HP dv6/dv7/Envy 17 Intel Sandy Bridge Discussion

Well, I recall GPU-Z 0.5.0 said it was GDDR5... but I don't have a screenshot of it.

Will this work instead?

 

I'm missing those settings since I've done a fresh install of Win7. Are the settings part of your Power Meter, or something separate in the Control Panel?

Also for the previous poster - the 4290US I have states it has GDDR5, not GDDR3 for the ATI 6570M.

 

It is GDDR5:

 

did you install from the HP recovery partition or Windows 7 disk? the latter will not have the HP goodies;

 

I have a Win7 install disk. I still have the original installation backed up if I need to get any of the original program files.

 

I'd say you lost the HP thermal assistant. check hp.com "software and drivers"

 

Can somebody post a Hwinfo screenshot? I´m looking for info on the RAM, latency and all that stuff.

Thanks!

 

It's not under HP's support page for the 4290US:
Software & Driver Downloads HP Pavilion dv7-4290us Entertainment Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

Bravoexo - can you confirm that Thermal Assistant is on your machine?

 

oh dear. you might have to get it from the HP image. worst case, restore your image from the HP recovery partition and then update windows. then throw away the bloatware you don't want lol. but that will give you Thermal assistant again.

 

And the only accelerometer I found in the device menu is the HP specific accelerometer for the drive protection thingie...

 

now I see why you said your laptop has CoolSense because the HP Thermal Assistant software clearly uses that branding. this appears to be confusing, as the HP CoolSense page itself makes it clear that (1) Coolsense is three things, not just HP TA, and (2) Coolsense is coming to Envy 17 without mentioning that it would be present in the new Dv7s

 

So what's the hardware device item is it?

 

As much as I despise HP, I may end up buying a dv7 to replace my stolen ASUS. Let's hope someone else brings a sub $1200 sandy bridge notebook to market with dual HDD support and eSATA.

 

It looks like HP drastically reduced the estimated battery life.

I checked the support page for the this model and they just added an updated service manual. In the parts catalog it lists the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6550 as the highest available GPU system board. It would make sense given the 600 MHz maximum clock speed.

Did we ever get a GPU-Z 0.5.0 screenshot? I've dug around a few times with no luck. Not that it's going to be amazingly different from the 5650 except for the additional bandwidth from the GDDR5. It's only another 50 MHz to be in the 6570M spec.

 

Thanks Bravoexo - I determined it actually was the fan that was the problem. There was a bad bearing that was creating the issue, and I exchanged it for another 4290US.

I've been running the system without HPTA and it seems to be running fine now. I may reinstall HP Support Assistant - that seems to be the package that includes HPTA.

This looks like CoolSense - a nice unexpected bonus, since I was expecting it would only be in the Envy.

 

How is the touchpad?? Bravoexo...because im thinking of buying and how is gaming....black ops

 

it's relatively ok... had to get used to the buttons as part of the trackpad, and had to tweak the registry to get me tap zones.

I don't have black ops, sorry.

 

can you try out the crysis demo? it is still freely available and give us some info about just how good the gfx are? include resolution and things that u set up low/med/high/very high.

 

Do these new Sandy Bridge laptops support SATA III (6 gb/s) drives? I know SATA III is backwards compatible with SATA II but the new SATA III SSD's have some ridiculous speeds (OCZ Vertex 3, Micron C400/Crucial M4, etc), it would be great to take advantage of that in a laptop.

 

@ Bravoexo

Is the web cam of dv7 HD (1280 x 720) capable?

 

nope, just VGA.

 

Been wondering the same myself, so I did some digging on it, and it seems that only the desktop chipsets for Sandy Bridge supports 6gb/s SATA, sadly...

 

The mobile Sandy Bridge chipsets are QS67, QM67, HM67, HM65, and UM67. Each of these is capable of two SATA III ports. Resource: List of Intel chipsets - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The Wiki could be mistaken. Over 500 MB/s would be amazing on a laptop!! That's what the new OCZ Vertex 3 with SandForce SF-2000 series controller is benchmarking at for both reads and writes.

 

@Bravoexo (and other people here who might know)

Does your notebook switch between the IGP (Sandy Bridge integrated graphics) and the GPU (AMD Radeon HD 6570) automatically?

Nvidia graphics cards have the well-working Optimus Technology for that, but what has AMD? I found something about a AMD Switchable Graphics Technology on their website. But I couldn't find reviews and stuff...

 

Nope. It does not.

