*** Official Clevo N970TC / N970TD / N970TF Owner's Lounge ***

With the Nvidia drivers you should be able to get runtime power management working so the GPU could dynamically switch between D0 / D3 power states exactly as it does in Windows. It should be very similar power consumption to what I am seeing as it calls the same ACPI methods as bbswitch to change states.

 

Hope so. I got it working really well with my Precision M6700 with a Quadro K4000. Only thing I do is switch between Nvidia and Intel drivers in the Nvidia manager, logout, then log back in. On the Intel drivers, I can get around 4 to 5 hours, but that is also with a 92 watt/hr battery.

I would be happy with 2 to 3 with this N970TF. It will be plugged in probably 85% of the time.

 

Woo hoo! Amazon dropped off my TF three days early!

I ordered it real late Saturday night, and delivery was projected for Friday the 27th, which was fine by me.

Eluktronics must be doing expedited shipping for the holiday, because it shipped Monday afternoon, and I got it about an hour ago.

All I can say is a major "Thank You, and Merry Christmas", to the Eluktronics folks. They really made my Christmas.

 

Awesome. What CPU/GPU did you get?

 

I5-9400 / RTX 2070

I figure it is a decent combo to start with. Got a 512Gb NVME / 16Gb RAM setup.

This coming weekend I am adding a Samsung 970 Evo 512Gb, which I will swap out the stock NVME for, as my Win10 OS drive. The original NVME will be for Linux (Linux Mint 19.3, and Manjaro with I3 desktop). Also loading in a 3 month old 1TB WD Blue SATA SSD for a games/storage drive.

My plan is all solid state to maximize battery life, and through-put.

 

Mia the GPU embedded in this laptop?

 

Here is my display. It seems a lot brighter in the pic than it actually is.

Only have just a little back light bleed in the upper left corner. Other than that, it is a great looking panel.

 

Yes, it is. It would be nice if it was a MXM card, but for the money, it is fine.

 

Pictures do tend to exaggerate light bleed, you could double check it's not bezel pressure by seeing if unclipping the bezel there makes any difference.

 

I may try that a bit later on. Just got it and I don't want to start taking it apart already. My wife would have a fit if she saw that. Lol

Now just have to figure out how to get back into the BIOS again. Got in once using the F2 key just after powering it up the first few times, but after letting Windows do all its update, the F2 key doesn't seem to allow Bios access after POST. It just boots to Windows.

Knew I should have done more than just look around. Should have disabled Safe Boot and TPM when I was in there.

 

Grats on the machine arriving! I hope you enjoy it.

Sounds like fast boot got enabled by Windows 10. You can still get into the bios by going into Windows 10 -> Settings -> Update & Security -> Recovery -> Advanced Startup -> Restart Now, then choose Troubleshoot -> Advanced Options -> UEFI Firmware Settings.

 

Thanks for the advice. Got to love how MS tries to lock your system down without even telling you.

Glad I am going to triple boot Win10 with a couple different Linux distros.

 

Do an advanced restart to boot into the bios directly (hold shift when selecting restart).

 

One problem I have found is in updating to the newest Intel display drivers, it disabled the Fn keys for adjusting brightness, along with being able to disable the trackpads with the Fn key. Guess I will have to roll back to the previous driver version, as I do utilize those keys quite a bit.

So this is NOT a knock on the N970, just on typical Intel/Microsoft shenanigans.

On Linux, the Fn keys work just fine.

I just can't get over how sharp the display is. Between that, and the RTX2070, I can run ALL my games on Ultra/High settings, and they look and play phenomenal. I don't play a lot of new games, but even my 2 and 3 year old games look amazing.

I did a bit of undervolting across a couple profiles under Throttlestop, mainly just to help extend component life as much as possible. Got a 7 to 8 degree drop, to around 67C to 68C, while still holding a constant 3.9Ghz across all CPU cores.

Now just want to see how the Max battery profile I set up works out for run time.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

 

Make sure you undervolt/overclock the RTX2070. You’ll cut huge temps off of the GPU under heavy load.

 

Yeah, that is my next step. Have to watch a couple videos and figure out what I need to do that. I think it is the MSI Afterburner software, but have to check.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

 

Odd that Fn keys are disabled when updating the Intel GPU driver. Did you try re-installing Clevo Control Center after updating those drivers? It may re-enable them.

 

No, hadn't thought about that. Will give it a try when I get home.

Doing Christmas with the family today.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

 

You can squeeze nearly desktop RTX2070 performance inside of that 115-120TDP if you undervolt properly. You will probably drop 10-12C off of the temps and add 120-180Mhz on top of the boost levels.

 

Yeah, that is what I have been seeing. Will work on that tomorrow if we get some snow and I can stay home.

I know Bob of All Trades did a video on it. Just need to sit down and watch it a couple times.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

 

It's a little more involved than it used to be with just sliders.

 

You were right. Installed the latest Control Center and it fixed my function key problems. Thanks a lot.

 

Yep, I did some digging last night and it looks like there is a Clevo Hotkey DCH app that is tied to these Intel drivers!

Out of curiousity, if you launch the Intel Command Center, then exit it, does it leave your Nvidia GPU turned on, even without any apps running on it? I have noticed this happening and it seems like the only way to consistently reset it is rebooting. The palm rest stays pretty warm in this state...

 

Not that I can tell. HWInfo shows like a 13 watt draw consistently at idle, but I just chalked that up to Optimus idling in the background.

I did a bit of tuning with MSI AB and got a setup I can live with for now. Set my curve @ a flat 1275 MHz, and boosted the Memory Clocks +50Mhz. Pretty smooth gaming and my GPU temps hover around 67 or 68 Cel.

Now just have to tune my CPU idle clocks a bit. Currently idling at 1097Mhz, and would like to get that down a bit. Just have to figure out how in TS.

