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

We shall see what they say. He didn't specify otherwise, but their policies state 10-15% which I will dispute with him if he tries that.

 

My vendor tells me, in regards to the PCIe root port that the TB3 port hangs off being PCIe 2.0 x4:

 

What is everyone getting for Heaven 4.0 bench mark on ultra 1080p? I got score of 1472 / 58.5 FPS. Notebookcheck.net says they got 73.8 FPS seems huge difference.

 

I'll run a test of it today and let you know, but my Firestrike scores were pretty normal.

Hopefully it can be fixed and they do fix it, because it's not cool that they've advertised one thing but sold another. Very disappointed.

I think every Aero 15 owner should email Gigabyte, personally. I will today.

 

Seriously, people need to calm down with this. I swear some people go looking for reasons to be angry about new hardware rather than just enjoying it. Are you actually using the Thunderbolt port? If so, are you using it with a device that supports speeds that would matter? No? Then stop getting all worked up! Unless you bought it for a purpose you believed it to be suitable for and then found out it wasn't getting all raged over something like this is really silly.

Further, are you sure that it really is a 2.0 port? Have you checked actually implementation specs, or are you just looking at HWINFO? Remember HWINFO reports what the system says a link is currently running at. When I check HWINFO on my system it says my GPU is running on a PCIe 1.1 link. It isn't, it is running on a 3.0 link however it has turned itself down to 1.1 mode to save power since it isn't doing anything. It only goes to 3.0 mode when a load is put on the card. Have you hooked up a PCIe 3 device to the TB port and seen what it does then? Could it be (and I suspect this is likely) that it is 2.0 when idle for compatibility with TB1/2 devices and negotiates up to 3.0 for a TB3 device?

Seriously, unless this is affecting you, just chill. It makes me sad how many people get a new computer or car or whatever and rather trying it out and seeing if they like it try to find every little fault they can, no matter how inconsequential, and get extremely worked up over it.

 

@Sycraft - I think you're the one overreacting to my post. The intention behind emailing Gigabyte is to inform them of this issue, and to expedite a fix, especially if it is as simple as a bios update.

@Denjin tested his TB3 port with an eGPU with a 1080 and said it under-performed.

The issue is not about getting "worked up over nothing". It's about not getting what you've paid for, and irresponsible marketing.

If it turns out that this is a hardware limitation, then this will almost certainly affect the audience for the Aero 15.

There could be somebody out there, like @Denjin, who intended to use his TB3 port for eGPU only to now find it is not viable. As it stands, the TB3 with a 1080 is already only slightly better than the internal 1060 when piping back to the screen. Imagine being constrained by effective PCIE3 2 x speeds.

In conclusion: Just because I, personally, am not using the TB3 *right now* does not mean I can't be upset about this as an owner. I bought this Aero 15 with the knowledge that it had full speed TB3, and that TB3 options were open to me at my discretion.

If that is not the case, are you saying that I have to try to use the TB3 port right this moment before I can become dissatisfied with it?

Again, I repeat, emailing Gigabyte is to inform them and expedite a fix. It is not to "rage". I'm not "raging".

Nor am I "finding every little fault I can". I've owned this laptop for over a month now and haven't had a negative thing to say about it except that the keyboard is stiff. Please don't level baseless accusations at me.

I understand what you're saying and the point that you're making, but that's not what I'm doing.

 

I tested it and it is PCIe 2.0 x4 all the time, even when the card isa runnning a benchmark. Also, CUDA-Z confirmed the bandwidth. Basically, I have spent a few hours testing with the help of the peeps at eGPU.io. Really not sure why we should let vendors do whatever they want.

 

I did some benchmarking today since there is a surprising lack of numbers in this thread, and it's useful for new owners to see if their Aero 15 is behaving up to par.

No screenshots, couldn't be bothered, so you'll just have to take my word for it

If anybody sees anything wrong with my numbers, please let me know

(CPU has a -115mv undervolt. Liquid metal repaste on both CPU/GPU. Ambient temp about 26c, laptop on flat surface, no cooler, not raised. "Gaming" fan profile.)

