU is overclocked for gaming, and it charges the battery, doesn't just power the machine. I'm using the N30B tip, included in the package. Best part is that it also has a tip for my work machine (Lenovo T61) so I only have to carry one charger with me when I travel now, and it's much smaller and lighter than the 120W I got with my Envy. Heck, the nice little zipper bag that holds the charger and the cables is smaller than just the brick of the HP 120W charger. Wish I'd have known 90W would work, because then I'd have gotten one of the air compatible bricks. Oh well. Maybe I'll give this one to my wife when I get her the Envy 14

 

that looks very similar to the one i got. i like it a lot better than HP's brick. the Kensington is much slimmer and lighter.

 

Again not true! Where do you get your info? Even the 65 Watt adapter I use when I travel charges the battery in ~ 3:15 which is the same as the 90W and standard 120W. The charging circuit only allows a maximum of ~15Wh input to the battery, lithium ion batteries have a very specific charge spec and cannot be 'quick charged'. So unless you are running a 100% burn in / stability test on the CPU and GPU, there is no way you can use more than the 75W available (while charging) with the 90W adapter.

 

Envy 17 is now available to order / configure at HP.com

 

...are you replying to me? I wasn't contesting your statement. I was simply saying that the 120W Kensington I linked to works with the Envy, for both charging and power. It has the appropriate Smart Pin settings to do so. I wish I'd have known that the 90W would work, because I would have gotten a different adapter in that case, but it's a moo point now, and only cows care about it

 

No, I was replying to Dapreview; didn't realize there were posts between his post and my reply, sorry (just corrected that post)

FYI, I travel with just the HP 65W slim travel adapter which is very compact and well made, in 'normal' mode my envy is throttled just like on battery, but using the ThrottleStop application by 'UncleWebb' I get full performance when needed and the adapter barely gets warm to the touch, and it still charges the 6 cell without issue (probably wouldn't do hardcore gaming though).

Edit: That link to the adapter doesn't work, just go to accesories, they have a 20% sale on it right now. Also the picture is deceiving, the wall plug on the 'body' actually detaches and allows you to connect an AC input cord (included) this makes the body of the charger 1.5" shorter; 5/8" x 2.25" x 4.75" and 7 oz.

 

I am interested in the 90W Kensington now. If anyone here tried it, be good to know.

 

well ok then. in my past experience it was the higher watt power adapter that charged a laptop faster. but if the sum total of Envy's components is under 90W then that should work just fine. in any event i'd still take the 120W adapter since it's useful across a wider range of laptops, like the junky old POS Dell that my employer provides.

 

What advantages does the envy 14 have over envy 15? I intend to do programming and play games on it off and on campus so I'm debating on whether to just get envy 15 now or wait a month and get envy 14.

The video in slashdot mentions a better touchpad on the envy 14, isnt that just software and can be added to the 15? Envy 14 seems to be using 5650 while the 15 runs 5830 so technically envy 15 is still faster? Lastly, I've read a lot about the heating issues on the envy 15, do they still exists in the 2nd gen?

 

oy, to sell my envy limited and jump on the bing cash back bandwagon or not?

 

damn, that envy 17 looks nice, speccing it like my 15 it costs barely 100 bucks more...

oh well.

 

The Envy 14 is smaller, has an integrated optical drive, a backlit keyboard and better battery life due to switchable graphics. They weigh about the same, though.

Yes, the Envy 15 is still technically faster with the 5830, but the resolution is also higher (if you go with the max resolution display), so the actual performance at native resolution is only slightly in favor of the Envy 15. As for the heating issues, as long as you don't get an i7 there are no issues. And even an i7 can stay relatively cool.

It depends on your use... the 14 is a more portable machine than the 15, and the 15 is faster and can be configured with a quad core chip.

 

If it makes any difference, I am a programmer and the higher resolution is why I went with the 15 instead of waiting for the 14. I don't know what IDE you're going to be using at school, but every IDE I've used (starting with VB3!!!) has had toolbars and and windows out the wazoo.

And when I do game I care about game play not eye candy, so I have no problem dropping the in game resolution below the native resolution.

My quick ship Envy 15 (1080, 500GB HD, DVD) was 1050 after Bing and before taxes. Ordered it 10pm last night, it's getting delivered tomorrow!

 

Does anyone have some info on using the HP Slim Travel Power adapter with i-7 860 CPU's? I know some of the chargers work but end up throttling the CPU because their not powerful enough, which I'd like to avoid.

When I went to the page and pulled up the compatibility chart it shows its compatible with Envy 15's, but compatible doesn't mean full compliance, if you know what I mean. I couldn't find any info on its actual power output, ie 90w or 120w which is what I was told the i-7 chips need.
Thanks in advance
J

 

Thanks seayeo and pitabred for the response. I ended up just getting an envy 15 and should have it sometime next week. Two of the main reasons I wanted an envy 14 is because the previews said envy 14 allows you to rest your thumb on where the button should be on the trackpad like a macbook and that it addressed the heat issues in the envy 15. If heat in envy 15 is fine with i5, then the trackpad alone isn't enough for me to wait a whole month for a slower laptop.

Well, I hope I made the right decision. I guess I'll know next week.

 

Considering my 65W slim travel adapter throttles my i5 (just like on battery) I assume it would do the same to any i7. If you saw my earlier post, go to the 'throttleStop' link, this app works great for me when I need full performance when traveling, it essentially turns off any throttling due to the lower power adapter and is very easy to turn on and off as needed.

Edit: Did you mean the i7-820QM like you currently have? I don't think the an 860 would work at all in the envy, I just looked up the specs, it's a desktop model and has a TDP of 95W vs. the 820QM at 45W, the 120W adapter may not be enough power for that monster....

 

I took the rubber feet off and it still wobbled on a flat surface.... defective body apparently. When is the refresh due with the backlit keyboard?

 

Ah, kinda playing catch-up as I've been busy getting my desktop 980x purring so missed the other post. Is sort of why I asked, since the page for the supply didn't mention its power. If its throttling an I5 then its definitly gonna do it to my I7, and your right the laptop has an 820 not 860, hehe. Like said minds been other places lately.

Anyway I will still go look for that link. Will the app only work with power or is it usable on battery as well?

 

@bratboy

ThrottleStop only works while plugged in, not on battery. BTW I am using version 1.94 which is an older one, the newest one works but had more options than I needed so i went back to the simpler one. Here is the link to the thread again: http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/452692-acer-throttlestop-thread.html You may want to make a post to 'UncleWebb' (the guy who wrote the app) on the last page and confirm that the newest version is fully compatable with your CPU. Make sure to tell him it's for the HP envy 15 and i7 820QM, and that version 1.94 works perfectly with the i5 540M....

 

Has anyone noticed an issue with their cursor (pointer) starting to randomly blink on and off while using IE8? Mine just started doing this in the last few days, and not just on my envy but also my other win7 computers It also randomly disapears when pointing to options in 'drop down' menu's. All I can think of is maybe a windows update caused this since that's all that's common between my machines...