Clevo W740SU 14.1"

It's better if the heat dissipates quickly than getting trapped inside. The reason plastic gets less hot is that it's a good insulator.

 

Which is exactly what it should be. If there's too much heat inside, we need a more powerful cooling system, not a heat-conducting shell.

The shell has minimal airflow compared to the heat sinks and fins. It's not good at giving out heat even though it's much bigger.

 

I just updated to Kernel 3.11 ( Linux Kernel 3.11 Released: Install / Upgrade it in Ubuntu 13.04/12.04 | UbuntuHandbook) and performance issues I have complained about seem to have gone away. Just watched some minutes of a 1080P movie in VLC with no lag or fan noise. Computer seem to respond faster and fans are very quiet. By the way, I see some people complaining about the keyboard is being unresponsive.. that's not my problem with it – I got the version with the metal plate soldered to it. My problem is the layout of the keys, and how the I always touch the clickpad if i rest my hands to type. It seems the touchpad area is to big, and the keys are to far away from each other. Its really not a pleasant machine to type on because of this...

 

You should look into doing something to disable the touchpad when you're typing;

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics#Disable_Trackpad_while_Typing

Also, does the metal plate actually help with the deadzone on the keys? Because right now I can barely hit T, O, P, [, ], A, D, G, H, J, K, ;. ', X, C, V, B, and N. And the spacebar has a ridiculous deadzone on the left and right 20% or so.

 

That's interesting, so your keyboard works fine, just the layout bothers you? Did you have a chiclet keyboard on previous machines? Maybe there's hope for the keyboard yet.

 

That looks pretty flimsy!!

 

I so wish that was the case with mine :[ I want nothing more than to love this laptop

 

You should try Touchpad Indicator, it has a setting for automaticly disabling the touchpad when you plug in a mouse, and you can disable the touchpad with a keybind

 

Well, my laptop is all packed up and I'm just waiting for UPS to come pick it up. Hopefully Mythlogic can resolve this issue, I'll keep you all posted. If they can't fix the keyboard then I'll either be waiting for a revised shipment of W740SUs that addresses the cruddy keyboard, or just waiting around for the next Iris Pro 5200 laptops.

 

Good luck with that. There is so little news on this thing, hope I've made the right decision.

 

While waiting for my laptop I decided to write a full fledged review of it. Feel free to check it out if you want a more in-depth explanation from an owner:

Mythlogic Callisto 1413 (Clevo W740SU) Review | System Downtime

 

Just thought I'd share this email.....

Me:

Hi,
I am very interested in purchasing the Clevo W740SU from Mythlogic. My only hesitation is the numerous user complaints about the key board with the Clevo W740SU in general ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/721987-clevo-w740su-14-1-a-28.html). It's rumored System76 is fixing the key board for their next batch of W740SU's they send out. I was wondering if Mythlogic has any plans in the future to address the issue with the key board?

Thank you very much for the help!


Mythologic:
Hey Mitch,

We haven't seen too many issues with the keyboards, you have to type pretty heavy on it, but no worse than any other Clevo keyboard. We do know that we have the "fixed" version already. Also the post by some people with our laptop that had a keyboard, that was just a broken keyboard didn't have anything to do with the model specifically.

thanks

 

Phoronix finally has its performance review up:
[Phoronix] System76 Galago UltraPro Performance Preview

 

Got an email from Mythlogic, looking good so far:

Hey,

Just want to drop you a quick line, that yes your keyboard isn't right, and we'll be replacing it. Should be getting the keyboard later this week and we'll get it out to you after giving a good test

thanks

 

This is depressing, where are all the Iris Pro notebooks wtih good keyboards and build quality? Nothing from IFA about any alternatives at all. Is there even one model coming out with a 4850 or 4950hq in the next six months?

 

Does the fact that this thing is heavily throttled when not plugged in deter any of you from purchasing?

 

It's kind of weird that no announcement from HP, Dell, Sony, Asus, etc etc with IrisPro laptops. Maybe the cost is too high right now for decent profit? Kinda sad.

