New LG Gram 17

Yeah, sometimes you end up getting the low percentage luck of the draw bad one. I've never heard of that brand though.

 

I like the HP EX950 series of SSD's. Read the reviews on them, they are pretty popular and have near the same performance as the latest Samsung series but about half the cost.

 

Interesting, and thanks for the hp tip. I got the replacement inland SSD today and yep, it works like a charm. Also, fyi these inland devices seem to be as you say for the hp ones. I paid $119 for 1tb and it competes with the 970 Evo Pro.

Inland Premium 1TB SSD 3D NAND... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RCM6DXK?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

 

Spoke too soon. Although the drive indeed works, the win 10 pro install media doesn't appear to have correct drivers for the lg gram trackpad or its WiFi. Anyone have this problem? This hardware works fine when I boot the original win 10 home it came with.

UPDATE: was just easier to clone the win10home SSD onto my new SSD. But of course this way I'm stuck with home's auto update debacle. I really want to put Ubuntu on the gram but think I'll wait until I can find a Linux driver for the fingerprint scanner..

 

The trackpad and WiFi should work out of the box, trackpad uses microsoft precision drivers and the WiFi is a pretty common Intel 9560. What you might need to do is install LG Control Center and LG Update Center (download them from LG). It might be that your Fn key to turn the trackpad on and off is in the off position.

I wouldn't hold my breath for Linux drivers for the Goodix fingerprint scanner.

 

For shoppers in S.Korea, LG Ultragear 17U790 is up for preorder from some retailers.
Spec comparison shows the two versions are similar except for CPU,
17U790-PA50K has i5-8265U, while 17U70-PA70K has i7-8565U.

 

Could anyone who actually has the LG 17 Gram please go to the device manager, and check the driver date on their camera?
I did a fresh install and did the LG update but the camera seems crappy and I'm thinking it might be my driver.

 

I have the exact same driver on my machine. Camera quality is terrible, but at least it doesn't waste a lot of space on the bezel.

 

Thanks - I also have terrible camera quality - can you use hello face - mine says no cameras found or some such thing.

 

It does not support Windows Hello, that needs near IR cameras which this unit does't have. Maybe next iteration. At least we have fingerprint.

 

Good to know - thanks!

 

In S.Korea, the ilovepc LG UltraGear 17U790 review mentions that the 17 inch 16:10, 2560×1600 screen that debuted with the LG Gram 17 might come not only to the LG UltraGear 17 but also to LG's third brand, as the LG UltraPC 17. [view in Google Chrome for machine translation as you scroll after page is loaded.]

[I'm guessing maybe the UltraPC version might offer a small discrete GPU, such as MX250 or MX150, as the LG UltraPC 15U590 is offered with an MX150. So it could be slower but quieter in games if it uses the same heat pipe and fans as the UltraGear. But the UltraPC 15U590 has the small arrow keys in the righthand control key space, like the Gram.]

[edit:] ilovepc also has an LG UltraPC 17UD790 preview, a model with only integrated graphics like the LG Gram 17, but no Thunderbolt3, and the keyboard has full size arrow keys like the LG UltraGear 17. It says the weight of this configuration is lighter than the specification, and the interior shows space for a discrete GPU and a second fan, so there may be other configurations. (The UltraPC 17 is not yet listed on the LGEKOR site UltraPC section, but it does list UltraPC 15 configurations both with and without a discrete NVidia MX150 GPU.)[/edit:]

 

Two things in one post..

First.. the bad (but good) news..

I had a bit of a scare today, was carrying some water in a lidded non-spill cup, didn't realize the release was flipped to open. Ended up spilling a junk load (I am not exaggerating.. it was a lot) of water on the keyboard as I was leaning over to put something down. Laptop was on at the time with my eGPU hooked up. immediately shut it down and unplugged everything and started cleaning the water off the keyboard. Set up an area to take it apart and there was water all up by the power/tb3 port row and a decent pool of it on the primary nvme slot connector and other pools of water in random places.

