*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 2*

You might just see what happens when you put in a quantity of 2 on the order page, if that doesn't work you could try to place 2 sepereate orders with coupon....

When I went to order 2 of them last month (for $160ea) it said the same thing so I called the 800 number and after a little resistance I convinced them to sell me 2. I explained for my upgrade I needed a matched pair of RAM....

 

Haha, I cancelled my order like an idiot to try to order two. Now the rebate won't work.

Sent them an e-mail, hopefully they have pity on my attempt to give them more money. =P

 

Forgive my ignorance, but why do you need anything but the HP-provided drivers? The gaming performance with my 4830 is great, no problems in any way...

 

It seems like the 10.3 drivers fixed the black screen of death problem I have been experiencing. =X

 

how much does general performance improve on an i5 by going from 4 to 6 gb RAM?

 

I like em too. Especially when you consider these are a beta/preview, not even final. Maybe they will manage to tweak a bit more, hehe

Not to mention no having to mess with inf files.

 

It all depends on what programs you intend to run.
For everyday things, like browsing the web or normal MS office apps it won't make much of a difference at all. I've been running 3GB on my old laptop with Windows 7 and it doesn't swap to disk at all doing normal things.

If you do video editing or love to have dozens of programs open at the same time, then it will make a difference since the computer won't have to swap to disk.

I've also read that some games run faster with >4GB of memory.

 

well HP seems to have billed me twice for the 250GB 1.8" drive with mounting kit. I will not be pleased if two show up, since I have a 160GB intel on the way, don't need 2 250GB drives...

 

Does the Gen 2 envy 15 actually support the 1333 RAM or are people buying this for overclocking purposes? I am asking because I saw the manual for the Envy says it supports only 1066. Have people confirmed that the motherboard supports 1333?

BTW, I am asking this because there is a deal on 1GB 1066 RAM (I know thats not much) for only 1$ AR + ship at newegg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227493

Also there is 1333 1GB RAM for 2$ AR + Ship
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227493

This is a nice deal for those wishing to fill up empty slots

 

The gen1s came with 1333 ram the gen2s have been coming with 1066.

The 1333s will work on the Envy. =D

 

All of your memory modules will run at the speed of the slowest in your system.

i7 quad processors will run at 1333 or 1066, i5 processors run at max of 1066 but using 1333's will work fine also. Overclocking you have read about here has nothing to do with system RAM memory speeds only the GPU graphics memory speeds.

In my case I upgraded to 1333's on the i5 model only because it was less expensive for 4GB modules when I ordered.

 

Would be good to see a video comparison between the Macbook Pro and the HP Envy 15. Youtube has heaps of video's comparing the spec's, just no actual machines shown side by side.

Funny to see the serious flame war going on though. Some people get way to worked up.

On a side note, still no HP Envy 15 refresh models in Australia. Hoping to pick one of the two units coming in end of this week...

And no word on when the i5 model is making its way over. Pain in the being over here at the bottom of the world

 

Envy 15's build quality is nowhere near MBP. It's not unibody design.

 

It's a different design. Build quality is a different topic.

Re design, the E15 is a lot lighter than a MBP17 (which is a closer match than the 15), is more portable, and has far better cooling. Performancewise, the MBP just isn't there - it uses almost three year old tech.

Stick a quadcore in an MBP and you can fry eggs on it. This is why we haven't seen any MBP quadcores - Apple doesn't want to move away from the thin-and-light form factor so it's forced to stay with midrange performance. Quadcore MBPs (especially with 4 SODIMM slots) would also cannibalize sales of MacPros for video editing, and MacPros have huge profit margins.

My bet is we won't see any quadcore MBPs this year either. Apple will stay with midrange i5, and use the dualcore i7-620 as high-end. Apple also uses Li-Ion Polymer battery tech, I bet that's another reason we haven't seen quadcore MBPs - their batteries can't take the power drain (also true for the Envy).

 

Well so much for the Black Screen of Death being fixed. It has been a week and a half since I updated the drivers, and BOOM!!!!

Sitting idle on Facebook, and black screen.

