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

There is no major redesign, there are no heat issues and they will be adding the newer 740 and 840QM processors and a few new i5's on the gen 3, all details in the new HP envy 15 1200 CTO service manual that has been out for a few months. FYI i5 models have 2 DIMM slots (8GB max) while i7's have 4 DIMM slots (16GB max) and 2 USB 3.0 ports. They also show an option for a 5730 GPU.

 

That's excellent news, I didn't think to look for the manual. Its unfortunate that they don't give out a timetable for this next eventual release and I feel bad for any buyers who purchase this machine without even half of the future available components.

 

i must say that im a little upset that they are now offering the i5 when two weeks ago when i order it i had to get the i7 and it cost me 200 more, im thinking about calling hp and getting it switched or something will they do that?

 

Well getting your money back cause they changed the hardware might be a little tricky normally, but I know HP has a 21 day return policy with no questions asked. So if u return it within the week you should be fine.

 

So anyone know if they fixed the purple webcam issue and if it does in fact come with mics?

 

why wouldn't it not have a mic? Of course it has a mic.. on the webcam I got 90% of the purple to go away when I turned off the lowlight setting

 

While I wait for the arrival of my E15, I'm trying to figure out the steps I should take to get everything up to date, unraid the drives, and do a fresh windows install. The following list is likely missing steps, misinformed, etc. as this is new to me.

I'll be getting an refurbished i5 with 5830 graphics and twin SSD's. Before starting, I'll have a win7 ultimate install DVD, Intel firmware update cd and a usb drive with the latest drivers from the drivers thread.

1) Use Intel SSD firmware update tool to ID drives. Hopefully, I'll get G2 drives. Not sure of my options if G1.
2) Update computer to latest BIOS, set to IDE/Legacy mode.
3) Boot using CTRL-I and unraid.
4) Boot with Intel firmware update tool and update firmware on both drives.
5) Use HDDerase and secure erase both drives.
6) Boot DVD Win7 ultimate and install
7) Use Intel SSD Toolbox in windows to manually trim, etc.

What am I missing/is out of order/doesn't make sense?

 

If there g2 drives then it should trim automagicaly... Make sure you get the latest drivers from the driver thread and pull up ati's site for there new 10.7 driver... I would also recommended batterybar as a better way to tell how much life you have left on your battery (much better then what windows thinks IMO) and if you want a on screen volume control take 3RVX for a spin...its 100% theme-able and does not interfere with full screen apps like hp's does

 

Check out the 'HP out of the box guide' on the first page of this thread...

Gongrats and good luck

 

Does that work with the external slim additional battery? Perhaps I should ask on the batterybar forum instead...

 

Yes it does... it gets a little confused if your running the free version but nothing serious it just takes a little more time before it realized "O, theres a 2nd battery... I better see the time left on it", On the pro version you can set a option to use separate battery profiles based on the battery setting. So for me (I have pro...Its worth the few bucks) I have a battery profile that is designed for I get longer life on the slim so it automatically knows without the extra time.

thats probability more then you needed..Im board before government class starts

 

So in the HP refurb outlet they have an HP Envy 15 Beats Edition for about the same as a new Envy. It's supposed to come with everything the retail version has (ie the headphones). But I can't tell if it is a really old one that has a 4830 or the new one with a 5830. Is there anyway to tell from their crappy description.

I called and the guy on the line said the description I was looking at is the same one he sees as well. Do you think it's better for me to just get the regular Envy 15?

 

Thanks, I got the latest drivers from thread already and will get the 10.7 from ATI. I'll definitely check the apps out.

The out of the box guide is great. Can't believe I missed that. Most everything I need, particularly regarding post install optimization, appears to be in there or linked from there.

I'll try the firmware upgrade, but it sounds like the BIOS limitation will prevent it. I'd rather not take the drives out. I'll search to see if updating has yielded benefits worth the trouble.

I suppose it's luck of the draw on whether it will have G1 or G2 drives. I was under the impression since ssd's would be used and likely from a non-trim setup, I could gain performance with a secure erase, then trim in win7 would allow me to keep performance from degrading much over time. Should I skip this because when I unraid and gain Win7 trim, it will be able to cleanup any marked for deletion cells before the clean install?

