*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 2*

I wonder if HP will do anything about it.. Do you think I will have a case with HP JJB? My current situation is:

I Bought the Envy 1st gen in Feb From HONG KONG, but now I live in Australia, so it has been 6 months already. I noticed I suffer from High temps..

At the moment, the room is pretty cold, I'd say <15c, HDD temp is at 40c! GPU is sitting at 53c and all cores are hovering almost 60c..

This is with a FRESH install of win7, with no CPU taxing processes

LaMMi

 

Hi lammi, we both have the same problem. i bought my laptop in the US and now im in the philippines. i paid heavily just to send my laptop to the US for fixing. but they just fixed my motherboard and changed the thermal paste. it didn't fix the horizontal lines and the dead pixel. currently im waiting for the envy 15 to be released here in the philippines so that i can get it to be fixed here. my warranty ends this november. im so worried over this. i paid a lot for this laptop that has problems..

 

We are almost in the same shoe man. I bought in late December in Hong Kong and I suffer from the same sort of temperatures and (I reckon) the fan not doing enough job to sort out the heat.
Batch issue...?

 

it's starting to get pretty hot in HOng Kong isn't it? lol, how are your temps holding up?

 

Normally I see them idling at ~60 maybe?

 

I just noticed the same problem on mine. There is a YouTube video thread of people who have reported the same issue. I recorded a video and posted it to show my problem. One of the users on the thread reported speaking with HP tech support a month ago and hearing that fix was in the works.

 

Can anyone recommend websites for SSD drives reviews?

 

Hey guys, I had a question regarding CPU swapping. I currently have an Envy 15 with the i7-720QM and I just got my Envy 17 with the i5-450M. I want to swap the CPUs and I was wondering if there were any peculiarities or certain things I need to know or do before I perform the swap. I'm familiar with the innards of both as I've swapped the HDDs and installed an SSD and taken apart and put back together both laptops a few times now. I don't need instruction on how to perform the swap, I just wanted to know if there are any quirks switching from an i5 with the integrated graphics to an i7 without it. I know when ordering online, HP specified "different" versions of the 5850 depending on whether you chose the CPU with the GMA HD or not. Was there a specific reason for that other than graphics switching?

 

My experience with SSDs is that most manufacturer published speeds are inaccurate. However, in the end, most of the drives are similar in real world performance. When it comes to compatibility and reliability however, Intel has never disappointed and as such, I never stray from the X-25V/M/E line, even with the price premium.

 

Don't think it will work, the E 15 uses the PM 55 chipset and a 988 rPGA socket. IIRC the 14 and 17 uses a different chipset (PM 57?) and, I think, a different package / socket. See screen shot from Everest below showing the E15 CPU package info, you can download Everest ( free trial) to your E 17 and it should show the same info, also under the 'motherboard' heading it will show the chipset:

 

Hello guys, I'm back again...

anyways... about changing the cpu for Envy 15. I have tried to change from i7 720QM to i7 620M cpu while the system boot up fine, but the system lost access to 2 ram slots and the USB3.0 ports as result. possible reinstalling windows could fix the lost of USB3.0 ports, but not the ram slots as you can't even boot up with all 4 slots filled.

BGA1288 and PGA988 are the same socket, as long as the bio recognized the cpu, you should be fine.

Due to the recent heatwave in the northeast region(US), I had to send my Envy 15 back to repair. it runs around 85c during normal use, way too hot for my liking and it starts to make those high pitch noise from the right hand side. Let's hope they can replace my overheating system board, fans and SSD with something that doesn't cook an egg during normal use.

 

I fixed mine with the use of Arctic Silver 5. A proper application lowered the GPU from 78C to 69C. Marvelous! Now the only annoying thing about my Envy is the stupid Intel Wi-Fi card that occasionally every two days upon turning it on fail to scan for routers and overheats .

 

Okay, fixed my internet streaming problems. It was the modem's problem. The only reason I couldn't specify in the first place was because the modem began acting up at the exact same time I received my ENVY. Coincidentally, the problem stalled after every restore for some reason, further confusing me. Apologies are in order, JJB, for troubling you with this.

Secondly, I've recently installed Battlefield Bad Company 2. My GPU is clocked to 550/1050, yet I find that I still cannot run it on 1080p with high settings (shadow-low, and MSAA=0, Aniso=0, Bloom=false, Vsync=false, and Under/Overgrowth on medium). Obviously everything else is high. I keep hearing how others can run it on high without a hitch. Is this a problem with my CPU actually being the bottle-neck (i5-430m)? I find that hard to believe as while it's the lowest end i5, it's still pretty high end in terms of available mobile CPU's today. Or is my OC just wimpy?

I've whittled down a couple explanations as to why I cannot run it compared to others:

1. My OC is weak.

2. My CPU is weak.

3. I did not do a fresh W7 installation (although I have removed ALL bloatware possible whilst cleaning registry).

4. Driver update problem (it seems that although I updated to the most recent driver available on ATI's website, it only shows as 5800 instead of 5830 on the device manager).

