*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 1*

Webcam troubles :
Under the advanced settings you can set color temperature etc. manually (and turn off the IR, which looks a bit... off.)

On the antivirus:

I used Kaspersky, but as written above it really takes a toll on smaller laptops. Don't know how it'll perform on the Envy - probably better

I am giving Microsofts antivirus a go right now, and it seems pretty lightweight in processing.

 

I'd like to claim the honor of being the first person in this thread to offer the sad tale of my stolen Envy 15.

What really sticks in my craw is that I've got to type this on my wife's Macbook!

Our house was broken into. They took almost nothing aside from my laptop. They didn't even bother to pocket the PDA, thumb drive or external optical drive, etc., that were sitting right next to the Envy.

My wife now regrets making fun of me for my habit of hiding the machine (in a sort of comical but ingenious location) before leaving the house. The day it happened, of course, was one of the rare times I didn't bother to hide it.

So I really, really need to get work done over our xmas break, and that laptop was my only machine outside the office. So I bit the bullet -- and still can't quite believe I did this -- and ordered a quick-ship replacement, even though it means having a redundant optical drive. I did not originally buy the slice battery, so at least that won't have been uselessly duplicated.

Anyway, I've still got my health, such as it is, and my little family!

Moral: Beware of increased holiday break-ins. Hide your Envys (Envies?) if you leave them at home!

 

That sucks, Gnu

Did you call the police?

 

Sorry to hear that. Strange story too - only the Envy gone. What part of the world?

 

Thanks sleey -- yeah, the cops are on it.

Southern US.
Forgot to mention that they also stole a full bottle of gin! That was a blow.

 

Oh wow - good you didn't get hurt in the process !

An Envy and a bottle of Gin ?! I wonder what a profiler would make of that !

Don't let it ruin you holidays though

 

Sorry about the break-in. Maybe the name "Envy" isn't such a good idea, as the laptop no doubt seems enviable to all the thieves.

I had a friend at the coffeehouse I frequent suggest that I cover my Envy 15 with shoddy-looking stickers, to discourage any thieves sizing up the machine.

 

One of my friends bought a bright pink laptop skin to cover his £3k notebook.

Personally I would just take out a separate insurance policy on it - I never did understand that rather distateful colour, because in reality I've seen a few pink notebooks round lately.

 

I have been using Kaspersky for about five years. Installed it on the Envy as soon as I got the laptop. It works fine.

 

Hey! I posted this in the drivers thread but haven;t had a reply and was wondering whether someone here could help! I have done a fresh install of windows ultimate as the envy skin was conflicting with some of my poker software...I have got the mouse gestures working and updated the graphics card drivers however i still have a few issues...The light on the mute button is permanently on but it does work, when I installed windows the light was on I don't know whether this is why? Its not a big problem but it would be great to get it back to normal...Also, I can't get the envy shortcut button to work (the one that looks like a tick above the web shortcut) Does anyone know how I can get this to work? Any help is much appreciated!
Thanks

Olly

 

heh... one of the officers said it was common for even the most professional and disciplined thieves to take a beer out of the fridge.

hm, i wonder if stickers would even affix to the etching...

 

Hi guys.

This is just a followup post. I had an HP ENVY 1021 that was hitting 85 degrees on load. I took it back to the store, they did a stress test. It then hit 96 degrees celcius.
Vents were not blocked, on a wooden surface, in a cool airconditioned store.

Anyway, I have a replacement for it. Still seems to get very hot.
I bought a NZXT CRYO cooler for it.
While typing this using the cooler, the CPU is around the 50 degree mark. While playing ARMA2 yesterday, the temp got up to 75 degrees.

So unless, I have had bad luck and received 2 dodgy ones, I think it is advisable to invest in a good notebook cooler.

Otherwise I love the ENVY :->

(Is it designed to run on the toasty side? Is it using the metal case as a heat sink?)

