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

I can just 'print' the RAW file to PDF (acrobat pro) and set a maximum file size, this seemed to give a higher resolution image for posting rather than converting the RAW to jpeg then shrinking from 12MB to the max of ~500k allowed for posting, not to mention a lot fewer steps to do.

It does appear that acrobats size reduction does mute the colors or maybe it converts to sRGB? Either way the resolution is better for the file size with the PDF (try zooming in on the pics, you can read the fine print on the components).

 

It's interesting to know that PDF started support jpeg2000 since 2003.

 

Regarding my above post, I was curious what acrobat does to the images when converting. I was wrong about RAW files, I actually startred with the ~6MB .jpegs for these pics (I shoot RAW+Jpeg).

After setting the max saved file size for >550K here is what the details show in Acrobat pro;



If I'm reading this correctly it converts from large .jpeg to small .jpeg to .png to .tiff which doesn't make sense to me but it seems to work well.

Note: could not fit all the expanded steps in the window

 

You missed masking 2 places.

 

Thanks for that, edited. Got a phone call and forgot to finish masking before posting, +rep.

 

Hey I got two G2s in the mail but looking at the intel site and some of JJBs pics i realised im gonna need a mounting bracket! uh oh...

What do you plan on using? Cause if you look at the Package Contents collumn in the table HERE it does say theyre not shipping with anything.

 

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I ordered a 250Gb mechanical hard drive from hp parts, it comes with the mounting bracket. Only way I could get the bracket. Plan on buying a second SSD drive and selling the 250Gb later, and keep the bracket. It costs $160 for the drive and brackt. Or you can buy the 160GB ssd and bracket (no guarantee its Gen2) for hundreds of dollars (rip off)

 

if anyone has an extra N30B Kensington Adapter tip, let me know!

 

Now that they raised the i7 price (I was planning on getting it but for 400 its not worth it), I have to ask the question how important is a processor for gaming. I know its not the most important thing, but will the i5-430M be able to handle games just as well as the i7-720QM? I know the performance won't be the same but I don't know how much impact a processor has on gaming. Many people here mention running alot of games on maximum settings and with the highest resolution, will I have to sacrifice those things if I get one of the i5's instead of the i7?

Thanks!

 

Have you checked out the Envy 15 benchmarks thread? HERE

I have the i5-540m and so far have gotten equal or better scores on all major gaming benchmarks compared to the i7 720 and 820QM models. It appears the biggest variations come from the stability of the 5830 GPU when overclocked. I got lucky and mine is stable at higher speeds than most.

As far as I know none of the popular games really take advantage of having a Quad processor (yet)....

You also have to weigh the added battery life and lower temps with the i5 vs getting USB 3.0 with the i7

 

Thanks for the reply with the link, USB 3.0 isn't that big of a deal yet, and i'm also trying to get a good deal so by the time I do buy it I don't know if USB 3.0 will be on all the models or not. Lower temps and added battery are also a plus, thanks again. One more question, i've been reading in this thread that the SSD's run alot cooler than the 7200 RPM Hard drives, is it noticeable? Would it help a lot to get the 5400 RPM Hard drive instead of the 7200 RPM because the SSD is too expensive?

 

Are people really getting close to 3 hrs battery life on the i5 with low brightness, wifi on, firefox with tabs?

I feel like I barely get 2 hours or more.

 

Here are some other comparison, against desktop and laptop cpu..

I have an intel E8500 processor desktop now, by the look of it, the i5-540 matches the speed, so i7-620/i7-720QM will make sense for me when using Photoshop and other photo editing.

Dang, with this price hike, making me add Sony F Series for consideration...

 

Hmmm mine comes with a 500gb 2.5(?) hdd but thats going out the window as soon as I get home with it. Youre saying you ordered a 2.5 hdd and it comes with a bracket for the ssds? ?I dont see how a bracket for the 2.5 hdd will accomodate 2x1.8 ssds. guess ill see when i open er up.

