TONGFANG GK5CN5Z / GK5CN6Z / GK5CQ7Z / GK5CP0Z

Since I got this laptop I knew not all games would run on 144 fps on a 1060. Games like CS, Rocket League do but like R6 Siege doesn't on ultra settings and 100% screen scale. I used to play on my desktop PC with a Ultrawide Samsung 75hz monitor so I find 60hz not playable anymore. Maybe u guys already know about this program called CRU (Custom Resolution Utilty) where u can set your own resolution and refresh rate. So ur not restricted to play only on 144hz or 60hz

75hz is always better/smoother than 60hz

 

Btw what does this mean?

 

You're right mate, the speakers are pretty weak on this chassis.

 

Had same massage yesterday when I changed Bios, just go in bios settings and under secure boot click on “delete all variables” than “load default variables” and it will disappear.

 

Are there any differences or improvements between Gaming Center 1.2.2.8 and 1.1.16.4, should I change?

 

Just picked up the Overpowered version of this. Based on reviews I ordered 2 8gb 2666MHz DDR4 CL15 and also am upgrading the SSD to a 1TB High-Performance NVMe. Super excited at the cost savings!

 

For anyone interested in running Linux on this, I tried Ubuntu 18.10 via a Live CD (installed on USB key). Everything seems to work as it should except the trackpad isn't being recognized. There may not be a driver for it yet. I also haven't tried the Nvidia drivers yet.

 

Ubuntu 10 is pretty ancient. 18.04 is their latest LTS. I'm running Linux Mint 19 (also based on 18.04) alongside Windows 10. Install kernel 4.19.x with ukuu and that fixes everything. Only thing that doesn't work as far as I know is adjusting keyboard brightness. I have everything working else in there, even undervolt using https://github.com/georgewhewell/undervolt ...

 

Sorry, typo on my part - I meant to write Ubuntu 18.10. Just corrected it now, thanks.

 

Does anyone know if a 15mm 2.5" HDD will fit in the 2.5" bay of this chassis?

 

No, 7mm is the max


Verzonden vanaf mijn iPhone met Tapatalk

 

Thanks for confirming. They are really weak compared to other laptops. oh well, you cant get everything

 

For 899??? No. However I would rather they cheap out on the speakers verse the screen, keyboard, etc. I always use an external set of speakers or headphones anyway as most laptop speakers, even the better ones, will suck.

 

Guys, I have a strange thing happening to my laptop. Once the battery hits lower levels, but not too low, around 40%, I get massive performance drop, even as I'm writing this, the letter's showing up with like half a second delay.

 

Agreed. My point was for $899 you already are getting a great laptop. but the speakers suck.That's ok, since you are getting a great screen/keyboard/etc. BTW: Are you in MN? I am in Twin Cities.

 

Is your windows battery saver set to kick in at 40%?

 

Anyhow, currently typing on my new Overpowered 15+. Beautiful screen and great keyboard (but I like me

Yep. Minneapolis.

 

It set it to battery saver manually from the start since I was watching a film. Then when it gets to a certain battery percentage, the performance drops massively. I restarted the laptop, started the film again, was fine for a minute or two, then same happened again.

In any case I doubt this is just a simple "battery saver" mode, I mean, it feels like as if I'm running windows 10 on a 10 year old laptop. The level of performance drop isn't normal.

 

Anyone else have to press and hold the power button for a second in order for their laptop to boot?

For my laptop I have a to press and hold in order to boot but when it is on charge, it only requires a single press. Maybe a faulty battery?

 

By design. Clevo's also has this. Prevent accidental start of computer while on battery. Therefore a longer press is needed to start up when not connected to AC.

 

I noticed this

I noticed this as well, glad I'm not crazy!

 

The other major plus with this laptop that I haven't seen mentioned is the ability to boot from any of the 3 drives (as far as I can see in the BIOS ... not 100% sure about the 2.5"). It makes dual/triple boot configurations very trivial, vs struggling with Microsoft's horrid installer trying to get a dual boot EFI configuration working alongside Linux on one drive. The BIOS is quite open with the ability to cross flash it from any vendor using this chassis and I for one like having that flexibility. The Omen I tested from Microcenter could only boot from the M2 and had a completely locked down BIOS otherwise and I'm guessing a lot of the other i7-8750h laptops do the same.

 

Same thing for me, thanks for the explanation !

Regarding the 180W PSU I asked PCS how to get it and 2 days later it was at home, very cool ! But I'm in France and PCS sent me a UK plug, not really a big deal it's just sad to waste it because I can't use it.

 

I’ll play catch-up on this thread tomorrow but just to clarify on my end.

BF1 and BF5 with the newest BIOS and EC in single channel using the normal ThrottleStop tweaks I was still unable to get this to push past 35w. It might start at 50-45w then settle to 35w. Full 64p server testing.

