*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 1*

This is indeed very useful, thank you very much first of all
what about binding other functions, say starting another programme of my choice, to the keys though?

cheers

 

I want to love this computer so badly! I got my Envy15 about a month ago and almost everything about it is perfect. It runs smoothly, the heat and and fan are not an issue, my battery slice works fine BUT... the keyboard intermittently freezes completely when I turn on the laptop!

I talked to HP, (US call center) got the BIOS update, every other update I could find, reinstalled the drivers about a hundred times, ect... still every couple days the thing refuses to acknowledge all keypresses (even F10 for BIOS at start-up) until the next morning. Erg!!

That said, I have not seen a laptop I like more, even if I felt like dropping $5,000 on some custom machine. If HP just f***ing did a little more QC, this thing would be a god. As it is I don't know what I'm going to do, school starts Monday and that is the whole point of this laptop.

 

i got this laptop the 1060ea version

had it for a week, i love it. desktop power in a slim laptop

no problems really, i just update the touchpad drivers.

i really like the HP theme even though it does lose aero.



its faster than my previous core duo laptops and desktop.

 

Thinking of slotting in an intel x25-e 64GB as found one for a decent price. Am I going to have any performance or other issues with putting this in the Envy 15? Want to know before I drop the cash! Thanks

 

Yes, this works for the Calculator key; but I'm still looking for a solution for the Print key. Apparently the Print key sends a series of at least 2 codes, not just one. The KeyTweak program can re-map the first code it sends, but the machine still sends the subsequent one(s).

I suppose one could try re-mapping those other codes to something else with a neutral effect, but that would require some other method besides the Full Teach one, and I haven't figure out how you might do that.

 

has anyone tried to install OS X on envy 15?

 

Wanwei, I believe that discussion on installing OSX onto a non-mac machine is prohibited on this forum.

How is everyone finding the HP theme task bar I keep seeing and hearing about occassionally? I haven't tried W7 yet, quite looking forward to it now! Shane5578, what did you mean by it disables the Windows aero ability?

 

I'm really interested in the Envy 15 and I've read several hundred posts in this forum. I went to Fry's and checked it out for about an hour and there are some serious problems with this machine...

* The horizontal lines problem is real and I believe it's just a (horrible) property of the screen. It was designed this way and there is no fixing it (unless they replace it with a screen by another manufacturer). The lines are very thin and white (maybe every 10 vertical pixels?), so they show up against blue, brown, medium gray, and dark gray (I tried many solid backgrounds using MSPaint). The lines don't show up against black or white. It gives many surfaces a textured look, sort of like parchment. This alone is a deal breaker for such a high end machine.

* The touchpad is downright horrible. As mentioned in other posts, it can be customized and I tried out many of the customizations. After customizing it, it still seemed unreliable and dodgy. There are at least two things can't be fixed with the settings.

1. My palm randomly brushes against the touchpad while typing and this makes the cursor jump all over the screen. The touchpad can be switched on and off, but that's sort of a ridiculous solution (but I can't see a better solution - maybe that's why they put the touchpad on/off button in the top left of the pad). The software had a mode to make it less sensitive to palm brushes (so they know it's a problem!) but I didn't see significant improvement, plus it degrades the sensitivity when you're trying to use it. Now I understand why most touchpads are smaller and recessed!

2. It seems impossible to move the cursor around and leave your thumb on the left mouse button. The cursor jumps all around and it's a huge frustration. The best solution is to not use the left button at all and use a quick tap of the forefinger as the left click.

* The heat might be reasonable compared with other powerhouse laptops, but it's just too hot on the topside to type on. I can take the heat on the bottom (using something between the laptop and my lap), but this much heat on the top is too much. Perhaps this can be mitigated on the right side by going with the solid state drive. Also, removing the bloatware might help (there were 78 processes, but the CPU use was ridiculously low). With virtually no open apps, the machine is just very toasty.

I really wanted to like this laptop - hopefully HP addresses the screen problem and the touchpad issues. I suspect not much can be done about the heat issues since the components run so hot.

 

On the contrary to the many negative feedbacks, I have so far found the touch pad top-class, honestly. No quite so as that on the MacBook I admit, but is as good as any you could get on a PC. At least much better than that on an XPS 16 I returned.
Of course as many have pointed out - it is simply habit issue - my thumb is always in the air when I don't press buttons. For me the touch and smoothness of the pad is amazing; scrolling, three-finger flick and tap zones are so useful for me. I constantly have to think twice which to use - I have had with my previous laptop a Razer Deathadder gaming mouse as well.

