My new 170EM - review opinions etc

I will write new post because to many problems yesterday.I install ssd from my asus and its better today.







My specs

17,3 FHD (1920*1080) Nonglare TFT LCD LED Backlight
Ati Radeon HD 7970M 2GB GDDR5
Intel Core i7 - 3610QM 2,3/3,3Ghz 6mb HD4000
8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1333GHZ
SSD 128GB Samsung 830+ SSD Crrucial M 512GB
DVD-RW-Slim DVD+/-RW
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 130
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit

I bough german used 170ES so this mean I have german keyboard.Laptop in brand new condition with 2 year warranty from hawkfoce in germany.I put in both ssd from my asus and Im able to use it and play some games.I have to learn this german keyboard until I replace for US.I must say that keyboard suck.I must press hard to type or when playing games.No good.Asus G73 have much better keyboard.I miss so many lettes when typing.

The body is semi gloss and its finger print magnet,not like rubberized Asus G73.Body is thick in front which is also bad for typing or playing games.Overall laptop looks good,nice clean look without stupid lights and leds.This laptop have no sign on cover or under screen which I preffer.

I install drivers from cd without problms but I had problems to run some programs but after anothr clean install problem is gone for now.To see temps in hwmonitor I must run kombustor at the same time.My gpu idle temp now is 42 but fan is spinning ,not full speed but let say medium.Or maybe this is idle fan speed?If I restat laptop than fan slow down or turn off.Anyone have same problem?

This is my score AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor,CLEVO P170EM score: P5808 3DMarks
Funmark give me 90max C but I will test again after I aply tape to cover gaps betwen fan and heatsink.

BF3 campaign sometimes is strange.Sometimes I chave to wait long time until team open door or other things.Game load time is longer than on asus,dont know why.I did not install Intel Rapid Storage and Intel Rapid Start.Maybe I should? I will try later.I can play campaign and multiplayer on full ultra and never go lower than 40fps.Utiliyation is 99% when ulra with xAA.If I turn off 4xAA utiliyation go down to 70-80% but still fps are high 50-60fps.




Good: body design,screen,power
Bad: keyboard,fan noise,semi gloss body surface


If anyone know how to fix that fan which dont want to slow down or tun of when just browsing? Temp is only 42.
I put laptop for sleep for 5 seconds and after wake up gpu fan is off.

Will post more later but this keyboard suck.The worse part of this laptop.

 

I love the keyboard. I much prefer this keyboard over any chiclet keyboard I've tried so far. I have no issues with missing keys or ghosting here. Granted it's a bit loud, but honestly, I like the noise and the depth I have to press. Gives it more tactile feedback for me when I type, love it.

 

well i see your asus had an SSD... does your new p170em have one? An SSD would cause games to load 10 times faster

 

My only complaint now is keyboard and fan noise at idle.
Steelseries is chiclet? Will fit? Its softer in typing?
GPU now is 41C and fan still running .Did turn off once at 41C.

Now gpu fan turn off at 46C but turn on again after 1 minute at 46C

what programs tun on as high performance? only games and testing programs?

 

SteelSeries is better but does not fit exactly.

 

That is interesting on the fan noise. Mine never really kicks in unless I am gaming or running a benchmark. It is quiet enough I don't notice it too much. Which Bios and EC is your system running?

 

From the pictures, that close to a wall, the hot exhaust will be sucked right back in.

You could try deflecting the exhaust air upward with an angled peice of paper, leave more clearance from the back wall, and you can also block the airflow from coming back under the laptop along the back side with somekind of bumper or skirt. This might help to improve the cooling situation a little.

 

Mine is even closer to the wall and I have no high-temp problems. I have the IC7 and I use a NotePal U3, though. For those with shallow desks, I highly recommend a good cooler like the U3.

 

its not close to wall
10 inches from wall

laptop is loud when gaming,tests etc which I dont like.Yes,it has a lot of power
BF3,Crysis 1 and 2 at max settings with good fps
keyboard suck to

Iam very disapointed with this machine.