EDIT: Norton was running a scan in the background. Given the proximity of the GPU to the hard drive, heat might be being transferred from the HDD to the GPU.

 

I also upgraded to the preview 10.3 drivers hoping for a fix of my Black Screen of Death. But still got one yesterday while surfing.

 

Thanks for the pics! I love the view...

Man, that's one heck of a cooling system. Have never seen such cooling on a laptop before. Two fans for the cpu? Dedicated heatsink/fan for the GPU? Damn.

 

just to clarify, are people getting black screens that are ultimately leading to a restart (someone said black screen of death), or is it just a 5 second frame of black screen?

 

Which post are you referring to? I was interested, based on your comments, but couldn't find who you were replying to!

 

When I get them, they lead to a force reboot.

I haven't gotten one since I upgraded the drivers. =\

 

So far the only blackscreen/lockups I've had was when I overclocked the GPU too much and ran Mark06. Otherwise, so far at least, I haven't had the issue with my replacement and only maybe 2x with the one I sent back.

 

received my third HP envy today. finally a machine without scratches and appears to be working well.

but of course nothing is pefect.

this machine came with 2 intel G1's instead of the G2's which makes me believe HP is playing around here. My last machine came with G2's, why would this one come with G1's?

since I am running them in a raid, i don't see myself taking a huge performance hit, but still, i might and that shouldn't have to be. i really don't want to have to return this machine, but will I really see performance hits in time?

 

Seems to just depend on what parts they have in stock when its built. If you send this one back no way to insure the next one will get G2's. Probably why HP doesn't list "specific" parts, or more than general spec's on the options when you build one online. That way they can say they only promised 2 SSD's not which version would be used.

If it performs well and you like it I'd say hold onto it. Returning/exchanging could get you a worse one.

 

i'm running CDM on it, and am seeing some lower than expected write numbers which makes me think these drives were reused from another machine.

 

yeah but you are better off just upgrading to ssd option when you buy. If you get G1s, just sell them on ebay and pay the extra costs for G2s. 1 160gb G2 costs about $500 as of right now. I'm getting my G2 and the 250GB HD w/ mounting kit (actually missed the delivery just now) this week.

 

I figure I'll hold off a bit longer on getting SSD's for either my laptop or my desktop till later this year. Gonna hope bigger/better/cheaper will be around soon

 

He was replying to me from a post on the '2nd generation ownwers lounge' here is a link to my post with the pics;

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5921965&postcount=2140

 

I think what your seeing is the difference between G1 and G2 write speeds. As I recall the G2's were tweeked to improve random write speeds over the G1's.

In real world use I don't think you will see any noticable difference in performance. I just posted 3 crystal disk screen shots on the benchmarks thread which show my G2's in RAID0 vs seperated drives and I can't tell the difference in speeds other than what the benchmarks say.

 

Technically speaking the G2 from Intel is faster, has a smaller die (I think 34nm vs the older 50nm), and has TRIM support, which enhances the speed of the SSD when on single configs.

 

For those using a Kensington Power Adapter, what adapter number do you use? Mine came with an N19, doesn't work.

 

I'm using the N30B tip on the Kensington and that works fine on the Envy with no throttling.

 

Does anyone else know if the Kensington 120W travel adapter is any lighter than the HP?

 

I was responding to 'smckdwn989's' concern about his RAID0 config benchmarks so I didn't mention TRIM because it does not apply to RAIDed drives. The smaller die size did not increase performance for intel it primarily lowered thier manufacturing costs and will allow for higher capacity / density drives in the future.

You may want to read the following anandtech report on G1 vs G2's. They are pretty much the same speed except the 4K random numbers especially when 'used'.

http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=11

Here is a summary quote;

"The trend however is clear: the new G2 drive isn't that much faster. In fact, the G2 is slower than the G1 in my 4KB random write test when the drive is brand new. The benefit however is that the G2 doesn't drop in performance when used...at all. Yep, you read that right. In the most strenuous case for any SSD, the new G2 doesn't even break a sweat. That's...just...awesome.

