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

Just came back from office and the temps are high again. Attaching screenshots. I am starting to feel like some app is thrashing my hdd in the back ground.

 

Yes I agree... even though it is fully open I still keep trying to push the screen down to get the right angle. I may never get used to it.

The reason for the angle is obvious. HP had to beat the MacBook dimensions somehow. The MacBook is 249 millimeters wide and the Envy is 244 millimeters. So HP decided to restrict the hinge in order to win.

Of course nobody notices that it is 5 mm smaller, but everyone notices the hinge.

 

Let me clarify, there is no voltage change to the LED backlighting circuit, it is regulated to a fixed DC voltage. If you change the voltage to an LED it will change the color. Wether that is done by a complex and pricey inductor circuit or more likely a 'downcircuit'<$.02 voltage regulator you will not get any noise from the LED backlighting circuitry itself. There may be noise made by the DC to DC conversion but that cannot occur anywere near the center of the keyboard.

 

Thanks for your response, JJB. Helpful, as always!

I'm comfortable inside a computer but I've never removed thermal paste so I will have to think long and hard about the DIY route. When I have time, I also need to try the re-tightening of the creaky palmrest method which you mentioned some time ago. Those are literally my only issues with the Envy.

If I sent in for repairs on those issues, I would be fine without the use of my computer for a week but I don't trust them with my data (even if I back it up first, I don't like the idea of anyone having access to my Windows). Hmm... did they issue you a credit yet?

 

Well the first problem I see is your still using HP's crappy software. There is a ton of crap running in the backround from the factory. I also always set my minimum processor state to 0% in all plans.

Try shutting everything but task manager down and watch the CPU % to see if it ever actually gets to 0% and stays there. Mine drops to 0% within 2 seconds of completing a task and stays there until I do another task (with the occasonal quick blip of 1 or 2%)

I've got several large apps open and itune playing and only have 56 processes running. Your Task manager shows you have 85 running, what is using so many processes??

 

This is an excellent summary. I've been affected by almost all of these items. But lots of the problems aren't bad... if you are a computer geek with experience dealing with them.

But I think the reason the Envy sells so poorly is that HP didn't go above and beyond the "typical laptop" internal design. They took a regular cheap design and added a cast metal body and good screen.

They didn't bother improving the thermal design or electronic component quality. You can tell that the air intake ports were an afterthought... someone designed the nice molded metallic surface, but slots had to be added in a separate machining step. Just open it up and look at the scratches and residues left on the internal surfaces by the fixtures the milling machine uses.

One of the laptop manufacturers needs to really compete with high end laptops. I don't like the Apple machines for several reasons... and I desperately want a good billet/unibody/aluminum PC with comparable quality. I would gladly pay as much or more than the MacBook price too... I don't want a $950 (after coupon) cheap buzzing laptop. Charge more and make a better product please!

In the end the Envy is a regular cheap laptop with a good screen... I expected more, but I've now reached the "acceptance" step. The Envy will work until the warranty is up... then it goes on eBay.

 

I had installed Visual Studio 2010 RC and power dvd 9 which came with my blu ray drive. Not sure if they are all contributing towards the 85 processes.

I am going to try a clean install now. Didn't want to lost the recovery partition - but now I think it has to go.

 

In order to produce that "fixed" DC voltage the inductors are rapidly cycling to build and release a charge. This charge goes onto a capacitor which tries to absorb and smooth out the noise caused by the on/off cycling.

The circuit is under the right side of the space bar. I cannot get the machine to power on with the keyboard off, but I might be able to get the keyboard out of the way.

I'll gladly get the oscilloscope and microphone out to find the exact board traces with the noise signal... but my ears are good enough.

Here's an technical article discussing backlight noise... and why you want to operate above 22kHz.

 

@Leptop

Very interesting info. Do you think this noise could emit more EMF or something?

 

The high frequency FreeScale driver is $1.27 in bulk quantities. So HP roughly saved $1 more in profit from my $2000 purchase.... and now I get to hear high pitch buzzing all day.

One small tiny dollar they saved. Buzz buzz buzz....

 

Technical article? that's a new product marketing release.

You also may want to look at the actual LED power connector feed under the lower CPU fan and heat pipes, which I am assuming is where the backlight circuitry is on the mobo. Don't have mine opened up to confirm this though.

 

Nope! There is metal shielding all around the motherboard. And the relatively low switching frequencies are not something the FCC regulates.

