*** Official Clevo P870DM/Sager NP9870-G Owner's Lounge - Phoenix has arisen! ***

Sager NP9870 / Clevo P870DM Win 7, 8.1 and 10:
http://www.sagernotebook.com/drivers.php?cat=627

 

I have installed 8.1 on one with no issues at all using the driver disk that came with it directly from Clevo.

 

Ah, didn't check the sager website. Took a look at the Clevo website and only saw the windows 10 drivers, my bad.

 

@Matrix Leader @GTVEVO and everyone else that has this beast...

You will be pleased to know the Current Limit Throttling is absolutely caused by the latest EC. @Prema provided two older EC for me to test and the problem is completely gone with either one of them. So, the fix will be coming for the masses soon. You can either wait or contact the vendor you purchased from and ask if they can provide an older BIOS/EC or stand-alone EC for your machine.

 

What is an EC? I hope this is not some sort of hardware that has to be replaced?

 

Thanks for the confirm Mr. Fox!

Hopefully someone can post a link to the older EC and the disadvantages of it so we can measure the good and bad.

 

Embedded Controller firmware so its a flash that works to control options such as system fans, led's, power delivery such as battery management and such. No hardware replacing so no worries.

 

EC is "Embedded Control" and that is what is used for things such as laptop fans, Control Center, and other things. To my knowledge all computers use an EC, at least laptops. It is firmware, but not the UEFI or BIOS part that you see. System firmware consists of multiple components. The UEFI, (or "BIOS" as we typically prefer to call it, albeit incorrectly,) the EC and the ME (Intel Management Engine) each control something different. BIOS updates may or may not include EC and ME updates. The older a machine gets, the less likely it is to receive updates, but updates are common on new machines as bugs are found and fixed, or accidentally introduced and need to be corrected.

I don't see any disadvantages to it. I would be cautious about flashing an EC that does not come from your vendor because it needs to be a version compatible with the BIOS that each machine is running and if it is not it might work fine on one machine and cause issues on another. That is why I recommended either waiting for the fix to be pushed out by each vendor or calling them to ask if they can provide an earlier version (if they even have one to give to you... they may have to go get it from Clevo). This should not be considered urgent because the machine works really well and games fantastic (at least this one does) in spite of the Current Limit Throttling behavior.

Edit: Also, just so everyone is aware... If you apply a BIOS or EC update, you may need to uninstall and reinstall XTU. I have found that with each firmware flash I have needed to do this because things either disappear or do not work correctly with XTU. Removing and reinstalling it resets all of the things XTU needs to do to interact correctly with the firmware. BEFORE FLASHING, unless you have them memorized already, take note of your preferred settings or take a screen shot because in some cases the old XTU profiles will not work after the firmware update. XTU will say they are not compatible and will not allow you to apply them.

 

I will call you to discuss. I don't know the solution, but we might be able to figure something out.

 

I was able to pull 361W with the single GTX 980 with this new 3DMark 11 high score. I tried a lot of tweaking that Brother @ johnksss suggested with cache voltage and what not, but it was the EC all along. This is a really sweet machine. I should be getting a pair of GTX 980M for testing SLI in it this coming week.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 (notebook) video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-6700K,EUROCOM SKY GX9 powered by premamod.com

 

If I am thinking correctly you gained almost 300pts and it was all due to the CPU current throttling, that's great. I can almost bet that the results will be even more significant in games where a high level of CPU is in need. Thanks for posting!

 

Yeah, the difference really showed up in the Combined Test. It is almost the same as the physics score, LOL. First time I have ever seen that.

 

there was only 1 miss for that 980 SLI, not big enough to fit 200w card type. why do i not see people get two 180w card type in SLI should fit.

 

Oh god...

I checked for xmg downloads and thought that because there was a suffix "a" that bios is newer than mine. I downloaded it and flashed it through dos and now my phoenix won't boot giving me kernel is missing errors. I am sure I downloaded the right bios too.

I tried to reflash the same bios to see if it would fix anything and it gives me the error "18 error: secure flash rom verify fail" so it can't be flashed again.

