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

Wish I could set it in the bios in the first place, however, I can say that this type of problem did not happen with my n970td, using xtu and control center , power limits could not be set with that because of locked cpu but the undervolt remained regardless of profile

 

Also, I highly doubt that this forum is an essencial part of XMG marketing....
These forums hold vast knowledge, and a strong community. It has never been about marketing on here, but about progress and improvement by users.
I will also mention that it helps to have these systems reviewed and tested by people who understand what to do with them and what to compare them to.

With exotic cooling solutions that most of us wouldn't dare to touch, and most people here are fine with tinkering.
9900K at 5-5.2Ghz is doable for daily and benching with relatively 'simple' mods and does not require any exotic cooling. All these guides, tools and mods are available on here for those willing to tinker.

Different culture expect different approaches. But I find that most of the time the "give it to you straight" approach is just an excuse for being rude.
There is constructive criticism and there is rudeness. Depending on how thick your skin is, you might take offence with either, which is unfortunate.

If all they want is to hear sweet nothings whispered into their ears by influences, who have to sugarcoat everything in order to keep the relationship in good standing to keep receiving review units, I'd question the value and integrity of such 'feedback'.

Having said that, no one here wishes them to fail, quite the contrary, we want it do be good and do good.

 

That's all true, but how is that the hand that feeds XMG? In the end this forum are cool for the people that want to tinker and experiment with their systems, but they aren't going to make much difference for a company strategy and goals.

you bought a vapour chamber and soldered it to the heatsink + arranged a new fan to connect to the motherboard. I call that extreme Even if you have a very good and detailed guide.

Yes, but I think what Tom was saying is that you have to be more polite and chose your words more carefully when talking to ODMs since they are cultural different from "us" (western culture). Not that they don't accept criticism or improvement requests.

EDIT: Please use multi-quotes

 

The concept of “face” in East Asia cannot be merely diluted into sugarcoating. Yes, avoiding straight up feedback can be seen as “sugarcoating” but even I as an East Asian cannot begin to unravel it in a manner that would make it easy for non-Asians to understand.

 

Finally got this machine:

Here are my specs: 240hz gsync 1080p I7 10700k 2080 super 16 gb samsung 3200mhz even tho it shows only 2667mhz 970 evo ssd Kryonaut paste

Modifications - 120 undervolt, no hyperthreading

First positive:

*Time to windows from boot to sign in very fast

*Battery on idle in Entertainment Mode is 4hours

*Eats the games i tried so far: dayz max settings 200fps, skyrim max locked 60fps, will try Anno 1404 and Death stranding next, didn't get my key for StarWars tho (?!)

*Soundsystem is very good for a laptop

Negative:

• Fan noise over 45% on cpu is intolerable, very loud like a jet engine, even with my modifications temperature goes up too much. If there is any more knowledge or information on how to keep fans at 45% and cpu below 80 degrees at the same time, please leave a message here.

*Fn keys sometimes dont work in fullscreen games or dont work at all(skyrim) i.e. volumne up and down/mute

*Gsync causes red and green outlines on mountains in skyrim, not sure if this is a monitor or gsync fault.. very ugly thing.

Neutral

*When i keep my outlet switch off over night and turn it on, then this laptop, the safety switch turns over.. not sure might be faulty outlet .. need more investigation

*Temps never reach over 80 with 60% fans during gaming on max settings

 

He didn't solder the vapour chamber, he removed the original cooper "plate".
And thats exactly why this forum should be taken serious.

Lots of interesting mods and tools where found/created by members of this forum.

If there is people that can push a Clevo system hard, they are here, not on some facebook group..

Saying that a laptop is crappy can be rude, and can be said in nicer words, but that doesn't turn that laptop into a non crap model.

The use of turd, vomit, cancer, etc etc are in my opinion a bit childish and a bit too much, I dont like how people toy with the word cancer, having had one myself, and a friend suffered with cancer for years, its not something to make fun with, there is no fun in cancer, and I hate that people say cancer this or that...

The advanced cooling things could be as simple as just using a big vapour chamber and a couple heatpipes to guide the heat, like Clevo already did on the dual GPU models, but now in a single GPU and CPU, or like Razer is using them, its not rocket surgery, its doable and wont be all that expensive.

In reality, there is less and less appeal for DTRs, Intel CPUs have hit a power wall and just have insane TDP values, AMD is being crippled with Intel money so they wont be paired with high end GPUs.
Wouldn't surprise me if this is the last Clevo DTR chassis with MXM GPUs and socketed CPUs, between a very late launch, the only competition is the AW laptop that is also riddled with crippled firmware and HW(2 RAM slots, kappa).

There isn't any economy of scales with the current Clevo MXM GPUs, they are used in a single model..

