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

Not bad if you are willing to wait. It should not be required but if you want then that's not a lot of cash.

 

Hi! I had to return my first PB51RF, due to an issue. This is the display on the new one I received. I have the 240 hz screen. I'm a little disappointed with the backlight bleed, as the first laptop I received had barely any backlight bleed visible. Can I get some feedback? Is this backlight bleed that bad? Thanks!

Pictures from 8/25/2019: (Image #2 is with night vision enabled on cellphone camera. Without night vision is more typical of what I see in real life.)

Pictures from 8/26/2019: (Image #2 is with night vision enabled on cellphone camera)

 

Some is normal yes and higher refresh rate displays are more prone.

Cellphones picture are impossible to judge however as they distort the true light.

 

Hi! what happened with your first laptop?

Well, it depends. All laptops have a certain degree of backlight bleed. If it does not bother you, keep it. If you think that it's too much, ask if you can exchange it or get a refund.

 

My concern is less about whether the CPU is powerful enough, and more about whether heavy VFX simulations/renders will slam the machine so hard that it struggles to stay cool and avoid thermal throttling. Or that doing that type of work will burn up and damage the machine.

A heavy Houdini sim/render can easily crank for hours and hours. Lots of people talk about artificial loads from benchmarks not reflecting real-world use, but it seems to me that 3D sims/renders would closely mimic benchmark behaviour, as they max out resource utilization to get a job done as fast as possible.

The PB50 would be for personal projects and teaching, so not as regularly subjected to heavy loads as my machine at work, and I'm planning to use an eGPU to help with rendering. So maybe in my case I don't need to worry as much. Just don't want to be unrealistic about what the laptop can handle, as I assume Houdini work is much more resource intensive than gaming or other forms of content creation.

From a processor capability standpoint, a PB50 with i9 9980HK seems significantly more powerful than the i7 6700K in the desktop PC I'd be selling. Even though the i9 is 2.4 Ghz base clock, I assume the 8 cores & 5 Ghz turbo boost would put it well ahead of the 6700K's 4 cores @ 4 Ghz. Unless the i9 in the laptop was often thermal throttled down to its lower base clock speed, for heavy 3D content creation work.

 

The desktop systems have the most robust cooling and VRMs.

 

Nobody is questioning the fact that desktops offer better performance/cooling in general.

The question is whether it's risky for laptops like the PB50 to run lots of 3d simulations/renders, and if it will be thermal throttled down to its low base clock speed when doing that sort of work.

But I guess even if a PB50 with an i9 ran **only** at it's base clock of 2.4 Ghz x 8 cores, that's still better than my current desktop i7 6700K running 4 Ghz x 4 cores.

So the main question is whether or not heavy 3d work is damaging for the machine. And how much an eGPU may reduce the problem, particularly for GPU renderers like Redshift.

(Also, big ups to @XMG / Schenker & HIDevolution for being the only Clevo resellers I've found that will put 64 GB RAM in the PB50. I don't know why others like PCS/Obsidian won't offer the 2 x 32GB option.)

 

I use the pb51 (i7 8750h) with cinema 4d and when is rendering the temps max are about 65/74 degrees, its a very stable machine

 

Noob question here. I notice a lot of people really advocating the dual channel RAM setup for performance increases in games. Since I have one 16gig stick would the second also have to be 16gigs or could I stick in an 8 since that'd be cheaper ... but still see the benefits of the dual channel setup? Disclaimer: I know next to nothing about how RAM affects performance in games.

 

You can put an 8 in for 16gb dual channel and 8gb single channel. Windows knows how to manage this properly.

 

What temps do you get with this profile?

 

Anyone can advise how to properly install Clevo CC? Can I simply download latest version and install on top of existing version? Last time I tried, it shows '?' in fan speed and temp after installation.

Thanks!

 

Hi, does anyone on here have experience of installing an Ubuntu-based distro onto a PB50/51? Am seriously considering buying one but can't find a single example online of anyone trying this and would like to hear of at least one success story before taking the plunge.

