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

So today is my first day with my Envy. I haven't done much besides general surfing and setting up all my programs. But man now that im sitting here in the dark I kind of wish I had a backlit keyboard. I'm fine for the most part because I am not one of those hunt and peck typers, but it would be a nice addition. Man if they come out with a new Envy 15 in the next 20 days I will send this puppy back ASAP.

Overall so far so good. Slice battery seems to help a lot with my need for long working time.

 

Well that makes things easier for me.. I thought the i5s had hybrid though?? Any reason why the 15 doesnt, where the 14 does, even though they use the same processors?

And whoever posted the response to my screen question... they said the Brightview was brighter and had better color contrast or something? Is there any like side by side comparison of the two screens (HD Brightview vs HD Antiglare)? I am honestly sick of glossy (screens) mirrors, but I dont want to trade brightness/color contrast for a matte screen... some more info on this would be very helpful.

 

so is there anyway to have an onscreen indicator of the brightness or volume when you change the settings using the keyboard keys. i kind of like to know what the brightness and volume level is without hovering over the taskbar.

 

Really? How do you say it compares to the 430 or the 450 that I wanted on the 14.

4-5 even for wifi sounds good already. Does it switch to the ATI card on battery? I think I read that it doesn't.

How long does it take to charge?

I'm liking the E15 more now.

 

ok, now on my second envy, theres a few nuisances

first, the touchpad creeks when I right click. it doesnt seem to be secured properly. also if I push in the middle of the touchpad, it clicks (not left/right clicking actions tho)

secondly, the fan buzzes (not a normal sound at all).. the faster the fans spins, the louder and more annoying it is

lastly, not really that important, but they messed up on the laser etchings on both left and right sides of the lid at the ends where it curves in. its a solid white color and doesnt "glow" in the light like the rest of the lid and is annoying for me to look at when theres light shining on it


will HP fix all those problems or just want to send me a replacement?

I've been meaning to call them but ive been busy lately

EDIT: Theres also this annoying CPU whine when the envy is in sleep mode

 

I read last pages and couldnt see, thats why Im posting this.
Envy 15 had no i7 option for a while and I noticed that it is on now.
My question is, is it 3rd gen now?
How can we understand it from hp's site?
(I know that the 3rd gen's will be named 15t-12.. )

 

Can you give me a breakdown of when the CPU whines. I will be getting my envy sometime soon (currently processing) and I want to keep a look out for it.

Thanks

Chad

 

The closest comparison is to go to an Apple store and look at their Anti-glare / glossy screens. I use an Anti-glare and I have no complaints; I turn down the brightness to <50% anyway so that doesnt matter. And the color accuracy can be easily adjusted. Search this thread for a matte color profile (someone made it using a Spyder calibration tool). I'm using that profile and everything is fine. In my opinion glossy screens make their color accuracy advantage defunct when you can't see anything on them due to glare.

 

Trying to figure out if there has been any updates to this? Does this issue affect single SSD drives as well as RAID configurations?

I read about some workaround that involves disabling CE1 in the BIOS, but to me that seems like a poor option since CE1 is a major energy-saving feature of the CPU, and considering how high the clocks can get as well as the heat coming off these CPUs, it's not an acceptable solution.

 

So all just ordered my Envy 15... It was tough; I was looking at three laptops (HP Envy 15, Mac Book Pro 15 2.66 GHz and Dell Precision 6500M). Dell had and awesome sale 15% off. Apple had the Refurbished and HP had $50 coupon.
I wanted a system that would allow:

• Lab development through VMware Workstation (3-5 active VM’s)
• Gaming on my long commute to work and home
• Wouldn’t kill me to carry it when I was walking 6 or 7 D.C. blocks

So the Dell got bumped just due to its sheer size 17” and almost 9 lbs, but it was the obvious power house of the three and cheaper due to Dell’s outlet and 15% off.
If I would have bought a laptop last night the Mac would have been it because last week they only had Envys with the i5 CPU, then I looked last night… Then I realized that the Mac only had the i7-620m which is only dual core not quad core. Additionally the Mac can only have one hard drive… the killer the Mac is ungodly expensive…
So I bought the Envy at 9:30 this morning and saved a ton…

