Envy 17 overheating is bothering me!!!!!

[Steven_Swanson]

Check out this video I made regarding ENVY 17 and the heatsink options available between the i5 and i7 versions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZYlvlIY3o

In this video I present information to suggest how I intend to fix my problem of HP ENVY 17 overheating. So far all I have done is replace the thermal grease with Arctic Silver II and bent the scew tabs on the GPU heat pipe a tiny bit away from the motherboard. This has dropped my average temps to 76C down from 90C and my maximum temp has been 79C. Even running Furmark my GPU hits 92C, but CPU and system board don't go over 80C. This is great! Fan speed is low unless running Furmark, but still it is not as loud as it was before when just idling. No more hair dryer sound!!

I ordered the i5 fan/heat sink module from here: PCHub.com Envy 17-1100 Series Parts

Notice how they only list the one heat-sink/fan part for all ENVY 17 1100 series laptops and they list it as being replacement part for every  HP part #  633851-001, 603799-001, 608650-001, 633852-001

It's only $31 with free shipping. This is the cheapest price I could find. I'm happy now that my laptop is performing much faster and running cooler with just the Artic Silver paste and compressing the heat pipe on the GPU tighter. I think this new fan/heat-sink module will do even better... will keep you posted.

[sdw10]

But Steven, I am just a man-on-the-street consumer that wants his very expensive computer to work without the many many things I could do. You, or somebody, made the valid point about a computer enabling your life, versus your life being dedicated to keeping a limping computer running (human server), and avoiding things like a "tepid room" that might cause a shutdown. I had two yesterday in a place I can't take the cooling pad to. I lost 1.5 hours work (despite MS apps autosave being set correctly).

The desk was red hot. I prop my Envy on post-it pads an inch high. Yes, I carry forks and post-it pads now.  I had an XLS open, two PPTs, my email in Firefox, and I watched a BBC news video on something like why the Spanish Royalty are uninviting themselves from HM Queen's luncheon at Buck Pal next week.

Meltdown, twice within 20 mins, after about 2 hrs working. Lost work. Furious.

No news yet from the "HP Exec Escalation" team; still hoping, bit WILL chase early next week. I raised my BT ISP issue to the Ombudsman, so will do the same with this one, somehow.

PS I bought - and quickly returned - an Acer hi spec laptop before I bought this Envy animal. it didn;t overheat because it just didn't do anything. What Envy does well, outside the heat, it does do quite well? There *are* things I like. I have just subsumed them because of the customer experience with HEAT and SHUTDOWN.

Kindest,

S

[Steven_Swanson]

SDW10, yes, but my laptop is out of warranty and after spending hours posting warnings to people not to buy this laptop I was still left with a very expensive laptop that I had to treat like a heat sensitive baby. At least now I'm able to do my work and enjoy my day without lock ups, blue screens and reboots!

If HP won't help me then I have to help myself. So I'm putting out information for others to improve their investment, but still warning others to return it if they can, raise hell with HP Support if it's in warranty and worst case how to fix what HP did wrong so they can at least use what they purchased.

If this new heatsink brings my temps down another 10C then I'll be able to work outside at the park again! I don't have the option of returning my laptop and the resell value on this thing is crap. Would be lucky to get $800 for it on ebay. Also if I can fix this heat issue then I'm going to fix the Envy 17 that my friend spilled wine on and sell it. Looks like I can get a refurb motherboard for $180, CPU $160, keyboard $50, display cable $30. So $420 for parts and I might be able to make $300 or I can buy a $200 engineering sample i7 840QM CPU for my laptop and get a bit of a CPU upgrade in the process and make a couple hundred dollars for my time.

[sdw10]

My problems started 5 days out of warranty too. I can now mime, dance, professionaly and entertainingly , lip gloss or none, the entire experience. I am determined to achieve resolution. Woof.

