G-Sync and the Sager P377SM-A (Clevo NP9377-S)

Just wanted to recite this question into it's own thread:

TLDR: The notebook goes nuts with a x1440 144Hz G-Sync display connected; anyone have ideas to test?

 

Here's a screenshot from Event Viewer that shows an odd event that comes up after unplugging one of the displays:



"The Speed of processor N in group 0 is being limited by system firmware... "

I'm pretty sure that the Windows Power Options were set to Max Performance at the time.

 

Unless you notice any performance decrease I would not worry about it.

 

While I didn't check for performance issues, I do consistently have this graphical issue after the display has been unplugged:

https://i.imgur.com/K0YIsgO.png

https://i.imgur.com/A5YlUej.jpg

Also that time of '71' seconds in the first screenshot is approximately how much time I had the monitor plugged in for. That is, once the monitor has been plugged in, windows is completely halted and will remain unresponsive until the monitor has been unplugged.

Then the graphical artifacts set in.

The internal-display problem will persist through a hibernation / resume cycle, but will go away after a restart cycle. The exact same problem happens with both of the G-Sync displays, it has been confirmed to be a problem even with a brand new NP-9377 + 980M, and it affects Windows 7, 8.1, and the 10 dev-preview. I think it even caused Ubuntu to reliably lock-up when I had first tested things a few weeks ago.

 

Is that G-Sync capable, then? Thought mobile was 965M, 970M or 980M only ... for the time being. If so; both monitors might've worked when limiting refresh rate manually, using their OSD. Still, they should've done this automatically ... both support standard refresh rates.

The Event Viewer thing is normal; TDP or Turbo limit.

 

The 980M I tested had the same issue, artifacts and all.

The monitors also display a 'No Signal' equivalent and will not show any OSD display (menu, adjustments, etc) other than that message.

And at the time that I bought the laptop, yes, NVIDIA asserted that the 880M supported G-SYNC.

Also, I don't think it's normal for the firmware to completely lock-up the CPU for 71 seconds. The interrupt request handlers for toggling num/scroll/caps-lock were all being ignored, and if I setup dispdiag to run after a three second delay, it would not actually process until more than a minute later with the minidisplayport connected.

 

You're right, of course, it shouldn't lock up. Officially the P377SM-A is non G-Sync, meaning that it should revert to 60 or 120Hz ... Nvidia claims to work on supporting G-Sync on older cards (retroactively), so there's probably a snag somewhere, otherwise they wouldn't have had to retract their statement about the 880M. Might just need some patience, as far as the card concerns, anyway.

Afaik, there's no non-G-Sync Clevo owner that has G-Sync working. At minimum it requires non-Optimus (ok, here), an eDP panel (you may have LVDS) and a bios cookie. The last bit would require a new bios, which doesn't exist atm. The eDP panel oughtn't to matter for an external screen, of course, but if you'd have an LVDS panel then the gpu(s) would have to output an image on two refresh rates at the same time; a 60/120Hz for the panel and a variable one for the monitor. This could be the issue here ... which panel do you have?

 

You could try disabling the monitor in windows before unplugging it if you are really having issues.

 

I have the 120Hz internal panel with the 880M (the LGD02C5); not certain if it's eDP or LVDS, but the EnTech moninfo utility shows "Input signal type..... Digital (DisplayPort)."

That was one of the earlier things I'd tested--using the hotkey to disable the internal display, then plugging in the Mini Displayport interface. It just shows 'No Signal' and the hotkeys are unresponsive to turn the internal display back on until about thirty seconds after unplugging the external display. I guess I could have tried using device manager to turn the display off, but that seems like a joke of a workaround.

And what do you mean by 'before unplugging' and 'really having issues?' I can not use the laptop at all before unplugging these G-Sync external displays, and I'd call a $800 monitor that doesn't work with a $2,000 laptop an unusual and bothersome issue. I'd at least expect the system to degrade gracefully and functionally operate without G-Sync in the event of some conflict, but instead it seems the Clevo will just die-on-contact.

For reference, even when I use a three-meter-long/very-cheap Mini Displayport cable with a Macbook Pro (w/ Intel Iris graphics), the G-Sync displays gladly/beautifully run at up to 100Hz with the 1440 resolution. I couldn't find anyone using more than 100Hz on any Mac, so I believe that could be a hard limit imposed by OSX.

I'd still wonder if others have tested 1080/60Hz G-Sync displays without running into the same problem.

 

It's an eDP, at least. One of these four (17.3" LG + 3D), maybe it's the 3D that's throwing it off?

Have a funny story about that ... did the same thing by accident; a really, really, really bad decision, that was .

Prema's still an option. You have the stock Sager now, so if it doesn't work out, flash that back.

 

Same exact issues here you can see some of my posts on the topic but basically - tried two gsync monitors - a 1080p and a 1440p monitor - both have exact same behavior and both returned. Never could get it working right. Something is just incompatible on these laptops and nobody seems to have a way to fix it from what I have read. But definitely not an isolated issue. Real bummer too as I was really looking forward to using these 980ms with a 1440p gsync screen. If you ever figure out a way to get it working please let me know. Thanks.

 

Can both of you use ' Create INF' in MonInfo and post the result? Or just copy/paste the 'Raw data' section at the bottom, that's fine too. There'll be several entries, probably the old gsync monitors as well; copy/paste these too, everything but "Sample".

