*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 2*

Did you try the 10.4 preview version or the final WHQL version dated 4/28 from AMD? My original gen 1 envy would only update to official WHQL versions unless they were modded. Think you may be correct that that other post was a poorly worded question not a statement, hard to tell....

Again, my point is, there is no need to reply to an important question like 'will xx BIOS work with xx machine' unless you are 100% sure, no need to post a 'should work' answer. At best it leaves the person unsure and they have to keep looking but, at worst, they may take that reply as fact and could end up bricking their machine. And again with the 10.4 response above, you are trying to be helpful but again leaving the question up in the air with no real useful info just more questions.

Sorry, nothing personal against you, I am in general, just getting tired of all the redundant questions, speculations and less than useful replies on this (and the gen 2) thread lately. Your BIOS reply just triggered my frustrations since I just got my envy back from being bricked.....

 

Hey no problem but you forgot that mine got bricked before yours (F. 18 to F. 1B) so I feel your pain and paranoia. I am very hesitant on getting F. 26 and I am still not sure of reverting to F. 18 on this new replacement.

 

Thank you JJB. I tried the Catalyst 10.4 WHQL downloaded from AMD (Windows 7 64-bit), and the official Ubuntu 10.04 Catalyst 10.4 package, downloaded using Synaptics.

Maybe there is a "mod" somewhere, but if I recall correctly, toontonizer modded 10.3 so it could be installed, and then some people were getting random crashes.

It would be much better if HP/AMD remembered us and fixed the bug. I don't play games. I bought the laptop for development, and I haven't been able to use it for that purpose so far. I am even thinking of writing down the loss and buying a Sony/Nvidia combination, but then I have also heard quite a few Sony driver horror stories.

Anyway, thanks for your help guys.

 

Thanks for the replies on F26 BIOS guys.

Keep in mind that HP is posting this as the latest BIOS for E15 Gen1, so it's not in any way tied to Gen2 only.

Considering the recent bricking (sorry JJB) I think I'll hold off on updating until this one has been out for a few weeks.

It was admittedlty a bit stupid of me to update so quickly in the past, especially since I am in Europe with a US-purchased E15 so any warranty issues could take time to work out if bricked.

 

FYI- I've got the Gen 2 i7 and upgraded to F26 BIOS with no issues.

 

I have a couple of questions !!!

Has anybody noticed this guy HP Product Manager for the Envy Division talking about an upgrade to the Envy 15 keyboard, which could be replaced for a backlit version of it ( "at customer's request" ) like in the new 14 and 17 coming up ????

you can see what I mean on this video (minute 1:27 - 1:35)

YouTube - HP Envy 14

If you already knew about it, have you been able to find out any info at all with HP representatives.

I tried to get info on this a couple of days ago but I had no luck with a sales person and a technical support guy.

I think a backlit keyboard on the current envy 15 would be super nice and usefull if you use the laptop a lot in dark settings/places.

Please advise of your findings

 

Being able to send in for keyboard swap, or if its not difficult, done by the user, would be nice. Keeping an eye out for more info.

 

There has just been a posting of the "HP version" of the ATI 10.3 driver on the drivers thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-compaq-voodoo-pc/426181-drivers-hp-envy-15-intel-57.html That's actually the link to the post, the link to the driver is on the first page of the thread. It does say 4830, 5730 and 5830..... So maybe it will update your 4830....

 

New Envy 15 $200 coupon NBK67411 EXP 5/18

 

They are liquidating their stock for the Envy 14!

 

OK, please show me something in writing from HP ( web, press release etc.) stating that the 15 is being discontinued or quit posting this crap!

 

It's sarcasm... Relax... I am not a fan of the 14 anyways...

 

Why post crap like that?

It does not read like sarcasm, and someone ready to buy a 15 may just read that and decide not order one to based on your post....

 

Have to agree with JJB on that one. Without some kind of emote or additional comment it does look like a statement of fact and could make ppl think the 15 is going away. Maybe next time, when teasing, since we don't have a sarcasm emote, at least use a or :wink:

Cheers

 

JJB,

Thank you! I tried the new HP driver. I was a bit wary, because they specify in the readme and during installation this is a driver for the 5830 chip. However, it worked perfectly. I also installed the ATI Stream SDK and verified it works with the driver. So...no more excuses from me, I can now work!

