*** Official Clevo PB5xExx(-G) Owner's Lounge ***

So I got my XMG Pro 15 in my hands without any storage and I'm installing the drivers. How do I get the fingerprint reader to work? And my speakers aren't working :\ The only audio source that appers is "Speakers (Realtek(R) Audio)"
Also, I can't access the bios for some reason. Spamming del at startup doesn't work and trying to access it from Windows just ends in a black screen.

EDIT: Okay, I seem to keep fixing stuff as soon as I ask for help xD
Still can't access the bios though. I'm stuck on MSHybrid mode and I want discrete for that sweet, sweet GSYNC

 

@TheUberMedic F2 for BIOS. F7 for boot device menu. (If you get hung up by Windows Fast Startup, Restart the laptop instead of using Shut down.)

 

You just need to install the FP scanner driver and it should work just fine after that.

@Meaker@Sager I just heard from a Prostar rep that they were expecting a model with a 240hz panel. Do you know anything about this, or if Sager is going to be offering such a thing?

 

Hello guys,

Migrating from a very solid Tongfang GK5CN6Z (OP branded) to MCs Powerspec, nice to meet you all.

Still much a noob in regards to tinkering with laptops, but I must say, having played with the Tongfang for a while has definitely help me set up this laptop.

Current Firestrike score sits at 16859 (although I'm getting 18,847 graphics score, compared to B0bs 20k+, which makes me feel I'm doing something wrong on the GPU side)

Cinebench 1278

Temps are good so far. they idle around 40c GPU/44c CPU. Most I've seen it go up is 70c GPU / 84c CPU playing Sekiro at max settings, yet to test it on more demanding games.

1) One thing I'm new with is dealing with MSI Afterbunners curve editor. I followed B0bs video on how to tune up this machine, but just wanted to make sure I did the whole 1500mhz by 800 mV correctly (mainly since the curve starts at 700mV, please view attachment).

2) Also, just confirming, even though Control Centers performance profile will allow it pull up to 55W (confirmed with TS bench), this does not reflect on the TDP, which remains at 45w at all times. Is this it's intended behaviour? PL1 and PL2 sit at 55w and 90w (both unlocked) per HWInfo.

Trying to narrow down the reason as to why I'm still getting some PL2 warning on the Core and Ring, per TS (I've attached my config, in case anyone could offer any suggestions as to how to improve it overall)

3) As a warning for Powerspec buyers, make sure to pay attention to any odd fan noise. On my first setup I noticed something was going on with my left fan (GPU if I'm not mistaken). Turns out it had a small blue plastic strip stuck inside! Had to pry it out from the keyboard side... As soon as I did that, sound was gone. My right fan (CPU) emits a very soft grazing sound at low rpm as well, but after some inspection, I still haven't found any contact.

Don't know if you already got your answer, but sounds like DOA. Had to return a P1 as well about a month and a half ago.

 

No details but if panels become available they will always be considered and compared to the current supply.

 

It just black screens :\

 

Its easier to get into the BIOS after a restart.
You restart the laptop in Windows, and as soon as the screen goes out start pressing F2, you can press it like you are playing a shooter game F2, F2, F2, F2...
Another way:



Also disabling Windows Fast Start might not be a bad idea since it is famous for causing all sorts of problems.

 

Holding F2 down also spams it repeatedly so you don't have to worry about missing the timing.

That could very well be Fast Startup after all! Try disabling it from in the power options > "Choose what the power button does".

 

It was already disabled :|

 

Have you tried power cycling the system? A black screen here typically means no POST.

 

Oh for the love of god. I just turned on my laptop normally and it went into the bios itself. What laptop have I bought xD

 

The wonderful world of UEFI

 

Just grabbed an open box 1520 from microcenter for 1189. It seems one reason for returns is backlight bleed. My unit had moderate light bleed and I could see why someone would return it with a price of $1400. When I asked the manager if the screen could be replaced under warranty he took another 100 off. The backlight bleed is not so bad now... If you are interested in this system, you might want to check you local Microcenter and see what they have. Firestrike run:

 

Any thoughts on this @B0B ??

 

Comparing my scores to yours I notice my Core clock and Memory bus clock speeds sit far below yours, which I'm guessing is the reason why my graphic score is almost 2k points below yours.

Did you apply any type of overclocking to your machine, asides from any tinkering with the voltage curve? I'm completely new to GPU overclocking, and just want to understand why my systems performance does not seem to be up to par to other scores shared here.

 

What power mode are you in with the clevo control centre?

 

Performance mode. The computer does draw 55w during benches. Was just confirming if switching "clevo modes" should reflect in the systems reported TDP by HWInfo, AIDA64, etc... or if it just remains static, even though the laptop is able to draw more wattage, as shown in the attachment following.

