Gigabyte P34G

Hi guys. I've been following this thread from the beginning and with the latest bios update I'm almost sold. Just missing some fps benchmarks for Guild Wars 2 at 1080p. Can anyone give GW 2 a try and give some details?thx

 

Confirming that this works

I also noticed that the "Lock Win" button in smart manager doesn't lock the laptop, but the windows key itself like most mechanical keyboards.

 

Just joined the fray. Was deciding between the Clevo and this one. Very happy so far with this even after waiting 2 hrs at UPS in the cold for it. IF you guys think this fan is loud, I don't know what you guys use to have. My previous HP literally sounded like a turbine taking off. This thing at max fan I'm still waiting for it to get louder. IT IS FINE!

 

Haha glad I'm not the only one who thinks that! Thought I might be going deaf or something. Really enjoy this laptop, highly recommend. Last night I squeezed in an hour of The Old Republic and it was extremely, extremely smooth on high at 1080p. Framerates to come.

 

I have now "joined the fray" as well.. is it weird I'm nervously excited? Let the laptop gods allow for a smooth BIOS update upon arrival.

 

I'll give it a shot once the download has finished

 

Ok so, without GPU Boost:
Lions Arch 30-35 FPS (borderline playable but still playable)
Outside 60+ FPS

GPU Boost adds another few fps but not much.

Settings: Everything on medium except Shadows, Shaders and Postprocessing (those are high) and Native Render Sampling and High-Res Characters

 

Thanks a lot for those fps. If Lion's Arch is borderline with those settings I assume wvw won't be much better. Given those details are medium/high, it looks like I'll have to wait for the aorus to arrive to get some decent fps at high/ultra details on a slim notebook with fhd. Not sure it's worth the wait though...

 

That aorus is going to be at least double the price of the P34, if not more. That beast has so much stuffed in there It's also a 17.3"

 

just played two games of League of legends. obviously not really a graphic intensive game. it was running fine at 60fps at high however it would randomly freeze for 2 seconds. happened twice. still shouldn't have...

 

just played two games of League of legends. obviously not really a graphic intensive game. it was running fine at 60fps at high however it would randomly freeze for 2 seconds. happened twice. still shouldn't have...

 

Was vsync on? Cuz I've read that leaving vsync on causes stutter, but I wouldn't know as I don't use it.

 

Thanks for the heads up will try that tonight. I thought mmaybe it was cause my laptop rebooted halfway through the nvidia driver install but I did reinstall it.

 

Couple quick things I've noticed:

When plugging into a VGA port, sometimes the native screen will change to 720p and I'll have to change it back. Annoying but not a big deal.

Still 0 problems with fan noise being too loud. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

When I turn off and on the laptop, the wireless card is almost always off. I updated my drivers and bios using smart update but no success fixing it.

Sometimes the driver that smart update wants me to update to is an older version than the current (basing this off the lower #). Odd, and for those ones I don't update.

It runs the old republic on high like a champion, and is terrific for being productive and also watching netflix and playing the occasional game. Exactly what I was looking for. If anyone knows how to fix the wifi thing though, that would be awesome haha. Can live with it, but it's a minor annoyance.

A 3.5 lb, 14 inch desktop replacement with a beautiful screen and great graphics? Can't ask for much more.

 

played 3 games. it still freezes for a 1-2 seconds once a game. like my mouse doesn't even move not just lag and vsync is not on. i do have the upgraded intel 7620 dual band card.

yea i noticed that i had to update the smartupdate twice to get to the newest version. yea i noticed the newest versions may not be the one listed. i also am annoyed with the wifi being default off.

i'm a win7 user and really trying to adjust to this win8 and how there's no start menu with all my programs. still tinkering with the software. what have you guys done to optimize your laptops?

 

I did the fan BIOS update tonight. I nearly freaked out when my bios updater still wasn't finished after 15 minutes. I shut down the computer (a no-no when bios updating) and restarted, no problem. This time I unzipped the file before running and it worked. Note to all, don't run the executable from within the zip without unpacking first.