I'm aware that resellers like System 76 and Tuxedo are offering Ubuntu-like distros, but they have teams of people to make it work and I'm just one person :/

Also before anyone suggests I just buy from them, my use-cases are really specific, I need to use it for machine learning but I also need Ubuntu Studio's audio routing (vanilla Ubuntu is a nightmare in this regard)

Thanks

Mark

 

You could always speak to them about putting another distro on for you.

 

Yes I've messaged Tuxedo about the possibility of this (they're in Germany and I'm in the UK so not too far if something goes wrong; System 76 are in Canada which is a different proposition) and am waiting for a response.

System 76 are appealing in every other regard, apparently their OS makes installing machine learning software a lot easier, as does Lambda Labs' Tensorbook of course.

The main thing is that these companies are charging a pretty big markup on what it would cost if I just bought the barebones machine and did it myself, and (understandably, given that they're commercial enterprises) aren't very forthcoming about what they've actually done under the hood to make things work so smoothly. It's a tricky one as I'm on a budget here (I'm a student! :/ ), just one success story with some good info would be enough to sway it tbh.

Thanks for the response anyway

Mark

 

Hey Guys, so to add to my 1520, I had purchased the Crucial P1, 1TB drive without reading the reviews of the issues they have, and sure enough, mine is having the problems of errors, drive disconnected, etc....

While I can RMA it (and I with be stucj with a replacement of the same model), I am being offered a chance to return it minus a stocking fee, which given the purchase price will leave me with just about $10 less that a new one of a different brand would cost today (I would get back $107)...

What do you think of this Silicon Power one?

https://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Powe...+nvme+1tb+ssd&qid=1568655456&s=gateway&sr=8-8

or this HP one:

https://www.amazon.com/HP-EX920-Int...+ssd+hp+ex920&qid=1568656589&s=gateway&sr=8-3

 

The first one is better.

 

Thanks, I think I will go with that one. Just have to wait until my item arrives and the $$ is in my account.

 

I’ve only had luck with the links on HIDEVOLUTION website versus the Windows store. The Windows Store version didn’t work correctly with the model I tested.

 

What about this one?

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Rock...eywords=ssd+nvme+1tb+m2&qid=1568816190&sr=8-4

 

It’s the same drive as the other Silicon Power, so yeah it’s also fine. If you get this one make sure you register it at the Sabrent website to extend warranty to 5 years.

 

would it be good to fit either of these with heatsinks? (or even the WD pre-installed on the laptop?). Do heatsinks even fit in the laptop..?

 

The pre-installed SSD doesn’t come with a heatsink. I don’t know how much space there is to fit a heatsink, so I would try the heatsinks with the smallest z-height which is 3mm.

 

So, I guess this one...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076YZMQR5/ref=psdc_2998409011_t2_B078X8WCY2

 

Yeah that one looks fine.

 

Thanks, for 3 bucks, not much to lose whether it fits or doesn't...

 

I'd keep it without a heatsink to help airflow unless you plan on transferring TBs of data repeatedly.

 

You think? (And does that go for both the pre-installed one and the extra one?).

Had read some of these get hot and start throttling.

 

Some drives do get hot and throttle on sustained transfers the sort of 4k video editors rapidly scrubbing for a minute might get.

 

A bit off topic but has anyone managed to get this working with their keyboard? Mine just keeps saying not initialised for the clevo keyboard.
https://www.project-aurora.com/

 

They to keep to one thread for such questions.

 

Okay my keyboard lighting is acting weird. Even though its off, some keys are still on. Anyone else get this?

 

Not seen that before with mine. I use the 'Ripple' mode which illuminates only while typing. But I've not actually seen an error in any mode before. I would probably undo any recent changes and give Clevo Control Panel/KeyboardLED apps a reinstall.

 

the actual audio codec itself i believe is realtek, the soundblaster thing is just software
the seller might have forgotten to install it, sometimes they re install windows for your laptop and maybe forget to install this one

you can get it easily from clevo website https://www.clevo.com.tw/en/e-servi...?Lmodel=PB5xRC_RF_ED1(-G)&ltype=9&submit=+GO+
search for Creative SBX

to see the actual audio codec you can run hwinfo or just go to device manager then to audio and details select hardware id you'll get something like this

HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_1220&SUBSYS_ bla bla bla

DEV_1220 means realtek ALC1220 that's what's in my motherboard yours will be different, ven 10EC is the vendor id for realtek (i think)

for your webcam you can also check using this method or through hwinfo https://www.hwinfo.com/

 

Could be worth re-seating the connector.

