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

Sorry to hear about the bricking. I'm still at F1BA and not moving until there is reason which I never had a reason to move to that or the previous update. I still get random lockups.

I was able to OC to 600/1200 on mine. I think its just a luck of the draw. Hopefully you won't get any damage and they leave everything else alone.

 

More like HP Technicians cosmetically damaged my laptop in my last repair session and didn't properly fix creaking touchpad (that turned to be a loosely tightened Wi-Fi card underneath the touchpad) and my Case Manager (as I stated before) just decided to give me a replacement.

About the CPU Upgrade, well, I told my CM that I had an i5-520M in my current system and since I got my laptop from an EBay reseller, I couldn't provide her an original order number so she trusted the specifications I told her by mouth over the phone. I told her I had an i5-520M and she was like ok. When I checked the offer confirmation e-mail, she wrote down an i5-540M so I am taking advantage of it . I told her (to be safe) all the stock specifications I had on the Envy, but she somehow gave me an upgrade so I am taking it.

 

Ahh, haha, I see. Well, good for you! You should get AT LEAST that for what they did to your Envy.

 

I found this 2.5" HDD enclosure on Newegg, seems like a good match for the Envy with an eSATA port and right-angle USB plug, helpful since all USB ports are on the right hand side.. where the mouse goes.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817193058

along the same lines, anyone seen a right-angle ethernet adapter?

 

So I FINALLY got my hands on my envy 15. Thought everything was perfect, until I brought it downstairs to my kitchen...

aaaaaaaand I hear a slight thump when I put my left hand on the computer.

The chassis is apparently uneven and rocks back and forth on the front left rubber footpad.

I'm so disturbed by this and I don't think a $50 credit to/from HP will make me happy.

Any solutions? Think it's possible to have them upgrade me to a 520 or 540 i5?

 

This laptop is really stressing me out. The C key was broken (plastic latch snaped) and the high pitched squeeling is really getting on my nerves. Im not sure if i should return it or not? What do you guys think?

 

The keyboards are still failing for people??? Wow... I am now worried about the reliability of my replacement...

 

Okay, i think ive just about had it. The GPU fan seems to be making a grinding noise now. I officially say HP = fail

 

In most cases there is a very simple fix for this. Look very closely at the rubber feet and you will most likely find one that is not placed exactly in the slight recess in the bottom of the chassy so it sits higher than the rest, therefore making the whole computer rock a bit. Just remove the rubber foot carefully (I use a dull butter knife tip), as you peel it off slowly, the adhesive should stay on the rubber and peel cleanly off the chassy, reposition exactly in the outlined recess and reapply firmly........

 

The only reason I tried flashing f .24 A was becuase ever since I went with F 1B A my envy would freeze up occasionally when trying to wake it from sleep mode, usually after closing the lid and left overnight. I also found on 2 recent occasions that the computer never actually entered sleep when the lid was closed, when I went to open the lid i noticed the fans were still running (after 7 hours) and the screen was 'frozen' along with the cursor.... This had never happened on any previous BIOS's or earlier envy's

Should have stuck with F .19.....

 

They have yet to build mine (ordered 3/31) and they claim it's not possible to upgrade. Perhaps you'll have more luck as yours would be a replacement, but basing it on nothing except common sense I think it would be unlikely for them to upgrade it at your request.

 

Hello, new envy owner after floating around in the forum for a while. Great Resource here.

I am really having issues with the trackpad -specifically trying to click and drag is driving me crazy - For example, trying to highlight a few pages of cells in Excel is erratic sometimes. I even have problems from time to time clicking and dragging a window. It seems like the left mouse button is the issue - its almost like it loses its key press when I haven't lifted my finger off of it.

I have the latest synaptics driver - and have tried various settings in the synaptics driver options including disabling most of the scrolling and other advanced features to see if this was causing the issue.

Just want to know if others are experiencing this or if I got a bum left mouse button.

thanks in advance.

 

JJB, I can't diagnose which one the culprit is/could be. They all appear to be in the designated slots perfectly, and my nail can just barely fit in between the slot and the rubber foot when I try to check if any of them are correct or not.

 

I use the 'Tap and Drag' feature. Using this feature you don't need to use the 'buttons' at all, you just highlight what you want, tap and hold your finger on the pad and drag, lift finger to 'drop'. This combined with the 'edge motion' feature allows you to drag things anywere on the screen without lifting your finger and 'resetting' it. Play around with the setup tutorials and test screens, it helps.

Well then you can narrow it down to 2 of the 4 feet by looking under the base while it sits on a flat surface and see which 2 of the feet it is 'rocking' on, one of those will be the tall one. You may also just be able to push those 2 down very firmly to try an seat them better, could just be a bubble or contaminant in the adhesive tape.