For me being throttled on battery is not a concern simply because when I'm doing work, ie: video/photo edit....I'm always plugged in anyway. The rest of the time is email, browsing etc.....do that on Nexus 7, battery for days.

 

The only thing I'd need the extra clockspeed for is gaming, and when I'm gaming I generally have the laptop on a table and plugged into a mouse, ac adapter and ethernet. But the throttling is really noticeable when it does kick in, and honestly I would have to imagine that not throttling would be better on battery life -- from what I understand processors nowadays are so power efficient that it's actually better to keep them at full clock speed so they can complete jobs faster and sleep longer.

 

I play a game that I dont believe is very cpu/gpu intensive, but I just want the 5200 available for when I do plug in and play. I mean.. how slow is 1.3ghz and 200mhz gpu going to feel when unplugged? Lets say I was multi-tabling online poker.. any issues?

 

The retail price of a 4750HQ is $440, which is $60 than a 4800mq, and is $28 less than a 4850hq (2 v 2.7 v 2.3 ghz respectively) but you get double or more gpu performance with Iris Pro.

Compare that to a notebook with a dedicated 740m or 6750 where the mobile gpu costs $50 - 60 on its own, and where Iris pro can trade blows.

The point of the chip is that it should, one, obsolete all the mid range gpus you would usually stick in a media notebook, and two, be an excellent high performance notebook with huge battery life in a smaller form factor.

I figure the bigger issue is these companies have deals for years with amd / nvidia, and they don't want to redesign their chassis to remove the gpu solder points and circuitry. It is also a solder only chip, so you have to build the pcb for it. Beyond that though I don't get why Lenovo or Acer isn't taking a mid range chassis with a last gen high end intel part and no gpu and throwing an hq part in it.

 

Actually, it doesn't offer any heat/power advantages over a 4700/2+750GT(which performs better). It seems nvidia did a good job for power management this time. I expected the same you say, but unfortunately reviews don't show that.

 

How the hell does a 47w tdp cpu + 38w gpu have higher heat / power requirements than one 47w tdp apu?

I wouldn't expect a 750 to be a power hog at idle. That isn't the point, and is why optimus exists. The point is that if you are taxing the system, a discrete cpu and discrete cpu running at max should produce signficiantly more power and cooling demands than one apu on one die. Even if the apu has slightly more internal power use (the anandrech review mentions it pushes 55w under combined load) cooling one chip over two should drastically reduce case size.

 

The big review on this unit seems to suggest that Intel's cooling system (hyperbaric, or whatever it's called) does a decent job with heat, with no throttling. I've been reading a lot about many of these ivy bridge and haswell chips seem to run real hot, and that throttling seems to be quite an issue. Part of the reason I'm looking at this 740. Although I'm a little wary of the 2.0 clock speed. Wondering if I'd notice a big difference between a 2.4ghz 4700 etc. Some of the early benchmarks seem to show they're pretty close.

 

Note that under any meaningful workload without throttling you should be seeing this thing turboing up to 3ghz even under multi-core loads.

Though I wonder where *any* notebook with a 4850hq is. Its MSRP is $28 more for a 300mhz bump on the cpu under the same TDP, which I think is worth it.

 

I'll be batch rendering HD video files when I'm on the road, so I have a feeling I'm not going to get the turbo 3ghz, which is ok. THose tests show it sits at 2.0 under load. And very good point regarding the 4850...........I mean if Clevo has these available, where are all the big boys? I guess smaller companies are more agile on their feet etc? Sigh, I'm trying to hold off buying something, but can only wait so long.

 

Does this unit really require an mSATA drive to boot an operating system? I got an extra 2.5" SSD lying around. Can I use this to boot this unit?

 

You can install your SSD then tell the BIOS to use that as the primary boot drive.

 

Can you comment on the throttling while unplugged and if that will be user controllable at all in the future?

 

Thorttling while unplugged can happen to many models as the battery just isnt enough to provide enough juice to run full speed. You can always try throttlestop to see if that will help, we haven tried or heard of anyone using it on this particular model.

