Intel-TongFang QC7 (Element/Fusion 15/MAG-15/Vapor 15 Pro)

hm but manual stands "this port can also be used as a charging port" - that means it can charge other decvices? And other ports can't? Plus as far as i know 3.1 gen 2 is possible to deliver 100wats which could be enough to charge a laptop...

 

Yes but most laptops with these specs do not include the power delivery circuitry to charge the laptop with USB-C. Simply put, you can charge your phone or tablet with the laptop but cannot charge the laptop with this port. The symbol indicates that it can supply additional current to the phone/tablet that your typical USB ports cannot (and some will even charge the device when the laptop is off).

The lack of USB-C charging of the laptop is a major set back for me when it comes to most portable gaming laptops. The only thing that comes close that I know of is the Dell XPS, and that's not much of a gaming laptop. Thankfully the MSI prestige 14 and upcoming Asus G14 support the feature.

 

It means it can be used as a charging port when the laptop is sleeping (possibly hibernating/off).

 

THANK YOU! I woke up in the middle of the night and found my mag15 was on.

 

Good news everyone, Official Project Aurora support for the QC7 "IDT" system as well as many other TongFang based systems is well underway. Expect a beta soon!

 

Bit of a suggested house keeping to help troubleshot issues

Either msinfo32 or the [insert brand here] control center (in system monitor) will give you the details some of the harder to find

Model QC71A (1660 Ti) or QC71B (2070 MaxQ)
BIOS version :
Nvidia driver version :
[insert brand here] Control Center version :
Running either MSI afterburner or ASUS GPU Tweak : Yes/No
[insert brand here] Control Center; Power settings, system power mode used (Proformance/Balanced/Battery Saver/All)
Sound blaster connect app installed : Yes/No
Intel video driver version :



Model: QC71B
BIOS version : 60
Nvidia driver version : 441.41
Control Center version : 2.1.0.19
Running either MSI afterburner or ASUS GPU Tweak : Yes MSI
Control Center; Power settings, system power mode used: All
Sound blaster connect app installed : Yes
Intel video driver version : 26.20.100.7755

Anyone else having issues with ASUS tweak bumping up the temp limit after upgrading to BIOS 60 (from 58) and can I downgrade to 58 from 60?

 

Are you saying the slider is locked and adjustments aren't allowed. Or, are you saying you make the adjustment in the ASUS tool but it doesn't seem to have any effect? I have BIOS 58 and can adjust the slider - I haven't updated to the latest bios. Even with the ASUS tweak to 87 degrees, I rarely see that in game and any throttling is due to power.

 

I can adjust it but it doesn't actually work, I had been using it to get to 80c.

Yeah I just set it to 80c which gave me the room to get the GPU hit 1695Mhz(also used throttle stop to cap the CPU at 3.5Ghz)

 

@XMG just posted this on their subreddit r/XMG_gg (I did not write this, do not direct any questions to me):

Hi everyone,

we are happy to see that our XMG FUSION 15 has been such a success and we appreciate all the community support on Reddit and elsewhere.

Since the launch in September 2019 we collected various feedback and suggestions from our customers. Although the feature freeze for this product already happened ages ago (long before we sold the first unit), we are now working with Intel to open up the firmware again and to add some of the 5 most requested items. Some of these final negotiations with Intel happened before CES, when yours truly travelled to the Intel SPG headquarter in Portland this year. (That was fun!)

This DLC is planned to be provided free-of-charge for all current and future users of XMG FUSION 15 and all other laptops based on Intel QC71.

Disclaimer:

• This post is only a *pre-*announcement. These enhancements are in early stages of developement now. There is no release schedule yet. Based on previous experiences with Intel-time, this might take anything from a couple of weeks to up to 3 months (or more).



• There are no legally binding guarantees yet. Intel has agreed to try to implement these features on the current platform and we are optimistic that it will work out. However, in case we encounter any show-stopping issues, some of them might be dropped or modified or reduced in scope. Theoretically speaking. Finger's crossed.


OK, enough with the prelude, let's get down to business:

Index:

1. CPU and iGPU Undervolting Settings in BIOS Setup



2. FnLock for F1 to F12



3. Minor adjustment to Minimum Fan Speed



4. Support for Project Aurora (Advanced RGB Control)



5. Battery Life Extender (Customized Charging Levels)


Wall of text incoming:

CPU and iGPU Undervolting Settings in BIOS Setup

XMG FUSION 15 is already shipping with a -50mV Undervolt on the CPU (Core and Cache). To go a few steps further, we have asked Intel to implement a feature that we already rolled out in every other XMG and SCHENKER laptop since beginning of 2019.