 

I am posting this from my envy which has been on all day and it is barely warm to the touch both top and bottom (Core temps 38C).

I tghought the same thing when I first used the demo model at a Best Buy. I ended up finding out that that unit was running the original BIOS F04. and none of the other updates from HP had been installed.

As far as the lines are concerned I can't comment as I have never seen this issue on my display. The touchpad works great after the new driver update was installed.

I would check to see if you may have been using one of the original demo units with the old drivers before you make a final decision.

 

Its funny how there are so many different reports on the heat of this unit. Some people report very hot running temp's, others report it runs quite cool? Maybe its something to do with the manufacturing process?

Rabinator, bear in mind that the unit you tried was a display model. I've tried some in the past that have been a joke, when I knew the actual unit would be fine.

 

the temp varies, its actually cooler to touch when playing games.

i think the fans turn off, when in 2d, so parts of the casing starts to get hotter. if there is alot of activity like flash

 

JJB - how are you liking the screen? I assume you have done a custom profile....are you getting fair color renditition?
I use my laptop for photo editing while in the field, as well...currently using a Canon 5D2, so about the same size files as you, once converted from RAW.....

 

Well my new Envy is cool - in every sense of the word - and only gets a little warm if its on the bed and the ventilator holes are partially covered.

 

i have contacted HP about the lines on my screen. I made it very clear to them that while I am willing to send this in for repairs, if they don't see the lines and I get the machine back with lines on it, there will be a problem. I had them specifically instruct the technician to call me if they cannot replicate the problem (aka if they can't see it). I pushed for a replacement to no avail (spoke to a supervisor) and they assured me that they would either fix the problem or replace it. We'll see.

 

I have calibrated the screen multiple times with spyder 3 pro. At first I thought the calibrator was off because the colors looked way to warm. Once I compared it side by side with a trusted (calibrated) CRT I realized that it was actually right on the money, it was the stark difference between factory settings and calibrated that made it appear to warm. I would say the color gamut is very good for a notebook and brightness is uniform across the screen with excellent contrast for shadow detail.

A couple of problems I've found are: The color shifts a little when changing the brightness so I have to use different cals. in different lighting situations. Also the main brightness control on the keyboard only adjusts in 10% steps so in order to get a specific brightness level (say 80 nits) you have to open the power plan settings to get a slider with precise control to match your target, the problem here is that my calibration software blacks out the desktop when checking brightness so you can't dial in the level in real time it takes a lot of trial and error. Finally the viewing angle could be better, while bold (saturated) colors don't seem to shift much, the lighter pale colors (like light blue sky) shift significantly with a minor change in vertical viewing angles. This is no worse than on my sisters mac book pro but it is more subtle so if I'm not paying attention....

I have not tried to use an external monitor yet but I am hoping that Win 7 and or ATI will support seperate calibrations rather than just mirror the output from the desktop like Win XP did. Anybody know about this?

 

If it works like Vista, there should be no problems assigning different profiles for each display.

 

please let me know what they do as i sent mine in for two weeks and then got it back with no problem found.

 

Previous to the Envy I had a Dell 9400 with the 7900gs. This got pretty hot and died once during the 3 year warranty period. Dell were pretty good about it and got it fixed quickly with no arguing.
I am on my second Envy now. I returned the first one due to it getting up to 97 degrees (store tested it).
My second one seems to run a little bit cooler. During internet browsing the temp is about 50-60 C without using the cooling pad. Doing anything taxing to the CPU will see the temperatures go over 80C. With the cooling pad, the temperatures are about 10 C cooler though. If I do anything taxing then I will use the notebook cooler and it won't get hotter than 70C.
Personally I think that because of the metal case, it is using it partly as a heat sink which is why it gets quite hot to touch. The e1705 was plastic.
Get a good cooler for this laptop is my advice. Apart from the heat, I have found it to be excellent so far.

 

I've called HP and searched their website trying to get an extra 6-cell. Can you point me in the right direction?

 

hey i just had problem with excessive windows boot time. sometimes it would hang. it didnt used to do that before.

i uninstalled norton antivirus and it was ok again, faster boot time infact.

 

You should be able to get it here:
http://partsurfer.hp.com/
Put in part #586025-001 and select your country.

