Current thoughts on Clevo P170EM + 7970M, Enduro

Hi everyone!

I'm wanting to make a slight return to my laptop, which has been in hibernation for a while now. As the title says, it's a Clevo P170EM with 7970M and running with the infamous Enduro technology.

The whole reason I put it in its bag and never use it is because I found the system unstable. The Windows 7 installation going nuts after a little while, perhaps after tinkering a little too much with the CCC drivers, as I found was necessary to get the PC to perform better than a potato just taken out of the ground. 'Going nuts' meaning certain drivers failing to load, causing things like the WiFi to not load on startup, and other similar failing hardware/software that would fix right up with a fresh installation.

Has there been advances on the driver technology that makes dealing with Enduro tolerable at all? My most frustrating experience is possibly the risk of blue screens when uninstalling/installing the graphics drivers. At the time, every new CCC driver (release and betas both!) had new and exciting way of interacting with the 7970M/Enduro combo, causing either great performance and/or stability increases, or terrible utter failure, requiring several reinstalls of the software to figure out which of the version would run best on the machine.

Maybe I can bypass some of the issues with a clean OS install and not the pre-existing bloated Win7 it came with. Or maybe it just gets worse from tinkering with the OS. Any feedback is greatly appreciated, as I would hate for that PC to stay unused.

Thanks for reading!
-Festmester

 

There was bloatware? That seems unusual for a Clevo.

We hardly hear about Enduro machines anymore; I gather drivers improved over the years. A clean OS install might make everything copacetic; be sure to install the chipset driver (first) and then the Intel HD Graphics driver, right after the OS is done. The remaining drivers go after those two, then your updates.

 

Thanks for the reply

Eh maybe not bloatware, but the standard laptop version of certain programs was driving me a little nuts, since that could block many features of the program and only opened up after replacing them with a proper version.

This sounds like a good approach! I will try it out in one of the following days. Thank you very much

 

While enduro could cause slowdowns in specific titles I never hit into those sorts of issues. Try a fresh install, all standard drivers and see where that gets you.

 

Sounds good! Follow up with results, or with issues/concerns if you have any.

 

It seems using a clean Win7 install with all standard drivers is working quite well for the machine so far!

Though I'm having trouble with the graphics card being a little too excited, I had this problem before related to the ULPS, where disabling it would resolve matters.

Running a game like EVE Online, it runs 90-100% utilization at around 90ºC, which is way out of hand for a game like that. Currently trying to find the cause of this!

I'm not sure if it's a non-issue or not, since I'm happy the games will take advantage of the graphics card. Though it does seem there is no middle way between the ~20% and 90%+ I see from different graphics settings. A single setting can bloom it from low to high, and make the difference of 60º to 90º. Not quite sure what to expect from this

 

Drivers that you should install:
-chipset
-imei
-usb3.0
-intel(graphic)
-amd(graphic)

optional:
-wifi
-ethernet
-card reader

High temperatures may be caused by:
-dust that clog the cooling system
-the dried thermal grease between the core and the heatsink
-not having the "tape-mod" between fan and heatsink

Solution for "90ºC problem" is to clean it all and make tape-mod or(to temporarily avoid that problem) try to decrease fps, for example by RTSS(comes with msi:ab) lower fps = lower utilization = lower temperatures. You have to create there a profile for game and then set the fps value that you want.
New Thermal Grease(paste) and thermal pads highly recommended.

 

I never had high temperatures with this laptop (7970M as well), as I always removed the dust.
I encountered the wifi problem though, which caused it to not load at start of the computer, until you wait two minutes or use the troubleshooting tool from windows.

Glasswire showed me that the ISATAP adapter and another hardware adapter were removed before or after the problem was solved by windows, so I guess, the problem sticks there.

It may help you to install Glasswire and look at the notifications. Maybe that will help you out finding the root of your problem. I just accepted it as I didn't restart the system very often and it didn't take long using the troubleshooting tool from windows.
In terms of temperatures: Clean the dust off, if you have never done before.

 

Eve tends to run the FPS pretty high and just keep consuming GPU as much as it can. You could V-sync to stop it from doing that if you don't mind a little input lag.

 

Thanks for all your feedback so far everyone. You are very helpful!

It was a really good point with the thermal paste. The stock thermal pads were all hardened up, I could hardly seperate the GPU cooler element from the GPU itself, and the old paste/pad would come off in chips and chunks. I went ahead and removed the old stuff and on with some new, fresh stuff! I have always been sure to clean the dust out of the machine, but as I took off the GPU cooler, I saw a chunk of dust had collected in between the two cooler elements. This I would only find in the process of replacing thermal paste. On high GPU usage sessions, this change seems to have dropped my average from 90C to 85C or even 80, which is quite good I think. I replaced the CPUs paste, which has also dropped its idle and average temps by at least 5C.

On the topic of EVE, I found the standard DirectX version to be tough on the GPU (DX11 probably). There is a setting to run the game in DX9 mode. This change alone dropped usage from 70-80% to average 20-25% on the same settings. This of course drops the temperature, and combined with new paste, the temperatures are already looking amazing. I already run V-Sync on it, if disabled the GPU usage spikes to 100% immediately.

Next on my to-do list for mods: enhance airflow to the machine with proper stand and modding/removal of back plate to allow more airflow, and tape mod to direct airflow inside. I imagine these methods will help a great deal.

 

Could you please elaborate on why one should install IME ? (i guess thats what you meant)
What advantages it brings?

 

Just skip it, it's not necessary. My fault. :]

 

The Enduro issue has been gone for very long now, AMD fixed it already way back in late 2013 and from then on it just got better and better, with Crimson its probably as good as it could possibly get.
Just remember to install Intel first then AMD second.

Funny thing, I tried nVidia GTX 970M and Optimus is far worse, hence why I have STILL not upgraded from my M290X that and I am a bit of a fanboy but non the less, the terrible Enduro issue, non existent anymore not with 7970M nor the M290X.