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

wow, lots of copper in there. is that normal fare for core i5/i7 notebooks?

 

Typically copper is just for the heat pipes and fins... not the actual air ducts like in the Envy. Copper sheets usually cost 3x or more compared to aluminum... so they spent some money trying to get heat out of the machine! So a typical notebook uses anodized aluminum or sheet steel for non-critical components.

 

Also there might be an issue where the battery and keyboard connections have a weak connection together. There could be a conductive residue on the connector header or ribbon area. This would explain why compression and/or the presence of the voltage source causes the problem.

Typically a solvent like isopropyl alcohol (or highly diluted hydrochloric acid) will dissolve oxidation or residues on contacts without damage -- but I wouldn't do that unless there was some visual indications.

My machine had lots of glue, stains, and fingerprints on the inside. And I'm thinking they can cause your type of problem when in the wrong spot.

Edit: also check for worn or missing insulation on ribbons. They might touch PCB traces or the chassis (which is grounded). Cover them with electrical tape if you find them!

Edit 2: your machine has the battery moved and a jumper too. This probably because a battery button cannot withstand high temperatures next to the CPU. This is just another rookie mistake of course -- HP must not be able to find any good engineers.

 

Mitigation? You mean dissemination.

 

@ kevhuynh

oops. you're right. thanks.

 

LOL that's funny, about the engineers. I have a similar story to share. One of the many Panasonic cameras I bought makes a high pitched sound too. All Panasonic cameras make a similar noise, but this particular one was loud - I hear it at all times, and the sound is very directional, point it a certain way and it's very annoying. So I brought it in to show the Panasonic engineers (I know them personally). First thing he showed me a brand new sample that he was going to exchange with for me, immediately out of the box I heard it. The two engineers looked at each other like I'm "hearing things". Grab another guy, nope he couldn't hear it. Then, a coop walked by, he hears it immediately.

So yeah, the age of the engineer definitely has an effect on things like this

PS it turned out this particular model camera is all like that. There were similar complaints over at the dpr forum. So if they all have the problem then it's not a problem

 

Yeah yeah... I know not to quote statistics on internet forum. The statistic becomes in question and not the real issue (which are signs of a weak counter-argument). Instead I should have said something like "Apple sells the vast majority of high end laptops because they don't mess up and have so many basic design problems".

Then no one can argue. It can just be my opinion, but I think most people would agree!

 

@ lepton

i agree, in general. apple has a particular image, and they protect it quite well.

i have the same concerns you have, but for what i need/want to do, this fits the bill - on paper, anyway. hopefully i won't have any issues with mine. i would not have even tried if it weren't for the return policy.

 

That's good stuff! It is a curse to be able to hear high frequencies.

It is a shame that a "young person test" didn't find this out. And I'm not that young anymore... someone in their teens or 20's would probably throw this thing out the window.

EDA tools from Mentor Graphics and Cadence have automated checks to show engineers problems like this. I imagine the poor Chinese HP engineer clicking the "ignore design violation button" every time he lays out and routes the board. He probably has to do crank out a board every week; there is no time to fix a small annoyance.

 

I can hear 15kHz easy (I hate malfunctioning CRTs, I can hear them across the house), but I have no issues with my Envy. The backlighting of an Envy should be using LEDs, so no inverters or anything, just a straight DC conversion. Maybe it's a fan or the hard drive or something whining? I just can't think of any way that the backlight would be making that sound because it just doesn't do any switching like that, not like a CCFL.

 

Yes I should have clarified. I'm well aware that the backlight is LED and does not use fluorescent bulbs. I was referring to the DC-DC voltage converters which provides a constant current power supply to those LEDs. It could also be other DC-DC converters (for the GPU maybe?) but it is definitely not a fan or hard disk (the fans are usually off and it came with SSDs).

I neatly cut out a thermal transfer pad in the shape as the board where the noise emits. It helps quite a bit, but it isn't completely gone. I just hope the pad maintains contact and wicks away heat from all the chips under it... since there isn't air flow there now.

 

Gotcha. Perhaps turn off the automatic backlight adjustment and manually change the backlight level to the brightness where it makes the least noise? Or is there a level that makes less noise than another?

 

LMAO! Here we go again. I already tried this whole argument. He swears the noise is from thebacklighting control circuitry which I totally disagree with.

