*** Official Clevo X170SM-G/Sager NP9670M Owner's Lounge ***

Would be nice if he was not relying on donor machines from the likes of us.

 

Would be nice if Clevo machines did not rely on Prema. He is the sole reason any of these machines have any redeeming qualities

 

Pretty good try overclocking the CPU to 5.0 ghz and run cinebench R20 then overclock GPU and run fire strike and time spy

 

Well, it shouldn't cost him a dime. In fact, it should be opposite of that and he should receive handsome compensation for the salvation of defective products. If things were as they should be @Prema would be the head of firmware development at Clevo and nobody would need to rely on third-party remedial intervention. Every Clevo would be right before it shipped. That would make them unique and special rather than obscure and nearly irrelevant.

Well said. The sad truth is that any and all laptops are rubbish without a @Prema BIOS. To my knowledge there has never, ever, been a single laptop produced that has been worth owning with stock firmware. None of them are worth a damn with a stock BIOS. It is totally inexcusable that any brand is sold without all of the options one would expect to find on a good quality desktop motherboard. It is shameful and the OEMs should be held accountable for it. Most if them don't deserve to make money off of the trash they sell.

 

Asking as someone who is just beginning to dip their toes into the finer workings of laptops - would you say there is an OEM that does deserve good money?

 

No, unfortunately there's not. I'd recommend spending as little as possible on a laptop because they're all basically junk. You have no idea how much I wish that were not the case. It is extremely discouraging and I have given up any hope that it will ever improve. Just get a TongFang BGA turdbook if you are looking for something cheap to play games on. Oddly enough, TongFang is the only manufacturer that shows any evidence that they listen and actually give a damn about their products or their customers. It's unfortunate that the only thing they offer is disposable BGA garbage. Too bad they do not make a respectable DTR with impressive specs. Brother @B0B has found that they are very engaged and want to produce amazing products.

Avoid Alienware and Dell garbage like The Plague. Stick with Clevo or go with TongFang. At least with Clevo there is a chance you might end up getting the firmware defects resolved someday. There's not a chance in hell that will ever happen with a big brand name like Alienware. They've implemented very deliberate Nazi-like features to ensure it doesn't happen and they are unworthy of your patronage.

If stooping as low as buying a chintzy BGA turdbook isn't going to cut it, then grab an X170 from a @Prema Partner shop, wait and pray that it is released from its prison of firmware filth before it becomes obsolete.

 

Well, I guess my most recent purchase of the X170 from HID would be a good starting point to learn more about tweaking and extracting as much oomph as I can.

As a contractor in company housing, I’m not in the best of places to dig into a desktop so I hope this will do.

And given the rate at which people are getting their X170s, I think I got a lot of waiting to do.

 

Well, you've definitely taken the right first step in the process by purchasing from a @Prema Partner shop. There's nothing more you could do at this point but wait it out and hope that a BIOS mod becomes available soon. Picking a new laptop today is pretty much a demoralizing exercise. You determine how much you are willing to pay and then go about the task of identifying the lesser evil among the options available in that price range. There's really nothing much to choose from on the high end and almost nothing respectable in any price range. I don't think you could have chosen a better option on the highest end of the performance spectrum. The only legitmate competitor to the X170 is the Area 51m and I'd not even consider that as a remote possibility. While the X170 certainly leaves a lot to be desired, it's probably the least offensive current-generation model available for purchase.

 

This is the most accurate and honest description about the state of things today.

 

Ok did some more tests. My best score was 49 all cores. I went up to 51 but the scores went down a little. Even at 51 my temps never went above 84. This was elevated with max fans during the test. I’d really like to clear 12k. So close.

https://www.3dmark.com/spy/13367297

 

If increasing the core ratio lowers performance it generally means the CPU is starving for voltage and needs more to perform correctly. It may not be low enough to crash, but too little to give optimal results. You have a little bit of headroom before thermal throttling occurs, so goose the voltage up a little bit and the score will likely improve. Increasing the cache ratio can also help. Also, run a ThrottleStop benchmark and look for yellow or red performance limit reasons. If it is current or power limit starved it might not be holding 5.1GHz on all cores under load. If that is the case, when you increase the current and power limits so it doesn't throttle it may crash because of the voltage being too low. FWIW, you can max out the power limits. Doing so causes no harm. It merely allows the CPU to pull as much power as it is capable of pulling (assuming there is no interference with an EC/firmware-imposed power limit). The CPU will never draw more power than it wants, so you can raise the power and current limits to far more than the CPU is capable of using with no adverse implications. Voltage is what causes heat.