HP ENVY 15 customizable Notebook PC $1,799.99

• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-720QM Quad Core processor (1.6GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 2.8 GHz
• 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 5830 Graphics [HDMI] - For i7 Processors
• 6GB DDR3 System Memory (3 Dimm)
• 410GB 5400RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (SSD 160GB + 250GB 5400RPM)
• No Productivity Software
• ONLY $10! Norton Internet Security(TM) 2010 - 15 Month Subscription (activation required)
• 6 Cell Lithium Ion Polymer Battery (standard)
• 15.6" diagonal Full High Definition LED HP Ultra Brightview Widescreen Display (1920x1080)
• External Tray Super Multi 8X DVD+/-R/RW w/Double Layer Support with 2 USB Ports
• Webcam Only
• Intel Wireless-N Card with Bluetooth
• Standard Keyboard
• HP QuickWeb, Corel VideoStudio Pro X2, Corel Paintshop Pro X2, Stardock My Colors
• HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

Estimated build date Aug 23, 2010…. Hurry HP…
Anyone want to buy a HP 6910p? ;-)

 

Congrats on your new machine. I use vmware on my i5 540m/8gb ram/dual ssd envy 15 and am very pleased with the performance so far.

 

Thought this might be of interest to some. I order my Envy on the 2nd of this month and just go this in an email.

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 8/13/2010 or no later than 7 business days from the original estimated ship date.

It was suppose to ship on the 11th. So if what they are saying is true all in all not that big of delay.

 

Why did my post get moved to this gargantuan thread? As far as I know this issue is still outstanding and has a large impact on buying decisions for this model.

So now the issue just gets swept under the rug and thrown into the pile of 10,000 pages of this black hole of a thread?

 

What issue are we talking about?

 

There is no fix for the 4k ssd issue. HP has been non-responsive. That being said, I would guess most ssd owners are still happy with the real-world performance of their envy's so the issue is not particularly pressing to them. Most comments I read from ssd envy owners indicate they are happy they went ssd. I am included in that group.

Last time I checked, disabling CE1 was not supported in the envy 15 bios. Although, I did have done a bios update since then and forgot to see if was added.

 

So im curious, not saying i will do it, yet... I see alot of people say their machine gets to hot... Have people tested different heat sink compounds (Arctic Silver), upgrading or addinging fans, or drilling a few extra holes?

 

The 15 doesn't do hybrid because it has the PM55 chipset, not the HM55. It enables RAID in exchange for no hybrid graphics. I really don't understand why they didn't just do the HM57, though. Rather annoying.

The 520 will be slightly speedier than the 430/450 due to a higher turbo boost, but otherwise similar. I'm just saying that spending an extra $50-$100 to go from the 520 to the 540 isn't really a good deal. I wouldn't do it myself if I had it to do again

5-6+ for wifi is only with the slice battery, of course. Look at between 2 and 2.5 with the normal battery. It will not switch the GPU as I stated earlier, but the GPU does clock down automatically, so it's not too terrible on your battery life. Just not as good as if it could power down completely and use the IGP of the i5. As for charging, it has a "fast-charge" profile option, where from a low charge it'll get up to about 75% charge within a few hours, and then take longer to top things off. I don't know exact times, though. I just know it charges fast enough for me

It's perception. The actual chips are much cooler than average compared to the same chips in other machines, it's just the fact that the case is metal that it makes the machine feel hot. If your GPU goes over 80 or your CPU goes over 75 or so though, it may be worthwhile to reapply heatsink paste. I did that with my GPU because my temps were a little warm for my liking. There's pretty much no place to drill holes or to add new fans, and no good way to upgrade them either. This is a VERY slim laptop, and things are in very tight tolerances. Check around for some of the pictures of the inside. This isn't a Sager/Clevo whitebox thing.

 

You're lucky chadsxe. I ordered mine on July 21 and was sent the same message on August 3rd. I have yet to receive my laptop, and am getting ready to cancel my order once I get the next notice of delay.

 

So what did your message say? Was it like mine? Did they give you a new expected date?

Regards

Chad

 

i ordered my i7 envy 15 and it was suppose to ship on the 3rd but then it got moved to the 13. If it doesnt ship by tomorrow then im going to cancel because I need a laptop before I head off to school on the 20th.

Another thing i noticed today on the HP website is that the Envy 15 has the i7 available again. For a while all they had was the i5. Maybe now that they got the i7 back in stock they will ship out. Can anyone comment on this?

 

hey all, do you think that the envy could take 32GB of ram like the Dell precision 6500m? to expensive at the moment but just a thought... Dell sales it for like 9k

 

LOL. Maybe, it would depend on A) if you could find 8GB modules in the standard DDR3 204 pin SODIMM package and B) if the Quad core i7's memory controller can actually handle 32GB of RAM.

