HP Omen 15 (5XXX series) Gaming Notebook

Nice discount!

I get 4-4.5 hours taking notes with max brightness and air plane mode off (wireless on). I'd say you could get a bit more by turning down the brightness and turning airplane mode on (wireless off).

Enjoy it.

 

Hello all, first post here

I bought the Omen about a month ago. 512 SSD, 16GB RAM, 4GB GPU. Overall, I find it's a lovely laptop. I'm having some intermittent problems though and it worries me a bit.

I am having some issues with HP Omen Control, as others on this thread have experienced. First: fn+F no longer works to activate/de-activate maximum fan state. Not after re-booting, not after un-installing and re-installing Omen Control...nothing. HP Support recommended doing a reset/refresh. I've done that before; it fixes the problem temporarily, but after a while it happens again. Not sure what's happening there.

Unchecking "Animated Speakers" does not, in fact, affect the state of the animated speakers (I find them annoying and gimmicky and want that function turned off at all times).

These are not the worst laptop problems in the world, however they cause me to question the integrity of this laptop. Hopefully this is remedied in a software update...and soon at that...

I've encountered the Driver_Power_State_Failure BSOD and have generally determined that it happens when the AC adapter is only partially plugged in. The fit on the jack could be more snug - so I have to be careful and make sure that it is fully plugged in at all times.

Finally, I DO wish that there was a "silent mode" - a way to keep the laptop silent (fan OFF) at all times, no matter how much the CPU would have to be throttled. Among other things, I use this PC for digital audio production (for which it's great) and for recording audio (for which the fan noise becomes an issue in a controlled studio environment)

I've played with advanced power settings as much as possible, but no matter what...I cannot get more than 10 minutes or so of fanless operation, running nothing more than low-profile audio software with a few active DSPs (digital signal processors, which take up a little CPU).

Were this all to be remedied...the laptop would be approaching perfection, in my book

 

You could turn off the speaker lighting completely if you wanted, just change the color to black. I think we just need a software update, I have some minor issues with Omen Control but not those (yet).

 

I like the lights along the sides. I just don't like them to be "animated". That feature is without question a gimmick, and poorly executed. I was expecting a much more nuanced response of the light to the audio, where they would pulse with the volume changes. Instead, it seems that they have about three states...loud, medium and soft. Not an interactive or aesthetically pleasing experience at all, IMO.

 

I agree, I have my animated speakers box unchecked too and they don't pulse. I'm not sure why Omen Control isn't disabling that for you.

 

I also had some issues with omen control. It seems to have a mind of its own. But my problem was that of keyboard lighting, where omen control would not change the intensity of light of keyboard, no matter, what ever % is specified. As of now, it is working well for me. But never had issues with speaker lighting.

 

Hey Y'all,
I've been looking at buying a new laptop to replace my 5 year old Dell XPS. So far, I've narrowed it down to the HP omen and Lenovo Y50 which seem to have comparable specs and performance for gaming. From what I've seen, the Omen looks absolutely beautiful, much better than the Y50, albeit more expensive. Despite this, I have a couple of reservations about the laptop, the main one being that it is made by HP. I haven't had much experience with newer or premium HP products, but past experiences with the brand have always left me wary about HP products, particularly their longevity and build quality. But given that the laptop was designed by HP's Voodoo segment, maybe my concerns are unfounded? If possible, can y'all comment on the laptop's build quality given that HP is not particularly known for its reliability or gaming unit?

Also, given their comparable specs, is their any reason why I shouldn't just opt for the Lenovo Y50 (gtx 860m 4gb) based on price alone, which as of now, sits below the $1,000 price mark w/tax? Thanks.

 

Hi, for anwering your concerns regarding Omen -
1. Omen has much superior build, construction and lighitng elements as compared to y50. Infact if you hold Omen in hand, i can bet that it will look to anyone as a laptop that is manufactured by boutique manufacturers
2. The cpu being the same, turbo speeds are much better maintained on the omen than on y50
3. Screen of omen is touchscreen, which is higly usable for metro interface of windows 8. I have heard a lot of criticism on forums for lenovo 1080p screen. A screen with higher resolution then 1080 does not make sense as any laptop gpu will not be able to play games at tood quality at these resolutions.
4. Keyboard and onboard trackpad are better then y50.
5. The laptop is lighter faster and slimmer then y50 due to better materials, fast SSD (y50 has 8 GB SSD flash only) and hence, is good for office use as well as gaming. Omen has a very understated profile when one switches off the lighting elements through omen control and it can be easily used in class or office ( one if the main reasons why i like it for its non flashy appearence)

 

If look, build and thermal management matters to you go for Omen. If budget is tight go for Y50

 

I've thought about this too.