 

So anyone hear anything about new or revised keyboards? I'm still waiting to hear from Mythlogic, I'm thinking of just turning my RMA into a full-on return if they don't get this turned around quicker (it's almost at the point of being past the 30-day return policy)

 

I just got mine yesterday from System76 and have only spent a couple of hours with it. Here are my initial impressions:

Chassis: I actually was worried it would feel very cheap and plastic (my previous computer had an aluminum body) like some laptop brands, but I was pleasantly surprised by how nice it felt to touch and use. There is some flex to the lid as others have reported, but if you are only opening and closing it normally it is not an issue. You shouldn't be trying to twist your screen or putting heavy things on top of your laptop under any circumstances anyway. It is also very light and slim. Fans seem to be very quiet.

Display: Awesome. I love the matte screen and the colors and viewing angles are great.

Ease of Setup: I was up and running in under 5 minutes and customizing my desktop, watching YouTube, etc. No problems.

Performance: The processor seems to be very fast. The SSD obviously helps in the speed department as well. I booted up one steam game (Legend of Grimrock, so not too graphic heavy, but played at max resolution and medium-high settings) for a few minutes and it played very well.

Audio/Speakers: Audio quality isn't spectacular. It doesn't get very loud and sounds like it is mostly treble with no bass. However, it is adequate and, since I use headphones most of the time, I am not fussed about it.

Trackpad: It feels and works great for me, especially after enabling tap to click. I like the glassy/smooth quality to it. I didn't experience any bad jumping around or anything.

Keyboard: I can tell that the flex of the keyboard that others reported (such as in the notebookcheck review) was indeed fixed. I get no flex whatsoever when I type. However, I can also tell why some people have not been too happy with the keyboard. The keys are low profile, which is nice aesthetically, but as a result you get a short keystroke, which feels a little off at first. There is also a problem with keystrokes registering IF you do not press them somewhat hard and decisively. If you just kind of glide your finger across the key, it probably wont register. I tend to type somewhat hard anyway, so my typing actually has not been too bad with the Galago so far and hopefully will get better as I get used to the new keyboard. A new keyboard also takes a little bit of getting used to. Could it be better? Yeah. It is as horrible as some people have been claiming? Not in my opinion. But again, you do have to type a little hard. If you do, your keystrokes should register. Of course, that is not necessarily what everyone wants to have to do and I agree that they should be more responsive, especially for people who have a softer typing style than I do. I might try to take a typing test on it later (I usually type around 70 wpm with little to no errors) to try to really test it. So far I was just typing random things in LibreOffice or in google search and it has worked decently for me.

If any of these impressions change after using it more, I will be sure to update you.

 

That's encouraging. I've been holding out for the Gigabyte P34G, but if I don't see any update on that in the U.S. by the end of next week I may pull the trigger on one of the four configs I've saved on Mythlogic dating back to early last month.

 

Any opinions on whether I should get this or the p34g?

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 2

 

I also received my unit within the past day and have very similar impressions about the screen, processor, keyboard, and case as Knuxson did. I would like to mention that I type fairly hard and had no issue using the keyboard. I did notice that since the keyboard keys are a bit flimsy when pushed on a corner and the keys are so shallow, that if you do not hit them squarely it is possible that you bottom out the corner of the key without activating the switch. Had they made a deep enough case like my old acer, flimsy keys would not be an issue. Otherwise I had 2 stuck pixels on the panel which are really frustrating. I've been running a pixel fixer for over an hour and even tried massaging it with an eraser(although I assume this really only works well with TN panels) and had no luck, so I'm not sure what to do at this point.

Stuck Pixels

 

Once you've discovered them, you can't ignore them any more... IMHO. I'd send it back and re-order if you are otherwise satisfied.
I see you run ubuntu. Did you update to Kernel 3.11? I'd love to hear how much runtime on battery you are getting.

I've also ordered a machine and it should arrive at the end of the month (keyboards are not available right now). I guess I'll upload a video since there are none from users... or did I miss them?

