Perfectionist Fresh Format Guide

This guide is for people who just received their new Clevo and are wondering where to start. I'm writing this from the perspective of my own setup, which is an NP9758-G / P750DM-G with a very specific configuration, so there will likely be some parts of this guide that do not apply to you, the reader. Please use common sense when deciding which parts of this guide you want to use. My configuration is in my signature.

Preparation Steps (can be done before your new Clevo arrives):

Preparation Step 1) Copy all of your data (documents, downloads, pictures, music, videos, desktop) onto a large enough external hard drive for safe keeping. You can either decide what you want to keep before copying over, or you can just copy everything and sort through it later to decide what to put back onto your new Clevo. Don't bother moving over program files or anything that you can just download again later.

Preparation Step 2) Download the freeware Bellarc Advisor. Run it, and go to the software licenses tab. Save these licenses any way that you want (take pictures with your phone, take a screenshot and move the screenshot to your external hard drive, write them down, etc). You might decide you want these software keys later so you don't have to re buy stuff. I transferred my windows key over to my new Clevo for instance rather than purchasing another OS (see below).

Preparation Step 3) Using a USB stick larger than 4GB, use the "Create Installation Media for Windows" tool from Microsoft's website to create a bootable USB stick that will install Windows on your new machine. If you opted to purchase your new Clevo without an Operating System, you might be able to transfer your current version of Windows from your old laptop to your new Clevo. There are likely some influencing factors here, for instance, this is probably only possible if your current version of Windows is not using an OEM key that was included with your old laptop. It should be a separate key that you purchased, not OEM. Besides, you want to be able to sell your old laptop when you no longer need it, so you should just sell it with the OEM OS that it came with, and get your own OS for your new laptop. But moving on -- If, like me, you have a non-OEM windows key running on your old machine, and you decided to purchase your new Clevo without an OS, you're in luck, because you saved yourself some money: you can transfer Windows over to your new Clevo (as long as you deactivate Windows on your old laptop). So create installation media for the Windows version that matches the version of your non-OEM key. If your non-OEM key that you purchased was for Windows 8, but then you upgraded free to Windows 10, you can either create installation media for your version of Windows 8 and use the Windows 8 key, then upgrade free to Windows 10 again, or you can use Bellarc Advisor to get your Windows 10 key (it should be different from your Windows 8 key) and create Windows 10 installation media.

Preparation Step 4) Download the appropriate Chipset driver and any other drivers that pertain to your device. When your new Clevo arrives, we're going to completely wipe all the drives on it before we install Windows. This means that you won't have any drivers installed, and that means that you might not be able to use the internet to download the drivers, because you don't yet have to LAN/Wifi drivers installed for your ethernet/wifi card to be working. So should take this opportunity to gather the drivers we need onto a USB stick. At a minimum, get the chipset driver and LAN/wifi drivers. However, I recommend getting all the drivers you can so that you can install them before you install the LAN driver, because otherwise once you install the LAN driver and give your new Clevo internet access, you're going to be fighting against Windows Update trying to install updates while you're trying to install device drivers, and that has the potential to cause issues. Two important notes about this: First, since Clevo's have different hardware options, you need to make sure you're installing the drivers specific to your hardware. This can be tricky, since often times in Device Manager it won't tell you what your hardware is if that hardware doesn't already have a driver installed. You need to know what you purchased. Secondly, some people will tell you to use the drivers located at Sager's website, since they might have been modified by Sager to work with your machine. I personally disagree with this concept. Instead, I use Sager's list of drivers as a reference to see which drivers to download, and then I used the device manufacturer's website to actually download the latest version of those drivers. This is because Sager will likely not be keeping those drivers on its own website up to date. However, Sager does have some of its own software listed on its drivers list that you might want, like Flexikey for the keyboard and the Control Center for fan and power options. For more information: Clevo Driver Thread

Your Clevo has arrived! Yay!:

Step 1) Unbox and examine your new Clevo. Is everything included? Any cosmetic defects? Boot it up and check the screen for too much ghosting (some ghosting is not only common but normal, depending on your screen). Any dead pixels? Turn it back off in preparation for the next step (assuming everything is OK).

Step 2) Plug the laptop in and plug your bootable Windows installing USB stick in. Your battery probably has sufficient charge out of the box to make it through installation, but just in case, we want to have it plugged in. With respect to optimal battery life/calibration, you'll read mixed reviews about whether to plug your laptop in out of the box, or let it discharge fully first. In my research, I concluded that it should be plugged in out of the box, but realistically, it doesn't matter much either way as far as battery charge goes. For the sake of convenience and safety during OS install, just plug it in.

Step 3) Install Windows. Use the key that matches the installation media version of Windows on your USB stick. If that is Windows 8, then you'll be able to upgrade free to Windows 10 later. At this point, or soon after, you want to deactivate Windows on your old laptop, and/or wipe your old laptop completely. Assuming you don't have a commercial key for use on multiple machines, you will probably run into problems if you try to have a single key running on two machines, so make sure you deactive it on your old machine: from an elevated command prompt on your old laptop, you can type "slmgr.vbs /upk" to uninstall your product key and then wipe your old laptop as you see fit. Also, if you have a SSD, you probably want to install your operating system on that.

