TONGFANG GK5CN5Z / GK5CN6Z / GK5CQ7Z / GK5CP0Z

Doesn't the voltage depend on whether the cells are in series or parallel?

 

Yep. The cells are in series so adding an extra cell increased the voltage.

 

And the Laptop internals are fine at 14v?

Just slightly worried about bricking it - Just looked at the youtube vid and looks OK.

 

Just out of interest how many people did the battery mod going from a 3-cell 11.4 to the 4 cell 15.2v?

To my knowledge, there are two confirmed?

 

Does anyone know if their machine reaches C7/C8 sleep states? I have tried everything I could find but it does not go below C3 state resulting in lower battery backup while my Dell G7 and predator could easily reach there. Check Package C state

 

Should the TongFang QC7 be added to the opening post?

https://noteb.com/?model/model.php?conf=3100473795264381169_3584&ex=USD

 

Technically it's a different chassis so it probably should get it's own thread

 

just ordered a battery from www.batteriess.de
wish me luck boys
(paid through paypal so i should be fine)

 

My laptop reaches C7 pretty quickly on idle. For general power use, it runs 0.5-0.8 W at idle, 0.8-1.5 W on web browsing, and 2.2-2.6 W on 1080p YouTube. I'm using latest BIOS+EC and the original windows install that the OP 15+ was shipped with, along with some ThrottleStop tweaks.

Do they ship/charge shipping to the US? Seems they're much cheaper on this site than the others.

 

i think they do, but the website (+ the prices) look very suspicious to me; im just trying my luck with paypal consumer protection ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

sorry for double post; but for any1 (and uncleweb) still interested in the 800Mhz issue: it solely occurs unplugged for me (at 40% battery: 100 percent of the time, but sometimes already at 60% battery). I also dont have to restart my PC in order to fix it; replugging it fixes it in a matter of seconds. following the advice of @unclewebb I made a screenshot of the TS limit reasons window and it seems to be associated with PL1.. does any1 have any further advice what i should do next? i read through almost the entire thread and also attempted the fixes already mentioned: RwDrv, BDPROCHOT, disabling/locking turbo power limits..

did anybody actually manage to fix it? what i didnt try yet is letting the battery drain all the way (my battery hits 0 from time to time anyway so im not too confident in this fix..)

 

I had this issue last year and it was an easy fix by installing RwDrv and checking "Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limits". I'm curious why it didn't work for you. You might want to try deleting the ThrottleStop config and RwDrv.sys files already existing in your ThrottleStop folder and try again, before you change any other settings. Sometimes all ThrottleStop needs is a good old restart.

 

Maybe I did some kind of mistake; resetting the .ini seems like a good try also, will look into this later this evening, thanks!
Also: does TS interfere with the Control Center? Can I still comfortably switch between the different performance modes without having to redo the TS settings? Also: I have to setup TS via Taskscheduler, right? Thanks so much in advance I'm still pretty new to tweaking software.

edit: I also noticed for some reason i attached the screenshot from someone else.. mine is the one below (issue seems PL1 related)

 

TS does not interfere with CC unless you limit turbo boost. Yes, you should set TS up with Task Scheduler.
Can you show me the values you have in your FIVR and TPL tabs? It seems you have only single channel RAM running, which might also be the cause of the issue, but the TS workaround I mentioned should bypass that.

 

@stephanm74 - The first screenshot you posted shows that the FIVR - Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limits feature is not installed or checked. The second picture you posted does not show the FIVR window so I am still not sure if you are using this. Post some more screenshots of exactly how you have ThrottleStop setup.

The Task Scheduler guide is the second post in the ThrottleStop Forum. Link is in my signature.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/#post-6865107

Your second screenshot does not show SST in green so that means you have not enabled Speed Shift. Some users like Speed Shift because it makes it easy to setup different performance profiles.

 

yes, i still run all the stock hardware including single channel ram..

I deleted the throttlestop.ini and just installed RwDrv + checked the "Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limits"-box: it seems to work! As of right now I'm at 39% battery with core clocks at ~1.1 GHz (sometimes 900 MHz but definitely not locked at 800 MHz) yaay =) as for the speed shift feature: i will consider it, but i would prefer to just have one setting in throttle stop and controlling the rest via controlcenter if i dont have any major drawbacks, because I'm really bad at setting this stuff up. Also: do i have to keep TS open at all times for this fix to keep working? Anyways, thanks a lot, I appreciate both of your help very much!