If you could do a favor, please take a look at the photos 2 pages back and see if you can ID the area that the backlight control circuits are located. Lepton believes it is in the group of components between the RAM and battery connector and that the DC to DC converter is making the noise ( IMO that area is the battery DC charging / regulation circuitry).

I believe they are near the backlight power cable near the lower CPU fan and under the heat pipes. Your thoughts would be appriciated.

 

Well I should clarify again then. The noise comes from the whole area between the battery and hard disk bay. This is populated with all the DC-DC conversion circuits. This isn't just the battery charging stufft (these chips power the machine).

So it could be the LED/GPU/CPU supplies -- they're all in that area I covered up. I need to figure out how to boot the machine without the cover on... then I can stick an oscilloscope onto vias/pads near the chips and run the scope's FFT function. I bet a neat spike in the audible range would be found.

 

Well that actually seems to jibe with earlier reports of people claiming a high pitched noise coming from what they thought was the HDD. I don't recall any resolution to those units being reported, some did return them for repair but no updates that I can remember.

Just to double check, if you use an external wireless mouse have you tried moving the reciever? That was a common high frequency noise source (for unknown reasons) that went away by chaging USB ports.

By the way you can actually fire up the machine without the top panel attached but obviously no keyboard control, a mouse will work though. The power button is still there, what you see on the outside is just a plunger to activate the switch.

 

I noticed that many of us have est. ship dates April 14th, but does anyone know how long it has taken in the past from order to deliver? My current status is "In production".

 

I could see how people would mistake it for the HDD (if they didn't have an SSD!).

I don't normally use the wireless mouse (which is an Anywhere MX (and excellent IMO))... instead I prefer to plug in the G9.

My machine turns on without the keyboard, but it cycles on/off continuously without the keyboard ribbon connected. I still have the F.1A firmware which might be that problem. Still waiting on HP to put up a new non-busted BIOS update.

 

@MrSneis - My re-order has a ship date of April 14th (ordered April 2nd). My first order was March 3rd, shipped March 10th (after the cutoff for that day, so really March 11th), arrived March 15th.

 

Can these laptops be overclocked?

I ordered on the 31st and it's still "in production" -- estimated to ship on April 12th. I hope they get it out before the week is over.. they sure do take a long time to slap together components.

 

It takes them no time to put one together! All that time is shipping inside China to Shanghai. From there it goes through customs onto an international flight to the US. Then through US customs to the normal shipping route.

In reality your order hits "in production" for probably 30 minutes. Then it is all shipping.

 

Sorry but a 10 working day lead time to build and ship a high end CTO notebook is an incredible turnaround. Dell has been averaging 5 weeks lately on the studio xps 1647.

@Lepton; you forgot the long wait from production time until they have enough US bound envy's to fill a shipping pallet for delivery to fedex. Bet that is longer than total assembly / test / burn in time.

 

Yeah if they actually build the PCBs and LCDs on the fly. But if I had a pile of all the different components here on my desk my turn around would be 30 minutes. Especially considering the cleanliness and QA checks they have in place.

Certainly it is just final assembly for the laptop. Back in my day when you ordered a Dell laptop it came next day from Dallas or someplace in Texas... them days are gone.

Edit: that's true too. My shipment was delayed several times for unknown reasons. So maybe they didn't have enough piled up to ship. I'm also willing to bet that it shipped on a regular passenger flight since it came in an outer box which was pretty beat up (inner box was fine). If it was in a pallet it wouldn't have been so beat up? I always watch the guys loading mail and boxes on planes; they like to use gravity to their advantage.

 

@Lepton

I'm curious if you installed the intel rapid storage tech. driver package after your clean install (formerly Matrix storage manager). Niether is recommended by intel for SSD only apllications as the Win 7 drivers are all that are required. Crazy thought that maybe that could be causing something 'funky' with the memory controller that somehow is causing your noise...

Edit: China only ships pallets (fedex containers actually) that all go to one of HP's redistribution centers where they are unpacked and rerouted to the final destination. So you can complain to HP and fedex USA for the shoddy handling of the packages. I've received 4 all with the outer carton damaged, luckily there is good packaging on the inner box.

 

Just put in my order for

i540m
4gig
1920x anti-glare
410 combo (160ss + 250sata)
win7 pro 64
slimfit 6+ battery



can't wait!