 

No such thing as a silent gaming laptop on load. My NP9170 is leagues quieter than my old Asus was.

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk 2

 

So why you buy it and no an Alienware?

 

I bough for less from private person
I just give it a try and i dont like it.

 

He'll be even less happy. AW fan noise is louder during gaming than his Clevo. I guess he's stuck with the Asus G75 then with the GTX 670 and no upgrades ever and voiding warranty to even apply thermal paste.

MSI fan noise again louder since it's dual venting and one massive single fan for both CPU/GPU.

 

not gonna lie sometimes i turn on the turbo fans cuz i like hearing them
those dont even bother me while gaming

the fans that usually come on are even quieter

maybe im weird like that though

nice to see the card is performing decent at least

like i said on p150em owner thread i turned off msi afterburner monitor thing while i played games and i swear fps must have gone up like 30 fps
at least in blacklight

 

I also don't use MSI monitor thing, for FPS monitoring I just use FRAPS. And as for fan noise when gaming, can't really hear the fan noise over my monitor speakers or my headphones. Not an issue for me. Just the overall quality, awesome keyboard and touchpad that works, love it over the G73. G73 is just way too big considering it's just a 17" laptop.

 

ya i love this thing

 

however the touchpad for me moves around weirdly sometimes

can get annoying to control but its fine for surfing and stuff
maybe this is because i uninstalled the synaptics drivers because i cant stand the multi gesture non sense

 

Maybe, the touchpad with it's multi-gesture etc are fine for me. I never game with the touchpad. It's just for browsing the net. Even if I'm doing work in which I want to be working fast and efficient, I'll use a mouse.

 

Fantomasz obviously was counting on a similar performance as his Asus G series (when it comes to noise output) and went with Clevo. To be fair, Clevos are not the most quiet machines out there but ones with the best cooling.
Hope he gets what will suit him better

 

Like a slow one that doesn't need as much cooling perhaps.

 

Very interesting... I actually like this laptop a lot. Got mine yesterday and have pretty much been playing it since.

I owned a Sager m570TU before this, and the drastic difference in build quality and just overall quality is amazing.

I don't love the keyboard, but I do like it. To me, it's very good for a laptop keyboard. Not sure what you mean when you say you have to press hard... I barely touch the keys on this thing and it types. I'm even used to a mechanical keyboard, which takes a lot less effort than most keyboards.

The fan noise is also a lot better than the m570TU. I'm not sure why you complain about the fan noise when it's not on load. I honestly can barely tell it's on in my room... it's also not very loud to me on load, compared with any other laptop I've ever heard.

The only real problems I have with this laptop are: 1) the speakers are REALLY bad, but headphones/external speakers fix that. 2) AMD's drivers seem ... not good so far. I haven't had any bluescreens or too many performance issues (only thing I noticed was some random artifacts in one game), but compared to nVidia's driver support, AMD is lacking - that will be fixed in the future though.

 

soxa my speakers sound great.. i have actually had numerous people compliment me on them. If you install the THX drivers from the Disc and tinker with that, then configure the speakers from the playback devices menu so that they are 7.1 it makes them sound worlds better

 

Haha if its your first time choosing AMD you'll soon loose the fear of BSOD's I've had so many with my 6970m's, all caused by VGA driver, that I actually smile when I get another one, thinking "not sure if trolling" instead of "holey crabb my PC's dead" when it first started.

But I can't guarantee you that all your issues will be fixed. About 50% of my games run great, 25% run not bad with microstuttering, and a few ones (like Skrim & Prototype) are completely broken. In Skyrim's case even after 9 months since release they lack a proper Crossfire support

 

Thanks, I messed with it a bit and they sound better, but I'm kind of an audio nut. Looks like the OP might be too with those monitors sitting on his desk.

So, any laptop speakers don't sound good to me. I guess it's probably like all the guys saying "don't buy a high color gamut monitor because they look like trash without calibration." Well, to me, mine looks awesome, but I'm an untrained eye. I'm not an untrained ear, so most speakers bug me if they're not really high quality =p.