 

Wetched Gnu...That sucks! I feel for you man. Just before X-mas and on a day that you didn't hide it? ouch... lol Did you have the LoJack software on there? Although you already ordered yours, others might like to know that a few weeks ago, HP is offering the LoJack 4-year plan for the price of a 1-year plan. Good deal if you ask me...






And to those talking about the AntiVirus, I am running Kaspersky. I have been running "Internet Protection" trial software from a few companies for the past few months. It is not nearly as intrusive or CPU intensive as some others... So I bought it once the trial was up.

 

I didn't have LoJack because I knew it was silly to imagine the notebook getting stolen

 

I have an issue and would be glad if anyone could help.

Plugged in headphones in the 3.5 jack and started playing counterstrike, everything was fine but when i started skype and used that at the same time, i got the skypeconversation in my headphones but all the other sounds came from the computerspeakers? I have tryed mixing around in the soundsettings but nothing seems to work. Anyone know how to get ALL the sound in the headphones?

 

sebbe1891, Try this for your headphone issue:

Plug in headphones > Double click on speaker symbol in task bar > Click drop down arrow under speaker symbol (above slide adjuster) > Select headphones

 

Try to open the IDT audio panel. Under "Independant Headphones" choose enable. Might do the trick

 

Guys, I've been doing all the requisite research on the current line of high-performance laptops and have my choices narrowed down to the Dell XPS 16 & the HP Envy 15.

The Envy is currently winning on account of its nice design, better vid card and upgradability, but I have a few questions:

Does anyone have the dual SSD option? If so, what is the performance like? Would you say its worth the upgrade price? I'm really on the fence with this one and can't make my mind up to go dual SSD or stick with the plain ol' spinny drives. I'm willing to pay the bigger $$ if it gets me outstanding performance.

I hope to make the purchase by Tuesday of this week.

Thanks!

 

ATI CCC 9.12 works perfectly with the Mobility Modder, apparently the issue was with ATIs driver certification in 9.11 for x64.

Also, my system starts up and shuts down faster now. Maybe by 30% or so...

*AND* I can no longer see the lines on my screen! ( When I examine the screen *really* closely, I can see the LCD screen door effect somewhat ).

I used the Radeon 4800 drivers and all is good. One thing that I did notice, my previous Radeon Mobility drivers ran the screen at a 59hz refresh rate, whereas the new modded Radeon driver runs the screen at the normal 60hz refresh rate.

Bogus!

But I love my Envy...

( Warning: I am not stating that all results will be the same, especially for the guy with 20/15 vision! )

 

That is the worst thing that I have heard - hardware wise - since I had my Tapwave Zodiac stolen, as I loved it almost as much as I now love my Envy!

 

I have the 1021tx (i guess your a fellow aussie (maybe kiwi))

I did not hit such high temps, max 75 while playing borderlands on almost max settings. This was in a unairconditioned room (room temps probably in high 20's), with no cooler.

Under normal load was about 50c

I'm still looking for a good, cooler, but want something thats portable too.

btw i guess your someone else on the next bench

 

I have the dual SSD - original HP install. It is very very fast. Complete boot in about 30 sec. I was sick and tired of 10-12 minute boot up times under Windows Vista on my Thinkpad T61p and was ready to pay the price for a dramatic improvement. Also, the fact that SSD runs quieter and uses less power are important benefits.

 

An interesting thing I found out as I was on the phone with HP recently -- and I apologize if this is old news -- they say they're no longer selling the Envy 15 through any retail outlet. Wonder why...

 

I'm glad this will be my post here but I'm seriously considering buying the Envy 15. However, I heard the new Aarondale processor's will be used on the Envys and therefore I'm waiting until Q1 of next year.

How likely will the new processor be used? How likely will there be any significant or close-to-significant updates to the Envy?

Thanks!

 

as far as i know arrandale uses less power and it has lesser L3 Cache size than clarksfield.

 

And of course only 2 cores and the integrated graphics controller.