Gigabyte Aero 15
7700HQ
2 x 8GB 2400 RAM 17-17-17-39 2T
GTX 1060
Toshiba XG4 1TB NVME
Liteon 512GB SATA3

Unigine 1080p, Ultra, No AA
78.9 fps
1988 score
GPU Max 76c
Max Clock 1747, around 1580 average
CPU Max 83

Unigine 1080p, Ultra, No AA +175/+500
84.8 fps
2135 score
GPU Max 77c
Max Clock 1860, around 1660 average
CPU Max 82

Firestrike
9669 total score / 11364 graphics score
GPU Max 75c
Max Clock 1785, around 1550 average
CPU Max 78

Fire Strike +175/+500
10327 total score / 12216 graphics score
GPU Max 75c
Max Clock 1890, around 1650 average
CPU Max 78c

Timespy
3632 total score / 3547 graphics score
GPU Max 75c
Max Clock 1785 / around 1550 average
CPU Max 81c

Timespy +175/+500
3861 total score / 3811 graphics score
GPU Max 75c
Max Clock 2012 / around 1680~1700 average
CPU Max 82c

 

I think that when you buy a high priced laptop,it's reasonable to expect to have everything works as advertised.
Things like "The keyboard is stiff" are subjective, but announced TB3 port speed is not.
And also, the latop should not have keyboard issues - which is the only reason I'm not getting one right now

 

As I understand a new update has been released this week that fixed the keyboard issue. Note I don't have an Aero 15 but on reddit a user has confirmed this. Not 100% if its true so might be worth checking out. Anyone else can confirm?

https://www.reddit.com/r/laptops/comments/6s86ac/gigabyte_aero_15_discussion/

 

Odd, why do I get this: I got score of 1472 / 58.5 FPS. Other benchmarks on the Internet have people getting 70+ FPS in this benchmark on the Aero 15, too.

 

Install MSI Afterburner and check to see what your 1060 is boosting up to. IIRC, most Aero 15's are boosting in the 1500~1600 range on default settings.

Also, are you on the "Gaming" fan profile? From what I understand, if you try to game / bench on the "Quiet" profile, it automatically throttles. I am not certain of this, but an owner said so of his Aero 15 earlier in the thread.

You may also want to monitor your temps and see if you're encountering thermal throttling.

Otherwise, I'm honestly not sure what else could be causing it. FWIW, in the NVIDIA Control Panel I have my Power Management Mode set to "Optimal Power". My Preferred Graphics Processor is also on "Auto".

Do your Firestrike benchmark scores line up with mine? If so, it's an issue with your Unigine settings most likely. For example, AA enabled.

 

I'll check Firestrike later on and MSI Afterburner. I checked and Gaming fan profile is selected at least.

Also, I get lots of mouse freezes when doing 'things' on this laptop. I never had that on my desktop with SSD.

 

Did you try doing a clean install of Windows 10?

 

@HussainQ - nope, not yet. I am thinking of returning it so have left it 'stock' with a bunch of the preloaded software removed.

@CedricFP - Firestrike 1080p -
9738 total score / 11411 graphics score
GPU Max 73c

 

If you really want to keep it that way, I'd suggest making a USB backup using Gigabyte's software, then do a clean install of Windows and redo your tests. If the results are more comparable to the tests referred to in the forum, install back all the gigabyte software and you're good to go. If not, then you could restore your backup and continue with your original plan.

 

That looks right in line with my Firestrike score, and really, all GTX 1060 laptop scores in general. It beats out the NBC Aero 15 score, too, by a few hundred points.

This suggests your graphics card is working fine, and that there are specific settings in Unigine that are tanking your FPS. My guess is AA enabled by accident either in the NVIDIA CP or Unigine itself, but I'd still check out how high the 1060 boosts to in Unigine. If it's boosting into the 1500~1600 range, then your GPU is behaving normally.

The stutters you feel, like when clicking the battery icon or using task manager, are because of Optimus switching. The dGPU is briefly engaged. Windows was supposed to fix it with an update but that doesn't seem to have happened.

 

I have the impression that the Smart Manager USB backup utility creates a factory restore image. I don't think it saves any user data or changes? I'm not sure about this since I haven't tried to restore from the USB, but hopefully someone can verify. Definitely worth checking or at least make a second backup of your user data before using the Gigabyte backup as a restore point.

 

Just got my Aero 15 a week ago and I'm very happy with it. Have 1 dead pixel (pink) in the top right of the screen and very minor backlight bleed on the bottom which is way better than any IPS panel I've ever owned.

Has anyone tried using the Oculus Rift, or HTC Vive with there Gigabyte Aero 15 yet? I know Nvidia Optimus wouldnt allow older laptops to use Virtual Reality because the HDMI slot wasnt connected to the GPU but the CPU. This is not the case with the Aero 15 but I was wondering if anyone has actually tried it becuase I just ordered the Oculus Rift and I'm hoping it works but there is zero info about this laptop and Virtual Reality.

 

Updated Fusion to V4.2.2 and keyboard firmware to 1.1.9 but this did not resolve the above mentioned keyboard issues.

 

So far I've been using Smart Update to update pre-installed software and drivers on my AERO 15. Worked good so far (at least after updating Smart Update, see my post).

