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

Sorry for being off-topic from the HDD bracket mounting, but what is a good way of prying off the plastic bezel without destroying the top cover and the LED Screen? I am doing a replacement on it soon with another bezel and the directions from the HP Service Manual makes no sense as you can't really flex the bezel from the upper inner edges and pry it out that way without breaking something else in the process. Got an idea how to pry it off painlessly? Thanks!

You know, if you are willing to shell out $450-$500 USD, you can just order a spare, factory-direct 5830 Power Board and swap it. Costs a bit but you can upgrade to a 5830 that way with no problems (they haven't changed the design of the Envy for both generations so they all will fit snuggly).

 

Hello guys.
My envy is suppose to ship on the 29th. Been following this thread. Now i'm concerned their shipping out envys with G1 intel SSDs.

 

Mine came with G1s. Seems to be no rhyme or reason to their process here.

 

I don't think I"ve seen anyone who has received an Envy in the last month or so who got G2s.

 

I just got mines today with the G1's. After 3 hours of playing with it, I'm sending it back for a full refund.

 

piece of Crap Envy... just got mine in the mail today after 3 weeks. turned it on, screen was totally black for 5-6 minutes but power button was flashing & it was making noise. Was calling tech support, but then the screen came on saying "starting windows". Got it working, then an hour later, screen went black and restarted. Then later on a game, i got blue screen of death. Then got on phone again w/ tech support and they had me unplug the power, and take out the battery. Now it won't even turn on at all. Makes noise, lights flash, but screen stays black. They said I need to talk to sales department about exchanges/ returns but they are closed now.
-so really i need to now figure out how whether to exchange or return it.
it seems like even if I do get a good working envy, I'm going to need to do all sorts of configuring to it, or a complete fresh win 7 install b/c it just has way too many problems.- like on any game you play, it will minimize the game and send you to the desktop anytime you change the volume up or down or press the caps lock key by accident. Took me 2 hours to google the answer of how to disable the on screen display volume thing that was making it do that and i still haven't fixed the caps lock problem. this envy just seems like a royal pain. It has the nicest looking screen I've ever seen on a laptop. Super bright and crisp and clear (and I even have the matte screen) so it makes me want to try my luck with another one just for that.
I really have to wonder how many non-working out of the box envys they ship. This is more of a rant than anything else, but hopefully it will make other people who are having problems with their envy feel better....

 

Are you calling the dedicated HP envy tech support at 1-866-408-5408 ?? they are generally pretty good. In order to get a replacement you should get a 'trouble ticket number' from tech support to document the problems.

PS if you get a replacement order the glossy screen and you'll be really blown away, the matte looks bad compared to it.

 

I second that, get the Glossy if you can cause it's very nice.

 

the 5870 is a monster power drainer, the asus g73j barely manages to squeeze out an hour of battery life, and it needs the sort of cooling you'd expect to see on a molten sodium nuclear reactor XD

 

Sorry. GPU is not upgradeable 99% of the times.

 

Like someone suggested, the best thing to do is just swap the mobo with the new mobo supporting 5830. Still i dont know how easy/hard that can be.

 

yeah, it's rather annoying how everything in laptops has to be soldered down to keep thickness in check, hopefully with smaller components we'll start seeing more upgradeability...of course, that goes totally against laptop manufacturer's profits, I'm afraid...

 

At that point, you are better off buying a new one...lol

 

Don't tempt me I've been eyeing the Beats since it came back...

 

by the way, what's the beats chassis made of? it looks like glossy black plastic, but that would be a huge step down, so I guess...painted alloy?

 

Johnnobts could confirm this.

 

its aluminum/magnesium with a slick black gloss piano finish. have yet to scratch my unit at all, but i handle it with great care. really a great looking machine. glad i got the beats edition over the standard.

 

Hi guys..just got my Envy

There is a problem though...Did your right click work out of the box?

I am trying to click the bottom right of the touchpad but nothing happens? Do I need to install some drivers or something?

 

Nope, no drivers should be necessary for a right-click, though it's possible that your existing driver is mucking things up.

Try uninstalling your synaptics driver from the device manager and then install the newest one from the drivers thread.

If that doesn't work, might be worth wiping it (see the sticky in the main HP forum) and starting from scratch, but that's a bit of a long shot.

Otherwise it's back to the shop on day one for you too!

 

Thanks Aquitaine. I installed the latest drivers and rebooted and it works

Stays out of the shop for now

Love it, so far!

 

running just cause 2 on my envy today, pretty neat game, had to dial back resolution to 720p though.

 

why would you need to do that? I'm playing at 1080p just fine, except for cutscenes. Just crank antialising down to x2 and anisotropic to x4.
with 550/1000 clocks set, FPS is stuck on the 30 ceiling all the time.

 

I've just received my HP Envy and would like to do a fresh install. I'm used to reformatting, but my old computer came with the actual OS CD. Do I need to download a copy? Create a recovery disc (or does this have all of the HP crap on it)? Purchase another legal copy?

