*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 2*

Opps........

 

P.M. sent...

 

Has the 4830 had any working driver update. I have been looking but have found nothing. My son has my Envy 15 now and I am wondering if there are any driver updates.

 

Wow. I tried reinstalling my keyboard drivers, rebooting the computer, etc, nothing would work. Then I updated the bios from F2A to F2B and "poof" my keyboard is now working just fine--who would have thunk it .

Problem resolved, N123

 

Hello fellow Envy owners.

For those who are new, welcome. For those who have been here for longer, hi.
I am Serg. Some might remember me. It has been a long time now since I last posted. Uni has taken upon most of my time, then came the gf, then my personal life, and such, and basically I got limited to reading from time to time some stuff and then leave.

Anyways, since I have managed to clear some time, here I am. I need to get back to reading and being up-to-date on what's going on. At the time being, I might not know how to respond most questions, but I can try, so feel free to ask.

So for you to know, I have the first Envy generation. Proudly up-and-running for a year, almost constantly.

So, hi. I am back.

Cheers,

Serg

 

Hi Serg! Cheers to ya mate!

 

Actually . . . it the bios didn't fix the problem, it turned out that the keyboard keys were intermittently flaking out, suggesting a bad connection. I followed the above advice, opened my envy case and cleaned the keyboard connector cable with isopropyl alcohol . . . now everything is working for approx 24 hours so hopefully this works!

N123

 

Hello guys,

I have a ENVY 15 1030ef 1rst Generation, i7 720, HD4830, 4Gb RAM, and I have been looking for working video drivers for ages now.

I tried many drivers : the 8.712, the ones from HP, the 8.702, the latest ones from amd, and all gave me the same result : it freezes at windows loading, and sometimes goes BSOD after a while.

I hear most of the people saying that HP drivers work, could anyone give me a link to these drivers ?

I am just looking for some working drivers since I couldn't find any so far, I don't care how recent they are, or from which brand.

To the 4830 owners : can you please tell me your configuration ? (OS, driver version, BIOS, etc) ?

Thank you.

 

Hello everyone,

I'm replacing my 500gb HD with a Samsung 7200rpm 640gb HD.

Is it necessary to "reverse clone" the HD to get the Samsung properly functioning (put the new "blank" Samsung HD into my Envy and then clone into it from the old drive which is now in an external dock)?

I had read that this "reverse cloning" was generally required for HP laptops to function properly with the new drive . . . however, I did a normal clone to the Samsung in an external dock and then installed the Samsung HD. . . it seems to be working okay . . . if there was going to be a problem from doing a standard clone procedure rather than a "reverse" clone, would it be immediately obvious?

Thanks,
N123

 

Hi. I recently got a first gen Envy 15 with ATI 4830.
I'm experiencing above artifacting / flickering when running DirectX accelerated applications. Often the driver will stop responding and crash the application and I will thereafter get the message "the driver stopped responding and has been restored again.."
I have tried everything from installing differect gfx driver version, updating bios and chipset drivers as well as trying out modded gfx drivers and tools such as ATI tray tool. Finally the laptop has been formatted and restored to factory state but the problem still persist.
Have you guys experienced anything similar and found a solution?
Currently I suspect it to be a hardware malfunction though...

 

Was the USB 3.0 and option in the second generation envy 15 with the i7 processor or was it on every one that was manufactured. I am trying to determine if an envy 15 on ebay has it or not

 

I need a little help or direction.

I have 2 HP Envy 15 laptops. A 1000 and an 1100. The 1000 has a slice battery that fits perfectly.

The new one the 1100 had an issue with the slice that it wouldnt remain seated all the time. If I would move the laptop, the batter would fall off all the time. After having this problem for about 6 months and the slice stopped working due to a prong getting bent while falling off the laptop, I finally had to send it in.

THey were nice enough to inform me that it was My fault that the damage had occured and the would fix it for $279 even though I had informed them the laptop battery never seated correctly since I got it.

