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

Tap Zones are another way to get middle-click functionality. Native 2-finger tap would have been better and here's hoping that future driver updates will make this possible.

 

Good point. But I use the single-click all over the touchpad, not always the middle, and with the new drivers I don't see any way to configure tap zones.

 

Thank you very much for the info. I've gone ahead and broken the RAID and did a fresh install of Win7. I figure TRIM and file redundancy is more useful to me than the marginal increase in performance.

 

If your using the 15.0.9.0 drivers then Tap zones were installed they are just in a different driver file that was not actually loaded. The installer actually insatlls 3 different versions with different options. Go to device manager > update driver > browse computer > choose from list > from here you will see a list with the 3 options which were installed. The first one (top of list) was the one w/o tap zones, the second one (for me) had different 'device settings' options that included the tap zone features the third was some othe minor varition (which i forget what was different).

Note: the tap zone version does not allow you to reactivate the pad once deactivated, I found that if you turn off the 'tap to disable' option in the first option (default driver) before you update to the 2nd one then it holds that setting so you can't accidentally turn of the pad by mistake.

 

This is very interesting JJB, thanks for posting! I have never attempted to reformat SSD before - do you have an option to select the allocation unit size or cluster size when formatting? Since the default for HDD's using NTFS file format seems to be 4k cluster size, I wonder if there would be a benefit to selecting a different size when reformatting (given the slow 4k read/write speed for the SSD in the HP Envy). Is that even possible with SSD? I'm new to using them. Also, was it pretty simple to switch from Raid0 to non-Raid?

 

I got the Kensington thin laptop charger today from ebay, model 33197... it comes with the right tip but when plugged in the Envy does not register it like it does for the HP charger (which causes the battery icon to shows power plug). The LED on the Kensington charger is lit so I assume its working, just not putting out enough power maybe? i thought this model was known to be good with Envy so I don't get it.

edit: the tip that appears to be the right one is labeled N19.

edit: found another post that says "n30b" tip is whats needed. odd that this N19 tip looks just like the HP tip but doesn't work.

 

Leave it default. 4K. You shouldn't be messing with anything else.

The Envy's 'slow' performance is reflected in the reads only, writes are inline with typical. This deficit only occurs with a particularly fast SSD.

 

Good to know. I could have installed the generic Synaptics, but then I would have lost the ability to turn on/off the touchpad. I like that too much I hate the stupid overlay and can't get it to disappear. But I can deal with that a lot easier than I can deal with random mouse movements. Palm detection doesn't work too well when you don't rest your hands terribly firmly on the rests.

 

@moviemarketing

I agree with the above.


@dapreview

If you got the 120W kengsington it will work but you need the correct tip, I believe it is the N30B (from memory) It needs to have a center pin in the 'barrel' like the Envy charger has. The Envy senses the power output capability of the charger that you plug into it through that pin. Also you should be able to look at the LED next to the power connector to tell if it is recognizing the charger (white/blue color) and if it is actually charging (orange LED).

 

Wonder if you could configure a tap zone to disable the touch pad? Never mind, if you could then it probably wouldn't work to re-enbale it again, LOL...same problem as before

 

Would it be possible to map your script to the calculator button? I generally keep my left hand on the lower left corner of the keyboard anyway and think it would be convenient to use the calc button for the middle click. Actually, come to think of it, I would like to map all three mouse buttons to the web, print, and calc button. Anybody know if that possible?

 

how did you manage to get the $450 coupon? The only reason I've held back on ordering is in the hope of a similar coupon popping up in the near future.

 

Bing is offering 25% cashback on the total (before shipping and tax) from any purchases from HP.com.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=476934

 

A new synaptics driver 15.0.3.0 is found on the 1200 models. It seems to fix my tap enable/disable feature. Me likes so far.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&os=4063&product=4190672

 

Since it seems everyone is posting their crystaldiskmark scores, I thought I'd be a sheep and do the same..

