Clevo P955ER shuts down under load on Linux ONLY when on battery power

Hello fellows,

I have an issue with the Clevo P955ER (Eurocom Q6) on Linux, particularly Ubuntu 18.04LTS.

See, under any load (on the processor, particularly) when running on battery power ONLY, the laptop will shut down and can only be powered on by plugging in the charger.

The issue cannot be reproduced on Windows. Currently dual booting Ubuntu 18.04LTS with Windows 10 (build 1803).

Has anyone else encountered such an issue before on Linux?

 

HAve you checked the wattage of the CPU? I have the supsicion that tthe control panel isnt limiting the CPU, which causes the EC to go beserk in some kind of safemode.

 

This is a Linux-related issue, one that does not occur on Windows.

I can confirm that on Windows, with or without the control center, the issue does not occur here.

It may be related to Linux reading the wrong ACPI battery values from the BIOS.

 

Does the battery sensor report going above 60C in Pre boot system diagnosis Eurocom ships?
I had same issue on my AW when battery sensor hits 60C if you're using dGPU heavily that crosses 60W-85W on battery mode eventually dimming my screen,disconnecting my usb peripherals, cpu going to 800MHz etc...
After replacing the battery the issues went away. The issue was present in Win 10 and Xubuntu 16.
Have you installed TLP,Power-top or similar tools?

 

Nope, no such issue.

 

And I can confirm that my P950ER with 16GB ram, Max-Q 1070, running both the shipped Intel-GPU+GPU Nvidia drivers AND the latest drivers updates that this happens also in Windows 10 latest edition on battery.

Short version: Its not a solely Linux issue, and here too it happens when on battery, and it happens on CPU + GPU load sometimes but NOT because the CPU or GPU gets hot.

It just turns off, and like you said, it can only be brought back to life by putting in the powerplug again.

I'm going to try turning of TPM and secure boot and other "secure"-methods in BIOS to see if that has something to do with it.

 

Wow.

I should repeat this test again.

I've gamed quite a bit on battery (mostly Assassins Creed IV Black Flag and Rise Of The Tomb Raider) though I'm yet to encounter that on Windows.

 

I havent installed any games yet, but I've pushed it quite a bit with video-editing in Premiere Pro, Davince Resolve etc, it also happened when I watched some videoes on Youtube. My assumption is that its something with the CPU-handling, especially the Intel Graphics 630 that might send some instructions the EC / some bad programming/bug on Clevo's side doesnt handle well.

Video-editing uses both Intel 630 igpu and the GPU, Youtube uses the same and/or just the Intel 630 igpu.

Its annoying/a deal-breaker really if its not fixed/adressed. I'm fairly certain its not the igpu og gpu-drivers since i've tried 4 revisions of both and the same happens.

I suspect TPM and security / VR-implementations in the BIOS might also be the sinner.

 

At any case, this now confirms that this is hardware related.

Perhaps a new BIOS (and EC firmware) update can fix this.

 

Hopefully, if Clevo even knows about it, I have no idea how to to contact/make them aware of such a problem.

 

I have filed a ticket with @Eurocom Support and linked them to this thread.

Hopefully they'll be able to respond.

 

Clevo doesn't really do anything about such things at all. It's mostly the reseller trying to fix.

 

That sounds... really... promising... *stabs a fork in my eyeball*

 

Well no, thats how it works. Clevo doesn't sell complete notebooks, but instead parts to resellers. That's why Clevo notebooks are so unfinished and barebones compared to other brands such as Asus, Alienware, MSI etc.

That's also the reason why you never see a Clevo branded notebook.

 

Cool, so far ive turned off TPM in bios, gone back to Intel GPU driver rev 4924.

One thing i noticed in XTU-tuner was A: it was allready installed without the GUI, so even when uninstalled its still showing up in processes, and
B: XTU shows proposed/recommended x41 multiplier on CPU the 6 cores but default says it should be x22, so I put them to x22.

Ive also turned off powersaving on SATA that was on by default in the Intel rapid technology storage GUI.

 

Well, unfortunately the reseller where I live have even less tech knownledge, basically hell will freeze over, then re-heat to plasma and then fill up with pink unicorns and then freeze over to actual zero kelvin except all the unicorns will have turned into midgets and goats having an orgie before they will ever be able to make a BIOS. They barely know what a "BIOS" or EC is.