Has anyone else had this kind of a problem with the slice and had it resolved through the warranty? or am I out the cost of a new battery?

 

And with my above post, since i am in the first year I could still buy the accidental damage plan and send it in again for warranty right? or since they already know about it they wont fix it?

will I have to run it over and get a completely new one? would that work?

I hate HP service but I love this laptop.

HELP!

 

i5's only had USB 2.0. The USB 3.0 was a novelty for only i7-Equipped 2nd Generation (1100) Envy 15's.

 

after days of research i decided this was the machine for me, now i cant find it on the hp site, does anyone have any ideas what is going on. i have read a lot of the thread so i know they had issues but is it going to be for sale again
cheers

 

I would not know if its coming back, but I want to ask... what do you think of the Envy 14 which is not too far off from the 15 or just get a little bigger with the Envy 17 3D

 

you should try their refurb store the envy 15 is still there.

Currently they are not being produced anymore.

 

the envy 14 does not have 1080p. I am electronics designer so when on site i would use a netbook, long battery life and small but just not really useful for design work as resolution too low, i use a sony avn whis is 5 years old but has 1920x1200 which is great . i looked for models with 1920x1200 but very expensive and terrible battery life. so i was about to compromise on was envy 15, resolution and battery life. what should i look at?

 

checked the refurb/outlet store - only a single envy 13 there as far as i can see

 

you need to check here
Refurbished business products. its a pain to search in the hp outlet and refurb, there are 2 pages. One that offers deals, and the other that offers the refurbs.

although I have taken a look and you are going to need to order the envy 15 gen1 or the envy gen2 without the FHD display, what you can is to swap the display, and that is easy

another option is going the ebay route. they use the same refurbs from the hp outlet, but you might have a better chance to do without the screen swap

 

Hi I've downgraded my cpu from 720qm to 580m, but I'm stuck when trying to reinstall windows 7. I think I need usb 2.0 drivers because it doesn't work with nec 3.0 usb drivers. Can someone give me a link for the right drivers please ?

 

the port is dead and shall remain so, as far I recall from this thread.

The move from the i7 to the i5 makes you lose not only the USB3 capability but the port itself.

 

Hi I am really enjoying my envy 15 but having a problem with the wlam suddenly disconnecting. What do i do? thanks

 

I've had this problem too since day 1. But I can't figure out how to fix it...

 

Update to the latest Intel Wireless Drivers. Fixed the problem for me over three times, every time I reinstalled the OS and coming from the stock drivers.

 

Hey guys,

I am wondering what you guys think is the best way to deal with the heat on the bottom of the Envy 15. I noticed that when the Envy 15 is running on battery there is almost no heat on the bottom of the laptop at all. It becomes quite comfortable to use on the lap, but when I use it on my lap with it plugged in it is quite warm and gets uncomfortable.

What is the best way to keep the processor/gpu throttled to keep the heat down? Thanks!

EDIT: Hum... I seem to be getting the same temperatures, or at least they aren't going down at all when I unplug it. Maybe it was just in imagination? I'm not sure. I'll have to do some testing. I am idling around 40 for my CPU cores and 50 degress for the 5830m. Is this what you guys are getting? Thanks.

EDIT 2: Maybe there is a way to increase fan speed to keep the bottom of the laptop cooler? Any programs for that?

 

ThrottleStop and force it to run on 9x Multiplier (that's the Multiplier that Intel uses for Power Saving). I think the problem with the heat is that the controller that controls the charging on the battery gets pretty hot. So you might be feeling the heat of the controller.

 

I think part of the heat I feel is just the heat building up where my body is touching the laptop regularly. It normally doesn't build up as much with plastic laptops, but since the Envy 15 is metallic I think my hands act as a blanket of sorts and build up heat on the palm rests/underside of the laptop. But Yes, I do notice that the laptop is significantly cooler when it isn't charging. So I think the controller could have something to do with it.