Our BIOS setup contains menus with which the voltage offset of the CPU and the integrated Intel graphics can be lowered without any prior knowledge. This is implemented in a drop-down menu with which the voltage can be lowered in single 10mV steps.

Lower values will save energy on your CPU, with positive effects on temperature, fan behavior and battery life. However: the more you lower the voltage offset, the higher the risk of provoking a bluescreen or other system instability under certain (sometimes rare) situations.

A completely unlocked BIOS would allow a voltage offset of down to -500mV. Such a low value would immediately lead to the system becoming un-bootable. You wouldn't even be able to enter BIOS Setup anymore to reset the settings. Don't try this at home. ;-)

Such a “worst case” situation must be avoided under all circumstances.

The implementation in our BIOS therefore limits the maximum undervolting value to -120mV (or -150mV on some systems). This value is still in the safe range, so that in the worst case, even if the system is unstable (e.g. bluescreen under full load), you can go back into the BIOS to reduce the value by one level or just load Setup Defaults again.

-120mV is already a pretty ambitious undervolting value. Whether such a value runs stable depends on the respective system. Fluctuations in chip production yield mean that each CPU unit has a different limit which each user can find with trial & error over time.

The advantages and manageable risks of CPU undervolting apply to all PC systems, regardless of brand and manufacturer. The advantage of our laptops is that we integrate this function directly into the BIOS Setup.

3rd party programs like ThrottleShop and Intel XTU already provide Undervolting functionality, but the experience is not seamless. They bring with them a number of possible side effects and uncertainties. Their settings are often not retained after a reboot or after waking up from standby, so you have to keep them running all the time or script them to re-apply their settings after launch. Some tools also keep the dGPU constantly aware, leading to additional power consumption and fan noise.

In conclusion: to provide a real customer-friendly and troube-free Undervolting experience, it is much better to put these things directly into the BIOS - and this is what Intel has agreed to provide in a future firmware update for XMG FUSION 15.

Schedule: tba


FnLock for F1 to F12

F1 to F12 provide the typical Fn functions like access to LCD Brightness, Flight Mode and others. With the upcoming update, you will be able to enable FnLock with a switch in the Control Center or by pressing Fn+Esc.

When FnLock is enabled:

• You will be able to press Fn function keys without holding down Fn



• The "real" F1 to F12 keys (example: F1 = Help) will be accessible by holding down Fn



• Entering BIOS Setup (F2) will still be able without holding down Fn


Unfortunately it won't be possible to overhaul the physical layout of the Fn keys. This means: if you enable FnLock, you can't spam F5 anymore to reload a page. You'll have to press Fn+F5 for that.

PRO TIP: don't use Fn keys to lower and raise Audio volume. Open the "Touchpad" settings in Windows 10, scroll down to "Three-finger gestures", and select "Change audio and volume" under the "Swipe" drop-down menu. (See Screenshot)

Schedule: tba


Minor adjustment to Minimum Fan Speed

The current fan table is specified like this:

• If CPU temp is above 50°C, run fans with minimum of 30%



• If CPU temp is below 48°C for 3 consecutive minutes, stop fans


30% Fan duty equals to roughly 2620rpm as being shown in the "System Monitor" area of the Control Center. This is a very low noise level and probably not audible in most working environments. But still - if you are in a library you might actually notice it.

For values below 30% the manufacturer of the fan does not guarantee that the fan will run smoothly. However, we have already been using this paticular fan in the XMG NEO series and defined it to run at 22% speed without any complaints so far.

Intel has renegotiated with the fan vendor and found a compromise solution to run the fan at 25% minimum speed. This will lower the fan noise in low load or Idlesituations even more.

On top of that, they are considering to introduce an option to keep the fan running at 25% even if the temperature drops below the defined temperature. This would help to keep temperatures even further down in Idle and prevent the system from reaching higher fan speeds during short spikes of CPU activity.

This adjusted fan control will only affect the bottom end of the fan curve. I'm not quite sure if this will be rolled out as a standard upgrade or if it will require some specific unlocking by the OEM. We'll update this post once further information has transpired.

PRO TIP: if your fans are running too fast in Idle, make sure that you don't have background tasks consuming your CPU power. Also be aware that running an external monitor will raise the consumption floor considerably just because the dGPU is now awake. If you don't use external monitors, make sure you don't use any 3rd party tuning/monitoring software that might keep the dGPU awake.