I did have to go in to the BIOS and switch it back to RAID, but other than that, it works fine and the fan is FAR FAR FAR more civilized on my machine now.

I would basically call it a non-issue at this point.

Mike

 

Boy, you're lucky. I didn't even do anything wrong and my machine bricked itself during BIOS update. I still haven't had a single day with mine, because now its gone to get its motherboard replaced and the service centres are terribly unprofessional (zero communication) and slow.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

Playing Crysis 3 on this is pretty awesome. My settings:

1080p resolution
Textures: Very high
Object detail and water: high
Everything else: Medium
FXAA, 4XAF, no blur or lens flare
Vsync off

FPS is generally 30-40. Some dips into the mid-20s (rarely) and it'll go into the 50s when the background isn't too intense. GPU is on extreme in Smart Manager and I undervolted the CPU by 100mV. Temps from AIDA64 are very high...I get into the mid-90s on CPU and around 83 on GPU. This games uses up to 60% of the CPU cores, which I think is crazy.

 

How are you doing the system restore? Using F9 or the Recovery USB?

I created a restore USB using the included utility. I asked Gigabyte about it, and they said the included system restore is just for the single hard drive model. After a failed SteamOS install, I used it to do a system restore. I unplugged the 1 TB drive and ran the restore off of the USB drive (not off the F9 boot function), and it worked perfectly.

When I upgraded the MSATA to a 480 GB M500, the restore USB worked just fine, too.

I'm happy to try and get you the partition info you need, but you'll have to point me to a tutorial.

 

I'm having the same with my 7260 AC, has anyone found a solution for this?
Also, is anyone able to wake up his laptop with the keyboard or mouse from hibernate?

 

Try toggling wifi on and off in Smart Manager. --That was suggested by another user, and seemed to work for me. Others have commented on this, but it appears as if Smart Manager might be the culprit behind wifi issues; If you don't use it, maybe uninstall. Perhaps someone who has unistalled it can confirm?

I notice that my screen flickers when I turn the laptop on. After the initial flicker, it works fine, and does not have any other flickering issues. Is this something you all are noticing too? or is this a sign of a some kind of faulty screen connection?

 

Yea you don't have to do airplane mode on and off. You just need to turn on the wifi with the hot key or smartmanager

 

I was having this same problem. Wifi would not connect automatically from startup or from sleep. The good news is this is is fixable and I no longer have this issue. Unfortunately I cannot say what fixed it. I did a bunch of messing around with the P34G unrelated to this problem and one day I noticed it just worked. Here is what my drivers are currently at....


I also updated to Windows 8.1 at one point.

Oh NVM, I have the stock wifi adapter not the 7260 AC.

 

True, but you get a lot of nice features with that little extra gpu power for your money. And it's a compact 17'3, which is just slightly larger than the p35k. So it's still portable enough to be put in the cabin luggage. I'll wait for the first tests and if it gets ripped I'll buy a p34.

 

I have the P34G, I am so upset I bought it, I shoudl have got the Venom BlackBook zero, the P34G has screen bezel bleed, the fans are always running and the screen flickers. I am in the process of trying to return it so I can get the BlackBook.

 

Where have you noticed backlight bleed? I've only seen it on fully black screens and even then it was fairly minor.

The newest bios update was supposed to fix the fans. Have you updated yet?

I have never had my screen flicker except while logging into Windows, like other users have mentioned. IMHO, it's not a big deal.

 

Interesting, mine has significant backlight bleed but only noticeable when on a blank, black screen. Other than that it looks beautiful. The fans run way less than my last laptop, especially post BiOS update (Dell XPS Studio 16 from 2009 haha). What are you comparing the laptop to?

Side note: said I'd post some framerates for the old republic, 50-60 FPS on very high graphics settings. Minimum was 47 FPS.