Thanks for the help!

 

Does an i5 Envy 15 mean it is Gen 2?

 

@wizrd54

The gen 2 all have the ati 5830 in it. Gen 1's all have the 4830

And for people Asking about the gen 3 thats supposedly coming out... They already have the manual out...the only definite thing there adding is the ati 5730 and more then likey the new i5 and i7's coming out... Everything else is just speculation or rumors....Plz its annoying that it keeps coming up *steps off soapbox*

 

Got my envy 15 i7 with dual SSDs. I couldn't update the SSD firmware as the model number is not recognized by the Intel firmware update tool.

has any one tried installing Snow Leopard on envy gen 2 with the latest bios?

 

Loving my Envy. Been using it for a few hours now and have found no defects.

Badly needs a clean install though

 

Hey guys, I was thinking about getting an Envy 14 until they raised the price. Can anyone tell me the pros/cons of the Envy 15 compared to the 14? I was hoping for a 14" laptop, but now the Envy 15 seems like a nice deal.

Couple other questions as well:
Do you guys recommend one of the 1920x1080 screens over the other?

Anyone know what the battery life is like with an i5?

Is the 410GB 5400RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (SSD 160GB + 250GB 5400RPM) for $300 a good deal? I'm not really sure if I need a SSD, but it seems really nice. I mainly go on the internet a lot, but I am also getting into some moderate gaming. I don't think I can afford the dual SSD option.

Finally, is it worth waiting for the 3rd gen Envy to come out? I don't need a laptop immediately, but I do need one within a couple months. I think the only reason I would wait is to get a different processor.

Thank you very much.

 

@eight35pm

The 1080p glossy blows away the other 2 choices, it's brighter, higher contrast and sharper.

Battery life for me (see sig for specs) after a clean install and some tweaks is 3:00 wifi on and light browsing, 3:30 with wifi off and a simple app like word and I get about 2:20 watching 720p .wmv movies, That's all on the built in 6 cell battery. The 0 cell slice gets an additional 1.7 times the life but adds 2.7 pounds when attached.

I highly recommend the SSD if you can afford it. Warning; you'll never be happy with an HDD computer again, lol.

The 3rd gen, with no release date, appears to have no significant difference other than a couple of different CPU options and maybe a 5730 GPU option.

 

You may wish to dig into the forums some more for comparisons between the Envy 14 and 15, but there are plenty. You may also want to keep tabs on this post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...-vs-envy-15-vs-dv6tse-side-side-shootout.html

About the screen - it's pretty subjective and comes down to preference and usage. Really, the best way to decide is to see for yourself. Hit up a Mac store sometime and check out their 15" macbook pros with glossy screens and matte screens, as they are pretty reflective of what you'd expect between the glossy and matte Envy screens.

 

With all these talks about a 3rd generation Envy 15, do people expect there to be another iteration relatively soon? Like within the year?

The second gen 15 isn't exactly old so this news is suprising to me.

 

JJB, what minor tweaks did you do for the battery? With my system I get 1:30 with wifi on and light browsing (thats after a clean install).

 

Well your doing better than most. You have an i7 820QM so not sure what you expected, the i7 quads idle at 15.04W minimum while the i5's idle at 5.24W. My computer comsumes about 15Wh average while light browsing (according to battery bar), everthing equal yours will be using 25Wh+ doing the same thing plus you need to add extra for the i7 memory controller and the NEC 3.0 controller. So my guess is your looking at closer to 30Wh average draw with light usage on a 53Wh battery. That means that 1:45 minutes should be about the max you can get.

The first thing to check is if you have anything running in the backround that is using the CPU. Your i7 should drop to full idle withing 1 to 2 seconds after completing a task, if not it's just sucking down juice. You can also gain an additional 7% by a command line mod that allows you to set the power plan 'critical battery action' to 0% from the normal win 7 minimum of 7%. I don't have the command file on this computer so I can't post it right now, I will try to remember to PM it to you when I get back in town next week. You can also underclock the 5830 if your not doing anything graphics intensive, mine seems stable for browsing at 65Mhz / 150Mhz and for 720p video at ~75/150. The last thing to gain some battery life is to turn off the fans in the bios setting, but I don't know if it's practical with the i7, you may end up using more power with the constant cycling on and off. The 540M barely ever turns the fan on with light usage and the 5830 cycles the fan unless it's underclocked and in a cool room ~68F.

