TONGFANG GK5CN5Z / GK5CN6Z / GK5CQ7Z / GK5CP0Z

I found the post you're talking about, dang that's a list! Do you have the link to the one you purchased? I'd like to get this out of the way this week.

Thanks

 

Can someone give me some tips on tracking down power usage? I'm trying to reduce my idle power / increase c state %

 

does anyone have or can come up with a diagram of the thermal pads location and thickness!!!!
please.. it be much appreciated!

 

This one? https://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-180W-Asus-ROG-GL753VEGL753VE-DS747-AC-Adapter-Charger/112880715013

 

Anyone one have issues with applications hanging (freezing)?

I noticed that if I open task manager while an application is frozen, none of the drives show up. Wait a few seconds and both the SSD and HDD come back up and then the application will unfreeze at the same time.

I've had this happen multiple times but I've been unable to figure out if its a driver / software issue or I have a bad storage controller.

I initially thought I had gotten a damaged / defective RAM stick, but I don't believe that is the case since RAM errors tend to end in bluescreens or instant crashes (can someone confirm this?)

 

No problems with mine

 

Thank you. I was hoping this would exist.

 

Does it actually reduce noise?

 

No not at all, membrane covers like this are only used to protect the keys (and internals) from water, dust, etc. Also to protect the screen if the keyboard is rubbing against it. If anything it would probably make the travel worse. On standard mechanical keyboards (I own about 6), o-rings are generally placed under the keycaps on the switches to dampen the sound.

 

Here is a pic of thermal pads.
Basically blue ones are 1.5mm thick, yellow ones are 1mm (maybe 0.5mm, hard to figure out), the top grey one next to the GPU heatsink seems to be 0.5mm as well, and the bottom grey one next to the CPU is 1.5, maybe even 2mm thick.

TF GK5CN6Z thermal pad details by Blebleuh posted Jan 25, 2019 at 3:57 PM

I bought 1.5mm Artic Thermal pad but eventually didnt used it as the stock one still seemed ok.

I repasted with Gelid GC-Extreme, and it's good to see again temps staying around 80°C during full load (I was hitting 95 quite fast with 4 months old NT-H1 because of pumping I think). Biggest observed delta is 7°C (was 20°C with NT-H1).

Now my personnal concern is that now GPU is constantly turned ON from startup even without any app using it (as shown in task manager). I'm also still wondering if what makes PKG Power shows a consumption of 5-6W when idle instead of <1W I got before (maybe it's since I updated to last OP BIOS, or to TS 8.70.6, or even maybe any driver update ?).

EDIT: Seems that MSI Afterburner option "Apply overclocking at system startup" was the problem. It was turned on, and it seems to keep the GPU on all the time to properly oveclock/undervolt/tune it, weither you use it or not. I turned off the option, and now the GPU is off as long as Afterburner is not launched and/or it's not needed by an app. And now PKG power in TS goes down to 0.5W when idle

 

I'm confused. I was planning to buy the samsung 970 500GB for the 2nd slot. Will this work? Can someone confirm it again that the x4 will work in slot 2 ? Thanks in advance.

 

i put thermal grizzly non conductive and it gets pumped out I even took it back off without wiping away what pumped out and put more and just transferring movies to another hard drive it is sitting around 50c I replaced all thermal pads with I believe 1 mm Arctic pads.. thermal grizzly is a little liquidy I ordered some Arctic silver 5 hopefully itiwon't get pumped I've used it before and it seems pretty thick, it's supposedly not that conductive.

 

check my previous post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ongfang-gk5cn6z.815943/page-329#post-10852973
I have a 970 EVO 500GB, and did some benchmarks: https://imgur.com/a/1K0vS61

I found that both slots give the same speeds so they should be both 4x. Also HWiNFO says both slots are 4x.

My problem (and what you quote was a reply to me) is that although my seq write speed is ok (~2200 MB/s), seq read is only ~1200MB/s, less than half the specs says it should be (3400MB/s).

 

I bought this 180w power brick and it seems to work just fine:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/TARGUS-UNI...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

 

Having similar heat issues after repasting with Kryonaught. Temps for the first couple weeks were improved but have increased in addition to the delta between cores since. I will give ICQDiammond a try.

