*** OFFICIAL GIGABYTE AERO 15 OWNERS LOUNGE ***

Why waste your laptop screen? Playing with your game stretched across 2, or even 3 screens gives you more peripheral vision...you will not only hear them coming, but also see them coming. You can shoot them if you see them...they can shoot you if you can only hear them.

 

There's a keyboard function that turns off the laptop screen you can use that once you've configured the external screen and set it as a primary display. Look along the F row it's there. Might have to use it in conjunction with the Fn key.

 

Is the aero 15 screen semi-gloss? I'm just judging by the handful of youtube videos out there. I have used the xps 15 and did not like the thick matte coating. Also did not like the matte coating on the gigabyte p57.

 

So - I purchased my Aero 15 from Newegg via Open Box. Got it about 2 weeks ago and everything looked great. I opened the bottom (super easy) and threw in a nvme drive (came with SATA standard) and have only been playing with it here and there since then. Today I turned the key backlighting off while at work and realized that the Fn key is shorting out the LEDs in F9, 9, O, L, comma, and RAlt. You can just barely touch the Left-Fn key and the LEDs on those other keys will turn on (as RED color). Here's a video of it happening...

Do you guys think I should try going through Newegg (still under 30 days return) or try my luck with Gigabyte? I'm nervous about Newegg and getting another Open Box since everything else on this one is wonderful, but I know Gigabyte's support is blah.

 

I've been able to turn off my built-in display using the Windows desktop right click option for display settings. That worked fine for regular use but when I tried to start a game I got an error about DirectX not being able to start because the desktop was locked. So I went back to extended mode. By the way Steam has a "big picture" mode which can include automatically switching the primary monitor to the 2nd monitor for gaming.

My undervolt so far is -140.5. It's worked fine for the level of stress I subject my laptop to, which is less than say a full night of Prime 95. It works for the Fire Strike stress test.

 

A full night of Prime95?? You should never use Prime95 at all, much less for a full night. If you must use it, 10 minutes max!

 

@brucek2

You people fail to understand that Prime95 or Furmark does not represent a real usage scenario of a normal or even power user. It stresses the CPU or the GPU for long periods of time constantly at max cores/threads/load. No one does that to his machine! No one buys a sports car and keeps it at redline 24/7, he mashes the throttle when he needs to and cruises when he doesn't.

Someone buying a computer and using Prime95 or Furmark is just asking for his components to be fried. A proper stress test would be AIDA64 Extreme for 5-15 mins to get the max CPU temps followed by Cinebench R15 and a few Fire Strike Runs and maybe a 30 minute game session in a demanding game. Heck, even wPrime doesn't do such bad damage such as Furmark or Prime95

j00 have been warned my well scrubbed friend. Do whatever you please with your hardware:

@Papusan

 

Best Stress test you can find, is your daily workflow. Supplied with mentioned tools!! Stupidity, if you compare... Mean desktops better cooling is equal to what you find in notebooks!!

 

Hey sorry for the uproar - the intent of my post was to say "I did not test at the highest possible stress and am not implying that I expect my personal undervolt (which is slightly more aggressive than several others I've seen posted) to work for any conceivable workload."

As we all seem to agree is reasonable, I tested at workloads meant to resemble my actual use, with the understanding that I may encounter more stressful workloads in the future and that my undervolt may fail in those cases.

 

I believe @brucek2 was saying that he didn't do P95 overnight to stress his laptop Small FFT is particularly egregious as it simulates a power load that just cannot be attained in normal CPU-stress usage.

Edit: Ha, beaten!

@silverwolf0 The screen is matte, not glossy or semi-glossy as far as I can tell. Is there a giveaway for 'semi glossy'? I'm not sure what exactly that is.

 

No one meant it to offend
You like livin' on the edge. You're welcome, LOL

 

First time poster, long-time lurker. Been actively researching a laptop for my personal needs for a few months now, but I've always fallen back on the Gigabyte Aero 15. The Clevo P950HP6 has a smaller battery, even though it's cheaper. The reason being is that I'm a gamer, but I also need long battery life when not gaming because my graduate class lectures will be very long so I need my laptop to last me throughout the day. The GTX 1060 is perfect for my 1080p gaming needs. I don't play demanding games, but the 1060 will serve me well.

Looking to buy this from HIDevolution because I read great things about their support. Can anyone give me any tips? I know I'm supposed to contact someone for a discount? Donald? or was that Phoenix?

