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

I added a link to my sig for the Envy Gen2 drivers.

 

I'll keep the drivers up on my site until HP updates their site with official ones.

 

How many are actually USB 3? I assume the two are usb 3 and the esata/usb is usb 2, correct?

 

Hummm. I guess maybe I'll do an uninstall of Heaven and reinstall Sharks codec pkgs again and then reinstall the bench and see if that fixes things.

 

I saw Best Buy has a sale going on the envy 15, is this a deal? I'm hoping for usb 3.0 with this. Also is the 4830 compared to the 5830 that big of a difference? I'm wanting to future proof myself for diablo 3.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+EN...inum/9556394.p?id=1218123849552&skuId=9556394

 

That is the Gen1 w no USB 3.0 and the 4830.

I would def recommend the Gen2.

 

does 2nd gen have plastic bezel or edge to edge screen?? also, how many usb 3.0 ports does the second gen have?? It's gonna be ages till we get this kinda stuff in the uk....

 

has any member posted a good review for the new revision? I'm curious if battery/heat has been addressed as I'm not sure if 3hrs is better than previously. Also palmrest heat I find annoying - I had the SXPS1640 and got rid of it.

 

No edge to edge, (2) USB 3.0 ports

 

Nothing conclusive...other people who have owned both have mentioned the 2nd generation seems to operate cooler. Although from what I have read, only the early versions were really hot (prior to bios update).

Battery life is certainly better comparing new i5 models to old i7 models. I haven't seen any head to head comparisons of old and new i7 models for battery life.

 

Has a bezel, I don't have a ruler handy but it seems like approx 1/2 inch all around it. As for how many USB 3.0 ports, I honestly don't know how you check it. If you can tell me I'll look and report back for you.

As an aside:
Uninstalling/reinstalling the Shark's Win7 and x64 codec pkgs and then reinstalling Heaven fixed the sound issue I mentioned before.

 

I've not really noticed all that much "heat" so far on my i7. Whats a good way to test battery life? I have the slim bat and it would be nice to get an idea of how long it will run on battery for school where, for the most part, I'm just going to be using it to read PDF's of my books.

Also has anyone figured out what the difference is between the f.17 and f.18 bios files yet?

 

can anyone else confirm their SSD G2 status (that hasn't already confirmed)

thanks!

 

I finally got the Envy's fans to ramp up while playing TF2 at 1920 x 1080 with all visuals maxed out.

But it didn't stay on, it would ramp up for a few seconds and then go back down to quiet whooshing, though the palm rest did get kinda hot.

On idle I would describe the palm rest as a step above "luke warm", while gaming the whole thing acts as a big heat sink and heats up another 5-7 degrees.

I use another keyboard so it doesn't bother me, but if you were going to use the laptop keyboard, it may make you feel uncomfortable with heavy gaming.

Your ears would thank you though =P.
This has been the quietest laptop I've ever gamed on, probably tie or a close second to the 16.4 inch Vaios.

 

Anyone with the slice battery and 7200rpm drive?

Seems like when I have the slice attached, the right palm rest fan/hd noise stays on max, all the time.

When I take the slice off, periodically the sound goes away for a short period (machine is pretty much silent at this point) .. then spins back up...???

I think this is killing my battery life while using the slice battery.

This is while just web browsing.

Anyone else notice anything like this? The laptop is just too loud when this fan/drive goes into high gear.

 

wait, nm it seems to be coming from the right side top corner vent on the backside..?

 

Thats correct

 

Here I am with my fresh install. I am now trying to locate some specific softwares. I am looking for:
- The HP webcam software. What's the name of the file?
- The HP video player. Same question.

Also, when I use my FN keys, it does work properly, but does not display the bar (eg. when decreasing/increasing the volume). When I hit "CAPS LOCK" it does not either display it on my screen. With the factory settings, it used to do display those info. How can I get that back?

 

Install MS menu for the osd stuff.

 

Where can I get that? Is it better than the HP OSD cause that seems a little glitchy.

 

I have 2 new i5 models both came with G2's. One odd thing is I just opened both machines and the SSD's have an intel logo on a silver colored plastic sleeve, no other markings or numbers, didn't want to remove them just to comfirm what was printed under the 'sleeve'. Will post some pics when I get time.

