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

If anyone knows a good pad please let me know.... I'm about to start thinking of maybe 3D printing a custom bottom to allow for more air flow when docked.

 

If you're talking about cooling pads, I use the cooler master notepal U2+ with 2 corsair radiator fans.

Does anyone have experience running Linux on this machine? How painful is the process and what distro works best? I'm thinking of ditching windows

 

Like this one?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ED3WMTC/ref=cm_sw_r_apa_i_5xFTEb706GC7J

Would I buy the fans separate?

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Pop OS works and the install is super easy

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Yeah like that one. It comes with a few crappy USB fans, but the hole spacing lets you mount proper desktop fans (which you'll have to buy separate). The downside to that of course is that you'll need to solder the fans to a 12v power adapter and plug it into a wall outlet, which isn't practical for travel use. Then again, you probably don't need that kind of cooling power on the go. I got the idea from this forum post

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/modding-my-cooler-master-notepal-u3-plus.809628/

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Really now? I've always heard Nvidia Optimus does not play well with Linux. Is there any loss in performance or battery life? Are there any missing features? How's the gaming?

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I haven't tried to game on it but you get Optimus. One of the few Linux with Optimus support out of the box

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Interesting. I might try it out in a VM for a few weeks

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The PL on GPU at temp 75c was not present in bios 62 ?? I don't want to use the benchmark mode

 

Looks like CyberpowerPC started selling the QC7 chassis as the Tracer III EVO with a starting price of $900 for the 1660Ti. Pulled the trigger on one yesterday, it'll be interesting to see whether there's any compromises made.

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Anybody here tried to use the Control Center of MAG-15 on the Vapor 15 Pro or vice versa?

I'm planning to try all the different control centers. Maybe somebody can share how should I do it (i.e. update bios or just the control center software)?

 

Woah that's insane. There's gotta be some compromises if it's $700 cheaper. Unless eluktronics/fusion just have a huge margin?

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Hey all - without checking back through 177 pages, does the thunderbolt issue also affect transfer speeds? I never use the port but I decided to today for my Samsung t5 portable SSD (I tried 500GB and 1TB), and was only getting 40MB write speeds, but 400MB using the other USB ports. Is there something else that could be causing this problem? I will need my thunderbolt port to be working perfectly when I use VR and wacom cintiqs later down the track.

 

I'm very interested to see benchmark results on that. You've given me buyer's remorse now

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Yes, I was very skeptical about it too. But the spec sheet is all there, the most conspicuous of which is the 20mm key travel mechanical keyboard. Now the base $900 price only includes 1 stick of RAM and a SATA SSD, but even if one configures 16GB and an NVME SSD it's considerably cheaper than the alternatives. I also wondered whether perhaps the Eluktroboost feature is disabled, and I'll have to wait until I get it to tell, but the 230W brick would seem to suggest it's still there. Maybe the body is made of plastic instead magnesium alloy. The only other things I can think of is that the 9750H and 1660Ti are soon to be EOL, and perhaps you don't get anywhere the level of support from Cyberpower.

Unfortunately it won't be arriving for weeks.

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I'm sure they are just getting rid of stock for the new things. I've seen the triton 500 go for as low as 50% off during prime day last year

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Yes, that would make sense since the new 10th gen chips are here.

Despite all the nightmarish things I've been reading in this thread it's a risk worth taking to me.

Still should be an upgrade, I hope, on my Dell G3 3590 with 9300H and 1660Ti Max-Q which I plan to RMA and eventually sell due to a faulty hinge.

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I bought this laptop as a workstation laptop knowing that the temp limits would limit my performance, but I still have that itch to tweak things. However, even with the temp limit set to 87 degrees with Asus GPU tweak and enabling benchmark mode, I seem to be power limit throttled to 80W, capping me out at 1560mhz. Has anyone else experienced this?

The new stuff is coming in later this year, but I'm still surprised that the laptop is so cheap. I still can't believe you can get a thin and light 1660ti for $900. That's cheaper than those budget gaming laptops with huge form factors and tiny batteries. Sucks that the shipping takes so long though, I'm interested in how the laptop turns out. On a side note, what "nightmarish" things have you been seeing in this thread? The only real issue I'm aware of is the slightly ****ty thermals, but that's kind of unavoidable when cramming powerful hardware into a thin and light

 

You would have been shocked at the refurbished EVOOs with 9750Hs and 1660Tis priced at $600 on eBay from VIP Outlet then. I tried to get my hands on one but people were just too quick for me. Oh well, I think it uses the GK5 Tongfang chassis which has some differences to the QC7.

After skimming through all 170+ pages it seems like like @eddi3x3x3 has run into dozens of problems alone. Though I guess every owner's lounge thread for any laptop will feature people who have issues instead of people who are silently enjoying the product.

Still, it should hopefully be a noticeable upgrade from the Dell G3 I'm looking to replace.

