Lotus P150EM is great / Malibal.....sucks

Hey all

Still a newcomer and long time lurker at NBR i want to share my experience with my new Lotus P150EM (clevo), specs on signature.

First of all i want to say this is a great machine, and it works just superb IMHO. I wont make a review or anything like it, but will try to sum up my impressions.

This story has two sides to it, a nightmare and a dream...

The nightmare was receiving the notebook more than poorly set up. I lost a week or so because MALIBAL did not do its work properly bringing all the pieces together. Its absolutely unacceptable that a so called serious company cant even tighten the CPU's heatsink screws properly...
The notebook, when i started testing and benchmarking it, shut down with no apparent reason and repeatedly, YES it shutted down completely out of the blue. I even got a BSOD once..... Very puzzled i tried everything, checked everything, adn of course contacted my reseller's support.... After reinstalling windows it shut down so fast i couldnt even troubleshoot it....
Not only was MALIBAL VERY slow to respond *over 24 hrs on average* but absolutely useless in their responses.....
Long story short: about to throw things to the notebook... i brought myself to open the rear and check if something was loose (i am no techie and really didnt want to go to this extreme, easy as it is to many)....
WELL.... IT WAS!~and the CPU heatsink non the less, it was so loose that the screws almost werent there, the whole thing moved by gravity when moving the notebook to one side or the other....

With a simple 1 dolar screwdriver i tightened all four screws and checked the GPU ones (those were ok, but still not very tight...).
After that....... THE DREAM BEGUN

The machine is really more than i expected, i get tired working on it, I really cant keep up its pace..... too many years waiting seconds or minutes for things to load or open i guess, now i almost miss that "idle" time.
I am sure "going solid" (SSD) is part of the trick, but the i7 3610QM and the 8 GB RAM really shine as well. After i reinstalled OS (i was already doing this to fix the shut down issues before finding out the loose screws) I have checked the PC with benchmarks and games and cant complain a bit, everything works great and has worked great since, not one single problem so far.

As for MALIBAL..... well they didnt even comment on my complain (yes i did tell them how stupid and incompetent they were... not to mention unhelpfull since they never suggested checking the hardware setup) and just closed my tickets, wich is the normal support they do, they completely erase all ticket after a week or so inactivity... They actually had nvidia drivers installed on the machine... and after the OS reload they told me i didnt need them (i asked because i couldnt install them back from the CD), so go figure how they work i bet they hire trained monkeys to set notebooks up.... then again NO, that would be offensive to monkeys!

So NO dont buy MALIBAL, they truly and utterly SUCK! I hope one of their representatives shows up here and defends the undefendable, but I am waiting seated.....

7970M issues??? to be completely honest i can play everything i want to with no problems at all. I must say this is my first high end PC so my opinion is, of course, very biased by that, but still i play a lot and can confidently say this card is a beast, and once the issues (wich i meassured and detected btw, still couldnt suffer from it) are fixed by the coming drivers it will be just more beastly.
I fully support everybody's claims that AMD should deliver what it promised and offered, i have measured GPU usage and in some cases its lower than it should be, so YES they have to fix it.

I have been playing Borderlands 2 just to test the performance, and even tho i did detect issued its highly playable IMHO, most (98%) of the time, as long as you dont use high physX effects you can play it in ultra settings (45 to 55 FPS average in all situations). I have played and enjoyed playing so much that have become addicted to the damn game! BL2 is really a very good title! lol

The few low points i have found about clevo:
1) the mousepad area, the razor sharp edge really hurts your hands if you are not carefull... bad design, dont know who thougt of changing the classic "dowhill" and soft edge all laptops i have ever seen have.

2) The keyboard layout is weird as already said in this forum, but i am getting used to it already.

3) The audio could be louder, but it aint as bad as many pictured it.

4) The fingerprint reader is crap, either that oir its defective, because i really cant use it properly, it hardly reads my fingerprint so i cant set any passwords with it (any help with this would be appreciated)

sounds like a lot of lowpoints but not really.

well there it is, i am a happy potato, a dog with a new bone.

cheers

Voz

 

I have the same problem too with the fingerprint reader. it worked for like 2 days and afterwards NOTHING!

 

Holy mother of great almighty all knowing scott, I am in awe.

A while ago when MY NP9150 wouldn't turn on, I opened up the case to check some things. I later reported in a post that I repasted the GPU. When I closed the case, the laptop suddenly worked. The one problem is that I didn't pay much attention to the fact that I TIGHTENED THE SCREWS on my CPU heatsink as well.

