Mythlogic... Taking... For.. ever...

I ordered a Dia 1616 with all the bells and whistles on 10-21-16.

It's now the 14th and my build is still in the "Parts Allocation Complete" stage. It's been in this stage for over a week now. 15 business days have passed and all they've managed to do is gather the necessary parts. They haven't spent any actual man hours on actually building the laptop. As of right now, my $2650 amounts to a bunch of parts at Ann Arbor that are still in their original boxes. That's pretty frustrating.. The original timeframe I was given is 17-20 business days. I just don't understand why it's taken so long. How many hours does it take to build a laptop? I can take apart my current, (old) laptop and put it back together in about an hour and a half, that's including separating the LCD panel (because dust got in there somehow). That on top of running a few benchmarks, monitoring temperatures, and playing games on it for an hour, should only take half a day, two days at a maximum. And there's no reason why they can't be building one system while another one us getting benchmarked and stress tested.

How many laptops do they build at a time? How far backlogged are they? How many man hours do they actually put in to each system?

I have spoken to support numerous times, trying to get some kind of idea as to when my laptop will arrive in the mail. I'm an over the road truck driver, so the delivery timing is critical. They never seem to be able to give me any kind of estimate. All I get are vague excuses that don't answer any of my questions.

I ordered from them because they appeared to have a solid reputation going for them online, but I'm beginning to wonder if that all was just a fabrication.

At this point I am wondering if they haven't just taken my money and are just buying time so that my bank's chargeback deadline has passed.

If their Post-Purchase support is anything like the support I've gotten so far, I'm seriously considering cancelling the order all together.

 

They are really slow... Lots of complaints about them here on the forum.. I would cancel your order and get it from Sager.. Much faster...

 

1) I had a friend who had ordered a P870DM-G from Mythlogic (Mythlogic Phobos 8715S), he then made a mistake by flashing the latest stock Clevo BIOS thinking it was better only to discover that now his BIOS has 0 customization options or overclocking options. So he thought no big deal, he contacted their technical support thinking they would send him the Mythlogic BIOS. The head of tech support named Josh started asking him lots of questions regarding his order number, serial number, name of the person who paid for it, etc. It was like an interrogation. He then explained that it was a gift so he doesn't have the order number but he gave them the serial number and even a screenshot of it from the actual laptop.


After 3 days with no response, he calls Josh who was very rude and seemed annoyed as to why he was calling him. Then Josh said that they need time to send him the BIOS.


1 week later, nothing, so he emails again.... no reply for 1 weeks, then he emails and calls, he was given the same BS about they need time to compile the BIOS in a package that he could install......


2 weeks later, nothing, then he finally gave up and is still running the stock CLEVO BIOS 1.05.02


I know the guy personally he lives here in Dubai as well.



2) Before purchasing my Eurocom Sky X9, I thought of getting a Mythlogic again, I called their sales team and some dude answered who didn't have an upbeat tone or showed any interest to my business as a potential customer, I felt like I was talking to a robot.


I then asked how long would it take from the time of order till you actually ship the system, he replies, 15 business days. I'm like whaaaat? why so long? he says we are swamped with orders.


Apparently they have so much arrogance now that they have so many orders/business coming through. I for one will never want to deal with this company EVER!

 

Hey

So to give you an update on your system, if testing goes well it should be shipping to you next week. We apologize for the delay, but we just want to try our best to make sure that its at its best before shipping it out, as we understand its a lot of money and want to make sure you enjoy your purchase. Yeah we fully understand we aren't the fastest, but we also just don't want to push out a product and hope for the best. If you have any further questions feel free to PM me

thanks

 

I ran a small website building business for a few years. At the time I was going unmedicated with my bipolar depression, and sometimes I would seriously struggle with getting any kind of work done, and I had orders and projects underway, payments received and no finished products. So while I was dealing with all this, I would give my customers ******** excuses while I tried to pull myself together. I just get the feeling like something similar is going on here, and that's what I'm getting, ******** excuses. If they could give me a definitive timeframe and a real explanation for the delays, I would probably be a little more patient with them. I've seen a lot of these threads about Mythlogic. The responses were "blah blah blah we spend so much time on each build..". Well how much time are you really spending on each build? What are you doing that requires this exhorbant amount of time?

