TONGFANG GK7CN6S / GK7CP0S / GK7CP7S

That's what I thought, but now I can't reproduce the issue even when replicating the same conditions.

 

Maybe this sounds odd, but were you using the same wall outlet? Maybe the wall outlet was maybe not making good contact.

I had a power strip that drove me crazy once due to the wall outlet it was attached to was worn and loose just enough, that under high loads, it would cut out.

 

How does the gpu turbo mode work on this machine? Does raise the gpu power limit as well?

 

I purchased the Mech 15 G2rx ( i7 9750H and RTX 2060 with Eluktroboost). When I am on battery, the GPU is locked at 300 MHZ and the gpu memory is 405 MHZ. I know it should be lower, but everything, even games that run fine on the intel gpu are unplayable. I have been going around with Eluktronics about it, had to even convince them that this isn't normal behavior. They claim to have emailed me a shipping label but I have yet to get it after several days. after changing driver versions, changing power plans, fresh install of Windows, the only thing that has any affect on it is disabling the DGPU and re enabling it. Then the GPU memory goes up to 810 MHZ and the GPU can get as high as 1600 MHZ. Unfortunately this doesn't last past rebooting the laptop. It runs fine on AC getting up to 1850 mhz in Turbo mode, I would love to try a bios flash and vbios flash but they don't have one on their website and are very hit or miss about answering the phone and emails

 

anyone have any issues with the USB 3 ports on the right of the laptop? one of my usb 3 ports is constantly disconnecting and reconnecting itself when i try to copy files. this is true for both a usb pen drive or an external usb hdd. it's super annoying and no settings i set in windows (turn off usb suspend, turn off power management etc) can help. the usb port next to the problematic one is absolutely fine and the USB C port is also working properly. any suggestions?

 

I use every USB port and didn't notice anything like this.

 

Check the cable inside of the laptop that connects to the USB board, if there is a rip, that might be an issue. Should be a flat but wide cable

 

the cable is ok, it's folded though. i dont see any damage to it.

 

Did you go to Illegear for this issue? Curious to see if its a one off problem

 

Did you try a different USB cable? I've had cables go bad from use. I had one that kept disconnecting while trying to transfer stuff to my tablet. Turns out it wasn't the USB port but the cable itself form wear and tear.

 

I did a forum search, and haven't seen this supplier come up. Has anyone purchased the CUK barebones laptop? The link was working until today, and then it suddenly disappeared. Where's the current recommended sport to get GK7CP7S for USA customers?

Old link, working until today:
CUK

 

i did. i tried with an external HDD and also a USB thumb drive. both behaved the same. there's no cable with usb thumb drive.

 

I did go to illegear about this, unfortunately they are not helpful at all when it comes to dealing with international customers, even when the country i'm residing in is just next to the country they operate in.

their aftersales service so far has not been impressive. Replies are very slow, sometimes dont reply at all, drivers and apps in their support page dont get updated unless u request it multiple times, and they are not flexible at all when it comes to international customers. starting to regret my decision for not sticking with dell.

 

Damn that sucks big time. Usually i shoot Azim an email everytime i have a problem and he seems to do a decent job of replying to my messages/emails. Perhaps you could go through him via email? Thats how i got a lot of support for my X7

 

Have you considered using other thermal paste like CM Mastergel Maker Nano? Bcoz Tongfang laptops have tripod heatsink and Kryonaut usually doesn't work well with uneven pressure heatsinks.

Also, heatsink in 9750H+2060 laptops usually can dissipate 45w+80w heat minimum. Even though Selenite can handle more than this, that doesn't mean that it can handle a fully loaded CPU and GPU. Try lowering PL1/PL2 aka long power max/short power max to something like 50W.

 

Hey mate would you mind sharing your throttlestop settings? Got the 9750H and 2060 SKU coming in a few days and i want to set an undervolt or underclock so a rough guide as to how much i'll be able to squeeze out of the chip would be much appreciated!

 

i'm undervolted to -119mV for both CPU core and CPU cache under FIVR. anything more will result in system instability. the new BIOS by default only allows a max of -50mV undervolt.