This is the "D" drive - which is the normal 250 gig drive (I have the 160+250 option):
Seq Read: 53.02
Sec Write: 52.63
512k read: 26.09
512k write: 28.19
4k read: 0.405
4k write: 0.860
4k (QueueDepth32) read: 0.799
4k (QueueDepth32) read: 0.871

Then the scores from the "C" drive. That's the x18 G2 drive:

Seq Read: 228.3
Sec Write: 106.2
512k read: 179.5
512k write: 105.6
4k read: 14.88
4k write: 22.78
4k (QueueDepth32) read: 150.6
4k (QueueDepth32) read: 90.42

While the read speeds on the C drive seem low, they completely blow away (by > 1 order of magnitude) the spindle drive speeds. I figure that even if I had a really fast mechanical drive (like a 15k rpm SCSI drive), I'm not going to see anywhere near that performance, so I'm not concerned.

I find it very interesting that the 4K reads are so disparate from the QD32 results (Queue Depth of 32). That means that the controller is doing a pretty good job of returning 32 simultaneous results - better than the single 4k read. I wonder if this has to do with the 10 parallel paths the controller takes on the intel SSD's? Or it may have to do with how HP optimized their internal SATA controller to do simultaneous reads/writes (ie high queue depths).

However, now that I think about it, that wouldn't explain why this Envy does "poorly" compared with other laptops using the same drive .. So that theory is more or less bunk.

 

The tip I tried using (N19) looks just like the one on the HP charger, including center pin, though it's not working. I'm on the hunt for an N30b tip now.

 

Try searching the 'find more posts by Tayeule' as I recall he posted all the details of the tip numbers that worked and some links to where he ordered his from etc.

 

just got my envy15 last night (specs in sig). first impression: blown away. i guess that's what happens when you keep them for 6-7yrs (my previous laptop, a sony vaio, was purchased in 2003). the pictures don't do this unit justice. materials and build quality are very nice. i've only gone through the initial win7 setup, burned the recovery discs, removed norton and installed msft security essentials, but i'm quite impressed.

 

Dump that recovery partition, format and Clean Install!

edit: and I thought (based on all the Envy bashing on NBR, and places like Engadget (ahem, apple bribery, ahem)) that the Envy is a poorly built POS that can't boot to windows without a blackscreen, can't resume from standby and requires 45°F ambients to function comfortably? j/k. Hope it works out and remains reliable. The first couple weeks are key. It's like building a new motor / engine swap in a car. We call it the 5/50/500 mile test... three milestones.

 

yes, you need the n30b tip for the kensington adapter. its a great ultra-thin psu. i emailed kensingon and they sent me one free of charge by the way.

 

so, my girlfriend (base envy with matte screen) just got her machine. I haven't had time to play around with it/fresh install/downclock graphics, but...

-83 processes (I understand this will go down to ~50 after a fresh install
-Battery life lasts about an hour and a half
-heat - I havent felt it, so I dont know just how hot it is (described as "superhot"
-delay in typing and mouse movement/clicking- she is getting this in IE and especially at hulu.com. she knows that she shouldnt be using IE, but hasn't gotten around to getting chrome or ff since she knows I'm wiping it.

again, this is a base i5 envy. is it supposed to be this horrid out of the box?

 

It's actually the Intel SSD controller (the low power processor chip on the drive itself) that allows for higher speeds with a queue depth. By having the opportunity to evaluate multiple write requests at the same time prior to actually having to write them, the drive can use various techniques like write combining (placing multiple small blocks / items within a single cluster, allowing for a single write) or re-ordering of writes to better suit efficiency.

 

The heat off of my machine went down a bit after a fresh install as the processor wasn't being stressed as much with all of the junk running in the background. I'd assume for this same reason the battery life would go up a bit as well. Seems like most users get a little over 2 hours off of the 6-cell battery with the Core i5 processors.

Also note though that the bottom of my machine gets hotter than any other part of the machine which could be considered a bad thing. Just using Microsoft Word and browsing the web it really doesn't get hot enough to bother me if I'm using it on my lap though.

