HP Envy 15 1st vs 2nd gen Heat/Battery Issues

I am planning on buying an HP Envy 15 but am kind of scared away due to heat/battery issues. I am buying refurbished, so I have the option to get an i5 or the i7. The i7 doesn't cost a whole lot more, so I am wondering, on the second gen i7's did they do anything to make it run more efficient (cooler temps and better battery life)?

Also, am I correct in saying, anything with the 5830 video card is 2nd gen. Also, are i5's only available in 2nd gen? Thanks for your help!

 

You can get i5 and i7 in the second gen. There aren't heat issues with the second gen Envy 15. Batter life with 6 cell will be at max 3 hours with i5 or 2.5 hours with i7.

 

So the second gen i7 doesn't have heat issues anymore? I understand less battery life, but would it cool during regular tasks? I just read some reviews on the first that say its unbearable to touch on the bottom or on some keys!

 

That was with the first gen i7. 2nd gen i7 It runs a lot cooler.

 

We've purchased three different 2nd gen Envy 15 units and returned two of them due to black screen crashing issues. We never had any problem at all with overheating. When using the Zalman NC-1000 laptop cooler while the Envy is plugged into AC, the underside actually becomes cold to the touch, even when running graphics intensive applications. If I want to use it on my lap while sitting on the sofa, for example, then I use the slice battery to insulate my lap.

The main concern I would have is the blank screen crashing issue, which has been determined to be a hardware problem not fixable by BIOS/driver updates. Either you will be fortunate to receive one of the units that does not have this issue, or has had the mobo replaced during the refurbish, or not. Most people who experience the Envy blank screen crash seem to have experienced it soon after purchasing the laptop. Your only solution would be to return it to the seller for refund or return it to HP and hope they will replace the faulty hardware within a reasonable timeframe.

 

anything to do to determine the black screen issue? like any steps to reproduce it?

 

on both units that exhibited this problem, there was no rhyme or reason to it. The first unit crashed to black screen during initial windows setup when I unboxed it and then would crash to black screen 10-15x per day. The second unit showed no problems for the first few days and then began crashing to black screen approximately 3-5x per day and BSOD perhaps once per day. The black screen crashes would occur sometimes during video playback and sometimes in the middle of light web browsing or MS word document editing, also happened when there were no open applications or windows.