I think it's actually physically impossible, just due to speaker size and the manufacturer's sound projection constraints to make laptop speakers sound pure. They're not as bad as I described earlier, especially with the THX software, but still not good enough for me lol.

 

Not enough! He's using the headphone output from the laptop to his speakers! Hideous! The headphone output on this laptop is just awful. I bought an external USB dongle DAC/Headphone amp for when I am not at my desk at home.

External DAC always for me, headphone output to amp is a no no for me.

 

ooh really?

 

I should have one of those for this setup, but I don't have the funds at the moment. Blew what I could spend on this laptop =p. Which are you using hula?

 

Best Buy had a X-Fi Go on sale, so grabbed that. For my DAC, it's a dual Wolfson WM8741 with current technology for headphone output. But it's connected to my receiver also.
- WM8741 is Woflson's flagship D/A chip

I believe most good integrated amps have good DAC now, but my system is pretty vintage.

 

if anyone in europe is interested this laptop is for sale
big power but keyboard and fan noise is not for me
sorry

 

Just out of interest, you did realise powerful laptops are noisy before buying didn't you?

 

Fan noise is not an issue with me. My desktop has 6 case fans plus the CPU, GPU and PS fan. I do not use speakers as I use a headset. I also use a laptop cooler, so as long as the laptop is running at a reasonable temp, fan noise will never be an issue with me.

I might be in the minority here, but I rarely ever use a laptop's keyboard. I tend to kick back with a mouse and external keyboard. The last time I used the laptop keyboard, I was on a plane....

 

im talking about idle noise,not during games
at idle fan is spinning all time and is loud for me

 

If the idle fan speed are cause by a hardware problem, do you still have a warranty?

Appart from that idle fan noise, the laptop looks good. At what price would you sell it in europe?

 

The idle fan speed is not a hardware problem. The fan may stay on low speed even on idle. The components still produce heat even if they're not doing much.

 

my fan turn of at 36C
when browsing I have 42-45C

also keyboard suck,I must press hard to not miss a letter

 

send me pm
will sell with original 320GB HDD
I have receipt from hawkforce,2 year warranty

 

fantomasz any idea from which fan the noise comes when idle? CPU, GPU, or both? I'm also a bit sensitive about fan noise (heck, I even think sometimes my Acer 5551G is too loud), and might be a good idea if I order one with slightly less powerful components, if it reduces fan noise.

 

cpu fan is running at idle but is very quiet like my asus g73
gpu fan is loud at idle,not spinning fast but I can hear
gpu fan turn of at 36C but most of the time my idle temps are 42-48C so fan is spinning
full speed at 90C

I run furmak at I hit 90C max.Mas speed turn on at 89C.

When I play Crysis2 all max I have 86-90C with 50-60fps
It is high or not duing Crysis 2 ?

 

any software that can control fan speed?

I just notice at idle,when I open msi kombustor the gpu fan stop

 

I used to use speed fan on my desktop while watching movies, as for this working on a laptop I couldn't say however a quick DL and test wont hurt

 

I liked it, good review

 

I did another clean install and install 12.7 drivers and catalyst.Now my gpu fan turn off at 41-42C and turn on when gpu reach 49-50C.
When browsing now gpu fan is off all the time.Laptop is quiet,only cpu fan is running.But still ,after game I must open kombustor to shut down gpu fan because it will run even at 35C.I will keep laptop but I need change german keyboard for US.Maybe my keyaboard is faulty but I want replace for US version.My asus is for sale but will ship only in europe.

 

install the new bios from the bios thread... it could help your fan not turning off issues

 

I dont feel like do this.I dont want to disable my laptop for good.

 

.... you wont if you follow the instructions

 

About the keyboard, I frequently miss the tab key on my 150EM. It is because unless I hit the center of the key, it does not register correctly. If I press the very left or very right side of the tab key, the key goes down, but no keystroke was captured