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

Huh? That doesn't make any sense. Anything over 1MP causes video quality to deteriorate? So that's why they have Skype HD? Many of the high end Asus machines use 1.3MP/2.0MP. The UL/U series use the .3MP because they are thin and light. I can definitely tell the difference between a .3MP and 1.3MP through skype. The Envy was supposed to be a premium laptop with all the bells and whistles and they skimped out on the webcam?

For those thinking why not just get an external camera, sure but then I have enough things to carry around, hdmi-> vga cable/dongle for presentations, external dvd writer, and ac adapter.

 

Hey! Did you read my other post???

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...-customer-service-experience.html#post6180076

 

I'd be willing to bet that the physical size of a CCD (the component in the webcam that actually "takes" the picture) limits the usable resolution to something relatively small (like the .3 MP one used). Lower CCD density tends to mean better low light performance in the Digital Photography, so it might translate over into the web camera, too. However, you can ask anyone that works with higher end Digital Photography for a better answer (JJB?). There is a reason why the larger sensor digital cameras (the prosumer and professional cameras take better pictures in more widely available lighting conditions than a point and shoot, even if the MP rating is "similar".

Or, HP might just have wanted to save a buck or two

BTW, I can't tell the difference between a 1 MP camera and a 2MP camera through Skype. In fact, pretty much anything beyond 1MP (about 720p) will look the same - I can't get much better than live 720p video out of Skype. My bandwidth is too limited at that point.

 

I agree with most of your points but the jump from .3MP to 1.3MP is definitely noticeable. 1.3MP to 2MP there may be no difference. .3 vs. 2MP definite difference.

 

any modern camera should be capable of at least 720p and that's only ~1MP . pretty lame of HP to skimp on a $2 part in a $1300-3500 laptop.

 

You asked for it so welcome to ..... Image Senors 101:

You guys are partially correct regarding low light ability. It has nothing to do with the resolution, it is the size of each individual CCD sensor. Think of each 'pixel' location on the sensor as a bucket that collects light instead of water, when an individual bucket starts overflowing that 'pixel' gets 'blown out' or completely white (overexposed). The bigger the bucket the more light it can collect without overexposing, this means that larger sensor receptors (buckets) at a given resolution have a higher dynamic range, or a greater difference between the brightest and darkest points at a given exposure. This is why professional full frame sensor cameras take better images the an equivalent DX or 4/3 sensors with the same resolution and same lens. Another factor is that it is easier to focus the light accurately into a larger 'bucket'.

The webcam sensors use the same principal just on a much smaller scale. If the lower res .3MP has larger sensor 'buckets' then, in theory, it will have higher dynamic range or better low light ability. That being said there is no reason that they cannot use a much higher resolution sensor in the area allocated to the webcam, just look at all the new 5+MP cell phone cameras available today. The lower resolution must be due to the bandwidth available to the average user and processing power and software needed to handle the images.

The image quality difference between .3, 1.3 and 2.0MP is huge. You may not notice it in skype but if you took the same exact image at native resolution and viwed it at 100% onscreen the 2.0MP would have 60% more detail than the 1.3MP.

 

There is no PM57 chipset. There is an HM57 chipset which should enable switchable graphics but since ATI doesn't have something like nVidia Optimus it probably doesn't yield too much battery improvement.

I think the chipset description is a typo because I've seen the PM57 referenced in some of the HP docs.

 

My post was copied and pasted directly from the service manual so that may explain some of the odd CPU numbers also, typo's I guess..

PS: FYI, the ATI 10.6 beta driver claims full support for intel CPU's with switchable graphics.

 

@JJB, support for Intel IGP is one thing but actual implementing it is alot more tough. nVidia published a white paper for Optimus which illustrates the pitfalls. Even Optimus is limited to Win 7 while the new MBP uses something that Apple developed for OSX

I'm not totally down on ATI since the Radeon Mobile 5830 is light years ahead of anything that nVidia has in terms of featureset and performance/watt.

The Envy 17 is exciting but if the weight is > 7 lbs as rumored than its a non-starter because the MBP only weighs in at 6.6 lbs with a 7 Hr. Battery life.

 

Got another $103 knocked off for the delay. Bringing it down to $1185 for a $1760 laptop.

Nice.

 

Wall/Air Ultra Thin Notebook Power Adapter - K38031US - Kensington

Does anyone know if the tip that's compatible for the envy 15 is included with this power adapter?

 

the tip is N30B, and mine did not come with the top included (should have according to Kensington). I emailed them, they replied back the same day, and mailed me the tip free of charge.

 

kl kl thanks a lot

 

So, I'm not sure if any of you remember my issue with the rocking back and forth of my envy 15 (and reapplying the rubber feet not fixing the issue).

Gave HP a call...

As strange as this all works out, here is what happened;

1 - $200 off after applying the $450 coupon.
2 - 15% off hp products coupon code
3 - They're letting me keep the machine until the new one comes in.

The only strange thing going on is, they are charging me an extra $53 to "rush" the build date of the replacement machine, which they assured me will be built before any pending order right now.