 

nice I like to see 12k also wanna see the cinebench scores at 5.0ghz let’s get to 6400 to 6500 on multi

 

Sorry, I didn't catch what you were saying. Can you please repeat that?

Edit: OK, got it.

 

Well this is a first time I’m increasing voltage and power on my laptop. I’ve always gone down to control temps. What boxes and numbers do I check for power limits? Also What increments on voltage should I start with?

 

If you are using ThrottleStop click the TPL button and fill in the limits with 4095, 4095, 1023 and 4095. How much voltage are you running now? I would go up by about 20mV (0.020V) increments and then fine tune from there. Check the option "Disable and lock turbo power limits" in ThrottleStop and clear the BDPROCHOT box.

Don't forget to also change the ring (cache) voltage by a similar anount as the core voltage.

 

I’ve just been using adaptive offsets. Doing plus 20mv on both spots right now.

 

Well higher temps but not higher score with 50 and +20mv with the TPL settings. Is this probably because of a BIOS restriction?

 

It might be. Compare only the physics score and ignore the overall score for now. Is the physics score higher than before? If so, how much lower is the GPU score?

It could be due to the GPU getting warm and losing core clock speed as well. Hard to say. Do you have a way of making it colder? Like an air conditioning vent on the floor you could place it over while running the benchmark or something like that?

 

Everything scored lower on the last run. I’ll get a cold setup with my custom laptop cooler.

 

Try increase core and lower cashe ratio. Core is still King. You have slow speed 2400 ram so the increased cashe is not so favorable as with higher core clocks (Cache is tightly integrated with memory - See... Increased cashe ratio will provide better performance if paired with high speed ram. Not so much with slow ram).

 

I wish we had xmp available. These sticks are 2800. I may need to upgrade them sooner.

 

Hi guys, I am interested to know what is the real weight of this laptop. The official 3.8kg seems optimistic. Also, what is the weight of the power adapter?

 

You'll find all that info in the intro...

 

Consumables question. I am waiting for mine from HID. Given that multiple companies advertise this model, would I have no issues if I decide to grab a compatible battery or adapter from, say, XMG?

 

Nope. All use same Clevo X170SM-G barbone system from Clevo https://www.clevo.com.tw/

 

Good to know, thanks!

 

Thank you. Had to struggle a bit with the lengthy video.
So it's 4.6 Kg and a 2.1 KG power adapter (2 x 1.05kg). This laptop is no go for me, way too heavy. Need something under 4.5 Kg including PSU. I am still hoping of some light laptop with MXM video card and socketed CPU.

 

Would that be physically feasible, given the thermals of a socketed CPU?

 

Buy a P751TM before they are completely fased out.

 

The control center certainly needs work, the "cpu overclocking" feature is messed up big time, settings not resetting even when told to, modes stuck, light bar, pc crashing. I had to remove it together with the xtu modules it left behind. Maybe a better bios won't hurt either

 

Yes, it would. They need to use 65W desktop CPUs like intel-core-i9-10900 https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...10900-processor-20m-cache-up-to-5-20-ghz.html
and 75-80W TDP video cards. So that would mean that the best video card would be something like an RTX 2060, which I am totally fine with. The PSU would also be smaller as it only needs to be 180W at most.
They probably decided that the market for such a machine is too limited. The closest thing is the Clevo NH58, but it doesn't have an MXM video card.

If I was Clevo, I would make 4 main gaming laptops, 2 which are cheaper and more portable with 65W CPU + 80W GPU - 15 inch and 17 inch, another one which should be 125W CPU + 200W GPU (17 inch) and one 15 inch that has 105W + 120W GPU. All socketed and all MXM. And I would beat the drum on how cool and awesome I am that I am selling socketed, upgradable laptops and no one else does this. I would also provide resellers with upgrade kits for the video cards. Might hurt long-term sales because people would prefer to upgrade rather than buy a new laptop, but it might help me grab a bigger market share which should offset the long-term losses.

 

On the contrary, assuming that motherboard overhauls are not very frequent (I am totally ignorant regarding this, though, so correct me if I’m wrong), this could be more sustainable for the manufacturers and customers. No need to release laptops too frequently, so lesser expenditures for R&D and cheaper TCO for customers.