I think I'll blanket the components with 3M thermal tape and pads. I have some of this "AcoustiPack" sound absorbint stuff too... might see if it fits without interfering with airflow (I think about those things even though HP doesn't )

 

This issue is common knowledge in the EE field... and that was the first link on Google.

Anyone can do their own research since I'm lazy. And why don't you just admit that you work for HP?

 

ON a tangent, I assume you bought the acoustipack for your desktop? Any opinion on it?

 

It's works extremely well on certain frequencies. It will lower fan noise a bit, but since it blocks airflow you have to be careful on placement.

I just peeked inside the case again... there is already a rectangular chunk of acoustic absorbing material installed! I just now noticed it.



The smoking gun... HP knows of the problem and this is their workaround.

 

I'm certain that's an HP fix for the backlight noise. There is no other reason for a strip of acoustic foam to be installed like that. Not near the fans... and not big enough to absorb hard disk noise.

Shameful that they don't fix problems... only put in band aides.

 

So is this like a desktop manager? Maybe geared toward multiple monitors. I already use a desktop manager that virtually does the same thing.

With the original drivers when I connected the Envy to an external monitor I wasn't able to get a native 1920x1200 supported by the monitor instead it had to scale to 1080p ie 1920x1080. Anyone experience this? I have not tried connecting with the new drivers yet.

 

Apparently I'm not alone and others notice the high pitch sound.

Only way to get HP to fix these things is to put sunshine on them. So I apologize for all the posts and complaining.

 

@Lepton

There have also been multiple high pitch noise issues reported in this and the main envy 15 thread, and most of those went away by moving a USB mouse receiver to another port. I have not had any high freq. noise on any of the 4 envy's I've used so it seems odd that it is a hit and miss thing.

The circuits you labeled, I believe, are the battery charging / battery output voltage regulation circuitry. The power input connector (coil) and cable connection area on the right have the primary voltage regulation components for the mobo and the brightness control.

Just for kicks why not try unplugging the power while you hear the noise and see if it changes location or if it goes away.

As for the piece of foam, it's been in all the envy's I've opened and, to me, it simply appears to be a chafe/ vibration guard for the keyboard cable.

Another item that seems curious is that the backup battery on the gen 2's has moved from an area marked for it on the mobo, under left edge of trackpad, to the location pictured in your image. On gen 1's it was glued to the mobo where marked for it.

 

Yes it will allow up to (I think) 6 external monitors if we had the outputs. I currently don't have a higher res. external than 1920x1080 so I can't test it out. What's cool is you can set the external 'grid' independant of the envy layout, from full screen to muliple 'grids'. You can just drag an image from,for example, Capture NX to show full screen on the external and adjust from the envy, this also works for any of the control panels you can 'undock' in most apps.

EDIT: here is a screen of the CCC help menu for hydravison / hydra grid, it should give you an idea of what it does:

 

Hey guys. Looking at the 15, is the touchpad really as bad as I hear? If not I may get one next time a coupon that drops.

 

I think it needs the latest Synaptics driver and then some tweaking in the control panel. The way it's shipped, it's terrible. But after tweaking it, it's fine by me.

 

Touchpad is great once set up correctly. Next best to Apples that I've used. There was someone today who reported that they ordered one using the $450 coupon that's been out for a week or so. Don't have the code handy but I'm sure you could track it down in this thread....

 

Tried it, it's expired.

 

With the last few $300 off coupons, I know quite a few people were able to get the discount by calling into CSR and getting them to honor it. May as well give it a shot.

 

when did you try? I ordered mine around noon eastern time today and it accepted the coupon.

 

About an hour ago.

Also what does "setup correctly" mean for the touchpad?

 

I'm confused. HP knew the problem exists but put the acoustic material in the wrong place?

I must not be able to hear this sound over the high pitched buzzing that is coming from my 7200RPM drive.

 

It's funny, when I read shazam26's post - the first three items on the list are exactly what I do with ANY new system, ESPECIALLY a laptop. I did it with my $2500 Lenovo workstation notebook I bought in 2006, and i'll do it with this one.
Sub items 3a 3b, while not good and annoying, are actually kind of understandable given this is such a new laptop in engineering design. HP has no other metallic systems that are this remarkably thin yet sport the internals they do. These (seemingly) small quality issues, perhaps a couple small poor component choices - that's what happens when you have so much "new" going into one place. Item 3c - well... that's what the fresh install and drivers from ATI, Intel are for. I wouldn't use the laptop manufacturer drivers no matter how good the reputation was. Item 4 - meh. Item 5 - okay. Meh. Item 6 (haven't we been through this one several times already) again, fresh install, intel and ati, etc drivers.

lepton, your reply - wow... I hope you're not trolling - I'll just say it seems like you got 100% of your points backasswards. If you hate it so, just return it? Just given your barrage of posts in the last couple pages here... I would suggest - "relax."