5. Settings need a little more tweaking.

If any of these are true besides one and two, please indulge. I can't even get a silky-smooth playing experience without lowering the resolution to 1440x900 high or 1600x900 medium, which is extremely fail.

 

@celibate

FYI, this is the original gen 1 E 15 thread, supposed to be for i7 CPU's, so you may want to go to the gen 2 thread HERE which is more active and mainly has i5 CPU machine ownwers, it's no big deal they cross over all the time but it's a more active thread in general.

I'm not a gamer but there should be no problem running that game AFAIK. Try running 3Dmark06 with no OC to see what you get, should be around 7500+ or so at default settings, I get ~8000 @ defaults with the 540M...

At least that will give you an idea if something is way out of whack.....

 

Yeah my bad, sometimes it's hard to differ between the two, I'll post results on the other thread later.

 

Well guys I have a problem and do not know what to do. Ever since I updated to the latest bios (I think that is when this cropped up) I have had an unknown device in my device manager under USB devices and sometimes it comes up as a usb composite device and sometimes it malfunctions and I can hear the connect / disconnect sound like a million times after start up.

I have installed everything I possibly could from the 1050nr driver page (which is the model I was told this one is) and nothing has helped. I noticed that I have no webcam driver installed, so I tried updating it with the 1.9 version and still my webcam does not work, although installing the drivers enabled the light sensor. I am thinking maybe this unknown device is the webcam as that is the only thing that I know of that is not installed.

I reformatted and couldnt get the revovery partition to work a while ago, so I just used my own Win 7 Ultimate x64 disc and started over with all the drivers... I still have the recovery partition for my Win 7 Pro x64, but I cannot seem to get into recovery mode and also my usb stick is too small to make a usb recovery drive. When I try to go into recovery mode it just boots up Win 7 like normal...

Anyone have any recommendations on how to resolve this or how to better identify which model my latptop is? Also I was told that this laptop should be identical to one of the HP Envy 15 laptops and I thought it was the 1050nr. I have the 4830, i7 Q820, 128gb intel ssd w/250gb normal hdd, 8gb ddr3 ram etc...

So far all the drivers for the 1050nr have installed and worked properly.

 

I believe that is expected behavior as you need the i7 qm in order to take advantage of the 4 slots. The 620 is a dual core. Just curious but why would you downgrade your cpu?

Doesn't that CPU have on board GPU as well?

 

I found a review dated July 2010 at sweclockers.com (in Swedish) - the Intel X-25M does well across the board but is beginning to show its age, it's completely blown away in the IOPS benchmark by the new SandForce-based units (OCZ Vertex 2, Corsair Force) which reach 50K IOPS compared to 20K for the X-25M.

Pretty pics here: SSD Sommaren 2010 - Test / Recension - Lagring - SweClockers.com

Looks like a 240GB OCZ Vertex 2 might be what I am looking for.

BTW My Envy is at HP for service now - the keyboard permanently gave up. Some others have had a similar problem, seems like a bad production run for the early Gen1 keyboards. I'll have it back later this week.

Also having a debate with myself whether to go past 8GB memory. Initially I though 16GB would be great, but even with two VMs up and running, or editing a 1800 MB drum scan, it's a bit difficult to motivate more than 8 GB.

An alternative would be to get a 4 GB stick for the free slot. Do you see a problem with a 2+2+2+4 GB setup?
-Lars

 

There might not be a problem per say however you would be better off going with matching ram sticks. say 2+2 and 4+4. In order to take advantage of the dual-channel configuration.

 

I dont know if there is an official benchmark thread for the 1st gen envy 15? I know there's one for the 2nd gen.

Anyway, played with my notebook and managed to score a rather impressive 3dmark 06 score @ 1366x768 (9747). Does someone know the record for the 4830M with the same res?

Clocks were 575/1020
Maybe I can still go a bit higher, we'll see. Only the sky is the limit
I'm really amused to see a nice 30% OC on a mobile graphics card

 

Unfortunatly the lower res does not even meet the 3Dmark06 default of 1280 x 1024 so you can't even call it an 'official' score. For reference the 5830's seem to be able to OC to, on average, 600 / 1050, the bottleneck for higher scores after that level is mostly the memory speed. It all depends on the individual chips capability which varies greatly on the E 15, same for memory... There have been a few who have broken the 10K barrier with the 4830 at default 1280 x 1024 with the 1080p display.

 

I just popped my envy cherry! I just picked up a Gen 1. Does anyone know if the drivers for the gen 2 will work on the gen 1? I understand the Gen 2 has a newer GPU and wifi but aside from that will the other drivers work does it use the same motherboard? Im not interested in USB 3.0 either ill use the eSata port which works fine since the 500GB sata drive the laptop came with will not spin fast enough to take advantage of USB 3.0 ill pop in a ssd and have some fun. I don't really see a point in running raid0 either from a performance point of view. I doubt you can saturate 1 ssd on this laptop let alone 2.