After years sticking around I would say that Clevo doesn't take ANY suggestions, they do as they see fit, they have kept the same keyboard for what, 6-7 years now?..
They wont care what some reseller that sells a couple dozen laptops a week into account, and due to how they operate, well, all their resellers sell a couple dozen if that high end DTR laptops a week, if not a month, they wont take the opinion of no one, because they are all small players.

Clevo market share exists because they are(where) cheap, they made some interesting designs, and leveraged the more common MXM cards to offer more options for the end buyer at a lower price for them by only having on motherboard model that could then be equiped with different CPUs and GPUs, that was smart of then, but they just kept doing the same, keeping the same design and overall looks, because boxy non mirror finished plastic is cheap as well.
They gained a following due to that, they where cheap laptops that could be very powerful, then Prema, SVL7, and others that I dont know started investing their time fixing the firmware of those same models, that made then even better performers, and Clevo ended up ridding that wave, without giving back a single damm back to the community...

Heck, they even tried to crack John(Obsidian-PC) software, thats how low they are willing to go, dont come with ******** about how we cant be direct to them because "culture", or is it culture for them to steal the work of others?

 

DTRs are already a niche market, many get into them by word of mouth and deal with resellers based on their reputation. Making remarks about this community being a " minority oppinion in derelict online forums" and then proceeding asking for politeness and understanding in return, is slightly ironic at best.

The vapor chamber is readily available online and is not a special secret sauce. I did not solder it and merely have LM between it and the heatsink. The 2nd CPU fan only requires its wires to be switched around to match the motherboard. If that is extreme, okay.

As I wrote above I wish them to succeed, understanding differences between cultures goes both ways. There is no ill-will here at all.

I did remove the plate on one of the early heatsinks, and punctured a heatpipe in the process, as I wrote in that post. The final mod is quite simple, lm between die/vc/hs.

 

Still, it's quite hard to do I was thinking of doing in my machine and I might do it if I ever get my hands in a 9900K.

But nothing you just said contradicts my point. I'm not trying to say the forum is irrelevant, I found it important, is just that the forum is being neglected by it's owners and that we are in reality a minority (people that like DTR machines). I think that was Tom's original point, and mine too.

You and many people here constantly have harsh (albeit, most of the time, fair) criticism of laptops that have been release in the last 10 years. You even said that you don't want to sugar coat your opinions about the products. But then you expect another member of the forum (well, it's a rep account ) to be more polite because it hurt your feelings?

Bottom line, I really like the discussions and the information the forum has provided along the years, and it's kind of sad that a cool hobby might die because there isn't a market for DTRs anymore.

 

every time you switch powermode, your undervolt goes to the high heavens btw. Either that or I am the luckiest person here.
Still we can all agree that damn control center (and/or hopefully bios) needs a good spanking

 

I don't know how, after like 10 years, the CC is still so bad. Is this due to being outsourced to another company besides Clevo?
More, the only reseller that wanted to improve it was offered no help/documentation and Clevo tried to rip him off.

Unfortunately System76 software control only runs on GNU/Linux and I understand more and more their decision of not open source their code.

 

Hello, i didn't change my Powermode at all yet

 

I pointed out the irony in that reply, unless that was lost on you? Which then led to my latter comment and this entire discussion about culture and 'face'. As per your remarks about the reps, it reflects the contribution and appreciation to and of the community, which I enjoy helping. I appreciate your assumptions about my feelings, but it takes more than a few choice words on an internet forum to get to me.

Honestly, it's tough love coming from someone who can and enjoys openly speaking his mind, without the fear of repercussions from sponsors or manufacturers. After that it's up to the individual reader to make up their own mind about the state of play.

 

i meant "power saver, performance, entertainment" and such like, all cpu tuning options remain active only in perf mode

 

I know, haven't toggled at all between them, i left it at Entertainment. Any chance to keep fans even lower than i have?

 

aside from a custom profile with the control center, no idea how, anyway, it seemed as if any tuning option was not possible outside of perf mode, even using xtu

 

Can't you nuke CC out of your laptop and use TS?

 

So how can i tell my undervolt is even working? Using TS right now and CC is still installed

 

You should be able to tell by the max temperature, test with and without it.

 

hardware info 64 , I learned my own , if I see a non stress 1.2x, the undervolt is not applied. Moreover, I can't nuke CC because of all the christmas lights and the custom fan profile I am a fan of (sorry)

 

Alright, ill check at home, afaik you can set fan-curve and then trash the cc.. saw somewhere in xmg reddit, not 100% sure

 

We should't even have these discussions, a machine like this that is meant to be taken apart and in general taken care of, should come with a fully unlocked bios to begin with just like a desktop, if I screw it up then I can only blame myself anyway

 

Anyone here running Linux on one of these? Can you comment about driver compatibility?