Step 4) Install the chipset first and LAN/wifi drivers last. With Windows booted up, plug in your USB stick with the drivers, and install the chipset first. Then install your other drivers with the LAN/wifi drivers being last. From here, I usually grab Google Chrome right away, and just use that for my internet use from then on out, but to each his own. After the chipset driver, try to install the other drivers in the order by which you will be using them. For instance, install Intel's other driver's first, since these tend to be used immediately (Management Engine Interface Driver, RST Driver, XTU, etc). Lastly, install the drivers that enable your internet access. We do this last because Windows Update will start downloading and installing stuff as soon as you get internet access, so we want to make sure our drivers are installed first so we're not causing conflicts.

Step 5) Let Windows Update do its thing, and during one of the reboots, go into your BIOS and enable Flexicharge. Windows Update will probably require a couple restarts. When it finally says there's no more updates, you should reboot one more time and then check for updates again. During one of the reboots, you can go into your BIOS (F2 button) and enable Flexicharge. I set mine to start charging at 95% and charge to 100%. There's a lot of trains of thought on this, and you can find a lot of information online and on these forums about the benefits of this (if any), and whether or not it matters or makes sense to use Flexicharger, and then make your own decision.

Step 6) Enable your biometric fingerprint reader. My laptop shipped with an EgisTec ES603 biometric fingerprint reader. I was annoyed to find out that egistec doesn't support WBF, and they don't provide drivers to end users because of some licensing issue either (can you believe it?). Without WBF support, you not only need the drivers, but you also need third party software like bioexcess to act as a medium between the fingerprint reader and windows. This was a no-no for me. Fortunately, through a lot of web surfing, I found the answer -- a driver that would work with EgisTec and also provide WBF support, which allows the fingerprint reader to interact directly with windows rather than needing third party software. It is available on the Acer Support website, if you search for TravelMate P446-M, and grab the fingerprint driver there.

Step 7) Check Device Manager and third party hardware analyzers to ensure all devices are working properly. If you see a red X or a yellow triangle or exclamation point next to any of the devices in device manager, you have a driver issue that you should resolve before continuing. Use apps like HWInfo64 or Bellarc Advisor to ensure that your devices are looking good, and that the hardware matches what you ordered (hopefully you would have realized by now). You might notice that your motherboard model is listed as P775DM-G, and you might say "hey Jakamo, isn't your laptop a P750DM-G?". But then you might just move on with your life and not worry about it.

Step 8) Install Samsung Magician, make sure your SSD firmware is up to date, and set Over-Provisioning. This obviously only applies if you have a samsung SSD. I have a 950 Pro in mine, which supports TRIM. There's a lot of argument that with TRIM support, you don't actually need Over-Provisioning. However, I did a lot of research on this topic and developed my own opinion that Over-Provisioning is beneficial assuming it is worth more to you than the memory required to implement. I set mine to 10% of my drive. I won't provide my reasoning since that really isn't what this thread is for.

Step 9) Move your user folders off of your SSD. Open up windows explorer and in the left pane under quick access, right click each folder (desktop, documents, downloads, pictures, video), select Location, and change the location to your HDD rather than keeping them on your SSD. I do this for multiple reasons. First, my SSD doesn't have as much storage space as my HDD, and the space saved on my SSD is worth more to me than the extra half a second I save by having these files open at mechanical drive speed rather than solid-state drive speed. Second, I write to these folders a lot, and SSD's have a limited number of writes before degradation (granted, it is a large number of writes, and technology has vastly improved). Lastly, large files like videos don't really benefit from being on a SSD, playback speed is discrete and does not suddenly get faster by having it on an SSD (nor would you want it to).

Step 10) Calibrate your screen. You can use Windows' own built in color calibration tool, or you can use freeware like Calibrize 2.0, or high quality software like Spyder5Pro. If you have a 17.3" screen that happens to be model number LG LP173WF4-SPF1, then you can use the .icc profile that @Matrix Leader has kindly provided, created with Spyder5Pro, located HERE.

Step 11) Edit your keyboard response time. For some reason a lot of Clevo's suffer from slow keyboard repeat rate. Fortunately, this is just set by the registry, and not a hardware issue. Using regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/ControlPanel/Accessibility/Keyboard Response/. Change AutoRepeatDelay to 200, AutoRepeatRate to 6, BounceTime to 0, DelayBeforeAcceptance to 0, and Flags to 58. I tried a settling that was recommended by HTWingNut, which was 500/6/0/0/59, but for some reason, after reboot, this caused Windows Filter Key to be enabled, which would change the registry settings, and disabling it would make the keyboard extremely unresponsive. The 200/6/0/0/58 seems to not enable Windows Filter Key, for whatever reason (I didn't really take the time to investigate).

Step 12) Move your stuff back onto your laptop from your external hard drive. Or don't, maybe you just want to start fresh, maybe you just want to move on with your life. That old laptop life? That's not who you are anymore man. Stop trying to pull me back in, stop it...

Step 13) Consider the well regarded Prema Bios. I'm not really sure if this is something I should have put last, since it has the potential to brick your system and then you've wasted all this time. However, it's more of an optional step than the others (some would disagree with me). Make sure you read the threads and do it correctly, located here: Clevo Bios Thread and Prema Bios Webpage

I'll be editing this thread a bit over the next few days, as I realize things I've missed, and as I get suggestions and corrections from people. Good luck!

 

Nice guide! Thanks for taking the time to put it together!

 

Quite a useful information, thanks! Got my batman two days ago, going to try some points on it!

 

Mad, this is exactly what I had in mind but having a checklist is always helpful

 

How about include in guide, steps as processor undervolting and screen overclocking? Not for everyone, only for those who like to try

 

When I get around to changing my clocks, I'll put this in, thanks for the suggestion