 

I absolutely hate the tripod heatsink design. I had a tonne of nightmare when i owned Alienware 17R4 and i cant believe i'm back to another tripod cpu heatsink. my heatsink does have cpu core differential, around 10C more for 3 cores, so it's clear that the heatsink is not balanced. I have already repasted it with CM mastergel maker due to after a few weeks of use, the kryonaut paste that came with it began to degrade peaking over 95C causing thermal throttle which is a massive 10C increase compared to when i first got the laptop.

I'm using throttlestop to undervolt and unfortunately throttlestop can't control PL1/PL2 settings. Whatever you set in throttlestop will not have effect on the laptop cpu. It can however be controlled using intel XTU but XTU is a pain to work with when it comes to startup. If you are able to control selenite's cpu PL1/P2 with throttlestop, please do share how.

Also for new owners, you might wanna repaste the system yourself, at least for illegear variant. when i opened it up, i noticed they never actually repasted the GPU because kryonaut paste can easily be differentiated from factory toothpaste. also, some of the thermal pads for CPU power delivery components are missing. Needless to say, the repaste job was poorly done.

Despite kryonaut being a good thermal paste, it actually is a poor thermal paste to use in laptops especially when intel 14++++++++++ CPU can easily hit over 90C. For those who are unaware, kryonaut can start to dry off if the temperature exceed 80C, which is why when you first repasted with kryonaut, the temps are good but after a few weeks of use, the temps get worse and worse (which is exactly what i experienced).

this is the reference: https://www.thermal-grizzly.com/en/products/16-kryonaut-en
"Kryonaut uses a special structure, which halts the drying out process at temperatures of up to 80° Celsius. This structure is also responsible for the nano-aluminum- and zinc-oxide-parts included in the grease to compound optimally, to compensate for unevenness of the component (i.e. the CPU) or the heat sink, thus guaranteeing remarkable heat transfer."

 

Thanks for the heads up. Luckily i have some NT-H1 and CM mastergel leftover. Will take it apart to put in my second drive so i'll be sure to give the paste job a look see. Don't have extra thermal pads if my unit is missing pads for the VRM.

Also, if i want to downgrade the command center app, just an uninstall and reinstall will do?

 

uninstall, restart, then install, restart.

 

As most of you have probably faced the same question and some of you may have had both in your hands: would you say the tongfang is worth 200 Eur premium vs. the vlevo p970, both with a 2060 and 300 Eur with a 2070 in the tongfang instead, all else equal? I am not really budget constraint, most of all I am interested in a low issue and low noise machine (with a few tweaks). Still I am wondering whether the premium is justified.

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

I had the P970 before the tongfang.
The clevo was good, build quality also.
The biggest disadvantage was tbe temperature of the keys. Wasd keys where hot to touch.

The Tongfang is much better in this regard.

If you search my posts, you will find a comparison between the 2.
Dont go for the clevo with 2070mq, it is not worth the premium from the RTX2060. Go for RTX2060 or full RTX2070. I regret my choice of 2070, I cut power down till 2060 levels because of noise. My laptop is now near silent, which I prefer above raw power.

Scores of TongFang:
Far Cry 5 is running great. 90-100 FPS fluently.

Scores of cinebench and Fitestrike.
Tongfang GK7CP7S, i7-9750H, RTX2070, 16GB DDR4 2666MHz in dual channel (Kingstong HyperX CL15)
Cinebench R15 --> CPU 1310, OpenGL 124,21fps
Firestrike: Score 18386, 21670 Graphics score, 16921 Physics score and 9163 combined score
The cinebench scores stays around 1300 in every consecutive run, pretty neat.

 

Just finished setting up my Selenite (specs in sig) and here are my initial impressions of the machine after playing a few rounds of Overwatch which is the only game i have installed at the moment.

1) Build quality of the unit was much better than i expected. Very sturdy base and keyboard deck. Very little to no flex at all when typing and using in on my lap. Though i'm a touch skeptical about the longevity of the rubberized coating on the deck as i tend to get sweaty palms quite often.

2) Screen is pretty good as far as 144hz laptop ones go anyways. Mine is a BOE07B6. I dont have the tools to properly measure brightness, contrast, PWM etc but so far its a touch on the warm side probably due to Illegear's calibration. I noticed a touch of ghosting on my panel compared to my main desktop's VG248QE but YMMW. Hardly any wobble to it as i'm typing this post on my lap. From my understanding, this specific panel uses PWM to control brightness and i will update this post accordingly when i start taking this machine around.