Couple questions I had concerning the customization options as seen here: http://www.hidevolution.com/gigabyte-aero-15w-bk4-1060.html

I'm guessing there is no point to professionally calibrate the Aero 15 since it's Pantone certified?

Is the "Minimize LED Backlight Bleed" worth it? I've read that people here have had light bleed on their Aero 15 monitors.

Display Warranty? What's the best option for that?

Thermal Paste? Is the Liquid Ultra metal + IC diamond combo worth it for lowering temps if I can afford it?

Is the 1 stick of 16 GB ram good or bad because it's not dual channel memory?

Is the stock 512 GB SATA SSD in the Aero 15 good enough? I keep reading about the raving reviews of the NVME drives people have, but wondering if it's even worth it?

Is there a difference between Intel and Killer network? I heard bad things about Killer.

Clean Windows install for Aero 15 or not? Isn't the software that Gigabyte provides good or bad?

Does undervolting benefit the Aero 15?

 

I agree. No need for it. I don't personally know of anyone other than @Johnksss@iBUYPOWER that does more overclocking and neither of us use it or Furmark. (I'm confident there are others that do it more than we do, but I don't know those people.) I don't have Prime95 and haven't used it in years. That went out with Arctic Silver thermal paste and 3DMark06. There are lots of other tools that are better and will give you a more accurate read on what to expect without cooking your laptop in the process.

If it's not stable with Cinebench, it won't be stable. Cinebench R11.5 and R15 are what I use, and 3DMark 11 physics test. If those pass without crashing you're good to go. As far as temps go, you'll find out immediately... like less than one minute... if they are good enough or if you need to take action to improve the thermals. Using Prime95 for an extended run is just a waste of time and unnecessary stress on parts.

Same applies to Furmark. Using a Furmark burn-in test is a great way to destroy a GPU you don't want any more. It certainly can do that. Using a continuous loop of Fire Strike, 3DMark 11 graphics tests or Heaven benchmark will show you right away if the GPU overclock is stable and the temps are good, and those won't cook your parts to death.

No worries. We only replied because we care about members of our community and their computers and don't want to see any bad stuff happen. Some of the popular advice I have seen in other forums can have a tragic ending.

 

I've been curious about that kind of cherry-picking service too. I don't mean to overly focus on this specific option or this specific vendor, because I've seen similar offers from other vendors too. But by way of example here's how this one is described:

"Choose this option to have our staff pick the top 20% of panels available for your model line that exhibit less backlight bleed. The panel we choose for you will exhibit less backlight bleed than 4 out of 5 panels of the same model line."

The part I easily understand is that there's a market of people who would appreciate the option to pay a little more to get the quality, reliability, or other attribute they want. That part sounds good.

What I don't get is how the implied converse "If you do not pay this fee you will be guaranteed to get one of the previously passed over bottom 80% of panels" is acceptable to anyone else. (It'd work if the non-picked models could be RMA'd as defective; or if there was a sizable market that is guaranteed to just not care (i.e., large numbers of CPUs sold through non-enthusiast channels will never ever be overclocked); or if there was a discount so that a market could be made of willing buyers/sellers; but who wants a monitor with extra backlight bleed at the same cost as one that might be better?)

 

It could mean that, but one would hope the panels they are using for cherry picking are off the shelf panels and they are not pulling panels off of other new machines and putting the bad ones on the models they are planning to stiff another person with. To do it right they should not be tearing apart a fleet of inventory and playing musical display panels. That would not be a good approach at all for a business offering that cherry picking service for an extra fee. My guess is they would have access to the parts and not be robbing Peter to pay Paul using other inventory as donor systems for those that pay extra. If that were the case it would be dangerous and stupid to buy a notebook from that vendor, as you would almost be guaranteed to get an inferior panel if you din't pony up the extra caah.

 

I certainly agree there's no reason they'd ever switch the panel out of one new laptop and put it in a different new laptop. They'd just cherry pick the laptop with the good panel as a whole (unless maybe multiple cherry pick options were in play and mix-and-match was needed to satisfy them all at once?)

But as to "not robbing Peter", what other option is there? Whatever pool of parts a retailer may cherry pick from is ultimately a pool of parts that is destined for customers one way or another. There can be no good panel for Paul without a Peter to take it from.