Not possible to catch on screenshot, but the Limit Reasons constantly blink in "EDP OTHER" (yellow and sometimes red) in all 3 columns, very occasional PL2 blinking (just once when i looked at the windows at ten different times, but as im writing this it's blinking lol; anyways I can still use Chrome and watch YouTube, so it's good). Furthermore I attached the TPL + FIVR windows anyway, in case you still have suggestions. the rest of TS is just a fresh "install". I'll look into the Task Scheduler Guide right now

Edit: As I was charging back up it actually throttled at 800 MHz (PL1 in the limit reasons window) again, but just for ~1 Minute

 

Look at the Task Scheduler guide to have TS up and running at all times. EDP OTHER, PL2 will always keep blinking as you don't want the CPU to take more power than the chassis can handle. I attached my windows of TS that gives me the best battery life and the full 3.9 Ghz boost for gaming/cinebench.

 

@stephanm74 - Your screenshots show that you have set the Long and Short turbo power limits to a measly 15 Watts and you have set the PP0 Current Limit to 20 Amps. Low values like this will cause your CPU to throttle on a regular basis and you will see red lights flashing in Limit Reasons like it was a Christmas tree.

Take some advice from @AyoMayo and get ThrottleStop setup properly. I would set both of the turbo power limits to at least 60 and the current limit should be around 100 so it does not interfere with maximum performance. Your present settings have turned your Corvette into a Lada. Not good. Get rid of the Clamp option too and do some under volting in the FIVR window. There is lots of good info in this thread so start reading.

Enabling Speed Shift makes for a more responsive computer when lightly loaded.

 

I bought on eBay new 4-cell power battery, now i am happy!
By this seller: https://www.ebay.de/itm/153652778450

 

i copied your settings @AyoMayo and enabled Speedshift, thanks so much again!

another topic: I cant find the post anymore but someone said that the 94Whr of the new Tongfang barebone (MAG-15) might fit into the GK5CN6Z (i think it was @Prerana)!
any educated guesses on that? (i would think it looks like a similar footprint BUT exact dimensions should differ; also it uses a 230w brick).

 

AyoMayo is the one who bought that battery from ecrater.com but sadly they cancelled his order.

There are two models GKIDT-00-13-3S2P-0 comes in MAG-15 with 11.4v 8000mah rating
and there is another very similar-looking model with same power rating that might also fit in our chassis GKIDT-03-17-3S2P-0 but someone has to test it first

 

Well, the larger battery has been confirmed to be physically incompatible with this laptop thanks to the XMG rep. The dream was nice while it lasted.

 

shame, both of the batteries?

 

Anyone have any idea how to grease / clean this keyboard? I've spilled a couple drinks on they keyboard and now some of they key switches don't feel the same as others. They are optical key switches so I'm not too worried about damaging contacts but I would like to use something solvent free to prevent the plastic parts from breaking down. It seems to be more of an issue with keys with stabilizers and I've tried to lube where the rods enter the stabilizer holes but that doesn't seem to change much, at least not with white lithium that I am using.

Edit: Also I don't want to take the black mylar/plastic sheet off because I'm not sure what it's doing nor am I confident I'll be able to get it back on after removing lol.

 

Seems like 2 cells are stacked on each side of the battery making it double the thickness on the corners. It's slimmer where the touchpad resides. 17inch version won't support it at all cos its completely flat below the battery, although 15inch might cos it has the same indentation on both sides and with some sanding of the back cover and breaking the clips one might be able to fit in one but even after that its a stretch

 

I don't know what issue I am facing with mine but it never reaches below C3 even after a clean install. The idle is around 1.9 W and 4 watts while watching a video. I will search for the original recovery OS that came preinstalled

 

anybody remember what this (see attachment) gamig center option does? from the description i would guess it would hide the indicators for volume and brightness but it doesnt seem to work that way

 

I have the 2018 XMG Neo and yes bumblebee works in my parrot linux setup. Fragile but it works. Hashcat breaks it, pretty much everything that touches the drivers and runs an initramfs update breaks it. Steam works.
Blacklist Noveau in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf
Run update-initramfs -u
install nvidia driver
install bumblebee and primus

I have to sudo optirun.