 

Specifically the laptops each go through the following process:

- Build it (It doesn't take that long, not debating that part)
- Flash the BIOS/EC
- Install the OS on it, and the latest drivers (This process usually takes about 2 hours with all the windows updates etc, we aren't just tossing a ghost image onto it)
Then the testing begins
Its basically 3 sets of the following which usually takes around 24 hours each to complete

Run unigine heaven 10x
Run unigine valley 10x
Run an intel validation tool that stresses the CPU and memory, this runs for about 6 hours (This usually finds things if there is something like bad memory)
Run PCMark 10x
Run 3DMark 10x
Then it sits idle for a bit to cool down, and also to see if there is anything that fails during sleep or hibernation (bad SSD's can be exposed here). The temps are checked by humans to make sure nothing looks crazy out of spec, basically making sure it heats up and cools down at proper rates to make sure the thermal paste is applied properly.

Then the process repeats another 2 times, to weed out anything that is going to die quickly (bad drives, memory etc)
Then after that process is complete, its hand gamed on by a real human for a hour or so to make sure its good at what its designed to do.. game
After that the USB ports are checked to make sure data transfer looks good, and then it goes into the final prep stage, where all the benchmark programs etc are removed, then the screen is calibrated. Then its shutdown, and left cold for a few hours and then booted back up a final time to simulate being shipped to make sure there isn't any things killed by the cooling and rewarming process, then its shipped out.

So thats what we are doing with each system, so yes there is actual man hours spent on each one to review temps to keep eyes on it (no its not being stared at the whole time, but things are spot checked while in process). To make sure there isn't anything glaring like BSOD's or stuttering or wacky things.

 

They really need to get their act together. These threads about Mythologic being slow are becoming rather frequent, not to.mention their after sales support is even slower.
I really dont get why it takes so long. Even if someone does thorough a to z benchmarking and testing. It won't take more than 5 days. Add another 5 days to assemble the system , and thats being generous.
Most Clevo systems require minimum assembly, tops a GPU/GPU Heatsink swap out and installation and changing out the display. Both these tasks will at most take 4 hours. AT MOST.
Maybe they don't care about their rep anymore ? I'm really curious to see what's up with them ?

 

Mythlogic, thanks for the replies. You must have posted right before I sent that last one.

I do appreciate the prompt response, and having my order moved into the build queue finally.

I look forward to seeing the end results of all the time and hard work you put into your systems.

 

Trust me we look forward to getting it over to you =)

 

You shouldn't have to create an account and complain in a public forum to get a clear response and action, but that is the unfortunate reality these days with some of the builders/resellers (save for HIDevolution it seems).

 

That's pretty much become the case with Mythologic. Everytime someone complains here after a delay, everything gets expedited.
There are the one off cases with XOTIC/SAGER, but their sales are much higher (I think) so that is to be expected.

 

My build has moved to the Q&A stage.

I also was wondering how long it would have taken if I hadn't come on here and publicly called them out...

But.. for now I will be nice and give them the opportunity to deliver on their promises of quality work.

 

Still in QA/Test stage.. I guess they are making sure it's right

 

Ordered a DIA 1616 laptop on Sep. 13th. Still haven't received it and it is currently sitting in QA/Test. I feel your pain. At first I was contacting them for updates but after each reply took longer and longer until I just stopped receiving replies from them (sent 4-5 emails total, nothing crazy). I hated using my tablet as a replacement when my last laptop broke and I ordered a new one from Mythlogic. After the first month of being more frustrated with them than actually using my tablet, I don't actually care anymore. Weird about how you can be so excited when you order something. Turns out it only takes 2+ months of being ignored to stop caring completely. Overall not the worst relationship I have ever been in. Guess I will stick to building my own custom desktops and just buying pre-built laptops in the future.

