*HP ENVY 17 & 17 3D (2XXX series) Owners Lounge*

[aays06]

Bobmitch,


i am trying to install newest drivers from amd, every time i try to download i get message

amd cataylst mobility cannot be downloaded due to incompatible hardware/software on your computer.

the version of graphics adapter is not supported

please contact your notebook manufacturer for a graphics driver update.

any thoughts?

[Trader05]

I'm pretty sure you have to download the whole package vs the web installer.

[Bobmitch]

Bobmitch,


i am trying to install newest drivers from amd, every time i try to download i get message

amd cataylst mobility cannot be downloaded due to incompatible hardware/software on your computer.

the version of graphics adapter is not supported

please contact your notebook manufacturer for a graphics driver update.

any thoughts?

You can download Catalyst 11.6 from here:

AMD Catalyst 11.6 WHQL (8.861 May 24) - Download & Discussion - Guru3D.com Forums

My recommendation...do not remove the old drivers to install these. Leave the HP drivers installed. Now run the installer..when you get to the install screen, choose Custom...then install everything BUT Catalyst Control Center. For some reason, when I do the install with CCC, I get an error message at the end of the install and CCC no longer works. Leave CCC unchecked and use the CCC from the HP version. Once install is done, you should be at Catalyst 11.6 (8.861) for drivers

[aays06]

Thanks bobmitch,


one more question, is the updates on hp's site for drivers the same from the websites (amd) for instance? they obviously dont have the newest being it was just released...

[Bobmitch]

Thanks bobmitch,


one more question, is the updates on hp's site for drivers the same from the websites (amd) for instance? they obviously dont have the newest being it was just released...

No! As stated by someone earlier...the new HP drivers are Catalyst 11.1a. The driver naming scheme for AMD is that the year and month are the Catalyst versions. The new AMD drivers are 11.6 which means that drivers are released in June 11. HP seems to be about 5 months behind AMD.

[dlleno]

...you lost me at "book"

such is the risk of extending analogies... back to reality at the risk of some oversimplification: the CPU brings stuff into dynamic RAM (DRAM) because it is the fastest repository for the CPU to read from and write to. This memory is crazy fast, physically close to the CPU and optimized for data throughput over what used to be called "the front side bus". It is also volitile, meaning data is lost with the removal of power.

Silicon DRAM is expensive, and to keep costs down we buy what is needed.

The HDD is there because it is cheep and big and non-volitile, and can store stuff that the CPU doesn't need live access to all the time. Depending on how the application is written, will use RAM and HDD independantly for different reasons -- We use different technology for the HDD just to reduce cost: spinning aluminum is cheep (in cost per megabyte), but slow: If the HDD were just as fast as RAM, then we could have one big pot of memory instead of a small/fast one and a large/slow one.

now then, if there is not enough DRAM for the CPU to do its work, it has to utilize the large/slow HDD to keep breathing. when this happens, the system grinds to a crawl, page file usage goes way up, and we get cranky.

The SSD is made from silicon memory -- it is non-volitile (flash) memory and slower than dynamic RAM -- But it is much faster than the traditional rotating disk drive. Thuis -- if the application continuously writes to reads from the disk drive, then it will benefit directly from the SSD, and this is in addition to improvements in boot-up speed of course. Conversely, if the app reads and writes primarily from RAM, then the SSD will be of not benefit, except for boot-up and initial application load.

[Killa Joe]

such is the risk of extending analogies... back to reality at the risk of some oversimplification: the CPU brings stuff into dynamic RAM (DRAM) because it is the fastest....... Conversely, if the app reads and writes primarily from RAM, then the SSD will be of not benefit, except for boot-up and initial application load.

+1 dlleno. I felt as though I was sitting in a very cool computer class. LOL, you wanna teach maybe? It was very clear and to the point. Well done.

KJ

[samk0814]

I'm left handed. What exactly are you asking. I always remap my keys on the keyboard to fit my needs...

I meant, doesn't most of the heat come from the left side of the laptop?

[born_fisherman]

Just received my Envy 17 (2070NR) today from JR.com - Couldn't wait for HP to get it in stock!

I've updated everything according to one of the later posts

Couple questions/issues:

1. My brightness keys don't work - all other F keys work as they should (hp is having me enable the FN in the BIOS) [FIXED - combination of running hp assistant and performing other updates and restarting]
2. The PC seems kind of sluggish - I'm talking it feels slower than my 2005 800mhz XP machine with 2gb of RAM - I assume I need to run the throttle test for this to see what the results are?
3. I was having an issue closing/minimizing windows - it was like those buttons were disabled - I had to right click on the task bar to close a window

how long should BIOS memory and hard drive tests take?

TIA

[born_fisherman]

using my phone to post this as it is a lot easier to post than edit a previous post, so sorry in advance for redundancy.

Memory test took 45 min to complete and passed

Short hard drive test - 45 minutes
Long test - estimating at 405 minutes

hard drive test came back positive (passed) - should I try to do a system recovery?