I suppose you could also turn it upside down and use a straight edge ruler between pairs of feet and eyeball the gap under the ruler, you should be able to see which one is higher based on a larger gap...

 

JJB, thanks for the response - I will play around this feature. How are you doing the right mouse button. I am coming from a Macbook Pro running bootcamp and I got used to using two fingers and tapping to get teh right button menu. Don't see a way of doing this with the synaptics options unless I missed something.

thanks again.

 

Uhhh, Use the right button on the trackpad... there are buttons on both sides.

Again I suggest reading the tutorials and using the test screens in the settings panel, it is quite thorough and gives you details on features that the MBP touchpad does not even have. I have mine working better than the MBP touchpad on my sisters 09 MBP 15.... Just takes some time and tweaking to your prefrences. Try the 'momentum' feature and 2 finger scroll with 'edge motion' they work well when setup properly...

 

I've never used momentum but increased the acceleration instead and that seems to work well. 3-finger flick for foward and backward navigation is excellent plus tap zones make browsing a cinch. Pinch zoom is not as smooth or precise as a Mac, Iphone, or Droid but works alright. I will be experiment with those settings and maybe even test out the scrybe drivers.

 

I did realize that there is a right button - I thought you were saying you could use just the trackpad to get the right button functionality as well and not have to click the right button.

I will play around - thanks.

 

I was talking about the 'tap and drag' feature which does not require any buttons. I've never had an issue with right clicking, I suppose you may be able to use the 'tap zone' options to create a right click area, not sure because I'm not on my envy to check for that option....

 

Try using the synaptic driver for the envy from the hp website. I had the same problem and used this driver and it fixed my clicking and dragging issue.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...&dlc=en&cc=us&product=4121195&os=4063&lang=en

 

He wants two-finger tap to = right mouse click. Honestly, I miss that feature too from my MBP. With my MBP, I rarely had to use the mouse buttons, just tapped a lot.

 

I had heard several people say that they were able to unraid their SSDs thru the BIO's, but I can not find the option any where in version F.24. Any help anyone can give me would be great.

 

It's not through the BIOS, but it is a key you press on startup. I think It's F12. Might be...uh...a different F key. Like F9. But try F12.

 

I'll give it a shot. Thanks for the help!

Update: So far F12 does nothing. I'm gonna run through the rest of the F's.

 

I found the command from a previous post. Apparently pushing ctrl+i during boot up does the trick. Does anyone know if I "delete the Raid volume" if this will effectively reset the hard drives to the original factory condition? Thanks in advance.

 

I answered your post on the other thread but it seems you found the ctrl+I option during boot.

Deleting the RAID volume only wipes / overwrites both SSD's, AFAIK it does not truly return them to 'factory fresh' condition. The ideal solution is to do a 'secure erase' of the drives before installing the OS, unfortunately the Envy BIOS does not have the options that will allow you to perform a secure erase. I ended up doing a 'quick format' on each drive and then used an app called 'AS Clean' before loading the OS etc.

Sorry I don't have my envy do to bricking it with the F .24 update, so I can't provide a link for that application, you may find the info in this link: http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3116/tweaktown_s_solid_state_drive_optimization_guide/index.html Note: some of the recommendations on SSD 'tweaks' in this link are not recommended by other sources, Use at your own risk and do your own research, I found a lot of conflicting recommendations out there for SSD optimizations.

Edit: You may also want to read this 'article' from anandtech which has lots of good info and links; http://www.anandtech.com/show/2738/1

 

installed an SSD today along with a fresh copy of windows 7 and the Envy is awesome now!! sooo much better. didn't have any problem with drivers either. the SSD is noticeably faster and quieter.

i used a windows iso from microsoft and put that on a USB drive.
http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-65733/X15-65733.iso

for those familiar with TRIM, is that automatic or do I have to do something?

 

-JJB

Thats what I was afraid of.......I was trying to find a work around for the limitation of the Bio's but it appears you have already been down that road. It really sucks, I had HDDErase 3.3 already loaded up on a bootable usb and was just trying to figure out a way to run it.

Thanks for the advice and the links.

 

ssd makes a big difference. i installed the 10.6 alpha ATI driver, no change in 3DMark score, loading seems faster though.

 

While 'TRIM' should run automatically in the backround with Win7 I also downloaded the SSD toolbox from intels website which allows you to run TRIM manually (or scheduled) along with some other diagnostic features. I seem to find myself running TRIM manually about once a week since thier is know way to tell if windows is doing it in the backround...


@rollj83

Using another computer seems to be the only way to do a true secure erase before your clean install, I determeined this to be to much of a PITA... My performance seems to be fine with the SSD's except for the slow 4K random numbers which are due to an issue with the envy's controller.

 

If you're going to be getting an eSATA drive and wanting to use the eSATA speeds, I'd highly suggest you get this one because it can use a single eSATA/USB combo cable for power and for eSATA speeds. You can always get a right-angle USB adapter somewhat inexpensively. This is an even better idea because the eSATA cable in your proposed drive is straight, and it will require USB power.

