*** MSI 16L13 (Eurocom Tornado F5)/EVOC 16L-G-1080 15.6" Owner's Lounge ***

The NVIDIOTS finally fixed their screwed up drivers. If you use an older one the brightness controls will be borked. Some Clevo owners have had this problem corrected as well. The screen goes black (backlight turns off) with some newer drivers. Success will be hit or miss if you use the wrong one.

 

Hey thanks (and apologies for hijacking the thread)!

I've only tested 3 games so far (Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, CS:GO), but all of them do the same thing (so I only took a video of one - although if Adventure Capitalist counts as a game, that ran with no issues). The link to the video is here (excuse any car noises, next to a highway, issue occurs around 1:56):


This is a brand new computer, so windows was just installed on it. I've run Prime95 and Windows Memory Diagnostic to check CPU and RAM. I've also tried undervolting the GTX 1070, and I tried wiping the existing drivers with Display Driver Uninstaller and then installing 382.05 with no avail (I also tried a much older version of the drivers but it didn't work). Thought it was a problem with my power bar at first, so I plugged it straight into the wall with no change. I've also tried running WhoCrashed but it doesn't seem like an actual crash is happening (no BSOD), just a computer restart. Temperatures for CPU and GPU look pretty reasonable too.

I'd really like to get this working, but I don't have a lot of technical know how in terms of servicing this machine. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

It's a good thing that we have @Prema with his cancer killing skills hard at work then.

Can I safely update the video driver for my laptop then? I'm still on 378.92, I believe.

 

Still not working for me !

 

Hi. That helps a lot. I did not see any strange colors and they temps seemed OK, but I see the reboot. Your CPU might be undervolted too far. It could also be the display driver or other rogue driver causing it. I doubt you have a hardware problem at this point, but it is still possible.

I know undervolting helps the temps, but if you leave it on stock voltage and let the temps go higher is it still doing that? If no, then maybe reduce the amount of undervolt. Also leave the GPU stock.

If WhoCrashed did not find any dump files then the reboot is not producing a BSOD/bugcheck codes.

 

Are you finding that the BIOS from @Prema is allowing you to do more OC at the same temps because of efficiency, or is it just unlocking additional options and allowing you to be more aggressive and take advantage of your extreme cooling mods?

 

Several people had asked me to post about my EVOC 16L-G-1080 once I had done my first serious video editing project. I finished my latest project last night, and did several iterative renders out to 1080p 29.97 Hz H.264 streams.

Doing this in Lightworks, my editor of choice, I rendered out a 1 hour 8 minute video project in about 30 minutes, in other words, about 2X realtime speed. CPU temps were pretty high, bouncing between 88C and 92C, even with the fans manually maxed. I'm running 4.7 GHz clock, 1.140 V static voltage. No stability problems with the system. Lightworks crashed once, but to be fair I'm testing a new version, and it has a history of occasional crashes, so I think this was not a hardware problem.

For comparison, this same job on my 2013 Macbook Pro Retina would have taken over twice as long. The MBP fell just short of 1X realtime render speed at 1080p. Both machines have similar-speed SSD. So I'm tallying this one in the "epic win" column for my new CPU. Now I just need to figure out if I can make Lightworks use the GPU for this task.

 

So two updates for you, one which is particularly interesting.

1. When I ran that video, nothing was underclocked (so I don't think that's the problem).
2. I'm currently using just my battery, and my frame rate has taken a bit of a hit (it's gone down from 60fps to 30fps). I've set it "high performance" even on battery, so I'm not sure where exactly my settings have been turned down. Nevertheless, I was able to run two full games of Overwatch without issue (I haven't been able to do that with the AC adapter plugged in). Wondering if it's either an AC adapter issue or a GPU issue?

 

That is interesting. Yes, it might be a problem with the AC adapter. Gaming on battery is always a no-go with a powerful CPU and GPU, but using the battery is degrading performance enough that it remains stable. If you have only a 240W AC adapter, that might not be enough to get the job done if you have 7700K and 1080.

 

Found a couple of reasonably priced U3's on ebay and just got round to butchering one of them ready to take 4 X 120mm turbo nutter fans.




Still waiting for the fans, controller and power supply to sail over from China/Hong Kong...

 

Very nice, clean cuts. Good that you got the older U3 (better product than the newer one). What did you use to make the cuts, or did you take it to a shop to have them cut out for you?

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking here. There are no additional unlocked menus, but @Prema is making lots of changes "under the hood" and upgraded CPU micro-code, newer MEI firmware and changing other things that are not menu-driven. The issue that remains to be resolved is the artificial TDP throttling that forces the CPU down to stock TDP once you exceed whatever arbitrary threshold MSI decided should be our ceiling on overclocking. Once that is removed, the work will be done. This machine is otherwise crippled with that problem with all BIOSes (stock, Svet and Prema). If you never intend to exceed the 4.7GHz - 4.8GHz range, it is pretty much flawless and runs like a bat out of hell. That's not good enough for me though. It should overclock without throttling until I reach the voltage output limit of the motherboard or the functional capacity of my CPU, whichever comes first. (The motherboard's voltage output limit is low enough the functional capacity of the CPU would not be an issue.)