I tried to hard reset but it does not fix anything. I tried to put a fresh ssd to reinstall windows but it just gives me the same missing kernel errors, ntfs errors. Something really screwed up and I am desperately in need of help >_< please.

@Mr. Fox @Prema

 

can you still boot to dos from a usb flash drive?

 

yeah I can when I put it in legacy boot from f2 then boot usb dos. Feeling quite silly for trying to flash a bios when I didn't really need to. Also hope I didn't trash my motherboard...

 

i guess this doesn't work in dos...
https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-GIGABYTE-GA-B75TN-Bios-Unlock

there is a tool that you can get from here that may or may not help, but i think it only works in windows.

 

Thing is though, I had a successful flash first with the downloaded bios then I had some blue messages about first time boot /cmos which seemed usual. Then it just went to hell and then it started showing the errors.

 

can you get back into the bios?

 

yeah I can still f2 into bios after a hard reset. But sometimes it just black screens after powering on and keeps doing that after. I have to take battery out and hard reset then I can f2 into bios once again.

 

hummmm, im wondering if you can use a hiren bootable usb flash drive. boot into it's version of windows 7 and then run that program to try an unlocked the secure flash for a reflash....

did you try to blind flash the factory bios?

 

@Niwoo - Did you check to be sure your SATA settings are correct? Whether you were on RAID or AHCI before, that needs to be the same or Windows is not going to load. Also be sure the boot order points to a bootable drive volume. The UEFI firmware does not know anything that you don't tell it. The real BIOS default, default, of the default (LOL) is AHCI and if you flash the firmware and allow the system to BOOT with AHCI when your OS is set up in RAID, the UEFI firmware may have destroyed your Windows installation. You have to be quick with F2 and change it to RAID if that's what you were using prior to the NVRAM diarrhea reset. I've lost my Windows installation about 4 times because of that and finally said screw the whole deal and installed Windows in AHCI mode even though my preference is RAID. Ain't got no time for that silly crap... UEFI storing setting in NVRAM really sucks, but that's all we have to work with any more from Haswell forward.

It's not like the good old days with the UEFI feces. "Safe Defaults" may not actually be bootable unless you were using Safe Defaults as your own defaults. Settings are stored in stinking NVRAM, so flashing the firmware erases everything and you have to rebuild the settings to match your setup. The default are not always what you think they are with UEFI crap and they can vary by request of the OEM if they have clout with Clevo. BIOS defaults pressing F3 are different than a complete NVRAM diarrhea reset. Unless they are changed for the OEM UEFI defaults are whatever the ODM thinks should be everyone's defaults, not what everyone is actually using, and their defaults might not play nice with yours.

Edit: BTW - those blue box messages in the middle of the screen are totally normal. The UEFI (remember, it's not really a "BIOS" any more) is simply telling you the NVRAM was reset, which is important to know if you are using optimized settings. That would only be a warning about a problem if you did nothing (like flash the firmware or remove the CMOS battery) to induce it. Have to hit enter at least twice to clear them and the IMMEDIATELY hit F2 and be sure your SATA configuration is correct to avoid Windows getting corrupted. This is one of many reasons having a drive image is crucial. SATA settings are not the only settings that will be lost. EVERYTHING unique will have to be reset, but that's expected with a reset on any machine, BIOS or UEFI. What's different here is your Windows installation getting destroyed if you had RAID and let it try to boot with AHCI (UEFI default) after an NVRAM reset. If you have NVMe the boot priority may also need to be set manually or the machine may not POST. It may try to boot from NVMe by default whether it should or not, which may cause a hang during POST if you are running Windows 7. Windows 7 is not bootable from NVMe in my experience. It needs to boot from a SATA drive and you have to tell it to do that in the UEFI settings with NVMe SSD installed. NVMe is PCIe, not SATA.

 

Hi Mr Fox,

Thanks for your response.

In the mean time I had already spoken to XMG in Germany and they promised me a new machine once mine had been received back so I went for this option. I returned my machine Friday afternoon and it's already landed in Germany so they should have it back Monday morning. They have promised I will get my replacement laptop by mid next week.

