New NP8157 and Freezing Issue

I just purchased my second Sager from Xotic. This time it was a Sager NP8157.

The laptop has the GTX1070 8Gb GPU, i7 7700HQ, Samsung 960 Evo NVMeSSD, 16Gb of RAM, 120Hz display.

I installed Windows 10 x64 Pro

I went through the windows install and then immediately ran the driver CD without connecting to a network to ensure the drivers on the CD were the only thing being installed.

I installed all drivers in order from 1 through 10 for the required. I didnt install any of the optional drivers.

Ive had the laptop for all of 2 days.

While playing a game my 5 year old laptop can handle without issues, my laptop freezes. The laptop screen goes black and my second monitor kept what was on it visible. I had to hard power down and restart to get any response to input.

I ran HWInfo32 while playing the same game and temps are around 130-140* F

No over clocking on any component. I checked event viewer for any related errors prior to the hard power down and nothing.

Windows 10 is up to date on patches.

The other weird issue is that with the same game when it is launched, the screen gets kind of a rainbow pixelated look right in the middle of the screen and goes away once the game is full screen. I tried to catch the pixelation look on stream for Twitch, but not sure if I got it.

Any ideas?

 

Are you running the system in MSHybrid (NVIDIA Optimus) or discrete (NVIDIA GPU only) mode? Either way, you'll probably want to use drivers that are more up to date than what is provided on the CD. Download NVIDIA driver version 378.66 for the GTX 1070. If you're using MSHybrid, grab the Intel beta driver 15.45, available here. The WHQL driver on Intel's site gave my system black screens on the built-in display, whereas the linked driver here does not.

 

I am running discrete mode with the latest NVIDIA driver downloaded through GeForce Experience.

 

Try an older GPU driver, like the version I referenced. Lots of problems reported with the latest one.

 

That's a low range to be in while gaming. Which game(s) was running? Did you monitor or log GPU utilization?

You might consider removing GE, regardless of whether it's the cause or not. It's got a bit of a history for causing issues and hurting performance in-game.

 

I was running Smite made by Hirez Studios. I didnt monitor GPU utilization while I was gaming. Everything was normal until it just froze. It didnt get laggy or seem slugish at all. After a reboot all was well. Im going to give it another shot tonight and see if I can keep track of whats going on.

 

I installed HWMonitor per the office thread.

Idle temps are sitting at:

GPU: 41C
CPU: 43C

GPU: 50C
CPU: 60C

 

Got it to crash again. Was just playing Smite and streaming to OBS. Had HWmonitor going on my second screen so when it froze I was able to get temps.

59C overall (138F)
Core Temps 54-58C (129-136F)

 

And some more updates. I uninstalled the Sager Control Center application and NVIDIA Desktop Experience. I also installed the latest Sager video driver for the discrete GPU prior to the last crash. I have a video uploading of the screen glitches. It happens at about 5-6 seconds in.

Video at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_lbMTDD_AGLeWZXdVJocEs2S2s/view?usp=sharing

Picture: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_lbMTDD_AGLTjlzYTRCRHhfak0/view?usp=sharing

 

WOW 59C while gaming? Wish I had those temps on mine. Could it possibly be memory issues by chance?

 

I have it sitting on top of a Thermaltake Massive 14-2 laptop cooler.

I started the advanced Windows Memory diagnostic this morning before I left for work. I will see the results later tonight.

Im leaning toward a GPU issue though. The only time Ive ever seen any artifacting like the screenshot/video above is a bad GPU.

 

I don't think that's anything to be concerned about.

System lockups are usually, in one way, shape, form or another, a software problem. It could be a driver, GeForce Experience, a background task, etc. Hard to say without knowing what all is installed in your Windows environment (and even then, sometimes it's narrowing it down is a pain).

 

Ive been playing this game for 4 years and have never seen it do that even on worse hardware. I even ran it on an Intel 430 integrated card without issues.

The only applications installed on this machine are: Windows 10 Pro and all Windows Updates, Sager drivers, Windows Firewall Control, Steam, Office 2016 Pro Plus, OBS, Teamspeak and some games.

 

There have been some reports of recent Windows updates causing problems. Not any freezing, specifically, but I wouldn't rule those out as a possible culprit.

If you're more or less leaning towards this being hardware fault, all you can really do is contact your seller while the laptop is in warranty.

 

I took a full system backup this morning so I can always rebuilt it just to be sure. Are the sager drivers Win8.1 compatible? I may just go Win 8.1 Pro. Win 10 seems to still have alot of kinks that M$ hasnt worked out.

 

The platform is similar, but there's no support for Windows 8.1; some drivers will work, some may not, and I suspect CCC won't work properly (haven't tested it on 8.1 to be certain).