I would not expect to see Arrandale in the Envy 15, but would not be suprised if it made it's way to the Envy 13 whenever it gets refreshed.

 

very true. i really think arrandale would make its way to envy 13 rather than the envy 15.

 

any guess if the envy15 will be refreshed anytime soon?

 

No.
---

 

Please can you give details of how you got the 9.12 to work with mobility modder

Once done, do you still need to have the computer in test mode as the driver is unsigned?

Regards

 

Yep am in Aussie. Probably a cooler climate than you. The NZXT CRYO has 3 120mm fans so is pretty good at cooling. None of the wimpy 70mm nonsense. But it is large, a few inches wider than the envy. So not portable...

 

"No, the 9.12 driver is properly signed" - is what I initially thought but apparently Windows 7 corrupts the driver even if it installs correctly. I installed and ran the driver successfully for 4 to 5 reboots and several hours, but at some point it gets corrupted and will no longer reboot. I have had the windows startup repair fix it successfully, but then windows eventually corrupts it again...

There is a 'hotfix' driver update for CCC 9.12 that changes the driver version to 8.682 ( the current version is 8.681 ) to fix some annoying, or more than so, errors in the CCC 9.12 release, but that will not even install correctly.

ATI seems to be having issues with properly signing its drivers.

I am going to try the dseo13b thing...

 

Wow 96 C !! That just far out ! The i7s, afaik, can tolerate up to 100c (I imagine for a very short time.) I would imagine it should have throttled down way before hitting such a high temp.

Or maybe the HWmon isn't giving the correct temp - still it's crazy high !

Using firmware F07, I can't get any higher than 70 - 72 C playing L4D for an extended period (well 3 hours or so.)

I tested first on a glass table for two campaigns, and then on wood for one campaign. It preferred the glass table, but did OK on the wood. I had all Powerplan settings on maximum performance (with min-max processor use at 100-100%)

Ambient Temp was 20 C.

On idle (surfing watching youtube) it runs about 38-50 depending of course on the programs running.

I don't know if there is a more demanding way of stressing the CPU. Well, prime95 (or what it is called) would, but that's an artificial program and doesn't really represent "normal" use.

Anyone know if Crysis is harder on the CPU ?

 

I have the 90 watt charger and it charges both my slice and my envy at the same time. maybe it does not perform a quick charge though.

 

Hey I am going to hold you to this I will have to start looking at this becuase I am unable to find a replacement laptop that I like as much... so fare the clunky m6500 seems the only other option. but dell already turned me off with some shoddy shipping delays.

 

Wait so it kinda works but not really? I think i want to wait until it totally works then.

 

Hey eagle17, i'm posting my same reply that i posted on the next bench.

thats great news eagle17!

Can you say how long it takes to charge the standard battery by its self and then the slice? You say it may not work with the quick charge option, did you have to disable the Bios quick charge option to make it work?

Could you post a pic of the label on your unit? i would like to check the amps and voltage that it supplies

Also this PSU comes with the correct connector?

 

I used all the info that I have gleaned here and elsewhere and am currently running 9.12, apparently stable.

1) I started from a working version of sp45189 HP Envy 15 video drivers.

2) I ran dseo13b.exe and turned on test mode - then restarted.

3) I unpacked my previously downloaded Radeon 4800 CCC 9.12 drivers, canceled the installation, and applied my previously installed Mobility Modder.

4) I did a manual driver update via the Device manager by navigating to the:

C:\ATI\Support\9-12_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_wdm_enu\Driver\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF

and selecting the:

CH_92499.inf

5) I ran the dseo13b.exe and selected sign driver:

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\atikmdag.sys

- then restarted

6) I ran the Setup.exe in C:\SwSetup\SP45189\ selected uninstall and then Custom and removed everything that it would let me but *not* the drivers - then restarted.

7) I ran the Setup.exe in the C:\ATI\Support\9-12_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_wdm_enu\ and selected install and then Custom and deselected everything it let me *except* the CCC - then restarted.

