***Gigabyte P34W v3 "Phantasus" owner's lounge***

Is it safe to use Liquid Ultra to repaste CPU and GPU?

 

I wouldn't use it.Both chips do not have heatspreaders and there are some parts on the GPU that can be damaged by conductivity.

 

@rinneh: I guess I misphrased my question by using the word safe. I actually already did it, didn't see your reply, haven't bench marked yet, but temps are about 7-10 deg lower in games/desktop than before according to HWMonitor. Probably won't benchmark, don't really care about that, just wanted the fans to work less and hopefully prolong life of laptop with it running at cooler temps.

I just wasn't sure if there was a reason that I could not use liquid ultra. I Saw bkvamme used Liquid Pro with great success, I just wanted to make sure that ultra would work too. Already played games to use the gpu and all works fine. I suppose if I had shorted something out, I'd know by now, haha.

Anyhow, thanks for the quick reply. Honestly I don't see how surgeons do their job. Even though I've built pc's and am no stranger to this, still pretty stressful with a 1700 dollar laptop on the line. Can't imagine operating on someone, damn. Anyhow, can't be as bad as stock paste, not sure if the improvement Ill see was worth the hassle.

 

Does anyone know how to register the P34W for warranty support? I tried on the Gigabyte website but the form they had available didn't have the P34W on it.

 

what was the reasons why you replaced your 1st two laptops? the power button may vary slightly. as i have thought hase it being dipped? or was it flush. but the power button doesnt bother me as long as its flush and not clicky although it is possible to silence the buttons which i have done. but i still havent got mine sorted yet.

 

I did this last week when I got my P34W - added an Evo 840 MSata 256 GB. I've not got round to repasting yet but thats on the cards at some point soon. I also got a matched pair of 8GB kingston DDR3L for it so it now has 16GB.

In my supreme wisdom, and, frankly utter stupidity, I DID NOT realise that the two corner screws had decals on them, and were in fact screws, I thought they were some sort of peress in tang clips/rivets. You can guess where this is going Yeah I left the screws in and tore the plastic trying to "prise" them apart. ****! so my bottom cover has no front corners

Annoyed with myself as I am not new to the innards of either desktops or laptops. it looked like plastic, hence why I thought, ah that is a rivet/ clip of some sort.. and I have seen it where the front on a laptop is actually clips.

other than my f**k up, the machine is flawless, and VERY fast.

Tried contacting gigabyte UK, who suggested I send the machine for non-Warranty RMA as they "do not sell lower case covers seperately". So it stays as is for now. I have the details for the UK repair centre in Telford, who I have not contacted, YET but I am loathe to send the machine away for a bit of plastic... I accept it was entirely my fault and am happy to be liable for a new cover, but shipping away for this seems "overkill"

Love the machine, aggrevated by my mishap!

 

Ouch. That's awful. Maybe in the future you can convince them to send you a lower case assembly through the mail. Glad to hear you're happy with your P34W. I am absolutely ecstatic with mine as well. It is a powerful little beast. The most intensive thing I've been doing so far has been playing Battlefield 4 and it has performed flawlessly at mostly ultra settings (except effects, post process and terrain dec) with resolution scaling at 120% and all AA off.

I'm bound to do some video editing soon, so I'll further be able to test its capabilities, but so far I couldn't be happier.

 

Thanks, it was entirely my fault and I feel like a tool, that notwithstanding I am chuffed with the machine. It trounces my desktop and that was fast for its time lol.

 

As long if the paste doesnt contact those copper parts on the top of the GPU package it might be okay I guess. IC Diamond 7 worked well for me anyway.

The first one had a very wobbly base, and i thought the clicky frame around the B button was a problem as well. Exchanged it mostly because of the uneven base which annoyed the hell out of me. The second one had all kinds of issues but the biggest one was the horrible backlight bleed which was even present at mild brightness during daylight and the crooked trackpad button which was far beyond flush.##The powerbutton seems to be a bit low now? Slightly into the laptop body?

 

Ok, here is another thing that is driving me nuts: I have a USB drive and CD boot program from Macrium Reflect, for restoring back up drives...I can't boot any of those: they will not show up on the Bios, only the windows SSD drive, so it's not even a problem of boot order. The only USB drive I can boot is the one that game with Gigabyte, any other will not...Have any of you tried to boot from a specific CD or USB drive? '.'

 

I bought this laptop around 1 month ago. It is great, good looking & good performance.

Yesterday I heard a crack sound while closing laptops lid. Well, pictures below.

Before:



After:



There is a quite bend whenever I try to close lid from top of the lid so my current solution for preventing further crack is closing lid by pushing it from its bottom... Eventually this will progress as no crack will stay as same.....

What should I do?

 

Anyone able to advise if killer 1525 works with p34v3?

 

Are you sure you're using the right procedure to boot from external media with Windows 8? Check this link.

It should work, I can't see why it wouldn't. The included Intel AC 7260 wireless card would have to be removed and replaced with the killer 1525.