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Oh yeah, $600 is pretty good. I think right now the GK5 EVOO is $950 on Walmart right now, but I doubt that chassis has a 94whr battery in it. I've seen his issue with tb3 docking and possibly the wake/sleep one (which might be fixed). I guess I could read more but for the average use case I think the user experience is painless.

 

Yeah, that chassis has like a 47Wh battery. In terms of form factor it's still insane, though, and I believe it has the mini-DP and custom fan curve support the QC7 does not.

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Ah DP and fan curve aren't that important to me. The main reason I got the mag 15 was because it was one of the only laptops with decent hardware that could last longer than 3 hours off the charger. I never really saw the use for custom fan curve but I guess for certain use cases that may be a deal breaker.

 

This is really late, but if you still care, those are different models of headphones. Sound Blaster is made by Creative, which also makes headphones. Search up Sound Blaster H5 or something like that.

 

I haven't tried it myself, but I think I've seen somewhere that it works.

 

You should be able to swap all the version from all the different vendors if you want. I have the Mag-15 and my understanding based on posts XMG made here was that they are all interchangeable. XMG was updating their driver page more quickly than Eluktronics and I was using a mish mosh of Eluktronic drivers and XMG, especially the BIOS and CC. XMG was much faster in posting those. So, in short... yes, you should have no problems.

 

https://www.eluktronics.com/Mag-15-1p16

It looks like Eluktronics is running a $200 discount with a bunch of free accessories if anyone is interested

 

Will intel lift the 75c thermal limit on the gpu so we don’t have to use third party software to bypass?

 

I asked an eluktronics rep and they said Intel will not release a BIOS unlocking the 87C limit

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Hopefully the same is true for CyberpowerPC.

 

Thanks a lot! Might try it in the coming weeks. Hopefully it works out.

 

The PL on GPU at temp 75c was not present in bios 62 ?? I don't want to use the benchmark mode

 

Then stay on bios 62, just don't expect perfect compatibility with thunderbolt 3 docks either unless you update.

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Does the current BIOS work with thunderbolt docks? I saw you were having issues with that

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They all work with thunderbolt 3 docks AS LONG as the TB3 port you connect your laptop to doesn't support charging OR is less than 15w charging.

Otherwise you need the latest TB3 firmware and possibly latest bios to prevent certain TB3 issues from happening (like bricking your TB3 port, not fun). The latest bios also fixed an issue I had when I booted my laptop from cold boot while docked, sometimes the devices connected to the TB3 dock wouldn't show and required a reboot. That's no longer the case.

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So if I'm using the newest BIOS and firmware, I can use charging supported tb3 docks? Even so, the laptop itself cannot be charged through it's tb3 right?

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Correct, you will not be able to charge but it won't brick your port

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Awesome, I might get a tb3 dock just to clear up some of the wire clutter on my desk

 

Yeah I get the same in performance profile once the GPU heats up no matter what the GPU temp limit is, it power limits the GPU. It won't get over about 77 degrees due to the aggressive power limits.
From memory it didn't used to do this on performance profile with the 5x version bios. Wonder if you can downgrade?

 

That's interesting, with the 1660Ti Max-Q in my Dell G3 I was able to get a healthy 200/600 MHz core/mem OC and I regularly run above 1560 MHz. As far as I know, the only difference between the Max-Q and Max-P 1660Ti is the lowered default clock speed and the 65W TDP. I wonder whether that means going from the G3 to the Tracer III won't be as much of an improvement as I am hoping.

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Yeah I think what happens is that the GPU gets power limit throttled past 75C, whether I use GPU tweak, benchmark mode, whatever. The upside is that I have managed to keep the temps under 70 with my laptop cooler in actual games and renders, so I'm enjoying the full 1800mhz boost under realistic scenarios. I was using furmark earlier, but it seems that it's just too hard of a load, and not really indicative of actual thermals.

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Need to buy that laptop cooler.... Still somewhat expensive to get though.

I think a possible rework of the bottom case might help with air flow but I don't have a 3D printer to prototype.

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Yeah, it was pretty expensive compared to other laptop coolers out there. I have a 3D printer on hand but it's too small to print a full bottom panel. What do you think can be improved? The panel looks pretty open to me.

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I had 2 different ideas in mind
1. Have the bottom back part have a cut out so the heat sink is exposed and create a metal mesh like they did for the Alienware m15 because I feel like not enough air is going through the bottom from the cooler.

2. Same as above but I'd make a special metal plate that would make contact with heatsink when I dock it into a 3D printed stand that makes contact with a water loop to soak up some of the heat off the heatsink.

At the end of the day I think this laptop is perfect for 1080p and doesn't require tweaks BUT docked I expect full performance since I'm using an external monitor and the laptop itself isn't moving anywhere. I also want to make some sort of 3D case that covers the laptop so I'd be able to drown the fan noise while docked since I want to have the large fans underneath doing most of the cooling.

I also wonder if anyone knows where to buy replacement screws for the bottom panel and heatsink. They are so cheap and strip so easy.

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If you check this post from Mr. Fox, he has a link for some good screws.