 

QUick question. my main battery aprently already has a wear level of 10%. I called hp and they said it was fine if the battery check program came back with green status. How can a wear level of 10% be normal? Is there anyway I can get them to send me a new battery and me send the old one back or do I have to send the whole machine in?

 

We have 5 envy's and 9 batteries (6 cell) and the all vary the 'wear level' by a different amount each time they are recharged. Sometime more sometimes less wear, so I would give it a few cycles and see what how it averages out before you do anything like returning it.

 

Thanks for the info. What program do you use for underclocking/overclocking the GPU? Is there a way for me to set up an automatic profile or something to have it run at a lower clock when on battery and on a higher clock when plugged in?

 

Cautionary tale:

I've been intermittently annoyed by a high-pitched whine issuing from my machine. Turns out the culprit is not the Envy, but the Logitech nano mouse transmitter plugged into the USB port.

 

Ya when you get a chance can you send that app to me that allows you to change the reserve level too? I have been using battery eater for few nights to drain the battery and been averaging about 1 hr 45 mins from the battery if

 

So the matte 1080p is a different 1080 panel all together than the glossy 1080p? I thought they would be the same panel with a different clear coating or something.

You hear anything about switchable graphics on 3rd gen?

 

as long as they offer 2 drives on the envy 15 there will be no switchable gpu since it requires a hm55 chipset and raid is only supported on the pm55

The glossy screen is brighter and more vivid but me personally I love my matte screen... The fact that I am sitting in class with the lights hitting my screen and I don't see a perfectly clear reflection of some guy picking his nose behind me is priceless in my book

 

Run this command as and admin, and do it while on each power profile you want it to be active upon:

powercfg -setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_BATTERY BATACTIONCRIT 0

This lets you run to 0%

 

Thanks for the info, JJB. Just a couple more questions.

Could anyone tell me how the Dual SSD+HDD works?

Will this laptop be able to keep up with gaming for a couple years?

Are there any coupons or something for the Envy 15 right now? The setup I would like is a little too expensive.

 

This one: AMD GPU Clock Tool v0.9.26.0 For HD 5870 download from Guru3D.com

See 'LsRamair's' post above, that's the command line you need to run in order to remove the critical battery action, as he says you need to run it while in all (9?) power plan settings to make it stay that way. Note; once you do that do not ever use the 'reset plan defualts' option or it will reset the critical action in all settings back to default level.

EDIT: I misstated the 'critical battery action' as 'critical battery level' in my earlier post. The critical level will still not allow you to set it below 7% while on battery. What LsRamair's tweak does is changes the 'critical battery action' to 'do nothing' so it will run to 0% and not be effected by the 7% critical battery level. Sorry for the confusion.

If your getting only 1:45 doing light tasks then you have some serious backround stuff eating up your battery power. I can't go through all the things to check again, I've posted details several times in the last month on this thread, go back and check. I can get 2:20 playing back 720P movies in WMP at 80% brightness or easily over 3:00 with light usage, wifi on and 80% brightness. Look at task manager > processes > click top of CPU column when your on battery and see what is using any CPU % when at idle, they will most likely be the culprit.

 

okay so i finally got my 15, what kinda stuff do i need to do to get the most out of my GPU? (not overclocking yet)

 

Do the dual SSD's come preconfigured as a RAID from the factory? Raid 0 or 1? I'd prefer to not have them in a RAID so i can retain TRIM support.

 

they do come in Raid0 however, I believe the Intel RST has TRIM support for Raid0.

I was advised to run the following in cmd screen:
fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify

If the result is '0' TRIM is enabled.

the result was 0

 

TRIM may be enabled, but so far RAID arrays are not able to pass along the command to the drive, so it doesn't happen.