Dried everything up and it still works flawlessly. I thought for sure when I saw all the water on the power input and TB3 port side it was a goner. So, no, the MIL spec marketing speak definitely won't save you from water spillage, but hey it did survive a pretty catastrophic water event nonetheless.

So for the second part...

I had been wanting to take it apart anyway to apply some new TIM, so while I was in there I cleaned up all the kryonaut I had applied. It looked kind of dried out and out-flowed so I was guessing that might have been why my core temps were not consistent (2 hotter cores).

I used Coollaboratory Metal Pad for notebooks this time. It comes with a metalpad sheet and two thicknesses of copper shim material.
I used the 0.1mm shim. How it works is you cut two pieces of metalpad and one shim to the size of the die. You sandwich the shim between two metalpads on top of the die. For i7 U series (and probably any iGPU toting cpu) you need one set for the CPU and one for the GPU die. Then when those stacks are lined up perfectly on the die you carefully place the heatsink back on top being sure not to move it laterally at all. It needs a little curing time as I am guessing the metalpad sheets will melt under temp.

My core temps are super consistent now, and it's running a bit cooler than it was before. I didn't take some before measurements like I wanted to due to the water cleanup emergency but running Cinebench a few times I am holding better clocks through the whole test and gained a little performance. It's also not power throttling as low as it was, it's maintaining around 2-3W more power level than it was before which is nice.

Definitely nowhere near as good as it could be with a better heatsink, but I'm overall happy with the result. I'll keep watching it over the coming days to see if it gets a little better as it cures, but I'm not really hoping for much with this meager heatsink.

 

The parts I don't like is it looks like it's 1.3lbs heavier, I'm really liking how light the current Gram 17 is, and it LOOKS like they ditched the TB3 port to provide probably 8x PCIe lanes for the 1650. I'd rather have my 2070 eGPU.

It's going to be a great unit for those that want it.

What I REALLY want to see them do is put that better CPU heatsink and fan into the next Gram 17 that has an iGPU and TB3 port. It would be PERFECT.

 

I always used the ShaggyMax (used to be ShaggyMac) screen protectors in the past but never had one for the Gram 17. First time I looked I didn't see one for the Gram or a 17" 16:10, but it looks like they have one now. Ordered it I'll let you guys know how it fits. I was a little suspect that the specs say it's 16:9, so we shall see. Probably just an honest mistake.

I've noticed some potential damage where I can see what looks like the key edges hitting the panel if I look at it in the correct light while powered off (I notice nothing in regular use) so it triggered me to check again.

https://www.shaggymax.com/collectio...r/products/lg-gram-17-laptop-screen-protector

EDIT: Fits perfectly

 

thanks to the positive notebookcheck.net review and this forum i'm now also a happy lg gram 17 owner coming from a macbook pro 17" from 2011. i ordered it from amazon.es and they shipped it to austria.
as described in this forum i added 1x samsung 32gb ddr4 2666mhz sodimm. i switched the original sata ssd to the slower nvme slot (2x) and added a 2tb adata sx8200 pro nvme ssd to the faster nvme slot (4x).

thank you! it worked for me. i could install "linuxmint-19.2-cinnamon-64bit.iso" and "kali-linux-xfce-2019.3-amd64.iso" without any problems, but when i was trying to install "manjaro-kde-18.0.4-stable-x86_64.iso" i got a hang-up with error message: "Failed to start Journal Service". with the kernel option "pci=nommconf" i could also install manjaro.

later on i also found a different solution on the web for this problem. reading this website https://www.linux.org/threads/acpi-error-on-lg-gram-17-inch-when-attempting-to-multiboot.24996/ led me to this website https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=203617 which led me to the alternative solution on this website https://github.com/crazyluv/solve-lg-gram-17-linux-boot-error :