Schedule: tba


Support for Project Aurora (Advanced RGB Control)

We've been working together with team members of Project Aurora to introduce official support across all XMG NEO and XMG FUSION series. Since XMG FUSION is based on an Intel reference design, we had to get Intel into the mix to provide additional information like LED calibration profiles and firmware addresses.

I already have a working Beta version and we're excited to release it soon.

Schedule: coming soon


Battery Life Extender (Customized Charging Levels)

The bigger the battery, the more questions are raised on how to protect the battery and prevent wear and tear. Although the battery charging algorithms (charging speed, voltage) are already designed to minimize wear, there are more things that can be done based on user-preferences.

Some of our other laptop models (XMG PRO, XMG ULTRA, most SCHENKER models) already have such a feature, called 'FlexiCharger'. It comes in two parts:

• A: Customize the maximum % after which the laptop will stop charging



• B: Customize the minimum % after which the laptop will start charging


For example: if you set this to 40/60, if you plug the laptop to a power supply, the laptop will not charge the battery as long as you still have more than 40% of battery charge. And even then it will only charge until 60% and stop charging, even if you keep it plugged-in.

Here are a number of example and use-cases:

Setting Use Case

40/60 Fully Stationary Usage / Storage

80/90 Decent amount of battery life / prevent micro-cycles

95/100 Maximum amount of battery life / prevent micro-cycles

The latter two examples are for users who want to prevent micro-cycles during stationary usage while still have the option to have decent battery life whenever they suddenly need it.

The control of this feature is currently planned to be implemented in the Control Center. Since this is the most complicated of these features (involves much more validation), it might come last.

Schedule: tba


What else is on your Wish List?

With these 5 produce enhancements we think we can make XMG FUSION 15 even better than it already is.

Is there anything else that you are missing? Things like "raising GPU temp target" or "fully manual fan control" might got a little bit too deep into the warranty/safety area, but what other soft features and quality-of-life improvements do you have in mind?

Feel free to reply below and post ideas and suggestions:

• Ideas for additional software and firmware upgrades on the current generation



• Ideas for even deeper cuts in the next-gen laptop design



• Ideas for hardware modifications on future laptop designs


If you strongly agree with submission of another redditor, please upvote it.

Please try to seperate between bugs and features/enhancements. If you encounter a bug, feel free to post in this thread instead.

If you would like to share your feedback confidentially or anonymously, feel free to use this survey instead:

→ Survey: Ideas and Suggestions for XMG FUSION 15 and successors

Looking forward to your feedback!

// Tom

 

@XMG best support I've ever seen, you can't find such impressive support in big brands.

 

@XMG while this is good news, i have a feeling more people wanted 1) raising throttling temperature limit and 2)raising temps when fans on \ big rpm. Is there any chance they will reconsider those settings? Maybe we can have an option to enable them on ur own risk (partly cancelling warranty regarding those parts)?

 

I don't think it'll happen unless there is some sort of online petition maybe to show how many people are actually interested in that feature. Or maybe we will never see the temp limit raised and will be stuck on bios 58 with Asus gpu tweak in order to raise it ourselves.

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk

 

@XMG may not see your post, as I was the one just copy pasting it from the thread on reddit. You can try writing it there for them (link to their post is in my original post)

 

I'll answer myself, yes you can downgrade the BIOS from 60 to 58(found this out on reddit) and yes the 60 version BIOS stops ASUS GPU Tweak II from changing the GPU temp target.

So PSA if you're using ASUS GPU Tweak II haven't upgraded to version 60 of the BIOS, you might want to skip it unless you're having an issue that is fixed in the 60 version BIOS but I'd recommend uninstalling ASUS GPU tweak II before upgrading the BIOS to 60.

 

Seeing XMG's support for their laptop makes me reaaaally salty. Has Eluktronics stopped supporting the MAG-15? Haven't had any updates for a while

Also, can I use the bios update that XMG released on my Eluktronics MAG-15?

 

Which port is best for connecting to an external monitor, Thunderbolt 3, HDMI, or a dongle that connects to either of those two to provide a mini display port?

 

Software support is just one thing. There are more factors to weigh in, to say 'best support'.

 

I use this cable from Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RY75V7Q/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Works great - runs my X34P at 120Hz no problem.

 

So Display Port (monitor) to Thunderbolt 3 (laptop) is best? I'm looking to get a 1080p or 1440p at 240Hz since the laptop is already native 144Hz.

 

Yes, I have done this myself and according to XMG_GG on reddit, the different branding is applied in the factory and not in the BIOS. Seems like XMG is taking the lead on dealing with Intel(ODM) but aftershock IIRC were the first to release control center 2.0.19. Would guess that depending on how it sold for the retailer and how much new products are being launched on how much support each retailer will do.