If you're going that route, you might as well not buy the notebook cooler and just build yourself a custom case. If you've seen DIY perks on youtube, he makes some really pretty custom cases with some cheap MDF and vinyl wrap. I think just sticking it in a box with some powerful intake and exhaust fans will get your thermals pretty good, although laptop watercooling is always something that gets me excited. I'm not sure that 3D printing is the best way to do that though, you might be better off just cutting a hole in your existing bottom panel, or if you don't want to do that, you could try to buy a spare bottom panel from eluktronics and try modding that.

 

Hello. Just want to ask if you guys have been experiencing constant BSODs? Been having a lot these past few days to the point that I cannot work. ntoskrnl.exe seems to be the culprit according to BlueScreenView, and I've checked my SSD and RAM for any errors and they were OK.

 

I haven't had any, you might need to return it. Maybe you lost the silicon lottery and the 50mv undervolt out of the factory is too much for your CPU to handle. I'd bring it up with eluktronics if you're still within warranty

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*Edit: for those of you who do not understand how to configure your device package power draw, your safest bet is to stay at the lowest is to 180w for the longevity of your devices and 150w is the absolute cut off. NEVER go below under 150w power brick, unless you understand what you are doing!*

*Edit #2 using a lower power brick under 180w while you are on Extreme/highest mode with Full CPU and GPU Load, may cause overheating/ flaming/ exploding Power Brick and broken power ports. Stay safe with 150w for disabled GPU and 180w for gaming.

Also neither I, nor anyone which I have stated or quoted are responsible if you damage your device. Do everything at your own risk, and YOU are responsible if you are willing to try using lower wattage power bricks/adapters, there is a reason why manufacturers give out the 230w power brick with the package. With that said, if you are still interested, check out the info I have below.

Hi guys just got some good info from XMG_gg reddit. Tom has updated the info about which laptop adapters/power brick that we are capable of using.

So the Fusion/Vapor/Mag is capable of using a 90w and 120w power brick and also charge with it! With the exception that:

1. Using the 90w power brick, we have to be on silent or normal mode with the Nvidia GPU driver disabled. This is only for professionals who know how to configure their laptops to always stay on V ery Low CPU usage (10-30%) and Disabled GPU, which will cause very low power package. Either that or only use laptop on battery mode, and charge using 90w brick when the laptop is in Sleep or Turned Off (which will take hours but it will still charge).

2. For 120w we can use the Normal/silent mode with the Nvidia GPU but there is no charge to the battery, or only a little bit. For this, I also suggest staying on Silent mode when you want to use your Nvidia GPU, so as to not ramp up the fans. So Limit CPU Usage and Limit GPU, also Lowest Fans.

So if anyone wants to learn how to use less power/save battery/last longer on battery and so that we can use smaller chargers on this device, there is a VERY USEFUL thread here in Notebook Review Forums.

Link to the updated XMG capable power bricks

Link to reddit post where it is posted.

So this is good news for people who move around a lot, like me, where I sometimes have multiple meetings in different areas throughout the day, although the battery usually lasts, but with the choice of being able to carry a smaller charger, rather than the 1kg 230w charger, is a god send

 

The QC7 reseller I bought my laptop from is Aftershock PC in Singapore, which I chose to return the unit after pulling my hair for an entire day trying to figure out what is wrong with it since it is still under warranty. Not really tinkered with anything, and I feel it's more of a hardware issue particularly faulty RAM. I hope Windows doesn't mess up the laptop once the parts get replaced.

 

Aftershock(AUS) owner too, had the same issue as you with the bro's QC7A laptop that we fixed (he moved to Scottland, so no getting aftershock to repair for him)... but I can't remember how I think that it was a driver issue and it only happened on battery.

 

Thought about a laptop stand?

 

I also own the Singapore Aftershock Vapor 15, so far no issues that I can handle myself. I live in Indonesia, so getting warranty is kinda hard. So far clean install, then download drivers from XMG. Then before doing anything else, create a restore point and backup your install. Just in case anything happens, you can troubleshoot and reinstall easily.

Faulty RAM is a hit or miss though, I have the 16GB version from KLEVV, so far no problems as well, but planning to up to 32GB soon.

 

Glad to hear that in your brother's case it was fixable. For me, the BSODs were more frequent when the wifi is on and I thought it could be a wireless driver problem, so I switched to the ethernet cable only to have the crashes return again.

I live in the Philippines, and given the place where I'm at is still subject to quarantine makes the shipping a daunting task than usual. Tried every piece of advice I can find on the internet to no avail, even the clean install and XMG drivers so I'm sending it to Singapore for good measure. At least the warranty's there and they said that they'll ship it back to me for free, with the freight discount I have an added plus.

Tried Windows memory diagnostic tool and memtest, which returned zero errors. Also did the same for the SSD with the relevant tools. I observed though that before it became unusable, it would sometimes freeze and running chkdsk would always result in a 15 minutes long repair. So I figured it must be down to those two parts.