--

@anon10500 Sounds like an warranty repair is in order. Hopefully this issue won't crop up on more P34W's.

 

Ouch that looks pretty bad. Where did you buy it? If Amazon I would exchange it.

I wonder why this happened. To me the screen assembly felt really tight.

But for sure I would send it out for repair. This will only get worse.

 

I bought from Overclockers UK.

Well, I started to think this could be a easy fix with a super glue

I'll contact them see what they say..

 

Does anybody know where Smart update "goes" for its updates? trying to DL:

SmartUSBBackup_V2.0.0_Build_20150303

which it says is the latest, but I cant find it on the gigabyte site.

I know it is a big file but through the updater it is taking an age... I've downloaded 3 corrupted files so far....

 

Oh, thanks a lot! I'll try that when I'll have some time!

 

Anyone knows why the Smart Manager always changes the color temperature of the display (it becomes too blue) when I open it ? Can I prevent that ? Thanks.

 

8New questions: since I was having some hight temps, I decided to do a repast (and since I am terrible at DIY, this whole "ordeal" took me 80 minutes ).

1) The warranty seals seemed to be a bit "out of place", mainly when compared with other P34W dismantling I watched on the internet. It is my understanding that as long as they are not broken, the warranty is still valid. Could someone confirm me I am still okay with this warranty seals (photo was taken right after removing the back panel).


2) Here is what the repasting looked like...I am no expert, but this looked rather "alarming", the heat-sink even showed some burning marks...Does this look like IC Diamond to you guys, or is it the factory repasting by Gigabyte? I tried to remove as much as I could before doing my repast, hopefully I didn't break anything: I'll be sure soon enough when I'll try gaming a bit. :/

 

yea they should sort that, natural damge but i cant be sure what they would say. but the manufacture will defo sort this.

 

oh yes. i thought you was someone else that said that lol. well i got 2 weeks to sort mysef out because gta v is out and i want to max out what i can because i no my 8750m will only run it to look like a xbox 360 version and i just want to play it wihtout machine sending back.

 

You can find all the latest drives here.

What setting do you Smart Color on?

 

1. I think you're okay, they probably got someone unstuck due to heat degradation of the adhesive. I doubt Gigabyte would give you trouble over the stickers.

2. Yeah, the paste it came with seems pretty messy. I don't think there's any real way to tell what paste they used just by looking at it though. What paste did you use? I just ordered Gelid thermal paste.

 

I used Antec formula 7 nano diamond: this is what they recommended me at a local store, among the other pastes they had.

 

I could ask this anywhere but I see a few guys here have a Killer Wifi card.
I am extremly curious if those Killer drivers have custom MAC addresses NOT blocked as all the Intel and Ralink ones.

To find out you just add a text-value to your registry under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0011

the last number 0011 might be different. Just check if it is the right card under "DriverDesc".
Add a text value "NetworkAddress" and fill in the value "00-01-02-03-04-05"

Deactivate, then activate the network card in device manager and check the MAC. For example with ipconfig /all. Did it change to "00-01-02-03-04-05"?
If not, try "02-03-04-05-06-07" Does that one work?
Just delete the value if you want to go back to the original or set whatever you like.

Thanks a ton if anyone could answer that for me. I was almost set on buying this but with the unacceptable spare part situation I am not sure now.
What on earth is Gigabyte thinking???

 

Yes, just force that in the Smart Manager by adjusting blue light killer. For gaming I leave -0% blue but for reading you would want less. I also always set it to native or 6500K.

I have to say that the site does NOT provide the lastest drivers. A quick check on SMv3 would reveal that the newest SM version is at 4.5.8 while the website reported 4.4.7 .

 

Hi, with UEFI/Windows 8 it's not just a matter of pressing the boot from device key. Check the link posted earlier: https://askleo.com/how_do_i_boot_from_cddvdusb_in_windows_8/

I had the same problems earlier

If that is IC7, they must have used one syringe on each. That looks a lot like the stock paste to me.

If you are thinking about the marks on the grey metal surrounding the copper, don't worry about it. That is only for screwing the heatsink in place, and has very little effect on cooling. It is not burnmarks, but rather dirt/smudges from manufacturing. Nothing to worry about.

 

Anyone knows a site to order a keyboard replacement for this notebook?

 

Linustechtips gave a review of the P34w v3 if anyone's interested:



Pretty much as expected.

 

a question for the P34w owners. Are your power buttons also slightly recessed into the body? Just curious and hoping it wont be a problem. Mine is slightly lower than the "frame" itself, about 1mm.

 

There are some that are flush and some recessed. I hope that you don't send it back for that if your happy with everything else because there's other things you could get in a replacement far worse. The power button only gets turned on and off. If everything else is all good if just keep it. Trust me from someone whose been through 7 so far. And my 1st one was the best in build wise. only screen bleeding got progressively worse


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Not going to send it back for it. Just searching for some peace of mind. Had an Vaio Z13 before. Unfortunately with the dreaded power button issues that wouldnt work anymore Made me extremely paranoid.