You could try to remodel those steps in opensuse. Hope that helps.
I don't use any kernel parameter except the double tap modeset.noveau=0 to make sure that thing stays dead.
Or you use acpi_call and switch your dGPU permanetly off.

 

did another 4-cell order in the meantime btw and both batteriess.de and replacement-laptop-battery.co.uk cancelled my order, so dont bother

 

Mine seems locked down with or without secure boot. How did you do it ?

 

Well... I gave up on those specific problems regarding random shutdowns. Best I can assume is that it's a problem with the Unity game engine causing some problem as it never happens in any other game.

As a side note, I was hit with a brown out and it zapped my display so now it's just flickering madly and that only stops at a display brightness under 10%.

Does anyone know how to replace the display in this thing? Any videos?

 

edit: nvm

 

Here is my review of the MECH-15 G2Rx...

---

​

Those who have known me for a while surely found it out of character that I purchased a MECH-15 G2Rx. With my strong opinions against thin and light BGA "turdbooks" and my passion for competitive overclocking, I am sure some folks even found it hypocritical. And, that would be understandable if they did. My contempt for anemic BGA notebook trash is great, but I am almost equally (or more) fed up with severely overpriced DTR laptops with desktop CPUs and MXM graphics that overheat, have been emasculated by cancer firmware and cannot be upgraded due to the manufacturer intentionally changing things to make upgrades extremely difficult. For that very reason I abandoned notebooks a couple of years ago.

Well, things change. My opinions haven't, but my needs have. When I found myself needing a good notebook for business travel that I could play some games on in my hotel room after work (and use for work during the day) I landed on this baby. After doing my homework, which included the awesome YouTube reviews from @B0B of All Trades and @OWNORDISOWN (both good friends), the choice was clear. Nothing in my $1500 price range can compare to the specs, performance, build quality and aesthetics.

While I do wish that it had a "K" processor, overall I am very pleased with this product. It looks fantastic, runs great and it is built extremely well. It is super easy to work on. Taking its form factor into account, thermal management is good as well. I have no regrets and highly recommend this product for anyone that wants something that ticks all of the boxes except for overclocking.

This purchase was also my first experience with Eluktronics. It would be unjust for me to not mention that my experience with them has also been outstanding. They shipped the product swiftly and communicated with me in a friendly and timely manner. I had a minor technical issue and it was resolved immediately, and to my complete satisfaction. Good folks, so I can whole-heartedly recommend them with the same high respect as I can this product.

I haven't had much time for a lot of gaming yet, but did notice that with all of the settings maxed out I was seeing consistently north of 100 FPS in Gears of War 4.

Here are my specs:

• MECH-15 G2Rx Slim & Light RTS Laptop
• Processor: Intel Core i7-9750H (2.6-4.5GHz 12MB Cache)
• Graphics Card: 6GB GDDR6 NVIDIA® GeForce RTX 2060 w/EluktroBoost
• Display: 15.6" Narrow Bezel 144Hz FHD IPS Anti-Glare (1920 x 1080)
• Memory: 16GB (2x8GB) Generic DDR4-2666
• Storage: 512GB Eluktronics NVMe SSD*
• Battery: 4 Cell 62.32WHr (takes up HDD Bay)
• Operating System: Windows 10 Home*
• Warranty Options: 1 Year Eluktronics Warranty
• Thermal Cooling Solution: Standard Thermal Compound**

Here is how I am rating things on a 1 to 5 scale with 1 being unacceptable, 3 average and 5 superior:

• Price: 5
• Specs: 4
• Performance: 4
• Build Quality: 5
• Aesthetics: 5
• Thermals: 4**
• Display: 5
• Keyboard: 5
• Audio: 3
• Overall: 4.5

**You'll either need to do it yourself or pay Eluktronics for better thermal paste. The temps are not good with the standard thermal compound. I didn't expect it to be and the 4 rating is with better thermal compound applied. My rating Would be 3 with the standard thermal paste included at no cost. I gave it a 4 because I am rating the product and not the thermal paste.

