*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 2*

@JJB
LOL. well the basic answer was correct tho. I just forgot reading about the chipset limitation so tossed in the maybe at some point comment. Wasn't like I said it was promised or would happen.

@bigcat400
A couple places I know of are direct2drive, ebgames, steam & or Stardock. Also there are some online games that sell digital copies as well like ncsoft

 

Hey guys, I need some help with an important question I really need help with ASAP.

How much battery life do you think I could get with the 820QM, Dual SSD, 100% brightness, Power saver mode, and 9-Cell battery?

 

Try Steam. =D
http://store.steampowered.com/

 

It really depends on what you are going to be doing with it in the power saver mode. I would say 3-4 hours with GPU intensive use and up to 4-5 hours with light GPU / CPU useage, like web browsing or office type work. That's also assuming you'll have the 6 cell battery in addition to the 9 cell slice.

 

Could someone who's gotten a Gen2 with the slot load bluray please post the part number?
Sincere Thanks

 

And Grand Old Games ( http://www.gog.com)

 

25SP7CD00E0

 

It's the scaling style. ATI preserves the aspect ratio by default, and it sounds like your Nvidia cards are stretching the picture to fit the display. There's nothing wrong with your settings, it's just personal preference. I honestly prefer things to be like you have them set up, but if you want to change them: http://futuremark.yougamers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=111452

 

Actually, the correct part# seems to be: 576832-001

The # I posted above was on the plastic packaging. This one was on the player itself under the label "HP Spare".

 

Thanks folks. Will try these out.

 

Thanks, tried to look it up in the parts store but it didn't recognize the number, go figure.

 

try this one: 576832-001

The other one was listed on the wrap. This one was on the player itself under the label "HP Spare".

 

You can try Steam which is a legitimate PC Game purchase site.

 

And microsoft's game for windows live.

 

Hi Peeps (c:

I am buying a new laptop and am stuck between the Envy 15 1110ea and a laptop that is based on a Clevo modal ( http://www.kobaltcomputers.co.uk/acatalog/g860.html)

The main differences between the two are the envy has 2gb more memory (8gb total) and a better gfx card (other has gtx285m). However the Clevo one has a better processor (one above, the i7 820qm is it?) They are both about the same price.

It will be used for everything from music production and website design to web browsing. My "all go to machine".

I am swaying towards the HP only because of the memory and the gfx card. The 2 things holding me back are this:

1) Has the heat problem been resolved now? From my readings in this thread it seems so. Any input from 1110ea owners appreciated.

2) Is the gfx card that much better than the gtx285m? All I know is it supports dx11 where as the gtx doesnt. How important is that ( i like playing games but I dont play loadsa of games, just the occasional one or two).

Also if you think I should go for the Clevo (or again any experience of the same model) please let me know (c:

Thanks so much, much love x

EDIT: have edited my post thanks to below comment. Sorry about that!

 

Someone correct if I'm wrong, but I think that talking about violating Apple's user agreement is not allowed on these forums. Just buy an Apple if you need to use OS X. You can install Windows also via Bootcamp.

 

I have changed my post, thank you (c:

Buying a mac is the last option as I would rather not get ripped off. If the new MBP's can not compete (and i bet they cant) with either of 2 above options i'd be hard pushed to buy one.

 

Sephira,

I can't answer the questions re: heat and the graphics cards with certainty, though if I remember correctly the 5830 is better than the GTX285m.

However, if the only reason for considering the Clevo was the i7 820QM, the Envy also has that as an option if you configure it. It (Envy) can also hold up to 16GB ram.

David

 

I forget who it was that recommended the microphone/speaker splitter adapter I got (normally used for iPhones, I guess) -- but I'm wondering what others' experiences are with it.

I used it for the first time today, and it makes for some poor voice recording. It's like the sound had to work its way through lots of gauze; with the addition of a nice buzz in the background.

Does anybody else use a combo adapter? Any good ones?

 

I too would be interested in some reports/links. I have several good headsets but they all have the Mic/heaphone plugs seperate.

 

The GTX285m, which is a refresh of hte gtx280m, I'm assuming should be better than the 5830 by a healthy margin.

It's more of a competitor to the 5870 (they both are 11.5-12K 3dmark06 without overclocking).

 

can anyone help me tweak the webcam,the image is purple all the time

 

I have found the Envy 15 to be exceptionally skittish when it comes to video drivers, and AMD/ATI apparently has had some issues with improperly signed drivers.

I have only experienced the black screen when I was running anything other than the original 8.632's ( I think that is the right version ), and although the 8.700's are properly signed I have not been running them long enough to tell ( although these are the first drivers that I have installed since I got the Envy that reported that they were indeed properly signed - there are Catalyst 9.12's that are apparently WHQL certified, but by the time I found them I found the Catalyst 10.1 - 8.700's... Sigh... ).