 

Do you have Samsung Magician Installed? It’s a great software that maybe can find what’s wrong.
I have a 500GB 970 EVO too (installed in the only pcie slot) that can reach its full speed.

 

Which cores are hotter than the others? I had hotter cores on 1,3,5, and it turned out the sing mount screw on top wasn't applying enough pressure. Adding a little foil around it and tightening it back down has evened out my temps very nicely.

 

Is this a good drive & price for an SSD drive to be used in the 2nd slot ?

Intel 660p 1TB 3D NAND QLC M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4 SSD $125 AC @newegg
w/code EMCTUVA42

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Pr...6820167462

 

Does anyone in this tread think that they'll come out with a larger battery than the 4 cell?

 

yes, latest versions of Magician, firmware and nvme driver.

2 questions:
- what bios (version and vendor) are you using?
- what benchmark did you run? did you run ATTO?

 

for the price it's ok (although it's qlc so endurance is lower). I will have my hands on one 660p, then I will post some benchmarks here.

you also have this one with a similar price (but it's only 2x):
https://www.microcenter.com/product...pcie-nvme-gen-3-x2-internal-solid-state-drive

 

Thanks for your response. I live closeby to Microcenter. I need to get one SSD today from Microcenter. which SSD you recommend for the 2nd slot. I need atleast 500GB one. I need to setup for my photo/video editing and few games installation for my son. i plan to keep the slot#1 for OS and other main apps and use the slot#2 for installing my lightroom scratch disk & catalogue/photoshop/premier pro cc, Fortnite & few games for my son.

Thanks in advance

 

Kind of does, since the membrane seals also the rim of the keyboard. The clicks of the mechanical would still be heard, just a little less loud. This mechanical keyboard could be made quieter by disabling the mechanism that clicks which there are tons of videos of.

 

Well some of us were hoping that they would use the GPU update / refresh, to make some other minor hardware revisions to the chassis. To help address these shortcomings. Including yes, a larger battery.

It seems that there were no such changes at this time. These new updated laptops are due for release in the next few days. It is otherwise possible they are still planning some improvements for a future upcoming refresh in 6, 9, 12 months time. But for the current revision of the chassis the answer is 'no' based on the already released updated specs, for the new models.

However we can buy replacement bottom panels from taobao. And there is the potential for finding custom user modification(s) in this area to increase the battery beyond the 62wh. It requires someone with this laptop to come along and do more research. Investigate the charging circuit and some other candidate batteries.

 

Ahh, thank you for your reply! I was hoping that we could get longer battery life so I could then spend all day in class without the charger but this is a gaming laptop and 5 hours isnt too bad. Do you have the link for the bottom case from taobao?

 

My 17+ undervolted at -145 for both core and cache passes aida64 for 30+ min, but very rarely and randomly it hard freezes, is this still a sign of too much undervolting?

 

Yes. You'll have to back off and keep playing to find a stable voltage, etc. Frustrating. I can .be completely bench stable at really low voltages (20-30 min anyway), but start doing any normal tasks and it BSOD. Had to give it a little more juice.

Try setting cache to -130 or -125 and just dial on core. Use it for a day and see how your core value ends up, then tweak the cache voltage another day.

 

Thank you for the reply

Do we know for sure if these OP laptops need core and cache to be the same or not?

 

Sorry I didnt respond faster. The charger I ordered is available here:

https://www.ebay.com/p/Original-180w-ASUS-Rog-G752vs-G752vs-xb72k-Charger-AC-Adapter/1147191620

Honestly, as long as they pump out 19V +_0.5V it's totally fine. The charging circuit can definitely accommodate variances. I personally chose the ASUS because it was more aethetically pleasing vs the LiteON/Targus.

 

It’s 120W in the listing detail & photos

DC Output: 19V 6.32A, 120W

 

Yes, remember to eat your pie everyone.

You should be fine with a lower core, mine is fine with a lower core, and others have been too. But every set up is different, so you'll have to see what works for you.

 

Yeah sure

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?sp...e1mne&id=576818383457&ns=1&abbucket=16#detail

The price seems to end up being somewhere around $30 once you factor in the global shipping.