(As I said above, the categories where it could work is where the passed over parts could be returned to the manufacturer as defective, before the customer ever had to deal with it themselves. That's a service I'd pay for.)

 

Answers in bold blue text, so click to expand. Hope the info helps.

 

Let me try to clarify.

For a while, a while back, a few people were insisting on getting perfect IPS/AHVA/PLS screens with absolutely no back light bleed. "Get in a totally dark room, put a black background on the screen, and do not ship if there is any back light bleed." Unfortunately these screens (not so much with TN screens, but some of them have it too) have a propensity to have some back light bleed, and we get what we get from the manufacturer. No manufacturer in the world will guarantee that all, or even any, of their screens would pass that test. After all...who does that?? Just try it with any IPS/AHVA/PLS TV, Monitor or laptop screen you have...you might be in for a surprise. Of course you probably never noticed it because...well, who does that?

Bottom line is, the manufacturers know this is a characteristic of these otherwise wonderful screens, and there is no way they are going to throw out 90+% of them and only ship the "good" ones. Imagine what the price would be if they did that!

The truth is, most people don't see it in normal use, and really don't care. This is the majority. Then there are those that do care and want as little back light bleed as possible.

Given these truths, we established our back light bleed policy. When we get a shipment of say 100 pieces, we inspect them all, and we do send some back that are just terrible, and wouldn't meet anyone's standards. Of the remainder, we tag the best 20% and reserve them for those who want to pay $100 to get the top 20% cherry-picked screens.

The 'discount' for the remainder is they don't pay the $100. Discounting beyond that just doesn't make sense.

I hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the thorough explanation Donald. The mechanics are what I expected then. Good for you for working towards a solution for those customers who wanted their displays a certain way and didn't have a good way to get it other than repeated orders and returns, an approach that's good for no one.

Personally I'm surprised that it doesn't scare away more of the other 4 out of 5. For me I'd either have paid the $100 or silently decided to shop elsewhere, but that's all hypothetical anyway because at the time I bought there was no choice of US retailer. But no objections from me for informed buyers and sellers making their own decisions and coming to the best agreements they can.

(btw I agree most people don't care about a completely black screen; but I'd expect more than 20% of the buyers of this type machine watch videos or play games that include dark scenes, at which point bleed goes from being an artificial test to being a real video quality loss. Of course most individual consumers won't have seen enough units to know the range of variation that's in play which makes it hard to know what's really at stake.)

 

My answers are also in blue bold text, so click to expand.

Please feel free to email me at [email protected] or email me your phone number and I can call you between 5:00 PM and 2:00 AM GMT - Monday through Friday - to discuss any other questions you might have.

 

Yeah, that's a perfect way of doing it. I figured it was a process like that. It makes good sense.

And, for those that don't know me very well, this post was sarcasm.

 

I've been laptop hunting for the past week and I keep finding myself returning to this laptop. It just seems to fit what I'm wanting and needing very well. I was wondering if anyone that's had the laptop for some time now has noticed any new problems starting to occur or noticed any new quirks? I've seen the complaints about light bleeding, shortcuts not working on the keyboard, and the hinge being a bit loose. I've also seen on the Gigabyte forum that they've apparently given up trying to fix the keyboard and now they're telling customers that they need to use custom bindings to work around the issue. I'm not sure how true that is though. I really hope that's not the case.

 

Battery life is the only real reason to get this model, with all of its quirks including a fairly inferior screen. Everything else would point to the EVOC P950HP6....much better screen, thinner, lighter, better keyboard...etc.

 

Thanks for the recommendation. I've checked out clevo's before since they come with some high praise and have an overwhelming amount of customization, but I tended to be turned off to them because of the lack of widespread information, the overwhelming amount of customization, and I would often see them advertised with 2 hours of battery life. After reading the forum on here about that clevo though, it seems to hit a lot of the marks for me. Sturdy build, decent keyboard, and it can get around 4 hours of battery life without undervolting. Those are very important for me since I'm wanting a laptop that I can bring to university every day, can last through a full 3 hour lab, and can replace my very outdated desktop. The previous conversation on here answering questions about many of the customization options helped clear things up for me. I'll do some more research about this clevo to see if it's for me. Would you mind if I email you with any questions that I may have in the future?

 

Please feel free to email me at [email protected] or call me Toll Free at 1-888-666-3418 Extension 44 between 9:00 AM and 6:00 PM Pacific Time Monday through Friday to discuss any questions you might have.