*I've upgraded the drives to dual M.2 1TB SSDs and the OS to Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019.

Final verdict: Solid win for me and for Eluktronics. Highly recommend this one. Don't expect it to be something it's not. It is a great little gaming notebook that is also suitable for business use. It is NOT a high end overclocking notebook. It is an amazing value as currently priced and I am completely satisfied with my purchase.











The generic DDR4-2666 stock memory has been programmed with an XMP-3000 profile using Thaiphoon Burner.

@Prema

 

Thanks for the video. I left a comment to it, but in case you won't read - I noticed that there are 6 inductors above CPU but only 4 thermal pads on heatsink plate above those inductors, leaving 2 inductors uncovered. Is that how you received it or was it you who removed them? Do they heat up differently so only 4 of them get really hot and other 2 do not need thermal pads? Also, there is one extra thermal pad for non-existing video RAM chip. Is it the type of quality control TongFang does? ;-)

Here is what I'm talking about:

 

Good catch on the thermal pads. I will take a closer look at that for the inductors and make any changes that are necessary. I am assuming the factory has a generic thermal pad layout that applies to different models with the 8th-gen CPU and all Pascal and Turing GPUs available. The unused thermal pad is probably for a 2070MQ.

I am assuming you are the same person that asked about the backlight bleeding. There is nothing to see as far as backlight bleeding. Had there been I would have commented about it. The display is probably the best 1080P notebook display I have had.

I replied on the video comment as well.

 

Here is a photo I took in case you were curious. As you can see, backlight bleeding is not an issue. I set black as the desktop wallpaper background color. You can tell the backlight is working, but there are no areas where it is remarkably brighter around the edges.

 

@Mr. Fox Would you happen to know the best way to replace the display on this laptop? I've found the screen I need, the one I have is kinda borked due to a brown-out zapping the screen (strobes/flickers violently above 10% brightness). Any ideas? I just can't find a teardown for this machine. No one has had to do it/needed to. >~<

 

Hi. I've not done it on this model. After examining it and based on appearance, I suspect the bezel is snapped in place with tabs and probably has double-sided tape like most do. You should be able to replace the LCD without removing any parts other than the bezel and the screws that attach the screen to the lid. You should not have to open anything on the bottom part of the chassis.

Not sure if @B0B has done one before or not, but I have seen nothing to indicate that it would be more difficult than normal.

 

LGD05C0? Good panel and should be super easy to find. The sides and top will have plastic clips and the chin will have bounce sided adhesive. Some clips could break so don’t panic. It’ll go back nicely most of the time and if not you can get a new bezel worse case scenario.

If you need a new display I’d do the work on the thin bezel laptops outside in direct sunlight on a hot day to loosen up the adhesive on the chin area. Hair dryers heat works but is too condensed so be careful and patient. I’ve let it sit in my back deck for a few hours before doing this on an HP Omen.

Start on the sides as the plastic is firm here.

 

if any1 is still looking for a solution on how to disable/reenable the script through the press of one button: i attached a script with a few extra lines of code. not my own work but works like a charm. for me another big advantage of ditchmagnet's script is that the sliders move much smoother than stock (no big jumps anymore), def can recommend.

another fix i wanna share is how to improve the volume on your device's speakers by a good margin, it is a very easy but effective fix and you just need to check/uncheck one box in windows control panel, but i dont remember where exactly: it was some setting to level out different frequencies or smth, maybe you can find it yourself

 

Hell yeah! Thank you so much. Holy crap that's exactly what I needed. Also sweet, I thought that panel was the right one, but it's so difficult to get a straight answer since so many different models use the same panels at times. Good to know I don't have to rely on a 'leap of faith' again.

 

I think Brother @B0B is going to like this...

Tinkering with the BIOS @Prema provided for the new Tongfang turdbook and tuning it as best I can with locked core ratios... Poking around in my HWBOT account and looking at some interesting results here. I'm actually pretty impressed, all things considered. And, the temps are not half bad either. Can't hate that.

Having the right amount of voltage control (setting it static at 1.150V and capping the maximum at 1.250V in the BIOS instead of adaptive with a negative offset) really helps the temps a ton.

