*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 2*

My machine even when I run the ATI 'find applicable driver' tool says the new driver should work, so honestly I think they just have a problematic installer. 'That'd be my guess.

 

did the same and hoping the 4830 isn't a sh#@%ty card HP messed up with their big fingers.

 

Sent the report. Thank you for being so active in resolving problems.

 

Its the problem with driver itself and not installer because I extracted driver; uninstalled CCC and simply installed driver but the issue still exists.

 

Did you try that by manually installing it ?

Device mng > update driver > browse my computer > let me pick from list... > have disc > browse > point directly to the driver file > next

Also still unclear if anyone has tried this with a clean install of Win7. Just trying to narrow down if the HP software might be the culprit here....

 

I tried this with what appears to be the driver inf files the package installs to disk.. 'Windows claimed I was already using the latest version (I'm clearly not). 'checked the inf file and the PCI/vendor id for the 4830 is clearly listed.

Looks like the 4830 was intended to be supported, but something's not right. (with either the ATI package, or HP's install).

 

the thing is, that ATI report form doesn't even have the option '4830'. only 5830.
then you understand how scheisse the support for this card is mean to be rightaway...
abandoned card. what a joke.

 

I noticed that too and was not happy about that one bit

 

Hello All!

I've been lingering around for about a month and a half since I got my Envy and figured I would chime-in with my first post about the new 10.3 Driver. For whatever it's worth I had no luck installing the new driver on my Gen1 4830 machine. Seeing as I don't play games and my current driver works fine I will be waiting til they work out the bugs before I upgrade.

 

Ok, I just updated my 10.3 install guide again to warn against trying on the 4830 models until a fix is in place by AMD or HP. Seems to be working fine on the 5830.

 

I wouldnt hold my breath tho but thanks for helping the other unlucky buggers with this card.

I've searched a bit for other laptops using this chip and so far I haven't found any. Support cannot be very high on the list.

 

I have the Gen2 with 10.3 installed and F.19A BIOS seems to be OK operating. The Unit black-screened when coming out of Hibernate. HP still has not fixed this yet.


JJB: Does your unit black-screen or experience lockups?

 

Nope, the only black screens I've ever seen were self inflicted from to much OC'ing.

 

Support for ANYTHING from ATI isn't high on the list in my opinion.. They've definitely lagged nvidia in frequency of software updates for the cards I've owned.

 

For the last few years with the desktop cards, ATI has had monthly driver releases... Nvidia has been releasing drivers at seemingly random intervals. I'll have to say that for desktop cards, ATI in the last few years has had better driver update support.

However, for notebooks, nVidia's had better support up until this month since they've been able to release notebook drivers directly to the consumer, whereas ATI had only been able to point users to the notebook suppliers. But from March 2010 onwards, ATI will be providing notebook drivers to end users on their monthly release schedule minus the users of notebook computers of the three OEM's that have opted out: Sony, Toshiba and Panasonic.

Well, stability of the drivers is another matter altogether... but from my personal experience, it's been pretty much the same for ATI and nVidia stability wise.

I also agree with Tayeule, that support for the ATI Mobility 4830 will most probably be much worse than for the mobility 58xx series since so few of the mobility 48xx GPU's were sold.

 

I think i can shed some more information on this.
I have a 1st Gen envy 1060ea (im from the uk) with a 4830

For 3 weeks i have been trying to get any drivers other than the HP supplied ones to actually work. EVERYTHING has been to no avail.

I have tried the 9.9's from the ati website, the 10.2's with the modder, the 10.3 preview, the 10.3a and the 10.3 official release. All have given exactly the same error.
BSOD/crash during installation and then BSOD every subsequent boot, just before the windows logon.

EDIT: I have been through 2 1st Gen envy 1060ea's before this, both with the same problem. This is now my 3rd and its doing the same thing.

I did some digging around, tried a fresh install of windows 7 ultimate 64bit, tried various BIOS' and it seems that the problem isn't related to any of those.

