Silentmaxx laptops: could they be really less noisy than those from other resellers?

Hello,

The german reseller Silentmaxx offers Clevo laptops as silent computers.

Thay say the case is dampened ("Dämmung des Gehäuses"). Any idea how they do it?

Also, they say they use a passive power supply ("passives Netzteil"). What is it supposed to mean?

Thank you in advance.

 

Hi

Have you considered contacting them about this?

Sound dampening is usually done by lining the chassis with a thin foam material. It seems unlikely they'd go to that much trouble on every system when they're not that loud to begin with; I'd inquire with them directly about it.

Passive just means there are no fans integrated to cool the AC adapter.

 

@nesdnuma - does it definitely say that the laptops are "Dämmung des Gehäuses", or are they talking about the PCs?

 

Actually it's in the FAQ and the FAQ is different for each range, so one would logically conclude that the laptops are indeed damped. Anyway I have asked them whether there's a specific damping. I'll let you know if I have any answer from them.

 

I'd be curious to see how they do this as well, and how much it actually helps on the noise levels.

 

Would be interested to see what they say.

Customised fan profiles can help with the volume of the system, but AFAIK we are the only company that Clevo supports in doing this through the EC.

If you only offer low power CPUs (they don't have K series for example) then you will have a quieter, but lower performing, laptop. It seems a little strange thay they say that in P870DM3 / P870KM the Intel graphics are passively cooled.........plus the FAQ you mentioned is the same for the whole laptop range.

 

They do have the K series. See this one for instance.

 

If it's got a fan, it's not silent. And any amount of padding on the case will not make it silent so long as the noise from the fan has an unfiltered path to the outside via a grill.

"Passive adapter" is just pure spin. Every Clevo already comes with one (or two) from every reseller worldwide. Most have an audible hum though ( so aren't strictly "silent" either.

Show me a pic of a calibrated noise meter test showing 0dB (or even 3dB which is on their laptop page) lol.

 

Hmm strange. Even for the Kanwa 555-M (Clevo W650KK1) they say "60% of the cooling is by passive cooling system". Passive cooling system? I wonder where's the space in this laptop for huge cooling ribs...


Also what happens if the CPU/GPU gets too hot? Will they just downlock and result in a framerate drop? (while an "active" cooling system would just make the fan spin faster?).

 

By the way I got no answer from them so far...

 

it seems a clevo p751dm2-g

 

what do you mean? do you have special software for fan control?

 

On some models we take the Clevo stock fan response curves and modify them - for example we may want a higher fan speed to kick in at a lower or higher temperature than the Clevo design, or we might not want the fans to ramp up as quickly - for that matter we might not want them to ramp down as quickly either if there is repeated ramping in the stock profile.

 

Do you customize also speaker system?

 

do you also customize idle fan profiles? for ex p775dm3 and p870km1?

cause I find both to be crazy loud when idle for nothing really.

 

Not sure what you mean - using different speaker units?

Only for the BGA models AFAIK these days, if there is an EC with a "TR" suffix it's one of ours. The more fans in a laptop, the more fan profiles in CCC theat are added the more complicated and time consuming it gets.

 

Sound card and speakers are stock version for all clevo reseller? Or you can choice speakers/sound card for your laptops?

 

@sicily428 Ah ok, there's no choice. The audio chips are integrated and speakers are all standard - Clevo won't and can't change these for individual customers.

 

thanks!
here a user customized speakers of an xmg laptop
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/upgrading-internal-speakers.802073/

 

Yup, have seen (rather heard) what he did - easier to do when you have a 4 year old laptop though and no worries about warranty and so on Definitely possible I guess on the newer models, though the speakers are much better especially on the larger chassis than they were back in 2013. Plus in a previous life I was a pro audio engineer, so would be a fun project - but for mass production I don't know if the quality increase could be justified from a cost and time POV.

Half decent pair of headphones or connect to external audio system will give much better results.

 

I heard that the P870dm3-g has the best laptop sound system, and p650rp6-g sound system is not so bad
but clevo have to improve n850 sound system because it is really bad

 

not sure which is better from what I have heard: Gt72 or p870dm3. dm3 seems more balanced, but gt72 definitely has a bass up, but sound is not centered. but both are WOW in my book.

