CLEVO Drivers Update Utility by OBSIDIAN-PC

Windows 10 1903 is out 18362.32 19H1. What is the recommendation from your side? Upgrade/ clean install now or a few days later?

 

Totally unrelated to this software but a clean install is always recommended between each major update release.

 

Have you tested it yet? Does it break anything for us Clevo guys? Do we need different drivers? Does the usual clean install method still work (install OS, run Windows Update several times, then install and run Updater)?

Also, could you give us a suggested list of things to disable in the critical mode list in the DPC Fix thingy?

 

I think i will just remove that option to be honest!
As i said a lot of times.... it causes really high DPC, not the type of quality i want in my products to be honest.

Not sure, need to try it first


PS. Updater updated to 2.6.2:
- Added NH55 & NH70 support

 

Have been running it since yesterday and everything is working great! Updated from 1809 to 1903 though. All good so far

 

Can anyone please explain to me how to tweak the latency fixer? Never understood how these work!

Thanks in advance

 

Lost my Wifi Device Control, replaced by DPC Fixer

 

Well at the moment it's not really a "DPC Fixer", it's just the start of it... at the moment its just a list of all your devices, and you can select which devices you want to be disabled when you toggle the "Critical Mode".

The logic behind this tab is that the less active devices you have the lower your DPC Values usually are, the less "communication" between drivers and devices the better, so create your own list and disable all the hardware that you dont need.
For example, a critical mode for Gaming would be:
- If you use Wifi then disable the LAN / If you use LAN then disable the Wifi
- If you use external mouse then disable the touchpad
- Disable everything else you dont use during games like, Card Reader, IME, Fingerprint, APCI devices (which only output the battery), etc
- If you use external LCD and your Audio is going out through the NVIDIA HDMI Out then you can disable the Realtek Audio.
And so on...

Got it? Basically create your own Critical Mode where only the needed hardware will be enabled.

Yes, in reality the Disable Wifi was never actually a "Disable Wifi", it was a Airplane mode toggle.
This ALWAYS needs to be done by the BIOS, which was what i was doing. Disabling the WIFI adapter in most cases is NOT airplane mode, the BIOS needs to disable communications and antennas.
Since all models have the Airplane shortcut in the Keyboard (which actually works) thats a better solution then the one i was using.
It was getting really hard to keep compatibility with all the models, so i just removed it since it was a waste of space.

 

Well I had 0 issues with auto-dimming before the update.

 

Hello @John@OBSIDIAN-PC,

I have been installing my new PA71ES-G during the last days, including your software tools that I bought the weekend and I am encountering the following issues:

I am running Windows 10 on a limited standard account with full UAC active. ClevoService.exe is starting fine.

- Control Station (1.3.5) does not start with Windows (I have all checkboxes set in the Settings in all the tools). The Scheduled Task is there and set up correctly, but I get the error 0x800702E4 "The requested operation requires elevation." on startup. Needless to say that this is my biggest problem.

- When the PC comes back from sleep or when the screen was dim, I have to enable (double click) Control Center from the tray for the brightness to work correctly again (including hotkeys). I have the "brightness fix" checkbox selected.

- Fan Control (2.4.0) does not start with Windows. I checked the registry and the "Run" key entry is on the elevated admin user (when clicking the checkbox the app asks for elevation), but not on the standard user that I am actually using. I added the registry key manually and now it starts.

- Updater (2.6.2), "Storage" tab reports "Intel Rapid Storage" as "None Detected" although it is installed. Installing again does not change the status.

Thank you very much.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I do not have the Clevo tools installed.

 

Something is really weird with your system.
On a fresh windows install it should start out of the box.
Did you install any AV software?
Did you use the latest installer packages (in my signature)?

 

I have the latest packages, I mentioned the versions in brackets. Also, I do run the default Defender AV.

Meanwhile I researched the Scheduled Task issue and found that this error is normal. It cannot work.
It is not possible in recent Windows to automatically start an interactive process (that has GUI) with elevated rights (admin) as a standard user.
Only solution would be to indirectly start the process through a system service, which you are not doing, right?

So, the Control Center not starting automatically I guess is normal. Is everyone running Windows really using an Admin acount?
Do you plan to change the design of Control Center?