I discovered something that i don't know how relevant or interesting it may be.
I snooped around the .inf's of the HP driver and the ati 10.3 driver and discovered the following:
The HP .inf has the following cards listed as compatible:
"ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830" = ati2mtag_M9x, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94A0&SUBSYS_1522103C
"ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 Series" = ati2mtag_M9x, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94A0&SUBSYS_7009103C
"ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5830 Series" = ati2mtag_Manhattan, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_68A1&SUBSYS_1522103C

In the ATI driver .inf there is nothing after dev_94a0 for the 4830's

Secondly, the BSOD's i have been getting have continuously referenced atipmdag.sys as the cause. Upon further snooping i have found that the HP installation does NOT install the atipmdag.sys file and also makes NO reference to it in its own .inf.
The ATI drivers seem to require this file to function.

I have no idea what atipmdag.sys does but it has a very similarly named from atikmdag.sys which is also installed with atipmdag.sys in the ATI driver.
ONLY atikmdag.sys is installed from the HP driver (amongst all the other driver files)

At first i thought it was a driver signature thing but the 10.3's are properly signed and the problem persists.

Any thoughts?

 

What driver version did your system come with?

I had 2 gen 1 envy's myself and it was a real pain in the rear to get the first non HP ATI driver installed, we had to use mobility modder and rename a folders before a manual install for just the video driver to take and then the new CCC and other features would install correctly. After that I was able to update to most new driver versons without issues. Once they started getting modded and posted by strag.com as install packages everything was very simple as long as it supported the 4830....

I'm thinking that maybe this needs to be a 2 step upgrade, find one of the older versions and get it to 'take' so your not stuck with the HP original and then upgrade to 10.3. Although it seems others have been able to go directly to 10.2 and then cannot upgrade to 10.3

I'm going back to the original thread to see if I can find what drivers worked initially and see if they are still available.

Get me your driver number and also a rough build date of your computer.

 

@toontoonizer

I found the older ATI driver that worked on the original gen1 4830 still available at strags, and good news, they have been WHQL'd so no need to mobility mod or anything.

The one I am sure that worked on my gen 1 is the catalyst 9.12 which is driver version 8.681 at the very bottom of the page at www.strags.com
it looks like the full package as a zip file.

If you (or anyone with gen 1 4830) wants to try to install this and if it works I'll bet you can then upgrade to the 10.3

Just make sure to create a restore point....

 

Have long ago installed that unfortunately. 10.3 CCC didn't work.

 

We are alone. The 4830 was a hybrid and mostly to prove a point from ATI, like a Halo product, that was sold somehow.

What was the thign? Make a 40nm chip, powerful enough for thin laptops and keep temps in good ranges, just to prove ATI had the tech and power to go to 40nm first. Nobody got this GPU, only HP as they wanted something less consuming and more attracting than a 46xxHD for the Envy line...

 

Yeah, i'll try these to see if they work and il report back here. EDIT: the strags link is down for these drivers. are the ones from ati's website the same??
The drivers my computer came with were the 8.632.0.0A
How do i check the manufacture date?

I also emailed hp support about this and they replied with a less than helpful answer:
"Thank you for contacting HP Customer Care.

I gather that you are trying to update the video card drivers on your HP Envy 15-1060ea Notebook with Windows 7 Ultimate 64, to the latest 10.3 Catalyst on ATI website and you are getting blue screen. You have also tried installing the retail version of Windows 7 and disabled the signature to install the driver, however the result is same. You have compared the driver .inf files from the HP drivers and the ATI AMD provided drivers and noticed that the HP drivers do not include any reference to atipmdag.sys. While the atipmdag.sys file is installed with the ATI driver and the HP driver do not install it.

Please accept my apologies for the delayed response.

I realize the importance of the issue and will make sure that I give you appropriate information.

The latest driver 10.3 version from ATI was released on 24th of March. The driver released on the ATI website is compatible with Windows 7 (64-bit); however it is still not yet released by HP due to the fact that it is still in testing. Regarding the drivers for your notebook, we recommend to download the drivers from our website however you may not find all the driver due to the fact that some of the drivers are in the testing phase and once the tests are completed we will be uploading the same on our website for our customers to download.

We regret for any inconvenience caused in this regard.

If you need further assistance, please reply to this message and we will be happy to assist you.

Have a nice day ahead.