3) Keyboard is interesting to say the least. Much quieter than i expected but my unit has some key rattle. Would say its comparable to most other laptops with traditional chiclet keyboards. When typing quickly, it does tend to miss a couple of letters here and there but its not very common and can be easily avoided by slowing down your typing. Tactility is incredible for a laptop but could be more pronounced imo. Color me spoiled from my use of proper mechanical keyboards. Lighting is subject to your own opinion on backlit RGB keyboards but i just set mine to the rainbow setting in the control panel or just "white". But overall its a very good keyboard for a laptop.

4) Trackpad is your bog standard MS precision one. I use my G502 Lightspeed most of the time so i dont really pay attention to it much. My unit does have a touch of acceleration even though i've turned off pointer precision. The double tap top left corner to disable it is a real nice feature but the LED that indicates that it is off is kinda bright.

5) Sound is pretty alright for a laptop. Its no GT75 but it does produce decent sound and it is much better when using the Soundblaster app. My unit had no problems running both the realtek console and the soundblaster app. On another note my crossover frequency jumps between 50hz to 150hz and i'm unable to drag the slider. Anyone know whats up with that? But overall once you get the soundblaster app working, the speakers are more than adequate for daily use and gaming.

6) Gaming is as good as it gets for RTX2060 laptops. The only game that i have is Overwatch at the moment and i use very conservative settings to keep the frames up and the temps as low as possible. But it runs really good with no hiccups what so ever. Frames are also capped to 130 as this unit has some noticeable coil whine which gets even worse on turbo mode. Peak temps were low to mid 60s (when uncapped) for both CPU and GPU. Keep in mind that this unit has been repasted with TG Kryonaut. Will continue to monitor temps and the core differentials over the next few weeks and if it any of them jump drastically i will repaste with Mastergel Maker Nano. Gaming on Turbo mode however, boosts my 2060 to a steady 1905mhz

Overall i'm really pleased with this laptop. Great performance for the price i paid. Will continue tuning and getting my undervolts in over the coming weeks and hopefully i can get my girlfriend to ply her AC:Odyssey to properly push this laptop. I'm fairly confident that it can hold its own and keep cool while doing so.

A couple of things that i've noticed:

@alexnvidia my command center is 1.0.0.45 and i can confirm that all modes have very high PL1 and PL2 values. Hopefully this can be fixed soon otherwise i'll have to locate the 1.0.0.39 file.

My cache can't be undervolted past -80mv. Anything below that the whole system locks up and i have to force it to shutdown. Currently running a -150mv on the core and -80 on cache.

Thanks to this community for being so active on the forums about this and for giving real solid advice, tips and tricks!

 

My backlight on my keyboard has stopped working on my Mech 17R. I have tried uninstalling and re-installing Game Center. Before I send it back to get repaired has anyone had this happen and come up with a software fix?

 

Congrates on your new laptop. A couple of tips for you to jump start your tweaking.

1. After much complain to illegear and they feedback to tongfang, they now have command center v1.0.0.50. you can download this from their support page. Keyboard lighting and system freezing for 1 second are fixed. CPU PL1/2 however is not.

2. The panel i got is CMN175D, and i consider myself lucky to have this panel because i was fully expecting BOE07B6. Here is something unique, and i'm not sure if this applies to all 9th gen selenite or all tongfang GK7 series. They now feature a "power boost" feature which lowers the display response time from 8ms to 5ms. this is quoted from their website:

https://store.illegear.com/extreme-performance/193-illegear-selenite.html
"Note: ILLEGEAR's superior 144Hz IPS display with 8ms response time (5ms with power boost enabled) makes it the ideal gaming screen for dynamic games with fluid, fast-moving visuals. A quantum leap forward from the old 120Hz TN display with 15ms+ response time."

This is not to be confused with GPU boost and truth be told, i'm also not sure what power boost is. I dont see the option in command center, i tried to ask illegear support they pretty much know nothing much about this other than some marketing BS. when you ask them more, they will stumble and give you nonsense answers. you will not get anything specific from them because from the way they replied, it's obvious they dont know anything about this. But you are always welcome to try and share the info here. FYI, BOE07B6 response time is 12ms btb and close to 20ms gtg. I would love to see how they can deliver on their claimed "8ms", let alone "5ms" overclock.