 

Lidl had a 240V-160W Multi-tool set on offer for £19.99 a few weeks ago, it has a flexible extension shaft which is a lot easier to use for intricate stuff - so I used that and some decent quality cutting disks.

 

Thanks for your help. I'm running a 7700 (no K) and a GTX 1070, which I assumed was adequate for the 230W supply. I'm pretty sure it is the power supply now, as I went into GeForce experience and removed the fps limit/cranked the graphics settings on the game with no crash when my AC adapter was unplugged. Hopefully this just needs a new power supply then, cheers.

 

Uhhh....... Having written bitslice microcode in my younger days, color me impressed that someone is able to do that on a commercial CPU. In the bitslice world, the CPU was my own design, so I had all the needed specs.

 

I'll stay put then. Thanks for the quick response.

 

Yeah,no, they were good or okay before, but we've seen what this laptop can do, or at least I've seen what it can do in the very best of situations, like in a controlled environment in ideal conditions, I did not mean he was doing bad, what I mean is the laptop is performing more admirably.

We've gotten as high as 17,000 on the phyiscs score, and we've had like almost 22,000 on the GPU in testing, not together mind you, ideal special conditions. I expect when things become perfect in the future, the 1080 and 7700K setups will go nuts... it seems it's starting to now.

There is a different motherboard for the 1070 and 1080 versions and they might have other differences too. I've seen larger % OC's on the 1070 versions, but I have been waiting for that performance % wise to catch up on the 1080' versions.


@rancid yeah Birghtness control has been on all stock models for over a month from all vendors now too, anyone else just needs the update.

 

Was so weird, some posts can't have rep given, but then it changed, bah ! I spot these things...

 

Yeah, you may have a bad AC adapter. A 230W unit is adequate for your current hardware configuration.

 

On the fan controller front - I am going to give one of these a whirl.

 

Agreed. I've been testing my 1080 unit with an external VA/W meter, and I've found that even with a 1080 onboard I have to push it pretty hard to get it to exceed 230W.

 

With my modded cooling pad, an OC of 4.9 Ghz, and a mild undervolt of 30 mV, my temps are still down from the HID supplied config. Gpu temps are down by an average of 6 C and max of 2 C. Cpu core temps are down by and average of 2 C, but max has dropped 6 C. I still have work to do with modding the cooling pad, and I want to drill holes in the bottom panel, but I'm really happy with how things are going so far.

 

Nice.

They try to do the best they can in the limited time period they have with the systems, since almost every processor needs totally different settings.

 

You won't hear any complaints from me about HID. They are awesome. I've been vey satisfied with my service and my product. I can't see myself buying from anywhere else.

 

Can you please list your BIOS, vBIOS, and Nvidia driver version. Thanks. Are you on creators update?

 

I would like to know this as well. i'm running SVET bios, creators update, and just tried the new 382.33 drivers but still get the black screen on 120Hz. 378.92 is still the only stable one for me.

 

People are getting black screens with the new drivers ?

I have a guy getting this on an MSI and a AW17 recently and I couldn't deduct any reasoning for it other than fluke co-incidence or windows.

 

Yeah most are, but only with the 120hz screen with drivers past 378.92 I believe. It's causes the display backlight to turn off but the display itself remains on. Some people don't appear to have the issue however.

 

As far as I know, it has only been the 15.6" 120 Hz panel that doesn't have proper support from NVida. The brightness controls have never worked and, occasionally, firmware updates have caused issues with shutting off the back lighting.

Recentlly, some have reported that the brightness control is working. It doesn't seem to be a universal fix though.

 

which screen and how to identify it, if you can help me that would allow me to help the next guy etc...

 

AUO (B156HTN05.2) is the exact model that everyone has been having problems with. Great screen though.

 

Ahh yes, that's a new model from this year from AUO though.

 

Have you heard of these issues with any other panel? (the back light being disabled and lack of brightness controls)

 

No but recently some people getting black screens on different 120hz screens though.

So I think it's part of the creators update... like they probably only took hardware ID's from late last year, while some screens are new this year.

 

Hi guys,

As SSDs are getting more affordable is it worth upgrading to a faster one? At the moment I have a 256gb Micron M600, is it worth getting a Samsung for example? Or should I focus on capacity, I also have a 7200rpm HDD as my main storage.

 

for large storage , HDD are still king of the hill. For general applications a cheap SSD is good, for windows and non-stop cache use, I recommend something more durable, like samsung. If you want top performance, go NVMe

 

Is it worth it overall if the M600 is already in one of the M.2 slots?

 

That is difficult to answer without knowing what software applications you are using. Don't fall into the NVMe 'Testosterone Trap' just because sequential reads and writes would be faster. Most people that game and otherwise just do business/student productivity, will not notice the difference in speed...and, SATA boots faster than NVMe. NVMe SSDs take longer to initialize.