 

Hm, I've had products from china get delivered to me in 3 days, sometimes 3 weeks. It's a real crap shoot lol, I never pay for expedited shipping.

I'm all antsy now, brainstorming a i7 620m swap ~ has anyone done one of those successfully?

 

Just regular stock Win7 driver. I loaded the Intel SSD toolbox to recognize the 34nm drives and set up the periodic optimization (but it doesn't change the driver as far as I know).

The machine has never crashed or frozen, which I'm super happy about. I would never load any vendor-specific driver if it is already working perfectly.

I'll narrow down the noise with a scope probe if I can boot with access to the motherboard. Maybe a BIOS update will let me do that.

Despite my comments I generally like the laptop, but I'm a obviously a stickler about noises.

 

IIRC It will work upgrading from an i5 model but it does not work downgrading an i7 (with USB 3.0) model.

 

I have read several conflicting articles about the toolbox and scheduled TRIM optimization. Most (including intel) say that with windows 7 you do not need to run TRIM at all, windows does it automatically in the backround. So I have disabled the schedule and now I find myself manually running TRIM anyway whenever I have moved alot of huge files around, LOL. I guess it bugs me because I don't know for sure if it's really working behind the scenes.

I hate high frequency noises also, the only ones I want to hear are those that come out of my B&W 802 Matrix speakers.

Speaking of sound, regardless of what you think of the envy's component and build quality, the audio output circuitry is extremely high quality. It is the best quality I've ever heard from my itunes (apple lossless format) audio files. The seperation, bass and imaging quality blew me away when hooked to my high end auduophile system. I always thought I would just have to live with the mediocre sound quality to get the covenience of itunes. It ends up the sound quality is actually really stored in the files, you just need to get away from an Apple (or poor quality PC) preamp playback device.

 

I have had experience with TRIM which may help. My work uses G2 drives as scratch space for video processing software. It thrashes the heck out of the drive reading and writing data chunks (individual frames) off the drive. Files are memory mapped directly into a 64-bit application (which really turns the drive into RAM).

Using the software on XP (without TRIM) the Intel optimization toolbox takes several minutes to "do its thing" and mark blocks free. This is for the first run after I've beaten down the drive. After the first run a second optimization is immediately done. So I know it is doing "something".

But on Windows 7 it is always immediately done with optimization. As if it was always in that state. It probably isn't doing much to the drive, and I bet it doesn't wear it out more. So if the toolbox is always done in around one second you know it isn't really doing anything.

In my experience TRIM and/or the optimization tool boosts write latency tremendously. This is why I complained about the G1/G2 drive issue on the Envy.

 

@Lepton

Have you run a benchmark on the unraided SSD's yet? Curious if they may have somehow fixed the slow random 4K R/W speeds.

HP has still not come up with a resolution to several requests on 'The Next Bench' for a fix. Most seem to believe that it is a controller issue unique to the envy. HERE. I think there is a thread on this in this forum also.

Here is a crystal disc run I just did, how do the 4K numbers compare to yours?

 

@lepton

I noticed you needed some bios updates... there are a couple bios updates posted here by Serg:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=471064&page=2

 

Hey all,

Been playing with my Envy for a week and I love it!

I am not a very fussy guy and everything seems great to me. The only gripe I have with it is that all the ports are on the right, the lack of switchable graphics and that the speakers are a little low volume.

I have some questions which I didn't find answers to in the last 50 odd pages. I thought I'd ask them all at once instead of bothering you all again and again. So would be great if you could answer whatever you know.

- How do I enable the 1600x900 resolution? The only two 16:9 options I see are 1920x1080 and 1280x720.

- How do I switch the display off with a keyboard shortcut?

- How do I change what the action keys do? Specifically, I wish to assign a permanent refresh key while keeping the other action buttons.

- How do I change what the other keys do (Internet, Mail, Calculator)?

- Is there any need to calibrate the display? If yes, how?

- Is there any way to boost speaker volume?

- What is the HP_TOOLS partition? Can it be deleted?

- How do I change settings for touchpad and mouse separately? Adjusting the pointer speed changes it for both the mouse and touchpad, and the desirable touchpad speed is too fast for the mouse.

- Which ATI drivers are stable? I don't want issues, even if it means slightly outdated drivers.

Thanks a ton for the answers in advance.

