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

try viewing it on a completely different monitor, the image is uniform.

Why are you trying to trick your eyes into seeing it else wise? its not a 3d picture

its not a browser rendering or video driver problem. These lines can be seen in the bios screen as well. I'm guessing its the same on your screen too JJB, if you think theres a "vertical line down the middle" then the image is not uniform for you

 

Im having a minor issue thats not a big deal but weird... anytime I have either of my android phones plugged into charge and then turn the machine on it will hang at the hp bios logo until I unplug it...then i can plug it back in and everything fine...I just find it weird

 

It is a test for uniform greyscale, it does not matter if you see any lines or not, you are looking for the same overall brightness and shade of gray on the left and right. My screen calibration system (Spyder3 Pro v 4.0) has the same test and I actaually don't just trust my eyes but you also test it with the calibrated sensor at different brightness levels. I get IIRC within 1% on the greyscale and 2 candelas (like nits) difference in brightness which is probably the difference in the backlight uniformity... BTW the instructions tell you to unfocus your eyes and step back, so the lines don't confuse your viewing

I do not have any horizontal lines on my screen on any images or solid color backrounds (or BIOS screens), there was an issue with this on the original envy's but AFAIK it is no longer happening with current models.

Edit: FYI I my company uses envy 15's for mobile professional photo editing so if this were a common issue or problem then we would be well aware of it. None of our machines have lines like the image you posted on the previous page...

 

does this seem like a good deal for the E15 or 14: W1066SB4GS Super Talent DDR3-1066 SODIMM 4GB Samsung Chip Notebook Memory - DDR3 SODIMM 200 Pin - SuperBiiz.com

 

Looks good to me, it's ~$35 less than I paid 3 months ago. Also, if you're not aware, you need to use that coupon code (CASTLE10) at checkout so the final price is $95.98

 

I have to stack with my envy 15 now......missed you so much ,envy 14..

It did not run too hot now,my rom temp reduces to70F...

 

I would not worry about it. It seems like this is a common problem that some laptops have for some reason.
The same thing happens to me when have my nexus one plugged into a 2010 13'' mbp and try to boot- it never boots. When I unplug my phone, it works just fine. Interestingly, I never had this problem on my ASUS laptop though.

 

if u remove usb from the bootup list in the bios, that will probably let the laptop boot normal.

 

I meant to add that too. Ya, it probably thinks it's supposed to boot from your usb when you have your phone plugged in @ startup.

 

I still disagree with your assessment that UAC is for "newbs". To each his/her own, I suppose. I am, however, in the security business, so I "welcome" what Microsoft is doing with UAC (though the implementation could be better). Having a clear delineation between "system", "administrator" and "user" has been helpful to me in protecting my computer from malicious attackers, and from myself. That's essentially "gospel" in the security world. It's also gospel in the programming world (protected, private, public).

However, every modern OS out there now has some form of "UAC" built in (Linux has had it for years, Mac OSX has it). I suppose that just comes with the territory. While I can appreciate that UAC can become annoying at times, I usually don't notice it (unless I'm installing new software, or making changes to things that may or may not need changing). I suppose that the UAC reminders tell me that I'm making a somewhat more significant change, so I think about it more. However, I'm used to working in a "non-administrator" environment at work and at home.

I've seen the bone headed things that I've done before when I had too much access (my old Windows XP machine) that a simple reminder that I'm about to do something permanent could have "saved" me from. Or gotten some software from the intartubes that I did research on to determine it wasn't something malicious, but decided not to use having needed "Admin" rights to run. Almost no applications should require administrator rights to run in this day and age. However, perhaps I'm different than most users.

I do wish, however, that UAC would remember (for a brief period of time) that I've already authenticated for a little bit. But, oh well.

Regardless, I still really like my Envy 15. Had to make the post at least somewhat relevant to the thread, I suppose.

 

When I look at the picture, it appears as though one side is clearly brighter than the other. I noticed that if I view the image full size, then drag the window up and down a teeny bit, it appears as though the brighter of the two halves appear to swaps sides. When I look at the image on my wife's Macbook Pro, on my ancient 2001 laptop (Presario 2800T), Desktop monitor (IPS) I don't notice that.

However, when I put my finger down the centerline (so I can't see it), I can't tell any difference at all as to which side is brighter.

Now I'm concerned.