UPDATE: Nevermind my testing. I've switched over to every possible clevo profile and it draws 55w with all of them during TS Benchmark. I've tested it with BFV and it does hit 55 sporadically (on all the profiles), but RTSS's Power Limit warning seems to be on all the time in every profile except Power Savings, even when it says its only pulling 30w~. There is a difference in FPS though, switching from Power Savings to any other profile yielded a substantial increase, but toggled PL throttling notice.

 

I assume it does, since *I think* I read somewhere that the mini display port is directly connected to the discrete 2070, but has anyone tried the new Rift S with the laptop?

 

I just picked up a PowerSpec 1720 today and am in love. The performance is crazy! And the keyboard is real fun, as it reacts to even non-RGB attached USB keyboards so it's like a ghost typing on the laptop.
Anyways...initial testing revealed nearly 85W draw during a Cinebench run and some definite throttling down to 3.4GHz as the CPU reached BDprochot level of 96C quite quickly. Still, a respectable ~ 2650 points in Cinebench R20 with zero tweaking.

About and hour with ThrottleStop tweaking and I managed a cool -0.150v core undervolt which limits the overall draw to around 70W peak during benches. More tweaking to the fan profile and I'm averaging 80-82C instead of the previous 96C and a new Cinebench R20 score of 3088!!!

I've only played World War Z for a few hours but the G-SYNC display is amazing! 144Hz/FPS all day long, and I can play at full 1080/Ultra settings. A first for me! If you don't limit the frames, I've seen upwards of 350 at times! Put a smile on my face.

The BIOS is the best I've ever used on a laptop. Mouse inputs, overclocking options, real control! A big step coming from my previous Acer Nitro 5.

Now, the one issue I am having; it has two M.2 ports and another 2.5" SATA port . It came with a single 500GB M.2 NVME which works great. I plugged in another one (different brand) into the 2nd M.2 port and it doesn't recognize in BIOS, Windows, or anywhere. It's like it's not there. But it's a good drive that works in other laptops. Any ideas friends? I'd like to use it for more game storage.

EDIT: The plot thickens. I took it apart to repaste the CPU/GPU with great success. While there, I threw in another 256GB M.2 PCIE gen 3x4 and it WORKED! So the port is confirmed working. I just have no idea why it doesn't work with my Crucial MX500 M.2 SATA SSD drive. Anyone? Is it because it previously had Windows on it? Should I wipe and retry?

In BIOS it has either AHCI (i think) or Optane mode. Never tried Optane but I assume that wont make my 500GB drive work.

 

Perhaps something to do with one being PCI-e and the other SATA?

 

The naming is confusing me. It came with the PCI-e port blank. Both of the drives I have say "NVME" & "SATA". But the smaller 256GB lists PCI-e Gen 3 x 4. Both drives worked in my previous laptop, but now the larger one doesn't in the new laptop. I guess I don't understand the difference, and why the smaller/cheaper of the drives is the one that works? Are some M.2 NVME SATA drives not PCI-e compatible? How do you tell, because I definitely didn't buy the drives knowing they were different.

It's also 4AM. Maybe I just need some rest and a fresh set of eyes in a few hours haha. Thanks for bearing with me.

 

Both are physically the same, sata and PCI-e are very different electrically though and slots need to be able to handle switching between the two. Check your manual for more info.

 

Hey all, I come from the PB71EF-G Thread as I do have the 17" model. But I saw some interesting posts here aswell!

I had the same issue. Couldn't get into BIOS even though I used the right keys (F2, spamming like a mad man).
Apparently, with Windows10 the OS doesn't always shut down completely when you klick "shut down".

So what helped me is to HOLD Shift while klicking "shut down". This will force windows to shut down completely and let you get into BIOS on the next "full/fresh" start.

Quoting these two posts of yours, because I'm basicly in the exact same situation as you with my new PB71EF-G.
I am too getting a much worse performance on these tests than other people posting and especially BobOfAllTrades video review on the PB51EF-G on youtube.
Also followed his guides to undervolt my cpu to .-125v and did tweak the GPU with MSI Curve Editor.

I did this too. Don't know If I did it right, but I set it to 1500mhz only after the point .800V. So I left the standart values until .800v and then made a fixed line at 1500mhz.

Really, I just want to understand why mine's underperforming, aswell.
Calling @B0B could you have a look at our situation?

This is what I posted in the other thread:

 

I find it best to use the OC scanner on MSI Afterburner and then set a flat frequency after around 0.9v so you get the benefits of both an OC and an UV.

 

Mine had Liquid Metal and I was always showing performance with the Dedicated GPU and not MSHybrid.

Beyond that, it can come down to

-Windows build (1809 vs 1903 right now would surprise you)

-BIOS and power limits set per the manufacturer.

-Things such as the Clevo Control Center that have a baked-in XTU profiles that control the power limits of the CPU.