 

Wow voz, that's pretty bad... I haven't gone out of my way to research myth, but I normally hear good things about them.

Anyway, glad you got it working and you're enjoying it. What are the issues you're experiencing 2% of the time in BL? Low gpu usage? Framerates? Both?

edit: Yes, I'm retarded for misreading the thread title as mythlogic instead of malibal lol

 

He's talking about Malibal not Mythlogic

They used to be pretty good and had active Malibal reps on this board. Then one day changed completely.

 

Uh oh, someone said something bad about Malibal, lawsuit incoming...

 

I've never dealt with Malibal other than checking their website out. But I can talk about Mythlogic. Got nothing but nice things to say about them. I don't know if those guys over there sleep or not but I've messaged them several times late at night (I'm Hawaii time, they are Central?) and they've gotten back to me within an hour or two on a few occasions. Excellent customer service from them.

 

Mine works but i have to push it to the extreme of actually clicking, and only then it reads my finger, it might be some kind of calibration because the whole idea of fingerprint reader is not having to push anything.... i still dont care much, i dont think i would use it much, but its not working properly.

Yeah, but its definetely NOT something end users should know or do at all... i have heard repaste jobs done in many resellers so it seems to be a trend of sorts.. I do not know it tightening the screws is "wrong" but in my case it did the trick...

Malibal, mythlogic seems to be better and very active in this forum.

In BL2 there arent really any issues, one time i saw FPS go down to 12 or so (in a fight with several mobs), but that time i had physX set high (i now play it on low). Since then i have not monitored it so often and i just play and enjoy the game, wich is pretty awesome btw.

here are my last two benchmarks with fraps:
2012-10-01 16:30:18 - Borderlands2
Frames: 7610 - Time: 180000ms - Avg: 42.278 - Min: 21 - Max: 61

2012-10-01 18:24:56 - Borderlands2
Frames: 9055 - Time: 180000ms - Avg: 50.306 - Min: 0 - Max: 64

that 0 FPS looks bad but i really didnt suffer or noticed it at all, i was busy staying alive against captain flint....

so yes, there are issues probably, but non that have affected my playing experience so far.

pff i should sue them most likely, thei customer support is really bad, they closed their forums... glad i dont expect any help from them.
For a sec i was worried not posting this because they would be angry at me and dont give me support in the future, but with my past experience that really aint a loss.....
Now i am glad they did not brand my machine as configured in my order, YES i oredered MALIBAL brand and they didnt put it! ROFL.....

my laptop looks slick and underrated, just the way i want it to...

 

Glad to hear you have everything sorted out at least. I, too, would no longer recommend Malibal. I have their machine, as seen in my sig, and I was very happy with their service. They really helped me out especially with my screen problems, which weren't my fault to begin with, BTW. But little by little I noticed they were starting to speak rudely. Like they stopped caring little by little. Right now I'm just hoping that my laptop continues to be awesome for the year it's under warranty so I don't have to call Malibal anymore. And just for the record, I'm not one of those pushy, annoying types.

 

I was just referring to a previous time when Malibal actually threatened to sue users here at NBR for libel for saying negative things about them. Then they packed their bags and went home. The machines are nice, but the management behind the company are a total loss.

 

I'm kind of surprise to her Malibal is bad now. I took a look at resellerratings.com and they score a 9.7 out of 10. The recent ratings are pretty good too.

If their service is going down like most people claim, I will not buy from them anymore. This may be a sign they are having financial trouble, and not willing to focus on quality and customer service. I can be wrong, but you never know. This just reminds me of monarchcomputers.com.

 

From my experience tightening all the screws on the heatsink can actually lead to worse temps. The w350et I had before would actually run 2-3c cooler under load with one of the screws slightly loosened, but that was without using the CPU spacer. Obviously the heatsink isn't supposed to be barely attached like yours was, but just something to think about.

 

I love these Malibal threads. I've read more horror stories about Malibal than any reseller on NBR in just a few months. Incredible.

But let me get this straight. You had a 7970M and they had Nvidia drivers installed? How is that possible, you can't install those drivers, it would so no compatible hardware found. Are you sure it wasn't the PhysX software that was installed?

Anyway, for the fingerprint reader, works awesome here, and I love it. Deagleson and I were saying how awesome it was while gaming on mumble, we both love it. Trick for me is, if you swipe quickly, doesn't work. I don't swipe like a snail, but I do it carefully make sure it read it. Not a big deal, still awesome.

As for screw tightening, I always kept mine tight. Never worried since every heatsink I've seen on a laptop have safe guard measures so you can't tighten too tight, so the core isn't crushed.