This little beast is beating all of those scores, including the high and mighty P570WM with 4960X.

https://hwbot.org/user/mr._fox/#My_Submissions

In Cinebench R11.5, my highest scores were as follows:

• Alienware M18xR1 2920XM - 8.93 pts
• Alienware M18xR2 3920XM - 9.33 pts
• Alienware 18 4930MX - 9.69 pts
• Clevo P750ZM 4790K - 10.5 pts
• Clevo P570WM 4960X - 14.21 pts
• Clevo P870 6700K - 11.93 pts
• Clevo P870 7700K - 12.76 pts

In Cinebench R15, my highest scores were as follows:

• Alienware M18xR1 2920XM (unable to locate - not going to try harder)
• Alienware M18xR2 3920XM (unable to locate - not going to try harder)
• Alienware 18 4930MX (unable to locate - not going to try harder)
• Clevo P750ZM 4790K - 964 cb
• Clevo P570WM 4960X - 1258 cb
• Clevo P870 6700K - 1080 cb
• Clevo P870 7700K - 1148 cb

https://hwbot.org/submission/4253177_
https://hwbot.org/submission/4253178_

 

What is the current state of your order? Have you recieved a shipping message?
The day before yesterday I tried again to get a shipping ID from their website. The normal message I got when I tried this previously was " Your order is ok. We have received your money, But the item haven't been sent out. If you find the item isn't send out in 3 days, please contact [email protected] to check its stock or get more infromation". Unfortunately I now don't get a message at all. They also haven't replied to my message yet (probably I just have to wait a few more days to get a reply).

 

Uploaded this last night. The setting shown at 5:40 is what has to be changed in order for Thaiphoon Burner to work. SPD Write Disable has to be set to FALSE.

 

Hi All,

I have been using the laptop for quite a while now and was wondering about the BIOS. At this moment I still have the 1.02 version BIOS of PC Specialist and the 1.08.09 EC. I thought maybe due to this BIOS my memory frequency is 2400mhz instead of 2666mhz. The laptop runs great so far and I don't have any real problems with it; (except of course the overprotective fan) I have no problems with updating it but for me two 'problems' are:

1. How big is the chance really to brick my laptop when I update the BIOS through the EFI method?
2. What real advantage will I see after updating the BIOS? (except from the hope that 2666mhz will function properly)

Getting a ~2500 cinebench 20 score atm

 

It is most likely the RAM sticks in your machine, not the BIOS. If their default SPD is 2400, (which would be typical for DDR4,) that is what speed it is going to run at and the only way to run faster than the default SPD is by changing the memory settings manually. Get an SPD programmer and an alligator clip to back up your original BIOS. It seems everyone who is using the modded BIOS at WIN-RAID forums is having no issues with it being bricked. You just have to follow instructions. What will brick it (and can be easily fixed with the SPD programmer) is tinkering with settings you are not familiar with. In particular, the settings for the switchable graphics. Don't touch those. The person doing that mod should have hidden that menu. There is no reason for the graphics switching settings to be unlocked/exposed because altering those settings serves no purpose and will only create problems for those that start messing with them.

 

So is it safe to assume that the 4 cell battery is the biggest battery that our laptops can take? I don't mind removing the USB card or something else to fit a larger battery in there but that doesn't seem like it will work now. Can anyone confirm? Right now with Throttlestop and me doing very minimal activity[pretty much just typing in a document like OneNote or something] I can get about 4 hours of life out of this 3 cell that the OP 15 came with. I would like to get more along the lines of 5-6 hours if I can.

 

did any1 get one of the vendors (be it eluktronics or xmg) to sell you batteries? so far no one responded to my requests

 

Did you visit this page on their web site? https://www.eluktronics.com/components/batteries/

Here is the 4-cell: https://www.eluktronics.com/4-cell-batt-mech-15-g2-mech-17/#product-description

I do not see the standard 3-cell battery listed if that is what you are looking for.

 

Here is a simple, yet effective, PCH cooling mod. This knocked about 8-10°C off my PCH temps.

30*30mm*1mm copper shim tacked to the lower cover with RTV silicon, and a 5mm thermal pad on the PCH die. Easy-peasy.


@Papusan