 

Microsoft has dropped support for Kaby Lake from Windows 7 and 8.1, meaning you could install the OS, but it won't be able to download any security patches and such from Windows update.

 

Sad face. Ill rebuild tonight and see what happens. I did realize I installed the buggy version of the control center so perhaps that may be playing into this.

 

Hi!

Please try the following and let us know the results:

Make sure your system's power mode is set to " Balanced" - very recently we have discovered CTD/flickering/system lockup issues regardless of make/model when laptops are using High Performance mode. We suspect this is a Microsoft issue more than anything.
You can change to Balanced by:

1. Right-click on the Windows icon at the bottom left
2. Select Power Options
3. Select Balanced preset
4. Save changes

Also change your NVIDIA settings as well

1. Under Manage 3D Application Settings
2. Scroll to about the middle of all the dropdown option until you find "Power Management"
3. Change from "Optimal" to "Adaptive"
4. Save and Exit
5. Restart

If this doesn't resolve the issue please let us know!

 

Ill give this a shot before I rebuild.

 

Yeah, never use the Optimal power setting in the NVIDIA control panel. It's rife with problems.

 

Ironically I am running High Performance and have Optimal Power set in NVIDIA control panel. Ill change both of those and see.

The RAM test through out the day did not complete. It was set to run a full single pass and was at 10% complete over about 10 hours. That doesnt seem right.

 

Laptop is still randomly freezing. It quit for awhile and then about 2 weeks ago I got a BSOD with a Synaptics driver error. Removing the Synaptics driver and let Windows 10 find it. No more issues with that.

Tonight out of the blue, the laptop froze twice within about 45 minutes of each other. Its never done it that close together. As usually nothing special in the logs except for Windows was shut down without a clean power down critical alerts.

I did find this however as an error which seems to indicate an issue with the Sager Control Center?

Faulting application name: AuxSwitch.exe, version: 1.0.0.1, time stamp: 0x580db540
Faulting module name: AuxSwitch.exe, version: 1.0.0.1, time stamp: 0x580db540
Exception code: 0xc0000409
Fault offset: 0x00020713
Faulting process id: 0x1c44
Faulting application start time: 0x01d2acec0e522a22
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Hotkey\AuxSwitch.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Hotkey\AuxSwitch.exe
Report Id: d5b8ea96-07f7-4cca-9460-f65bfd1822f3
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

 

Clevo released an updated version of the control center software on April 1. Link and scroll down to Control Center AP 5.0001.1.21. Be patient as Clevo's servers are extremely slow.

 

Does it make a difference if I have a Sager branded laptop?

 

Sager is just a brand name for a laptop that uses a Clevo chassis. Just like how HIDevolution uses the EVOC name for its machines.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

The only offset may be the firmware, and that's only if they've modified it in anyway. Otherwise it makes no difference.

 

Upgraded the control center. We will give it a few days/weeks to see what happens. I also upgraded to the latest Killer Networks driver for WLAN.

Also something to note. The temps I was reporting in the beginning of this thread are on a laptop cooler. Taking it off the cooler results in significantly higher temps around the 170* mark in a pretty low requirement game. Should I plan on repasting at this point or should I wait to see if my crashing issues are fixed with the latest control center upgrade?

I do have a heatsink cleaning kit (Articlean) and a tube of Kryonaut to repaste with.

 

Crashing still happening. Its pretty weird. The screen on the laptop goes black. My second monitor stays lite. I can still talk in Teamspeak, but all input ceases and the only way to get it back is to hard power it down.

 

Also looks like this download was removed.

 

Gone for now, maybe wan't stable.

 

A properly updated CCC is available through the OBSIDIAN-TOOLS app.

 

I think rebuilding may have fixed my issue. *fingers crossed*

I also repasted CPU and GPU with Kryonaut.

Without my laptop cooler on Im seeing between 67-69*C on the CPU while gaming and 56*C on the GPU. Not sure if it was worth the repaste.

 

Are your temps any lower than before the repaste? Even if only by a small margin, lower operating temps are always a good thing.

 

I didnt run a bench without the laptop cooler before repasting. Without the laptop cooler, temps are 2-4*C higher than temps were originally taken with the cooler.

Is it true the temps will get better over the next week or so after things get warmed up and move around?

 

I think you're describing curing time(?). Thermal Grizzly mentions that there is none, but I've read that to not be the case. Sooo... it's kind of hard to say. If temps do drop at all over time, I imagine it will be by maybe 1 - 2 degree Celsius.

 

I just ran 3DMark. Highest CPU Core temp was 80*C and highest GPU temp was 71*C