What about the brightness issue?

Thank you.

 

Using the forum search, I found a post describing the same problem (Control Station on standard account) in Oct 2018 that was never adressed:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-by-obsidian-pc.801464/page-292#post-10808295
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-by-obsidian-pc.801464/page-292#post-10808332

 

Wait, does that mean your windows user account does NOT have admin rights? Is that it?

Because we install latest clean Windows on all new units we sell everyday.
We even update Windows to latest version.
We install our apps on ALL the laptops.
We never encountered that problem.

 

Sorry, not sure I understand.

I did not buy the laptop from you, only the software (50€).
Yes, my Windows user is a Standard Account, not an admin account.

I also share the laptop with familly members who each have their own standard account.
Isn't that the basic setup that everyone should have?

Edit: The brightness issue is only after the screen wakes up (not after sleep) identical to what @anytimer experiences. The screen is 100% and hotkeys don't work.

 

Hello, new quality update from windows coming and it made the Realtek go wrong again
Whenever I plug my headphone to headphone jack, i can't hear any sound coming from the headphone, instead the sound still coming from the machine speaker. I tried to open the Realtek Audio Console but it closed immediately after.
Need help

Edit: Just did a reinstall on realtek driver, nothing works. SBX can open but not the Realtek console, I opened it and it closed immediately without any error shown. (when i uninstalled the realtek driver, the sound could come out the headphone jack meaning my jack still worked, but then reinstalled the newest realtek driver from Updater made it not working again)
Can i use the new SBX with the old Realtek driver?

 

What laptop model do you have?
Without Admin A LOT of stuff in Control Station will not work.
Moving it all to a service is going to be hella hard, not sure when i will be able to have that done (although it´s planned like with all the other apps).

What laptop model?

 

You should have looked into known issues regarding the new windows update via Google. It's not related at all with this software but because Creative is using an outdated certificate and the drivers simply refuse to work with the new update. It's being worked between Microsoft, Creative and Realtek.

 

I found a workaround and I am now using the tool RunAsRob which installs a system service.
You can then call this service (f.ex.through a shortcut or a scheduled task) giving as parameter your application and it will be started with admin or system privileges:
https://runasrob.com/RunAsRobRunAsAdminAsSystem.html
https://runasrob.com/RunAsRobRunAsAdminWithEnvironment.html

For the brightness issue, my Clevo model is PA71ES-G

Thank you.

 

Note to add to my brightness issue: every time I quit a 3D game, I'm at 100% brightness.

@John@OBSIDIAN-PC maybe you could add a global keyboard shortcut to manually reapply the brightness fix? I'm clicking this in the Control Station several dozen times a day. I have to bring up Control Station, uncheck 'apply brightness fix on start', then recheck it. OR click to move the brightness slider in Control Station.

 

P650HS

Probably, I'm trying to pair the new SBX with the OEM Realtek driver that came along with the machine and it's somehow.. worked partially (sometimes both working, but also sometimes, no sound coming from the headphone jack). And yes, tried to look into this issue on Google but got nothing.
God damn it Microsoft

 

I'm having issues with the headphone jack too, but only after my laptop has been idle for a while. Fortunately, a reboot always fixes it. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and turn off all power saving options.
I echo your comment about Microsoft.

Btw. I'm using Sound Blaster 2.0.0.33

 

As you may know in Win10 the CPU core parking feature is disabled by default. In Win7 it was only disabled in High Performance Power Mode.
In Win10 you can reactivate this setting in the GUI of the Power Options with a registry setting.

Is any of the Obsidian tools acting on this setting to reduce temps?
Do you have any experience in Win10 with this settings set to 10% or 100% (disabled).

Btw. you can check the CPU core state through the Task Manager->Resource Monitor (right vertical window).

 

Hey john, do you know if 10nm laptops are coming to gaming laptops soon? I know Dell already has an Ice Lake 2 in 1 laptop. only 15 watts but does 4.1 ghz... that would be awesome for a gaming laptop if IPC still same... temps ice cold and all cooling could be focused on a non max-q version of a full 2080 chip

@Papusan @Ultra Male what do you think of this idea?

 

Hey, does the keyboard LED program support the per key RGB version of the PB51?