 

Well I'm talked into it. I'll be ordering one soon as another nice coupon comes up

 

I get identical results. However my desktop with 2.5" G2s gets almost double for random 4k.

That is pretty disappointing, but is no doubt due to the Intel PM55 southbridge chip. That chip has a low 3.3W TDP which is probably why HP put it in. The location of the southbridge puts it out of range of heatpipes and it only has a tiny slug for a heatsink.

Looks like he's the one who needs a BIOS upgrade:



HP must count using hexadecimal. I seem to have the most current already installed.

 

Cal HP sales and very nicely explain that you have been on the fence as to which options to choose, now that use decided you have found the coupon has expired... They will normally work with you if it means the difference between an order or no sale. it can't hurt to try, that $450 coupon was the largest ever and will not happen again anytime soon.

 

Seems to take about 1 month for a BIOS to appear online (judging by the difference between the BIOS build date and the time they post it for other releases).

So I would expect F.1A to be posted in a few days?

 

HP Envy tech support told me that the new BIOS (F .1B A) just posted on the drivers thread is not posted on the HP site yet because it is still in Beta testing, which they confirm by the version number not matching the format of previous BIOS updates.

THEY STRONGLY RECOMMENDED THAT I DUE NOT FLASH THE NEW BIOS.

 

Beta testing a BIOS. Hrrm. Let me think about that for a second. NO!!

I also wonder if someone could reverse engineer the BIOS to find out where the fan control timings vs. temperature is stored. Then we could set the desired fan behavior to our own tastes (some like it hot).

Standard warnings about voiding warranties and burning crotches apply of course.

 

So what are you saying?

They just write a new BIOS and it's good to go? With no testing on various cofigurations of the machines?

Why then is the BIOS number you showed on your screen shot different than the one on the drivers thread that came out today. HERE

LOL, When I just went to get the link above there was a new post by someone who just flashed the new F .1B A and he can't get his machine to boot after it flashed.... Hmmm in beta testing? YES!

 

My guess is F.1A was an internal release (which the factory installed on my laptop). And F.1B will be the next public release.

Also it appears that HP does roughly 4 weeks of testing of a BIOS before they digitally sign it and post it on the website. This is enough time to find out how many customers' laptops will be bricked (hopefully none).

 

Is F.1A the actual BIOS version you show as currently installed or just what the D/L 'found'?

 

Yes, the F.1A version string and build date match between the BIOS blue menu and update utility.

Other HP laptops follow a similar number sequence (using hexadecimal counting).

The F.1B file posted is HP's "release candidate" and is digitally signed. If there are no problems this would be the public release. But since that other dude just bricked his laptop I bet they pull it.

 

Thats retarded. Internal means that the dev team only gets it when was the last time Microsoft sent users a copy off office that was just an "internal release"


God that's the dumbest things I've ever heard. They test on test machines. not the general public.

 

never mind

 

I'm using "internal" in this case to mean "not publicly available". Since it isn't on the HP website that's what I would call it.

And calm down dude! We aren't all PhD's who design high end electronics for a living (well, some of us aren't).

 

Since I have the tools to debrick this machine I went ahead and loaded F.1B for fun. All seem to work fine here. Runs Furmark nicely.

Mine is an i5-540M (Hynex RAM, ATI 5830, Intel SSDs). But we don't know what made that guy's laptop break. They should be the same motherboards and stuff.

 

1) How do you know it is digitally signed?

2) It has not been released yet by HP. Someone just got a link to the ftp download. That drivers thread moderator is good but he has posted several incorrect 'updates' before the have had to be pulled.

3) HP told me 2 weeks ago it was likely that there will be 2 different BIOS for the i5 and i7 this revision. The fact an i7 has succesfully updated to F .1B A and a i5 user has a bricked computer makes me think the 2 BIOS change may be true.

4) HP also stated that all 'final' BIOS follow the same numbering of F .##x in the case of the Envy. Any other format means it's not for realease. Thus my warnings to others.

You may have an 'internal' BIOS or a version that was left installed by mistake by the graveyard shift in China. The last valid BIOS was F .19a

Has any one else received an envy running BIOS 'F .1A' ???

EDIT: I guess #1 and #3 were answered in your above post...

 

Have you tried rebooting it yet?

 

(Discussion deprecated by BIOS update).

 

never mind