Now, I was able to pull some shenanigans and get it up to 50w but obviously GPU saturation isn’t taxed like dual channel.

I wasn’t testing performance and GPU saturation either. I wanted to know why that limit was even there per the exact same methods of testing I have done for years.

Two sticks of RAM was my only solution and it’s still going strong today. No issues.

LM on the list tomorrow

 

So looks like Walmart version of the 17 inch is down to $999 from $1299. This also gets you 32gb and a 2tb hd. For $100 more than the 15 inch.

 

Wow. I think I'm going to cancel or return my 15 inch order and get that instead. No need to buy extra RAM, and it has a Windows Hello capable camera. Crazy good deal.

 

What would be interesting to know is if its' that specific stick of Goldkey memory. The one that you removed was somehow faulty. Because there can be a thermal sensor on the SODIMM. Which reports back as a sensory input to the intel power management system. This is one of many hardware based mechanisms described in the intel 8th gen datasheet.

A good test to eliminate that possibility, is to use both 2x goldkey sticks. By borrowing 1 stick from your other machine. Be sure to label them first. Not to mix them up with each other. If the one from the 8750h / 15+ turns out to be faulty. Then you will want to keep track of that.

[edit] or remove 1 stick of your aftermarket kit. Leaving 1 stick. If its down purely to the number of channels, then the problem should return back again.

[edit2] also assuming the bios settings data was not changed, by changing the ram sticks. That it was already properly reset at the time of it's earlier flashing. Sometimes there is settings in areas which are hidden (no exposed user menu). And depending how a specific bios works, depends whether a changing of the ram sticks is something that can trigger or reset a bios back to its defaults. A side effect being: to inadvertently clear a potential corrupted BIOS setting which was not exposed / visible. However we did not see anything to suggest that is the case here. Also because normally a good bios flashing procedure already includes a proper clearing of the bios settings area.

But wait! There's more:

Because the intel power management system is so bloody complicated, it does not always obey what is written into the MSR registers. There is a wide variety of other input mechanisms too.

So what would be nice to distinguish between is:

* If it's a program or software overwriting the 'PL1 MSR register' down from 55w to 35w
* If the PL1 MSR register remains at the correct value (unrestricted). Then effectively the CPU power management is ignoring the value in the register and overriding in the power management algorithm. Which is hardware based, then it's something else.

Information source: https://review.coreboot.org/c/coreboot/+/28079

This type of test is required to distinguish between those 2 broad category of issue. It should be pretty simlpe to performthis test . The steps are as follows:

1) Before launching the game, check the value of the PL1 MSR register. It seems can be done with the program "HWInfo" acoording to this guy.

https://forums.intel.com/s/question...limit-pl1-resets-after-10-mins?language=en_US

2) Launch the game and reproduce the issue. Wait until it drops down to 35w. Keep it there.

3) Go back into 'HWInfo' program and check the value of PL1 msr register again.

This is assuming that you can switch programs to check the value without it affecting the results. Otherwise logging the value of PL1 register in the background would be the way to go. Being on linux myself, I cannot provide more exact instructions for how to do this.

Expected test results:

It will either

a) remain at the same value (55w or whatever it was to begin with).

Which means its a lower level issue. Something else in the hardware based intel algorithm is overriding / disregarding the PL1 value. As per the comment in changelog commit history CoreBoot firmware project.

or

b) the value in the MSR register will have changed and it now reads 35w. Then the value set by your software is being respected. And issue seems to be due to an installed software, or a windows driver. Which has overwritten the value of the register.

 

LM as in Liquid Metal paste? That would be great if you do test that, I did grizzly kryonaut on mine, and no more heating issues after that.
BTW really informative videos you make!

 

Yeah Liquid Metal is one of my things to do on the list. Played last night for 1 hour of BF5 64p Conquest, max fan, Kryonat, undervolt, dual channel RAM and BIOS/EC of course. GPU mid 70's and CPU low 80's. Seems silly to even go LM at this point. Ambient 70-71F

 

The only downside of the 17” is really the plastic palm rest and bottom grill compared to aluminum on the 15”. It’s barely larger than a normal 15” laptop and the screen is gorgeous. For $999, with 32GB of RAM and tons of storage, that has now surpassed the 15” as the deal of the century. I couldn’t live with that darned OP logo personally though.

 

I agree and I most certainly can live with that logo for this price lol.
Not be honest, me personal needs really don’t exceed what the $499 model offers. I would then upgrade its battery and add a stick of memory for dual channel.

 

I have the 15+ and I just cannot get used to the keyboard. It's too mushy. I was never really finicky about a keyboard, but this one just isn't that good at all.