 

Not at the moment. John doesn't seem to have a per-key RGB model to test so he can't work on it.
I hope he does get one soon and finish one of the major parts of KeyboardLED.

 

Currently i'm having issues with the keyboardLED app!

Was running flawlessly on Windows 10 1803 but a few days ago i had to reinstall windows and installed Windows 10 Pro 1903 build 18362.145 and i can't keyboardled to work with it (Changing colours doesn't do anything and the keyboard only lights in the default blue!

What i tried so far: Uninstalling all Visual C++ Redistributable packages from Windows and reinstalling the ones available in the folder "REQUIREMENTS" that @John@OBSIDIAN-PC provides with each software, controlstation, keyboardled and updater. Of other tools are working great and without a single issue.

Reinstalled all the latest updates for Visual C++ Redistributable from this AIO package: https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/visual_c_redistributable_runtimes_aio_repack.html

(always installed the latest packages from this site and never had a issue but in the latest format i had the same issue but don't remember what i did to fix it lol).

And after this i forced updates by editing work.ini in the updates and setting true to each workqueue (inside the file).

Resetted BIOS settings via Fn+D+POWER and nothing.

Rebooted and inside BIOS settings, i did press F3 to reset BIOS settings to default and F4 to save and nothing.

Any suggestions are welcome

ControlStation and Updater are working normally

 

Keyboard LED only works if you have Fan Control installed.
Is Fan Control working on your system?

 

Derp! No! forgot to install it! So thats why it wasn't working!

Edit: Now its working and i feel kinda stupid because of it!

Anyway, John in your next keyboard version, you should include a popup in the first time the app is started saying: If the app fails to work on your system, please install fan control too because its needed for it to work properly!

Something along those lines

Thanks a lot my good friend

 

Updater updated to 2.3.6

- Improved the Intel HD driver install process (specially for models with switchable graphics)

 

Keyboard LED v1.0.3 doesn't work on Clevo P650RP6-G, but v1.0.1 does well.

 

Until next Keyboard LED update you need to AT LEAST install Fan Control once.
You don´t need to buy Fan Control, just install it and open it once to make sure it can at least pick up your CPU Temperature.

 

Is there any planned update for Keyboard LED which doesn't use winmgmt?

 

Suddenly, my tools won't start and are crashing with an error code saying that some information in a DLL is missing.

After downloading Control station from John, the tool is installed directly under Program Files and not in the Laptop Tools folder as before.

Did i miss something in the last 2 months? Had no issues in the last weeks.

Do i need a reinstall of the tools, and if yes, how do i sync my settings?

 

The Laptop Tools folder method is discontinued for like a year, maybe more....
Follow my sig and get each app installer.
Each app will be installed in it´s own directory!!
Do that or you will have problems (we have a special ninja team that will hunt you down if you do not comply).

C:\Program Files\Updater
C:\Program Files\KeyboardLED
C:\Program Files\ControlStation
C:\Program Files\FanControl

Those are the defaults! Do it

 

Control Station updated to 1.3.6
- Control Station no longer requires any particular version of XTU, it now included the necessary communication files so you can download the latest XTU version from Intel and it will work
- Other small fixes and improvements

 

Moving Updater from one monitor to another caused it to disappear. It is running (getting notifications) but can't see it or select anything. When exiting, the "Are you sure you want to quit" appears on the left side of the primary (middle) monitor. Any ideas on how to get it to be visible? Or do I need to uninstall/reinstall?

 

Hi @John@OBSIDIAN-PC,

I have been getting shutdowns in my PA71ES-G, the laptop shuts down with no warning. I went to the event viewer it says event id: 41 kernel power. It happened two time now. The last time something like this happened was due to the fan application about a few month ago. I am currently on version 2.4.0.

 

Easy one...
Exit Updater
Open you user documents folder, there you will find \LaptopTools\Updater\updater.ini
Edit that ini files and delete the line that start with mainWindowGeometry=
Save the file, re-open Updater

Fan Control is using very "loose" EC access times now, so i was never able to get shutdowns again.
How often do you get shutdowns? You can try without Fan Control - Just do CTRL + ALT + DEL > Services > Stop "ClevoService".
If you notice Fan Control is indeed the culprit i can add a new option like a "Safe Mode" with even bigger access times, but i was almost sure that Fan Control was not causing this in anyway.
Do you have undervolt? Maybe too much undervolt?