Just to clarify the situation for everybody else. 1st generation Envy 15 laptops with the 4830 GPU were not working well with WHQL drivers downloaded from ATI's site (Catalyst 10.3 and 10.4). Downloading the latest HP driver, 8.712.000 (5/10/2010), which corresponds to Catalyst 10.3, fixes the problems.

 

hi guys. i was wondering if its possible for the gen1 envy 15 to utilize 3 monitors just as the new envy17 does?

 

nope. only has one video out.

 

Hey guys, new poster here!

I've been eying the envy for a while now and I've found the 15" gen2 with 1920x1080 matte for $1160 with the external dvd, so it's super appealing.

Can anybody post some benchmarks with the 5850 running at both 1366x768 and 1920x1080 on games like TF2, SC2, BFBC2 etc. because the 128-bit ddr3 is making me nervous and I'd like to know if my feelings are justified.

The only thing that's stopping me is really the 5830 vs 5850. I really wish they would have put a 5850 in this thing because the 26gb/s mem bandwidth will starve the 800 shaders :/

I don't want to wait for the 17 because I don't want an internal DVD, and I don't want the 14 for the same reason.

I heard that a refresh is coming that will add a e2e glass display to the 15, is this right?

Also, would you guys reccomend the 1366x768 or 1920x1080 for gaming? I can deal without AA on the 1080p, but I can't live with sub-60fps, as I play a lot of fps. I also don't like the blurry/sketchy look you get running out of native res.

thanks all.

 

Hello Bradan and welcome to the NBR Forums!

I am a proud 1st. Gen Envy 15 owner (that's right, 4830HD here), unfortunately I am not a gamer but a CATIA V5R19 user.

About your questions I can tell you, the 5830HD is no slouch, it is pretty fast for a GPU and it keeps up. If you ask me, go full HD, WUXGA 1920x1080 display as the screen is beautiful, in my case, my screen looks better than a 1080P LG 23" HDTV I have.

This is something that applies to this GPU perfectly. At high resolutions and detailed situations the 128bit GDDR3 GPU will suffer, at lower resolutions the 128bit GDDR3 800 shaders GPU will eat anything you throw at it. So, should you go higher or lower resolution? My vote goes to higher. A higher resolution screen looks better, sharper, cleaner, and can go lower (and adjust any thing with GPU settings, while a lower res screen cannot go higher. In my case the 1080p screen was very welcomed and no regrets.

Oh, and you can always push the GPU a little more with AMD GPU Clock :wink: Mine gets to 450 and 950 and runs perfectly stable when needed.

 

thanks! I was playing around with my gtx260's clocks and bumped the mem down from 1250 to 500 (lowest i could go, it should have been 350 to match the 5830 mobility bandwidth) and then proceeded to crank res and AA and it took 1920x1080@4xaa to dip below 60fps in source/orange box games. That's perfectly adequate IMO!

Did you go glossy or matte?

 

Mine is glossy. As the 1st Gen, I have an i7-720QM (eating anything that I throw at it), a 4830HD running at 150MHz and 350MHz when not in use (or 450 and 950 when needed), 6GB DDR3 RAM at 1333MHz, my lovely FHD WUXGA glossy panel, and my almost empty 500GB 7200RPM HDD.

One question, was that a GTX260M or GTX260 (mobile or desktop?)

 

Any news about what Envy 15t 1200CTO is? I really do hope they update the Envy with the Envy 14 and 17 goodies.

 

Has anybody been able to find any information about that backlit keyboard upgrade this envy product manager was talking about on youtube ???

his statement is a link, a couple of post behind.

 

You know I dunno if he really was talking about the 15 or 17. And when he said "customer request" i think he might've been talking about how, many people complained that the envy 15 didnt have a backlit keyboard and they addressed that in the 14 and 17. Although it would be great if they could upgrade the keyboard to a backlit one.