I just hope that there isn't any laptop binning going on and we then have different class based on the retailer.

 

So I have a bug to report for project aurora. Might be a feature I don't know but here's the situation.

I have my laptop connected to an external display. (this affects both my alienware m15 r1 AND mag 15)
As soon as I open the aurora app on the desktop the screen turns off. This doesn't happen on my internal display but it does happen with the external display which I have found out that this only happens when the app in question is locked to a low refresh rate. Is there any way to modify project aurora to run at the native refresh of the monitor it's currently on? Or is it supposed to run by default at the refresh of the desktop? every time I open the app the refresh of the whole screen goes down (until the external display turns off).

 

Which I/O is best for an external monitor? I'm looking to get a 1080p or 1440p at 240Hz since the laptop is already native 144Hz.

 

Anyone with the 2070 and the 180W brick? Can you game on balanced on the brick?

 

USB c to display port is best. HDMI won't allow you to use gsync

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk

 

Thanks!

 

Found mag-15 on newegg for 1099$ without ssd and ram, thats 200$ lower than on their site. But for me that too much for little upgrade from gk5cn6z, i think.
https://www.newegg.com/p/2WC-000M-00176

 

Can anyone confirm that this laptop actually has a 1000hz polling rate on the keyboard?

If I quickly drag my finger across the top row of letters on a normal keyboard, I get all keys in the right order: qwertyuiop[]\

If I do this on my Mag-15, I get dropped AND out of order keys. Something like qwertyio] or qwertyuio

depending on how fast I am.

I've gone through and re-installed all drivers from Eluktronics directly, and confirmed that I've got the latest BIOS and control center installed.....but I just don't see any way to resolve this from the software side. I'm not very accurate typing on this laptop, sometimes I'm missing a space bar press, and otherwise I'm sometimes just getting words with out of order letters, making me think that at this point, it's the keyboard and not me (and thus time to just return the laptop while I have time.)

Thanks!

 

I've had "missed" keys when typing ever since I've gotten this machine - and, not to toot my own horn, but I've always thought of myself as a good typist and I've never had a similar problem with any keyboard/laptop. I am wondering if there's some kind of problem with the design (and not so much a QC issue with "bad" keyboards).

 

I tried it, dragging my finger quickly over the keyboard, but everything turned out fine for me. The only thing I have an issue with the keyboard is that the keycaps are a pain in the ass to see when there isn't enough lighting.

@XMG Please make some better premium keycaps where I can easily distinguish all the different keys. I would even pay for it.

 

This keyboard is very difficult to type on for the reason you stated, it doesn't seem to always be accurate when you type quickly.

 

So funny story, running asus GPU tweak 2 to raise thermal limit pretty much cuts my battery life to 3 hours. Any way to make it consume less power? if not I might have to think of an alternative solution for raising that thermal limit.....

 

Are you expecting it to use less power when you allow it to use more power?

 

... is anyone else experiencing "sleep failures"? as in, I send the machine into what I think is sleep, it seems to trundle on for a long time ("hrm, did I accidentally send it to hibernate instead?"), and then... it actually *shuts down* (not hibernate. Or is it some kind of hibernate failure?).

Next powerup, I have a fresh desktop and my browser windows when relaunched tell me that I did not exit properly and ask if I want to restore, etc. etc.

 

You misunderstand. I use ASUS gpu tweak to set the thermal limit of the GPU to 87C right? Well I also have it to automatically start on windows start up BUT while it's running in the background it looks like it's activating the nvidia GPU (aka optimus not working as it should). I found out that after I apply my changes, I can disable asus GPU tweak from start up and the temp changes stay in effect ( so I solved my issue, just have to make sure ASUS gpu tweak is not running and your battery life won't tank).

 

Awesome laptop..still liking it, if only i could use everything on it

Edit: Selling..so moving on!

 

Anything that communicates with the GPU has to turn it on to affect changes.

 

Mag 15 with thunderbolt 3 docks is such a hit or miss situation. I have returned at least 3 docks and they all seemed to have different issues (but no issues with my wife's MSI laptop). Currently got a new mag 15 through RMA and still having issues with thunderbolt 3 docks. Currently have the Belkin plus dock with 2 thunderbolt 3 ports and 1 display port. When I plugin the mag to thunderbolt 3 port and display port on the dock I get a fuzzy picture at 165 hz and good picture at 144hz but as soon as I open an application with gsync enabled, the screen goes into standby mode and only displays on the internal screen when I open up the laptop.

