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

Yeah, when I was looking up custom BIOS'es for the W350ST, I saw all that nonsense.

As I said, I ABSOLUTELY understand not wanting to give it away for free when people are doing that. I completely disgree with it being a "retailer only" thing.

And, tbh, all laptops are crap. So the whole "don't buy a laptop that needs a custom BIOS to be usable" basically applies to ANY laptop. I bought a laptop because I need to be able to move around with it. Having extra performance would just be a "nice to have."

One of the last upgrades i'll probably do for this is a delidded CPU for better cooling.

 

Exactly. You nailed it.


99.99% of all notebooks (from all brands) is crap. And only a very few work as it should with mod bios. Those mentioned are the Clevo LGA/MXM machines with Prema firmware. A rarity in the notebook world.

 

Yup. That's why I have a desktop in addition to this.

Desktop needs a new GPU though but i'm waiting for the 3000-series nvidia cards to drop.

 

Best to pay as little as possible for laptops and expect very little in return.

Well, fortunately, having the agreement and approval of others is not necessary. It is up to him alone to decide how he chooses to use his talents and it is at his discretion to determine and control who may benefit from those talents.

He is extremely generous and selfless. He gave it away for free all of the time before the abuse and fraud began. That generosity was evident to all that benefitted from it until thieves and scammers ruined it for all. And, as time permits, he still gives it away in cases where the loyalty and integrity of the recipients has been proven and confidence has been earned.

Some of the thieves and scammers partly responsible for ruining things are businesses that have behaved in selfish and dishonest ways. They have brand names that many would readily identify, and some would respect.

 

Oh that's absolutely NOT on if businesses were doing that.

I'd be pretty annoyed if some businesses did that with my code as well.

 

I find it a bit d*ck move to have so few Prema partners (in Europe at least) so that if you want to have a decent BIOS, you have to buy the laptop from somewhere you wouldn't normally.

Then again, I had Prema BIOS in my last Clevo, and not once did I change anything from stock, I changed everything in Windows with software, so there.

 

Apparently, there are not many Clevo resellers in Europe that understand the value in being a partner shop, or maybe now that it cannot easily be stolen they don't want to have to pay for it. You benefit from the firmware mod even if you use Windows software to make changes, as he corrects mistakes in the code that hinder performance. You will find that a system with Prema firmware will consistently outperform an identical one with a stock BIOS or a stock BIOS with unhidden menus. It only takes a few minutes to expose hidden menus. It takes many hours of testing, including some trial and error and sometimes even some bricking/unbricking, to correct all of the mistakes in the stock firmware.

 

Did he have a site that lists all of his partners/shops?

 

Yes, but he took it offline because some changes may be taking place.

 

This is why we need mini-ITX laptops to be a thing. They do currently exist, but are not popular enough to where there are cases mass produced for us to easily build our own, like with desktops. I would really rather buy a prefab metal or plastic case instead of using my woodworking skills to make a custom wooden case. Unfortunately I don't have access to metalworking tools or a 3D printer to make a case out of metal or plastic .

 

I actually wondered how difficult this would be to do, since you'd basiclaly just want the motherboard upside down (so the back of the board would be facing the user and the cpu would be facing downwards/underside of the laptop) and then rotate the PCI-E slot by 90 degrees so it's on the side of the motherboard.

Then realised I probably have no idea what i'm talking about.

 

It takes bulkyness and poor battery life to another level though

 

*built in UPS

 

I would argue not really for battery life. Systemwide, my desktop consumes less power when idle, during light loads, and during medium loads than my Ranger does (at respective stock speeds of course). I do realize that's a bit of an unfair comparison since I'm comparing a system with a Haswell CPU to one with a Kaby Lake one, and the increased power efficiency of Kaby Lake over Haswell skews the statistics. Furthermore, I'm not taking into account the power draw from a screen either. This is a gaming desktop equipped with an i7 7700K and GTX 1060, although I'll admit I don't have a bunch of extras like other people do.

Although even if I added in a 17 inch screen and accounted for the power draw from that, the systemwide power draw for both systems would be comparable at idle, and still less for my desktop at most loads (at respective stock speeds).