 

anyone know why my envy 15 ship weight is like 12 pounds? doesn't it weight something like 6 pounds?

edit: sorry about posting in the wrong place

 

The mobo's are essentially the same other than the USB 3.0 connectors and the GPU. Drivers are also the same for the most part. You can go to the HP drivers and downloads section and just type in 'Envy 15t 1000 CTO' for the gen 1 drivers list. Also here is a link to the NBR drivers thread for the envy 15: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-drivers-software-forum/426181-drivers-hp-envy-15-intel.html Just make sure that your devices are supported by the drivers on this thread; example, don't use the NEC USB controller (3.0) or the broadcom modem (you should have intel) etc...

 

My package weighed in at 18 pounds. Don't worry it's normal. There are three boxes (maybe two for you, seeing the weight differential), and the ENVY box is extremely heavy, it being very high-grade material.

 

The power adapter, cd/dvd rom and 9 cell battery had weight to the box.

 

i didn't think of the power adapter. i ordered the dvd from somewhere else and the 9 cell battery i ordered separately because it was cheaper at the time.

 

The low 4k random read and write results on the Envy 15 are still unresolved.

Re: Poor SSD Performance in Envy 4k Read/Write Tim... - Page 4 - The Next Bench

That alone would make me vary of buying the most expensive SSDs as they will not be utilized accordingly in an Envy 15.

In regards to SF-based SSDs, I would seriously wait and see until the last critical issues are resolved.

Right now the SF-based SSDs cause BSODs on some systems after resuming from Standby and the drives might even "disappear", forcing an RMA. Also, there are a number of reports that these drives slow down significantly after extensive use and/or lots of incompressible data being written to them.

These both issues can be observed in the OCZ support forums.

 

Hi, I recently got my hands a pretty sweet deal on a deadstock 1055SE beats by dre package; store pretty much paid me to take the included $300 headphones.

Anyways, I would just like to know from fellow Envy 15 owners what laptop case and/ or sleeve fits the Envy 15 with and without the battery slice.


~ And can anyone help me so I can upgrade its 4830 drivers past the obsolete updates from HP? I keep on BSODing with a non - HP supplied catalyst drivers (from AMD directly)..

 

Hmm yeah I forgot about that issue thanks for reminding me.

 

Can Envy 15 Owners post their Frame Rates (ctrl+alt+F in game to show frame rate on top left) for Starcraft 2 along with their 3dmark06 scores if you have them?

I am looking to buy a laptop that can at least run SC2 on medium with 60+ FPS stable on all multiplayer maps.

 

Hey guys,

I saw the new Envy 13 and 17 came out with some cool new features such as the backlit screen. When was the last time the Envy 15 got refreshed? Ie., when were the heat issues corrected, etc.?

Thanks!
Dan

 

hey guys, i have a quick question for those who have the beats edition. did your laptop come with the beats studio headphones?

 

Slightly confused.

How many memory slots does the Envy 15 have? Is it two or four?

Thanks

Chad

 

Nevermind ...I was informed by mobilekrispy that it was 2 slots.

 

what model? mine has 4

 

Two internal (not user accessible unless you crack the case voiding warranty), two external user accessible.

At least on my 1st-gen.

 

I was under the impression that opening an Envy's case does NOT void the warranty...but maybe I'm wrong...

 

Envy 15....

 

the Gen 1 and Gen 2 i7's have 4 slots.

The Gen 2 i5 has 2 slots.

 

Somebody from HP on an HP forum claimed it was "not user accessible and therefore voided your warranty", but maybe it depends on which HP guy you talk to and whether you cause obvious damage yourself in opening it.

*shrug*. That's my history on the topic.

 

I just installed an intel SSD into my envy. Although its only a x-25v I expected to get higher than 5.9. I have the same drive on my desktop and only got a 6.1 does anyone have scores from a sata drive to compare to? I elected to go with a ssd for the fact that it lowers the temp and no moving parts. The 500GB sata makes a great drive for backups and archiving. The eSata port works great and from the benchmarks i have seen it performs as fast or faster than usb 3.0. This is a G1 i7 720 and 6GB DDR3 1333mhz and ati 4830.

 

The NEC USB3 implementation I tested does not seem to support NCQ. If that is valid in general for USB3 then proper eSATA will beat USB3 for external HDD/SSD use.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...7-official-owners-thread-135.html#post6557567

 

Most external eSATA drives will beat current USB3 drives in terms of speed. I'm waiting for an external HDD that has interfaces for both.

 

That was more a comparison of the interfaces / the implementation of the interfaces, rather than the underlying drives as I was using my Intel G1 SSD in all three tests.

 

Hi I tried to change from i7 720qm to 640m and then my envy is rebooting all the time with black screen. I've seen a guy who tried to downgrade from 720qm to 620m and it worked. Do you know why ?

 

720QM is a quadcore i7, the 640m is a dualcore. HP uses a different motherboard for the quadcore, so you can't swap without replacing the motherboard (and likely also the GPU).

 

hum the quad core heat too much I'm so disappointed about that

 

yup, you can go from dual core to quad core but the reverse will fail.

 

The "Disk Data Transfer Rate" subscore that windows gives me for the factory installed X18-M G2's in Raid0 is 7.8