 

Hi guys,

I am thinking of buying a gaming laptop this weekend and after going through this thread (yeah, I read the whole 89 pages worth of replies, lol), I think I'm going to get the Sager from Gentech.
However I do wonder between the two options that I was looking at either the:

Sager NP8453(Clevo PB51RF) 240Hz nVidia RTX 2070 8GB, 9th Gen Intel Core i7-9750H ( 15.6" 1920x1080 TN @240Hz, 72% NTSC)
or
Sager NP8377 (Clevo PB71RF-G) nVidia RTX 2070 8GB, 9th Gen Intel Core i7-9750H ( 17.3" 1920x1080 TN @144Hz 7ms, 72% NTSC, G-Sync)

I like them because they both have RTX 2070 and their price is actually the same on Gentech. The only different is their size (which I don't really mind either one) and their display (this one I do mind).
I tried reading from different sources and I still couldn't make up my mind in which of these 2 displays are better (either higher framerates, or with G-Sync).
I do play games a lot, but mostly RPG games. I don't play FPS game like CS:GO or Overwatch. So I wonder which of these two displays are better for gaming?
Also, for regular use (browsing and watching videos) which one would have longer battery life?

 

If you don't play FPS games like CS:GO and Overwatch, you won't benefit from the 240Hz screen as much. The GSYNC would probably benefit you the most.

 

I'm in the same boat, but I don't know if having a larger laptop is going to impair my setup's portability. I keep leaning one way or the other every week.

 

If you will be carrying it around the 15 inch is more portable in a meaningful way.

 

Personally, I'd go for the 15 inch purely for the extra portability. I went from a 17 inch laptop to a 15 inch and it is SO much more nicer to carry around and have on your lap. Besides, there should be an option of the 15 inch with a 144hz GSYNC screen. Mine does.

 

Exact panel options can vary by reseller.

 

Anyone see any tangible benefits to battery life when running the laptop in high performance mode vs power saving? To me, it feels like they last the same amount of time (then again, I havent managed to fully drain the battery on either system)

 

I decided to buy the Clevo PB71RF-G due to it having G-Sync. I look everywhere and it doesn't seem like resellers in the US sell the PB51RF-G anymore. Most of the 15.6 inch are either 240Hz or 4k OLED, no 144Hz with G-Sync like the resellers in Europe.
Speaking of Europe, do any of you guys know if the resellers here like Gentech do different keyboard layout? My friend is looking to buy laptop from Gentech as well (due to their good deals) but he wants a German Layout keyboard (He lives in the US, but still want German Keyboard, lol). He knows that reseller in Europe like XMG does give the option for different keyboard layout.

 

Less common in America for obvious reasons but you could ask if they could source one.

 

Right there with you buddy. How was your experience with Gentech with this machine? Did you get it yet? I know they don't stress test as much as more premium resellers, but on the price front they're hard to beat.

 

Hi!
I wanted to order a laptop from pcspecialist and i almost ordered VORTEX IX when i suddenly found gentechpc.
Then I faced the prices on gentechpc and immediately ordered this version Sager NP8453 (Clevo PB51RF).
When it comes to running tests on it and checking the temperature it will be worth repaste and UV.
And one more question, it's worth ordering ssd NVMe heatsink?

 

Unless you're planning on very heavy R/W workloads it won't really help out with anything.
It may not even fit, I don't know if it will in this machine.

Does anyone know what the brightness of the 240Hz panel is like? The 144Hz 17" panel is somewhat dim 287cd/m2 according to NBC.

 

What SSD are you getting? @eroli23

 

i tried the performance mode and the power setting in windows still say balanced i think you need to change the window power setting manually

 

i don't think they stress test at all i feel that they have a clever strategy, do the repaste for free since a tube of paste is not that expensive so they can cut cost, if they ask sager to repaste it it will cost more, so they are in the between a reseller and a builder