 

Okay so new update on my XoticPC X170, It just arrived this morning @ Xotic. I asked the rep on what else needs to be done to my machine before it comes my way and he states:

Wil
This is the tracking information supplied by Sager
Let me look into this further one moment
Chris
okay
Wil
OK so it looks like some of the upgrades needed to be applied by us so they shipped it here and we received it today. I would expect this to ship out from here pretty quickly once we get those done. probably by the end of the week here or early next week
Chris
what upgrades are left to do on it?
Wil
Let me see if I can find that information
Ok it looks like the PREMA bios and also the fujipoly extreme thermal pads


My question is, Is the PREMA bios out already for them to provide for customers that ordered? I've been reading the last few pages on this thread and it seems it hasn't been released yet......can anyone that paid for this bios upgrade AND currently has the laptop on hand advise if they have it or are currently waiting for the bios to be sent?

 

I know this has been said before however it needs to be emphasized...NO the PREMA bios is not available yet for this model and there is no ETA at this time. Sorry.

 

All your points are correct. Not to mention massively reduced eWaste, which is better for the environment. It's understandable for a business to want to make as much money as possible (since this is the goal in the first place), but such pursuits should be taken at a minimal cost to the environment. The more we screw up the planet, the more we screw ourselves over. That's akin to us trashing our own homes. This is yet another reason why LGA + MXM laptops are objectively superior to BGA trashbooks/craptops.

To my understanding, manufacturers refresh motherboards as infrequently as possible already. I think Clevo used the z170 chipset in the P775xM and P870xM models for 6th gen Skylake all the way to 9th gen Coffee Lake refresh. Or was that just people adding firmware support for 9th gen CPUs on the z170 chipset?

 

I think even with soldered CPU/GPU, there is not much R&D between generations at least for the CPU part. Most laptops with integrated CPUs keep the same motherboard, just update some of the chips and that's it. For the soldered GPU however, that might take more R&D than a dedicated GPU card. However, I am no engineer to give an adequate assessment, I'm just saying this based on what is happening on the motherboard and overall design challenges.

 

Not hard to go from Z170 to Z370 since they were pin compatible basically Same chip. It was updated.

There are pros and cons as a company for soldered designs. It does give more flexibility in packaging.

 

So once the PREMA bios is available, can anyone download/install it or only those who ordered the hardware through a Prema partner shop?

 

ONLY if you ordered your laptop with a Prema partner will you be able to get this bios. They will be remotely installed with TeamViewer or a similar way. So no download links for it. Prema requires this.

 

To stop people just taking the files and sharing them like they have in the past.

 

I wonder how willingly Clevo works with partners on revisions etc.

 

So there's no way to pay for the software/service? Unlucky! Not that I'm brave enough to overclock and melt things but it's nice to know the option exists.

 

Sorry dealers are instructed not to sell this bios as a standalone item, but only with the new laptop.

 

That's the only thing I massively disagree with in the Clevo scene. I had a w350st, but because it was 1) second hand. 2) from a company in the uk that doesn't supply the bios, I couldn't get it.

Some of us straight up live in countries that DO NOT supply the BIOS, and importing a machine would cost an obscene amount of money.

 

As harsh as it can be, dont buy a laptop that needs a custom BIOS to be fully usable.
And dont base your expectations of a laptop when it is running custom firmware as image that any unit of the same model will perform the same.

 

Was there even a Prema BIOS for the w350st?

 

Apparently there was, yes. I remember it being mentioned when I was looking it up. The ASUS ROG G751JY the wife now has apparently has one available as well.

I just don't understand this mindset of "I made a bios. No you can't have it." and that IS coming from the mindset of someone who's spent thousands of hours making mods for games.

EDIT: Should note, no I don't expect it released for free as I'm well aware of the amount of time, effort and money that does into developing a product.

I would absolutely pay to have it installed on my machine. I just don't understand why that's not an option and you MUST go through a retailer to get it.

 

What form factor would this notebook take for the M.2 PCIe / SATA SSD slots?

Thanks

 

Because those retailers have contracts with Prema and pay him for the exclusivity..
The crappiest store in Portugal has a contract with Prema, and no other store in Portugal can have it, that was part of reason of Obsidian-PC being born, crappy firmware on Clevos without much means to get anything better besides doing it yourself.

Prema removed the freebies because other forums where selling his work and not giving him a cent, people copying, changing the name and claiming that they done it, and people asking for help and claiming that they had discovered how to do such and such first.

It was all a poop show a couple years ago.
There are more BIOS modders, of course, but each works in a different way, an just showing more menus on a BIOS is a far cry of what a Prema modded BIOS is(as far as I know, I dont own a Clevo, and might never own one due to my opinion that its crappy HW held by the hope that Prema SW makes it decent).

 

2280. I bought and put a 2280 m.2 SATA WD Blue in mine and it fit perfectly.