As far as the delay in the typing and mouse movement I can't say I've experienced this. I've only used IE long enough to download firefox though. Possibly someone else around here uses IE primarily and can help out more.

 

True, true. Ultimately, the Intel controller "acts" similarly to a RAID0 controller internally. The Intel SSD has 10 actual channels to read and write into it's banks of Flash memory. Each of those channels goes to a different physical part of the Flash Memory storage. If the Intel controller is smart (which it is), it tries to spread out any incoming data relatively evenly to those 10 controllers (much like a RAID 0 controller might do). Similarly, getting multiple simultaneous requests (ie a relatively high Queue Depth) can result in a much more efficient usage of the 10 channels the Intel controller has to access or write the requested data. This differs a little bit from a RAID0 setup because the Intel Controller doesn't necessarily split up every incoming request to share amongst the multiple "drives" (channels in this case). I suspect that the controller is a little bit smarter about how to share between the 10 channels based on Queue Depth, etc.

Note that this "Intel Controller" I'm referring to is the controller on the SSD itself, NOT the motherboard (which it seems the HP Envy 15 seems slightly deficient at).

BTW, for most consumers, I'd wager it's pretty rare to see a Queue Depth above about 4. Generally, you don't have a significantly larger share of processes vying for the storage system resources (unlike in a server, or a serious workstation usage scenario).

If all of that is confusing, please ignore! however, this is now grossly off topic, so I'll not say anything more about this.

 

Day 2, so here's some observations:

-Out of the box with the i5 520m I was around 7900 in 3dmark06

-Cleaned bloatware and updated to AMD's driver and score stayed the same

-Ripped it open and swapped to a i7 620m and 500GB hdd; the swap was fairly straightforward, but I did not like how the screws are hidden under the rubber feet and how much of a PITA one of the keyboard connectors was to re-install. Re-applied GPU TIM while I was at it.

-I was envisioning on doing a 2x 320gb raid setup but quickly learned a) not enough room for 2x 2.5" and b) need a second cable ... so it looks like if you want raid you have to get it up front during the order else you're ordering extra part(s) from HP. I couldn't tell if I needed a different HDD tray.

-Clean format Windows 7: getting an external drive to work for this was the hardest part for me, afterwards it was pretty easy. I started using an external HDD and gave up and reverted to a usb/SD card media reader setup which went without a hitch.

-To be honest the driver install from scratch wasn't even that bad with the help of the envy driver thread!

-Fresh install 3dm06 score: 8100 using latest drivers from envy thread

-Overclocked 3dm06 score: 8909 with 535/930 clocks using the AMD GPU CLOCK tool (the one for 5870 and NOT the newest release)

Hardware:
-I like the packagining, very chic, on par with Zune or Apple's laptop packaging
-The screen is good, but not amazing ~ def better than most in the $1k range
-The Power Supply is massive
-Battery life is not tested yet
-Not a fan of the plastic face around the lcd; looks like it will be fingerprint magnet AND scratch very easily (soft gloss plastic)
-Keyboard layout is pretty bad, I keep hitting caps lock instead of A ~ it's like I have to learn to type all over again; plus these keys seem like they will get shiny really quickly unless protected.
-The few LED lights on the system and the keyboard are really cool, they don't give off the generic vibe.
-Noise; nothing out of the ordinary IMO
-Speakers seem a little above average
-Disappointed there's no firewire or spdif optical output
-Not sure how to check temps, they don't seem out of the ordinary

That's all for now, gotta test the battery life!

 

@MrSneis

Where did you buy the 620M and how much? Any issue with the BIOS recognizing it? Which BIOS version do you have?

For temp monitoring try this freeware: http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitorpro.php

Also if you got the Glossy screen try this calibrated .icc color profile: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5990480&postcount=2644
It makes a night and day difference in the display / color quality.

 

Hey JJB, I got it from eBay for around $245, seems to be an Engineering Sample chip from China. Apparently ES chips are a little bit of a gamble which I only fully understood after buying it and reading up a little.