In the mainstream HP is known for poor build quality and laptops that overheat and fail. I don't know if it is by chance, but according to Laptop Mag, there might actually have been some change going on. HP has consistently been very low on the quality-list of laptop manufactureres, but took 3 spot this year; http://blog.laptopmag.com/laptop-brand-ratings < I don't know if you can hold any stock in that. As you can read in the comments, many people are angry about HP scoring better than the likes of Asus and MSi.


Build Quality and lifespan is really difficult to talk about with laptops. There are plenty of posters here who have owned the best Asus/Apple/Lenovo/Sony laptops and they have had numerous problems. It's also unfair sometimes to to brand all laptops into one consus. For example, Sony Vaios had some of the highest most premium laptops, but most stores carried the affordable plastic trash laptops, and that really put a dent in peoples perception of the Vaio quality.
I think HP has made some quality products, but this product is so unusual and unexpected.


Can a company really change around? That's what I want to know! The HP stream 11 has also gotten great reviews!

 

A ton of new drivers are ready for download on the HP driver website

There's also a new BIOS - a F23 :O ?

 

Just noticed that some updates are labelled as updated 'April 10th' but are actually much older updates.
The new bios is interesting, has anybody updated? We could hope it would solve our problems.

 

Has anyone tried the new HP System Event Utility? It says "Adds Animate Keyboard support for the HP Omen Control Utility." so maybe they'll add effects (like the breathing one on msi) to keyboard lights ?
The new bios is probably to support the new gpus and cpus in newer models (960m and 4720)

 

Gonna install all new updates now, we'll see if they actually bothered to fix any of the issues we have

Edit: Installed both new BIOS and update for the Omen Control. The new OC is now able to set fan speed to Normal, Faster and Maximum. There is also a new UI for choosing colour of the lighting of the keyboard.

As for the fn-hotkeys, there is no difference. None of the hotkeys/shortcuts for profiles and mousepad etc is working. Lame!

I also noticed that there was a HP Omen 15-5100 model...is this the Pro Workstation with NVIDIA Quadro graphics, or is it an up and coming new model of our omen?

 

Where are you seeing these updates? They are not showing up on HP Support Assistant for me. I think it's lame to have to manually check on HP website...

Already an updated version of my laptop?! Grrrr...I can feel the sense of inadequacy setting in...

No, but seriously, what could that be?! "Pro Workstation"? I thought THIS was my Pro Workstation!

 

Well, the workstation is in a whole other genre than the omen. More aimed at big 3D editing etc. And costs about 1000$ more.
I dont thinkt the 5100 model is the workstation tho. As all current omens has a name from 5000-5099, I assume it's an updated Omen
The only updates I got through the HP Support Assistant was Realtek drivers and a Intel driver. Bios, Omen Control and several other drivers i had to manually download from their website.

 

What are the differences between the 5000-5099 models? Mine is a 5000.

 

http://store.hp.com/webapp/wcs/stor...pe=Base&categoryId=&langId=-1&catalogId=10001

Looks like it will indeed have the 960M. But from what I understand, this is a very minor GPU upgrade, no?

I wonder what else will be different.

If Costco (which has a 90-day return policy) ends up selling this within the next 2 months...I am going to return my 5000 and get the 5100 (which I think is only fair)

 

Yep, 960M is just an overclocked 860M. Download PrecisionX and your 860M can match/beat it.

 

Aren't these updates supposed to show in HP Support Assistant? Does it take some time, perhaps, for them to enter the system?

 

Only partial of these updates are visible on hp update assistant. Further, i can also see a gtx 860m gpu update driver. Has anyone installed it? I have installed my latest driver as per nvidia geforce experience

 

The NVIDIA driver you mention is most likely an old driver from october 2014.
The current driver from NVIDIA is version 347.88, the one HP released yesterday is version 344.24
http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/78583/en-us

Why they released an old driver I have no idea...I even think the previous NVIDIA driver released on HPs pages was of newer date than this one.

 

Is it written somewhere on the website that this is an old driver as hp has said that this driver has been released on 10th april. But yes, as pf now, i am geforce driver -347.88, but it is giving me some troubles in games

 

It doesnt say so on the HP website, but during the installation the installable feautures was listed. And there was the driver 344.24 and physX.

This was on the norwegian website though. I dont think they they upload different files on different websites...but who knows, its HP -_-

 

do you guys think there will somehow be a way to convince the 860m chip that it is a 960m chip? The actual architecture and hardware are the same between the two right? This way we will be able to increase it's unlockablilty even more.

 

I believe that with some overclocking software and/or bios modification, this is achievable. However, i do not overclock the gpu for simple reason that i dont want my hardware to conk off due to excessive heat, fans not working properly etc.

 

There is now a new driver arrived from GeForce - 350.12

 

Notice any difference?

