*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 1*

good you're waiting. I essentially bought my envy on a whim. I didn't bother looking up the refresh cycles of any notebooks (except MBP), I just saw it and ordered. Then I found this site and wham I found out about the potential for usb3 and increased performance of the 5830 card and it turned out I ordered just in time lol. Now I know what I need to know though...and yes I'd still buy it knowing what I know now except i'd just be getting it a week later doh! serendipitous I would say considering how it just dropped $500 and there was the $300 all at the same time I discovered this laptop. I didn't even know the envy existed until last monday, but its been out since october, holy smokes!

 

Do not do this The beats software is actually the IDT audio driver control panel that has a 'beats' GUI overlay. If uninstalled you have to reload the same drivers.

 

Okay I tried to read this whole thread but by page 437 I started going crosseyed

Anyway heres my situation. On the 14th I went ahead and ordered a Envy 15 Beat LE with I7 and 5830 on it which is supposed to be built by the 22nd. I have basically 3-4 main questions

1. I have been told by CS and Tech Support 2 times that it will have USB 3.0 and 2 times that it won't. Has anyone who's ordered one since the Cnet news actually ordered and received one yet that can confirm USB 3.0?

2. I of course got the Intel Wifi and Blue-tooth but have asked both sales and Tech Support but no one can tell me which Intel card it uses.

3. I plan to upgrade the OS to Win7 Ultimate x64, which I already have a spare copy of, so should I first make a recovery set, then delete all the bloat stuff and then run the Anytime upgrade?

4. I haver seen posts mentioning a Blue ray external DVD drive but when I go to HP's site and look for either part number the both come up as not available. Where can I obtain one

5. When I have the laptop in my living room I planned on using the HDMI out to connect it to my TV and use a wireless keyboard/mouse. Is there a way, when its connected I can turn off/shut the lid on the laptop.

Sorry for all the noob questions but any help/advice or direction to threads that might answer them would be greatly appreciated as this is my very first laptop so am kind of stupid on a lot of stuff. I've built many regular PC's but this is something new for5 me.

Thanks

PS I also have noticed mention of "IOS", what exactly is that?

 

instant on solution. it's a hybrid os that you can check email, surf web etc. boots in like 5-7 seconds...

i'll be disabling this though since with dual ssds I should get into windows in a flash anyways

 

Nobody knows for absolute certain yet as we are all facing the same problem of conflicting information. Few more days and they should be in peoples hands to confirm.

Unless they've changed it, I believe it uses the Intel 5100.

Sounds like a good plan to me, but someone who actually has an Envy should let you know about this one.

Bluray drive, if not offered by HP where you are, well give HP a call. Could well be that they are running low on stock and hence change their website offering.

In Windows you can tell it to do nothing when you close the lid - you've been able to do this for years - it's controlled by the operating system after all.

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It's an "instant on" mode, whereby it doesn't load your normal OS, but instead loads considerably faster to give you limited access to things like music etc.

 

I don't think you'll have to, the new user manual states that IOS is not available in units with Dual SSD's. I'm getting that config so I called tech support and they had no clue as to why this was...

 

why not install the normal envy 15 drivers?

 

lol that's funny. i guess they figure IOS usually takes 5-7 seconds to boot anyways, so with dual ssd's it's useless since it shouldn't take that much longer to boot into windows.

i heard it boots into windows within 5-10 seconds!

 

They are the 'normal' envy drivers for the IDT Audio. This driver from HP is a modified (newer) driver than the ones available from IDT, it gives you better EQ control and a Master gain control (over std IDT GUI). The Beats part is just 2 preset EQ curves and a useless fn+B contol that tweaks bass and treble to sound better when activated.

 

Don't think it can be that fast since the HP BIOS & system tests take longer than that to load / run. I've read 30-40 seconds with SSD's, which I would be very happy with.

 

I've used the Zalman for a year with my XPS M1530, but I don't have an Envy 15 yet. However, I'm not sure the location of the fans matters so much. Take a look at the Zalman again: The fans are actually enclosed in a space that forces air through the whole grill on the top, which pretty well evenly distributes the airflow across the whole underside of the laptop. You can actually feel the air flowing all around the sides of the laptop. So it is more of a "whole system" cooler than just a single location.

 

i'm talking after it goes through the bios, into the 'win 7 logo' phase...

but total 40 seconds would be fine

 

I purchased the Envy 15 1021TX back on New Year's eve.

The past couple of days I have been experiencing what I thought might have been TDR's, but there is nothing in the event log, nor a message suggesting it.

What does happen, is the display will just go black whilst the system continues. It is almost as though the display is being switched off.

One thing I did note, was the case at each instance was quite warm. I am using a Targus cool pad, but there are no vents on the underside unless you remove the battery which then exposes a slit.