 

well already ordered the other one, it was only $20. i will only need eSATA occasionally when re-filling the HD with new video. for playback on the Envy, USB speed is fine.

about the BIOS situation, seems like a lot of people are getting bricked. i think mine is F1A or whatever the default is, what would i gain from upgrading? i haven't run into any problems yet.

 

I'm not sure. I wasn't aware of all the bricking when I did mine, and it said something about the fans so I went with it.

Given that you aren't having any problems and there are known issues (even if it's not known what they exactly are), I'd hold off on it. You're already at a new enough BIOS to fix most glaring issues IIRC.

 

what glaring issues would there be? I was pretty hesitant to update BIOS in the first place but after JJB's bricking...
my main and only issue with the Envy right now is that one out of three times it fails to recover from standby or hybernation. In the first case I just get a pitch black screen, in the second I get the win 7 logo and THEN I get the pitch black screen.
how worth the risk would it be to flash a new BIOS?

 

I made a transparent Envy Beats logo (red B) for my ObjectDock bar, if anyone would like to use it, let me know and I'll post it online.

 

i think my right speaker is messed up, get a distorted sound when volume is over 75 percent. weird, i never blast my music or anything... $52 for replacement speakers... maybe next week.

 

If you still get clean sound out of the right channel on headphones then your speaker most likely is bad. Make sure you don't have any of the beats EQ settings boosted in the 32hz adjustment, the speakers cannot produce any sound at the lowest frequency so any boost will only bottom out the tiny speaker drivers and can cause damage. I have my 32hz turned down all the way and the next one up (60hz I think) at 0 gain. This is only for playback on the built in speakers, when I use headphones I just select the preset 'flat' EQ curve so I get full range sound output.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5808572&highlight=matte+ICC#post5808572

I'm having issues loading this profile. any assistance would be fantastic.

 

@krugoh:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=6166684#post6166684

 

Control Panel --> Color Management
Advanced tab
Bottom of the page --> 'Change system defaults'


I don't see any of this. Is there something else I need to download?

 

Nope. It's built-in to Win 7.

 

well, when I click install, nothing actually happens.

 

After you click install you then need to follow Aquitane's instructions to actually load the profile. You need to click the windows 'start' orb, then the 'control panel' link on the right, make sure you have the 'view by' drop down changed to 'small icons'. Here is a screen shot of what the control panel should look like:

 

Got my Envy yesterday. Very satisfied overall...there is only one flaw on the entire machine-a small part of the touchpad near the top is noticeably darker than the rest. It looks like a manufacturing defect, but it isn't a deal breaker...not if I have to deal with HP again

Here are some photos-feel free to use them for whatever y'all want. My photobucket has unlimited bandwidth.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y103/m3ta1head/IMG_5116.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y103/m3ta1head/IMG_5117.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y103/m3ta1head/IMG_5118.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y103/m3ta1head/IMG_5121.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y103/m3ta1head/IMG_5123.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y103/m3ta1head/IMG_5130.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y103/m3ta1head/IMG_5134.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y103/m3ta1head/IMG_5138.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y103/m3ta1head/IMG_5151.jpg

 

Congrats on your new envy.

If possible could you please post images as a link in your posts rather than full size pics that take up so much space in the thread....

BTW I don't see the 'dark' area on the touchpad, that sounds like an odd 'defect' which I have not heard of before

 

I figured most of us were rocking the 1080p screen...those pictures are sized down 70% from original size but that's fine, I'll change them to links.

The touchpad discoloration is not visible in the pictures I took (purposely), but it is definitely there. I'll take another picture of the problem close up.

 

Sorry about that, didn't realize they were links to an external site. I am using my old Dell since the envy is in for repair, it is actually 1920 x 1200 res but I have the browser zoomed to 150% so the pics looked huge. FYI, you can actually just upload and attach images directly from your computer to your post by clicking the paperclip symbol.

 

jjb, it seems I have successfully followed the instructions, but I don't see a visible difference. Is there something that will 'trigger' this? or should i just assume they are loaded?

 

All I can think of is to make sure you don't have any of the ATI CCC color options in use as they may override the calibration setting, you should be able to 'restore defaults' if you've adjusted those settings. You will see a big difference when the profile actually is loaded correctly.

I don't install my profiles using the method that Aquitaine figured out (which seemed to work for many others), my calibration program that creates the profiles manages which profiles I want to use ,so I don't need to use the terrrible windows color management application....

 

Guys ,
got the above in mail.
Is this standard HP procedure for deliveries which are hung up by more than too weeks (mine was originally supposed to ship on Apr 14th but is now delayed to Apr 28th) ?
Did this happen to anyone else?