While for some components only updates distributed by Gigabyte are available (e.g., BIOS, keyboard firmware, ...), other updates can be downloaded from the original manufacturer, e.g. CPU and GPU drivers:

• For the integrated GPU (HD 630), Smart Update offers 22.22.16.4708, compared to Intel's latest drivers 15.46.02.4729.
• For the dedicated GPU, Smart Updates offers 22.21.13.8266 while nVIDIA offers 384.94.

This is to say, the original manufacturer provides more up-to-date drivers.

Is it recommended to install the latest original drivers instead of drivers provided by Gigabyte?

 

Gigabyte replied to my support ticket (about the PCIe 2.0 x4 issue):

@HermannnTheGerman I install original drivers, when possible. In my case this was just the official nvidia ones, though.

Tomorrow it the end of my 14 days since ordering the laptop. The vendor keeps asking me to wait, but is there any chance they won't fix the issue? As said, I did buy it for the very specific eGPU use case...

 

Thanks for keeping us updated! kind of a bummer though. I mean the speeds should theoretically be the same as PCIE 3.0 x2 but still falsely advertised imo. Sorry if I missed it, but have you tried any benchmarks using an external monitor directly plugged into the egpu? It should produce better results since the bandwidth isn't used to push video back into the internal monitor.

I wonder if they're holding off on the Aero 15 4k version until these updates are pushed out.

 

Do you have a link to the new fusion and firmware?
I'm looking here and don't see these new versions.
Thanks

 

Yeah I'm using it with 3440x1440 monitor, which is why I went eGPU route. 1060 just isn't enough for that! The PCIe root should be PCIE 3.0 x4 which is 2x the bandwidth of what I'm getting now.

 

I've seen various testing that shows half speed TB3 is adequate for eGPU driving external higher resolution monitors where frame rates are modest. The bottleneck usually occurs if you are trying to run very high frame rates or trying to use the eGPU to drive the notebook display.

 

I am surprised and disapointed that gigabyte would sell this machine with limited TB3 bandwith at this point in time with the eGPU market taking off. The backlash with the XPS 15 was bad enough, does anyone know if dell fixed that with the latest model?
If it is not hardware limited, gigabyte should rush a fix.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

Yeah the difference in speed is similar between half and full bandwidth, but they are advertising it as full bandwidth. Plus, if you ever want to use the port more (my enclosure has hard drive space + USB ports, too!), there will be a bigger performance hit on a half speed TB3 port.

 

Hello there,

I finally ordered a 2nd Aero 15 from another webshop, with the hope that there would be less backlight bleed.
And indeed the new unit is a *bit* better in that regard. Although it's not as good as I'd like for a > €2000 laptop, I'll keep it and return the 1st unit.

Left: 1st unit; Right: 2nd unit:



I also ordered a Samsung 960 Evo NVMe SSD which should arrive tomorrow.
I'll use it as main drive for the system and applications and I'll use the original SSD (it's a Transcend on this unit, not a Lite-On) as secondary drive for my documents.

I'm wondering though:

I have 2 foam pieces. Which one are you talking about? The red or green one?


I tried to remove the green one but the black cover is glued to the foam piece so that sounds like a bad idea to me:


Here it how it looks like if I leave both foam pieces. Is it really risky?

 

Hello, I recently purchased the laptop. Everything is great so far but I have three questions!

1) The Fusion software is displaying the keyboard in US version but I have the UK. The issue is that if I select all the buttons and try to change their color in a custom profile two keys that are not displayed in the screen keyboard remain black.

2) The SSD driver includes multiple partitions for recovery and such, there is even a partition for UEFI something(I don't remember atm). Are these partitions useful? Since W10 is tied to the machine I could download and install the OS from microsoft with no issues. Right?

3) Has anyone managed to install nvidia drivers in Linux? Particular, in Debian.

And last, something annoying, the right Shift and right Enter are dimmer than the rest most probably because the LED is not directly underneath the letters. It's a small thing but it's annoying.

 

You have to remove th big foam piece.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

I've had a reply from Gigabyte to my issue. I don't agree, unless the issue is with everyone's Aero 15?

As I'm at the end of my first 14 days, perhaps a return to vendor is in order.

 

Can others please look at HWINFO and go to port 5 PCI bus and see what speeds it is reporting?

@Denjin -- sounds to me like they're saying they think it might be an issue with your hardware alone, which doesn't jive. Surely they have their own model they can confirm / test on?

 

Yeah, if anyone can select the PCIe root port that the TB3 port hangs off of in hwinfo64 it would be appreciated. You can see exactly what to select in my old post http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...15-owners-lounge.804575/page-77#post-10575989

 

I don't have a genuine Thunderbolt device, I only have a USB drive to connect to the USB-C jack. Connecting it populates the "Root Port #5" branch in hwinfo64. So this might be helpful information anyway:

"PCI Express Root Port # 5" shows PCI Express version 2.0 (max link width 4x; max link speed 5.0 GT/S). On its subtree, all of the "Intel JHL6340 (Alpine Ridge 2C) TB3 Bridge" entries have PCI version 3.0 (4x; 8.0 GT/s).

