HP Omen owners? Any tips and advice?

[Draeger]

Hi all,

Pulled the trigger on a low end budget gaming laptop at the weekend, it arrives this afternoon. I went for the HP Omen 17 with the following spec:-

• Intel® Core™ i7-10750H Processor
• RAM: 16 GB / Storage: 1 TB HDD & 512 GB SSD
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6 GB

Any owners of these care to share any tips or suggestions for a new owner? First thing will be to uninstall any bloatware but as far as I've read it doesn't come with much pre-installed anyway, save maybe McAfee security and trial Office installs.

Any suggestions/advice appreciated on how to get the best out of the Omen.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Make sure to update it fully; install the latest BIOS, HP software etc as the latest control panel added CPU undervolting directly but it may be unavailable for the 10-series CPUs.
The 17" Omen will come with a MaxP full fat 2060 also, not maxQ so maybe look into overclocking.

Have loved both of mine

 

[Draeger]

Make sure to update it fully; install the latest BIOS, HP software etc as the latest control panel added CPU undervolting directly but it may be unavailable for the 10-series CPUs.
The 17" Omen will come with a MaxP full fat 2060 also, not maxQ so maybe look into overclocking.

Have loved both of mine

Will do, cheers. The control panel you mention - is that the one that comes up if you press the 'Omen' key with the profiles, performance temps etc? Where is the undervolting option in the control panel do you happen to know? Any ideas what undervolting involves, is it a simple case of dialling in the required values using the control panel?

Enjoying the Omen so far, Ghost Recon Breakpoint is running at 144Hz at 1080p at 75 and over fps. Seems like this thing will cope easily with the latest games at 1080

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Will do, cheers. The control panel you mention - is that the one that comes up if you press the 'Omen' key with the profiles, performance temps etc? Where is the undervolting option in the control panel do you happen to know? Any ideas what undervolting involves, is it a simple case of dialling in the required values using the control panel?

Enjoying the Omen so far, Ghost Recon Breakpoint is running at 144Hz at 1080p at 75 and over fps. Seems like this thing will cope easily with the latest games at 1080

Yes that's the one, there should be some updates available in the Microsoft store; the latest update also added Omen Light Studio which allows you to do more complex RGB effects on the keyboard if you have backlit Undervolting was under the performance options IIRC.

And yes, if its available for your machine, then just a case of trial and error, albeit there's also a new automatic variant which will be less effective but easier (or should be!). This is brand new, and only appeared in an update in the last couple of weeks. Before that you had to use Throttlestop, BUT the 10 series machine Intels were locked; whereas my 9 isn't; it may be the latest BIOS and software will unlock this for you also, as it seems rather pointless of them to release it now, a year plus on from when I got my system, and now that all new machines are 10-series.

The Omens 17s are amongst the best value machines to have Max-P GPUs in the UK full stop

 

[Jim2020]

Bought the Omen i9 10th gen with the Super 2080 last month. Came with a lot bloatware, first thing I did was totally wipe it and reinstall with windows 10 pro (single machine licence can be had for less than £20 online).
The sound volume continues to be an issue on these so use the Omen audio app (should be pre installed) to change the setting under Output to ‘Powerful’ and also ‘Movie’ to get the best sound volume.
Excellent value and the i7 you’ve got is a great CPU beating the 10th gen i9 on many 3dmark total scores too.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Wow shame to hear about the bloat. Beyond a few of thier own apps there was little bloat on my 2 systems (and with the one for the wife there were two of each so 4 systems from 2 specs) so they must have changed something or had a tie in deal or the likes.

 

[Draeger]

Mine had very little bloat save for McAfee and the Office 365 trial.

And yes, if its available for your machine, then just a case of trial and error, albeit there's also a new automatic variant which will be less effective but easier (or should be!).

Have now updated the Omen Game Control panel and it has the undervolting option in there. Is this what you meant by the automatic variant? Will try the auto option but what do you recommend for adjusting manually?

The sound volume continues to be an issue on these so use the Omen audio app (should be pre installed) to change the setting under Output to ‘Powerful’ and also ‘Movie’ to get the best sound volume.

