new Gigabyte P35K

Any answers? I've seen some horror shows on OcUK for example.

 

Just got my machine yesterday. Here are a few annoying things that wasted a lot of my time:

1. The Intel Centrino N2230 wireless card constantly disconnects you or gives you unreliable connections. Apparently this affects a lot of people regardless of the brand of computer. Here's an 11 page thread about it on Intel's forums. Disabling N mode on the card seems to fix it/make your connection more stable.
2. The installed Nvidia driver can't play BF4. It will always crash when loading games. I tried upgrading to Gigabyte's newest Nvidia driver, newest BIOS, and newest chipset driver and it still didn't work. I had to download the newest Nvidia beta driver 331.93 before I could play BF4.
3. Took me forever to even download BF4 because the computer kept shutting off after 1 hour. I checked power settings and computer was set to never go to sleep. Finally realized you have to go into Change advanced power settings and then scroll down to Sleep and then set Hibernate after to Never.
4. By default, Gigabyte has Windows System Restore disabled. So when my Nvidia video card disappeared from device manager, and I couldn't reinstall it no matter what I did, I could not do a system restore. I ended up resetting the system at the boot menu, and this took like 4 hours, but at least I got the video card back.

So far, I'm happy with the game performance in BF4 as it is smooth (about 60+ FPS) at 1920x1080 on medium. Speakers are disappointing though. I'm not sure if you can even hear the subwoofer.

 

My roommate just got a 17-inch Alienware with 4700QM and GTX765M and it is even quieter than P35K on idle when playing dota2.

 

I bet its a damn sight heavier and thicker

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk

 

Can anyone tell me how loud the fans are when you surf the web/running application such as word, photoshop?

I am really picky with the fan noise ever since I purchased a laptop that would fluctuate loud then silent, loud then silent.... It really bothered me and I had to return it, even tho i loved that computer to death!

I dont mind the fan revving up while gaming, I just wanna know how the fan noise is for running multiple applications.

 

Well yes, there wouldn't be any point in buying such a colossal boat anchor with relatively weak-sauce specs if it wasn't. Specifically interested in the Gigabyte's attributes, not Alienware.

 

This is not a quiet machine. Just browsing the web with 7 Google Chome tabs open, you can clearly hear the low whir of the fans while in auto and stealth mode. It is audible but not annoying or too distracting. I then tried setting it to turbo and it is extremely loud. I would not take the machine into a classroom to take notes or a library in turbo mode.

 

Impressions soon

 

lol, gimme one SANTA!

 

Thanks for the reply volatile.

Hey could you do me a big favor or anyone who has the laptop for that matter.

There's this app called 'noise level meter' for the android phone. Could you possibly download it and test the db level of the laptop by setting it on top of the power button on your laptop? (Since the power button is the center location of the laptop)

I just wanna know what number it is reading while you just surf the web for a couple second and running a few applications. I'm guessing this is the ONLY way for me to know, specifically on how loud the noise is.

I just tested it out with my asus g73 and it's reading around 38-42db while i surf the web and some applications running in the back. and I find the fan noise for my laptop pretty quiet. So if it's showing around the same number as those, I think i might just pull the trigger for this lappy.

I really need a new laptop that I can take with me to school. Love my g73 but is too heavy to lug around my campus, especially when it takes at least 10 minutes to walk to class from the parking lot...

 

The problem is that apps like that only provides a relative reading, it's completely inaccurate in terms of the actual decibel readout it shows you - you'd have to either calibrate it properly to come up with an accurate db figure that's relevant to anyone else, or alternatively have the same phone (or exactly the same audio electronics) to be able to share (the still inaccurate, but both of you will have a relative figure you can work off) results.

One of the dangers of handing measurement devices to the great unwashed...

...and for that reason, it would be, again, as I asked, great if anyone can draw a noise parallel to any 'name' machines.

 

I downloaded a free program for iOS called SoundMeter. I went into a room that I perceived as completely quiet (no air conditioning, no electronics, no street noise, etc.). It registered around 35dB. I then went back in the living room where my P35K is and put the iPhone next to the power button with the fan in Stealth mode, and just 5 Chrome tabs open. It is around 47-50dB. With the fan in Turbo mode, it is 62-64dB. With the fan in Auto mode, I started playing Battlefield 4 and it instantly went to 62-64dB and stayed there for the 10 minutes I played the game. All my tests at the computer were done with the sound muted.