Besides my OS CD, I've read that I'll need the SWSetup folder. Other than those 2 things, am I set? Thanks.

 

You should make a recovery set for emergency's sake. It will contain all the bloat tho as the whole idea is to restore to factory. Its handy in case you need to send the system in and want to wipe it clean.

As for clean installing go to this thread:

The Laptop Out-Of-The-Box Guide 2.0 for Windows 7

You can download an img file of the Win7 DVD and you can burn that to DVD or USB thumb drive. Then run the install from that the same edition that came with your laptop & using your key, which is hidden under the battery.

Definitely backup up the sw folders as they will have all the drivers the Win7 setup may be missing as well as any apps you might want.

Cheers

 

Did anyone download the latest drivers for the 6200N card from windows update and were getting random crashes? The notebook would simply power off randomly and reboot.

This was happening to me untill I removed them and installed the HP provided drivers yesterday. It has stopped since then. Probably it was the drivers.

 

I still want to OC my Envy...

I have followed all the instructions above carefully , esp the 'extra' removal of the older ATI drivers . It appears that I have successfully installed the new CCC drivers (cause I can boot up to the new CCC centre without any problems )

However , I still Cannot get ATI Tools or AMDGPU tools to work .Both software says the kernel driver is not found or no hardware detected .

What am I till doing wrong...GRRRHH ?

----------------------------------

ENVY 15 l i5 540M l ATI 5830 GPU l 4GB RAMl 500GB HDD l 1920x1080 glossy l

 

I'm running the 6200 driver version 13.1.1.1 and have had no problems at all. Not sure if that is the one you tried? Got it from the envy 'drivers thread'. Here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=426181

 

First of all make sure your using this version of the AMD clock tool for the 5870 : http://downloads.guru3d.com/AMD-GPU-Clock-Tool-v0.9.26.0-For-HD-5870-download-2383.html To my knowledge that is the only one that will work.

Also you did not say which version of the new driver package you installed? If it was the final 10.3 version here is what my 'info center' looks like, yours should have the same versions:



Also not sure what you mean by "cause I can boot up to the new CCC centre without any problems". If everything installed correctly you should be able to get to CCC by right clicking desktop or in the system tray 'up arrow' menu options.

 

I Dialed my resolution down after running the tower benchmark, framerates dipped into the 20s. not overclocking though.

 

I found this interesting: http://www.techspot.com/news/38372-asus-touts-usb-30-adoption-claims-75-faster-speeds.html

I wonder if HP's USB 3.0 is much slower that Asus? Hmm...

 

The article illustrates the fact that USB 3.0 is bandwidth intensive and normally the Intel chipsets do not provide enough PCIe lanes to support a x16 Gfx chip and other high bandwidth peripherals i.e. Sata 3/USB 3.0 without boosting the lane counts.

Its a matter of thruput because without the extra lanes the USB 3.0 peripherals may experience bottlenecks.

 

I was able to successfully complete a clean install (albeit with a few activation issues). The only piece I'm still missing is the on-screen display when I change the volume. Can anyone help? Thanks.

 

Does anyone have issues with their LED Ultraview screens? While using a black wallpaper and on high brightness, I see parts of my screen not being true black. is this a defect? Do I need to call HP?

 

Make sure you have not adjusted the brightness or contrast controls in the CCC panel, if you have choose 'restore defaults' and see if that helps.

 

I seem to recall there are 2 things from the Sw folder you need to install. One was Silverlight and the other may have been the HP hot-key/quick-key app. Its been discussed a few times in several threads. I don't have a link handy but either search the thread or hopefully someone else can post what the other app was for certain

 

Just got to post a quick review after using my Envy for almost a week:

Day 1:
Total chaos, the computer couldn't operate for more than 20 minutes without shutting itself down. I think it was some kind of Java-update that caused the screen to go black, either way I updated the system through Windows update and installed all the drivers from here: Latest drivers: HP ENVY 15 (INTEL). The crasches disappeared and I could create the recovery discs to reinstall Windows.

Day 2:
Reinstalled Windows using this guide: The HP Laptop Out-Of-The-Box Guide 2.0 for Windows 7. Installed all the software I needed and now the Envy works like a charm. Ran a quick 3DMark06 test and got 7994 points, don't know anything about such things but I guess it's ok.

Review after 1 week:
At first I just wanted to ship to computer through the window, but now I'm very satisfied with it. Everything is really smooth, the screen is great and I don't notice the heat that many have complained about even though it runs hotter than my old Macbook. The keyboard is comfortable but it is gonna take a couple of days to get used to the left-hand quick keys. I usually don't notice such things but I think the fans run quiet. Its a bit unusual that the USB ports and the power input is located on the right side but I guess its just a matter of what you are used to. I like the fact that it doesn't sport a CD drive as I never use it anyway. Was kind of a hassle to get everything working but I guess everyone who gets an Envy hangs out here on notebookreview anyways. Btw thanks to everyone who has contributed with info on the forums.