 

To be fair that 0.5 pound difference is probably all battery - EVOC 4.2 pounds with 55 wh battery, Aero 4.7 pounds with 97 wh battery. That's a not insignificant battery life difference.

I wanted to check the relative sizes of the other two dimensions too but couldn't find them for the EVOC. The EVOC display bezels appear fairly thick on all 4 sides - I'm not sure if that means it's wider and deeper, or the display is smaller? On the plus side that may mean the EVOC camera is located on top, which if so would be an improvement on the Aero's nose-cam bottom mount.

Like Donald I have not been blown away by the Aero 15 display, which somehow seemed to get unusually high praise in some of its initial reviews. I've still been wondering if I just have different preferences - nice to know I'm not the only one / not making it up.

Edit for better research: EVOC size 380mm (W) x 249mm (D) x 18.5mm (H) vs Aero 356 x 250 x 19. So one is 0.5mm shorter and 1mm less deep, and the other is 24mm narrower. That gives the Aero 15 less overall volume even with its much bigger battery, but whichever size would feel more convenient to carry for any one person is probably a matter of taste? And yes confirmed on better camera placement for EVOC. If I were doing a serious comparison, I'd probably also want to try to get fan noise information for both but not sure how to reliably get that apples to apples.

 

Yeah, it's a decent enough display; pretty typical of an average IPS display in this class, but nothing special.

Yeah, I think early reviewers like Newegg were clueless and thought that just because it had narrow bezels like the XPS15, it must be using the same, bright, colorful IGZO 1080p display as the entry level XPS15. Oops. Other major publications got all excited by the X-rite Pantone certification and assumed that an automated out-of-the box calibration also meant that the display otherwise was best-in-class. Oops. You can calibrate an average display to make the colors look truer and white balance more natural, but that doesn't change any of the technical limitations of the panel. I wonder if the review samples came with marketing stuff that influenced some of those reviews?

 

The screen is not IPS. It is the Chimei N156HCA-EA1 AAS screen, which is why it is a bit mediocre when compared to an LG IPS, AUO AHVA or Samsung PLS screen.

I wonder if the 'fluff' came from the manufacturer review samples (very doubtful actually), or the 'fluff' was in the reviewer's brain, influenced maybe by the size of the Gigabyte advertising budget.

 

Yes I know, it's WVA, but seems pretty similar to average IPS displays in terms of brightness, viewing angles, color and such. Pretty comparable to the one in the Razer Blade and the IPS version of the GS63VR that I have seen, but neither of those was noted to be a standout display, either.

 

I think some review samples actually were IGZO panels, or they were told that the shipping production units would be. See for example Dave2D's YouTube review and the New Egg launch video, each stating it was the "same panel as XPS 9560." But there were also forum discussions at the time trying to make the case that the Chimei might be better for gaming with its faster response time, etc.

I hadn't thought about this in a while but it is making me curious again how this happened. At the time some speculated panel lottery, but I think there've been no reports since then of any consumers having received the IGZO?

 

on the hidevolution site the aero 15 is under gigabyte 14" instead of under 15"....at first I thought you didn´t sell this model.

 

Yeah, my guess it was deceptive marketing and reviewers fell for it without checking, or were just clueless. The excitement about the amazing thin bezel display grew from there. Notebookcheck had one of the first reviews and correctly reported the display. If anyone should have been sent an IGZO sample, it should have been them. I haven't seen any display benchmarks indicating it was anything other than the Cheimei WVA, though the ones without benchmarks do seem to love it a lot more than those that did test it;-)

 

Ouch! Thanks for pointing that out...it has now been fixed.

 

I've had my hands on one for a week now, and was very pleasantly surprised. The chassis feels studier overall than the P650 even to me. The lid especially.

I don't have a problem with the Aero 15, but the value right now is imo in the P950HP6. Gigabyte is prettier but that's about it.

Plus if you love Clevo and hate value the new P950HR can be yours

Edit: Oh and Donald do you know if it'll get a bios update? The current fan curve is unchangeable and terrible. They kick on fairly hard at like 43C on the gpu... PM me if this is too off topic.