I will agree the buzzing could be a big problem. I will certaintly check for it when I get mine.

 

Hi all, I just did my 640LM CPU swap yesterday. My suggestion is "Don't Buy it yet!"
First, the F.18 Bios does not recognize it, it shows 000 Intel CPU.
Second, The Bios can only recognize 3MB of cache instead of 4.
Third, it does not throttle because the driver don't seem to support it yet
note: even CPU-z doesn't recognize it

The Good:
The CPU does downclock itself to 600Mhz when it's idle.(I wonder buy the I5 don't downclock?? I guess intel just know how to make money out of nothing)

 

Would you happen to have a guide to setting up the touchpad correctly handy?

I tried using the Search function on this messageboard, but it was almost next to useless.

Thanks.

 

While I stand by my assertions of how hot this laptop gets while playing BFBC2 for moderate periods of time (3 hrs consecutively), I must applaud and commend the Envy 15 2nd Gen's cooling system.

At the conclusion of 3 hrs, the hottest my CPU (i5-520) got was 59*C (both cores). The GPU (ATI HD 5830) was 63*C.

While the laptop was extremely hot to touch on the bottom, it became very cool within 4 minutes of the end of playing BFBC2.

Quite impressive.

 

It is a personal thing based on how you use the touchpad. Rather than writing paragraphs trying to explain the ins and outs of each setting I made a screen shot highlighting the settings I have activated and or adjusted. You need to spend some time playing around with what each feature does and adjust to your personal preferences. A lot of the settings have tutorials, videos or 'practice' screens -- give them a try also.

 

Thank you sir!

 

Yeah it seems like I'm trolling as I re-read that. I genuinely want the Envy to be a well designed machine and a real MacBook competitor. But cutting corners to maximize profit this early isn't how you build a brand. HP should have made this a laptop where they do not compromise. It should have the highest quality components and no design quirks.

There's a certain "network effect" which HP missed. They could have made one awesome machine which sells itself. I'd be telling friends to buy one and they'd be telling their friends and so forth. Instead I don't think I'd recommend people buy it until HP's software and hardware is refined (if ever). It's easy to see why Apple has 91% of the $1000+ laptop market... no competition.

 

That Apple info is incorrectly stated. Apple for 1 quarter in Q2 '09 had a 91% market share of overall US RETAIL PC sales over $1000 (as in all types not just notebooks) and that is only through retail stores. This just happened to be shortly after 3 of the top 4 US electronic retailers went bankrupt. Oh, and let's not forget Apple has only 1 computer that sells for less than $1000, so basically 100% of there sales fall into the over $1K catagory.

Both Dell and HP business divisions have gross annual notebook sales that exceed Apples total overall gross annual sales. In '08 Dell business notebooks average price was $1357 per unit and HP's was $1176 per unit (sorry could not find '09 listings in the Nasdaq market research database).

Funny how skewed numbers can get from Apple fanboy websites that can't even read their referenced source article properly. It's kind of like listening to Obama sell us on how much money were going to save with Obamacare :wink:

Is this what you read? http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-has-91-of-market-for-1000-PCs-says-NPD/1248313624

You may want to check out the link to the original article...

 

You're missing the point... it isn't about Apple or HP. I just want a decent laptop:

- all metal chassis
- minimal clean design
- low fan and/or other noises
- decent screen
- decent thermal management (intelligent spinning up/down of fans)
- cost not important

I use Apple as an example, but they aren't perfect either. Please don't pick apart some little side point and miss the main one.

 

Honestly, you're going to find problems and compromises no matter what brand and model you buy. If you want a thin, sleek, stylish metal chassis without fan noise, you're going to have to sacrifice specs (processor, graphics card, etc.). If the specs aren't a concern, then I'd suggest a Macbook Pro 13" or Envy 13.

I do agree that the build quality problems that seem to plague so many notebooks these days need to be fixed. With the Envy 15, it really sounds like they just need to tweak a few things, but it certainly isn't as bad as the horror stories I've heard (and experienced first-hand) with some other brands. My girlfriend's family has 3-4 Dell Core 2 Duo Inspirons between them and every single one overheats... with Intel graphics.

 

I am facing another probelm. I got my ASUS Blu Ray player (SBC-06DIS-U) and installed power dvd 9 that came with it. When I tried to play the blu ray version of 2012 I got this message - ''. I could click ok and it will play the trailers and get to the title menu. But from there onwards nothing happens. I am not able to play the actual movie. All the titles are disabled and clicking next gives the 'prohibited' message.