 

Haha... New geforce driver just in time for GTA V

 

Well, the Geforce Experience hasn't crashed when I have tried opening it, wich it often did on the 347.88 driver.
As Battlefield 4 is the only game I play, I havent noticed any difference in performance ingame.

 

Has anyone tried running Windows 7 on their Omen?

 

Have not tired but i dont think it would work properly or work at all as all drivers and other software on HP website are only available fpr 8-8.1.

 

That's why I haven't tried it yet. The Omen Pro is shipping with Windows 7 Professional so I may try those drivers on my Omen when I can find them (I've got a spare copy of Windows 7 laying around and I prefer it over Windows 8.1).

I would think that would work since the only difference between the Omen and Omen Pro seems to be the GPU (and I get those drivers straight from Nvidia anyways).

 

Okkk... I was not aware that there is an omen pro model also available..

 

I am super impressed at how this laptop handle gta5. Smooth and looking impressive. Still in shock!

Sent from my C6833 using Tapatalk

 

I think they just announced it.

 

How is the performance of GTA V on Omen? Has anyone tried it? What are the settings of game & which nvidia driver?

 

I'll give it a try tonight and post my results.

 

So I just played the GTAV prologue and about 30 minutes of GTA Online with my Omen and I am IMPRESSED. I had a weird stuttering issue while playing GTAV on my desktop last night (see signature), but it ran PERFECTLY SMOOTH on the Omen. No stutters at all while holding 50-60 FPS.

So here's all the details:

Driver: 350.12 GeForce Game Ready Driver for Grand Theft Auto V
Settings: GeForce Experience Optimal Settings (SEE SCREENSHOTS BELOW FOR ALL DETAILS)
Other Notes: Turbo Boost was disabled, GPU was running at stock clocks (no overclock), fans were set on the "normal" setting in Omen Control, and the Omen was sitting on a Cooler Master Notepal U2.

Framerates: 50-60 FPS depending on how much action was happening...
- Driving: about 50 FPS
- Shooting NPCs: around 55 FPS
- Standing still watching traffic: 60 FPS

Temperatures:
- CPU (Max): 71 degrees Celsius
- GPU (Max): 62 degrees Celsius

Screenshots of GTAV settings:



Screenshot of temps recorded by HWiNFO64:



Edit: VSYNC was enabled.

 

I have to say that those are impressive stats. Add to that it is an intimidating looking machine. I wonder why they don't make it in 17 inch?

 

The Omen Pro comes with the Quadro 1100M, which is a LESS powerful GPU than our Omen. And it runs on Windows 7!

So apart from a slightly faster processor and hard drives...why would anybody who is not a graphics/game designer pay EXTRA money to get this?

 

They wouldn't. It's specifically aimed toward professionals.

And it doesn't just have to be graphics/game design, some engineers may like it for CAD, etc.

 

The stats for GTA V are really IMPRESSIVE. Thanks for sharing the info. Omen really has taken this next gen game to a different level. Would be great of you can share some in game screenshots too.

 

wow your results have me very excited. What preset would you compare it to? high?

60 FPS on full hd was a lot more than what I was expecting. I wonder how impressive the card would be with a hard OC/OV. There is more than enough thermal room with the temps you are posting

 

Probably high. It looked amazing in both 1080p (Omen) and 720p (TV).

I'll do some OC tests as soon as I get some more time, I love how cool this laptop runs.

 

Question: I'm getting temperatures in the mid 90s in all four cores while gaming, and the area above the keyboard gets super hot to the touch. This seems like it might be bad. Are those numbers a problem?

 

Possibly. The highest I've ever seen on mine was 91 on one core while playing BF4 in high performance mode.

Disable turbo boost in the Windows power plan settings by setting maximum processor state to 99% and then let us know what your max temps are after gaming (mine are low 70s/high 60s).

 

Still getting an average of 92-93 across the cores, with turbo boost disabled in the manner you described. Playing Far Cry 3 on NVIDIA optimized settings. Uh-oh, not good!

This is a bummer because it's my second Omen (first one had speaker distortion and had to be returned). Guess I might have to return another?

 

Before you do that what's your room temperature like? We often share our temperature experience without talking about where we are, room temperature and the seasons we are in.

Sent from my C6833 using Tapatalk

 

Thanks for your responses. I live in Southern California, and room temps are generally cool all year around. Right now, probably around 70.

I don't think environmental heat is playing a factor here.

The laptop cools down pretty quickly after quitting the game, but I've tested with another game and yes, gaming is bringing the temperature of the cores into the low-mid 90s. Core #2 maxed out just now at 96. And that's after just 10 minutes.

On another note, TZS0 and TZS1 (I actually don't know what those are referring to) are measuring at 89 and 71, respectively, after this last session.

Blech. Why must there always be these kinds of problems? :'(

*Rant over*