For information on keeping your HP and Compaq products up and running, please visit our website at: http://www.hp.co.uk/diagnostics

Sincerely,

HP Customer Care"

 

I tried this before and did not take. 10.3as back then would BSOD after first reboot. Mostly point to the files that toontoonizer is mentioning.

 

To sum it up, HP is not "ready" for new drivers...ok, any ideas?

We 4830 owners are getting !@#$%!!!

/rant

 

I was about to tell you that we still have a great machine but then i ran 3dmark06 and got a 4893 score with all setting turned up at 1920x1080

Now I feel I'm gonna try again for the 10.3 install and end up messing my setup... arrrgh


UPDATE: Am now booted with 8.712.0.0 drivers after cleaning up and installing the package from STRAGS

-2 BSODS this is the 3rd boot attempt. atikmpag at fault on the 2 BSODS.
-No catalyst installed just manually updated the drivers from scratch using the one from strags.

I'll run it a little longer and start rebooting the machine to see if it keeps running without BSOD'ing or if this was a fluke.

 

I shall also give it a try, will report back.

Edit:
BSOD on all 3 attempts, back to older drivers.

 

Other update:

It's not stable. It'll boot up to windows 1 out of 3-4 times. The rest of times it ends up freezing or BSOD.

Strange thing: I had a WE Index of 7.1 with 10.2 drivers and am down to 6.0 what's up with that? I don't know...

 

Looks like the outlook is bleak for us 4830 owners.

Further to my correspondence with HP, I replied asking them whether there was a time frame for the HP 10.3 drivers and this was their reply:

"I see that you would like to know the time frame when HP releases the Catalyst 10.3 graphic driver update for your notebook.

Answer to your query:

I am afraid I would not be able to comment on time frame however, I suggest you to wait for some time till HP release the graphic card update on our HP Support website. Also I recommend you to run the windows updates.

The information I have provided should answer your question. If you have further questions, please reply to this message. We will be happy to assist you.

If you need further assistance, please reply to this message and we will be happy to assist you.

Have a happy weekend!

For information on keeping your HP and Compaq products up and running, please visit our website at: http://www.hp.co.uk/diagnostics

HP Customer Care http://welcome.hp.com/country/uk/en/support.html
Sincerely"

wait for some time..??
Could be some time before we see anything lads.

 

Right.

So that concludes my latest forray into sh#$%$#it driver lands.

10.3 (8.712) is still garbage for 4830.
Also tried copying atikmpag.sys from the 10.2 package to my windows/system32/drivers folder to see what that would do. Card was not event being recognized.

reverted back to 10.2 package (8.702).

Funny thing i noticed: When trying to update from 8.702 to 8.712 by using the device manager > update driver method, you get could not find more up to date drivers...

BUT

if you go from 8.712 to 8.702 (which i did at the end of my little testing session) it will happilly "update" 8.712 with 8.702... something smells fishy.

 

FYI,

For 3Dmark06 scoring you need to run it at the default standard settings of 1280 x 1024. That's how they normalize the scores in reviews etc. for comparisons. That should improve your score a bit

 

@Tayeule
would you mind telling me what 10.2 package your referring to and how to get/install them. I want to try and see if they work.

 

Oh... silly me

this one http://strags.com/d/8.702.0.0000-WinXP-2003-Vista-2008-7-x86-AMD64.zip

 

YOU ARE A GOD AMONGST MERE MORTALS TAYEULE.

It worked! I dug around the inf's again and found a HP specific .inf file:
C7_95429.inf
1002111348-8.702-100202a-095429C- HP
[ATI.Mfg.NTamd64.6.1]
"ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830" = ati2mtag_M9x7, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94A0&SUBSYS_1522103C
"ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 Series" = ati2mtag_M9x7, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94A0&SUBSYS_7009103C
"ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 Series" = ati2mtag_Manhattan, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_68C0&SUBSYS_1522103C
"ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730 Series" = ati2mtag_Manhattan, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_68C0&SUBSYS_147D103C
"ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5830 Series" = ati2mtag_Manhattan, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_68A1&SUBSYS_1522103C

As you can see the 4830 is listed here with the correct SUBSYS ID and the driver works fine.
The 10.3's are missing this SUBSYS ID and hence why they do not seem to work.
The only theory i can conjure is that foreseeing the launch of the 10.3 Catalyst told ATI they want to make their own one and so to exclude their 4830 from the compatible devices in the .inf.
No 10.3 love until HP releases their own drivers.

