EVOC P650HS-G ordered from HIDevolution

Hi all

Long time Mac user coming back to Windows after Apple's latest silly iteration of form over function(not to mention the price bump ☹️). I love the OS but I'm starting to need a little more graphical umph and would love to start getting into more VR related work.

Ordered a P650 not too long ago and it's on it's way here! Just wanted to say hi to everyone and also to @Donald@HIDevolution(thank you again!) who was a tremendous help in answering my questions and helping me come to a decision. Not to mention he managed to answer emails at seemingly all hours of the night! Originally I had been contemplating an Aero 14 since I had a gift card I could have used but after crunching the numbers a bit and talking with Donald, this just ended up being a better deal(not to mention better spec'd on the GPU side).

Questions though for those of you more experienced - What size screwdriver will I need to open the back? I opt'd to install my own drive so I just wanna make sure I have the right tools before it gets here. Also any tips on getting the case open? I'm pretty comfortable(if not overly cautious) with doing basic work like swapping out drives and memory but by all accounts, getting the case open sounds troublesome. Would a tool like a spludger or pick help?

now to count down the days till it gets here haha.

 

Welcome to the EVOC Gaming Team

 

That video is actually wrong. You need to slide the cover off towards the back on the RS and HS models. You can't pull vertically on it.

Nice purchase OP! Feel free to ask me or the owners lounge if you have any questions about the machine (I'm a P650RS owner).

 

oh thanks for the correction, do you have a disassembly video?

 

Hm no unfortunately. Can't easily make on right now either. It's not too hard, OP should be able to see the lip I'm talking about for why it needs to be slid off.

Edit: and he can contact me when it arrives if he really needs help.

 

@Galm thanks for the tip and offer for help! I'll keep that in mind. Hopefully won't be too much trouble.

I'm sure I'll figure it out but just so I can kinda visualize how it might work while I wait(probably won't be here till the week after this one); say I have the laptop with the display hinge facing away from me after taking out all the screws. I'm assuming I try and slide the cover in the direction of the hinge, or do I try to slide the cover towards me?

 

Slide it towards the hinge.

 

It finally arrived!

but then.... disaster struck

The case came off easily enough, but as I was trying to remove the hard drive caddy(I wanted to install my own 2.5 ssd), I'm not sure how far along it was already but one of the caddy screws ended up stripped. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Any tips on how to extract it? Is the super glue method generally ok? I don't have a dremel and not sure how well I'd be able to work with it.

Edit: tried superglue ha. I'm not sure if I just didn't let things sit long enough or if the screw is just on way too tight but didn't work bleh.

 

which is why I always recommend people they get the system ordered with all the SSDs and RAM preinstalled to avoid such things from happening. I know you save a few bucks installing your own, but then.........this......

 

Yea, normally I would have just bought one from em, but I essentially got this SSD for free, too good of a deal to pass up. I've swapped out memory and hard drives before and I ALMOST got it (grrr) haha. Just this last damn screw.

 

@Phoenix or anyone else that wants to chime in

Decided to ask for help from Donald to see if they might be able to help with this at all, thankfully I'm also in California so it shouldn't take too long to ship it back if it comes to that. I'm outta ideas and am lacking in tools ha. While I wait for his response, noticed a few other things.

a. Got a bit of backlight bleed in a couple spots(ignore the spots in the middle cause that's me)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2Y_rgsI5l5mMENYMC13aEVaek0/view?usp=sharing

Most of it doesn't bother me, I understand it's pretty typical to get backlight bleeding on IPS displays, but that corner in the upper left really stood out. Took photo in a room with a pretty good amount of daylight and was able to spot it instantly, is that worth bringing up? I don't believe I've ever spotted bleeding in daylight, I've always had to check in a relatively darkened room, even with a black background.

b. Noticed that some of the ports on the rear don't completely line up with the openings, there's a good amount of space along the bottom. HDMI is just barely ok, display port and power seem disconcerting. It's possible I just re-assembled everything wrong, but I've tried multiple times to reseat the case and it still looks like this. I can't remember at this point if it looked like this when I first took it out of the box.

Power is still pretty easy to plug in, display port seems to be a little more difficult to the point I decided to just stop cause I didn't wanna cause any damage :/ but I imagine it would probably go in if I really tried.
Is this pretty normal with Evoc/Clevos ? Not sure if that's worth bringing up either. Just a little worried about long term use

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2Y_rgsI5l5mRDNyM1VlUGNtdVE/view

Edit: images broke for some reason so trying again + adding links

 

I can't see your images. Use insur pls then post the image BB code

Just take your laptop back because you cause more damage the ports shouldn't be like that.

Also, back light seeing appears exaggerated when taken from a camera vs real life. So I'd it's not bothering you then fine. If it is really bad then bring it up to them

 

The port thing seems kinda wrong (mine isn't like that). Display I can't tell take it in a darker room.

You may be able to realign the ports yourself.

 

Rubberband between the screw and the driver head. Try this.