 

Just for kicks I am posting the same image below, but this one is from a 'snipped' copy of it in my IE8 browser at 100% as a .PNG, it looked perfect on my screen and in the 'snip' when I view it in CS4, Nikon NX2 or Windows picture viewer...



Well it still looks perfect on my screen, how about you guys?

 

incredibly bad luck for me then, My original envy 15 had horz lines, the replacement LCD i got on my repair had horizontal lines and now the replacement machine that I got had horizontal lines.

That image clearly demonstrates the horizontal lines.

When were your envy 15's ordered? Maybe its a problem in the supply chain starting from a certain date

 

@dailo23

December for a gen 1 machine (returned)
Feb(?) - for 1 Gen2 (whenever first release of gen 2 occured)
April - 2 more Gen2's 1 Glossy and 1 A/G (a/g returned)
May - 4 more just like my signature except dual SSD/HDD

All have 1080p screens and none have ever had horizontal lines. It does sound like you have had a run of bad luck. I thought this issue had been resolved long ago and have not heard of it for quite a while....

By the way where did that ridiculous low res test image come from? never heard of the website and you can't actually log on to it I would stay away from unkown sources when it comes to anything to do with image quality and calibration....

 

Sorry to sidetrack for a littlebit.

What is the difference between the 1200 CTO and the 1150 NR I have now?

Like I've heard the 1200 CTO is the 3rd gen and mine is the second?

 

Yes but the 1200CTO has not been released yet and no idea when it will be. There is a service manual on the 'driver and dowloads' HP site if you want to see all the specs, basically just a few new CPU options and they added a 5730 GPU option.... That's all I know.

 

Mine was ordered april 1 and delivered early may. This seems to overlap two of your orders... Everyone else seems to have reported a "split image" problem but you.

That test image is not ridiculous, it just highlights the horizontal lines. Some people claim to not see them (I agree, it does not happen on bright solid colors such as white) but with alternating the grey and dark grey lines in that way as you scroll down (shifting the pixels vertically), it highlights the problem clearly.

When you scroll and the light and dark sides alternate brightness, your eyes aren't playing tricks, the video drivers aren't messing with you, this is a physical lcd problem. A problem that I do not see on any of my other LCD panels. Either the screen is flawed, or a ribbon connector is not seated properly or defective.

What that image clearly shows is that the ONLY lcd that exhibits that problem for me (samsung 46" tv, dell 23" monitor, 15" compaq laptop, Benq 23" at work, etc etc), is in the envy 15 screen. This is the horizontal line issue.

That image was found on Mac forums where macbook air users were complaining of the same horizontal line issue. There were batches of macbook airs that had this exact same problem. My guess is that HP is using the same supplier. Mac enthusiasts were sure to purchase a certain revision of the MBA to avoid this problem.

 

I know exactly what I'm looking for The monitor on my T61 looks fine, totally matched in Firefox's display. The Envy doesn't, it has mismatched greys. But, I'm still happy with the display on the Envy, it's good enough for my needs, so I don't really care. I'm not really sure what I'm missing outside of that test case, so...

 

I don't get it, that test is the only thing which supposedly points out a flaw with my screen but I haven't noticed anything at all during movies, gaming and browsing...am I missing something?

 

@Dailo23

Here is the screen P/N on all 5 of our machines; 'Monitor Name LG Philips LP156WF1-TLE2', not sure of the ones I returned. But none of them have ever had any horizontal line issues! If it were a real issue there would be thousands envy 15 owners screaming bloody murder on forums like this one, since this is not happening I don't know what to tell you. For me and my other photographers it is a non issue. We have been editing and selling SD cards direct to customers from the envy 15's for almost 2 months now (over 800 2GB cards) and have yet to have a single complaint on image quality. We also send these edited files out for 3rd party printing and drop shipment direct to customers, again 0 complaints.

I also just recieved proof copies back of 4 different 16 month 2011 calendars (12" x 9" x 300 DPI color offset printed) which were all 100% edited from ~12MB raw image files on this envy 15 while I was traveling. That's 72 images, proffesionally printed and all but 2 turned out perfectly and will be used for full production (2500 of each calendar). The 2 problems were color matching issues, not anything to do with the envy's screen. So IMHO this whole thing is a non issue.