I am still on the fence and might just return everything and wait. I've never had so much trouble deciding on a daily driver laptop.

 

Relatively few have complained of the keyboard, but I share your concern. That is the one thing I would consider sending the laptop back for. For me the action is fine, but the narrow horizontal spacing is difficult to adjust to.

I was comparing the 17" model to the 15" specifically, and both keyboards are the same except for the keycaps. I have not tried the squared off keycaps (mine are hexagonal), but I believe the spacing is the same on both versions.

 

Anyone have any inside info on the battery upgrade availability?

 

I failed to mention that. In addition to being a bit mushy to me, they are definitely too close together. Lots of mistakes.

The tough thing for me is I have a work issued PC for work that I use a lot. There's quite a bit of difference between the two which probably isn't helping things.

 

They got back with me this morning with this.

Dear Bob,


Thanks for your inquiry. We have not got new stock now, we will chase our supplier again.


Once available, we will inform you.


Kind regards,

Julie

 

This chassis is what the Eluktronics use in their G2 laptops, and the G1 is a thicker one. Does anyone know if those G1s are more durable and cool better being bigger and heavier?

Also on those Overpowered Laptops with the 1 stick of 16 gb memory, what is everyone buying to get that dual channel ram to avoid the power throttle problem?

 

I discussed how much I hate the keyboard on the SD thread. The biggest problem is there's absolutely no contour to the keys - they're perfectly flat, which makes finding your initial typing position very hard. Once I find my position I'm sorta ok but my fingers still feel like they're going to slide off the keys. I tested out my WPM online - on my X1 carbon I get 115, on the 15 OP I got 90, mostly owing to more mistakes on the OP. But besides the difference in WPM there's that intangible factor of feeling confident on the keys and the OP definitely lacks that for me.

 

So doing a bit a looking around, there is a few downside to the Overpowered 17+.

• Plastic Bottom Grill that does not look like it will allow the same airflow as the 15+.
• According to https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/walmart-overpowered-gaming-laptop-17-plus,5555.html and a couple reviews I found of the same model from other vendors, the charger port is shallow, causing the charger to stick out which could lead to it becoming detached or damaging the port.

Its a really tough decision, I'm really tempted to return mine and get the 17+ but considering how few people have experience with it i'm not sure if I should. Any owners of the 17in Tongfang here?

 

Stay tunned to OwnOrDisown on youtube. He is going to be doing a review of the 17 inch very soon. He just uploaded an unboxing.

 

Isn't there a separate thread for the 17 inch. Not much activity though compared to this one though.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/tongfang-gk7cn6s.825461/

 

I got the same reply as well. I am trying to get the exact dimensions from them so we can look into other options. Did anyone try to replace it with another non Getac battery? This worries me as the battery life is very poor and was one of the upgrades that was a must for me (along with a thermal repaste and NVMe SSD). It doesn't look like this one's coming back in stock anytime soon though.

 

The pricing on this laptop is crazy. I am scheduled to receive my GT75 Titan today or tomorrow from HID. I have toyed with the idea of returning it and purchasing this machine. I go down from a 1070 to a 1060 and from an 500GB SSD to a 256 SSD but I would also save about $1200 (even after the re-stocking fee). Just a crazy deal.

 

15+ drop to 799 made the decision a bit easier when deciding between 17+ / 15+. I will get another 16gb for dual channel eventually. Any recommendations on that?

 

Good night. Will the craziness stop on this things price! Good luck getting a recommendation on that. I've searched high and low and can't find anything on what ram would be compatible with the provided one.

 

799 now.... Jesus... get your price protection!

https://www.walmart.com/ip/OVERPOWE...36403179640252799013&affillinktype=10&veh=aff

 

I can get 3.5 hours on it with the standard battery. The upgrade is easy to do when it comes back in stock. Only have to remove the 2.5" bay. This adds about 35% more capacity and you should get close to 5 hours on it if you use the battery saver, no lights etc.

 

Lol, how low will it go!? I tried to cancel my $900 15+ so I could get the 17 instead, but it was too late and just shipped. But now that it's $800, I'll just keep it and contact Walmart for a price adjustment.

 

Any option to buy it from Walmart living in Europe?

Sent from my CLT-L29 using Tapatalk

 

My charging port fits in flush on my CyberpowerPC Tracer III 17. I assume they used the same exact components, and that reviewer received a fluke machine. Given the thermal headroom here in my testing and that it has only a GTX 1060, I don't see overheating ever being an issue. I've done every benchmark and played several AAA titles, and rarely see 80C on the CPU. The GPU hovers at 65-70C in game. (undervolted, with no repaste)

I'm sure you know, the GT75 is a completely different animal. If you plan to leave this on your desk most of the time I see the MSI as the superior choice.