 

i cited these specific instances and said that if I got it back in the same condition there would be a major issue and that I would demand a replacement. I told them very specifically if they cannot see the issue to contact me. i don't care how minor this is, when i am in photoshop, i see it, and I shouldn't have to deal with this.

 

After almost 15 hours on the phone, HP finally admitted to the build mistake and they escalated my case. Unfortunately they could not figure out a viable solution to my problem. Only solution is to reinstall the recovery on a drive equal to or larger in size than the original RAID volume (320 GB). No SSD big enough for that and I'm leaving country after next week so no time for an exchange.

I bit the bullet and purchased a new copy of Windows 7, disabled RAID 0, and did a fresh install. Except for bluish webcam, everything is now working perfectly. HP refused to reimburse me for the new OS I had to purchase - oh well...

 

They could at least give you 15 hours worth of customer service salary, since you not only had to do everything yourself, but give their tech support people a free RAID seminar...

 

I bit the bullet and purchased a new copy of Windows 7, disabled RAID 0, and did a fresh install. Except for bluish webcam, everything is now working perfectly. HP refused to reimburse me for the new OS I had to purchase - oh well...


Glad to hear its working for you now, one way or another.

How did you disable the raid0? I tried but am unable to use the ctrl-I to get into the raid config. Can you post any tricks you learned regarding the raid from this experience you had? Thanks.

 

Thanks for detailed reply, JJB - I repped you...

 

Well I finally had a play with one of these in the local store today. I nearly missed it, was in the far corner on the bottom row below heaps of big Toshiba laptops. I thought this was a premium product? Thought it was kinda weird having it tucked away like that.

Anyway, I was quite impressed, nice build, looks great, quite light! I personally thought the touchpad was bloody great. There was no internet connected to the laptop, but the limited amount of scrolling I did try performed flawlessly. Nice and big, might be the first time I can forget about packing a mouse when going away. I do only use one finger on the pad though, always been a touch clicker, thumb stays in the air. Might have a big impact.

The model did feel a little warm to the touch on the palm rests, it was just idling in windows. The model had the i7 820. Very tempted now, will hang on till the 7th when we start getting some announcements from CES 2010, alienware hinted at a possible new portable laptop in a Dell blog.

 

I received my Envy a few days ago. I have not had a lot of time to use it yet. So far my thoughts are:

- LOVE the Beats edition...it may be a fingerprinty magnet, but it looks sweet.
- SSD/regular hard drive combo was set up right
- FAST...and it gets warm, but not too much
- Slice battery stayed on good. Two locking mechanisms makes it secure
- I had two boot ups where the system checked the disks? Not sure why. Hope it is not an issue.
- Not running too hot...feels like my old inspiron.
- Touch pad is annoying...the two finger scroll doesn't always work.
- The power Brick IS ligitimately a BRICK. Never seen a slim laptop have something that big attached to it!

I am still removing Bloat Ware....the HP Photo app is annoying. And I need to a) Check they type of SDRAM they gave me and b) ensure all the drivers are up to date. But what a sweet laptop.

Thanks again everyone for your tips and tricks and issues. It really is helping me a lot in how to set this laptop up.

 

I popped a movie (WB...Spiderman) into my (external) DVD drive and instead of playing got a message telling me that I needed to update the video card driver because the copy protection system is not compatible with the (current) ATI driver. I visited the ATI website and see that there are newer drivers available...but I also see that some on this site have encountered problems updating.

Has anyone here successfully upgraded the ATI drivers to the newer version?

My data;
Envy 15
Windows 7 Ultimate (64bit)
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 Series (Driver Version: 8.632.0.0)

The newer driver (from the AMD site...)

 

it can be done if you take the correct steps, read back the last few pages and we gave detailed steps on installing the new 9.12 drivers

 

I disabled the RAID using the ctrl+i technique, which does not work every time. Rapidly tapping ctrl+i with machine gun fire-like speed seems necessary.

 

Yes please check and report back. I've seen reports of some getting 1066 ram while others get 1333. Not sure what the deal is with that. I got 1066. I believe they all are supposed to have 1333.

 

I am also the proud owner of a new Envy 15, replacing an almost brand-new Alienware M15X (bought this summer, right before the refresh). The gaming performance, subjectively, is as good - it runs games like Empire: Total War and Dragon Age at the same speed and detail level as the Alienware, so I am pleased.