I was able to get it working by getting a USB c to displayport dongle, plugged it into the 2nd thunderbolt 3 port and EVERYTHING works at 165 @QHD resolution with no issues. My wife's MSI has no issues with this dock either so I am assuming this has to do with the mag 15's thunderbolt 3 firmware (I have updated it to the latest).

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk

 

Someone successfully made a TongFang QC7 hackintosh: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...ka-mag-15-fusion-element-vapor-15-pro.290930/

 

Hi, this is me! And I wouldn’t call it fully successful yet, I still haven’t been able to fix that odd instant-wake-after-2-sleeps bug.

I’ve been following this thread since I got the laptop but never bothered to post it here because of a seeming lack of interest, and I haven’t made much progress on ironing out those last few bugs so I never considered it fully complete.

Most of the credit should go to https://github.com/kirainmoe/hasee-tongfang-macos as I used their work as a base to reverse engineer and modify from, since I’m kind of a noob when it comes to low level ACPI modifications (much of which are required to get non-standardized hardware like laptops working in macOS)

But yeah, it works robust enough for my day-to-day usage and it makes a great macOS laptop (7-8 hours of battery life) with of course the extra bonus of being a nice windows gaming laptop as well. Even used it in macOS to provide a Wi-Fi AP for my friends’ mobile devices and tablets at Dreamhack a couple weeks ago lol.

Loving this thing, and thanks guys (and especially @XMG, despite mine being an Eluktronics one lol) for supporting us users and keeping us all up to date with the BIOS and driver updates!

 

The wake issues only annoyed me at night time or if I went out somewhere, so now I've changed my power button to hibernate, not sleep. I don't mind the extra bit of time it takes to wake up first thing in the morning or if I've just travelled somewhere, plus it saves the battery more. Maybe give that a crack until there's a fix.

 

even in Windows a lot of us are having various sleep/wake problems, so it's probably the machine, it's not you

 

At least in macOS and on my machine, I’ve narrowed it down to the USB-C controller being the wake reason when the bug occurs.

I had a similar issue in Windows, but it went away after I disabled waking from all the devices under “powercfg -devicequery wake_armed”.

 

It is only a few months with my laptop and the CMOS battery is already dead ie the BIOS clock will stop after I shutdown the laptop at night and I have to sync the windows clock manually every morning.......

I have another peculiar issue. if I plug my laptop to the power adapter without powering on the laptop, the keyboard backlight will turn on by itself. even if I unplug the power adapter without powering the laptop the kb backlight will stay on permanently! the only way to resolve it is to power on the laptop and then shut it down.......

 

CMOS will only lose settings if both the CMOS battery AND the laptop battery stop outputting voltage. I feel like you might want to RMA or contact your seller as your issues seem hardware related to me.

 

I think my XMG fusion 15 is dying... just randomly goes dead when I move it. Great, I dont have time for this..

Or it's a strange coincidence because each time I was running a script in rstudio.

And it happened again twice while moving, I checked the event viewer and there seems to be something with losing power suddenly. Yesterday it even happened when the laptop was connected to the charger.

Ok, I figured it out. I pick my laptop always on the right side, when I press on the bottom below the right fan, system just turns off. I found out what's happening, under that area is no thermal pad or something to block the laptop from bending, so the heatsink is touching the SSD and is shorting the laptop. XMG is going to ship me some extra thermal pads, because I figured out, placing the thermal pad under the area where it's shorting, it fixes the issue of shutdowns.

 

Hrm, thanks! and, lookie here:

PS C:\Users\Randomisity> powercfg -devicequery wake_armed
NVIDIA USB Type-C Port Policy Controller​

So, there's a point of commonality here - Windows or hacked MacOS, it looks like it's the USB-C controller

(ah, question, how did you disable in Windows the "waking from devices" you mentioned?)

 

So... I haven’t found the exact issue I’m having in this thread. Does anyone have the issue where the right side of the spacebar has a dead zone? If I hit the spacebar near B and N, it doesn’t register at all. If I hit closer to the middle it will register fine. The left side seems to be mostly fine, with random misses. But the right side is basically a dead zone, especially the top portion of the spacebar on the right side. I will make a video displaying the issue when I get the chance.

Is this a common issue with the spacebar on this chassis?

 

Can the laptop handle a smaller adaptor? If so, how many watts? The stock one it comes with is just massive and isn’t travel friendly.

 

I'm on the verge of taking the laptop back because the keyboard is so bad. Literally, it is the only thing wrong with it. Such a shame.

 

I disagree, I like the keyboard a lot. The feedback is great, but the keycaps aren't that good from XMG. Can't really see the second characters at night without turning keyboard backlight on.