3. Taming GPU temperature is never a problem for this laptop. My full powered 2070 at 115W rarely exceed 75C so i'm pretty sure 2060 will have no issue as well. It's the CPU temps that this laptop really struggle with. you will easily thermal throttle if you dont cap your frequency during gaming.

4. For the random sound popping and crackling, i believe it is still there even with the latest software and driver. The only driver that can suppress this is windows built in driver but if you use that, you will loose sound blaster cinema. That being said, i find that if you disable power management in realtek console, the occurance is much less.

Enjoy your laptop!

 

Cheers dude! Thanks a ton for your input over the last couple of months

1) I did notice the keyboard lighting and freezing isssue and am now on 1.0.0.50. Issue is gone. Still hoping that they'll fix the PL issue. I don't know how this is going to affect battery life though

2) Hmm perhaps i can source that CMN panel or something similar from ebay. The PWM is somewhat apparent to me when dropping the brightness down. The ghosting on the other hand stands out quite a bit. I'll give it several more rounds of games to get used to it but if i can't play then i'll most likely be looking at a replacement panel. The line on their website is most definitely marketing BS. But i'll raise it with them if i have to bring my laptop in for any issues that may crop up in the future

3) Have been on my main rig the entire day but will be going for a few rounds of gaming after posting this. But from the get go my temps are really good. I've dropped my 6 core ratio to 40 and am currently sitting on a -160mv offset in Throttestop. I may drop it down to 39 or 38 further down the line. Overall still very impressed by the thermal solution on this machine. Much quieter than my old LM-ed X7. The boost on my 2060 is insane tho. Never expected it to go to the 1900mhz level.

4) So far the sound has been working perfectly on my unit (touch wood). According to the console my audio driver version is 6.0.8710.1 and my soundblaster is 2.2.10.0. Turning on SBX with crystalizer and smart vol on loud really does improve the sound. Power management was off by default in mine

Notes:

a) i've tried the fan manager app that was posted on the 15in variant's sub but all it does is max out my fans whenever i try to set a custom curve. Perhaps i'm doing it wrong?

b) i've noticed my package power indicator in TS is jumping all over the place. The 15in sub says that it is because of the Nvidia Type C driver policy. Can anyone chime in on this if they have seen this happen before?

c) my battery seems to always be at 99% everytime i turn of the machine and take it off its charger. Whats up with that?

 

Greetings everyone,

I've searched this whole thread but I wasn't able to find an answer.
Can anyone tell me if the turbo mode that overclocks the GPU, which is available in Illegear and Eluktronics laptops AFAIK, is exclusive to them or available in all TongFang GK7 chassis?

The retailer I'm considering buying from doesn't mention this feature.

Thanks!

 

GTG is 10ms (calculated by average: 20 divide 2)

I believe the display overboost is just marketing. There's no such option in Control Center

 

Yup found no option whatsoever for that overboost thing. Just the usual false advertising

On a sidenote: My unit has that speaker crackling. Gotta listen for it quite closely but its def there. Power management in the realtek console does nothing

Wicked coil whine as well

 

cant help you with this. I myself do not have GPU boost for my 2070 due to it being not max q.

just as i thought. the speaker crackling and popping is not solved even with the latest driver and yet illegear claimed it's solved.

 

If it is the 2060 or 2080 Max-Q then the laptop should have it

I'll do a bit more testing with the speakers. Does yours occur at idle or when doing something?

@alexnvidia apparently office mode is now 35w. I restarted HWinfo and its showing PL1 and PL2 as 35w.

 

HWINFO is a bit buggy lately. sometimes the sensors would appear, sometimes it would not. and it no longer tracks undervolt in real time. say if you make undervolt changes in TS, it will not be reflected in hwinfo unless you restart the app. can you check yours too?

anyway, i am using command center 1.0.0.50, setting it to office mode and running TS bench from TS, i can see the CPU power over 70W. i dont think it's working, at least on my laptop.

 

Hey what are your C state percentages for C7 to C10? I am getting extremely short battery life. About 2 hours with the 63whr battery.