I'm using the slice right now so that the heat has an additional barrier between me and laptop.

 

first post, looking to buy an Envy from a friend... what's the going rate for the i7 5830 with external DVD burner? is $800 a good deal? (all in really good shape) Am I being an idiot not waiting for the sandy bridge refresh?

 

Also, really informative site, looks like I'll be reading for hours

 

$800 is a great deal! I sold off my i5 5830 Envy with a Ext. DVD Burner, 8 GB of RAM, 1080p Matte, blah, blah, blah. for $1100 lol. The i7 should be worth even more than my machine. Its a steal on your part! Also the 5830 models are better built in terms of reliability than the ones with a 4830. However, if he has taken good care of it, I am sure you won't encounter any serious problems.

If you need raw quad processing power with good battery life, then you should get Sandy Bridge with a nVidia Optimus approved switchable graphics solution. However, if you want a higher-end graphics solution in a sleek package, there isn't anything out there that could give what an Envy 15 offers. Even in the Envy 14 doesn't show justice to call it its successor in my honest opinion.

Also, the activity in the Envy 15 threads has been waning since the model discontinuation. However, there should be plenty of information for you to set it up. If you need any more help, we are here to help (I am after all, an ex-Envy 15 user).

 

cool thanks, still waiting on the deal to go through but I'm jonesing for a new lappy.

 

What are temps with the i7 though? I imagine it isn't classified as well cooled?

 

I'm getting around 55c on idle/light browsing. while gaming it gets all the way between 92c to 100c, cpu tempts gets little bit higher than the gpu but both are ridiculously hot.

Yet, I haven't experienced any crashes, blue screen, slowdowns, weird graphics, or anything else associated with overheating.

 

You can hook up an external monitor to it to completely rule out a driver/software issue, but I'm assuming it's a damaged connection on the motherboard(from the laptop running so hot). My gen 1 envy 15 started showing green lines/distortion around images and videos a few weeks ago when the laptop was at temps of 80+. I changed to power saver mode with active fans and the problem went away(temps stay around 60). A few days ago I bumped a wall with my laptop while I was carrying it and the artifacting came back permanently. I'll probably chalk this one up to never buying an hp again; I owned a dv2500t previously and the motherboard also died due to solder breaks.

 

i havent read through all the posts, but i think there is a fix for the random black screen/crashing envy15 (worked for me and a few other people i know of). of course update all your drivers, especially bios driver. after that, shut off your computer, take the battery out. hold the power button for 10-20 seconds. put the batt back in and start up your comp and it shouldnt do that black screen thing again.

 

Hello everyone,
I'm having a problem which I admit, I caused by myself. I created a recovery partition right after I bought my Envy 15 on a 16gb flash disk. Recently I needed this flash for a backup and copied the main folder of recovery partition on this flash disk onto my hdd. it has been 1 month since then and yesterday I needed to reinstall windows. So I booted from the flash WITHOUT the main folder which was instead coped on my HDD. And of course, it formatted my hdd with this folder and thus I lost my recovery partition forever.

The problem is, I am from Prague, Czech Republic and HP doesn't send the recovery partition disk outside continental America.

Is there anyone who could possibly upload the recovery partition for windows 7 x64 Professional for me ? I can provide my serial number and pictures of my envy and the sticker showing that I am suppose to own the Windows 7 x64 Professional. I am willing to pay a reasonable sum for the upload. Megaupload offers 500mb files for free, that would mean 28 parted rar.

 

Sorry, but it is against NBR rules to do so. Even if you do verify your an HP owner, there is still security risks doing so. Also, I just gave my own personal copy of the disks to the new owner of my Envy 15.

What you can do is try to contact HP and get your laptop repaired with a new HDD or something like that. In most cases the new HDD the repairs give you will have a fresh recovery partition.