 

I think they're all like that, here's mine:

http://imgur.com/HntmPrD

 

Maybe it's a defect if they're not recessed.

 

Quick question regarding the BSOD I've been having. I haven't check memtest86 yet (I still need to figure out how to boot from a CD or USB, so I will be doing that when I'll have some free time). In the meantime, I installed the regular memtest. When launch it and click on "start testing", it wouldn't start and the bottom of the program will show "could not allocate 4095 mb". Does that mean the ram is faulty?...(windows detects 8gb of memory).

 

Try both of the RAM sticks alone in the laptop and see if you still BSOD. Not sure about that memtest error.

You should also do this disk check:
http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2080276/run-chkdsk-windows.html

 

Ok, thanks, I will, but I only have one ram stick (1 of 8gb, I took the cheaper option).

 

Oh, I don't know why I got the idea you had two. Nevermind then, try running Memtest from a USB stick when you get one

 

Will do that. By the way, I noticed I am having these issues every time I have devices plugged in (when I use the lapotp as a desktop replacement), and those are quite numerous: keyboard and mouse, cooling tablet, speakers, gaming headphones, audio interface (with XLR microphone and jack headphones on it for recording), cintiq hybrid and extra hard drives. So maybe it is windows 8.1 being clunky with all of that (my W110er with windows 7 never had an issue), I also get the occasional black screen of death when launching windows.

But the few times I used the laptop alone, with nothing plugged in: absolutely no problems, no freezes, no crashes, no nothing...

 

It could be a problem with one of the USB devices (or their driver) as well. Moreover, and this is just a shot in the dark, but maybe the power draw through the USB ports from all those accessories is taxing the system too much especially since it's already at it's power limits? I'd venture with my first guess though. Try testing the system one accessory at a time and see if one of them is responsible for the instability.

 

I watched this on Vessel as soon as Linus posted his promo vid, and am I the only one who thought the review was a bit odd overall?

He started by mentioning phones and the 12" MB, which put the p34w into a wrong context, and at the end he said it is a price compromise that you settle for more throttle compared to Razer Blade 14. Well, the blade throttles just as much as p34w did, and is passing the 2kg mark too…By then I've watched two times, and still couldn't find him saying it's a 14 inch form factor!

Other than that, pretty spot on about the build quality, especially the better-off-be-glass trackpad. I resent for anyone here who have to return a few times just to get a better one. I must be immensely lucky or something.

 

Sorry, quick question concerning temperatures: on my P34W, to my surprise it is mainly the top part of the latop that gets hot (around the power button, it's almost burning when you touch it), while the bottom part is more cooler. Since my P34W presents some of the build quality issues, I wanted to make sure if this was normal.

 

That does sound weird 'cause you'd normally have the heat vented out towards the bottom from the centre vents below the dual pipes. I did not experience any hot keys/ buttons even when temps are short of 90C. Specifically, I do not recall any hot pwr button after the most recent session today.

 

Hm, what about the parts around the power button (like on the following pic, showed in red?).
If this is a serious problem I might be done with it and request a refund from GenTechPC (I wonder if they will accept though...).

 

Actually, Gigabyte designed the laptop to get hot around the top/back parts instead of the keyboard and palm rests. So it vents the heat outward from the back! That is normal. But if you're not happy with the P34W return it.

 

I am actually rather happy with it (appart from the ocasional BSOD, but I didn't get any yesterday). The heat doesn't bother me while gaming, most of the time I use an external mouse/keyboard and screen. I simply wanted to make sure it wasn't a build quality problem: the last thing I would want is the laptop overheating too much, no matter what I would do, in a few years. If it was designed that way and the heat is normal then all good.

 

its hard to tell if it is a detfect. but unlike a mosue button thats not really a problem if it is or not. but i do no from the amount ive gone through they was either recessed or flush. but i did noticed when it was recessed because i thought to myself "has it always been like this?"
i did think maybe cos the designs not changed since p34g v1 besides maybe laptop height....i dunno but the button and stlye remain exact that they could share same power button parts and some are just bigger and some are not . just thought but i can live with that as a defect or not as it only has 3 functions

 

On my P34G V2 the power button is recessed ever so slightly maybe even flush. Yeah, it's not exactly a huge issue wither way.

 

I've noticed that is where my laptop gets hot as well in the area around the power button. I typically use the laptop on a lapboard, but when I lift it up and check the bottom its never hot to the touch, like the area around the power button.

That area of the laptop has a grill built into the frame, and if I had to guess its not just for style. It's likely that it built that way to allow some heat to rise and dissipate. Makes sense seeing as how the grilled area is above the portion of the motherboard where the cpu/gpu and the other chips are that are covered with thermal pads. (sorry no idea what the other black squares are called that the thermal pads on the heatsink cover.)

 

yea i think its naturally like that. but some may have it ever so slightly lower too.