No issues with the install, it was a piece of cake and booted right up detecting the right speed and everything, even verified that turbo is working @ 3.2ghz with Intel's monitor software

I had a look at your ICC profile from older posts, but it seems that "installing" it doesn't really change anything Maybe you could make a "how to" to properly install the profile?

Bios is: F.1A

 

Ran into my first problem. The key retainer on the "." key appears to a broken in one arm and it's causing the key to lift a bit whenever it's pressed. It's not a large enough deal to want to send it in for if I don't have to. Is there any place online where I can buy a singular key retainer and replace it myself? If so, does anyone know the part?

The HP Parts store only has the keyboard and that apparently is only the keys. Besides, it's $76 and if it's going to cost that much, I'll use my warranty.

 

F .1A ?? that's a new one...

Shouldn't the 620M turbo to 3.33Ghz ?

The profile loads for me from the spyder3 software that created it so I am not sure how you load it manually from Win7, but many others here have it installed without issue, maybe someone else could post how to load it properly in Win7 calibration settings. For what it's worth here is where the profile should be located in windows:

 

i will, in time. i've got win7 ultimate, but i'm waiting until after the return period before i do anything like this.

i couldn't agree more.

i've got F .1A, too.

 

@bubzers

I wouldn't worry about the return period, just make the set of HP recovery discs and then go to town on a clean install etc. I assume you would want to see how well it can perform when configured properly before the return period is over. If you end up returning it just pop in the recovery discs and in less than 15 minutes it's all back to full out of the box factory settings...

 

Hey guys, I haven't been on here in a while but I wanted to share my recent experience with HP and to serve as a warning for anyone else planning on checking out the hp envy 15. I was one of the first to buy the envy from the day it was launched, but had to return it due to a bad gpu. That was fine, and I ordered the 2nd gen one the day it was announced and I got it with the new core i5 processor and matte screen. The laptop was delayed in its delivery like many of the other members here and I got it around the beginning of February.

Since then it had been running just fine for the most part, with just a lot of heat build-up when playing any sort of game. Eventually however there seems to have been some longer-term repercussions due to the heat, namely that the edges started to expand out and peel away from the case. This led to the edges starting to chip off (I'm talking about the bright silver plastic edge that outlines the laptop). I could clearly see in at least one corner that due to heat build-up it seemed as though the adhesive that was holding the plastic edge to the main case was getting loose. I called HP and sent it over to them and that was where I learned what people complain about when they say terrible hp customer service. They basically told me it was physical damage, and I took photographs to show them that the glue was indeed coming off but they wouldn't hear any of it. First of all the HP "manager" refused to acknowledge anything I said, and basically told me their technicians decided it was physical damage and that was the end of it. I was basically not allowed to talk about my findings or suspicions or even discuss the idea and was flat out told I would either have to pay several hundred dollars for the repair or have it sent back to me. I personally have never dealt with customer service this rude and just completely unwilling to even listen to what I have to say. They immediately claimed it was my fault without reason or explanation for that conclusion and actually talked over me and swiftly ended the call when I tried to ask if they could check the heat damage.

My personal goal is to get rid of this laptop as quickly as I can and just warn others that are considering the hp envy 15. It really is a nice laptop, but with the heat issues I've experienced and the absolutely horrible customer service I would strongly advise you to steer in a different direction. I've had good luck with dell in the past and I should have known better than to give hp a chance just because of the envy. I hope the rest of you are enjoying your purchases without any problems, but I hope this serves as a warning for you should you have to deal with hp customer service and also to other potential buyers. I understand experiences will vary, but just wanted to throw in a long-term experience story for anyone who's really researching this laptop.

 

heat issues were that bad? even after fresh install?

 

Yeah they definitely are. Thats with using it on a flat surface table and raising the back to enable proper airflow. The adhesive is clearly coming off from my experience in southern california. I'll be getting a full repair now so it should be like new, but I don't want to deal with hp after everything so I'm going to try and get rid of it as soon as I do.

 

i thought the case was magnesium?

 

That would be really cool if someone could, honestly I'm scratching my head on this one.