That said the first thing I am going to do is repaste when the new machine arrives. Could you recommend the best thermal compound for the job?

Also to confirm I tried as you suggested, OC was off and I ran the fans on max. I managed to maintain approx. 78 degrees (c) after 10 minutes of heaven.

Thanks.

 

Glad everything is getting taken care of for you. That's awesome.

I will only use two thermal pastes. My preference is Liquid Ultra (or Phobya Liquid Metal, which is basically the same material, different brand,) and if I have that option available I won't use anything else for CPU. Applied correctly, and assuming a good fit of the heat sink, it will deliver the best results and last a year or more. My second preference is IC Diamond and it will generally last me around 90 days with heavy overclocking. The way I use a machine nothing else is acceptable except those two options because nothing else is as effective or durable as those two and I have better things to do with my time than replace thermal paste every month or so because it is worn out from overclocking or it has pumped out from being too thin and wimpy.

 

Thanks for the reply, yeah I checked the settings and everything seems to match. I am also using a sata drive in ahci and running windows 10.

Something else seems to be the problem. I cant even insert a new hard drive and reinstall windows. It gives me kernel is missing errors immediately, makes no sense to me. Either my actual uefi is messed up or something, I cant even flash the same bios I flashed again. Also im getting black screens on power up most of the time now.

 

Hmm. That is really odd. Have you tried resetting the NVRAM again? If not, might give that a try. Otherwise, you're going to need to get the vendor you bought it from involved with the repair. Something may have gone wrong in the flashing process, which is why I recommended nobody try flashing only the EC by itself. The UEFI, EC and ME firmware(s) can cause problems if they are mismatched in a hybrid cocktail.

For the benefit of anyone reading this, here is how I force an NVRAM reset on this machine:

• Disconnect AC adapter (leave system battery installed)
• Take out the keyboard and leave it face down on palm rest, ribbon cables still connected
• Disconnect CMOS battery and leave it out about 30 seconds
• Reinsert CMOS battery (if you have a USB keyboard, use that for now instead of the laptop keyboard)
• Connect AC adapter and power on again
• Wait up to 3 minutes. If nothing happens on your screen, power off using the power button and power on again, then wait up to a few minutes
• If the machine begins powering off and on again in a loop, power off and on again manually
  (UEFI has to identify the RAM, find and set the timings, etc. so be patient)
• Once the UEFI Reset warnings appear (smaller blue boxes) on your screen hit Enter 3x and start spamming F2 immediately
• Enter Setup and adjust everything the way you want it to be
• Put the keyboard and bottom cover back on again once everything is working the way you want it to

 

Thanks for another reply. That seemed to get me into windows again! Hope everything is working properly though, I cant tell anymore lol. This is my first uefi machine, and you can tell that my lack of experience and the thought of a botched computer really scared me.

Really appreciate your help!

 

Will get some ordered in preparation.

Can the Liquid Ultra be applied to both the GPU and CPU?

Thanks again.

 

AWESOME! Glad that helped. I really do not like UEFI storing settings in NVRAM... really stupid, but there's nothing we can do about it. That's all there is to work with any more and everything uses that arrangement now. My UEFI using NVRAM horror stories started with the Alienware 18 and I cut my teeth on the NVRAM nightmares on that machine. I was so mad at Alienware for that and they were criticized profusely for it, but they were just a year ahead of everyone else with a lot of the latest UEFI+NVRAM cancer security crap. There are some similarities in behavior and the nightmares of recovering from my own inexperience with the 18/Haswell have helped me with a few things on this machine.

I have flashed roughly 100 firmware mods helping @Prema and I have lost hours of time getting NVRAM to reset so the machine would boot. The problem is wrong settings (yes, user error,) get stored in NVRMA just as effectively as the right settings do, and to fix it you have to force NVRAM to poop all over itself before you can start over. Sometimes forcing the NVRAM to reset is more difficult than others, and it may take several tries before it will take a crap on itself.