 

The problem I have is this. With the P950, you are getting 4 hours of non-gaming battery life whereas the Aero 15, you are getting double the battery life, if not more. P950 has Aero 15 beat in everything else for the most part. With the P950, I just don't want to have to be lugging around an extra battery pack in addition to the laptop charger in my backpack that also has textbooks. My laptop will be with me in lectures and labs, so I need it to last.

 

There won't be a Prema BIOS for it. I do not know if Clevo has any plans to update the EC for the fan curve. I will submit your suggestion to them.

 

Just tell them that web browsing made the fans loud enough to be annoying in a classroom setting.

This laptop is great for that type of portable use (or for like meetings). But it can't be sounding like a jet engine. And it doesn't really need to for any reason I can see on light usage and it's hard to recommend when it's otherwise great but kind of obnoxious with the fans. Custom curves would help a ton. There is an option for it but it doesn't work.

 

Got the Aero 15 a few days ago from NewEgg. Beautiful machine. Great battery life -- I am getting 6-8 hrs on web browsing, Excel, and watching some videos. Not feather-light but not heavy. Basically a great daily driver, which is exactly what I wanted, with an option to play games. BUT, a few setbacks, the biggest of which is...

...The bloody keyboard ghosting issue has NOT been fully solved. There are still multiple key combos (in my case Excel shortcuts) that do not work properly but work completely fine on my 3-year-old GS60. Pressing 4 keys at the same time often causes problems -- either the combo doesn't work or something not-intended happens. So far this is happening, to a large extent, whenever the fn key is pressed. The combos are pretty important for fast work flow.

The unit also has a dead pixel. Pretty frustrating. Contemplating returning and waiting a bit before ordering a new one. Does anyone know if Gigabyte is actively working to fix the keyboard issue?

 

Unfortunately an IGZO display has never surfaced with this laptop, and never did originally at launch. The sole reason that IGZO was mentioned / speculated is that NewEgg wrongly claimed it features one - well more specifically they claimed outright it's the same screen as the XPS 15, to which it's clearly not (XPS 15 uses a Sharp display - Gigabyte uses Chi Mei on the Aero 15). The NotebookCheck test model also reflects on this fact.

Sadly as the result of NewEgg misinforming everyone about the screen, some other major YouTube reviewers such as Dave2D also wrongly claim about it being the same screen as the XPS 15.

I also agree as well with regards to the X-Rite Pantone certification - it's merely a software calibration on some basic level and simply also a marketing gimic, nothing really special unfortunately.

Liam.

 

Hi Chickenroll, I'm a little late to your question but what do you mean with "initial lag" and "deadzone values"?

After I installed Precision Touchpad drivers, the touchpad works flawlessly for me.

 

Update: After updating Smart Update to 3.6.2 the error message is gone and Smart Update works as expected.

By the way, is there an AERO 15 related Wiki or similar page to collect all the good ideas and tipps in one place? There's a lot of good information hidden in this (currently) 69 pages long thread but who's going to read through all of them?

 

Make a tutorial/step by step to install Precison Touchpad drivers.

 

If the official forums are correct, the remaining keyboard ghosting problems will not be fixed:

"The remaining key combinations are due to this keyboard hardware limitation and would not be able to resolve via KB FW and/or Fusion software update."
http://forum.gigabyte.us/thread/1102/aero-15-keyboard-issues?page=2

 

Can't believe that is the truth. How is it logical that single key works fine but only certain combinations do not? My sense tells me that it's got to be a software issue.

 

Hey All,

I am having some issues with images from the internet not showing properly on the laptop, whether its on the laptop display, or an external. The quality of the image is not good, but if I download it, it seems to look fine. I have all my drivers updated. I have seen things in Chrome forums about resetting color profile, but have no idea why there would be one on this laptop OOB. Thoughts?

 

according to kitguru this laptop exhausts hot air trough the bottom panel? What?

 

The laptop comes with a pre calibrated display and a color profile. Try Firefox, Firefox handles color profiles fine.

 

That is incorrect. The exhaust is by the hinge of the screen, meaning hot air will actually blow slightly up the screen, as well as beneath the hinge.

Gigabyte's own promotional material shows intake at the bottom, air exhaust out the back / up the screen from the hinge area: https://www.gigabyte.com/Laptop/AERO-15#kf

 

Hey everyone, do any of you know how to use the Gigabyte fusion software? I want to program play/pause to Fn+1, next track to Fn+2, and previous track to Fn+3.
Thanks!

 

Ofc it's that way, just found it funny to hear that from them.