 

i'm talking about this review
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Schenker-XMG-U727-Clevo-P870DM3-G-Notebook-Review.173957.0.html


" Speakers
Barebones manufacturer Clevo uses the chassis volume pretty well to create a decent sound system. While the two speakers are located right and left next to the display hinge, the subwoofer can be found at the bottom of the 17-inch system. We can completely support the assessment of our audio analysis, and the sound is surprisingly good for a notebook with the activated Soundblaster X-Fi MB5 technology. The sound systems of the MSI GT73VR and Asus G752VS are beaten in many scenarios, even though MSI is almost on par.

Great: Up to 87 dB(A) are sufficient even for bigger rooms. Fans of headsets will be happy as well. The D/A converter ESS Sabre HiFi and the amplifier Texas Instruments Burr-Brown should improve the sound quality with attached headphones (support for 600 Ohm, sampling rate up to 24-bit/192 KHz) and therefore impress audio enthusiasts, DJs and producers."

 

Hello!

Did you end up buying a silentmaxx device? I am currently considering them, but being unable to find any user experiences about them, I am hesitating to order.

Didn't really help either, that the sales-representatives in the chat couldn't answer most of my technical questions (e.g. whether Optimus is available, or even if they are based on Clevo barebones). When asked what they do to make the devices more quiet I was merely pointed to their 6-weeks-return policy, which according to the website doesn't even apply outside of Germany (though he stated that they handle notebooks more liberally).

 

You are smart to be afraid. I think avoiding them under the circumstances could be wise.

 

Agreed. @Klaus.at

 

It's all about the balance of cost/performance on that system.

 

you could check that there is a better sound system in asus/msi/acer/dell laptops with the same price

 

Every different system is a different balance, you can't focus on a single detail like that.

 

I like n850hk1 but I think clevo made a mistake choosing a really cheap speaker for a multimedia/gaming laptop like this

 

That's a fair point to make. Historically, the speakers (in Clevos) have never been the selling point, but they've gotten better over time; maybe we'll see an appreciable upgrade in the next iteration.

 

They have a great customer support as well. Sent them a couple of (simple) questions 1 week ago, never got an answer. In the meantime i don't need the answers anymore.

 

We have few new models coming with 40dB noise measured 15cm away from the laptop. Model name is Q5 with 7700HQ, GTX 1070 8GB and 15.6" Sharp IGZO panel. 18.6mm thin.

 

Is that a Max-Q setup? Are the 40 dB during standard "max load" (Witcher 3 or similar gaming)?

 

Yes, max load playing Witcher3

 

Out of interest: How do they handle low-performance scenarios?

While it is important for laptops to remain reasonably quiet under load to keep gaming enjoyable, it is equally important for them to be very quiet when browsing the web.

In addition there seems to be a bug/mis-design with Optimus, that causes unnecessary utilization of the NVidia card when using an external display. (Applies only when the HDMI-Port is wired to the NVidia card.) This can sabotage the "office" use-case, when any of the software is supposed to do light rendering (e.g. Google Earth), but ends up wasting power (and thus heat) by using the NVidia card.

 

Nvidia Surround View specs require that HDMI and DP ports are wired to dGPU in order to provide sufficient support for high resolution external monitors.

 

As does G-Sync, and VR supposedly requires it for sufficiently low latency. So I understand perfectly, that for high-tier NVidia cards, wiring the HDMI-Port to the dGPU is the obvious design choice.

However, nothing that I know of requires that all programs be rendered by the dGPU if a monitor is connected to it, which depending on the software used can result in a significantly noisier fan.

Having sent back the affected device (an Acer V17), I cannot tell if the issue still exists though, and I have no way of checking if it exists for all devices, where the HDMI port is wired to the NVidia dGPU.

Example: Remaining logged into an MMO for chatting, while doing something else. Running the MMO on the dGPU will result in a loud fan, while running it on the iGPU would likely be perfectly sufficient for chatting. In such cases, <10fps and a silent fan is preferable to effectively wasted 30+ fps and a loud one.