You may have to do the same thing to recover from using XTU to apply messed up CPU overclock settings. Once you have the @Prema unlocked BIOS and have access to memory settings, attempting to tweak memory speeds or timings may cause the same problem if you use values the system is unable to boot with. Once you get used to resetting the NVRAM it is not difficult, just a pain in the butt. That's why I leave the keyboard screw out and have the Scotch tape handles on this keyboard. Because I am constantly experimenting with different settings, many of which end up not working, I have to reset NVRAM all the time. The only way to find out what works and what does not is by tinkering. Most people are going to find something they like and just leave it that way for a long time.

Edit: Also, for those that are running (or going to run) Windows 7, Setup defaults will not work. They do not for me. You have to change them for Windows 7 or you won't be able to load Windows. Windows 7 does not work in a 100% UEFI environment in all but the most bizarre one-off examples. You have to change the OS and CSM parameters after an NVRAM reset for booting Windows 7 because this machine is designed for an OS (Windows 8+) running in pure UEFI mode. If anyone needs help with that, let me know. I had to figure out through trial and error what works for Windows 7 and what does not.

Absolutely. And, it works fantastic on both. Liquid Ultra is more expensive and GPUs typically don't get as hot as a crazy CPU overclock. If you have both, using IC Diamond on the GPU may be as effective and save you a few bucks. If the GPU(s) gets too hot, Liquid Ultra will improve the temps a bit. I typically use IC Diamond on the GPU(s) unless I am having issues with thermals only because it is less expensive and faster to clean up later. On a Dell GPU without the black plastic shroud around the perimeter of the GPU die, it's not a bad idea to protect the small surface-mounted components with some electric tape or a thin layer of silicon sealant, but if you're cautious that is not required.

 

Also @Mr. Fox just really wanted to know whether this is normal due to stock bios or I just have a inept card. My GPU (980) refuses to get any stable clocks for core above +155 and my memory cannot really go above +150 and be stable . Temps are 71c at 99% load for 20 mins, so that seems fine. Is it the lack of voltage? Voltage also does not affect memory stability if I recall right?

 

I suspect that most of the issues you are having are attributable to NVIDIA's incompetence at vBIOS development. NVIDIA stock vBIOS absolutely sucks. I doubt there is anything wrong with your video card, you just need the @Prema vBIOS for a good overclocking experience. What is your ASIC score?

Just check in the UEFI Setup and confirm NVIDIA GPU Scaling is set to Disabled. If that is set to enabled, which is the Setup default value, it is going to cause overclocking issues and lower performance. That means if you reset NVRAM or flash the UEFI firmware, that is going to be turned on again and needs to be manually disabled. +130 on core is on the edge of stability with the stock vBIOS and stock voltage. You might even get better benchmark scores running stock clocks versus +130 on core with the stock vBIOS. The warmer the GPU gets, the more voltage it needs (same as a CPU) to be stable when overclocked. It doesn't have to get hot enough to be overheating to need more voltage compared to when it is stone cold.

Edit: Another thing to be aware of, G-SYNC is nice for playing games when it works well, but it sucks for overclocking. G-SYNC along with Shadowplay being turned on is causing really weird behavior for me when gaming. Some game titles do not work correctly and crash if I have both turned on in full screen mode. Witcher 3, for example, is totally unstable for me with both of them turned on and when I turn them off, Witcher 3 runs fine. If I get one of these machines, I have decided that I am not paying extra for G-SYNC. I have decided I don't even want G-SYNC. I find it mysteriously turns itself back on again randomly, even after I disable it, and that really pisses me off, LOL. I despise vsync and never use it anyway, and G-SYNC is vsync on steroids. Don't get me wrong, G-SYNC does look amazing, but it's just not nice enough for the extra crap that goes along with it and I'm more of an overclocker/bencher than I am a gamer. Gaming is something I do when I get bored, whereas the other is a passion. Because of that, I'd much rather have higher FPS than a relatively minor improvement in graphics output quality. If you are going to overclock, just turn off G-SYNC. It lowers your benchmark scores and so does having Shadowplay turned on, even if you are not recording.