Asking as a newbie.

 

I dont see a difference at all, can't seem to undervolt

 

When you say you can't undervolt what do you mean?

 

Theres no difference shown in the voltage, however at the same time it blue screens at 200(tried to see if anything does something)
I can go to 140 but dont see any difference in temp nor voltage, maybe im just blind

 

Thanks both. I'll have a look at it.. I'm leaving it on performance mode because I don't care about the battery. I basically consider it a built in UPS and that's it.

I'll have a poke around and see if I can get that voltage down a little more.

 

I installed Ubuntu 20.04 on mine and it works fine.

But I only use Linux for testing. Not as a daily driver.

 

It does not stick / apply via control center

 

Been playing around with mine. You have to set it and reboot, voltage set will start on next reboot as a safety feature, same as with Intel xtu in that sense. Good idea to reboot the laptop when you change any of the control panel stuff around.

Started out thermal throttling off the get go in everything, but after dropping the voltage to -130 offset was able to get it sitting around 85 under load with no side effects.

Really digging the laptop soo far, amazing 240hz panel, very close to my Rog Swift in colors. Even like the control panel, seems to have everything I need in it, specially when compared to things like the dragon control panel. Yep, overall impressed with what they could do with this molten core of a chip, just takes some work to get thermals stable, but it’s possible for sure.

Running the i9 / 2080, will post more once I dial in the thermals and the GPU OC a bit more. Early cinebench 20 is running at 6200 now After slight tweaks, started at 4200 (throttling without undervolt).

 

I am aware I have to reboot between each application, I spent more time rebooting than anything else lately

 

Interested buyers from Singapore will have their chance to own this mammoth desk replacement from AfterShock tomorrow onwards!
(Hopefully the price will be as competitive as what Laptoppart4less offers!)

 

This doesn't seem to be right, mine crashed once i clicked apply at -200mv and reverted on reboot to 140

 

Cancer cure incoming... https://www.3dmark.com/compare/spy/13504541/spy/13078036#
17% higher CPU score than the Alienkid R2


@Donald@zTecpc

 

Buyers from Malaysia, your reseller for this Clevo X170sm-g is ILLEGEAR
https://store.illegear.com/ares-series/234-illegear-ares-x.html

Buyers from Thailand, your reseller is LEVEL51
https://www.level51pc.com/products/laptops/rosharn

 

Excellent!

 

Yeah, some whispered in my ears and said they won't release an ztecpc speced X170 before they have done proper testing and made it the way it should perform. Aka best in it's class.

 

Nice I knew Prema would fix the issues
It should be coming soon the bios looks like he’s testing now

 

Awesome please share with us what setting you tweaked so we can all get that amazing performance out of the laptop
I knew this thing had potential

 

Nice is the X170SM-G available to buy from you guys? I might cancel my HID order and go with you I want the best performance possible especially for the high price I’m paying

 

So far I have only tweaked the voltage offset on the CPU to -130, while keeping everything else stock. Going to be re-pasting today to get a few degrees more along with more tweaks to see if I can get more performance. Will do a write up once I have everything on lock, but an undervolt does this CPU alot of good.

 

Small update on the glorious cpu overclocking control center tool.
Appearently, and without rebooting, and without it being reset after changing power mode, I can set any undervolt that is NOT -100mV and the **** works.
HwInfo64 confirms what I wrote.
I guess I will settle for -90..

 

Can you elaborate more?

 

works as intended (supposedly) if you do not choose -100mV.
Lights still do not keep settings , so that's still broken

 

So you can set i.e. -130 in performance and it keeps the setting in energy saving mode as well?

 

Well, you may, I can't because of instability over -110. But yes, it sticks even after rebooting the machine.
This is my use case maybe someone else has a better control center.

 

Can anyone reproduce the green and red ghosting while panning around using the 240hz panel right at the beginning of the sykrim special edition where the dragon flies?
Max settings, gsync at 1080p

 

Hey guys. Anyone of you (who have already bought this laptop) can share your test results ? So that we can assess what the cooling system is capable of ?
I'll leave an example in the photo ( CPU, FPU, Cache, GPU ) 5min. Feel free to post your results

 

Would like to put an advance R.I.P to the CPU, GPU and PSU, are you going to try and beat your power draw best from the last clevo you had LOL.

 

Hi bro. That run was by Prema and he has the new X170. I do not have one and I do not have any plans to purchase one.

 

Why soldered garbage (GT76) receives @Prema MOD, and Area 51M R2, which offer better cooling than X170 does not? I feel like A51M would win this gen if receives prema magic.