I am attaching a 100% crop of a high detail picture with a section of hazy blue sky that would be an good test of showing any horizontal lines since the sky has slight diffused noise pattern which should make the lines stand out, also the detail in the feathers with the different shade levels should be a good test of grey level uniformity and would show any line issues if present. I am not sure how the colors will look on other screens as this was edited on my calibrated (Adobe RGB 1998) display. I converted it to a PDF since even this small crop is a 1.5M file that is to large to upload here, it looks fine in the PDF on this end.

View attachment EAGLE 100% CROP.pdf

Edit: I just noticed that in Acrobat pro I can zoom in to pixel level 800% and at any zoom level their is no trace of any lines. Any one else have any lines showing in this image?

 

well, this is what im seeing



if you dont notice it, good on you. I agree the average user probably won't care about these lines. But when I'm in photoshop editing an image, I do not want to be seeing these lines as they're what are going to be used for production.

These lines dont appear when I'm using an external display, which kind of defeats the purpose of this being portable. But that is what I'm resorting to at the moment.

 

if anything, i think the envy screen is sharper (crisper, more accurate, whatever...) than we are used to using and makes it easier to see subtle changes in images. maybe i'm wrong. i like my envy and i'm annoyed that someone would suggest there is a problem with it when i can't find any evidence except for one random image from the interwebs (and the evidence from that image is sketchy, at best)

as for the picture above my post, are you sure the image is as 'clean' as you think it is? could your other LCD screens be fuzzing it any?

 

I'm not suggesting that your photoshop generated images would include these lines, it's just the lcd display exhibits these lines.

 

If this wasnt an envy 15 thread i would swear that you are a sheeply apple fanboy talking about an apple product

Anyways I just got a call from HP and my case manager states there IS a solution to my problem. I'll keep you guys posted on what happens.

Hopefully I can get this resolved

 

if you are that unhappy with it you can return it. if there is a fix and you are satisfied with the outcome, great. but throwing out insults is childish and does nothing to rectify the situation.

 

No the normal envy 15 LCD display does not exhibit these lines! You have a machine with an uncommon problem /issue...

Forget the test image. Does anyone else see lines on any image on their envy 15 display like the photo posted by dailo23 ??

 

no lines on mine.

 

sorry, calling you an apple fanboy is taking it too far I agree.

Unfortunately I can't return it because the repair process took so long. I received it May 3, ordered April 1 after a delay, and I still don't have a working unit. HP's return policy is 21 days.

Have a look at this color on your envy screen: 336633

it should be solid green, but on my screen there are faint lines on it.

 

Mine will be done July 20th! Wahoo! Can't wait...

 

Again it looks perfect as due all other color image samples and all 255 levels of color points that my calibration system measures in red, green, blue, grey and white..... You have a faulty screen or something causing the lines, it is NOT a common issue....

 

Hello All,

Here I am back with some issues with my HP Envy 15...yesterday it decided to corrupt the hard drive and I had to reinstall everything and loose all my files...

Anyway...now I cannot remember how to get the "FN keys" to work. I installed the "HP Smart Menu" and "HP Quicklaunch" softwares, but none of those is working properly...

Also, if someone can remind me the list of drivers to be reinstalled, that would be great (among the 540 pages of this threads I could not find it).

Thanks,

 

We've had about 5 responses in this thread with the test image being split in darkness/lightness on different sides of the image. This is directly related to horizontal lines on the screen.

I have personally received 3 LCD screens that have had these line problems.

How are you an authority to say that this is NOT a common problem? Do you work for HP? Is there something that you know that I don't?

 

I'm missing how that test image tells you anything. The horizontal lines seem to appear when a browser scales down the image. Isn't this just an artifact of the browser? I see the horizontal lines on 24" LCDs by Samsung and HP. Try viewing the image at 100%, and they should go away.

 

viewed at 100% (not 100% of your screen, but 100% of the image ie, not scaled down) the image should appear as a unified color. Yes there are darker and lighter shades of grey lines running horizontally about 2px high each.

What makes the image unique is that the left and right side are offset by 2px horizontally.

Whats happening with the horizontal lines on your screen are they are "whiting out" the darker lines only on one half because of this offset.

thats why when you scroll up and down you'r shifting the pixels and it causes the lighter sides and darker sides to alternate every pixel you move it horizontally.

That is what is happening with that image and that is why it only appears that way on defective screens.

 

What I know is there are hundreds of registered owners on this thread and thousands of people viewing it and out of all those there is no issues being mentioned about horizontal lines on the screen. It was an issue for a few machines months ago and since then no one is seeing it. If they were it would be a very significant topic of discussion.