[NETChaser]

Hi all! I'm from Russia, where the buyer does not believe a man ...
Support from HP is very bad, the only thing I changed them a power supply for servers,because they simply did not work. Envy 17 I do not post in the service of HP, because theservice as usual will not solve the problem (in the best case, replace the cooling unit) andsent back (to be released to play for time warranty).
So yesterday I decided to disassemble envy. To my surprise on both processors was thesmall amount of thermal paste. Causing thermal paste on the gpu and cpu, and collectingthe laptop, I tested it with FurMark. The maximum temperature decreased, but at the same time playing a FullHD videos from youtube.com, and one temperature rises againand everything started to slow down.
Again, I disassembled the laptop, got to the blades and cut off the connection between them. One side of the block sealed with foil. He collected the laptop started testing. Nowthe temperature was even lower, and even four video played with no brakes. Already have an idea how to even lower temperatures.

PS. Translate from russian to english

[Deliasz]

Steven it's a good idea...I have this piece of oven also. 

I would  be glad to talk with you about how to do it on my laptop. I was always PC person but with laptop I'm noob. I don't know how to open it to get access into parts. Don't see any good videos on youtube. 

Yesterday my laptop stats to turn off because of temerature..sometimes it's even 97C....

Regards

[codegrush]

Hello All,

I bought and installed the new cooling fan with the 3 heat pipes that Steve recommended. I also drilled holes below the vents on the LCD side and broke every other bar from the bottom grill where the air gets sucked into the fan intake. I'm hoping the lower air resistance helps. Anyhow I used to get 90deg with only 9 to 12% cpu usage now I don't go over 70degs. I'm happy with it. Now I can really use this laptop. Oh I also used artic silver 5. I'd chose to spend the $30 instead of wasting my time with HP's support.

Anyway...good luck all.

David P

[slim9428]

Can anyone tell me if the 2012 version (3000 series) has improved the cooling and fixed the overheating issue at all?

[sdw10]

I can't but I can tell you HP's responce was as others have predicted. Outside warranty, they will call the box in, analyse and repair - all at my own cost. That is, unless I can send in a photograph (and I assume a medical report) for a) a burnt hand in early 2012; b) a scorched table top - this being a laminated texture issue and not photographable. I feel let down both by their "Exec excalation team" (which is the same as....) their normal support team, bacause they eventually ask you to phone their normal chargeable number. Well, neither joined up anyway; somebody from HP monitoring this board reached out to me and said he'd forward to appropriate people in Europe, and then, silence, even after me lodging a case with a number. Nice guy named Jeff. Nice people, none of them empowered to resolve this issue, because their policy says 'do everything you can to ignore the issue, even though we acknorledge on the phone that there is an issue'. PS, you have to pay for 0845 support calls at up to £1.50 a minute.

I will be buying a different brand pretty soon - I won't buy HP again. I am even going to change my printer to non-HP. No HP in tis household ever again, because they sell things, I allege, not fit for basic purpose.

Did any of you see, a few years ago, the US military shooting apart an HP printer in Afganistan after *their* HP support experience? I really don't think anything has changed HP side. Shame on them.

Does anybody want to do a viral video about cooking on an E17, or heating a pensioner's home in a cold winter? It has crossed my mind.

HP NO MORE. Consumers make choices.

[aegisfang]

Hey guys,

I'm usually just a forum parasite, but wanted to mention that Tradition2's RealTemp solution is a shockingly fast way to drop your temp... I think I'm still going to go forward with Steven_Swanson's in depth approach mentioned later in the thread (Page 12), but for anybody looking for a stop gap solution, turning off i7 turbo mode is amazing. In a matter of 5 minutes, I think my CPU temp dropped from 93C to 79C... obviously I'm still screwed like anybody else, but I will take that temp drop anyday.

Here is a link to RealTemp,

http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/

Download, unzip, run RealTemp.exe, and under settings click 'Disable Turbo'. I don't know if this is going to hurt my performance, but frankly I don't care... this heat problem is ridiculous. Like many others, I'm a long time HP customer, but they should be embarassed about this one, some bad biz.

Also turned PowerPlay settings to MaximizeBattery in ATI Catalyst, but didn't seem like that helped at all.

Good luck to everybody else who got suckered into this one, HP really torched us.