 

if you want to change the hidden additional bios settings press CTRL+ALT+F7 inside bios.
my bios version is W1ZD1210 X64 from 03/25/2019


to summarize some bios options:
- press F10 at LG screen to see a quick bios boot menu (instead of entering bios and changing boot order)
- press F2 at LG screen to enter bios
- press CTRL+ALT+F7 in bios to get additional bios options (Thunderbolt RTD3 option)


to boot some linux distributions it is necessary to disable secure boot. i could boot and install mint 19.2 with secure boot enabled but hat to disable it for kali linux.
- Security tab / Secure Boot Information / disable "Secure Boot Option"

to avoid linux (kernel >= 4.18) acpi error hang-up (no need to add "pci=nommconf" kernel option) disable RTD3:
- Advanced tab / Intel Advanced Menu / Thunderbolt Configuration / Discreet Thunderbolt Configuration / Thunderbolt OS Select / switch Windows 10 Thunderbolt support from "Enabled +RTD3" to "Enabled" or "Disabled"

 

Interesting, what's different about that BIOS version I wonder? I don't see that one available anywhere for download.
I upgraded my BIOS on my US unit to the newer one that's available on the Korean site, but it's older than that one (W1ZD1180 X64 01/29/2019) .

 

i never updated my bios (W1ZD1210 X64 from 03/25/2019). it already came with this version installed (from amazon.es). i just visited the korean website and it's strange that the bios there is older (W1ZD1180).

 

I would imagine there's some bug fixes or compatibility improvements. Makes me wonder if there's any hardware changes instead where that bios is specific to that Gram 17 revision. It would be nice if LG would say something about it for us enthusiasts.

Good find on the ctrl-alt-F7 BIOS option btw!

 

I have that same BIOS version. I got it using the Windows Device Manager. There is an entry called "Firmware/LGE System Firmware". Maybe that was the update you mentionned some pages ago. In any case doing an automatic driver update on that entry got me the 3/25/2019 BIOS.

 

Wow. Amazing find. How did you figure this out. This gives us an unlocked BIOS with tons of options. What does the thunderbolt RTD3 option do?
There appear to be options to change the fan behavior! If they work, that's great news. I cannot try as I fully modded my cooling and the system is no longer controlling the fan (check many pages ago how I use a microcontroller to control my dual fans..).

Can someone check whether those trip points for the fan do work? That would give all of you the option to drive the fan harder to turbo-boost the cpu much longer.

 

I guess we now should find out what additional bios options actually work. I found one called "Fast charging" that defaulted to "Slow charging".. Once my battery is empty I'll check whether that maybe allows to charge with more than 30W - which would be awesome.

It might also be possible to increase the 90 degree thermal throttling limit, but I haven't found the correct setting yet.

The diagnostic screen settings do work and I like those.

 

i found it on a website. see message #366 here in the forum http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/new-lg-gram-17.827017/page-37#post-10950319

from comment 19 & 23 at bugzilla: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=203617#c19 :

 

Wow, that worked. Never would have thought that the "Update Driver" option in there would ever do anything.

 

I agree it's weird.. and it's even weirder that BIOS is not in the LG homepage. That "Update driver" option got quite useful since Windows 10 when many more 3rd party drivers got included in windows update. I use it frequently and it quite often finds drivers that are otherwise hard to find. Almost like one of those "driver optimizers".

 

I tried that "fast charging" thing I found in those hidden BIOS settings. Unfortunately it makes no difference to charging the laptop.. maybe it's about charging other devices over usb-c or just not working.

 

Fast Charging is usually reserved for USB-C Power Delivery

 

Thank you very much for all the information,

I have enter to the bios in advanced settings I put 80% for the battery maximum charging, but when start open suse tumbleweed it charges the battery until 100%, any one knows what are the extra parameters for that only charge until 80%

Thanks

 

Maybe that only works in windows for some reason. Sounds odd, but if it was strictly hardware based it would stand to reason it would work under any OS. It is a toggle in the windows LG Control Center so maybe it requires that.