 

Hello everybody! i have a question for all the owners of the P35K, i have noticed that after intensive playing like BF4, counter stike or even a few hours of Dota 2 the battery discharges a little bit like 3-5% even when plugged in, for instance now after playing a dota 2 game batt icon shows 97% plugged and no charging, i would like to know if someone else have notice this issue too or is just me??

Thank you all

 

How much diffrence weight from P34g and P35k ...??
I'm personal using a laptop on the go everyday.

If the weight is just a little gap between them...I'll go for p35k..

but guys, maybe I should hear your advice first...

 

I got some videos





I know.... The videos are pretty bad so if you have any questions I'll answer them ASAP.

I'll also be posting my impressions of the laptop by the end of this week after using it for a while.

 

hey guys, everything fine till now! i found a program called Notebook Fan Control, as it says you can control your fans with it! unfortunately i couldnt get it run! you have to write a special config for each notebook, in this case the p35k! maybe some of you guys are able to write a working config? here is the link to the programm+description: [Vorstellung] NoteBook FanControl (NBFC) - ComputerBase Forum

 

Hello, i would like to ask you guys what is the wear level of your battery?? mine shows 4% in just 3-4 weeks in HWmonitor, and i don't know if it is normal or not.

Thank you

 

mine shows 2% after 1 week, seems to be normal, dont worry

 

Same here. I was at 100%. Played BF4 for a couple hours, and went down to 97% and not charging. Wish these Gigabytes had the battery saver option like Samsung where it only charges to 80%.

 

So for you guys who have had the P35K for a while now, how is it? I just have some questions too:

Has the chassis held up to daily use without bending or cracking? Is the keyboard flexing? Is the fan loud under basic usage (browsing + office)?

 

Chassis isn't bending or cracking. Keyboard has minimal flex. Under idle the fan stays off most of the time. The fan comes on sometimes when there are multiple tabs open. It's audible but quiet enough for say a library environment.

 

shoot, i found this video on youtube
Gigabyte P35K Fan Noise - YouTube

Hopefully, this one is just defective model right...? If it's this loud, I gonna have to return my already shipped computer.

 

I thought it couldn't get any louder at 10:34. I was wrong.

So if this is how it is when it's not even really being used, that's crazy. The fans revved up when the guy just opened his browser... I can't stop thinking about that video and this would be just one of the 3 small issues holding me back from buying it right now.

If blindm0nkey515 or another owner can, could they confirm that that's how loud the fans are under idle usage? Even if the GPU is off since I know it has Optimus. I know the i7 isn't exactly the coolest when idle but still that's crazy.

 

soo tried my best to get some numbers for you i tested the sound intensity in three situations:

- Chrome, with 3 tabs open
- chrome with youtube video running in fullscreen
- cpu stresstest with prime95

here are the pictures i took with my mobile phone! they are in the same order, as i listed the situations above! hope this helps you! cheers

Chrome, with 3 tabs open

hrome with youtube video running in fullscreen

cpu stresstest with prime95





PS: while i'm posting this, the fans are off the whole time
PPS: the spike in the last picture is the sound from taking a photo with my nexus 4

 

Well I don't think my P35K's noise goes that crazy. The power option for high performance will disable the SpeedStep and CPU will be always on turbo mode. If you set the laptop's and the Intel GPU's power options to balanced, the noise will reduce greatly and totally bearable if you're just doing web browsing or watching videos (not helping a lot during gaming, the noise is crazy indeed, but temperature goes down like 5 C).

And I just took my P35K through a 17-hour flight and the chassis survived.

 

Man, I sure hope mine comes crispy clean like a new born baby with healthy limbs and organs.

 

Thanks a lot for the information! I guess the video had the noise isue because of what jhstjh said.

I ALWAYS run my PC's in high performance mode. Then again I'm coming from a 2010/11 netbook and a 2007 Sony Vaio VGN-N320E.

Also, what is the bar across the top? Apparently they aren't speakers, so I'm guessing that they're passive air vents?

