Overheating, WIFI crashing, Keyboard backlight failing - ENVY 13-ar* needs new BIOS + Drivers

[tomcar]

Alright, I am here to do what I must, which is to report the issues I had with my laptop. 

My HP Envy x360 came with a Ryzen 5 3rd generation. Because its not a Ryzen 7, it should not create a large amount of heat. I don't really mind the heat as long as the computer is running, but my main problem is that every time I closed the lid and the fans would for some reason shut down, the computer would by itself trigger a kill switch and kill the system, so if I had any work saved, not only did I have to hold the power button for 15 seconds for the computer to reset, it would also be slow at start up and most of the time be unresponsive, causinge to have to restart, which takes even more time. I tried fixing this by switching up Sleep Mode with Hybernate, which helped, but most of the problems remained.

When I first got this computer, I had other problems too. My WiFi adapter seemed to disappear from device manager as if it had been physically disconnected, and for it to pop up I would have to hard shut down the computer with the 15 seconds on power button trick for it to reset the system. However, I found a solution to this: because running the troubleshooter didn't help as it didn't recognise the adapter, I have a power shell script that resets the WiFi adapter when I click on it, which solved this problem. Now the problem, for some reason, doesn't pop up anymore, maybe because of a BIOS Update? Also, I had some issues with the keyboard back light not working or even the keyboard itself not working, but that was solved after a quick and easy driver uninstall and reinstall in device manager. 

Anyways, thank you for reading this

Have a great day, 

Tom

[schildzilla]

I have to correct you in one thing:

Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 produce the same amount of heat. The heat is regulated by the CPUs TDP.

The difference is the frequency and the GPU but it should be the same renamed CPU.

Ryzen 7 is only faster because of the higher frequency.

Thanks for confirming the problems.

The Wi-Fi problem has gone with the Windows 1909 update.

The BIOS updates never fixed anything.

Hibernation works different than standby, that's why it's working perfectly.

Your problem with the lid that is making the device to hang up or crash means, that your device is entering the unstable standby.

It's hanging up after 30-120 mins and there's only a little chance to wake the device again.

In that state there's a chance of massive overheating.

The overheating is the reason why the device is so slow when your force-reboot your device.

The TDP throttle would be active as long as normal temperatures are reached.

With system standby (closing the lid on factory settings) it's ok if the fan is powering down, but not if only the screen is entering standby.

Work around for the standby when closing the lid;

Set the action for closing the lid to “Do nothing“.

Close the lid and an internal power switch is powering off the screen without causing the crash and fan shutdown issue.

But it's not a standby and power consumption is nearly the same as in full operation with screen on.

You should return your device because it's dangerous when the standby is causing a massive overheating.

If it's getting warmer then it can reach 80°C easily without heavy usage.

[TaziDevil]

I concur, return the device and forget HP. IF HP were able to deliver the Spectre I'd ordered I'd be walking around with that but they're incapable of delivering anything non AMD atm and I'm not sure if it's HP+Ryzen that's the issue or just the Envy's are trash.

Unfortunately after 2 months back with my old 6yo laptop (trusty old Toshiba Satellite that's falling apart and still 100% more reliable and faster than the crapy R7 Envy I had) I gave up entirely on HP because they're unable to deliver anything Intel based atm.

Have to say I'm LOVING my Surface Book 2 now .... it's lighter, the screen when detached is lighter than a Samsung S4 tablet but 15" instead of 10" ... the gfx are great, it can even play Ark and battery life ... OMG ... normally when I'm working in the fire control centre I have 2.5hrs before the Envy HAD to be plugged into a power source or I lost it. The SB2 went ALL day yesterday without being plugged in and still only dropped to around 60% battery. And is chargeable with USBC 3.1 PD which HP seem to have ignored for some stupid reason. So thanks HP for being unable to get anything right ... you forced me to look for better and I got MUCH better than you delivered.

[tomcar]

Thank you for explaining further. I appreciate your support.