 

RST does not trim drives that are part of any type of raid array. It will pass trim to single drives on a raid controller however.

Also, the fsutil command just shows that windows is pushing the command out. There is no current way to verify that the drive is accepting it and using it, except for filling it and deleting it and testing the performance.

 

Just install the Catalyst 10.7 drivers, then. It will provide some pretty serious speed boosts over the default. And after that if it's not enough (there's never enough speed ), you can overclock Memory is what's really limiting the card in these babies, but the good news is you can pretty reliably get at least a 20% overclock on the RAM with any Envy.

 

I'm looking at buying the Envy 15 quick ship ( HP ENVY 15-1150NR Notebook PC | HP® Official Store) and was wondering about:
1. Battery life - it seems most people are getting about 3 hours through normal usage with the i5

2. Build Quality - are the hinges tight and does the notebook overall feel put together well

3. Heat - have the heat problems from the first generation been fixed and how hot does the notebook get just going by feel rather than temp numbers.

 

1. Spot on.

2. Hinges are tight and the laptop is extremely solid. Only problem build-wise is the limited amount of flexibility in which the screen and be pulled back. About 25-30 degrees over 90. How big of an issue this is is up to you.

3. Going from personal experience, there are absolutely NO heat issues at all. Overall the laptop actually runs cool to the touch (not that much colder, but slightly cooler in ambient temps of about 80). Upon purchase temperatures will start out at 40-50 for both cores. After a day they'll lower to 35-45. After five days they'll get to about 25-35. Upon purchase, the right palm-rest gets scorching hot, but it quickly gets lukewarm after a couple days (so don't RMA it the first couple days). This is all from personal experience. I as well ordered the quick-ship models so we have the exact same specs.

 

Thanks. I think I'm gonna drop the hammer on it.

 

delete this message, accidently posted on the wrong thread.

 

So what are the specs on the quick ship model exactly? Does it come with the slice battery?

 

Woot! My envy arrived today! First thing I did was install 3dmark06 and hdtunepro to get out of the box benchmarks. After that, I created recovery discs, backed up swsetup, updated to the latest bios, unraided the ssd's, and installed win7 ultimate.

My refurb looks as good as new, seems to be running fine, and the ssd's are gen2. I was unable to update the ssd firmware while they were in the envy, but I was told this would probably be the case.

I used the latest drivers from the drivers thread and have no issues so far. I have done nothing other than a clean install windows updates and win security essentials install. No optimizations yet.

After replacing the stock ram with 2x4gb sticks, I tried a few overclock settings and ran 3dmark06. I really don't know much about how to optimize this stuff, but managed to get 530/1150 for a 9688 score before moving to setup vmware and get the various apps I need on the machine.

BIG thanks to all of the thread contributors whose posts and advice made the unraid and clean install easy.

If anyone wants a good deal on the original 4gb ram, lemme know.

Day one and I believe I will be pleased with the decision to go envy 15 over the 14. I'm also stoked my daily checks of the HP refurb listing paid off as it allowed me to get a 540/ssd setup with 3 yr accident coverage at a good price.

Now to get a travel/2nd adapter and a notebook sleeve for it.

 

i haven't formatted a clearn install yet on the hp 15 yet..

but i was trying to do some windows updates.

the ones that are importmant, but for some reason windows keeps getting stuck at 17% after a reboot

and just stays there crashes and restarts

anyone else?

 

Ok so the power brick makes clicking sounds most of the time when Im clicking on the touchpad, does anyone know why?

Couldnt find anything informative searching on google

edit: also slight sqealing noise, and clicks at random intervals also, not just when using touchpad

 

the squealing noise is more then likely coming from the cpu.. Dont worry it is normal even mine does that... It has to do with a power state is goes into or something like that

 

No I actually mean its right from the power adapter and it makes clicking noises too. I know about the CPU whine, this is a seperate issue.

 

Ugh..I was looking at the Envy 15 this week as I am in the need for a new laptop and I would have bought it had they offered it with the 15-540m. I am also now noticing they once did but don't anymore. Does anyone know what the reasoning behind this is and/or if there going to offer again at some point?

Thanks

Chad