And because the speakers are on the bottom, it'll only really be "loud" when it's on a solid table right? My Vaio's speakers are on the bottom, which is aggravating. And the sound isn't really "tinny" though either right?

 

Thanks so much for your post. I wish the search feature actually worked on this forum so people wouldn't have to manually go through 50 pages to find information. I just put in a SSD and did a clean install of Windows 8.1 and was going crazy because I couldn't get into BIOS to change the boot order. Turns out it was fast startup. Some helpful things for you guys doing a clean install of Windows 8.1:

1. Either disable fast startup like Retroceded mentions above, or do a restart of Windows 8 to be able to access the BIOS (restart bypasses fast startup). Do NOT do a shutdown. If you just shutdown, it will do the fast startup next time you boot and you won't get the option to go into the BIOS.
2. Windows 8.1 by default enables adaptive brightness which annoyingly made my screen really dim, and setting it to 100% brightness wouldn't fix it. Go to Power Options>Change plan settings>Change advanced power settings. Scroll down and select Display. There you can choose to set enable adaptive brightness to Off. Alternatively, I think setting the Brightness to Manual in the Gigabyte Smart Manager does the same thing. But I installed the Smart Manager after I changed this setting, so I'm not 100% sure.
   
3. Windows 8.1 makes fonts blurry in certain programs like Chrome, due to DPI scaling. Go to the properties of the program that is affected and then go to the Compatibility tab. Put a check in the box that says Disable display scaling on high DPI settings.
   
4. When doing a clean install of 8.1, you do not need to download or install Gigabyte's outdated Nvidia driver (It is worthless and you won't be able to play newer games like BF4 because they just crash to desktop). But you will have to install the Intel video driver and restart before you can install Nvidia's updated 765m video driver. As of this posting, I am using the beta 331.93 driver.
5. Smart Manager V3 is not listed on Gigabyte's website when you go look for Windows 8.1 drivers. Installing the Windows 8.0 version 3.3.0 seems to work okay. Or you can use Smart Update to download 3.3.8.

 

Hey thanks for mentioning me.


For number 4 on your list ;
I only mentioned to do this due to the fact that when I updated my GPU drivers directly from nvidia I was getting random restarts, hdmi out problems etc... Thought I may save a few people from the trouble of dealing with driver issues.

Good to know it's working flawlessly now.

 

Hey Retroceded,

I think you did an install of 8.1 over Windows 8 right? So that's why I assumed you needed the Gigabyte driver first. I did an install of 8.1 from a DVD over a blank hard drive, so I bypassed Gigabyte's driver entirely.

Also, it could be slightly different since you have the P25W and I have the P35K.

 

Yes my gaming temps were actually higher
98c on cpu (one of the 4 cores showed that) and 84c on gpu.
Maybe your paste is helping!
I have since set the max processor power to 99‰ to prevent turbo mode on cpu and temps have hovered around 92c cpu 80c gpu
I'm assuming this is acceptable since the computer hasn't shut down itself like it would if overheating was a danger
Btw my free 3dmark 11 test gave overall score of 4510

 

Also my case was slightly bowed in middle but no crack at dvd corner. The feet all touched at corners fine but it was obviously lower to the table in the middle from the bowing. It didn't seem to affect anything however. Mine also had the bulge on the WASD keys area and it was a newer batch since it was shipped with the extra middle foam support packaging.
I did have a major issue with screen quality having 2 hot spots near center that looked to be a defect on the glass not the lcd.
Sent back for Exchange

Link video of screen defect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCP-LdfwFro&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

Could one of the owners please test the CPU for throttling (with their machine plugged in)?

Please use something like Prime95 v27.9 (or LinX v0.6.5, or Cinebench 15) for stressing the CPU, and something like RealTemp to see if it manages to hold 3200MHz turbo and what temperatures are to be expected.

Thank you.

 

hey mate,

i did a stress test with prime95 v27.9! running the test for 30 mins, machine plugged in! constant at 3000Mhz, temps went to 90°C after 20 mins, then float around 87-93°C. max fan nois was 52db! hope i could help! after 20 secs, temp went back to 42°C idle and fans shut off... during the test the surface of the notebook didnt really get hot.. just a little bit warm, but easy to handle! if you have any questions, just ask me! cheers

 

Is the noise and heat really disturbing while laptop under stress condition (gaming or movie) ? or even just multi tasking tabs and downloading?.

