HP ENVY 15-j059nr WHQL Nvidia Drivers

Another small update on my journey with the HP ENVY 15-j059nr;

I went ahead and installed the latest WHQL Nvidia generic mobile graphics card drivers, since they were many many versions ahead of the official HP drivers for this laptop.

So far the new drivers are working great, I cannot cite any issues with the update, and the new drivers offer many more options, and better performance.

So for anyone out there with this machine, go ahead and get those NVIDIA updates!


As a side note, I have noticed random audio stuttering for very brief moments randomly while using the laptop.  This has been reported elsewhere on the internet as well.  I have yet to get to the bottom of this, and it still happens with the updated Nvidia GFX Drivers.


*EDIT 10/1

Updated to the latest BETA nvidia drivers, 331.40, so far so good.

2013 HP ENVY 15 - Intel Wireless N 2230 - Wifi Drops randomly

Apparently the Intel Wireless N 2230 wifi card, that came included in the HP ENVY 15-j059nr, has some known issues with its Windows 8 Drivers.

I started experiencing random network drop outs while connected to a WiFi N network, I tried 3 different WiFi routers/networks, same result.  

Drivers are all up to date, so I did a little searching around and found this ;

https://communities.intel.com/thread/38676?start=0&tstart=0

This thread is full of people with all different makes and models of laptops, all with the Intel Wireless N 2230 installed, all having the same exact problem.

While there are a few various recommendations in there as to a temporary fix, it sounds like ultimately Intel is working on a driver that works right.

What I did that seems to have made the network connectivity issues go away, is to DISABLE Wireless N mode for the Intel 2230 card in device manager.

Since doing this I have not had any drops in connectivity, at the expense of the high speeds of Wireless N, which I am not so sure I really got anyways.

Hopefully Intel gets this Windows 8 driver issue sorted out for the Intel 2230 Wifi N card.

I have heard that this issues goes away in Windows 8.1 Preview, so there is hope!


** Update 10-18-2013

I went ahead and did the official Windows 8.1 Update, and the problem seems to have disappeared, I am back operating on Wireless N mode, and have not had a single drop in 8 hours.

The setting reverted itself, as I believe windows installed new drivers for the card.

** Update 11-1-13

I have had a couple random WiFi drops since the update, though not terribly often, maybe once every couple days I have to disable and re-enable my WiFi card.

HP ENVY 15-j059nr notes and observations.

Buying the latest and greatest brand new laptop you can get your hands on is always an interesting experience.

On the one hand you get a device that should have nice new drivers, and official support, on the other hand, since the actual user base is so low, there is very little actual useful information available about it and any problems you may have...

So with that in mind, I am making this post in an effort to put a little more actual end-user information out there about the new HP laptop I just acquired.

Laptop in question - HP ENVY 15-j059nr 

This machine belongs to the brand new line up of HP's ENVY 15 series.  

Features include the newest 4th gen "Haswell" i7 CPU, switchable graphics (nvidia and intel), 1080p screen, and an MSATA SSD cache drive.

Initial observations, this thing is nice and lite-weight, and quite thin for the power inside.

I was expecting the "metal" case to be "metal" all the way around the laptop, but it is a black plastic on the bottom of the laptop.  Also I was expecting the metal finish to look like metal, to me it looks more like silvery plastic, not at all like the pure metal feel and look of the HP TM2t-2100 I have.

Runs very cool compared to my previous i7 based laptop (Toshiba x505-q880).

Now on to some problems I have ran into so far;

Upon initial boot up, I let it get all it's windows updates, uninstalled Norton, and then proceeded to do the HP software and driver updates using the HP Support Assistant tool that came pre-installed.

This had a handful of updates, one of which was a BIOS update.

I let the updates happen, and it prompted me to reboot for the bios update, which I did.

The BIOS update completed normally, and rebooted the machine.

At this point Windows 8 would not boot.  

The laptop would show the HP logo on the screen, then almost immediately flash a Windows error screen (saying something about BAD COMPUTER INFORMATION) and would reboot.

It boot looped about 5 times, then the HP Recovery wizard took over and tried to repair windows, and failed.

At this point all I could do was preform a system restoration using the recovery partition and tools included on the laptop.

This led me to a cool discovery, the built in recovery options included with the laptop, include an "Install Clean Image" option, this option installs a clean install of Windows 8, with only drivers and HP software installed, no Norton, no Wildfyre Games, none of the junky bloatware, but all of the drivers you need!

Anyhow, preforming the recovery fixed windows, (de-bloated even!), and kept my BIOS update in place, things have been running well since.

I read a couple random discussions talking about audio skipping randomly, I have had this happen once so far, while listening to Google Play Radio, I attempted to do a speed test at speedtest.net, the playing audio stuttered and skipped for about 1 second while loading the flash speed test, I have not been able to reproduce this yet.

Here is a useful link to a forum post about changing the SSD cache drive into a bootable SSD drive, I intend on doing this myself soon;

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/729085-envy-15t-j000-msata-ssd-hdd-fresh-install-msata-boot-drive.html

In summary;

So far, a good laptop, thin, light, cool, powerful, has a "Clean Image Restore" option in recovery that installs a clean Windows 8 install with drivers and no bloatware.  

Had strange issue when preforming BIOS update, after preforming BIOS update Windows 8 boot looped, and would not load.

Preforming a system recovery fixed windows, and kept BIOS update in place.

Some questions I still have;

How do I actually switch between the two video cards?

The HP TM2T that I have also has switchable video cards, but with ATI and Intel, and on that machine it is very clear which card is active and which is de-activated.  On this laptop I cannot find anything anywhere that says what card is in use, or anything that lets me pick, they both just appear active.


* EDIT  -  This link pretty much explains that the way Nvidia does switchable graphics is completely automatic, and does not have user control.  http://www.nvidia.com/object/optimus_technology.html

More to come as it is uncovered.

Questions about the laptop?