 

There was someone hundreds of pages ago (part 1 of the Envy owner's lounge) who returned his for this very reason. Stuff like this tends to annoy me too, so I'm hoping it won't bother me.

EDIT: Talking about the sharp edge issue, not display issue.

 

Hey all,

I'm seriosuly considering getting one of these. I am thinking about getting an i7 with 8GB ram. I have a few questions tho.

1- is the ram 1066Mhz or 1333Mhz. if it is 1066 Mhz, u think i will recognise the difference?

2- how hot does it get on i7 models? i read that i5s are pretty decent as far as heat issue goes.

3- how far can i tilt the screen? some say that u cant make it go further than 90 degrees.

4- is 320 GB SSD really worth the money? if not i'll get 500gb 7200rpm.

thx guys.

 

Oh damn...I assumed that all the MS crap was for Microsoft!! I did not even took a look at it! :-D

Now I am running into the same problem for all the MS stuff. When running the self extractor, I get " Error 2 running command c:\hp\bin\hpbi"

I guess I need to install something beforehand, but what?

 

But from the stuff you posted before with the hardware ID, and benchmarks, I think it's safe to say they are G2, correct?

 

1- I have 4gigs and they are 1033. At least this is what Win7 says

2- I got a i-5 because of the power consumption and the heat issues

3- I have been very disapointed with the screen. To be honest, it goes further than 90 degrees, but not further than 100 degrees!! I owned four laptops before this one, all ASUS. For two of them I could flip the screen to ~210 degrees (more than flat!!), and the most recent ASUS goes to ~125 degrees. Thus I believe HP is below average on this point.
If you are tall, or use a high chair, this might become an issue (talking about my own experience)

4- No idea, I got 7.2k for the price saving and need for larger volume.

 

Yes they are g2's. I trust the Intel rapid storage tech. program that ID's them as G2 along with serial numbers.

 

I didn't order them originally cause I though they'd be G1. Since my unit is defective I'm reordering getting the dual setup. I'll be running them in raid0 but after a while may run TRIM on them by taking them out of raid and imaging everything, then running TRIM, then restoring.

 

You shouldn't need to as there should be gc working on RAID'd G2's.

 

no trim though...

 

gc should work just as well.

Doesn't make sense to break your RAID every few weeks to TRIM em up and then re-image everything.

Just let those suckers idle at logon for 30 minutes each week

 

wait do the G2's even have GC?

 

I believe they have both.

I could be wrong, though so you might want to research a bit.

 

I start believing that getting this HP laptop was a huge mistake...

I never encountered so many difficulties to set up an OS properly. I really need someone to help me out here.

I can either: use the factory settings, and have a laptop running really slowly
Use my install of Win7 Pro, but then 30% of the features do not work properly or can't be installed (webcam software takes 10 secs to start, can't get the FN keys to work properly: it takes ~0,5 sec before the keys react, ...)

I used not to be such a retard, but what shall I do to get my laptop working?

Thanks for helping

 

to my knowledge they only have trim. but trim doesn't work in a raid setup...

 

Yes, I know TRIM doesn't work in RAID.

That is one reason why I wouldn't RAID ssd's in the first place.

The other is that the speed gains are nice in becnhmarks, but quite useless in real-world use.

 

i'm really torn what to do. i like the raid, and I have a 4TB nas that I can schedule backups to. but i do worry about degradation... i supposed I could always do a full backup to nas, wipe the drives and restore in a raid if I saw a huge speed drop in a year...

 

I think if you don't stress the thing a ton, i.e. do tons of encoding, editing, etc. you'll be fine. Most folks with G1 Intels were ok unless they did things that required TRIM.

I wouldn't run TRIM unless the drive was significantly degraded. That probably won't be very often. So if you do all the crap to image, TRIM, reimage every 6 months, that's not too bad.

 

TRIM is not something that you run.

It automatically works everytime you delete a file on your system.

Wiper or something like that might be what you are confusing TRIM with.