So far, I have had only two issues, and maybe someone could help with them:

1) Changing the volume or muting the system results in an icon appearing on the screen, which is good. It also switches out of the application I am in (full screen Youtube, a game, etc) which is bad. Does anyone know how to deal with this issue?

2) I had what was, apparently, an overheating situation. The computer shut down suddenly, and would not turn on for approximately an hour. There was no warning, and no record in the system logs. I can only assume it was overheating, even though I was doing nothing intensive. Anyone have similar issues?

Thanks for all of the useful reading so far!

 

My Envy was just built 2 weeks ago, it came with 3 of these sticks:

http://www.micron.com/products/partdetail.aspx?part=MT16JSF25664HZ-1G1

Looks like 1066, which doesnt really bother me much. I get a 7.0 WEI score with them, which is satisfactory to me. Although if I could choose, of course id take the 1333's. which are Micron recommended right from the link i posted above.

 

Thanks. Not sure why they are doing that. The parts page only lists 1333 ram for this machine.

 

I had this problem with both of my Envys (long story), but in both cases the problem just went away mysteriously. After about 3 sessions with the game or application, the volume and mute buttons continued to work, but they stopped switching me out of the application.

Make sure your BIOS is upgraded to 1.07

Yeah, you should get a notebook cooler for gaming, and make sure you don't keep your machine on your bed or anything soft that will block the intakes.

 

Wow! Amazing laptop, just picked it up today from Best Buy--I can't believe that the reviews for this beast haven't been at least marginally better than they have been.

Question: My batteries don't seem to be charging up to 100% for whatever reason. My smaller battery seems to be getting up there, but the larger slice seems stuck (plugged in, not charging) at 95%.

Should I upgrade my BIOS to the newer one? I thought I maybe had a fixed version because the touchpad, unlike the one in the store, is perfect and non-jumpy.

 

you should load the latest bios.

There is a setting in the bios that allows to request the system to charge the main battery fully (100%) before starting charging the secondary one. By default, it charges the main battery to certain level only, then switches to charge the secondary. I think this is the behavior you are observing.

 

Mate, out of interest, how did you find the size and weigt of the original Alienware M15x compared too the HP Envy 15? It appears to be alot smaller than the new one?

With the laptop shutting down, was it hot at the time? Interesting problem...

 

Any chances we might see a refresh with the 5000 series ATI + core i5 + switchable graphics?

 

how are you determining that you only have 1066?
here is the memory that shipped wth mine

samsung m471b5673eh1-ch9

these are 1333 modules owever some programs show the speed as pc3-10660. so dont get confused over the different ways of showing memory speed. you should see your memory speed as 667mhz in cpuz

john.

 

ya I've posted this previously. CPUZ shows I have four sticks of pc3-8500 running at 533MHz.

 

If you guys go into the system diagnostics when you first boot the machine, it will tell you what kind of ram is in the machine as well.

 

Not much chance of a refresh any time soon. But the Envy 14 and 17 are coming out so the 14 might have a i5 switchable graphics not sure about the 5000 series though.

 

Part of the reason I switched was that the Alienware M15X is a beast, and the refresh has actually made it larger and heavier. It was too heavy to use anywhere but a table, and is almost twice as thick as the Envy.

Oddly, the laptop didn't seem hot when it shut down, but I didn't have any monitor running. Intense gaming never made it uncomfortable before, so I'll hope this was just a fluke.

 

Hi all

Im the happy owner of a Envy 15 ;-))

I have a question though - Is it possible to configure the F-keys to work normally instead of using funktion key + F-keys?

Ive been using this laptop for a month and i must say im overall satisfied!

I hope someone has an answer to my little issue

Regards
Ryydhoff

 

Yes you can change the F keys back to standard by going into the BIOS setup -- keep tapping the 'escape' key during startup -- you'll find the option on the 3rd (?) tab I believe.

 

At the very least there's a USB 3.0 revision in the pipeline if you look at the end of this article regarding the envy 15. So here's hoping accompanying that there's a 5XXX series upgrade along with maybe a infinity display option, new designs (etched ones that is), and maybe even a backlit keyboard (although this is more a small extra)

http://www.pcworld.com/article/185986/hp_puts_usb_30_ports_in_new_laptops.html?tk=rss_news

 

Thank you for the Quick reply, i wish there was a "on the fly" solution

Regards