Thanks, have now done that and you are right, audio is improved considerably. Thanks.

The Omens 17s are amongst the best value machines to have Max-P GPUs in the UK full stop

Excellent value and the i7 you’ve got is a great CPU beating the 10th gen i9 on many 3dmark total scores too.

Good to know, I think I made the right decision then. I had a hissy fit the other night, was playing Ghost Recon BP without the power brick plugged into the mains. FPS dropped to around 28 . So I Googled it and realised that the system throttles right back when running on battery power. Plugged the charger in and voila......back to 80-100 fps. Doh!!

 

[Alexrose1uk]

The intelligent option is what I assume to be automatic. If you adjusting manually you can use that or throttle stop however this was previously locked out of 10 series CPUs with many machines so HP have maybe done something to get it working. As it's built in that is easiest way to do it albeit will need tested for stability.

Fyi if you have geforce experience I think there is a thing in there you can toggle OFF (defaults on) which reduces the hit you take in performance on battery BUT eats the battery far faster as allows it to consume much more power.

 

[willhub]

I thought undervolt was plundered by plundervolt.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Yes, it looks like HP has found some sort of work around. (or just decided to make UV available for the high end gaming laptops again)

 

[willhub]

Shame they haven't updated it for 9th gen i7, my omen command center doesn't have UV ability.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

I have the 9th Gen i9, and I got the updates recently. Worth checking the Microsoft store manually

 

[McManicMan]

Omen Command Center undervolting isn’t working on my i9-10885H if you select intelligent mode, it will attempt to start then just shutdown and restart without doing anything, I notice that you can set it manually but not tried that yet. Good tip about the sound drivers will have to try that to see if it improves the low sound on gaming

 

[JDR82]

I had always thought about undervolting with throttlestop but the cooling always seemed pretty good on my (new 2020 style) 15" Omen and i7 10750H so never bothered, gave it a go after seeing this update however and currently running what seems to be a completely stable -0.160v undervolt.

Temperatures look to be the same sitting around 68C - 70C in performance mode, however the 10750 is sitting on a fairly solid turbo boost of 4.6ghz, when before it would drop down and settle around 3.7 - 3.9ghz.

 

[Draeger]

So had mine for a couple of weeks now. Off work on leave this week so decided to have a few hours playing the Division 2 this afternoon. Was rather concerned about the temperature the power brick got to, it was absolutely roasting hot. I assume this is fairly normal?

 

[chipps101]

The 180w brick for my A15 gets toasty, I think it's normal for high power bricks.

 

[Draeger]

Quick question guys - when installing programs and especially games do you recommend installing to the C O/S drive or to the other Data drive? In my Omen the C drive is an SSD, I believe the data drive though is a conventional HDD of 1Tb.

Just thinking about seek and access times for running games, better on the SSD C Drive?

Ta

 

[Kohaashi]

Quick question guys - when installing programs and especially games do you recommend installing to the C O/S drive or to the other Data drive? In my Omen the C drive is an SSD, I believe the data drive though is a conventional HDD of 1Tb.

Just thinking about seek and access times for running games, better on the SSD C Drive?

Ta

I always partition my drives.
Create a 100GB partition for OS (C:\) and create a another partition with the rest of the available space as .. Software (D:\).
This is on a 1TB NVMe drive.
Nothing goes on the OS drive but windows.
I also relocate my Documents, Downloads, Videos etc folders to point to new folders on the D:\ drive.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

That is pretty good practice, Kohaashi.

I'm lazier than that, for my Omen 17, I tend to leave the primary drive as is (as it was 500GB on mine, not 1TB, so 4** usable) still install general programs (WORD etc) to this drive, generally leave windows default documents/pictures/downloads etc and maybe 1/2 games, BUT stuff I don't mind losing if I need to reinstall.
I used the HDD as a scratch drive for temporary stuff, or stuff I don't need performance for, ie photo storage.
I installed a second M.2 SSD as a general games drive (there is a second internal slot)

I have a network drive I will backup photos/anything I think I need a second copy of or I'll be unamused if I lose; as the chance of multiple drives going down at once is low.