The awesome Clevo upgrade experience.

Just wanted to say, I got the P150EM after using Asus. Overall notebook is fine, screen is "decent." I fell for that super wide gamut crap. Get rid of it and get a real IPS which is properly calibrated for sRGB, now that I have done more research. But Clevo, MSI and Alienware know you will pay more for their TN panel than for a QFHD IPS that desktop and even freaking tablets use.

But the GPU part? I'm mad. I had to call up half dozen places and scour Ebay looking for a replacement for the worst purchase of my life, Clevo 7970M, with soldering that burnt and fell off. The gobs of worst workmanship I've ever seen. $485 for LAST YEAR's technology because 770M doesn't work in P150EM. Couldn't get a great upgrade price from LPC-Digital, cause 675MX is a huge upgrade over 7970M for me at least, because Clevo stopped the manufacturing of 7970M and 675MX and 680M early. They only had 670MX left that no one wanted. Wow, just fantastic. Way to force the customer to have no choices if their 7970M goes capoot and spend $2000 to upgrade.
- Lucky for me Eurcomm still had a few in stock. Even Mythlogic were all out.
- Ebay jerks charged more than Eurocomm and wouldn't even supply the X bracket, nevermind the heatsinks. What idiotic policy is that? Can you imagine if EVGA decided, yeah we're not selling heatsinks and fans with GPUs anymore, you can buy em separate for an additional $99.
- And of course used market? Selling 675MX for 350 Euros with no warranty, and no heatsink? What the .... Huh? No words for that idiocy. And after it was used for a year and I have no recourse if the seller screws me. Just look at the disaster situations in the marketplace now! Some seller sold another NBR member a BROKEN 7970M that had no warranty and was used... Obviously, it was BROKEN. Buyer still trying to contact and get his money back, likely never will happen.

I think these prices in general are ridiculous, but I also think it's dumb to purchase Clevo if they are now stopping manufacturing of cards so there aren't any compatible Nvidia for you to replace if something goes wrong through your reseller who can provide you the best service/pricing. And making the next gen hardware incompatible with yours. And I say Nvidia as I don't even consider AMD an option anymore. Never again, I got burned, screwed and treated like dirt by AMD with 5870M and 7970M. I was stupid twice, I won't be an idiot a third time.

 

Actually it's Clevo that causes the issue on upgrading the GPU on the EM series not Nvidia. Nvidia could care less, to them its better for them to sell you a new GPU every year. Clevo would rather sell you a new laprop . Only advice I can tell you, I have never bought an AMD mobile card because their drivers are horrible in Linux (I heard they are getting better) and all the fiasco on the drivers in Windows. If I am planning on keeping a laptop for 2 years or 3, I buy the extended warranty. If I am planning on keeping it for a year only, I buy none.

Sorry for the troubles your having and I hope you find a solution.

 

Been pretty lucky with the 6970m that i got with my P170HM when it was brand spanking new. Only card that really died on me was a ATI Mobility Radeon X1800 from a Fujitsu-Siemens but that could also be because that single fan cooling solution was way below what the hardware required. Before that i had a Pentium 4 powered Acer with a ATI Mobility X600, and i still remember the shoddy build quality with random plastic parts falling off it.

If you disregard some terrible beta driver releases then Nvidia has been pretty solid with the 680m, at least on my notebook. Kinda annoying to mod the inf file everytime and disable driver signature enforcement in Windows 8 but thats not really something i can blame on Nvidia. If i ever go for a gaming notebook again il probably skip Clevo for something else, maybe a unbranded MSI or Alienware with the lights turned off.

 

I mentioned this in your other thread, but have you tried reaching out to AMD via their customer support, twitter, and facebook pages along with pictures of the card? You might be able to shame them into giving you a replacement. worth a shot.

 

May I ask which IPS panel you got?

 

When I bought mine, I went through 4 defective LCDs.
When I upgraded "illegitimately" to 680m that I bought at the local marketplace I could only enjoy it for about a month and a half.

Yeah, I think I'll be better off with Alienware or MSI next time.

Never Clevo.

 

While I admit the soldering does not look the prettiest, it is secure and functional, burn marks would more likely be a failed SMD.

 

Looks like you switched it out for a 675mx. How is it treating you? What vbios did you use, where did you get it, and what oc tool are you using?

 

Also, it's not AMD that makes the cards, they just sell the GPUs. The 7970m Clevo mxm cards do appear to have had some issues since release. It's not up to AMD to sort out someone elses card.
It was a dumb idea to stop manufacturing the cards. Many of those laptops are still in warranty now, so how do they expect resellers to replace faulty cards under warranty if there aren't any available?

 

They likely are holding a stock of the cards, but will not sell those as it will hold them for repairs.

 

Good luck with that. You won't find it any different. You got unlucky this time, and maybe lucky with AW or MSI. But similar issues exist regardless of OEM. The advantage AW has is better BIOS support for newer cards, but their screens are for crap.

 

Agree 100% Seems a few years ago Clevo was great, but then they must have decided to change policies. I don't get it. Their heatsinks are worse, their cooling is worse. Their upgradeability is now very limited. Even fans on their competitors are better, Asus, AW and MSI all three have better heatsinks and better fans. I used to read the highlight of Clevo was the cooling system.