 

Hi all, I'm new to all this, so please forgive me if i come across as a bit green, I bought a dv7 quad edition off ebay today.

I reside in the Republic of Ireland, I have no idea how long delivery will take as it takes up to 48 hrs to process payment.

Specs;
HP DV7-4290us - i7-2630qm (Sandy Bridge)
AMD HD6570 1Gb GDDR5
6Gb DDR3 1333
1TB HDD (5400 rpm)
Blu Ray, Beats Audio
17.3" LED LCD (1600x900)
Bluetooth
9 cell battery.
Windows 7 Home Premium

$1007.22 plus $117.99 postage.

I'll be using it mainly for college work, report writing, solid works 2010 etc.

I ordered a hp backpack off a local site to keep the machine safe while in transit ( mountain bike )

I CANT WAIT!!!

 

(switch between IGP and AMD GP)

This a good confirmation of what appears to be unique (in the SB refresh) to the Envy. We are expecting the SB to switch between IGP and the 6850M. From the HP press release:

"AMD switchable graphics technology dynamically alternates between integrated graphics and AMD Radeon HD 6850M discrete graphics for enhanced performance and battery life. Coupled with future second-generation Intel Core processors, the HP ENVY 17 is the ultimate multimedia machine, sharing content wirelessly from the notebook PC to TVs and other screens using Intel Wireless Display technology."

 

What's the proper video driver for it? I tried the latest for the laptop and I get issues on a game.

Should I try the Desktop driver?

 

@leladax,

the stalling thing, right? Make sure PowerPlay is enabled. And use a wireless or wired controller... (well, if you have them that is)

You can also try the newest mobility drivers 8.801 but the gpu will be detected only as a 5700 series. But you can probably do keyboard with it.

Also adjust the coolsense so that the cpu/gpu is cooled a lot. (They share the same heatsink)

 

EDIT: SOLVED, It has a mistake at my end with that particular game.

I get a more serious problem. The models on an engine (at least a large part of them) are not animated at all, or they animate very rarely (like dolls moving around stiff). [the rest of the game is normal on high FPS, it's only some models] [it's not skeletal, only an old style md3 animation]

I worry it may be a fundamental problem in OpenGL API. (it's an OpenGL game)

I did try a later driver for mobility that recognized it as a 5000something or whatever but it had the same issue. It was the same on that, on what it came with, and on a driver I now have which is apparently the latest, "proper for it", 8.771.1.0 from the US site (my model is European but the GPU is again 6570).

The specs in case they are different, but I don't think so, apparently only the hard disk, optical drive, and ram differ to save some costs [presumably] for the international tariffs:


EDIT: SOLVED, It has a mistake at my end with that particular game.

 

Consider my issue solved. It was a mistake at my end with that particular game. Feel free to delete the relevant (or rather.. irrelevant, ha ha..) messages.

 

I just ordered this from Costco. Comes with an extra year warranty and some other extras. Plus you have 90 days to return it no questions asked.

I just bought the 4183 HP three weeks ago with the i5 460m and the ati hd5470. Will this new 6570 be better? How much better?

Is it possible to install an ssd into this-say if I bought one from newegg, if so what would work in this? thanks

 

On video driver issues, they may not be issues,

6570 not being recognized may not be a bug (at least internally) since according to

AMD Radeon HD 6570M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

HD 6570 is "ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730, 5750, or 5770" with (the upgrade of) DDR3 (GDDR5).

i.e. the chip on the card may be fully supported by the driver, and that 5 being only a printing error.


Also, if you don't install the latest mobility driver (with the "5" error) it won't get 4.0+ OpenGL support. This is a bit esoteric but it may be important. (I confirmed it with a dev tool polling the card for extensions (glew library)).



i.e. at your own risk, but I suppose the latest (mobility) driver (from the amd web site, not the hp site) (which mis-prints the model as 5700), may be the proper driver right now.

 

is the graphics card in new dv7 sandybridge better than the ati radeon 5650M found in the previous dv 7's

 

More or less identical.

 

can the 5650m handle mafia 2 and black ops

 

Any chance you can overclock it for a few more MHz? I'm not knowledgeable in the mobile area for that.

I'd look at the desktop HD 5570 benchmarks.

 

Is it true that the i5 460m 2.53ghz will play games and appsbetter than the 2630qm that dont utilize 4 cores? The 2630 is only 2ghz vs the core i5 2.53. My wife plays the sims 2 and the sims 3 both with all the expansions. Sims 3 uses multiple cores while the sims 2 only uses one or two. Some tests showed sims 2 played slower on quads because of it. Any truth to it? Is the 2630 better than the core i5 460m?