 

Thank you for the advice and I believe I did fall for the 'Testosterone Trap' that faster is better and I don't really do anything special apart from general use and game.

 

For those that want the fastest 4K 32QD's on thier drive, NVMe is where it is at still. SO it's not a trap, it is a significant step forward technology wise, however it its true initializing can be a pain, some times you have to load special roms or configure the bios specially or it will not boot the drive etc...

everyone should make an informed decision when purchasing anything. If you do not know, forget about sentiments, get the facts !

 

I know memory very well and I completely agree with @Donald@HIDevolution assertion that in 'normal' everyday usage, you cannot tell the difference between SATA and NVMe SSD's. I have experienced a lot of different technologies when it comes to storage and the one thing I continue to tell "the powers that be" that more capacity is needed. Unless it is enterprise/machine learning, we have reached a capacity bottleneck more than a speed bottleneck. I would love to add a few 2TB SSD's into one of my NAS's.

I have to speak in general terms and unfortunately, I cannot speak specifics.

@wilpang Get a 512GB drive like the Samsung 850 EVO or if you must have an NVMe drive, get the MyDigitialSSD 480GB.

 

I would determine budget, and value and needs. Mission critical I would not recommend NVMe yet. For the price, some sata SSD's are becoming very well priced, but - I keep finding NVMe cheaper for the cost per GB nowadays.

If I had to rationalise it, it's because 2-3 years ago when they made all these sata SSD's they cost more , the NAND itself was more expensive than what we are seeing used in NVMe now.

If your buying a SATA SSD they is even more components and parts in it that increase it's cost too. NVMe drives are cheaper to manufacture, they just might be making more profit on them on average. So be smart and shop around, if your buying an older SSD, there should be tons of reviews on it, and pricing should be very transparent - so should be deals aplenty. NVMe are only slowly starting to drop in price relatively as they become the main SSD type now.

 

I'm in the market for a new laptop and was considering this one. Would this laptop survive being used on the go? I remember reading that the screen might be a weak point but didn't know if that meant the hinges or the screen itself. Would it survive being primarily used on the bed with trips out to study sessions/classes and vacations? My other question is how long the battery lasts and if anyone has tried an under clocking profile to extend it? Eurocom is running a 20% discount for students right now and I could buy a 1080 version for a sub 2k price.

I should also mention I would need it to have a four year or better life span.

 

It's not in combination with student discount though.
However - you do not need to be a student right now, we are offering this sale is open to everyone, equally !

 

This laptop is built very well. It isn't going to do much for you running strictly on batteries. You would be crippling the gpu severely. I wouldn't recommend placing it directly on your lap, it needs to breath. A laptop pad would be fine. You should be able to extend the battery a little, but this guy loves power. There isn't anything wrong with the screen it just isn't officially supported by Nvidia. You can choose screens that are though. I am always going to recommend delidding the cpu and your best option for that in the states is HID. This laptop will decimate any other 15.6" build on the market. You'll make sacrifices, but they are all worth it. The power supply is massive. Just warning you.

I have no issues traveling with this beast, but when I do I plan on plugging it in.

 

as for the 4 year life span, none of us have had it that long, but what I can tell you, from just a glimpse of the motherboard, the quality is pretty good. Now the chassis and videocard and if you go kabylake versus Skylake are all variables that might not last you 4 years... like I do not expect a 1070 or 1080 to last 4 years of overclocked performance. I expect a year or two, maybe more - but time will tell, for now I'm thinking since they are not as high quality as the older Maxwel cards from Clevo were, that that works against them - but then again, they are Pascal and more efficient so maybe the components won't die as easily.

if people recall 3-4 years ago, we had these 7970M's from AMD that like all died within 6 months of heavy use. There were early signs... but then 1-2 years later NVIdia with the 780M's these things are still lasting until today for most users, so who knows.

CPU's will last, if you do not put too much pressure on the Kabylakes the thinner silicon should still hold up. Skylake was thicker and built like a beast, more robust.

The fans though are constricted a tiny bit by the panel air flow.... and this , might be causing some heatup of components, only time will tell what starts to fail first if anything. Most suspect the M.2 drives because it's not in the direct path of the air flow, so we all take precautions on cooling them. prevention being key.

 

Know why I like it so much? Because it's the world's only 15-inch laptop that can do this.

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/12707929

@Prema @Donald@HIDevolution


http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/12147070/fs/12707929

 

It's hard to make an argument against this.

 

There isn't one. That simple.

 

I think lasting "a year or two" for overclocked performance of GTX 1070/1080 is a bit pessimistic, I would expect them to last at least 4 yrs of use. You can't overvolt these laptop Pascal CPUs anyway, so you're just increasing the clocks. I agree with your other stuff you wrote though.

 

Just saw that HIDevolution shipped out my laptop today! Should arrive on Friday so I'll have the entire weekend to thoroughly review and benchmark it. I'm really excited for the laptop to say the least, especially on how the 5.2GHz rated binned CPU will perform. Hopefully there will be noticeable difference in operating temperature and in performance.