Clevo N155RD - GPU does not perform well

Hi everyone,
It's Ender from Turkey. I have a problem with my Clevo laptop and I want to gather some information about my model around the world and get some help while I am arguing with my local reseller.

First of all, I am a newbie in this forum and If I am wrong about anything please warn me.

This is my laptop model: N155RD
http://www.clevo.com.tw/clevo_prodetail.asp?id=833&lang=en

I have a problem with my graphic card. It does not work on full-power. What I mean with full-power is that my graphic card think It is not connect to do electricity and it set clock to 300 MHz like power saving mode. How do I know and How do I test it.

benchmark = https://unigine.com/products/benchmarks/valley/
All drivers updated to newest versions (bios included). All setting had been tried with Nvidia tools.(I am computer engineer I know these stuff)

1-) Benchmarks 13-15 FPS
2-) Games 20 FPS

If I install the Control Center(Just and performance utilizer does not really necessary) which can be downloaded from Clevo website FPS goes to between 70 and 100.

My local reseller insists about that Control Center should be installed to perform well. I do not agree with them. I have 3 friends who use Clevo laptops do not use Control Center. My laptop's GPU does not work well without Control Center, but it has to.

In Turkish forum, one of the users finds out that when Control Center is not installed and FPS is around the 20 if you pick out and then in the adapter GPU get back to it' power. It is a very strange situation.

Let me put it this way. Look at the GPU Core Clock
(Adapter is plugged in already)


After the plug out and in the adapter:



You see the difference. If you install Control Center it will start with the second picture's values.

Anyway, I could live with this until I start to work on my thesis. It is about image processing with CUDA on Ubuntu. When I check the GPU values from console I see that my clock is around 250-300. In this case, I do not have any Control Center. Currently, I can not use my laptop with it' power with Ubuntu.

My local reseller claims that they do not support Linux. But how it can be possible? I am giving a fight against them and I think it is a broken product. I want to get ideas about the product users around the world and maybe there is someone who faced with the same problem could help me.

 

You could try a custom vbios, one that has all profiles set to maximum. That way it will still switch, but then to another no-throttle profile.

It's embedded in the system bios (oprom) and can be extracted with MMTool. Made a simple mod of the stock v1.05.11 (see here). Make certain to flash the EC 1.05.03 and stock 1.05.11 first and the mod last. Though not sure if this model will even allow you to force flash it; the modded bios may not pass Secure Flash (use switches ' /X /B /P /N /L' when running afudos). There's also a risk of bricking, of course, so it helps if you have an spi programmer, just in case ...

Other than that; yes, it's certainly a bug. Since it's a recent system there's bound to be a few more bios updates and, providing sufficient people have reported it, one of the updates ought to have a proper fix. You could wait for that, too.

 

All high power notebooks throttle the GPU in battery mode, modern batteries can't deliver the power needed by a high performance notebook going full tilt. Plug in to get the machine running at full speed.

 

I will look at those things It may really help. Thank you for your answer and time. I will come with results.

Thank you for your answer but did you even read and understand the problem or my explanation is bad. It may my bad sorry for that but it is not about running GPU with battery.

 

Ah I see, the English is a little hard to understand.

Have you made sure the nvidia control panel is set to prefer maximum performance in the 3D options?

 

Those setting already had tried so many time with different persons.
On the other hand, as I read think that my problem more related with "Power throttle" because when I open ubuntu or mint brightness is set to %30 and GPU MHz values are too low both Windows and Linux.

@t456 can you suggest me a source that I can read about these flash and mod thinks or you can give me a brief explantion about these terms. I only know how to update bios (I think) but the terms(flash and mod etc) you pointed I never heard them before, also I do not how to do it. For example, the file you send with mega it has two files named N150RD_mod.BIN and N150RD_stoc.BIN I do not know how to use them(Run it Linux or Windows?). Should I use it before or after bios update?

I think the important part was "Make certain to flash the EC 1.05.03 and stock 1.05.11 first and the mod last" this sentence but I can not get well. If you explain it a bit detailed I would be appreciated.

 

Have you asked your reseller if they have a later BIOS version?

 

Actually, they know nothing that's why I am here and searching for an answer. Their driver page is a clone of the Clevo drive section. My bios version is 1.05.04 which is latest bios supplied by clevo.
Last time I talk to them with phone they said I have to install control center to get working GPU and they do not support Linux. Can you believe it?

 

Update to the latest stock version from that mirror (EC first then BIOS) and update your HotKeyApp to the latest version. That mod file there can't work for various reasons...

 

Ok, thanks, you're the expert; removed the link. Would've been too easy, I suppose.

Unfortunately, there's no HotKey for Linux, so ... really do think this is a bug.

 

Thank you for your answer. Do you mean with EC first this right?

Then bios update is this (latest unofficial version):


My current bios version is 1.05.04. Does reducing my bios from 1.05.04 to 1.05.03 have bad effects?

Also, I do not have HotKeyApp in Linux. I want it work on Linux as well.

 

If your current EC is newer then you only have to flash the BIOS.
(Don't downgrade)

 

Are there any Clevo Company Representative in this forum like Sager?

 

@Meaker@Sager

 

Yep, though the advice of Prema is usually worth following