 

I wish they made that bottom for the 17"

 

never tested the Inland Professional or the 660p, but both seem fine on their specs and should be ok for normal daily use.

just take in consideration that the 660p 1GB is 200TBW and the 1GB Inland is 600TBW, so if you write a lot of data per day (around GB) on a disk, you should go for the Inland ssd.

 

Actually I’m using an old version of the bios from my vendor but I’ve used also XMG and Mechrevo’s ones without issues.
For benchmarking I use the UWP version of CrystalDiskMark

 

Yeah you know I did try to contact one of the Chinese resellers recently, asking them for some help in the area of accessories. I think the specific company was actually Mechrevo, who also have an online presence on aliexpress.

My request was only to ask them to list the replacement brown keyboards on ali, along with the mechrevo keycaps (because those are the same style as XMG's ones, which is to say the best type available for this notebook).

Unfortunately due to a whole variety of technical, language and cultural barriers. I'm not entirely sure how well my message actually got across, or who might have picked it up over there at Mechrevo. Especially as it was out of office hours for them. So for example, I could not ask for a better referral to somebody else.

However one interesting thing I did notice was that the company naming appeared / showed up on the site / sub-site pages as 'Tongfang'. Which leads me to believe that perhaps Mechrevo is actually Tongfang's branding in China / they are closely related as being a part of the same group of companies? That is to say: I am not really sure and would like to know this myself. As then that would then imply that contacting Mechrevo is the best / most direct way to get feedback to Tongfang, the manufacturer. As it is otherwise very difficult to find the right company information for 'this Tongfang' as opposed to the many other companies also named 'Tongfang' in china or in HK / elsewhere. Its pretty confusing.

So you know, if we know who to ask, we could at least try to ask them to provide such missing parts on aliexpress / mechrevo store outlet. Along with the other bits and pieces we need to source for these machines. Would much rather do it that way, then have to go through a local reseller.

 

I also ran CrystalDiskMark and it was the only one that reach 3400MB/s of seq read speed: https://i.imgur.com/kxYrz2B.png

But all olher benchs gave around 1200MB/s so I'm a bit confused about it. Waiting for a 660p ssd to do more benchs.

 

If CDM says that it hits 3400MB/s then I'm sure it's fine. What other benchmarks are you referring to?

 

Anvil, AS SSD and ATTO give seq read speeds around 1000 to 1600 MB/s: https://imgur.com/a/1K0vS61

Next week I'll bench a 660p and post the results here. Let's see if it can reach 1800MB/s seq read.

 

Silly question, do you have your laptop plugged in and on high-performance mode? Any limiting set by throttle stop or something similar? My results on AS SSD usually agree with my CMD results.

 

Did the benchs with the laptop pluged in (180W supply and pl# are 55W and 65W).

Don't have throttle stop installed. Had control center 1.2.2.8, but I uninstalled, then repeadted ATTO and results were the same.

I think this is something related with the bios, just found this thread on intel foruns: https://forums.intel.com/s/question...-samsung-970-pro-on-nuc7i7dnke?language=en_US

 

Interesting. I do get roughly the same with CDM and AS SSD with my ADATA SX8200 though (2500-2600MB/s seq read). Oddly it is slower than my X1 is with the exact same drive (2800-3200MB/s).

 

You're running 1.05 from OP, right? I didn't test that bios because it doesn't have EFI boot install and I'm afraid of bricking the laptop.

 

If anyone is planing on buy a Tongfang laptop of any kind, I would wait until Jan 29 for the RTX versions to come out. GTX 1060 versions will most likely have a drop in price but not be completely removed yet.

 

Yes 1.05 on mine. What do you mean it doesn't have EFI boot install? Are you talking about having to install it via windows?

 

You will be hard pressed to beat the 799 deal from Walmart though.

 

Has anyone received their laptop back from overpowered support, I just sent mine in this week to get the screen panel replaced due to significant blacklight bleed and wanted to know if anyone got their laptop back from support.

 

Yes, correct.

 

Guys, I need some quick help. I just got the Samsung 970 GB to be installed as a 2nd drive. unfortunately i see the screws are missing in the box. does the OP laptop has any extra screws to install this SSD into slot#2 ? Can we get these screws in Lowes ? i need it immediately now.

 

I was under the impression that the 2nd M.2 slot has a screw in it that you use in case you install an additional drive. You should open it up and have a look.