What CPU does Dell offer with 32GB RAM option ?

 

Gen 2 Envys configured with either a single- or dual-SSDs are supposed to come with Gen 2 Intel X18-M drives, right?

So I'm pretty sure I have a Gen 2 Envy because I configured it from HP Direct in mid-June, received it mid-July, and shows that it has an ATI 5830 GPU.

BUT, I just found out this evening when trying to upgrade my SSD firmware (on another computer) that the SSD is in fact a Gen 1 model (SSDSA1MH160 G1HP).

My question is: I'm already past my 20-day evaluation period, can I still ask HP to exchange the Gen 1 X18-M in my Envy to the equivalent Gen 2 model? Or am I just completely hosed/SOL?

 

HP makes no promises or assurances what SSD drive you're going to get, or even if it's going to be an Intel drive. So you really have no recourse here unless the drive is defective, and even then you might still get a Gen1 replacement.

 

Ah, I just remember hearing that the 450/540 were better than their counterparts but I guess the differences are negligible.

That's what I was thinking, the GPU will always be clocked down on battery mode but I doubt I'll game on it.

Thanks for the answers!

 

Just thought I would give an update. I woke up this morning and got another email from HP saying my package has shipped as of last night. I also got a 50 dollar coupon on my next purchase for the troubles. So everything worked out for me considering mine shipped only one day late.

Regards'

Chad

 

The GPU can run at full speeds or even OC speeds while on battery, simply disable 'power play' in the ATI CCC panel or choose 'max performance' while on battery in the windows power plan options. It is the CPU that will always be downclocked while on battery with no way to override it to normal speeds.

 

Wow I was in here ready to blaze a war path since I ordered mine on the 4th and I couldn't believe it was actually going to take 13 days to get this laptop shipped, and what do you know, it shipped this morning! Hoorah!

 

How much does the downclocked CPU affect normal use on battery life?

 

Not significantly. It still runs very fast for general usage, it's just when you load down the CPU that things don't go as fast.

 

Nice! I got an email this morning saying that mine was registered to ship out too. Guess they finally got back on top of their game. I'm still suspicious though...cause the package hasn't actually been picked up yet.

 

Fedex won't show they picked up until tomorrow. I am confident they are all on there way.

 

I asked about this earlier and no one had any feedback. My system has two 1.8" SSDs. I am wondering if I can replace only one of the SSDs with a 2.5" regular drive. Will a 1.8" SSD + a 2.5" HDD fit? If so, I assume I need to order parts to make this work. Appreciate any feedback on this.

 

Just checked my shipment this morning and it has been picked up by Fedex. The only issue is that it missed the Fedex cut-off time and now is scheduled to deliver on the 19th instead of the 18th.

 

After flashing the BIOS to F2A and updating the graphics to 8.712, my Envy won't sleep. The screen goes black but the drives continue working and fans actually get noisy. If I open the lid the screen remains black no matter what I do. So I have to force a shutdown by holding the power button.

I've tried reflashing the previous BIOS and downgrading the graphics, but the problem persists. The machine worked fine prior to updating both. Would a clean install help?

 

Like bigcat i was wondering whether i can easily replace the hard drive inside the E15. The current configuration I'm thinking about is 160gb SSD and 250gb HDD at 5400 rmp. I dont really think the hdd has enough storage so i would like to replace it at least with a 350gb or maybe even 500gb 5400rmp drive if possible? does a 2.5" drive fit easily? just a matter of replacing?


My second question is whether it is possible to replace the E15 keyboard with the E14 one. The only reason I'm reluctant to buy the E15 is because its missing the backlit keyboard the E14 has. Yet I dont really want to go to the E14 because it doesn't offer SSD + HDD, doesnt have usb 3.0 and i dont think will handle the i7 well (in terms of heat considering the E15 has an extra fan and huge intake vents).

Im assuming the only way it would possible to change the keyboard is if they were the same size. Does anybody know if this is true? If so is it possible to get the backlit keyboard in the E15?
really can't understand why they left this out....
thanks

 

You cannot fit 1.8" + 2.5"

there are two different drive caddies for the E15. One of them fits dual 1.8" drives and the other fits one 2.5" drive. If you want to install a 2.5" drive, you will need to order the single drive caddy and corresponding cable, losing capacity to use the 1.8" SSD.