 

I've made some adjustments and gotten to very decent scores the last few days, but what I still don't get is how the Clevo modes work with this Chassis. Do you recall if you were able to draw more than 45w on any other clevo mode aside from performance during benchmarks with the HIDEvolution test unit you reviewed? During gameplay I have a hard time getting up and maintaining 55w with the games I have access to, but I've noticed I can go beyond 45w during benchmarks on every mode, including Power Saving. Switching to Performance Mode doesn't seem to affect the TDP reflected by HWInfo and AIDA64, as shown in my previous posts.

Thanks for your input.

I figured as much. Those settings were the ones I was running when I was underperforming. I'm currently running an OC of +180 mhz Core Clock and +600 Memory Clock. I've attached my current scores for reference.

I'm still playing around with Afterbunner, will definitely try this out. Thanks.

 

So... nobody does VR on this..?

 

Just because your cpu can pull that much wattage doesn’t mean it needs to.

This is why I use BF online as it will not only pull some serious wattage from all necessary components, but it’ll reveal issues very easily too.

If your GPU is pushing 90%+ utilization then the CPU is doing its job and therefore won’t necessarily need to be balls-out either.

 

Understood. My question was geared more towards the difference between the Control Center modes which, at least in the Powerspec version, have a very confusing interaction with the TDP

 

I do not recall how it worked for the EVOC I reviewed but there was a difference between the default and performance modes I do know that.

How that translates per the software and manufacturers BIOS has been difficult to nail down since there’s so many companies that offer the same chassis.

I once tried the Clevo Control Center from the Windows store and it was a hot mess compared to the correct one provided from HID for example.

 

VR is VERY niche still.

 

Lol *very*niche? While it doesn’t apply to the laptop, do you know how many vr units playstation has sold? I get that in all it’s still a small percentage, but we are talking about millions of users. Wouldn’t be that strange for someone to have tested it on this (specially the manufacturer..?)

In any case, the mini DP *is* directly connected to the 2070, right..?

Here’s some figures, and forecasts, it’s becoming less of a niche each day...

https://www.viar360.com/virtual-reality-market-size-2018/

 

Here's what I did and I end up with a score of 6163 in Unigen Superposition.

I've yet to actually try using my VR headset on this laptop! Thanks for reminding me (I use a Lenovo Explorer)
I'll play some Beat Saber and record it. Any song suggestions?

 

So I was able to find out that doubled sided NVMe sticks do fit, but even Gentech doesn't know whether or not they'll work. Is there any way to confirm without having to try it myself? I'm looking at the 2TB Corsair MP510 and the HP EX950. There seems to be only three options for singled sided 2TB NVMe, Samsung, WD Black, or Intel 660P. If the double sided SSDs can fit then it would save me a lot of money.

 

Thank you for sharing this, I'll definitely try this config out!

 

Slot 1 supports NVME and SATA drives.
Slot 2 is NVME only.

They're both keyed the same and not well labelled (mine doesn't even say which is which on the PCB). So if you have a SATA drive you'll need to swap it around so it's in slot 1 (closest to the touchpad from memory).

Your Crucial MX500 is definitely a SATA drive, but what is the other one? Maybe you've actually just got 2x SATA M.2 drives?

Also worth noting, some M.2 drives are just labelled badly. Plus some older NVME drives use a SATA controller on them.

 

I can confirm the following (on my PB51RF-G) are connected to the Nvidia GPU:

• HDMI
• Mini-DP
• DisplayPort via USB 3 (rear)

Haven't tested the DisplayPort via Thunderbolt 3 (right side port). But judging from the PB50RC service manual, it is also connected to the NV GPU.

As for VR, it's great (Oculus CV1 here). Haven't attempted it un-tethered though (ie. backpack and running off battery). You could probably play some lighter VR games on battery though.

I do recommend undervolting as much as possible (GPU and CPU). This should be done on any mobile GPU used for VR. The main reason is that ASW (Async SpaceWarp for Oculus, SteamVR also has a motion smoothing option) makes it's decision to kick in based on GPU utilization, which in turn is based on GPU clockspeed.
Since Mobile chips are power-limited, the clockspeed moves around, which presents a "moving target" for ASW so it may kick in when you don't want it to. The more stable you get your GPU clock under load, the more reliable ASW becomes.

 

These are them - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L6FJS7V/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077SQ8J1V/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I feel dense for not fully understanding, but it seems you're right that it's not always clear on the drive and only 1 slot on the motherboard is clearly labeled.

In the future I'll be sure to buy the correct one. I just lucked out having this 256GB from a previous laptop along with the MX500.

 

Are you saying you used the same settings like me when you got those underperforming scores? Because your MSI Curve Editor was a fixed line starting at .700v while I adjusted it only after .800v. Don't know if it makes such a difference though.