I ran blu ray advisor which came with power dvd installation and it shows a red mark next to the ATI Driver. I tried the 10.3 version of ati catalyst drivers - but rolled back when the results were same.

JJB - On a side note, I did a clean install. But the heating issues is still there though not as bad as before. It starts near the right palm rest and then spreads. I felt it is most hot directly below the space bar - close to the memory module.

 

while i understand your concerns, and i'm sure JJB does as well, the intention of his post (as i see it, anyway) is to repress the dissemination of bad information.

 

Every time human beings spend in excess of $1000 there's always a game of justifying that expense to yourself and others and thinking that it should be Really Awesome For What I Paid, plus the natural grass = greener effect of longing for what the other guy was selling.

I'll be the first to agree that HP is cutting some corners, but for this price point, I still feel like I robbed a bank. Even after they refresh the macbook and you can buy current hardware, it still won't be competitive with the Envy on price (at least with a decent coupon...don't think anybody here buys the Envy and pays sticker!)

For my part, I wish the Envy 15 had edge-to-edge glass...but I have a hard time looking at it with any regret!

 

Personally I dont care about e2e glass, i have it on my current macbook but I don't see how it makes the screen any better, I just see it as more glass for them to charge me for.

 

It doesnt make the screen any better but it does look "upscale" I guess it has a wow factor to it.

 

Not sure what to tell you on the heat issue. Did you try schecking the temps before you started loading all your software back in? Also how about the number of processes and CPU activity at idle? did that drop after the insatll?

I don't play bluray on my envy. I did notice you have a cybercrap software program for the DVDs. My first thought is that the cyberware app is the problem, I will never let that brand anywere near a product I own. It looks like your system recognizes the drive and the GPU and driver so I would guess it's the software. Have you tried playing a normal DVD in Windows media player? (not sure if WMP can play bluray).

Just remembered, you should also try checking the default program settings in the control panel and make sure you have the correct app assoaciated with bluray playback.

 

I have a couple of questions that I've seen people talk about in this thread but I haven't really seen any definitive answers:

What is the real life expected battery life of the i5 envy with the stock 6 cell battery? Just surfing the web/taking notes. I have a 4 hour class and I would love to make it through the majority of it.

Is it possible that a patch will be released that will allow a discreet graphics option on the i5?

Linux Support: Will this work out of the box on Ubuntu? More specifically if anybody knows, will it work with backtrack and allow packet injection?

 

@jola

1. 3 hrs max with 6 cell wifi off. You can get 7hrs with the added slice (9cell) but it adds 2.7 lbs. You can also get an extra 6 cell which is small (4 x 8 x 3/8") and only .8 lbs

2. Not possible to use switchable graphics with the PM55 chipset used in the current envy

3. No idea

 

@JJB

Thanks. PS how do you quote on this forum? I don't know why there isn't an easy quote this post button.

 

should be 3 quote options in the lower right corner of post. need to be signed in for all the options to show.

 

I took some pics while I had my i5 model disassembled, so I figured I'd post them here in case it helps anyone.

Pictures of Internals


Took it apart for 2 reasons:
- wanted to remove the 5400 RPM drive since I don't need the storage, and it's just using up weight and power otherwise
- my keyboard flakes out sometimes and I wanted to see if the keyboard cable was loose or pinched or something

Results:
- Removing the HD was simple, maybe I'll put another SSD in there one day when prices come down.
- Keyboard cable seemed fine, so upon reassembly I hoped it was fixed. Nope. Really frustrating. This is my only real complaint about my unit.

Keyboard Issue:
- When connecting the slice-battery, 95% of the time the keys on the right side (UIOP[]) will not work consistently unless I put VERY firm pressure on the middle of the keyboard (where the cable is attached)
- Maybe 50% of the time I use the system after removing the slice-battery, I get the same issue
- Multiple uses of the system after NOT messing with the slice-battery, the system is fine 99% of the time.

It seems clear this is related to the keyboard cable connector and the slice-battery port being directly over that connector. Not sure what else to do other than place a warranty-service call, which I was trying to avoid. Anybody else faced this consistently?

 

Thanks for the pics! These are great and look just like my machine.

The keyboard is attached to the upper metal part with tons of screws... you may want to peel off the backing and loosen/tighten them since the problem you describe might be an address lines is not making good contact. When it is just a row or section like that it is probably something with only one wire along the path.