Alternately, you can buy a 1.8" HDD and save the trouble of replacing the caddy.

I've found a great solution for adding drive space for documents to the dual SSD configuration is by using SDXC cards. They go up to 64GB and they are very convenient to drop in to the slot. There are huge variations in speed and performance depending on the brand, and the speed class, so you may want to check them out first.

I try to use the space on the SSD solely for the OS and programs, but unfortunately the SDXC card file format cannot handle any file size larger than 4GB, so there are many occasions when I need to keep larger files on the SSD.

 

@moviemarketing

Thanks for the great info. I'll probably end up ordering a 1.8" HDD. I have a 2.5 available here, that's why I was asking.

So If I get a 1.8, I don't have to buy any cables or adapters right? The SSD housing works fine with this?

+rep

 

Yes, you can even order a replacement 1.8" 350GB HDD from HP, as there is an option for the E15 with 1.8" 350GB HDD + 1.8" 160GB SSD.

Just remember to unRaid your drives before you replace the secondary SSD. I think there is an internal LED light that shows you which one is the primary drive.

 

I don't understand why there is no 4GB single DIMM option available for the i5, so the user can optionally upgrade to 8GB by adding another 4GB stick.

Upgrading to 6GB is an option, but it's a waste of the 2GB stick, and you're still limited to 6 unless you want to tear apart the notebook, and then you've lost money on both 2GB sticks.

 

So I have had my Envy 15 for a few days now. When I am gaming I expect it to get warmer, but the bottom under the touchpad is pretty damn hot. And the slice battery connector is really hot.

Most people have this experience?

 

If I optimize the crap out of it, will I be able to get 3 hours of light web browsing?

 

As far as i know yes. and that's if you have the i5 i believe.
If the have the i7 quad core you'll be lucky if you get more than 2.5 hours.

That's what you get if you choose performance over battery. can't have both. If you want battery look for another laptop. Maybe even the envy 13 if you like the envy series, although there are other laptops out there that offer much longer battery life.

Can anybody answer my earlier question about the keyboard switch?

Edit: Is it possible to ship the Envy 15 from HP US site to China? I'm having a hard time finding it here.

 

Kinda of funny considering they are built in China.

 

1x Samsung MMCRE28G8MXP-OVBH1


2x in RAID 0


Price/Performance wise these Samsungs are the best bang for the buck I tell ya. The Corsair P256 is the same re-branded PB-22J drive.

 

How much did they cost? I did a google shopping search and it looked like they were around $1k for 128GB.

http://www.google.com/products?hl=e...S388&q=MMCRE28G8MXP&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wf

The Crystaldiskmark results I get with the dual Intel X18-M G2 that came with the Envy seem to be higher speeds and the price was only $550 for 2 x 160GB. However, your sequential write speed seems to be significantly faster.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 522.459 MB/s
Sequential Write : 218.955 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 257.704 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 170.739 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 10.747 MB/s [ 2623.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 53.788 MB/s [ 13131.7 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 250.638 MB/s [ 61190.9 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 145.501 MB/s [ 35522.7 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 18.7% (53.0/282.9 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/04/30 15:20:52
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

 

Well the X18M's are awesome drives thats for sure. However I couldn't afford them at their current price, and thus my decision. I paid less than $400 for both drives. And I kept my old Seagate 7200RPM 320GB HD that came with my Envy.

You seem to be getting twice the read speeds in RAID0 configuration, in my case I'm only getting 100MB/s more than a single drive, I'm wondering if it has something to do with the firmware...

 

anyone figure out how to repair the easily scratched bezel? Just got back from quakecon only to find it scratched on the left side by something

 

I got this anoying thing where when I start the laptop, when the windows 7 logo begins as the 4 blobs of color start moving the laptop freezes. I need to turn in off, try again and hope it works. It seldom happens more than three times in a row and maybe 1 out of 5 startups.
Anyone with similar experience? It is a fresh copy of windows 7 ultimate rather then the windows it shipped with. But that should not be a problem right?

 

I'm sure this has been asked before, but my search turned up nothing.

Is there an easy way to tell which generation Intel SSD there is in this notebook, without cracking open the case?

Also, my understanding is that it could be one of three options:

-1st Gen Intel - no TRIM support, not even with firmware update - no longer supported by Intel
-2nd Gen Intel- has older firmware without TRIM support
-2nd Gen Intel- has newer firmware with TRIM support

Is that correct, or do all Gen 2 drives already come with TRIM support in the firmware?