 

Thanks, @HermannnTheGerman. Same issue, then. Vendor and Gigabyte are insisting it is a fault with my device though and doing RMA. ugh. Can't wait to get it and have same issue again.

 

I've asked my contact at Gigabyte to see if they know anything about the TB3 port speed.

 

Have the same issue maybe next editions they can fix that...

 

It's clear that this is not just an isolated issue with your hardware, and it's pretty ridiculous they can't just do a bit of on-site testing.

On top of that, didn't you say the retailer mentioned there might be a bios fix down the pipe? Sounds to me like Gigabyte is well aware of the problem unless the retailer was blowing smoke up your rear.

 

Yeah I have no idea what is going on. I have RMA'd it though and it's being collected on Monday. Perhaps it is all some delaying tactic.

 

Nah, it's probably that their departments don't communicate at all. Even if a fix is in development or testing there is a good chance that the service department won't have any clue about it. And of course they won't report back to the updates people either.

It's sad when companies don't use their own feedback channels but some stuff like this requires a bad review on Amazon, newegg or Facebook to be noticed.

 

True, @scrod. Never attribute to malice something that can be explained by stupidity... or in this case just lack of comms as you say. Still, the RMA process annoys me as literally everyone who has tested has had same experience as me.

 

You could pre-emptively compile all your screenshots and those from others confirming it and start a new thread here, then link to it on their FB page. At some point, those involved in resolving issues like this would have to be notified.

 

Got my Oculus Rift yesterday and it works great, smooth buttery frame rates so far. I'll report back after I've had a chance to play the more demanding AAA titles but Robo Recall is very smooth, I played all day yesterday with no motion sickness.

There's a few reviews about the 2017 Razorblade that has similar specs to the Gigabyte Aero 15. Some people are experiencing issues with the Razorblade on certain games so I'll take a look to see if the Aero 15 has the same problems. The Razorblade I think only has a max capacity of 16gb of Ram and 1 M.2 slot? So the Aero 15 should be able to handle any VR game by upgrading to 32gb of ram and a good M.2 SSD.

Apparently the Dell XPS 15 can't do Virtual Reality at all so I'm really glad I got the Aero 15, It really seems like the best all in one laptop right now with a decent battery life.

 

Been away from the thread for a while so just seeing this now. IMO this is an unnecessarily argumentative post plus bad advice. All laptops, including this one, carry risk of manufacturer's defects, and they typically come with short return windows. The time for any new purchaser to personally test every part on their new computer is immediately on receipt. The last thing you want is to discover that you got a bad part only after that window or the warranty has expired, or when you need it in the field like at a client site. Also, particularly on brand new models, software bugs are common. Personally I'm grateful for those before me who took the time to find and report issues with the keyboard, battery meter, etc etc so they got fixed before they bothered me.

As to the subjective judgments like "angry" + "extremely worked up" etc etc I'm not sure I had the same reactions from the original posts.

 

Planning to buy. Who can say, at the moment, eventually, what is the situation with the problem of using keyboard combinations?

Thank you.

 

As I understand some combos has been fixed however the ctrl+shift combos are still an issue, Gigabyte suggested that you can set your macros on the keyboard to function as a quick fix for now.
I don't really use that specific combo so not to phased but might affect some people.

 

Thanks. I'm not photo or video editor, but It's very common combination even for me (in chrome, for example).

 

Thanks.

I removed the foam piece. Actually there were 2 black cover tape layers. One glued to the foam piece you can't really remove and another one I left in place to protect the components just under the SSD:



I used Gigabyte Smart Backup to make a bootable USB drive and installed the Samsung 960 Evo with it.
What I liked is that it also automatically recreated the original recovery partitions so I can use the F9 key.

For the record, the French version of the Aero 15 (B40W10P-FR) can be shipped at least with 2 different SSDs: Liteon CV1-8B512 or Transcend TS512GMTS800, none of which are NVMe.

Here are my benchmarks:




Regarding the backlit keyboard: you can customize a lot with the RGB Fusion software but there is something very basic I was not able to do. I don't know if it's hidden or really not possible: how do you set a timeout for the backlight?!
It's a bit stupid that it remains ON even when I'm AFK. The screen turns off after 10 minutes by default, why won't the keyboard backlight?

 

The UK version comes with the LITEON CX2-8B512 which is already an NVMe so doesn't worth any upgrade unless you need extra space.

http://www.liteonssd.com/en/PRODUCT/client-sata-ssd/cx2-series.html