 

I just meant I wouldn't go through the hassle for TRIM to run, unless the drive was very degraded. No need to skip trim for 5% performance increase IMO.

 

BTW sleey0, where can I get the program you were referring to here: "Install MS menu for the osd stuff."

Maybe it's better than the HP OSD.

 

It is all in the SWSETUP folder.

 

You can run the installers directly from this folder - C:\hp\tmp\src

 

Love you!! ;-)

I had been looking around the C:\hp\tmp dir but not into the source dir!! Apparently it is working fine (at least for the first soft I tried with).

 

Battery Test #2

-i7 with SSD
-NO Slice battery
-Browsing internet mainly, nonstop basic use
-Wifi ON and connected, Bluetooth OFF
-Bios fan setting: Always ON
-Balanced power profile with 45% Brightness

1:50

 

Now let's get started with my feelings/impressions about this laptop.

First, I think everybody agree on the fact this is a luxury laptop (actually I am just copying what is written on HP website). As such, one should expect perfection...or at least a high level of coating. If I am buying the last Mercedes, I am expecting to have high quality leather on my seats, etc...

It started well with the package. Nice looking, simple, sober...efficient. Everything is there up to the "Thanks for buying a HP Envy" paper.
Then the laptop is ready to use, nothing to install...perfect! Off course, most of us will want to reinstall a clean copy of Windows to higher the perfs.

On the side of the power, nothing to say...one of the fastest <16" laptop available at this time. Although probably the thinner. As expected by everybody the battery does not last very long (2.5 hours with i5 core), but up to 6hr with the 9 cell slice. Here comes the first problem. With the 9 cells slice, the laptop is really heavy!! I can hardly imagine myself carrying this heavy laptop all day long. Of course the slice is useful when you are playing away from a power plug (thus you can expect up to 3 hours of gaming).
However I have a question: is there a gamer that is really expecting to play away from a power plug? Speaking for myself, when I am playing, this is at home, or at least in a room...where there is alway an available power plug.

The conclusion of the additional slice is: too heavy to carry around, and if you keep it on your desk, why not just using the power cord?

Overall the Envy 15 is very good looking but I am very surprised by two major design flaws:
1/ It is not possible to open the screen to more than ~100 degrees. This is well below the average of other laptops. I do not see a good reason for this choice. Going to 120 degrees would not have complicated the design of the cable for the screen. For the story, when I first open the laptop, I flipped it, because I was convinced that something was stuck in the hinge!!
2/ The keyboard. It is perfect...if you are in a perfectly clean and filter environment. After few months use, dust (and more) will be below the keys, and I do not see of an easy way to clean it. Blow air as I used to do with all keyboard? Painful...there is one compartment per key!! Removing the keys...I will wait for someone to try on his laptop before doing it on mine.

I am not discussing about heat related issues as it was covered by most, neither about the choice not to introduce a DVD reader such as in the Mac's.

My concluding remark is about my introduction. I expected something close from perfection, but it has major flaw that most of cheap laptop do not have. On top of that, the manganese case is sweet, but why the hell did not they polished it?! Just by caressing it I can feel many defects around the palm rests. I would never have expected that from a high end laptop.
Overall I am very disappointed with this laptop, and if I could, I would have sent it back and gotten a different brand.
Only good things are the performances, rather long battery life for such a performance level, and good looking. Using it is actually uncomfortable, and hopefully I will get use to it...

 

Fwiw, I've had my Macbook since 2006 and have had no trouble with dust under a chiclet style keyboard.

 

The case is Magnesium... very different from the "manganese" you referred to. Well not VERY different, but different enough!

 

For similar power, and better comfort of use, maybe you should take a look at the Sony Vaio F series, which also happens to be 2 pounds heavier =P That's about the same weight as the Envy with a slice with less battery life, but hey, at least they give you a palm rest to insulate you from the Core i7. =P

But you'll pay in performance as well. ^.^

The imperfections on the palm rest are intentional, if you look at it closely...

 

I can see how the keyboard can get dirty easily. Each key is like a dirt trap. The screen should bend back further as well, but the viewing angles are OK, at least the picture isn't distoreted in most use scenarios. It is fine the way it is on my lap.