Also, you can just install a personal copy of Windows 7. You can still get most of the drivers and utilities back via the HP Support Page.

 

I understand it is not legal but my choices are very limited. I can try to contact HP but Envy 15 isnt even sold here and I bought it refubrished from EBay. Concerning the personal Windows 7 copy, I only possess one for my desktop and don't intend to buy another one because of such a silly mistake.

To prevent any intrusion into NBR rules. anyone who would be willing to help me please contact me trough my email:
[email protected] (without Xs)

Please someone help me with this illegal according to laws, but legal according to common sense, problem, I'd be really appreciative!

 

Guys,

I just ordered an Envy 15 1067nr. I haven't read through everything in this forum but have been doing a little research on it. I will be using this system to replace my Dell Studio 17 Multi Touch, basically I wanted something a little more portable, higher res screen and love the capability of 16gb of ram. I do have a question though, I currently run an SSD with a 500GB HDD, I know I won't be able to run this same setup because the Envy 15 only supports dual 1.8" drives. What I am wondering is if anyone knows if the Envy 15 has a spare Mini PciE slot inside? If so I would like to install the new Intel Mini 310 SSD in this slot and keep the 500gb 7200rpm drive. Anyone know if this is possible?

 

Phew, reading through all of that took a while!

Bought my HP Envy 15 1st gen refurbished about 3 months ago for £650 (about $1000). Moved to a small flat so was to replace my old monstrously huge desktop. So far my experiences are broadly similar to everything said before, a quick review:

Battery life is rubbish, I don't care though, it's almost always plugged in. 90 mins is about it.

Performance fantastic. I bought this primarily to play games. Can play any game, although most games very high settings are out of reach, as is anti aliasing. Older Games like Lotro run maxed with AA. Metro 2033, for example, runs nicely at medium (~30fps) with AA switched off. Starcraft 2 High (not very high), 30fps). All at 720p.

It's light, really light. Carrying it round is a pleasure.

It's hot, really hot. I won't use it on my laptop without a laptop tray (I have the Belkin Cooling Lounge).

The Keyboard is terrible. Spongy and the shortcut keys mean even 3 months on I still press the wrong keys. I hate the fact it isn't backlit. But despite some reviews, I'm getting on well with the trackpad. However to play games I always plug in my Saitek Eclipse 2 keyboard and Razer Orochi mouse.

Generally I'm really, really happy. It has quirks. I like quirks. But what I really like is good performance in something that doesnt weigh a ton, and doesn't look like it was designed for a 14 year old boy!

 

Hi
i have a very big problem with my Hp Envy 15:
the HDMI port dose not work when i plug it to an HDTV the laptop show the HDTV in its settings and even the the name of the TV but there is no signal i try it on 2 HDTVs and bot show the same problem ?
Any help

 

You need to enable the monitor. Change your display settings. If the TV shows up in the settings window, your Envy is working properly.

 

Very Noob question how can i do that ?

 

Upupupupup

 

To switch between the monitors press F4 (Fn + F4).

To check what monitors are connected to your laptop right click on your desktop and select "Screen Resolution"

 

thank you i did that but there is No signal even my HDTV name show on the laptop (Sony) so i have no idea what I'm doing wrong i try 3 HDTVs there all same ?

 

Have you set it up to either duplicate or extend your display?

Look in the Catalyst Control Centre and there should be a tab for setting up the HDMI output.



a side note, anyone knows if the latest ATI driver supports overclocking? I am having problems using the AMD clock tool

 

tried both of them this problem is driving me crazy ?

 

Can you guys please post some catalyst control center color/brightness/etc combinations for me to try? I just got my envy 15 and the screen is NOT bright enough. If I turn up the brightness to an acceptable level, colors get washed out and it is not acceptable as I'm a graphic designer. Here is an image of it compared to my exernal monitor:



Notice on how my external monitor, the whites are BRIGHT. On my laptop, whites are a shade of gray.