 

Hi guys,

I've been debating between the P34G and the Clevo W230ST for a couple days now but I finally decided to go with the P34G and just placed my order.

On my current laptop, I dual boot Windows and Ubuntu from my hdd. Since the P34G already comes with an mSATA SSD, I was thinking it would be nice if I could put Ubuntu on this drive and then install a new SDD in the main SATA slot to put Windows on. Is this plausible to do? I've only ever used a single disk drive before so I'm not sure how it would work... would I just need to select the relevant boot drive in BIOS in order to change OS?

 

My experiences so far with linux indicate you need a modern kernel, say 3.13. I'm using xubuntu 14.04 daily and it's working fine. Secondly, it's easier to disable the nvidia card in the bios when using linux than messing about with dual gpu options, and frankly the intel hd4600 is more than enough for most linux use.
Thirdly, it's a pain to do it the way around you want to, because of the secure boot/recovery partitions etc. I'd suggest you put the new SSD in, fire up a usb live boot of clonezilla, clone the drive over to the other drive, pull the msata out, try booting from the main drive - if successful, insert the msata, pull the 2.5" out, install linux from a live usb installer and then put it all back together.
You can pick the boot option via F12 on boot.

 

This was something that I wanted to do, but after reading a bit on UEFI and seeing the existing system partitions on the main drive I just decided to install Ubuntu next to Windows on the same drive. It's worked fine for me, and only meant that things like my music, games, videos, downloads and so on would be kept on the secondary drive. Everything that needs to be fast, such as system files, user configuration, and applications are kept on the main SSD.

The only issue I'm having on Linux is that the WiFi sometimes drops out, and this is a driver issue. Rmmod'ing and modprobe'ing the WiFi module helps.

 

This is an insane benchmark, I play bf4 on it and it gets about the same temps as you do. I ordered diamond compound thermal paste on xotic pc, i was wondering if maybe they didnt put it right, cuz it gets so hot under stress, but im seing that pretty much everyone gets the same temps.

Maybe I'll revisit the thermal compound later on

True that. It is very thin & light i never said the contrary. However, all that portability means nothing if you are a gamer, because you have to be plugged in to get decent fps. Otherwise it will clock down miserably.

But yea it is very thin & light. no doubt about that

 

Well if you're carrying a laptop in your backpack everyday for say, school, a heavy one is going to hurt your back.

Personal preference justifies size/weight in the end, though.

 

Running Prime95 and Furmark with CPU and GPU on max settings I get 98C on my CPU and 80C on my GPU. In theory no game should push as hard as that combination. The GPU throttles at that temp (from boost to like 714). Xotic with diamond on mine as well.

 

to the people with doubts. clevo w230st is only better because it has more bays and a superior graphics card but it is so much heavier and thicker! and to the person who wish he got the clevo iris 5200...it's still not a true gaming laptop!

another gripe i just noticed. when i am playing games or watching movies. when i want to adjust the sound or brightness it exits fullscreen or alt-tabs me out of my current application just to display the brightness or audio level! what the hell! is that all part of smart manager? totally uninstalling that but it is the only easy access to fan and graphics speed

 

For people with the Wifi issues: Definitely Try turning Wifi on through the Smart Manager software, not Windows 7/8's Interface. I posted this a couple weeks back and a few days ago, it seems to be the most common problem people have now that the fans are thankfully fixed .

Someone also reported the above Volume level UI kick out was fixed in the latest version of Smart Manager I believe, definitely confirm you have the latest.

Definitely agree about other laptops being so much less portable, heaver, thicker and louder. Very happy with this machine, I can easily code on the train for 4+ hours on battery and then plug it in and play whatever I like when I'm home and when I'm not playing it's silent - great machine .