 

Kev,

My apologies, I knew I shouldn't have made the comment when I was not even sure of it.

 

Just got the replacement Envy in.

First thing I noticed was the Energy Star sticker on the lid. It's weaaaaaaaaaaak.

More updates later.

Also, for the guys with an estimated ship date of Feb 10th with 2day shipping, they will credit you the full shipping charge for being late.

 

Touchpad tips (I thought I'd share):

* If you websurf a lot, set the bottom left corner tap as "web page back" and the top right corner tap as "web page reload". This allows pretty leisurely websurfing with just the touchpad.

* Since the button clicking is crappy, it's a pain to right click. One solution is to set the bottom right tap zone to "right click" and enlarge the zone size to be the same as the right click button. That way a light tap of the right button acts like a right click.

 

What size AC adapter did they ship with it? 120W does not qualify for enegy star. Also what CPU did you get?

 

Also did you get a SSD, is it G1 or G2? Thx

 

Received 2 i5-540m machines 1/28 and both came with dual G2 SSD's.

 

it is the 120w.

I have the 520

 

I took my matte out in the sun today and it was very disappointing. Very dark and hard to see. Does anyone know how many nits this screen is?

I'm thinking of getting something else that has better screen brightness and battery life. Any suggestions?

 

I have a question using dual hard drives. Are there any performance losses by having Win7 on a SSD and using the 320GB HDD I have for storage? Will I need to configure it a certain way to utilize the SSD performance enhancements?

I have never used a SSD but i may buy one to install on my Envy configured with the 320GB HDD

 

You can't use the original 320 GB hard drive that came with your envy along with any SSD because they simply will not fit. You would have to buy a bracket, a 1.8" SSD and a 1.8" HDD to do what you want.

 

xvivecuervox, do you have dual SSDs on your Envy?

 

What is the size of the 320gb HDD? How can HP put that same drive with their 160GB SSD option? or is it a different one? I was under the impression there were two slots.

 

Well, no hangups, BSODs, ATI driver errors..nothing.

almost 3 months, and now I have my laptop. THANK LORD.

 

That's good to hear. Keep us posted if you run into any problems. Thx

 

I have been using the new drivers (8.681) for about 4 days now, with some serious testing the last 24hrs.

So far, I have noticed an improvement in the performance of C&C3:KW when I drop a nuke. It used to slow the system down, but now it renders it fine with only a slight hint of a slow down.

I have had the GPU up to 75C, and it has not yet shown me the black screen.

Something that I did notice, and I am not sure why it did not do so before, is that in the Action Centre there are listed about 11 incidents where the ATI driver has thrown a hissy fit which incidentally coincides with the number of black screens I have experienced with the current install.

Which is now lending credence to my original theory of a TDR gone wrong.

 

What's that mean? Is it something driver/software fixable? Or is it hardware failure?

 

Is everyone who is making recovery disks using an external drive? I noticed from HP website there is a USB recovery flask disk utility (although only available for previous models). Is it possible to use the utility from the older models or do we all need to wait until new drivers/software are posted?

Is there a simpler solution that would allow me to burn the recovery disks from a different computer? I am sorry if this has been discussed, I did search and found no info about this issue.

 

Sorry if this has been asked before, but how do you turn off the auto brightness of the screen? Thanks

 

Every black screen I've had has given me an ATI driver failure notification every time.

The replacement has yet to do that though.

Did you get your black screens when you first started gaming?

 

Since I have cut up my brightness, I have noticed the screen slightly flickering every couple of minutes or so. I hope this isn't normal. What is going on?

 

Its under the powersaving options. Either right click on the battery icon in your tray and select power options or you can get to power via the control panel. From there select "Change advanced power settings". In the window that opens scroll down to display and there is a submenu for "Enable adaptive brightness". Thats where you can turn it off.

 

I wanted to find out how fast your HP Envys boot up? i7 vs i5? Standard hard drive vs dual SSD?

 

I have dual G2 SSD's that have been switched out of RAID0 to individual drives (C: & D: )

Boot times;

Cold start, power button to windows 'music' :19sec , to wifi(g) connect :27sec

Restart, To 'music' :27sec , to wifi connect :34sec

Note; Have clean win 7 pro install. Using C: drive for boot and all programs / apps. D: drive data storage. 50 processes running at startup and limited startup apps since all programs load very quickly when needed. Photoshop CS4 64bit loads in 3 to 4 sec. after cold start even with all adobe startup processes / services disabled.

 

Not always. It might have been a website with flash content, graphics heavy or java script.

It did not matter what.

But now, I have run C&C3:KW for two hours (using a trainer for God mode) and it was able to handle it well.

The hottest the GPU got was 71C during that session, CPU did not break the 75C.

 

What tools are you using to measure your GPU's temp?

 

AMD GPU Clock Tool

 

My 4830HD is not recognized for some reason...any ideas?