As I said before your test image is useless depending on scale and browser and scaling it may or may not show any lines and that is not the purpose of the test. Your green image link is a better test for equal comparison between other machines and so far no has posted that they see any lines except for you! And have you really had three screens or just had the same machine repaired and returned? I have had a total of 8 envy 15's and currently own 5 and may be ordering 4 more. None of them have ever had any lines! If the picture you posted of the lines on your screen was on everyones don't you think there would be a rebellion here and all over the net?

Also you never replied to my posted PDF image, did you see any lines on the image? No one has replied that they have.

 

I responded to that message, that appeared to be an image that you outputted via photo editing software to PDF. If that is an actual picture of your screen with that eagle on it, you're right, you have no such problems on your machine. Cropping it to have just the eagle head didnt lead me to believe that you used a camera to take a picture of your envy 15 screen.

When I posted that test image up I asked people to open it and view it full sized, not scaled down in the browser. That is a definative test. I dont see how you keep writing it off.

In my last post, I explained exactly whats happening with the faint horizontal lines and why there appears to be two shades of grey on that one image on screens with the horizontal lines.

And yes I have frustratingly been given 3 screens with this issue. First initial order, the repair where the repair form that came back with the unit said "LCD replaced" (unless they were lying), and now a completely replaced unit that was a quick ship unit.

I believe this issue is widespread and people just cant see the lines unless they use that image provided which highlights the issue.

later tonight I will take a picture of this on the envy screen, and also one on my old compaq laptop and the difference will be clear. I'll post up the images later.

 

@dailo23

Don't bother doing all that work to just prove to me that your screen has lines, I already saw your other picture and truly believe you have them. I also know that none of my computers have any lines and firmly believe that 99.9% of other envy 15's do not have them either (ok I made up the percentage).

All I care about are my machines, so I am dropping this rediculous issue as of now, it's not worth my time.

 

Dont know if this was posted yet, but I was looking for envy 14 stuff, and looks like this was just posted today.

Google Translate

 

I finally disassembled my Envy today to pull the SSDs for eBay, and the sticker attached to the bracket says "576825-001". Upon query, it pulls the mounting bracket and SSD drive. I'm gonna go out on a limb and wager that you can't actually order just the bracket :-/

 

Is anyone else having problems with their webcam?

I got my brand new HP envy 1150nr and it has the purplish webcam problem.

Now....it doesn't even work.

 

I don't get it... Are you demonstrating that the Envy 15 has been released in China??

 

I dunno I was just bored, and it was posted today so I put it here. also, 16GB of ram?! I don't know if thats normal for people getting envy 15's but thats alot

 

Well this being the envy 15 owners lounge and all we kind of already unboxed are own machines, but thanks for letting me know that it looks just the same in China.... LOL

BTW i7's have 4 RAM slots and can run 1333Mhz, i5 only get 2 RAM slots @ 1066Mhz...

 

Wow, I didn't even notice the ridiculous specs. 16GB RAM and 2x SSD to boot. Bet that thing cost a pretty penny. If only it had the i7-820, it'd be maxed out.

 

YouTube - HP Envy Webcam Followup

 

does replacing the hard drive void the warranty in these units, some people say no some say yes because u have to remove a lot of parts

 

I was showing the funny grey issue, but that color block looks perfectly solid to me (except at the edges, but that's just a slight backlight uniformity issue)

Nope. Mine seems to work fine, even after a clean install. Have you been through the drivers thread and updated everything? You don't need all the HP specific media things, but it would help to have the latest webcam drivers.

 

Today i just realized my webcam too has a purple hue to it..I tried playing with settings but as much as i could still purple

 

Try using a fluorescent light instead of an incandescent.

The purple hue is due to the fact that the webcam works in the dark. You can't have it remove the purple (infrared) hue without also removing the ability to run in the dark. It's a design decision that HP made, and there's really no way to fix it. You can adjust some of the color balances I believe, and with the default Envy monitor color profile from HP the colors are already very blue-tinted, so that could make the purple tint really apparent.

Try installing the ICC files that JJB put somewhere in this thread, see if that helps, and see if there are any color adjustments you can make to the webcam.

 

I'm considering upgrading my graphics card - will the 2nd gen motherboard be able to handle the ATI Mobility 5870 OK, in terms of connectors, etc? Will it run too hot, is it a mistake to attempt this?