And just in general, mobile hardware quality is sadly very poor, with woefully pitiful warranty and at least 100% overpriced.

 

So how well does MSI fair in trems of upgradability ?
I know for Asus it's pretty much 0, as they don't use standard MXM cards.

 

They are restricted to only using nvidia cards for one and you can still get quirks like the 770M having issues with the 16F3 but working in the 16F2 and 16F4.

 

My amd video card also recently died in a p170hm, and from all of the other reports I've seen it is definitely a manufacturing defect on their part. Clevo should have issued a formal recall or replacement service, but of course they will not. My reseller quoted me over $600 for a replacement, which is out of the question (it's practically half the price of a brand new computer for an outdated part).

This is the last time I buy anything from clevo and I would suggest everyone else stay away as well.

 

So you're telling me that MSI has better upgradebility than Clevo?
I don't see Clevo doing very well in the foreseeable future TBH

 

They were a super star in the OEM world a few years ago, then something happened.

Meager was talking about MSi, not Clevo.

 

I was talking about MSI as well.

 

Clarification: he was talking about how MSI are limited to Nvidia

 

Oh I see. But it's better to be limited to current and future Nvidia cards than to be limited to just a bunch of cards released with one particular model (like in Clevo's case) right?

 

Future Nvidia cards aren't guaranteed to work with MSI notebooks either.

Though imo there is no point in upgrading for most people. Mobile GPUs are usually so expensive that you're better off selling your current notebook and getting a new one.

 

My situation wasn't about upgrading. Crap AMD broke, from the worst manufacturing, soldering job I've ever seen on any computer hardware. And if repairing notebook, Clevo leaves you little choice but to scrap it and buy new notebook, at least that was their attempt. Luckily Eurocomm had some in their warehouse. Spoke with Larry, Clevo stopped manufacturing of the 670MX, 675MX, 680M and 7970M well before they were even a year old. By the time the 770M notebooks were out, Sager said they could not get any more of the previous gen high end cards, period. That was infuriating to hear. For even repairs, didn't have any to give to Larry @ LPC-Digital to help me.
- Who would buy a barebone Clevo P150EM if you can't get a new GPU replacement at a reasonable price? And especially if you can't upgrade t the next gen hardware that Clevo decided to fix to the newer Intel chipset?

In general I would agree if your notebook was still in great working condition. Otherwise, it's a terrible situation.

And boohoo, MSI limited to the better Nvidia, oh noes. No AMD? Good riddance.

And I know you dumped your Clevo and returned to MSI last year. You made it very clear on Clevo forums last year you believed MSI had superior hardware support, superior service/warranty, superior features and superior cooling. Essentially you told us, MSI made better notebooks than Clevo at that time. And it seems my experience would confirm a lot of that.

Yup, that's why I went with Clevo instead of MSI last year. Only to discover Clevo decided to start being Asus with their EM series onwards. Just my luck. I should have gone with MSI that I can upgrade and their GPUs aren't manufactured by some apes who can't handle a soldering iron.
- Did I mention when I repasted my notebook as soon as I recieved it last year I had to have Larry send me new screws because the screws just snapped? There were RUST marks where the screws snapped. I don't know how that happens, but I noticed similar appearance with the chip that fell apart in half since the solder burned off. I don't get what happened to my EM notebook that was supposedly built by one of the best boutique gaming notebook manufacturer.
- And also got Clevo because of their reputation with cooling. That was also a disappointment for me. The GPU heatsink is barely adaquate for these 100W GPUs. If you look at the older heatsinks Clevo used to use, these look like garbage in comparison.
- MSI, Asus and Alienware all use beefier fans, better fans using the newer design that I see being used by desktop GPUs and Apple notebooks and Samsung Notebooks. And all three use much beefier, larger heatsinks.

+

You combine that with minor aggravations that normally wouldn't matter. Subpar speakers compared to the competition and arguably the WORST HEADPHONE and MICROPHONE output/input EVER in any device. Not just notebooks, compare that to any phone, any soundcard, any USB device, any device with audio, it's simply the worst sounding headphone output I've ever heard. And also online, everyone told me the mic with the Realtek sounds like awful, soft, lots of noise, hissing etc.

+

Combine that with Clevo marketing 7970M as being a beast GPU obliterating previous cards etc. And then to discover Enduro crippling the card, making even the HD6970M a far better buy on a HM machine. And then doing nothing as AMD continues to release subpar drivers compared to Nvidia. My experience with Nvidia, it just works. It PLAIN WORKS!

- Normally these issues by themselves wouldn't be that big of an issue, but with the above, it becomes more. Because each issue with Clevo just stacks and stacks and eventually it just becomes overwhelming thinking about how much $$$ I wasted on this machine. I ended paying another $500 to fix what should never have passed QC or for that matter should never have been sold.
- And please do not read this as a troll on Clevo. They had great reputation and from the pics I've seen of the older models, I sincerely hope for future Clevo buyers, Clevo stops this insanity.

 

Clevo made a lot of improvements to the SM series in terms of cooling, sound and storage options. I was tempted by this years models but my requirements tend to be quite different from the average consumer.

 

So are these problem unique to the HM series, or did some carry over to the SM series? I am thinking of getting the P157SM.