The rest of the numbers are pretty much even, with the exception of 4KB random reads where the G2 is roughly 11% faster. "

 

I received my replacement envy15 today. No more broken keyboard and hopefully no more black screens.

The first envy had the G2 version of Intel's SSD. Of interest, the new machine appears to have the G1 incarnation of Intel's SSD, though it also has (4GB) PC3-10700 CL9 RAM from Samsung. My first envy had the PC3-8500 CL7 from Micron. I guess I need to return the extra 4GB of PC3-8500 RAM I bought. Regarding the G1 v G2 SSD, should I care? Does one support TRIM and the other not?

 

G2 supports TRIM while G1s do not. Neither does in a RAID, though.
Even so, general opinion seems to be not to care, performance difference not noticable.

 

i've been doing research on TRIM + Raid, and it appears the best solution is a 'tony trim'

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...TURBO-owners-with-FW-1-5-you-do-not-need-this

i'm curious to see if this works well

 

Just skimmed through that link and I definitely would not want to be the first to try it on Intel Raid0 drives. Have you confirmed that others have done this succesfully on Intel G1's RAID0, without erasing all data on the drives??

 

Hi Guys,

I have a problem with my envy 15 screen having plenty of dead pixels and the horizontal lines. Now I'm sending it back to HP for repair. Does anybody know how many days will hp take to fix my laptop?

Thanks.

 

So what SSD's come in the Envy? I have tried to read all these pages and there are too much to sort thru.

 

Based on what I read so far, Generation 1 Envy's had G2 SSD's while the Generation 2 seem to have reverted to G1 SSD's. Not particularly a big deal in my case as I stuck with the traditional 500 GB 7200 RPM HDD.

 

Great. Thanks for the Info. Intel is better than some generic brand most OEMs would use.

Also, 1 more question please if I may ask.

Do the i7 Envy's come with DDR3 1333 Ram or DDR3 1066 Ram? HP's site does not specify.

Thanks

 

Generation 1 had DDR3-1333. Generation 2 reverted to DDR3-1066 for Quad i7.

 

Can you install DDR3 1333 memory from say, Kingston and set it to run @ 1333 in the BIOS?

 

I know you can swap the RAM if you like to DDR3 1333 if you like (be weary that some of all the base RAM sticks are located in the two slots not easily use accessible and you might need to open the laptop to get to them) so installing is a yes. I can't tell you 100% if it auto-detects the new RAM at 1333 (assuming that you got no other RAM sticks at 1066) and I can't tell you either if you can BIOS force it either. However, I think you can BIOS force it but to be safe, ask one of the Envy 15 Quad owners about this one since the model I got (or will be getting very soon this week) is an i5 and our i5 models can't use 1333, only 1066 maximum, so this doesn't concern with my Envy.

 

What steps did people take to get their black screening 1st gen replaced with a 2nd gen?

 

I think that a normal install *might* work correctly if you right-click the .exe and 'run as administrator'. Otherwise you have to install the drivers manually via the device manager.

Your result sounds like the drivers installed with an error, which is usually the result of insufficient permissions when replacing files...

A side question, I was wondering what the BIOS version is of the folks with the 1st GEN 4830s. Mine is: 011.022.003.007 - 2009/11/12

( OH, and I am running the strags.com 8.702 drivers with the 10.2 CCC )

 

Just call HP telling them you want a replacement. If you're within 21 days of purchase, there shouldn't be any issue. The most annoying thing of the process is that it was time consuming.

If you ordered yours through BML, you should ask for a refund + new order, that way it won't take 2 months for repairs.


On a side note, it seems the fan issue is still there. My replacement has been making some noise from the top left, right where the CPU fans are. I'll be cracking it open later today to see if there's anything I can do.

Did anyone with a replacement get the fan issue within the past week or so?

 

When I had to do a returm/swap the eta was a month. It was faster to order a new one and just RMA/return the bad one. A nice per person in Resolutions worked with me to get the replacments price to match and then once FedEx picked up the return they credited back right away.

 

Seems ppl are getting G1.s based on recent posts.

 

like it was mentioned early, running g1 ssds in raid 0, just use tony's trim app. but i'd rather have g2 anwyay...