Peter

 

How is a BlackBook with an Iris Pro even in the same sentence as a 760M... No contest from a GPU standpoint

 

Just an update. Had the laptop for 5 days, but the wifi issues have been getting worse.. This time the wireless card couldnt be recognized by the computer as existing. Had to do a full reboot to get it to come back on. Smartmanager said it was on and wouldnt let me toggle it, and turning it off and on by Fn+F2 didn't fix the problem. May be swapping out the wireless card on this thing myself, or sending it for repair worst comes to worst. Other than these wifi issues though, I love it too much to return it..

Edit: Just noticed it occasionally flashes off and on during use as well.

Edit 2: also, on battery it makes a continuous high pitched whine...oh boy. Not sure if all these problems add up to a service trip or not...

 

i just updated to 8.1. i suggest getting rid of smart manager. it is way too annoying.

 

Annoying how, exactly? I've had no problems with it since the latest update. Without it, you can't lock the windows key and turn on the GPU boost.

 

Adjusting volume or brightness switches my programs to desktop. Can be very annoying when you are playing games or watching movies.

Great trying to update chipset driver and it is probably in a resolution I can't see anything in. How do I fix tthis do I need another monitor?

I see the mouse but it's just a black screen...

i went into bios and defaulted the win8 settings and now i can see again. i have no idea what happened. are you guys using smartupdate 1.7 beta to update? i upgraded it to 1.8.4 but it seems 1.7 has the most recent date?

 

This is fixed in the latest update.

I'm on 1.7.5, but I don't use it all that often. I use intel and nvidia's sites to download those drivers, and the others seem to update much less frequently.

 

Is anyone able to give me some tips on updating the BIOS on a non-Windows system (I'm running Ubuntu 13.10, no dual-boot)?

I've managed to extract the flies from the EXE, I assume now it's a matter of copying them to a DOS bootable USB and booting from it. But what then? There's no readme, so I'm a bit unclear on what to run to flash the BIOS. My best guess is BIOS/P.BAT.

Any advice? Thanks.

 

just a friendly advice as I am discovering this for myself. when you get your laptop, upgrade it to 8.1 first before updating the drivers. i am going through the process of reupdating all the drivers after 8.1 upgrade.

1. still haven't figured out how to have wifi turn on automatically on startup
2. bluetooth driver from smartupdate or intels website freezes my computer and says VIDEO_DXG something error. i had to download the driver from the gigabyte website and go manually to the 8.1 folder and install and then it worked.
3. still getting intermittent freezing in games and even surfing the web there is intermittent lag...hopefully by reinstalling all the drivers this will be fixed.

i did also notice the screen bleed someone mentioned. it's pretty minor i didn't notice it til someone brought it up.


this is the main gigabyte site and these seem to be the more reliable/compatible versions of drivers: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4636&dl=1#driver

 

So I held my breath and tried it... all good

 

Surprisingly my GPU never throttled (maybe cause of the undervolted CPU). But the GPU was over clocked to an incredible 849mhz (extreme turbo boost) the entire time which I thought was impressive.

 

good news. i "fixed" my intermittent freezing and lag spike problems with LoL. I think reinstalling the drivers fixed the freezing but turning on sensitivity and disabling TCP delay on LAN optimizer fixed my lag spikes. however my pings are still 140. usually on my connection is 90.

it is almost strange that this is called optimization when in fact it should be the minimum. curious i should try uninstalling it to see if it also fixes ping problems.

 

Only two or three posts regarding an external power supply, but going to spend the entire day in the air a couple of days week-after-next so am going after a PowerGorilla PowerTraveller Portable Laptop Charger. Will follow up after that trip and report how well I did or didn't do with it.

 

Hey B'midbar. I saw your signature line that shows you upgraded your P34G to 1TB Samsung 840 EVO. I just ordered the 750GB version. How was the install of that? Did you use the Samsung tools? Are you happy you did it? How have you organized your mSATA vs SSD drives?

Cheers,

Mike

 

Install was easy, just a straight swap before putting any data on the drive. Didn't use the Samsung tools. Yes, very happy I did it. mSATA is OS and apps, EVO is data.