8) I ran dseo13b.exe and selected remove watermarks, but it didn't work. So I downloaded the RemoveWatermark_20090509.zip from the pop-up window, unzipped it and ran RemoveWatermarkX64.exe, selecting 'Y'. I waited for it to finish rebuilding the cache - then restarted.

I am typing on it now.

I really wanted the advanced features in the 9.12 driver set, which is why I have gone to all this trouble. But other than that I am not promising squat. ATI drivers need some work. Sigh...

Even so, it feels better to me with these drivers, as I said before 60hz vs 59hz.

I am busy fighting off a virus, so I ain't doin' no benchmarking...

And a serious visual critique should be done by someone whose eyes don't look like something that the cat has been playing with...

But I like

 

I dont think that quick charge has anything to do with the power of the psu, but rather how and how much it charges the batteries.

I have both psu's. The large on is really big and heavy, I would estimate twice the size in volume as the 90w. I would not get it again, and so far I have not used it. I am unable to check the specs of it now, but I know they made me wonder if it really fits the envy at all. I'll check when possible.

 

Does any one know what the "Essential System Updates for Microsoft Windows 7" download on the HP drivers page is? I am going to do a clean install and wondering if that's necessary or what it does.

Also any of the MediaSmart tools worth installing?

What software do you use to watch bluray movies?

 

Edit to add, this is one of the best threads I've ever seen at NBR, lovely how the user reviews are being so well organized. Kudos to Serg or whoever is doing it.

What are the non-viewable differences between the standard and the Beats edition? Beats is plastic finish instead of the metal, or black finish over it? Is there a weight difference? Temperature difference? Flex difference?

Anyway. Jesus. I didn't even know about the Envy until a few days ago, just happened to click on this thread from homepage sidebar. Alienware just lost a sale. I was all ready to buy that M15x too, just couldn't decide on screen res. Although it sounds like these Envys will start blowing up in a few weeks lol. I'd love it if I could add my own logo there instead of the corporate "b" though, say the Einsturzende Neubauten logo. That would look good on the Beats edition.

 

Are the envy 15s shipping with the edge to edge display yet?
And are the hard drives inside 1.8 or 2.5" sata?

 

one more thing folks, after installing all drivers (so I believe), device manager is showing a "Unknown Device" under "Other devices", so I guess I am missing a driver. Not sure which one. The hardware ids show ACPI\HPQ0004

 

No edge to edge
Its a 2.5" 500gb or 1.8" if you go 2xSSD or hybrid (1sata + 1 ssd)

Google says its the HP 3D DriveGuard

But i cant find it in the Envy Drivers page.

 

Thanks whoever answered my first question. How is HP able to ship computers with ssd so cheaply? Are they not intel or unbranded or something? Or maybe g1 drives instead of g2? So, I can't possibly fit 2 2.5" drives in it? Too bad. I'm liking this computer less and less.

 

you are right, and it's this one:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&os=4063&product=3995938

 

HP MediaSmart DVD Software

 

Well, looks like I might end up just sending back my envy and just wait around to see what CES brings be it a new laptop or an updated envy. After all my customer service issues with them over hardware problems and otherwise I've just decided to move on for now and continue looking for the laptop for me.

I'm not giving up on the envy because I think it's a bad laptop by any means, and would in all likelihood have kept it had I not run into my particular hardware problems with my graphics card failing and especially the inconsistent way customer service has treated me. I really hope that for everyone else who got one it's working out great (haven't been back to notebookreview in a while)

 

I ordered the Alienware i7 M15x and will wait until they release the E17 or refresh the E15 with E2E and two standard HDD's, or some other more appealing options.

 

Yeah I think I'll be waiting on those updates myself in addition to an updated GPU since the new ATI cards should be right around the corner. Just hoping CES 2010 brings something nice to the table.

How do you like your alienware? Did you get it instead of the envy 15 or did you have a chance to own an envy?