Unfortunately, I use this device for school. I am a high school student, and I would not want to spend extra money on a newer/ better laptop like a Spectre or a Surface Book, simply because I already spent more than I should have on this PC. The issues I had were not that experience ruining, I switched to this because before I had a faulty Lenovo laptop that the company would not replace. I have found a few ways to work around this problem, for example shutting down the computer more often instead of putting it in standby, etc. As I also got this device on sale, it would be hard to find another laptop which would give me the same performance for a lower price. However, I will be on the lookout for sales, and as Ryzen is attacking the laptop scene more and more maybe some day this laptop will be treated with the right amount of respect.

I honestly hope for a 3rd gen of the Envy x360 which would come with a working BIOS which could then be applied to older Envy x360s.

Thank you for all the help. For now I guess I will just see how I can work around these issues.

Best,

Tom

[Neonth]

Dear all,

thank you very much (especially Schildzilla) for your detailed error reports. Your work helped me to quickly figure out what was wrong with my girlfriend's new HP Envy 13-ar0104ng. 

This device also crashed a few minutes after the screen went into standby. And additionally, it also had a bad keyboard with the problem that key presses were not registered unless you would press very hard and exactly in the centre of the key.

So thanks to your detailed posts we decided to return the device (14 days return period was not over yet, luckily) and get a refund. 

While your posts apparently did not move HP to fix the problems, at least it helped other users. Thanks for that!

Kind regards

Andreas

[Derk1]

Hi everyone. 

I have a same / similiar issue. I sometimes had the same issue as described in this thread where the laptop turned hot even when in sleep-mode. But since a few days I have a new issue and I think this first happened after the newest BIOS Update. Whenever i am entering the Sleep-Mode, the device is unable to wake up from that. I always have to reset the device via the Power On/Off button. Everything that was not saved is lost then.
When entering the hibernation-mode, that issue does not seem to appear, only when entering the sleep-mode. it does not matter if I enter sleep-mode via the menu, after idling or when shutting down the lid. I have set the BIOS version back to the only one available online, F-19 from december 2019. I still have this issue and it is driving me crazy. I have followed every possible step that is proposed online or via the virtual agent. 

I hope this is fixable and i would be more than happy if anyone has a similiar issue and knows something about it.

Regards,

Derk 

[TaziDevil]

Yes I was forever having to force reboot due to that problem in both sleep and but especially in suspend2disk. Lost a lot of saves like that.

[schildzilla]

There is no solution for your problems and never will be.

The BIOS is unstable since the laptop was released and I've tried everything to force HP and Flex to fix this.

The reason why hibernation is working perfectly is, it's working differently than standby and the device is completely powering off afterwards.

Send your device back to the dealer. This devices can running so incredibly hot, that the battery could explode and burn down your house and maybe they can also kill you.

Lithium batteries burn with over 1000°C, which is 1832°F.

Your batteries might already have been invisibly damaged while the devices did overheat.

[EonOfBlack]

Hello,

I have similar issues to this in my HP Envy 13 x360, powered by a AMD Ryzen 5 3500U. My issues are: Display/device freezing very frequently, very high temperatures while idle and in sleep, device heating up randomly while powered off, keyboard occasionally stops functioning, and I can't power the device back on for a while after charging and it being in sleep.

[schildzilla]

Thanks for confirmation. So you're the second user with the power-off-overheating problem.

One thing for sure:  There is no solution and never will be.

Send back your device. This problem was there from the beginning and all Envys with Ryzen got these overheating issues due to they all have the same faulty BIOS.

A replacement device will have the same issue.

Save yourself your time and don't contact the support. They won't help you.

HP will only say "we're sorry that you've got problems with your device..." as you can read thousand times within this thread, but no one will fix this BIOS. I've tried 5 months making HP and Flex fixing that bug including sending in my device twice and now I've sent back the device to the dealer and the government in Germany started the investigation about these dangerous devices due to the risk of fire hazard and explosion.

They are not safe and can burn down your house!