 

Nobody solders anything to the chassis and with very few exceptions a new notebook computer have _everything_ changed each generation. Motherboards always have to be model specific anyway...

 

Bummer on the pixels. I haven't noticed anything wrong with my display. So far I think everything else about this machine is great. The keyboard really is the only issue. I got some more typing in on it last night and even took a typing test. I ended up a little lower than what I usually type, with only 58 words a minute. I usually get closer to 70. When I am typing fast and frantically, I notice that the keys that are most likely not to register for me are E, O, and the space bar. If I slow down a bit, it becomes less of an issue. But, ideally, this whole thing wouldn't be a problem at all. But I still haven't gotten more than a few hours with it and I really hope I will get used to typing on it. I think some of my typing errors are also still caused by not being used to the spacing and feel of the keyboard. As I said above, the keyboard for sure could be better, but it isn't like it is impossible to type anything. I will be doing some actual writing this weekend and will give an update on how some extended real-world typing goes.

 

I have to agree, making the board smaller and making the designs smaller far outweighs any potential layout re-use, especially when this changes with chipset.

 

i've got mine today, though afirhgt forarder, i am typing on it now, you can notice the key rops, unless you type hard on the keyboard or hit it on the cente the kes won't register, i wonder if there i any soluton can be dne like removing eah key and adding somthing that inrease the probabilty of trigering the switch.


the other isue is the tackpad, you hve to enable the tap to click, and beause the resolution is so hight its very hard toclose a tab on hrom or close winow without missin a coupe of times, i hpe there is a software solution toit..

i've paid arond 120$ to have this reach kuwitthrough a firght forwarder, i wonder how much i haveto pay to send it back to US in case i want a refund..

people who don't type hard, and are fast typers, think twie bfore ordering, this is an exampe txt typed wtihh galago, and i had a G19 keyboard which is hard to press o, anykeyboardi nhe world is better than this keyboard..

 

Sad to see they keyboard issues, didn't they test the machine? How can this go past the QA department? This was the machine I was considering at first, then went with the w230st on a whim, glad I skipped the first batch at least. Good luck to all the current owners, hope Clevo releases some form of fix.

 

To follow suit, this is me typing withut correcting keystroke errors. I don'tseem to have asbad a problem as mohsh86 above, ut as you can see, I am missing some keystrokes here. I am trying to type fast, and already there are a few letters and spaces missing. It actually starts to get better as I keep typing though, because I start to change how I am typing to acommodate for how the keyboard performs. For the record, it actually FEELS okay to type on, it is just the random letter or space every nowad then that is the main issue.

EDIT: For easy reference, after typing the above I bolded all keystroke errors so you can know for sure what were keystroke errors and not just bad spelling or something. There are 534 characters above, including spaces, and 7 keystrokes that did not register. So, you are looking at around a 1.3% error rate for this small test.

 

Reduce the sensitivity a little bit, and enable some level of acceleration.

I used to navigate the cursor on a 2048*1536 ThinkPad with a tiny touchpad and it was manageable. The W740SU's touchpad appears to be much bigger than that thing:

 

Yes, mess around with sensitivity until you find the right balance for you.

 

Does anyone know if it's possible to overclock the iris 5200 or undervolt the 4750HQ?

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 2

 

Did you try running Intel XTU?

 

Unfortunately I don't own the laptop yet. I'm trying to decide right now which one to buy and the overclockability is an important factor...

Could someone that owns the laptop try Intel XTU?

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 2

 

Highly considering returning this machine. Given that two more stuck pixels have showed up as well as some burn in with the screen + the somewhat annoying keyboard, I don't know if I can put up with this for ~$1200. I would go as far as saying that given all of the random defects I cannot recommend this machine to anyone.

 

I'm 90% sure that the graphics frequency is locked since as far as I know the 4930MX is the only one with an unlocked graphics multiplier.

 

try Typing speed test

i type 50 words per minute because of this whole keyboard, my error rate is 13% !

what do you have in this website ?

 

So did anyone ever figure out why the Galago only weighs 3.8 lbs? Is it simply because it lacks a hard disk?

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 2