 

Hi All,

Am a new LG Gram 17 user, imported it from US with so much excitement and installed a Sabrent 2tb ssd and 16gb ram immedialty and upgraded. I have so many BSOD in 7 days , that i have never experienced.

So removed 256gb ssd that came with laptop and installed only 2tb ssd and done a clean windows install.
All was good for 30 mins , but after sometime I got BSOD again saying attemtted_Execute_of_noexecute_memory BSOD again. I have got only 2 more days to return.

SO far I have only installed windows automatic driver updates , are there any important drivers that I need to update from LG? Is LG Control centre and any lg updates that I am missing.

Someone who is experience can you kindly let me know if need anything important from LG ?

Regards
VVS

 

Did you try the system for more than 30 minutes before you upgraded the parts? It's not clear if you tested with 8gb of ram first.

Your errors sounds like bad memory sticks to me. Switch back to the original parts and test it again.

 

You were right I have done memory scan and the new ram was corrupted as it failed the scan so reverted back to original memory slot which it came with.

Are there any LG Update software that I need to install for any drivers ?

 

When I got mine last week, most of them were already installed and up to date. I did have to install Windows 10 1903 update and that came with more driver updates via the Windows update.

If you are worried that LG Update is behind, you can find the latest version here: https://www.lg.com/us/support/software-firmware-drivers (Enter Lg gram 17 in the model search),

 

I was having these odd lockups now and then for like 3-5 seconds at a time where it looked like there was a lot of interrupt activity, took me a bit to figure it out. It was the Intel RST softtware/drivers. I uninstalled that and it's been fine since. So if you have that issue, get rid of the intel rst software.

 

Thank you I will check if that software is installed. It’s been calm since the memory has been replaced. No LG software was installed and only used windows driver updates to run the laptop.

Vvs

 

Yes you were right, I did indeed gone back to original ram and its fine now so far.

 

In S. Korea, noteforum has added an LG UltraPC 17UD790 preview, again with no discrete GPU. The Cinebench 15 score looks low for an i7-8565 (~500 instead ~600). (Viewed in Chrome for machine translation after the page loads.)

[speculation: LG likes to highlight long battery life rather than performance, so I wonder: is it set to a battery saving power plan? is it configured down from the normal 15w to use a 12w or even 10w TDP for long battery life?]

Also, I noticed it has no dedicated Home or End keys when Numlock is on, though that seems to apply to other LG keyboards as well. (Maybe other keys could be remapped for one-handed navigating/selecting to the start/end of spreadsheet rows or text lines.)

 

A score in the low-mid 500's is typical for the 15W configuration of the 8565U. In order to do better you'd either need to start tweaking by undervolting and overclocking and hope that the manufacturer included a good enough heat management solution to dissipate 20-25W of power. LG Grams (the current units anyway) have WEAK heat management solutions. It's the Achilles heel of these units IMO.

Unless you're willing to take significant drastic measures like @Pflugshaupt has done earlier in this thread to wildly modify the heat management solution.

I'm not sure why anyone would pick that over the existing Gram 17 unless it's significantly cheaper. It's heavier and it has no Thunderbolt 3, which is a deal-breaker for me since I use an eGPU.

 

Does the lightness of the laptop cause an interesting/ happy feeling? I keep hearing how people are astonished at the weight and I almost want to get my hands on one briefly for that reason alone.

There is not one at the microsoft store near me to try out.

I guess that and the certain nice feeling of seeing so much easy to see screen real estate. But then again, there are those 3000:2000 pixel 15 inch laptops which will show more vertical content. But then the LG gram 17 is bigger so you can zoom out more and see more stuff (at lower resolution)
just because the screen is bigger.

Being able to see more code/text / more of a webpage comfortably without carrying a brick in your backpack seems like the nicest feature of this laptop.

 

Alright boys.