 

I think he ordered the 1.8" 250GB HDD that comes installed with the combo SSD / HDD version, so it should be the same bracket as dual SSD's. The 1.8" drives install like you saw in my pics, the single 2.5 fits in the same space just sideways (L/R)

 

correct, its the 1.8" 250gb hd with mounting kit. be careful, they mislabeled some of the heir hds as being 1.8 when they are not.

 

Thanks JJB (even if that's bad news...) now I gotta figure out a way to fit those 2 ssds in. Dont really want to order up an extra drive as I'm already getting rid of the 2.5 that comes with...

Wonder if I couldnt just put a stripe of foam in between the two 1.8s sitting in the 2.5 hdd bracket. Would love to sse a pic of that bracket.

 

i doubt you would want to do that. the foam will trap the heat within the harddrive, and also take note that envy is designed to take air from both the bottom and the front. by installing foam, it will block front vent.

on a side note, you will need 2 special cables to plug in the sata/power on to the motherboard. the cables are not regular sata cable/12 pin power cable. if you do decide to change from 2.5 to 1.8 x 2, you might have to acquire those cables from HP as well.

 

Doesn't work with Envy 15

 

great... and since they wont let me order on the us site since im in canada I feel another round of pita-ness is coming. Anyone got and extra 1.8 mounting bracket they are willing to sell?

Actually if anyone is willing to get it for me i'll be verry happy to make it worth the trouble.

 

find someone to buy it for you in the US, and ship it to you in Canada.

 

The cables are supposed to come with the mounting kit. If they don't I will be very upset with HP parts, b/c I had two people confirm this over the phone. I will know today for sure, mounting kit arrives before 4:00PM CT.

 

LOL at the moment I REALLY hear ya on that.

 

wow, that's a great deal for the envy 13. i just wish it came with a 5xxx series card for dx11 or at least switchable graphics, as well as an i3 or i5. refresh hp?

 

I'm giving myself a bump here.

Now that I think about it, the noise might well be from the harddrive. Does anyone recognize the description? It sounds like the computer equivalent of a fishing boat idling, slightly exxagerated.

 

my envy has always had a mild sqeal to it coming from the right side (near the hd or gfx, can't tell). High pitch to it. Don't think its from anything mechanical moving. Don't really hear it over the sound of the fans anyway. Its such a mild sound, wouldn't want to return my notebook for a minor thing (especially since I'd have to undo all my upgrades prior to shipping back to hp). after swapping out the hard drive for ssd we'll see if that eliminates the sounds, but I doubt it.

 

What specific type of connector is this ?

I was looking at the thread for duall HDD / SSD from http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=429073 and thats one end of the ssd cable you need to connect the mobo to a drive.

Also johnnobts, I was going thru the service manual and noticed this:

Hard Drive Hardware Kit (not illustrated, includes bracket, rubber isolators, and screws):
For use only with 2.5-in hard drives 576827-001
For use only with 1.8-in hard drives 576829-001

Hard drive cable:
For use only with 2.5-in hard drives 576828-001
For use only with 1.8-in hard drives 576830-001

I really hope the cables come with the kit, mate.

 

Yea I'm also having that problem with that high pitch noise, coming from the bottom right. It gets annoying if your in a quiet room at night..

 

its 3:00, been waiting all day at my house (signature required on this, won't let me post a door note). They came at 8:30AM yesterday, now they're going to wait till 4:30PM to deliver today? Haven't eaten all day either. Stupid FedEx.

 

Weird, everything I've ordered from HP has, when I received the "Your Order Has Shipped" email, has had a link right below the tracking number where you could print out a special note to put on your door. Think its called something like "Pre-Sign". Maybe they don't trust your neighborhood

 

just got the hard drive and mounting kit, comes with two cables, one for each drive, microsata to zif i guess? my problem now: how do you open the mounting kit to add another drive? no screws, very bendy metal, don't want to break it...