This is all only true if you have all power saving settings enabled in the desktop's BIOS of course, which I do since I see no reason to waste power, even on a desktop.

As for bulkiness, yeah that takes it to an entirely different level . Definitely not an attractive option for most people. Although it would probably still look aesthetically pleasing if the thickness of the chassis scaled at a certain ratio relative to screen size, therefore looking like a laptop that had been zapped with a growth ray.

Indeed. It would be nice if manufacturers would just brute force the battery life issue by equipping all DTR laptops with two 100 Wh batteries, therefore still meeting TSA requirements (since that's what everyone seems to be afraid of), or at least 2 batteries totaling up to over 100 Wh combined. There's definitely space in those laptops for that. DTRs already weigh more than other laptops, so what's a few extra pounds? We need the extra weight to become muscular nerds anyway .

Also, here's something you guys may find interesting. It's a 300 Wh DC power bank. It's expensive, but definitely capable of powering a DTR or any desktop short of ultra high end setups. Link: https://www.bixpower.com/Bat-BX2494B-p/bat-cp300-bx2494.htm

I remember someone a while back used this to power their backpack VR rig. To summarize its capabilities, it's a 300 Wh DC power bank than can output 288 Watts continuous, and 360 Watts peak (for 10 minutes).

 

Clevo have started upload new drivers/software for X170SM-G https://www.clevo.com.tw/clevo_down.asp?lang=en

 

Received my laptop on Monday. I9-10900k, 2660 GPU, 64gb Ram , 1 tb evo 970 plus.

Office use only, is there a free benchmark test you guys recommend?

 

I received some new memory today. It’s hyperX 3200. I was surprised to see the laptop is using the full 3200. The last sticks defaulted to 2400 instead of the xmp 2800

 

It depends if the sticks are relying on activating XMP or have it programmed in by SPD.

 

Mine only consumes what it does because the power limits have been tweaked, on stock the power consumption is lower than a desktop when you take into account the screen.

 

cpu, Cinebench R15 + R20
cpu, AIDA64 memory and cache, can be run in trial mode
gpu, 3DMark can be run in demo mode
gpu, Unigine Superposition
gpu, Unigine Heaven
monitoring, HWINFO64
monitoring, CPU-Z

 

Out of curiosity, can this laptop function while plugged in with the battery removed?

 

Most likely yes. Every laptop I've ever had has been capable of operation without the battery installed.

 

Hey guys. Have any of you had success with replacing the boot logos in the Insyde BIOS's? I've tried beating my head against it a few times and have yet to make sense of the process. The instructions I've gotten from clevo have been obscure and innacurate at best. Add in the complication that I don't have a source of new BIOS versions for the X170SM-G yet. Any insight and help would be appreciated.

 

Some laptops will reduce maximum system power draw capability if the battery is removed (or if the battery is connected but below 20-30% charge). I do not know if that applies to this laptop.

 

I doubt the X170 will do that. Clevo doesn't have a track record of implementing the hybrid power scam "feature" on their laptops. An actual test is always best though. I'm just going off what I believe to be logical considering their reputation.

 

Just got my P775TM1-G thanks to @Z3us_PL

Do you see what I do in the picture

Seems like Clevo were already making engineering samples of the x170sm-g when the rtx 2080 mxm came out.

This makes me take my criticism back on why clevo didn’t choose Ryzen, it is possible that the X170 was in pre production way before amd even released their 3000 series line up meaning they didn’t know that intel would flop so hard or that AMD would come out with CPUs with insane horsepower...

The qualification sample printing shows this as evidence... Qualification sample gpus are always produced before mass production of a gpu or gpus start

 

My xmg ultra 17 got delayed till next week due to some faulty BIOS which apparently all of them have.. got told it will be updated starting monday..

 

Faulty bios ?

No one experienced any major breaking issues maybe just quality issues due to the locked bios.
Did Clevo come to their senses and releasing a new bios which has some extra menu ?

 

it's not exactly rock solid and feature rich either, especially in conjunction with the "overclocking" features of the control center

 

A properly cooled Ryzen + MXM laptop would be very interesting indeed!

