*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 2*

@Bigcat400; Edit: I meant @ EAGLE17

Thanks for the earlier post regarding the 'un'raiding and win7 install info! +rep

How was your performance after doing that (SSD R/W I mean)? Any other negatives?

 

Just posted this on the Gen2 thread, thought it would be of interest here also:

3DMark06 results i5-540M vs i7-720qm. Default settings, Hp recommended power plan. Machine in original factory condition, no bloatware removed etc. View attachment 44159

Note the second column scores are the last scores I got on my i7-720qm 4830 before I returned it (I think that was OC'd). good for comparison if your on the fence about which processor to go with

 

The 720 scores much higher than my 540 in Vantage.

And that is why I keep repeating myself lol

 

It doesn't actually matter though. Just look at the M11x, it has a ULV and it takes advantage of the G335M just fine. A 520M is way more than enough to keep the HD 5830 busy. The 32nm process I think is going to still be superior to the quad core.

 

Shoulda got the glossy screen! Maybe your wife will swap with you!

 

What is the 720 averaging in vantage? can't find my old scores..

 

My wife? Uh, not sure what you meant there.

My wife's Z has the duracoat or whatever they call it and it's matte (and looks 100000x better than the matte on my Envy).

I always prefer matte over glossy, but not at the expense of looking like crap

 

I was pulling 12k cpu with my M15x.

Versus the 8k max with the 540.

 

yeah, that was the joke... You had said earlier that your wife's Sony Z had a rockin' matte screen...so, I thought maybe you and her could swap notebooks so you get the good screen!

I guess my sarcasm didn't come through clearly that time!

 

Currently, aside from the cheap looking keyboard, everything else is awesome.

I love the matte screen, it's nice and crisp and zero reflections. The bezel has no scratches on it, seems rather solid.

Computer is running rather warm, but it's probably because I'm unzipping 5 different files at the same time and downloading 5 different games in Steam.

Runs like a dream, zero crashes or complaints thus far, actually one complaint... friggen keyboard lol =P

I think I might keep this if it behaves, otherwise... Sony Vaio F series here I come? =X But then I would take a hit on performance =\

 

Is it just that the colors aren't saturated nicely? Or is it the look of the screen against the glossy frame that you don't like?

Have you seen the Envy glossy in person BTW?

 

Yep, well those extra 2 cores really help if you have something that will keep them busy...

Just got a measly 15K on 3Dmark05...

Time to get rid of all the bloat and reinstall. Did not want to mess with loading calibation program (and 36 digit keycodes) before I did the clean installs, would lose all the cal data and have to do it again...

 

Well, I am eager to see some results of the calibration. I hope you can squeeze a nicer picture out of the matte lcd.

 

I try the link but connection to the site seems to fail for me.

 

Something just isn't right with this display.

It isn't bright, lacks color, has a fuzziness to it, and is way too blue/cool.

Just not very pleasing, IMO.

No, I haven't seen the glossy but as long as it is brighter and has better colors I'll be happy

 

I see. I've had both in person and think the glossy is just as cool/blue TBH. The brightness seems about the same and the colors do too.

Hopefully you don't go through all the trouble replacing it just to find that it's only 1% better.

 

My drives have always been raided. The raid setup feels very fast to me. I haven't tried an un-raided setup. I attached some benchmarks from my G1 raid setup. I don't have my refresh envy yet.

 

Some others have stated otherwise and have said the glossy is brighter.

I'll know - hopefully sooner rather than later

 

em strange. I have just attempted connecting couple of secs ago and it has worked perfectly.

the first bit says

 

Suddenly started working for me, go figure. I just wish the 8.690.0.0000 ones listed 5830

 

i hv the impression that 5000's include the 5830?

 

you may have already done this but I felt the same about the matte screen until I ran the windows built in calibraton. really all could do was some gamma curve chages but that made a huge difference in my colors... Brightness is really good and sharpness is good just not as good as my glossy... if I did not own the glossy then I may not have known the difference. That makes me think you may just have a bad display...

 

Yeah I think it's a bit too cool in its temperature myself, but I can send you my spyder 2 color profile if you're interested in testing it out. I'll run it later tonight and see how it turns out. Made a world of difference when I had the old glossy screen. Personally I'm loving the matte one so far.

 

YES!

Please send me that profile! I'll throw you some rep

 

Can anyone recommend a good, affordable colorimeter?

Huey? Spyder?

 

Hmm, does anyone else have a 'purple' webcam? I turned off Adaptive lighting, Ambient light sensor, and even IR, I look like a purple freak!

 

Please post the glossy profile as well.

I wish it was possible to rent these things. Photography stores should have them, right?

 

So, I was able to get Windows back on after numerous 7 hours of attempts.

I have yet to get BSOD, but I still get the notification of the driver crashing while doing any gaming (CS/ME2/COD).

Looks like i'll be making a call to HP tomorrow. Thx for the help guys.

 

I'm having major issues with my i7 2nd gen. It's constantly black screening, freezing, and usb 2 hardly works.

Does anyone else have USB 2 problems from any port? I cannot watch a movie without stuttering, I can't even transfer a couple files without total slow speed and then complete freeze and hard restart.

Everything is factory install, I've not done anything but remove Norton and install Windows updates to see if that helped, but it didn't.

 

I have the Eye One Display 2. Simple, reliable, and well regarded. The LT version is the same tool without offering advanced settings in the software.

LT is about $125 and Display 2 is about $185

http://www.amazon.com/X-Rite-Display-LT-Calibration-Conscious/dp/B000NRODT4

The two major brands are Xrite and Datacolor.