 

I am undervolting -110mv, but I never had any issues with before. The shutdowns started sometime this week.

 

Weird... I haven't updated FC for a while now...
Do the test and let me know.

Sent from my Mi Note 2 using Tapatalk

 

I have the same problem, I reported it a few weeks ago, John updated the software to 2.4.0 and I thought it did the trick but I had 2 shutdowns today again (I didn't use it much since last month) and none after stopping Fan Control, something is still going on with that, I'm not undervolting, see below my original comment on that (page 411)

and then after the update

but sadly it's not the case

I'm sure it did not behave like that with previous versions of the software, I used it for months with no problems prior to around march-april, it would be handy to have some sort of "previous builds" options at the download page of the software

 

Updated FanControl to 2.4.1
- IF even with this version you get shutdowns there´s something wrong with that laptop
(Even the worst ECs handle double the speed i´m using now)...
The fact that you only get shutdowns when your using FC will just mean that it´s causing whatever is wrong to manifest.
The only case i was able to find a unit with that symptom ended up being the nvapi queries causing problems (yeah it was not EC), basically the unit had a bad GPU...
So if you keep getting shutdowns you can try disabling the GPU to test it out.

 

To the guys having shutdown issues, I too was having the same (after updating to FC 2.0).
I tried this as a solution
-Uninstall Fan Control, disable/uninstall ClevoService
-Install latest Fan Control and when it asks to install ClevoService - yes.

That fixed it for me.

 

Tried messing with the Updater.ini file as suggested, but it still doesn't show.

Only time it displays is if I uninstall/reinstall with an old Setup file. When I start it, it asks to update and then it shows after the update. Once the update is complete, it disappears and I get notifications concerning two of my Intel drivers (Intel ME and card reader). Tried moving the window while it was on the screen and that didn't help.

I have also tried uninstall - but get an error "The procedure entry point ?qResourceFeatureZlib@@YAEXZ could not be located in the dynamic link library C:\Program Files\Updater\Uninstall.exe.

I also tried renaming both the Program Files\Updater directory and the Documents\LaptopTools\Updater directory - but that didn't resolve it either. The strange thing is that on the reinstall it didn't create a new Updater folder in LaptopTools so I have no idea what ini file it is using.

Tried going down to one monitor and that was no help...

Any other ideas?

 

Give 20 minutes and I will check it for you.

Sent from my Mi Note 2 using Tapatalk

 

Updater Updated to 2.6.4
- Updater now checks if windows is offscreen on Load
- On Window Drag, when you release the window, if it´s offscreen it will try to snap to screen edge
- Added an option in the System Tray icon for "Show Window Center" that will center window on display
- Fixed the Uninstaller app error

A most reported problem is the fact that on multimonitor systems sometimes the apps get bad stored geometries.
When this happens they are restored to out of bounds positions, making the user unable to restore the window to a display

I check the Windows way of solving this, sucks.
I checked the way of QT solving this, sucks.

I made my own library, which is something like this:
I Check the position on both app load and every time you drag it i recheck on mouse release.

My check is very simple, i get the screen count.
I get a rect for the app geometry.
And i compare it against all screens geometry.
If it fits any then i dont do anything, else, i do my new snap function:
I get the screen x and y, get where the app is off (x or y) and where it´s off i increment the app rect to match the screen rect.

This code should be added to all apps.

Please test it and let me know how it works. There´s a little windows/qt bug at the moment where one of the edges value is wrong when you have multi screens with different resolutions so the snap there wont be good, but i´ll try to fix that later.

 

Once I did a full Uninstall/Reinstall on Updater with the new code, it is working. Thanks for the quick fix.

 

Recently reinstalled drivers for audio, because I had issues with SBX, and realised, that with both Realtek and Creative drivers installed, I didn't have any apps, nor Audio Console or Connect. Is it how it should be, because if so, then, where should I get the apps from? Thank you for the answer.

 

What model and Windows version?

Fan Control updated to 2.4.2

- Updated NVIDIA API
- App will check if it´s inside screen bounds and adjust (multi-monitor setup compatible)
- New snap to screen edge functionality
- New EC Communication timing method