Could you tell me which adjustments exactly you did? Only OC the GPU to +180mhz/600 Core/MemClock? Did you do that with the standart Clevo Control Center?

Could you explain why editing the curve after .900v to a flat line grants benefits of OC and UV?
Again, how did you do the OC and UV in the first place, is it just the +500mhz at MSI Afterburner in the screenshot?

Spoiler: your Screenshot

I'm still wondering if that metal liquid really did all of the improvement.
As I have the bigger 17" chassis, shouldn't I have more free space in the chassis, more breathing room, thus better cooling and after all a better performance as the 15" model (by default under same circumstances)?

Was my assumption right on how to edit the gpu curve to a fixed line only after .800v and keep it on default before that point?

 

That should be fine. The SiliconPower is indeed NVME. So just make sure the SATA SSD is in the correct slot and both should be detected.

 

I adjusted to .800v after posting the screenshot to very similar results. The Firestrike score I last posted was the result of the 180/600 using Afterburner, without any curve tweak.

 

Yes direct connected, but still very niche

If it fits a double sided drive will work no issue

 

It gives the benefits of OC cause it's running at a higher frequency than it normally does.
I do it at .900mV cause I still want a lot more power since my laptop runs really cool (under 80C straight from XMG, whatever they did to it makes it run super cool). In total, my laptop barely uses over 180W of power which is super nice (along with the CPU UV).

As for how I did it, I clicked the OC button on the top left of the MSI afterburner and then clicked scan. It'll try to apply the best OC to your GPU curve at each voltage. Then I opened up the curve and set it flat after 0.900mV. You might want to set it at a lower voltage if you want it to use less power and produce less heat.

That +500mHz OC is for the memory which I figured out manually. I ran Superposition with different memory OCs until I found the one that gave the best score (which was +500, it might be different for you since not all memory is created equally)

 

Thanks mate. I'm quite new to all this benchmarking and OC stuff so I'm still learning. Probably have to get into it some more to understand all of that. Can you recommend a guide or smth?

When does the gpu actually increases its mV? At 900mV it would stall on that performance of ~1930mhz, so whats the reason to draw more power after 900mV

Where did you get the information of your total 180w from? HWMonitor?
I guess that "cool 80C" is for the CPU and includes the UV (@ how much, -.125v?)

 

[Whoops, nvm. Double posted while editing. No function to delete a post?]

 

Ah it's not that hard. Here, I'll guide you through it. I'll even put in clickbaity red circles and arrows

1. Install MSI Afterburner. Link is here: http://download.msi.com/uti_exe/vga/MSIAfterburnerSetup.zip
2. Open MSI Afterburner and click the OC button. This'll open a window called "MSI Overclocking Scanner"
3. 
   
4. Click the scan button on the window that shows
5. Let the window do its thing. If you want to see what it's doing, click on the afterburner screen and press CTRL + F. This'll open the voltage curve and you can see it being changed. This'll take a while
6. 
   
7. You should end up with this text on the "MSI Overclocking Scanner" window:
8. 
   
9. Close the "MSI Overclocking Scanner" and click apply.
   
10. 
    
11. Save the profile by clicking the floppy disk icon and then click a number near that icon.
12. 
    
13. Open the voltage curve using CTRL + F and flatten it after a certain voltage. I personally use 0.900mV but feel free to use more or less. I'd recommend less and wouldn't recommend more. Easiest way to do this is to just drag all the points past your UV point below it.
14. 
    
15. Click apply on Afterburner and save said profile. And your UV / OC is now complete! (for the core anyway...). If you did what I said above, the curve should flatten out like so:
    
16. 

The GPU increases its mV depending on its job and its temperature. If it can run faster within its temperate limit, it will do so and increase its mV. By limiting the maximum amount of power it can draw, you prevent power limit throttling and reduce the temperature overall. This gives a more consistant performance to the GPU. It also reduces the fan speed so you end up with a quieter system even when under full load. My system actually runs really quiet (for a gaming laptop) when under full load. If my last laptop was a jet engine, this one is a loud conversation Of course, you could just forgo the UV and use only the OC so you get the maximum performance (I wouldn't be suprised if you hit 2GHz) if the cooling system can handle it but expect the fans to scream!

I got my power usage from using HWiNFO64.
The "cool 80C" is from both the CPU and GPU I use a -125mV UV but not all CPUs are created equally. You'll need to find what your CPU runs best at.

 

Lower voltage will mean higher clocks at the same power also assuming its stable.

 

Thanks a lot, very informative.
I followed B0B's guide on youtube but this adds nicely to it.
(awesome clickbaity circles and arrows )

 

Glad to be of help!

 

Sorry for being annoying with this question but I'd really like to get it right. Can anyone verify they've successfully added double sided non Samsung/WD Black 1TB+ NVMe SSDs?