They have promised to reimburse the $53 after it ships, which makes no sense at all to me - Why even charge me in the first place?

If everything works out, looks like i'll be getting a slice battery and $50 credit back to my card after the $450 code. Not bad?

Final price will be $1416.95 for anti glare HD screen and dual SSDs.

 

That is nice lol I didn't realise the $450 coupon was still being used? I thought it ended after the first 1800 orders?

 

yea but i had it applied to my first order and they agreed to honor it for the replacement since I (very very politely threatened) to buy an alienware or dell if they didn't.

 

Isn't that a 90W adaptor? I thought Envy needed a 120W one?

 

I have read the new Envy 15T 1200 CTO service manual and there are some different with the left bottom of the notebook, is there one more vent under the left bottom (right under the CPU), if it is a new vent, hopefully the left cover will not be that hot anymore...

 

there should be another vent down there anyway, considering there are two fans for the envy 15 CPU. I will have to buy a new bottom base for the envy beats from hp parts!

 

i have the 120 version anyway, but the 90 will work fine, especially if using an i5. recommend a 120, will not get as hot.

 

Aside from heat, are there any other drawbacks to using a 90W adapter instead of 120W?

 

Using a 90W may throttle your CPU multiplier. From what I've read some tests were done and that is one issue that has been brought up.

 

the lack of activity of this thread without JJB and his i5 envy is astonishing lol ;P

 

Is there any way to do a manual "TRIM" of the RAID0 SSDs?

After filling the drive to about 80% capacity then going back down to 25% or so, my read speeds were mostly the same as when the drive was fresh, but:
sequential write: 211 -> 131 MB/s
random write 512KB: from 208 -> 113 MB/s
random write 4KB (QD=1): 88 -> 54 MB/s and 21527 -> 13342 IOPS
random write 4KB (QD=32): 177 -> 106 MB/s and 43385 -> 25996 IOPS

So how do I manually trim?

Fresh install, fresh SSD:

Code:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

           Sequential Read :   479.239 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   211.556 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   316.276 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   208.338 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    11.614 MB/s [  2835.4 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    88.178 MB/s [ 21527.8 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   244.686 MB/s [ 59737.7 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   177.705 MB/s [ 43385.0 IOPS]

  Test : 1000 MB [C: 12.5% (37.2/297.9 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2010/04/15 4:45:46
    OS : Windows 7  [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)
  

After writing about 80% of the drive then deleting files down to about 25%:

Code:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

           Sequential Read :   442.437 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   131.450 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   312.617 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   113.938 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    11.102 MB/s [  2710.5 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    54.650 MB/s [ 13342.2 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   235.827 MB/s [ 57574.8 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   106.357 MB/s [ 25966.0 IOPS]

  Test : 1000 MB [C: 28.2% (84.0/297.9 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2010/05/01 11:49:58
    OS : Windows 7  [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)
  

 

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02131229.pdf

Are people aware of this manual saying the base and keyboard has a bronze finish in the spare parts list? Is this what the envy 15-1100 manuals said as well?

Sorry if this is a dumb question, just curious and there aren't any envy's in the uk left or else I would go see them and ask some questions myself.

 

heya, where do I get the most recent graphic driver for my envy 15?

 

here
Drivers & Support | GAME.AMD.COM

 

Can we use this in our Envys?
CABLES UNLIMITED (PCM-2296-06) Product Page -- NextWarehouse.com

 

that cable works with all computers with a hdmi slot

 

That mean that we do not need this:

 

thats for hdmi to vga... completely different

 

Edit: Sorry just read that you had the gen2 SSD's, so what I wrote would not apply to you.

For you Trim should be running in the background as a feature of Window's 7. However Intel has an optimizer tool utility that i believe you can run a manual trim with:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Solid+State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid+State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+X18-M+Solid+State+Drive%2c+160GB+SATA+II+1.8in%2c+MLC%2c+High+Performance

 

@rollj83

Good luck with getting new drives out of HP, unfortunately I highly doubt it will happen since they in no way ever specified what version would ship from the factory and the gen1 drives cost them significantly more than gen 2 versions.


@Koshinn

What 'rollj83' posted above is correct except, it seems, he didn't know you had gen 2 drives. Unfortunatly that does not change the answer to your question. There is no way to run TRIM while in RAID0 at this time, there are rumors the intel is working on this but nothing official to date.

This was the primary reason I decided to unRAID my drives, I anticipated very large file transfers and was concerned with performance degredation as well as the security of redundant backup with dual drives. For what it's worth, with normal use there was no noticable performance drop going from RAID0 to seperate drives, the benchmarks were significantly lower but I really didn't notice the slower R/W speeds, but I only have USB 2.0 and eSATA....

If it's any consolation, your reduced benchmarks still blow the unRAIDed speeds away except for the 4K Read which seems very low in both your tests.

 

It's my OS drive too, so it would be lower than other benchmarks, but mine show more "real world" performance.

So there's no way to manually wipe out all the empty space on the drive?

 

My OS drive (with all programs) is ~60% full and runs at ~identical speeds to my storage drive whether its almost full or empty after I run TRIM, so I don't think the OS makes a difference.

