Good morning,
In April 2014 I have bought a nice, full-loaded, expensive (1200 euro) portable PC, HP ENVY 17-j113el.
Before I was using a smaller, cheaper HP G62 notebook: never have had any problem in three years, great prodct for the price.
With nice and new machine my nightmare started: wifi does not works form the first day, thanks to Ralink 3290 card. Low signals, intermitent functioning, disconnections. Requeste a replacement card to HP support, received after almost a month.
Replaced the card with the "new" Ralink 3290, and wifi signal started to be at normal level. After a short use, the signals started again to be intermittenly much lowest than the normal. Better than my original wifi card, but not as good as the signals received with my previous HP G62. Still having lowwifi signals, "floating" levels", and having the PC at 2 meters from the router shows up just a poor "-65" on inSSIDer.. And no, it is not a problem of my wifi router: never had any problems before with ANY device device.
In addition, since I have installed the new Ralink 3290 card and using wifi on this pc, another problem came out: somethimes there is a strong "click" form the audio speakers on the bottom, even if not playing any music or audio.
That is really annoying.
Other issues: after bios upgrade to 56 (recommended by HP, executed as HP Support Assistant software directed) I have experienced sporadic computer shut off immediately ater power up.
You push the power button, the computer starts, and after 2 or 3 seconds the computer shut down.
You have to push power button again to restart.
Additional minor issues (still not espected from a 1200 euro notebook): mousepad left key, even if clicking, does not recognize the "click". You have to push strong to make it work.
And also, the keyboard: poor, poor, poor keys feeling, and on left side it bend miserably when used.
Just to note: I am a 43 years old professional, I work as electronics and IT tecnician since more than 20 years, and I am not one of those who complains for nothing.
BUT, after buying HP for years with good satisfaction, this time I am realy disappointed with the lack of quality.
Came on HP, people does not spend 1200 euros to have a PC with this kinds of problems: bring a solution!
I espect from HP to fix all this issues with my "new" (sigh!) nice, wonderful looking, full loaded and expensive PC.
V/R,
Riccardo G.