 

how's your new HS?

 

Not dented

Working great though, re applied all the thermal pads and the GPU temps are much better and even across both cards.

 

@ Galm - thanks for the input! I'll keep that in mind going over things with HID. As for the bleeding, here it is in a darker room. It's a little bit exaggerated like Phoenix pointed out, but I managed to compensate a bit tweaking ISO to get it pretty close. Imagine that the upper right side is covers a slightly smaller area, say about half of what it looks like now. Ultimately I think I could live with it, but still a tad disappointed that its that noticeable, especially since I asked them to make sure to QA for any major bleeding.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2Y_rgsI5l5mX2s3MHkxMk5YWlk/view?usp=sharing

@bloodhawk - thanks for the tip! I did try that at first, sadly I don't think I have any rubber bands that are both thin enough and wide enough to cover the screw. If I happen to come across another rubber band that does the trick, I might give it a shot; found some screw pliers that look like they might work though, gonna wait till they get here to give it a go.

Since I just realized I haven't done too much of this yet(damn that screw!!!), figured I should probably also offer more thoughts to anyone that might be also considering their first Clevo from HIDevolution(or any other reseller) since this is the reseller feedback section haha.

HIDevolution has been good so far! The sales process went smoothly and the laptop came in the timeframe Donald had discussed. Overall responsiveness is good, so far I've gotten a response within 24 hours during normal operating hours. On top of that, while I wasn't expecting a response regarding my predicament for awhile given that it's a long weekend here in America, and even though Donald didn't really have to respond since my issue didn't really fall under his jurisdiction(I had assumed he and the other sales folks handled the logistics of any warranty/repair issues which is why I emailed him), he still took the time today to say hi which I thought was great! Waiting to see what the repair guy says but so far he's been good too when I asked about drivers and other things I might need to have ready when installing a new ssd.

Minor notes on computer itself I'm actually pretty impressed with the build quality. It's a mix of plastic / aluminum, but it's sturdier than you might expect. Keyboard feels great, though I think it could be a little less, for lack of better words, squishy. There's a bit of flex in the screen lid which is a bit disconcerting coming from something more solid like a Macbook Pro but seems better than most PC laptop screens I've encountered.

 

@Donald@HIDevolution can you get this man a new set of screws? @sortofsleepy

 

For the best technical help and warranty service, either email [email protected] or call him at 888-666-3418 Ext. 3. Please let me know if he doesn't resolve your issues.
.

 

I GOT THE DAMN SCREW OUT!!! Holy crap that was painful. It appeared to be screwed in pretty tightly which might have been why I stripped it when I went to unscrew it.

I also managed to get the ports in the back to line up a bit better with the opening, turns out I didn't have the back cover seated quite that well. The power adapter port is still a bit weird(the designer in me seeking symmetry is screaming), but the adapter plugs in easily enough and appears to be charging as far as I can tell. We'll see what happens.

I think I'm ok with the bleeding. It's not ideal that it's there but it seems like it'll be ok with day to day use; pretty much just disappears on the default Windows wallpaper, just gotta avoid watching letterboxed movies haha. Based on the couple of videos I've seen, it seems pretty straightforward(though nerve racking) to re-seat the bezel if I get super annoyed with it.

For future reference if anyone has this issue, and assuming you're not dealing with a recessed screw and have enough space, save your self the trouble and just get these
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LMMU2HG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

(From what I understand, there's also a slightly cheaper version under the brand name "Engineering". )

I initially panicked a bit cause it didn't seem like it'd work after all, the thing kept slipping; but after calming down a bit and taking my time the M#%# screw finally came out.

 

Awesome man! I wanna buy this but the video I've seen is for the regular Vamplier not the mini, my concern is, if it's a laptop screw, it's usually so tiny to even be able to get a grip of anything to remove it, how did you remove it? how were you able to make any contact with the screw if it's screwed deep in to remove it?

 

The pliers are tiny, probably about half the size of regular pliers so it's designed to fit into smaller spaces. Like I said, I initially panicked and there was a good deal of cursing - you're right, it can be hard to get enough contact with the screw head depending on how much it was tightened. In my case the screw was perfectly flush with the surface it was attached to.

I just slowly kept gripping and twisting; for a while, it didn't seem like I was doing anything to it, but eventually I was able to get the screw to turn. Will it work in every time? I can't honestly say. But I think it's definitely worth keeping in your toolbox just in case.

 

ok I will order it now.

Thanks a lot always wanted to keep a tool like this in my arsenal as I over tightened a screw in my previous MSI GT73VR Titan Pro (middle screw) and was never able to unscrew it so I just left it alone to not damage it as that laptop was replaced now

 

EDIT... OK. Browser was acting up, and I didn't see anyone's post after the one about the last one being stripped.

NEVERMIND!!

I'm not sure it is too tiny, but have you tried the 'rubber band' method? - http://www.wikihow.com/Use-a-Rubber-Band-to-Unscrew-Stripped-Screws