I'm gonna get some photoshop action on to see what the turbo max is; it's strange because it doesn't "stay" at turbo, it just spikes there so it's a fleeting glimpse of said CPU speed -- it may in fact be 3.33 -- I just don't see it fast enough! even in 3dm06, it's only spiking at certain segments.

 

that makes total sense. i guess sometimes i need the obvious stated...

 

The edge itself definitely looks like plastic once it has expanded and chipped off (its the silver outlining covering over the ports that goes all around the laptop)

 

uhhhh is it bad if I did a clean install without making an HP recovery disc? What if I want to return it?

 

I did that too, can I return it? If the heat issue warping the case Genryu mentioned is true, I'd probably return it very soon.

 

Alrighty, it's def. 3.33 !!

Now, to get it to operate at that level more consistently...

How are we overclocking CPU?

 

My temperature readings with HWMonitor after running 3DMark06 were in the low 40s for the GPU and low 30s for the CPU. The XPS M1330's GPU was in the high 80s after the same run. I can't possibly see how the i5 Envy is having temperature problems unless there's a faulty cooling system.

 

After reading all the issues with hp support it really makes one think that is it worth keeping the envy if there going to be jerks when something is broke

 

When I use my Zalman NC-1000 laptop cooler, I have no heat problems with the Envy 15. In fact, if I remove the slice battery, the underside of the laptop becomes cold to the touch, even when working in Avid Media Composer, After Effects, Photoshop, and playing 3D games at high detail, 1080p resolution.

 

I don't know whether the ambient temps have any effect but it's been fairly warm as of late in southern california. Mine definitely gets too hot to touch whenever I play a game or even watch a movie. Specifically the regions on the bottom that get hottest are where I'm seeing the case warping.

 

I'm in LA - it's raining and cloudy today ;-)

Without using any kind of laptop cooler, my unit gets extremely hot, especially near the AC adapter connection and the area near the trackpad where your wrists normally rest becomes almost unbearable.

 

Is your slice battery in or out?

 

When i'm in the office or at home and my laptop is connected to AC, I usually run it with the laptop cooler at maximum fan and the slice battery out. When I do this the underside becomes cold to the touch.

On the rare occasions when I need to run it on AC power without the laptop cooler, it runs extremely hot, especially when the slice battery is in, but I try not to use the slice battery when connected to AC unless I need to charge it.

Although, on those occasions, I almost need the slice battery to insulate myself from third degree burns on my lap ;-)

When I run it on battery power it does not become very hot, even without the laptop cooler, unless I run a graphics intensive application and there is very little noise, perhaps due to the SSDs

 

I had a similar experince with Dell customer service with my XPS 1645 before I purchased my Envy. Dell is notorious for throttling the cpu back especially with the new -i7 -i5 processors (google "throttlegate"). My XPS would throttle the CPU down to under 1 GHz during intense load even when plugged into the wall. The theory was that they intentionally wrote the BIO's to behave that way because the 90W PS they shipped it with would overheat if they didn't. Meaning that somebody really screwed up in the design process by selecting such a low wattage PS (XPS=90W Envy=120W), so they throttled the processor to compensate. It took several months and alot of people complaining (entire forums of people) before Dell admitted that there was a problem and even then they still shipped it out with the standard 90W PS.

It took emailing Micheal Dell and several members of the board of directors to finally allow me to return my XPS. I currently don't have any heat issues with my Gen 2 Envy and so far I'm completely satisfied. But if you think there is a issue with yours and the regular customer service is giving you problems, I would go straight to the top (or as high as you can).

P.S. I justed googled "throttlegate" and it appears that is also the term there using for Toyota's lasted throttle issues. Anyways, you can still read more about it if you look in the XPS 16 forums.

 

Mine is hot on the bottom and warm on the palmrests. I'm planning to cook some eggs later on in the evening anyone want to join me.

I don't even do much gaming just running a couple of VMs and browsing. The GPU gets to 50C too easily I wonder if its the driver settings.