Which specific Macbook? Might see if that uses an official gsync panel (the LGD02C5 is not).

Did notice there's a validation check in the nvdia installer, but it looks only at the 'Plug and Play ID' in the EDID, not the actual timing values. So override the LGD02C5 with LGD046C and it will fool nvidia, at least. Can make a registry hack that will do this upon boot (can't edit edid while in use).

 

Little heads up (I've literally only signed up here because you encountered the same problem I'm having). I originally got the NP-9377-s with the 880m, last year I forked out the extra 1600 bucks to upgrade to SLI 980m's to prep for G-Sync. So after new year I got me a Dell S2716DG, it's fantastic and was heavily discounted on amazon.

Plugged it into the Thunderbolt port and got a black screen. I can tell it's trying to push video to the port because the main laptop display craps out, flickers and then produces artifacts. It also locks up the machine in a similar manner to what you described.

Anyway I got in touch with Sager and here's what they've had to say. (Bear with me, the guy's English is not the best so the email thread is pretty confusing). I haven't had a response since the last mail...

(apologies for the rushed formatting - start from the bottom for the original message).



***transcript***
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If that is true, then the NP-9377-S was falsely advertised to me as supporting high res displays via Thunderbolt. The reason I purchased (and have spent over $4000) so far on keeping the machine up to date is because I was preparing to go Sli and Gsync. Thunderbolt/Displayport IO was one of the features listed on the machine specs and is outlined in the marketing material for the NP-9377-S


This is text taken directly from the original np-9377-s product overview that I was presented when originally purchasing the machine.

Thunderbolt technology transfers high volume data fast. Move data at twice the speed of USB 3 and 12x faster than FireWire. Connect your NP9377 to large high-res displays and your media drives, up to 6 devices at one time on one port.

(from the gentech pc website – my original purchase was from Xotic PC which doesn’t list the NP-9377 anymore)

https://gentechpc.com/showpages.asp?pid=1363


If the NP-9377-S doesn’t support mini displayport output via thunderbolt why is that not listed anywhere on the product description?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


I have stated that NP9377 does not have displayport output. NP9377 has HDMI output. Any HDMI monitor works with this computer.


Sager tech support
1-800-741-2219
1-626-964-4849
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Right that's what I mean, you can connect mini display port to thunderbolt and it should work. I even checked Intel thunderbolt description and they say it can be used as mini display port. So this is what I'm doing, I have a dp to mini dp cable connected from the monitor to the thunderbolt port. I know it does something because the PC tries to pass video to the thunderbolt port but both screens start to flash and then the GPU crashes causing artifacts.

So I was wondering why this thunderbolt port does not work with mini dp, or is it a problem with my gpus? Are the 980m cards I purchased g sync capable?

Upgrading the machine to SLI 980 was mainly so I could run gsync thinking that thunderbolt would be fine with display port monitors.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

No. The connector of the Thunderbolt and the mini displayport are the same.

Sager tech support
1-800-741-2219
1-626-964-4849
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


I was under the impression that the thunderbolt port which I do have was interchangeable with mini display port?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hi xxx, NP9377 does not have displayport output. The computer does not work with displayport input monitor.

Sager tech support
1-800-741-2219
1-626-964-4849

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hi,

I just wanted to get in touch as I’m having an issue with my machine.

I received the SLI package and installed it, everything went well and it has been running great. I just purchased a Dell G-Sync monitor though and it will not work when plugged to the thunderbolt port. It’s my understanding that thunderbolt should double as mini display port. The monitor works fine on my other machine and also fine if I plug to HDMI but as soon as I try to plug in the dp cable both screens flicker and go black, sometimes resulting in artifacts.

Is there something I need to do in order to get it to work on this machine?

Any support you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

***Transcript***



As you can see it seems for some reason the thunderbolt port on these machines does not support minidp output at all. It's a total farce, there's no information to that effect out there. Why include a TB port and then disable part of it's normal functionality? I'm super annoyed, this is a pretty basic expectation for any machine touting thunderbolt support (even going so far as to mention using high res displays with it as part of the marketing schtick). If I get any more info I'll let you know, for now it seems like we've been sold a lemon.

I won't be buying a notebook again. It was my first and last, desktops may be a bit more inconvenient but you don't get arbitrary limitations on regular hardware.

 

why not use hdmi?

 

G gsync only works with display port.

 

HDMI does not support the variable refresh rate natively, AMD are working to get some new monitors with free sync support but it requires tuned hardware.

HDMI still relies on a clock signal from the GPU that must remain the same otherwise it breaks.

 

Awe this sucks! I was planning to get a G Sync Monitor. After Spending the money for Sli 980m and this laptop it's like a slap in the face! Like that's why I got thunderbolt lol Let us know if you ever get it working somehow

 

Am I missing something I still don't understand why g-sync wouldn't work from the displayport ??

 

It should work from the displayport tbh..

Sent from my LG-H811 using Tapatalk

 

It doesn't work with HDMI. It is supposed to work with DisplayPort.

 

As per below, G-sync works with thunderbolt on Asus G751JY Laptop.

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthre...hunderbolt-(mini-display-port)-to-ext-monitor

I know its a different brand, but at least this proves the concept.