Edit: Without doing to much research I would also explore this option as I believe it has essentially replaced the other models:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...unki_Create_Color_Management.html#accessories

 

I was just on spyders site updating my software. Looks like they have a new 'budget' system for single monitor use :

http://spyder.datacolor.com/product-mc-s3express.php

$89 list (sure it's less @ etailers) and it looks like the same sensor I have in the Spyder3 Elite suite.

Going to load cal softwarre in matt screen unit soon, will advise how it goes.

You might want to see if there is any info on the site about how to 1) find the actual ICC file it creates, and 2) how to copy and move it to another machine.

 

What does "single monitor use" mean? Can I calibrate my netbook, my desktop and my envy with it, or does it literally mean "single monitor"?

 

I know how to load an icc profile in win7. So, post your profile when your done

 

I think I already posted it up earlier when I put up my review for the first envy. It should be listed I think on the OP by Serg. If not I'll try and dig around for it for you.

I'll get it done later tonight and post a link up here. It takes a bit of time to fully run through everything.

 

Thanks, Genryu!!!!

 

Pretty sure it means that it's meant to be used with only a single display. Ie. use it only for your netbook, or your desktop, or envy (not more than one basically).

 

That would make it kinda useless, no?

 

The page itself says that it's for calibrating a system with a single display. So it will work as long as you're not trying to match colors when connecting multiple monitors.

 

Just got my Envy 15 "15T-1100 CTO" i7-720, 4gb, 5830, Intel 6200, etc. I've always formatted my machines and done clean installations (I hate the bloatware, extra gadgets, gizmos, etc.) and prefer a lean/clean machine.

I've taken a backup image of the original hard drive and I'm trying to install my own copy of Windows 7 Ultimate. Since the Envy doesn't have a CD-ROM drive, I'm using a USB key instead. The laptop boots and starts the Windows installation. I get to the point where it complains about drivers/hard drives, etc. I insert an SD card with the Intel rapid storage technology drivers (i extracted the 64floppy directory and all of its files). Windows finds the Intel driver and looks like its loading it. After that, I am unable to continue with the install. I don't have the actual original error message. I'll edit my post after I get that written down.

Anything special about doing a clean install of Windows 7-64-bit on a 2nd gen Envy 15?

This isn't the first time I've installed W7... I have a couple of other computers running just fine. I'd consider myself an advanced computer user... just can't figure this part out. Doesn't make sense to me. I'm loading the Intel drivers, but I can never get past that part. I've tried 8.9 and even the RST 9.5 drivers. They load but never go past that part.

Thanks in advance!

 

Provides a cheaper option for people who want accurate colors but don't want to drop too much on it. After all the average prosumer likely doesn't have a need to calibrate multiple displays separately with their own unique profiles. For example I had 2 profiles set up for both when using the laptop's display and also my sony tv's display for video playback.

 

I think it means that the calibration software won't do two monitors at a time, but you can run it on as many systems as you want. Any other way would be extremely draconian, but anything is possible these days.

Even at 90 bucks it is expensive, but it is at least in the realm of consideration, given that I can calibrate about 5 or 6 different single monitor systems with it.

 

When I did the clean boot from the USB, it was consistently hanging up about mid-way through install, then prompting me to reboot.

Pretty f-ing confusing.

After about 7 hours though, i got it. :/

 

You dont need the intel drivers, just the windows disk.

You are having this problem because your usb stick or dvdrom isnt plugged into the esata/usb2.0 port.

EDIT: This was aimed at Hidden72, sorry

 

Screen calibration info:

First off the glossy screen has changed from gen1 envy's. The old screen had a max brightness of 255 nits, on the new one the max I could hit (lower right) was 220 nits. Even maxing out CCC brightness and gamma made little diference. Thanks HP

The new anti glare hits a max brightness of 195 nits. I am calibrating it soon and will need some guidance as to what specific file I need to copy for you guys. Never had to look for it before becuase all I do is select a profile name and it load it behind the scenes.

As far as i know that spyder unit I posted the link to is for use on a single monitor per profile. you should be able to profile multiple displays individually, you just won't be able to color match one display to the other for a calibrated workflow..

starting cal now

 

You don't know where it saves the icc profile after calibration?

Either way, the glossy has a +25 nit advantage, which I'd gladly take

 

Do you have a calibration file for the gen 2 glossy? I tried hte one in the guide and it was too red, and I am having a hard time recreating the same look but with slightly less red.

 

The eSata port is also a usb 2.0 port and you need to plug your boot key into that.

 

Thanks for posting this for us.

The ICC profiles are generally stored in the C:\windows\system32\spool\drivers\color\

you cad do a search for *.icc after your software creates the profile and you should find it also.

thanks again jjb,,,


Now i finished my install of the OS with no raid on the ssds and speeds are G2 speeds...
here is my crystal mark scores for the single ssd

--------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
--------------------------------------------------

Sequential Read : 238.933 MB/s
Sequential Write : 108.709 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 170.784 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 105.654 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 12.239 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 20.323 MB/s

Test Size : 100 MB
Date : 2010/01/31 0:16:03

 

No idea where the icc's live LOL. Just finish first cal and looks mich better except geens are off now. going to run again now and go to other puter and see if i can find the icc's Idea anyone?

One more tidbit. calibrated brightness is ~170 nit with contrast ratio of 365:1 for the matte and 200nit w/ 470:1 for the glossy.

 

I think the matte screen is awesome. Though I do have a little orange light on my trackpad.

What is that and how do I get rid of it? ^^;;