I saw several unboxing and review on youtube. the main issues was noise and heat, so I must confirm this to the user.

I was planning to get it next week.. maybe between p35k or p34g, because my old n56vz has been sold yesterday.

 

i can only speak for myself and during a movie or just multi tasking (office, chrome, wmp) i dont even hear my notebook! the temps are around 40-50°C with these tasks!
under stress test and gaming (CoD Ghost) though it can get quite loud! but i am always wearing a headset, so i dont really hear that too

 

Nice, thanks! Enjoy your laptop! :thumbsup:

 

I've played Battlefield 4 for 3-4 hours at a time and the laptop never gets hot to me, or even uncomfortable to touch.

 

(Nevermind.)

 

Hi guys,

I have a p35k-cf4.

Currently struggling to add a SSD in the removable bay. When i place the drive in the bay and load up the computer, it just stays on the gigabyte load screen with the spinning load icon. I can't seem to get a boot order in the bios. Im unsure if this is because i have raid0, 2x128gb ssd's, going on. The SSD appears in the bios.

Anyone else agree that the bios is extremely basic and has no room for tinkering?

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

hey i didnt replace the dvd drive, but i can definitely change my boot order in the bios! just look up the boot manager in your boot setting in your bios! maybe you missed it, it's not that clearly to find!
my bios runs with version p35.308!

 

Got it working now! I just gave the bios an update, and it worked straight away!

 

Sorry for grave-digging your post, but I just checked the display panel model of my newly acquired IPS P35K:

Screenshot by Lightshot


LG LP156WF4-SLBA != LG LP156WF4-SPB1, so unfortunately not the same!

 

this is not good news the stats on that LCD are much lower than the previous one
700;1 down to 400;1 contrast ratio

300nit down to 250nit brightness

was it ever confirmed the first batch of LCD were the better ones?

 

I received my replacement unit today and the screen seemed fine but the unit has a major flaw. Any pressure on the underside carriage on the left side will reboot the machine. I first noticed it when i lifted the laptop up while it was still on and had my fingers under the left side of the unit. I was able to reproduce it every single time. The pressure sensitive area seems to be 2 inches from the front of the laptop all the way to the middle on the left side of the ram enclosure (assuming you are looking at the keyboard)

here is a video of the reboot flaw. do any of you other owners have this issue? i am wondering if this was caused by the bend in the laptop as this one has a bend as well but no crack at the DVD corner.

Gigabyte p35k reboots on any pressure on the left underside - YouTube

 

That's harsh.

Is the chassis bent?

Have you opened her up to check for loose cables / screws?

/edit could be down to the bent chassis - something touching something it should not.

I'd RMA that baby

 

Does the wireless card support 5ghz?

 

yes it was bent. this was more bent than the first unit as the left side did not touch the flat surface at all it was elevated a few millimeters. again there was no crack at the DVD opening however.

it seemed to be a short caused by the metallic DVD drive being inserted. unfortunately it completely shorted out with that burnt electronic smell and won't power back on. however from my limited testing it seemed to have a problem with the DVD drive being in the bay, not necessarily connected to the port but just sitting halfway in the bay would cause the reboot. with the plastic empty caddy in the bay it would not reboot no matter where i pressed on the bottom.

also my LCD was the same make as the above poster which is the lower quality IPS panel than the ASUS reviewed.

 

I have something similar on my P34G. A little moving around, or pressure on the bottom of the chassis, and it reboots

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

 

I picked one of these up last week, and am returning it tomorrow (hopefully). I made a video of the fans in mine Gigabyte P35K fan noise. I SAID FAN NOISE. - YouTube

I measured it and it was about 60Db (though an app on my phone so not entirely accurate!) - and that was just sat there doing very little.

Honestly, I am not sure how you guys can use these things I even tried using a laptop cooler underneath it, and it made zero difference. Playing games is nigh on impossible due to the sound coming from the fans. I can't even do my regular development work in Visual Studio without it kicking off either.

Are Gigabyte aware of this problem? I tried contacting them on twitter but got absolutely zero response.


EDIT: Never mind, I gave up and returned the laptop for a refund. So disappointed. Such a shame.