 

Unit coming in Wednesday. I got the razor ready and the last bits of my CLU...

 

Yeah cannot wait until Prema gives me the privilege to use his bioses for the beast. My ASIC is a very average 69.3%.
G-Sync is definitely for heavy gamers like me, so I am the opposite and really appreciate how it feels during gaming. I would understand for benchers it is more of a hinderance really. I just wanted to overclock to get more frames since I OCed my display to 100hz, higher the better cause frame time also goes down alongside.

 

Yeah, I am running at 100hz here as well. The 980M SLI could use a bit more juice for higher clocks.

 

Do you have any sli numbers to post?

 

GPU is at game stable clocks. http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/9614105?

 

Do you mind dumping the vbios for me from each card? Thanks.

 

Would you be able to do a 3DMark11 run as well?

 

Mine is being shipped from Sager/Gentech tomorrow. About to be a proud owner and belong here! 6700k, 980M SLI.

I had preordered an Asus G752VY from Gentech in late October and grew weary of waiting for them to make it to the US. Thankfully it took long enough for me to discover this thread and find out more about the P870DM. I swapped my order right before Thanksgiving.

If it weren't for Ken Lee and his patience (our email thread is up to 80 messages at this point) and excellent customer service, I would have probably switched to a different reseller who was a Prema partner for obvious reasons. But as a business owner reading of the customer service nightmares with other resellers, I'd rather Gentech get my business even if it means waiting even longer for better BIOS/vBIOS.

Plus, I got a much better, upgradeable machine and longer warranty for nearly the same price as the Asus. Winning all around!

I've been lurking in this thread for a couple weeks and I'm excited to be part of the group. I'm amazed at how helpful you folks have been in this thread and I don't think words can express how much Mr. Fox contributes daily to this community.

Thanks to you all.

Sent from my LG-VS985 using Tapatalk

 

3dmarks 11 doesnt want to play nice with machine right now.

 

Do you have the dual adapter setup yet? If not, 3DMark benchmarks are going to be a bit much for only 330W trying to run 980M SLI.

If 3DMark 11 or Fire Strike are crashing or minimizing, or other stupid stuff like that, be sure you have G-SYNC and Shadowplay both disabled. Benchmarks are unstable for me with G-SYNC turned on. It keeps on re-enabling itself, so I always re-check to make sure it is still disabled before trying to run benchmarks. The newest 359.00 drivers are even more unstable with G-SYNC turned on.

 

Yeah I have g sync turned off. I am probably not getting the dual adapter until I have the software side first. G sync is nice in game but not for bench.

 

Does the system shut down with a single 330W AC adapter? If not, what is it doing? I know that on my Alienware M18xR2 initially, and later on my Panther, 980M SLI pulled more power than the single 330W AC adapter could effectively handle.

 

Notice any difference with 359.06 ? not sure if you were referring to 359 series as a whole,was alerting you of a new driver though it may make no difference.

 

Nope, no shut down whatsoever. The GPU dont have 100% usage on fallout 4 even when under g sync limit frame, but thats probably just SLI scaling issue. Since the benchmark score looks right, I dont the usage is due to power limits.

 

359.06 are garbage for the 860M, 970M, and 980M, the following hotfix driver needs to be installed ASAP:

nVIDIA Graphics Drivers v359.12 Findings & Fixes

 

The platform itself consumes a fair bit less than the P570WM.

 

Quick question, I ordered my P870DM-G with a single 980M, If i decided to buy the 2nd GPU would it need to be G-sync as well? Also By default the P870DM-g from eurocom comes with the 2nd GPU fan and heatsink correct?

 

as with other sli machines,both the fan and the second heatsink should come already equipped with the machine. concerning gsync, it would probably be advisable to stick with the identical gpu id ure already sporting to avoid any potential issues

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Just opened up my system, it comes with the 2nd VGA fan, but no heatsink. Do you think If I contacted Eurocom and paid the original difference would they ship the heatsink and 2nd GPU to me? I purchased my laptop on the 27th and have only had it like 3 or 4 days now.