Wishlist time for the next LG gram 17 if they ever make one:

- Centered keyboard (I've got a wireless number pad. And at less than 3 pounds, this is really a "put on your lap" kind of device, which a centered keyboard would work well with)
- honestly they have room for a centered main keyboard and a smaller narrow/thin numberpad on the right but sadly I think some people would feel this is too ugly/asymmetrical and prefer the current look
- bigger trackpad, there's tons of room for it
- speakers not facing down into the table
- probably can't wish for a discrete GPU, wouldn't that just increase the weigh alot? Or are discrete GPU's not that heavy?
- touchscreen
- faster SSD
- anti-reflective coating

Come on LG. Gotta get enough LG gram 17 sales to make updating the device worth the cost.

Can the average joe not see how awesome the idea of a portable 17 incher is? Oh right, gaming and Apple, I forgot. Maybe I'm out of touch, but do most people prefer either a dual core macbook or a budget gaming laptop as opposed to a portable giant screen?

 

Mikhail Tal, is the LG gram 17 good for chess though?

 

I've chosen the LG 17 because of its lightness and simplicity and of course its wonderful screen and qualities. If you want a more complicated laptop why don't you get another one?
I would never understand ppl getting one thing and start wishing for something else, in a market where there is always something else. It's the choices you make and not the product you buy.

 

Centered keyboard would be great, I don't see the limited use I get from the numpad being worth not having a centered keyboard.

Bigger trackpad OK, but it would need to have a different click mechanism. I think the one on it is fine though I don't care much really, I use a mouse most of the time.

BIG YES on the speakers. Plenty of room for top firing, even though I use headphones 99.999% of the time, for that .001% that I use the speakers for some reason it would be nice.

Adding in a GPU would increase the weight due to needing a lot of extra cooling hardware and a different chassis design. I'm fine with an eGPU. There is a 4lb LG 17" coming with a dGPU. I think if they added one of the 10th Gen U-series CPUs with the top tier GPU in it that would be enough. The 620 can play some lighter-weight games better than I expected it to on this. With that new CPU it would be acceptable for an iGPU. I think we should keep the dGPU out of the Gram line and leave it to the other line they are coming out with that is heavier.

Big NO from me on the touch screen. I had one on the Blade 14, never used it and it makes the laptop heavier.

The faster SSD is something they really should do at the price point, but it's a cheap-easy upgrade so that's just an annoyance more than anything else, but for the record I'm still using two SATA SSDs and they seem fine for my needs.

I kind of like the glossy display, it provides better clarity, but it would be nice if they added an option for matte for everyone that wants to use it outdoors. There are sheets you can apply to the display to add that coating yourself. I think I like that avenue better as if it is already matte and you would rather have the increased clarity of glossy you're out of luck.

 

One of the reasons I love the LG17 is the built in number pad, I wouldn't want it any other way on a 17inch notebook. I do a lot of number crunching.

 

I totally don't mind it. Honestly the only thing I REALLY want fixed is the poor heat management. If they just slightly improved that so the CPU could maintain better performance it would be SO much better.

 

In S. Korea, Playwares reviewed the LG 17UD790-GX56K with i5-8265U that scored ~560 in Cinebench 15 multicore.

Looks like another case of insufficient cooling for multicore marathons, so the i7 can only sprint for short periods before throttling, while the i5 lasts longer.

 

Probably not insufficient cooling, it's operating at the typical 15W configuration.

 

Thanks!!!

1) "There is a 4lb LG 17" coming with a dGPU."
What is it called?

2) Out of curiosity, how much weight does a touchscreen add? Maybe I'm out of touch, but it seems like there are alot of ipads including 12 inche ones (that have touchscreens obviously) and I don't have a sense of how much of its weight is due to the touchscreen.

3) What product would you use if you were going to add a matte/anti-reflective cover? The thing is, I guess you would have to cut it precisely to be 16:10

 

I sort of wish they'd have
- centered keyboard, centered touchpad
- numpad to the right of that keyboard (so the numpad would almost be running off of the right side of the laptop)

My idea would look ugly as sin but it would:
- Make lap usage great
- Still have the numpad benefits

At 17 inches, there's tons of room.