Any ideas?

 

Sounds like your using the slice battery with the cooling pad. The slice redirects the intake air from the bottom vents to the perimeter of the battery (mainly back edge). Try using it with just the 6cell built in battery and see if this helps.

You can also download the CPUID hardware monitor (free) from the link below, it give you realtime temp. data for CPU, GPU, Internal air etc... Might help you see whats going on.

http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

 

Wondering if anyone has seen any USB 3.0 display adapters coming out? I am looking for a way to run more than one external display. There are quite a few USB 2.0 to VGA/DVI adapters out there, but I'll probably wait until someone releases one for usb 3.0

 

In the core i7 model, if it is configured for 4g (2x2g), will hp be installing the memory modules in the user accessible slots or in the ones inside. I am hoping that it will not be the user accessible ones, allowing me to do an upgrade.

 

either way you should be able to upgrade, if its not in the user accessible ones, you're just going to need to open the envy up lol

 

If your just trying to 'mirror' the envy display output to 2 monitors then an HDMI splitter should work;

http://www.amazon.com/HDMI-Splitter-Premium-Cable/dp/B000FMJLQC

Didn't search for it but I would guess you can find HDMI to (2) VGA or DVI also.

 

Not in this case. I did not get the battery slice. There are two small vents on the underside, but were the 6cell battery is located there is an opening into the case right where the RAM slots are.

I am using HWMonitor but it is not displaying anything for the video, only the cores, thermal zone, drives and power consumption of the processor.

During light use, the TZ is about 60C, but this goes pear shaped around 77C and above. I have cleaned out the vents using an air compressor, got only a small puff of dust.

I have set the TdrDelay based on the documentation for Windows just before the last "black out", but the event log does not show any warnings, errors or critical messages as the default is to notify by way of message and then attempt recovery.

 

Thanks JJB, I am actually looking for an extended desktop (as opposed to mirroring). I've really had a hard time finding a good solution. The USB solution is just a temporary thing until I find something that really works. The closest thing to what I am looking for is Matrox's DualHead2Go however, this device requires all monitors to run at the same resolution which is not very convenient.

 

The i7-620M is a great option I have been waiting for. Dell has it on their XPS 1647, but that 1645/1647 series has power supply/throttling issues.

To me, the 620M is the best of both worlds--4 threads (8 is great, but 4 is really all that is necessary for me), higher base clock speeds (1.6Ghz isn't so fast on the i7-720), and about the same temp/watt usage.

What is HP thinking about the price for the i7-620M upgrade? $650 upcharge from an i5-520??? Dell charges $180 upcharge for the 620M from a 520M. RIPOFF!!!!!

 

The HP Envy website shows, on the Overview page, that USB 3.0 is included with i7 models. If it says so there, I'm sure it comes with it.

 

mhm someone should order the i7-620m and see if theres usb 3.0, which there should be since its "i7"; if there is, then theoretically usb 3.0 could/should be on the i5 arrandales too. sigh if it werent almost twice the actual processor price, i'd totally get it in my envy.

 

Does the HD Audio chipset actually output 5.1 or 7.1 channel sound?


We know that Realtek and VIA have multi-channel codecs but there is no mention of it in the specs for the Envy.

 

Could you post a link to the site please ? I only know of the page at the HP store.

EDIT opps, I guess it does now show it for the regular Envy 15 at the store site, unfortunatly it isn't showing it yet on the Beat LE version, sure hope its just an oversite

 

Hmm, Does the 4830 have a thermal sensor? I tried both GPUz and the AMD tool, and neither would display a temp for the GPU.

 

Never had a chance to try it before I sent mine back. recall reading a post here that 5.1 worked 'flawlessly'.

 

Okay I'm trying to figure something out. What exactly is the difference between the I7-820QM and the i7-620M performance wise? I may have to cancel and reorder over the USB 3.0 if its only going to be for the regular Envy 15 and not the Beast LE version, right now their only showing 3.0 with the regular 15, I'm hoping it just the page not being updated yet. I'm wondering if I have to reorder should I opt for the 620 instead of the 820.

 

I'm sure it does, had readings that matched from to different monitoring apps. One was amd clock tool but I don't believe it was the newest version of the tool. I had also upgraded the driver with mobility modder, not sure if that had anything to do with temp sensor reading....sorry but that's all I can tell you until I get back next week and have access to my other system.

 

Do NOT buy the 620. It is way overpriced. The upgrade price to it will drop considerably. Also, it is almost certainly without USB 3.

 

Mentioning gaming and battery together in a logical conclusion - now that's redonk

In my summary, I say if you are looking mobility then MBP; gaming then Envy. I do not frame this decision as you have solely within the context of "gaming machine". That would obviate Envy.

 

Actually, if you want a gaming machine then you should get the Asus. Anyone conflicted between the Asus and the MBP should get the Envy.