 

I really hope they don't put a dvd drive in. :/

More cooling/power plz.

 

The 14" shouldn't as the already bigger 15" doesn't, and the 14" supposedly will carry just a slightly less powerful GPU and keep things similar with the 15" (AFAIK).

 

But I reckon I saw slot drives on the 14's and 17's on the press photos?

 

Really? Interesting....I see no logic on the ODB on a 14" laptop with these components and size, considering the larger one hasn't...but to be fair, I haven't followed the industry for quite some time...

Thanks for the heads up!

 

@Serg

Yep, that's why the 14 ended up thicker and heavier than the 15, very poor decision, IMO, by HP....

 

I think a lot of the people who bought an envy didn't like the extra external optical drive, and preferred an internal one. A lot of the people who are envy owners don't really go on forums so not really an issue on this forum, but HP probably had a lot more requests from users to have an internal optical drive.

 

Well weight is also because of the edge to edge glass. If you look at the bottom of the envy 14 they've added plastic so i'm guessing they made it thicker to make room for the larger battery.

 

I didnt get any external ODD for my Gen1, and I haven't needed it even once. Did the Win7 reinstall from USB, everything else installed from ISO images.

 

The E14 has a removable latch on the bottom, giving access to battery and hard drive (and perhaps memory). One of the E14 videos on youtube shows this.

 

Ugh...no thanks...I'll stick to my Envy 15...thank you very much hehe

Now even the Pavilions looks like my "premium laptop"!!!

 

Sorry to correct you but, unfortunately, you have it backwards. In a few months when they are shipping thousands of pavillions to all the retail outlets....... Your "premium laptop" will look like a pavillion, LOL

 

What has everyone used to monitor GPU temp?

I can't find anything that works with my Envy gen1... HWMontitor, Speedfan, etc will measure the CPU cores, hard drive... but not the GPU

Any suggestion? I want to experiment with some underclocking (for when not gaming) and overclocking (gaming) and see what effect can be seen with the temps

Also, what has everyone found to be the best overclocking/ underclocking tool? I can't seem to get AMD GPU clock tool to work (it brings up message 'SetClock Failed, please check device configuration.' whenever I try to change it)

Thanks

 

How much of a difference is the 1.04" (E15) to 1.11" (E14)? Is it much?

Hey JJB, or Serg, do you think it'll work to replace the OD bay with an Intel G2 SSD? Will the speed be limited by that connection or something?

 

@StealthReventon, the difference is about 1.5mm. In my personal opinion I don't think I would notice the difference. However, I'm sure other people would disagree and say the difference is noticable.

 

I probably would not notice the difference either, my point was that the 14 is thicker and heavier than the 15. In other words HP is going backwards in the 'Thin and Light' form factor which was what the Envy (voodoo) product line was all about. The 13 was .8" and 3.7 lbs. The 17 is a montrosity, it's pavillion in envy clothing @ 1.52" thick and 8+ lbs.

It's obvious that they decided to go for the lower price point to increase volume sales and margin rather than attempt to further the thin and light form factor to compete with the guys from Curpertino.... Very sad IMO

 

Yeah, the 17 is way too big.

Sure wish they offered Blu-ray rom in the 14.

 

The difference in thickness between the Envy 15 (1.04") and the MBP (0.99") is pretty noticeable.

 

There is a reason it is more noticable side by side with the MBP 15, first the MBP is .95" (not .99") and Apples measurment is overall hieght from the desktops surface, HP is measuring just the case dimension which is 1.04", if you include the rubber feet at (~ 1/16") .0625" then the envy is actually 1.11" high so now your looking at a .15" difference or about 15% thicker than the MBP. The 14 will be even more noticable at about 25% thicker than the MBP 13 or 15....

 

I agree with the comments here about the absurd thickness and weight of the upcoming 14 and 17. But lets bring the discussion back to our Envy 15 since that is the topic of this thread.

 

New WiFi and Touchpad drivers just posted on the 'drivers' thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-compaq-voodoo-pc/426181-drivers-hp-envy-15-intel.html

 

You can use AMD GPU Tool to measure GPU Temps, or install latest graphics driver from HP and HWMonitor will show your GPU.