 

you kinda answered your own question. yes more cores will be better if your game utilizes all cores, you are not going to see a significant framerate jump, but under stressfull conditions you will see that the framerates wont dip down as much. These processors are fast, you will not be dissappointed or see that much of a difference while gaming. Encoding is a different thing, but gaming doesn't matter on quad core vs, dual core that much with current generation of processors. You will run out of graphics power before you run our of processing power on dv7.

 

So I wont see any gaming improvement with this laptop vs my 4183 with a 5470 and i5 460m since most current games dont use multiple cores. So am I better off sticking with i5?

 

It's a dramatic improvement over the 5470. Though it would be based on the 6570M (Mobility 5650/5770) and not as much the processor.

 

The main speedup is DDR3 (GDDR5) since the chip is identical to a few 5700s.

(Computers are getting much faster with faster memory. e.g. Notice "extreme" CPUs usually have as main upgrade only more low level memory (i.e. more access to fast memory))

 

For the adventurous.

AMD Catalyst 8.810.0 Beta Available For Download

 

This doesn't allow to install the driver, only the panel or so.

 

So I just got off the phone with customer service, and I'm very happy! I wanted to return my Envy 17 3D, and was concerned about getting a refund for the protection plan as well. The CSR was very polite and professional, telling me that they will refund the protection plan. There was no hassle or any issue. She even told me the total refund amount that will be credited to me when I return my Envy 17 3D.

The whole process went very smoothly. She emailed me the prepaid return shipping label, and stayed on the line to make sure I had received the email. She did ask why I was returning it, and I said that the palm rest gets to hot under use, which is true. She informed me that the new Sandy Bridge versions of their laptops are coming, and asked me if i would like to exchange my Envy for the SB version of the DV7. (straight up hassle free exchange!) I politely declined, saying that I would just wait for the SB version of the Envy 17 3D. She had no problem with that at all. I was still able to return everything for a full refund, and don't even have to pay shipping!

All in all I am very satisfied with their customer service and definitely interested in buying more HP products in the future, like the Sandy Bridge Envy 17 3D, whenever it comes out, and/or the HP ZR30, whenever I get the funds, lol.

 

thats a great conclusion to a great story. Thanks for sharing and welcome to the "waiting for SB Envy 17 and trying to decipher all the rumors" club

For HP to make that offer means that they must have some policy or communication to the support agents, and reading between the lines they surely must know about all the issues you mentioned and (I've got my hopes up, as many others do) that they are addressed in the SB Envy 17!

 

Great customer service story there. I'm looking at the Envy 17 over the dv7qte right now a well. The standard two year warranty is a great motivator to spend a little more on the higher end products and shows the company's pride in the quality of the product.

 

Ok I have a question, with all these problems with this sandybridge dv7 (especially the drivers for the graphics card and ...do you guys thinks its still a better than a dv7 selection edition with core i5 2.66 ghz and 1gb ati radeon hd 5650?... I just want to make sure that I pick the laptop that will last longer down the road and will be able to handle most future games at medium settings...

 

You are really wrong.

I had the 5650m on my previous laptop and doesn´t come close to this 6570M. While this is no 5870M it can play games just fine @ 1600x900, GDDR5 memory helps a lot.

It´s really easy to OC to 700/900 and you´ll notice quite a difference and not a noticeable rise in temps.

 

on the subject of the 5650 versus the 6570:

notebookcheck.com describes the 5650 as follows:
comparable to the 4670
GDDR5 memory not supported
doesnt do well with DX10 games like Crysis and GTA4 in high detail
DX11 games likd DIRT2 may not run in full detail

notebookcheck.com describes the 6570 as follows:
performance somewhere in between 5730 and 5770
supports GDDR5 memory
does well with Risen or Battlefield Bad Company 2 in medium to high detail
does well with Fifa in full HD and maximum detail

notebookcheck speculates on the new SB Envy 17's 6850M as follows:
high-end graphics card for big and heavy laptops
best 3D performance for laptops
very high power consumption
can handle all the latest games at high resolutions and high detail settings

I found it interesting that notebookcheck.com says that "The [6850] card was first leaked in drivers for the next revision of the HP Envy 17 laptop". lol this card was announced by HP on January 4 as part of the new Envy 17!