 

Yeah I know, even good resellers are unable to fix many problems which clevo notebooks have. I love clevo because I like to mod notebooks and tinker with them a lot, however, I'm well aware that I'm one of the very very very few people out there who would ever want to fiddle around on a 5k USD machine, hence I always warn people about buying them.

 

Its a bad battery. Normally gaming on battery isn't recommended.
You can say its OEM's throttling mechanism similar to Apple Battery Gate.

 

That would make sense.

The battery's among the smallest in the thin category offering so far.

 

Check which manufacturer it is? If its high capacity cells from Simplo then it does exhibit that strange issue when temps whilst rendering/gaming on battery will have these effects. First I thought it was W10 but its definitely hardware based.

 

Turns out its' a BIOS-related issue.

Eurocom issued a BIOS update that fixes that by literally throttling the processor to exactly 1.6GHz under load on both Linux and Windows.

And its' also locked down. No settings for undervolting, etc. This sucks.

 

Update: Fixed with a BIOS update issued by Eurocom.

No issues so far. The throttling under battery is also gone, and the laptop can now drain and charge as expected.

 

So basically this can be achived with Throttlestop / XTU profile for battery? So in basic the hardware/CPU cant take more than 1.6ghz on battery without going berserk on the battery?

Isnt that like a.. dealbreaker aka "Not getting what was advertised" ?

 

Oh, the throttling is gone aswell? Where can I get hold of that BIOS? (just BIOS, not EC?)

 

On battery mode, the processor can hit up to 4GHz (just as on mains power) using the high performance profile, unlike their previous BIOS update.

 

Who's your OEM? The unlocked copy I have has the Eurocom splash screen on boot, and they did request for it not to be released into the public domain.

A similar copy, but locked, with a stock splash screen, can be found here: http://downloads.eurocom.com/support/drivers/models/Q6/q6_B0706.zip

It may be best to wait for a release from your OEM, just in case.

 

What does the stock screen say? (the Logo)

 

By unlocked you mean all settings like undervolting etc and all those other dangerous things that can brick a machine is avaivable in BIOS?

 

Here the exact machine i bought from the OEM/3rd party (in Norway / norwegian):
https://www.multicom.no/multicom-kunshan-p950-156-4k-uhd/cat-p/c/p10642363

 

The stock BIOS logo says "style notebook".

 

Yes.

 

my stock boot-logo says "Oo Style Note" with three thin lines under it, the "Oo" are two ugly circles. Its really ugly, it hurts my feelings, and my eyes, I feel emotionally raped watching it every time i turn it on.

 

Their unbranded stock BIOS has the same splash screen. It's ugly AF.

 

It makes me suspect that we live in The Matrix, only in a virtual reality / simulated universe someone with that bad designing skills would be allowed to design the logo for a 2K$ laptop, it makes no sense.

 

wait.. are you.. Morpheus.. is that you?

 

I doubt Clevo's artists could muster such a delicate grasp needed for useful art.

 

Would it be possible to share the unlocked BIOS per DM? I have been looking all over the internet to find an unlocked BIOS for the P950ER. Currently having some problems with the setup of my laptop and as the stock BIOS (latest version) is fully locked up to the level that you can't even switch between UEFI and classic boot mode.

 

Sorry to bring up this old thread, I bought a P955ER recently and as a Linux power user I'm quite into flashing this update. Though I've noticed the archive does not contain any EC firmware (as well as the one from Clevo itself)... Is that fine? This way we'll end up with BIOS 1.07.06 and EC 1.05.02, wouldn't that cause mismatch issues?

 

Who's the Clevo reseller in your case? Eurocom? Sager?
Also, did they provide you with the BIOS update you want to flash?

 

Bought it from Clevo Computer, a german reseller here in Europe (they're really kind, very recommended). The BIOS update is available on their website, no customizations at all, it's plain stock like the one you would find on the "official" Clevo mirrors (according to the hashes it's exactly the same). I'm just confused by the absence of an EC matching the BIOS version. Doesn't look like it's available (neither in the unbranded one from Eurocom you've posted). Weird.