 

Once they jump over on Ryzen we will see the cooling capacity in the notebook follow same path. Downwards in same way as Ryzen's TDP. Next step on the Apple route. Thinner and even slimmer gamingbook due more power efficiency chips (lower max TDP). No need for oversized heatsink anymore to handle wattage above 142w. See.. Won't be better cooling with further shrinked chassis size

The other side of the coin... Put in more power eficient chips as Ryzen doesn’t automatically mean better cpu cooling. With the famous unified heatsink you can force more of the cooling capapcity for the Gpu. Or use the new modern load balancing tech. Steal cooling capacity from Gpu if you tax Cpu more than the Gpu. And the opposite.

Several ways to see it, brother. Apple won't be alone pushing out thin an and slimy notebooks in the future.

Thin is today's word... Awful word if you combine it with notebooks.

 

Wow :O, I didn't even know about it.

i'm happy you like my ex laptop. I miss it a bit: P

 

Hello, i've got an update that apparently they have already got it now and will start delivery this evening, i addionally asked my contact there for clarification what the problem was, i'll post again once i got a reply

Edit:
He mixxed it up with the amd apex 15, not sure what the problem there is/was. Weather here is pretty hot, probably mixxed up in the heat

 

I find it difficult to be excited about a CPU that offers good stock performance, but does not overclock worth a damn, has lousy memory latency and also sucks at memory overclocking. But, I also know that some people are stimulated by drying paint (maybe the fumes).

 

If you are doing a highly threaded task then the amount of cores makes a difference.

 

300Hz G-Sync panel? Does anyone know model name? The video has pretty bad quality but i still could see 300hz and g sync option.

 

What is the rationale for Gsync on a 300Hz panel? Another gimmick to milk?

 

Doesn't Intel cap out at 200fps when GPU bound at 1080p?
Like AMD is capped out at 180fps when GPU bound at 1080p, so somewhat agreeing with you @Mr. Fox with 300hz is more a Milking gimmick more then anything else.

 

It‘s for low spec esports titles like CS:GO and Valorant.

 

The 300hz spec is fine--higher refresh rates are great for reducing the perception of screen tearing and frame variability across a range of FPS values--but since that is true, why worry about GSync at all?

Who am I kidding...we all know GSync is just marketing on such a display.

 

Not really, for games where you crank the details sooso getgget a lower FPS or wild FPS swings it helps smooth them out.

 

AUO B173HAN05.1
Asus Zephyrus laptop use this same panel.
The question is that does Clevo bios native support this or he just modded the bios?

We already know that besides the retail model be also has an engineering sample X170SM-G with unlocked bios.

I don't know about Chinese viewers but for other people who don't know Chinese his potato quality videos can be misleading and people might think that the things he show are actually native supported and available to everyone .
Perfect example is the bios, he showed off the unlocked bios while we got a heavily locked one .

 

The stock BIOS should've been the unlocked one. This is a product for performance enthusiasts for crying out loud.

The Prema BIOS will fix this crap one it's released. We'll just have to be patient.

 

I just noticed that HID has changed the X170 4K entry's product description : there's no mention of G-Sync.

The FHD entries still have G-Sync mentioned in the product page.

Resellers that still advertise G-Sync UHD as of this edit: Clevo-Computer.com (X170SM-G), XMG (Ultra 17), Gentech/Sager (the former sells the latter's stuff).

Obsidian doesn't offer UHD to begin with.

 

So silly question. I noticed some folks have the ability to alter the voltage on the GPU in this thing via MSI afterburner.

Apparently I don't.

Any idea what i'm missing? Locked VBOIS by any chance? (I can do it on the desktop so I assume it's a laptop limitation)

 

You try CTRL + F ?

You can only edit the curve on mobile chips

 

Basically all modern Nvidia GPUs are better using that clock curve really rather than the sliders.

 

I never said I wasn't willing to pay for Prema BIOS, but paying 20-25% more because I have to buy from very specific sellers is not a good motivator.

So how to find out the Prema partners then?

 

seems like the control center likes to crash the pc

 

Here are some results. Had some work programs open, so maybe not aiming for high scores.