Edit: I forgot about ordering the laptop for so long now that I got the month wrong. Ordered in Sep not Oct.

 

Its just Mythologic... They won't ever get my money, that's one thing for sure... Pathetic service... Taking 2 months to get it out of the door is an utter joke!

 

If I ordered mine on Sept 21st, I would have cancelled by now. If my laptop hasn't shipped and I don't have a tracking number by December 2nd, I will be cancelling the order and have the charges reversed through my bank. 30 business days is more than enough time. Their website says 15-17 business days. It's been 23 business days so far.
They said it will be ready to ship sometime between tomorrow and Friday. We will see...

 

I got my laptop within 48 hours of ordering it (after I finalized my configuration as I did change it more than 7 times so that was my fault), fully tested and working perfectly. I don't agree with their testing methodology to be honest and the reason I didn't order from them in the first place is they told me the same thing, that they needed 15 business days just to ship it, let alone when I would actually get so I was like "no way, thank you"

 

My order has reached step 7, "Shipping Prep"

 

CEG sent out my laptop in 24 hours (it was a barebones anyways), if someone told me 15 days, I'd tell them to piss off... Doesn't matter what testing methodology they do, it shouldn't take more than a week.. I have a feeling the long delays are because they order the chassis only after you pay up and all the delays are due to the huge shipping times it takes... Which is kind of dodgy..

 

I'm pretty sure they're dealing with smaller numbers in their orders. Not enough to bulk ship the components in advance. So parts are likely ordered as they get the orders in.
That would explain up to 2 weeks of delay, maybe 3.

They said they were going to ship today, I sent them a little reminder on Facebook messenger. We'll see if it happens.

 

Well, I finally got my tracking number!

 

Okay, update.. I got the laptop on the first.. Everything seems pretty good so far. The screen had some pinching going on from the bezel, but I've got that worked out now. I do wish they took a bit more care when assembling this thing to make sure there was no pinching.

It came loaded with some software, looks like the default sager software, rebranded for mythlogic. Some kind of overclock software too. One for GPU overclock, one for CPU overclock. Performance mode, entertainment mode, power save, and quiet mode. The performance mode was set to overclock the CPU to 4.1ghz on all 4 cores, I'm not sure if it was exactly stable, because there was some crashing going on. Playing around with the keyboard backlight settings with the overclocking off, caused the system to crash into BSOD. So I'm stuck with the default blue.. You can't exactly put full blame on mythlogic for that though, since it is sager's programming.

Mythlogic support so far has been decent enough, getting back to me on a few things. They gave me permission to remove the bezel from the screen to try to fix the pinching issue. They said some other customers were successful with sanding the inside edge of the bezel. This leads me to believe that this isn't an uncommon issue. Anyways, even though I was able to reduce the pinching, even with the bezel removed, and even if I loosen the screws holding the screen to the case, there's still some pinching, in the same original spots where the bezel was pinching. I think the screen is permanently FUBARed, probably the metal frame around the LCD unit is slightly bent from the bezel pushing in too much. It's not that bad, but still very noticeable in dark scenes, and very frustrating since I thought I was getting the "white glove" experience by paying the extra premium and dealing with the extra wait time. They said the 4k display is a bit thicker than the 1080p, and that's what is causing the problem. I would suggest if you're going the 4k route, make sure you give explicit instructions to them to make sure there is ZERO pinching from the bezel. If they can't do that, I would advise you to ask them to ship it without the bezel, and figure out how to make it work without pinching yourself. It might not be very noticeable, but it's still there, and it is a bit of a letdown, and very frustrating if you're paying the extra cash for a premium screen. Things aren't very friendly towards high dpi monitors anyways, I think you would be better off with a standard 1080p screen. That's not to say that gaming doesn't look great on 4k, and you can definitely see the difference. I don't have any newer games to run benchmarks yet, but borderlands 2 runs on 4k ultra settings 100-120 fps without any overclocking going on. The 4k resolution probably looks much better on a larger display. You could probably just go with the 1080p screen and hook into a larger external 4k display, but if you have the 4k built-in, you won't have to mess with your layouts in-game, or reorder desktop icons after switching between high resolution external, and standard HD built-in. You would have a more uniform experience between the larger external display and the built in 4k is all I'm saying.