 

Lol Vozier, I was saying that it was the same for me as well. I was saying that I didn't realize tightening the screws on the CPU actually did the trick, but in reality it did, just like for you.

 

AnandTech - Testing AMD

What 0_0

 

Nice. I just saw the article myself and opened a thread.

 

Malibal is garbage.

About 6 months ago I purchased 2 laptops from them. Both didn't get the Icy diamond I paid for... I luckily sent my to Mythlogic for some testing they wanted to preform and they set me up really nicely by re-pasting the CPU and GPU with what I paid for but didn't get from Malibal and I'm having no more issues... My wife on the other hand, her p150hm's 6970 is toast (surprise surprise, probably from over heating... man the re-pasting I paid for and didn't get sure might have helped...) and we are to worried to send the laptop to them after the supremely unprofessional treatment we received while trying to get my computer back into healthy form... And better yet they want us to give them 500$ to hold as collateral for them to ship us a new card to replace her bad one... The best part is we are considering just out-right buying a new card for her just to avoid dealing with those a-holes.

The only nice thing I can say about Malibal is that in my horrible dealings with them, I learned Mythlogic exists, and my next laptop will be from them for sure.

 

Yeah its awesome Mythlogic stepped in to help, very impressed by their enthusiasm to help anyone with a Clevo. I'm sure that investment on their part will gain them lots of loyal customers. Curious why Malibal can't figure that out.

 

are you kidding? lmao that's hilarious. threaten to sue someone for giving an opinion in an open forum instead of apologizing and/or defending yourself.

 

For those who had purchased from Malibul and had bad experience, please post your ratings on resellerratings.com. This will help spread the word and allow other people to make better purchasing decisions.

 

Well my temps look nice now, CPU never goes over 62 C in 20 to 25 C room. GPU works under 80 all the time), all this under stress (gaming) conditions.

There is the safeguards and i didnt tight them so hard anyway, just enough that they wouldnt loose by themselves again.

I am actually not sure about the drivers, probably they were not installed, but i did see NVIDIA toolbar icon, the regular nvidia cards configurations and customization icon. Never opened it and then i just formatted and reinstalled OS.

I will give the fingerprint reader another chance someday...

yeah they are MEAN, they seem to reply just to get rid of you quickly, one doesnt feel they give a furry rats ars...

Sadly i purchased about two months ago, and since i got my notebook just two weeks ago i already poisted positively on resellerratings.com when asked so by Malibal.... i had my laptop brought overseas by a relative. I will check if i can edit my experience there.

 

Please do not post about how him tightening the screws was bad. I guess no one got the message that his screws were so loose that heat was not being transferred correctly. Then apparently no one got the message when I later posted that doing the same revived my NP9150 when it wouldn't turn on. Like I said: MY laptop wouldn't turn on either at one point, and when I opened it up, I did two things: repasted the GPU and tightened the CPU screws (they were very loose). I closed it up, turned on the laptop, and it worked again! I originally thought repasting the GPU was why the laptop worked again, but Vozier's post supports that if the screws are too loose on your CPU heatsink, TIGHTEN THEM. Without proper heat transfer, the laptop will not continue boot and allow the CPU to caramelize itself.

 

Heatsink screws should be fully secured in a laptop for optimum heat transfer. It's not like desktops where you can keep tightening that you can deform the main PCB (ahem, yes I've done it). Leaving them loose shouldn't result in worse temperature, then something is wrong.

 

Yeah definetely too loose screws can screw your machine, mine shut down so often at the end that i couldnt work at all.

 

Voz,

For your audio complaint, have you gone into the Control Panel > Sound and double-click on the speakers. In there, click on the Enhancements tab and be sure that Equalizer or Loudness Equalization boxes are checked. Additionally, try using the THX audio if you haven't already.

In regards to the fingerprint reader, any swipe style reader is junk. It was discussed in my CompTIA security essentials class, and they are generally rather unreliable. If anyone can correct me and show me a laptop with one of those scanners that has excellent reviews, I would like to see it. Cool in theory, but greatly flawed.
If you are looking for tight security on your system, facial recognition might be better, Microsoft AES encryption is better, and steganos password safe are far better for enhancing security.

 

i checked the loudness equalization, thanks for the tip, i am still new to win7, i do have THX installed if i dont recall wrong, will update if i find improvements. The sound is good anyway, this aint a party speaker or nothing like it, lol
As for the fingerprint reader i just want to make it work, i dont really need it.

cheers
Voz