Manual Under/Overclocking probably would not work as I've tried every possible option and it fails ALWAYS.

 

When that day comes, and my lovely and powerful laptop looks more like a Pavilion, I hope I am already looking for a replacement...else my "premium laptop" will be premium to my eyes only, but for the rest it'll be like any other HP...hmmmm no offense to Pavilion owners, it is just I really dislike the Pavilion line.

Depends on the ODD if it uses SATA or not to connect. I think it can be done, albeit it is more a model-dedicated thing. For example the Dell SXPS 1645 could get this little modification, at the expense of the ODD for an HDD/SSD and an adapter. RAID is supported by our laptops, so it could be done. Thing is, most likely you'll void your warranty.

If you ask me, don't do it, and use the eSATA preferably. But if you know what you are doing, and find the way to do so, then it is under your own risks, if you get to buy the E14.

Depends on usage and mobility, and specific cases mostly. So I'd say no, to somewhat noticeable.

Considering how the E15 was the "start" of all of this new design trend, it is fair to compare the 14 and 17 to it, since they are "evolutions" of ours.



IMHO, HP is trying to hard with the Envy line. The first two were more premium, sacrified some rather useless (for me) things, in order to be more portable and light. Those two main reasons are the ones why I cancelled my SXPS 1645 the next day I ordered (when the Envy came out on 18th Oct 2009) and ordered this one, more power, less weight, smaller, it was a win (and supposedly dual drives...grrr). The two new ones are a less "revolutionary" design, trying to be more like Pavilions with a "premium touch" if you ask me. Not to mention that plastic base looks hideous, cheap, out of place, ruins it completely.

They should stick to their original design, improve things like a backlit keyboard, the E2E, better cooling, and longer battery life. Connectivity is fine, although somewhat lacking for some. Portability and power was their main focus, and they are throwing that away, in order to have a more mainstream laptop.

 

Agreed Serg. I don't like what HP is doing with the 14/17. Of course I like the E2E, backlit, and battery life, but why did HP have to mess it up with the CD/DVD (at least give an option to have second HDD or nothing at all), increased thickness, plastic base, cheap looking lightup logo (like Pavillions), etc.

I was really hoping the 14/17 would be my ultimate system. And I guess I'll still take the 14 because there's nothing else out there that matches my needs better, but man they messed up the premium part.

If they could just update the 15 with E2E, backlit, and switchable graphics, that's what I'd take.

 

@StealthReventon

Thanks, looks like I am not the only one disliking the new design. I don't know what HP though, and even if those sell, for me the 14/17 are fails...sorry. The 15 had compromises, and people agreed on them when taking it...now the 14/17 are plain good looking (and not even that) laptops...

Sure, we all agree the E13/15 had some defects, but the design IMHO as a industrial design student is far superior than that of the new generation...

 

I'm not convinced the 14/17 has a plastic base. I actually believe the black portion of the base is aluminum. If you watch the video posted a few pages back with Barry Ferris showing the Envy 14, he removes the bottom panel for the battery and drive bay. As he snaps the panel back to the chassis it sure doesn't sound like plastic, it definitely sounds like aluminum.

Off topic:

@Serg, Good to have another industrial designer on here! Where are you studying at?

 

I am sorry but to my eyes, it doesn't seem that metallic. Even if it is, the color choice and texture selection is very poor. It looks like plastic but is metal? Normally HP does it the other way around, it is plastic but looks and feels like metal (DV and DM series).

For those who haven't seen the video:
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LPNFQX1JYOU&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LPNFQX1JYOU&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='640' height="385"></embed></object>

To me eyes, that is plastic, if not, then no idea what drove them to that design. I might be one, but I am not pleased at all with the new design, this is me hoping the E15 doesn't get it, they would ruin it...

Off topic:

@matie3201
I am studying in France right now, in a small-ish city, and I plan after finishing my DUT (a university-level technical degree) to go to Paris and continue my studies, hopefully focusing on high-tech design (they need my help :wink: haha)

How about you?