I'm hitting more than 10w on idle in office mode and with battery saver enabled. My C2 and C3 states on battery are also insanely high when it should be the deeper C states that are high percentaged

 

do you have msi afterburner installed?

 

Installed but its never switched on. My GPU temp is not showing up in TS so im certain that it is not AB unless i'm mistaken

Hmm thats strange. I'm running HWinfo and cycling between the 3 profiles using the button and office mode is 35w PL1 and PL2 while gaming and turbo is 70w and 80w

 

That's strange. Do we have the same bios and EC firmware? cos mine runs at PL1 70W PL2 85W and it wont change regardless of gaming mode or eco mode. your max is only 80W? can you check your firmware and EC version?

 

Hey guys,

Anyone here know the exact differences between the GK7CP7S and GK7CP6R?
From what I could gather, the GK7CP6R is very slightly newer?
If you look closely, the GK7CP6R has a line on each side of the keyboard, going to a corner of the laptop. The chassis is also 2mm thicker but no clue for what, it looks the same as the GK7CP7S.
Configured with 9750h and RTX2060, the GK7CP7S is 1469 and the GK7CP6R is only 1294 euros. Specs are otherwise identical.

Thoughts?

 

GK7-R is all plastic build with membrane kb. Slightly lighter weight. GK7-S has aluminium lid and mech kb. It's available with higher end GPUs. Cooling solution is the same in both models

 

I'll get it for you in about a day. I'm on my old laptop at the moment haha. But from what i remember, i asked Illegear to fully update everything on my machine (drivers, windows, BIOS etc) My laptop has windows 1909 while my insider enabled desktop only has 1903 lmao

 

I see, thanks a lot!

 

OverPowered V2.0 for $999

Gaming Laptop 17" FHD 144Hz Display, THX Spatial Audio, Tuned by THX Display, 9th Gen Intel i7-9750H, Nvidia RTX 2060, 1TB SSD, 16GB Memory, Windows 10 Home, Black
EVOO GAMING
Model: EG-LP6-BK

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Laptop-FH...9th-SSD-Gen-Spatial-17-Audio-Gaming/163944363

 

What a deal...

 

if you can open it and see if the keyboard ribbon is misplaced or has moved? I think eluktronics slapped a screenshot here. If not, I can try to dig through my emails.

Sorry to hear :/

 

Please post a screen-shot so I know which cable to check if you have it. Thanks!

 

It’s in this vicinity

Will upload a more specific picture next couple days as my SSD is acting up and disappears on me (have a few theories)

 

The all-black ribbon cable or the red/blue/yello/white/black cable?

 

The colorwd cable seema the battery cable...

 

So far in the couple of weeks of using this laptop, i must say that it is very impressive considering its price point. So far i've done:

a. A fresh repaste with CM Master Maker (11wmk). The initial paste job by Illegear using TG Kryonaut pumped out raather quickly and resulted in a large core temp differential. We're looking at about 10 degrees or more. I've manged to reduce it to about 5 or so in between cores. I probably will need to fine tune heatsink pressure since this setup unfortunately uses a tripod mount for both CPU and GPU

b. UV-ed the crap out of this machine. On stock clocks i've been stable in TS bench as well as in game with a -200mv on core and -80mv on cache. TS bench has a couple of cores just over 80 degrees with the rest being in the 70s after 3 consecutive runs at 1024 size. Looking at voltages in HWinfo, i believe i can push it to about -220 at most without crashing. Will update in the long run

c. For me, a fresh windows install fixed the crackling sound i was having with my speakers. If a windows update has been pushed to your machine and breaks soundblaster, just remove the realtek audio and soundblaster software from control panel and reinstall them

 

From my experience: undervolt core and cache over -100mv (same undervolt value) will have the best result. Undervolt core to a higher value like -200mv doesn't seem to make a difference in terms of clock speed and power draw. Once over -150mv the difference is negligible.

 

i did some tests and i can confirm your findings. core and cache needs to go hand in hand in order to achieve lower power draw. the cache undervolt makes a significant difference to lower cpu power. @Jared_T , you can test on your end to verify this. it makes no difference if you undervolt to -200mV or more if your cache dont follow the same.