One last question, are the 8.702 drivers an improvement on the 8.675 HP drivers?

 

I think you're going to have a better chance at getting a new working driver if you all file issue reports with ATI since HP probably doesn't have the manpower to actually patch the drivers themselves.

Don't expect even the level of response from HP from the ATI support people though... I've filed a report about one of their drivers and got a few robo-script like replies but no useful response back, but three releases later, ATI fixed the problem...

I definitely think that ATI's driver team gets those problem reports eventually... so get all the Gen1 Envy 15 users to file problem reports with ATI, that'll probably be the best way to get the problem resolved.

 

@bbf

the problem isn't with the drivers. The drivers are fine. HP, somehow, have the right to not allow ATI to support the graphics chip in their laptops. Thus, the burden of driver support falls unto HP. And HP do have the manpower to patch the driver themselves, and they have. The HP drivers from their support website are patched versions of ATI drivers with specific details for installation. Specifically, no installationg of atipmdag or atikmpag or whatever it is called.

 

No that is incorrect.

Drivers supplied by ATI are *NOT* the responsibility of HP.

If you want working drivers, download the old HP ones. If you want to install the bleeding edge ones provided by ATI directly, don't expect HP to fix them for you.

You can ask HP for more current drivers as well, but from past experience, OEM's aren't even going to come close to matching the monthly release cycle that ATI has committed to. You'd be lucky to get more than one driver update per year from an OEM, and forget about updated support once the new model of the laptop gets released.

 

Ok, so the big question now is, which drivers are working for us 4830 owners, and how do we install them?

 

I think that you are missing my point. ATI have had their hands tied for years with laptop manufacturers who request that ATI DO NOT offer support for their device in catalyst drivers. Alot of companies do this, specifically the major brands, like Dell, HP and Sony to name a few.

So, appealing to ATI to include your device in their drivers is a fruitless endeavour because, i imagine, they are bound to the OEM's rules and thus cannot include support for your device even if they wanted to.

It may sound strange, but businesses are like that.

@serg
The 10.2 drivers from strags work fine, but i don't know if you have them already installed. Otherwise, from what HP wrote to me i inferred that hp have a 10.3 in the works, so it only a matter of time.

 

Well ATI underground just updated the preview version from 10.3a to 10.3b and it is unclear if this actually changed anything on the mobility version. It does list the "ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4000 series".

Here is the link if any want s to download and try it on a 4830;

http://sites.amd.com/us/underground/tips/Pages/catalyst-10-3-preview.aspx

 

Will report back with results!

 

Tested... Failed... and back to HP drivers again.

Also I did simple hashcheck and drivers are exactly the same, probably some changes in CCC.

 

Success!!!

Driver 8.712-100302b-096986C-ATI
CCC version 2010.0302.2233.40412
DX3D 8.14.10.0735

Running latest ATI drivers!

 

Congrats!

Was that the 10.3b preview version that worked for you?

And have you tried rebooting yet

 

I am about to run it. Have you just run the .exe file downloaded?

Cheers

 

haven't rebooted hahahahaha im holding it still...but installation was simple.

Yes, the latest 10.3b from the ATI official website.

 

Their tool just downloaded the same binary I had run previously.. odd

 

Downloaded the file. Opened an ATI driver and CCC downloader. The download was done in a very simple way. Installed the drivers. GPU was deactivated for a moment and came back up after some time. Installation was done and its been running quite good so far.

 

Just to clarify for people, do you mean from the link I posted on the previous page ?

If so that is actually the ATI 'underground' page and not considered "official", (it has a black backround color)

The official AMD site has the final 10.3 driver package (no 'b') and the site has white backround.

 

I downloaded from the page that claimed 10.3b.. got the old 'download tool' back, which downloaded the same old driver I had previously..and it bluescreened.

I'd be interested to see what the file contents/crc32 was of the version claimed to work.

 

!@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*

BSOD BSOD BSOD BSOD!!!

 

hah.. on reboot I take it?