 

PRAISE the man! its not zif but what the hell, if it works it works right? You're the best one to know at his point but from the pics ive been looking at its a clip on thing that snaps tight around the drives. How much was the kit btw?

 

If you don't mind me asking, how much is the mounting kit?

 

its $160 for the kit with 2 cables and a 250GB 1.8" hd. can't buy the kit without the hd. but again, the kit doesn't look like it will be easy to open. will probably have to pry the metal to fit the ssd in the empty slot. not happy about that...

 

nevermind, i got it to snap open, have to be very careful though, really flimsy metal. needs to be bent back correctly for it to fit.

 

There's gotta be a way.... post some pics if you want maybe we can help?

On any account, I'd wait till you get the SSD to try anything...you never know how things work until you actually attempt it.

 

i got it open. wish they used screws though.

 

Well, good luck with the install and lemme know if you're up for ordering another one I'll take it for sure.

 

So? All running?

Btw i have found a canadian parts dealer and he seems to have a lot of parts available. Just need to confirm the part #. Is this what you got:

580129-001 250GB SATA hard drive - 5,400 RPM, 1.8-inch form factor - With mounting bracket

hope your drives are running fine.

 

If you don't have a home for the 250GB I may be interested. What is the brand and P/N ??

 

toshiba model. I'm not installing until tommorrow when my G2 160GB SSD arrives.

 

How much is a G2 160GB SSD these days? And if we order a Envy now, what's the likelihood that our SSDs will be a G2?

 

What was the Part # for the kit? Can you do some quick pix of your install once you get to it? Pixes would help us other folk who are willing to tear apart their Envys for the bleeding edge.

I may wait for the 3rd gen release of SSDs b4 taking the plunge. I hope the other brands start to offer 1.8" SSDs like Crucial/Micron, OCZ, and Kingston.

 

I can't be the first one to run into this, but I've seen several people talking about doing fresh Windows 7 installs on their new Envy's and I can't get it to work on mine.

I just got in a new Envy 15t and I want to do a fresh windows 7 ultimate install from a copy I already owned. When I try to run it off my usb stick (the same stick I've used to install windows on several other machines), it gets stuck looking for a driver. It seems to be missing the correct Intel SATA controller driver. So I copied over what's on the original install under c:\program files\intel to my usb drive, it recognizes that driver as matching the hardware, but after clicking next I just get a progress bar and it says no hardware was found and I'm stuck again.

I actually called HP and their only advice was what I already tried: copy the driver from the original drive, or download it from intel. I've tried what's on intel's site and it's the same thing. I had a hunch it could be a AHCI issue, but can't even find a way to disable that. Is no one else having this issue?

 

Humm, the only issue I was aware of is that to do the USB install you needed to do it from the combo USB/eSATA port as its USB 2.0. The other 2 ports required the USB 3.0 drive which isn't on the Win 7 dvd since it only just came out.

Seen plenty of reports that it went just fine that way. You could always try to recreate the USB thumb version of the install. This is the TechNet guide I use frequently:

Use a USB Key to Install Windows 7—Even on a Netbook

If you use a 8+ gig thumbdrive you can also put a copy of the entire SwSetup folders so then you have everything handy.

 

580129-001 is the part number.

 

Hey i just recently got an envy 15 and cannot install the 10.3 catalyst. I get to the screen where it says install or uninstall then i click install and it closes. Can anyone help?

 

looking online, $160 for a 250gb 1.8" drive plus the kit is pretty reasonable. but not what they are charging for the ssds.

 

Since you got recently am assuming a Gen 2 with 5830, correct? Where did you get the drivers from? The ones I used that worked great came from Strags.com. Maybe download or redownload from there the preview driver:

From Strags.com ATI_Win7_Vista_Catalyst10.3_Preview.zip

Unzip to a folder and rerun setup. Should work just fine. Have heard they may not be working with the 4830 Envys but can't recall any posts with a 5830 failing till now.