The gtx 1070 overclocks very nicely. I have a 200mhz core overclock, and 100mhz memory overclock. Stock it runs at 1443mhz core with a 1645 mhz boost clock. Unlike other GTX 10 series graphics cards, the 1070 is slightly different from it's desktop counterpart. It has a slightly lower clock speed with a few extra cuda cores(2048 cores @ 1442 base clock mobile, vs 1920 cores @ 1506 base clock) . Logic tells me that since the cores are running slower than a stock desktop gpu, with more cores, that maybe you might be able to get a little more overclock benefit. If it's the same type of cores, but with more of them, they should be able to overclock to the same frequencies as the desktop counterpart, but with more cores at the same overclock, you'll get better performance. Then again, there must be some reason why Nividia decided to slap in more, slightly slower cores in the desktop model.. so maybe they can't handle higher clocks, or maybe the higher clocks just generate too much heat, and they went this route to reduce temps and voltage.. I have no idea. Some people have said they're using the same silicon chips from the same wafers as the desktop chips, but if so, where did the extra cores come from? Were they just locked or lasered off of in the desktop chips? If anybody wants to elaborate.. feel free to enlighten us.

The bios looks relatively locked up. There's really not too many options, and it seems like Mythlogic wants you to do all of your overclocking through the included software. I haven't really messed around with overclock settings a whole lot, other than the GPU. I'm a little hesitant to play with voltages and such, so I have the CPU running stock for now. If anybody has any experience using the sager software to overclock the 6820hk, please feel free to share your knowledge.

I really want to give mythlogic a good review, but at this time, I can't really recommend. I don't have any experience dealing with any other clevo resellers, so I don't really have anything to compare.

I will update this post if I have anything new to share with you guys.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1079641/screencaps/control center.PNG
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1079641/screencaps/cpuOC.PNG
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1079641/screencaps/gpu OC.PNG
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1079641/screencaps/xtu.PNG
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1079641/screencaps/xtu2.PNG


EDIT:

One of my plans was to dig through the system to check dates on some things to see if the dates in the system info and mythlogic benchmark files match up with the timeline of the build and when the system's status changed in Mythlogic's order status page. Just to be sure they were actually doing all of the stress testing etc. they use as a major selling point on their laptops.

So running the command "systeminfo" in CMD.exe shows us..
Original Install Date: 11/21/2016, 1:21:25 PM
File properties of one of the mythlogic benchmarking files shows
Created November 21, 2016 1:22:09 PM
Modified November 18, 2016 10:28:31

According to my build status, my system moved to the Q/A/Test stage on the 17th
Maybe they ran the original benchmarks on the 18th and reinstalled the OS on the 21st.

 

The date changed like that, because once we install the OS and make sure its good, we sysprep the machine which resets the install date. So your date pattern makes sense. Its not that the OS was reinstalled, but the sysprep changes the date.

Also remember that while we wish we could get systems without bezels or LCD's, they come like that, so thats also something a bit out of our control to be able to prevent any kind of pinching like that.

 

Here's a quick, poorly shot video showing the Bios options, start up time, and fingerprint scanner in use.

FYI, the bios is a bit tricky to get into.. you have to mash the f2 key, and it takes me several tries to do it...

 

Prema BIOS should be out soon, so what you see is a stockish BIOS currently where a lot of stuff is locked out.. Once Prema BIOS is out, Mythlogic should get a version of it so you should be fine then...

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

 

You don't have to mash it, just hold it. I start holding the moment screen goes dark. BTW, same with the F7 key you can hold if you have multiple boot options.

Just to add, I ordered my Deimos 1616 on September 16 and it took two full months for it to ship out. Next time I'll likely be looking at the alternatives. Also, they happily accepted the PO box as the shipping address, but shipped it with the UPS service that does not deliver to PO boxes so in the end I had to drive to the UPS center to pick it up.