 

Hello roberteiksson!

Congrats on your purchase! I hope you are enjoying your laptop as many of us are. Yes, your experiences sound quite familiar to me...as I went thru almost the same...nowadays I'm a happy owner after several months. It is a little messy to get it running properly, but once you do so, the Envy is fast!

 

the same is for me, i hated it the first week and now i really like it, its not a macbook but the power in this machine beats every apple in this universe.

 

The driver that was bad for me came through Win 7 update on its own around 10 days ago. Not sure if it was 13.1.1.1 or newer.

 

Isn't the power input on the left side?

 

Yes. It's the only external port on the left side.

 

Yeah sorry must have been drunk while writing that.

 

Does anybody know what the stock issues are with the 15-1110 ea in the UK or when they can be actually bought ?

 

Several weeks ago there were a few UK people posting back and forth about how to get the new generation 2 envy's. There were a couple of UK based websites that had both the i7 and i5 versions in stock and for reasonable prices (even cpmpared to USA direct HP pricing).

Unfortunately I can't help more than that, you may want to try the horrible search engine in the forum to see if you can track the posts down. You also may want to post a similar request on the original envy thread (part 2) : HERE

Good luck

 

everything is set at default. it looks like a haze of white... in the shape of like someones face.

 

Definately haven't heard of that before. I would call envy tech support who will probably want you to send it in for repair. Or if your within the 21 day return window you could probably call CS and return it and order a replacement.

 

Bet you a bucket of chicken it's your reflection.

 

thanks

 

Hah I wish, but I am not that pale.

 

Hi, I've been reading this forum for like a month and I just joined to post questions, I have some problems with my Envy 15 and I hope some can help me with it.

I just got my Envy last Thursday (Mar 19, 2010), my specs are:
i7 Q720 1.6 Ghz
ATI 5830 1GB
4GB memory
500GB HDD
1920*1080 glossy screen
Bios: F.18
All dirvers are up-to-date. (CCC 10.3 installed)

Basically I have following problems:

1. Apperance: I noticed there is a lump/bulge on the right hand side of my keyboard, looks like something is sticking out from inside; and my battery lock is really loose, making noise when i move the laptop around. Anyone have or heard similar problems?

2. System: it is wired that if I try to boot up my envy with an external USB hard-drive plugged in, the system will not boot up, it will start but the screen just turns black and not even enter the very first HP bios page. I guess that is the bios problem?

3. Gaming performance, after reading lots of benchmarks and gaming reviews, I think my envy's gaming performance is worse than others' my graphic card is always on 500/800, never OC, and got only 8007 on 3dmark06 under default settings (1280*1024, SM2.0: 3088, HDR/SM3.0: 3386, cpu: 3021)
And i also ran some games test FPS with Fraps:

BattleField Bad Company 2:
1920*1080 res, Medium settings(High Texture) 1xAA 4xAF,HBAO off, Single player, it was not smooth, I get FPS various between 25 to 45, drop below 20 when intense (like buildings explode) And the graphics lag too much, kind of buggy. That is not good Comparing to the review I read (which runs very smooth)

Dirt2: with all settings on Ultra/High (Except Post process on medium) No AA, I got average 22 FPS on benchmark test, comparing to the review I read, which got average 30 FPS on above settings.

Modern Warfare 2:
1920*1080 res, all settings Ultra, all Yes. FPS from 45 to 70 when not intense, when intense it drops to around 30 or even 24 when very intense. There were times it drops to 22 FPS when I use right mouse button to zoom.

Left4Dead 2:
1920*1080 res, Maxed out everything, (8xAA 16xAF, very high, high, high)
I got normally average 35 FPS, around 40 when not intense, drops below 30 with intese environment and fights, lowest once drops to 20 FPS, which is really bad I think, compared to the review saying "normally 60 to 70 FPS and lowest 50 when intense". How mine is much worse than his on this game??

Crysis Warhead:
1920*1080 res, gamer on most and shadow, effects, particles, waters on mainstream, No AA, I got only 14 to 18 FPS, intense drop to 11 FPS.
1650*900 res, all on mainsream but textures on gamer, no AA i got average around 35, sometimes drops below 30

below is some reviews I used to compared with:

http://hpfansite.com/hp-envy/hp-2010-envy-15-review-ati-mobility-radeon-5830-core-i7-quad/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmuluCS0vJA

I know I asked a lot of questions, I really hope someone can help me and give some ideas about what's going on. Why there is such a big difference in performance between mine and others? I have no clue, above results I got is after the fresh reinstall and all up to date driver installed, bios F.18. I tried to run the games without Fraps, still the same performance.

I have about 8 days left to decide wether exchange a new one or return it, could somebody help me out there? Is it possible something wrong with my video card when they assemble it? I will be really appreciate with any idea and suggestion.
Thanks!!