I have only read some really convoluted method to 'wipe' free space in RAID on an OCZ forum but it had not been tried on intel drives, I didn't even keep a link to the forum, sorry. There is a good SSD thread on this forum (can't find link), some of those guys are very kowledgable, worth checking with them to see if any new tweaks for RAID0 have been developed.... Good luck.

FYI, I found that installing the intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver improved my SSD 4K R & W by up to 10%... I was not using it based on some reports I read that it actually slowed SSD's down. Not sure how it would work in RAID...

 

We will see I am a really good negotiator. At the very least I am trying to get them to post what SSD's they are actually installing on the spec sheet so other people don't suckered into buying junk gen1 SSD's.

I had a long "chat" with tech support and it was funny how little they actually knew about SSD's (three different people). I was also asking them what they will do in the future if and when people starting calling in with write speeds at half of what they started with. Would that be a warranty-able issue. I guess we shall see.

Here's the link to the OCZ site I think JJB is talking about:

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?64659-If-you-have-this-100MB-s-write-speed-cap-in-win7-try-this.

EDIT: Sorry, I meant to say I was already dealing with a senior case manager. Tech support excalated the case for me.

 

Unfortunately your 'negotiating' with the wrong department. Marketing controls the published specs and the Resolutions dept. needs to authorize replacements, to override thier decision you need to get to a senior Case Manager who you can only contact if you have a case # generated by a lower level person. While the tech support people are very friendly they cannot authorize replacing your SSD's.......

EDIT: If your still within the 21 day return policy, your best bet would be to return it and order a new one, seems all recent deliveries I've heard of had gen 2 SSD's. If you used the discount coupon then you would need to have some problem, for example the balck screen issue , in order to negotiate a replacement unit with the same discount pricing.....

 

Awesome news, if true. My wife is totally jealous of my Envy, but she doesn't need the 5830. A 5730, especially if it saves $100 or so on the price, would be perfect for her. If it came with a backlit keyboard though... we might have a fight on our hands as to who gets the new machine and who gets this 'old' one

 

Hmmm.....wasn't the PM57 chipset canceled by Intel? I was under the impression that they scrapped it in favor of HM57 due to the addition of switchable graphics. I'm 75% sure that neither PM55 nor PM57 have switchable graphics.

Edit: Nvm, just read a few pages back. I hope it is a typo and the chipset is actually HM57.

 

I was trying to play Fallout 3 on the Envy but it kept crashing within a few minutes. Turns out this game has a problem with quad core CPUs (why??).. and also the Core i5 series due to the virtual cores. Found this fix on the interwebs and it worked for me:

Go to "c:\My Documents\My Games\Fallout3" and open the "fallout.ini" file in a text editor. Find the line "bUseThreadedAI=0" and change it to "bUseThreadedAI=1". Also, below that, add this line "iNumHWThreads=2". That should do it.

On a side note, for most recent games it seems like the best setting is 1600x900, High details, and 2x AA. Playing at full 1080p seems just a bit out of reach for smooth FPS. I am pleasantly surprised at the picture quality for non-native resolutions (in 3D games), whatever component handles that is much better at it than my last laptop.

 

Well according to someone else on this thread that going for such move will result in the loss of RAID options as RAID only is instated on the PM55 series.

 

for those who got the 2x SSD option and un-RAID'd them, did you notice much difference in speed when running the OS on just one?

 

Did you not see my above post? With my OS on one drive along with all my programs (~60% used) and the second drive strictly for storage and for very large image file (4GB to 32GB) transfers I have seen no difference in speeds on the crystal disc benchmark between the drives after runnung the TRIM function.

I also do not see any noticable difference in real world performance after unRAIDing the drives, the benchmarks are much slower but the boot and loads times still seem the same. Full restart went from 23 sec. to 26 sec. which IMO is blazing fast either way, loading CS4 is to close to measure a difference......

 

sorry i must have missed what you said earlier. thanks for reitterating.

you would think there would be a bigger difference in boot times with twice the read speed but i guess there is some other bottleneck. couldn't guess what though.

i think maybe the RAID speed advantage would be more apparent in HD video editing when you have multi-GB chunks to move around. i guess in most apps there would be little difference from 1 SSD, speedy enough as it is.

still RAID 0 is an interesting feature that you can't get on the MBP.. which is odd. you would think apple would jump at the chance to sell a second SSD.

 

Have you seen the inside of a MBP? They can't fit a second HD slot in there.

 

even if they did manage... it would be hotter then it is now.....do you really want a laptop that boils water....

 

hey guys new to here but probley buying an envy I know now I can install a ssd without voiding warranty, what I am wondering is where are the intake vents for air and where are the exit. Thanx.

 

i mean a 2x 1.8" SSD configuration that is contained in the same area as a 1x 2.5" drive, as done in the Envy.

i am assuming the MBP uses 2.5" HDD.

 

how is that..? i don't think SSDs generate heat like HDDs since there is no moving parts.

 

I read it wrong I was thinking you wanted to add a 2nd hdd.... my bad