 

HP has mis-categorized, and thus mis-priced.

The i5-540M and the i7-620M will probably be within 10% performance of each other, as they are likely the same chip design, with the i5 series having 1M of it's cache disabled (3MB vs 4MB).

 

They are completely different chips. i7-620M is an Arrandale in disguise, that is, it is just like the i5 series. I would expect it to perform no more than 10% faster than the i5-540M.

The two Quad core i7s ("QM"s) will win and lose benchmarks compared to the i5s depending upon whether the application is highly optimized for parallel computations or not (decoding, rendering).

 

Interestingly, according to notebookcheck, the Core i5-540M scored 2905 on 3DMark06 CPU, where the Core i7-720QM only managed to just beat out the i5 with a score of 3062.

I do not, however, know how well optimized 3DMark06 is for multi-core operations.

(Source: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html)

 

Yeah the i5-540M should benchmark around the same as a i7-720QM from separate benchmarks I've run in comparison to ones released from other press sources.

As a side note is there any reason why the beats edition price went up $300 without any real specs change?

 

To answer a few previos questions:

- With IOS disabled, dual SSD and a fresh win7 install with all my apps loaded and configured: 23 Seconds from power button to password entry (via my storm2 stopwatch)

- The HDMI audio codec is wonderful! Fully supporting 2ch thru 8ch at 192khz/24bit. Easily configurable and very stable, great for music, gaming and bluray. The audio card is (was) identical to the ones from any Radeon 4000 series cards. Our new envys will be the same, but with HD bitstreaming support (powerdvd9 works very well with my 5000 series desktop card for this)

- GPU card temp stayed very manageable even while overclocked on the 4830m, about 70c. The cooling system is designed properly in my opinion. The ATI GPU Clock tool designed for the 5970 works well for temp monitoring and overclocking the 4830m, and i HOPE my new 5830.

 

What clocks did you run with the mobility 4830?

 

EDIT: Find my post from a few weeks ago: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5671609#post5671609

If i recall correctly it was 600/900 stable. The memory speed increase made the biggest difference vs the increased core speed. I hit a max of 9400 in 3Dmark06 (defaults) with the 9.12 drivers loaded.

I cant wait for the 5830 to arrive and pump out some 10k+ numbers. my date isnt til the 27th supposedly, but if my last envy suipment was any indication... it will be a week early

 

So you can overclock the video cards in these things? It isn't locked?

Lazy kids. Back in my day we had to NVFlash the BIOS with the new clocks. Both ways.

Many good 7800gtxs were lost. They were so young...


Edit: 70C for your GPU temp? That was my idle temp on the 7800gtx. On load it would max out at 115C.

 

Haha, so true! Better software allows for saved hardware!

The cooling system on the envy is great regarding efficiency vs size/power!

115c? Wowsers! I get my desktop card to about 95c and it smells funny already... Of course silicon doesnt melt until about 1400c, so we are still within a safe range it seems... hehe

 

Yes, but you recall the fuss around the edge to edge glass? Just one example of how we do not trust until we have seen it ourselves.

 

My desktop 4830 reaches 115C. Basically I set the fan at just a hair higher than it needs to be to stop it from reaching 120C and shutting the computer down. It is blissfully silent though.

So can you use ATI overdrive?

 

The overdrive tab is absent on the mobility cards, but id be willing to pay a decent amount of cash to someone who provides a hack to get it back and have it be functional! I hear the ATI drivers are open source now, any programmers with a few spare moments? Thanks

Overdrive is just SO DANG CONVIENIENT compared to loading up a program and messing with numbers everytime!

 

Thanks for the info and the help you gave me in getting my original 4830 drivers updated. I have returned my i7 and am patiently waiting my new i5-540m model (with dual SSD's this time) which is schedule to ship tues. Did you go with the i7 again?

Haven't looked into details on the 5830 beyond the basic specs yet. Have you done any research as to driver options that may work with the 5830 ? Since I'll be getting mine before you let me know if you want any info on the new machine before yours arrives. I plan to run some out of the box benchmarks which I'll post here and then most likely do a clean O.S. and update the results.

 

Can I suggest the http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nzxt_cryo_s&num=1

3x 120mm fans, keeps my envy about 10 degrees cooler than it would otherwise be (Envy runs very hot).

 

Does anyone have invisible shield by zagg on their hp envy 15?

 

lol well said I guess its just all the fanboys coming out of the wood work since something came to the market and it amazes me people keep bashing on the envy for being a mbp copycat, which I dont think it is beyond some of the aesthetics. I compare it to someone saying 'your car is just a copy cat to a mercedes because it has 4 wheels a hood a windshield and a leather interior.'

lol, maybe i'm just tired but i found that quite hilarious.