 

Optimus power should be very low with the card off as the gddr is shut down and the core is in a signal wait state and not really clocking.

 

Yep, my setup is more or less the same. I have the core speed locked at 1270Mhz @ .700v which has GPU temps around 70C and the fan is quieter than stock.

Is that 13W GPU Power or Negative Battery Charge Rate in HWInfo64? The card shouldn't have any sensor readings at all in HWInfo64 if Optimus is working correctly. I have a total idle power draw of ~11W with screen at 40% brightness, even with the i9. What SSD did your machine come with? I only have a single 970 Evo. Maybe the stock NVMe drive has higher idle power consumption?

This scenario is more similar to how if you have MSI Afterburner running the Nvidia GPU is always powered on, regardless of if any apps are running on it. Except even after exiting the Intel Command Center, it still is powered on and doesn't shut off until after a reboot. With this model its really easy to tell if the GPU is powered on because the right palm rest is always warmer. In the Nvidia Control Panel I set the default GPU to the UHD630, and then only have my games whitelisted with the ability to use the Nvidia GPU.

 

What is the highest overclock you can get? Have you tried beyond stock speeds with less voltage? 1,270Mhz seems a little light for a RTX Card. I guess I’m just use to the other end of the spectrum, I’ve got a gas guzzler for laptop haha.

 

I haven't tried any overclocking. I am guessing it could probably do more but that would only increase heat and noise which are already pretty high when I run five WoW clients when multiboxing. Your P750TM probably has a more robust cooling system and is quieter under load with the same components at the same speeds. It's a shame they didn't include a MUX in that model so Optimus could be used.

 

What does the nvidia activity icon show?

 

It is colored - but no apps listed as running. It appears that after closing the Command Center, it leaves a background process running. If that process if killed in the task manager the Nvidia tray icon turns gray and power consumption goes back to idle. I need to try this on an another Optimus machine and see if the same thing occurs.

 

XTU running in the background seems to constantly force 3D clocks with my GTX1080 for some reason.

 

Set it in the nvidia control panel to igp only.

 

I did try doing that and it did not help.

For some reason the issue is the Intel Graphics Command Center tray icon - I had it disabled in the preferences, but the process for it is still run even if the icon is hidden. So with the tray icon enabled, I can right click it and exit it which releases the Nvidia GPU and lets it shut off without killing processes in task manager. I checked the Intel GCC support / feedback site and didn't see anything mentioned about this problem so I will report it myself.

 

I wonder if its maybe another exe it relies upon?

 

Yes, its the IGCCTray.exe process. It gets launched regardless of the setting in the Intel Graphics Command Center. So for now the best thing to do is just always show it, and exit it when it get relaunched. I did test the same Intel GPU driver / Intel Graphics Control Center app on an Alienware M17 and had the exact same behavior.

 

So even manually selecting that one too still launches on the dGPU? That's an interesting bug.

 

Just thought I would post a quick update with Linux running on my N970TF.

Installed a Samsung 970 Evo M.2 NVME drive from NewEgg in the second M.2 slot a week ago, after waiting nearly a three weeks for UPS and USPS to get their stuff together.

Installed Linux Mint 19.3 as my daily driver for general work. Ubuntu Budgie 19.10 as a test bed for gaming (Mint is on a LTS build, so packages are a bit "dated"). Installed Kodachi Linux 6.2 for an "anonymous" distro to learn about forensics and such.

Mint installed strait away. Added the Additional Drivers, which pulled down the Nvidia Gforce drivers for my RTX2070. Works just fine.

Budgie was the same, installed fine, drivers loaded just fine. Spent this evening testing some basic undervolting settings to try and replicate what I did with Throttlestop under Windows 10. Now you have to set it up manually, but once it is setup, it works just fine.

Haven't really messed with Kodachi yet. Been busy with work.

So in short, I know Eluktronics doesn't officially support Linux, but with a bit of terminal work, and some reading on-line, Linux runs great and looks gorgeous. Now ready to setup Steam and give Proton a whirl.

 

Bumping this thread because someone on a music forum recommended me the N970TC model, and I wanted another reference. I have a couple of questions.

1) I'm interested in using it for music, which relies on different benchmarks than gaming or most other things. If any other Win10 user on N970TC could download this freeware for testing audio suitability, run it for ten minutes (it can take a while for issues to pop up), and post a screenshot, I would be eternally grateful.

https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

2) Has anyone tried dual booting MacOS/Hackintosh on this model? Theoretically it should be possible. I'll need to run both Windows and MacOS, and the reason I haven't bought a MBP yet is because of issues with the T2 chip in newer models.

 

Hello guys,
I've got the N970TC model powered by Core i5-9400 and GTX1660Ti (display: AUO139D - 60Hz)
Can I replace my AUO139D with a ChiMei N173HHE-G32 (120Hz G-Sync) ?
In your opinion the laptop can work with that ?
TIA and best,

Omar60

 

Your current display likely uses a 30-pin connector. So you would either need to find a replacement panel that is also 30-pin or get the 40-pin cable for your machine.

Also the N970 does not support GSync on the laptop display. You would have to connect an external GSync monitor to the Nvidia mDP (the one closest to the Ethernet port).

 

That external one will do the full normal nvidia output so high refresh rates and resolutions along with g-sync.

 

Does anyone know if a 35w 9900 would work in this?

 

Hello,

I am looking for a replacement CPU Fan for an N970TF. Does anyone have a part number? (the label is worn on mine). Also, how does one remove the fan from the heat pipe assembly?

Spook

 

Thank you guys,
I have another question for you: I'd like to update the bios to the new version 1.07.06 (now is 1.07.05, I have the N970TC model)
http://repo.palkeo.com/clevo-mirror/N9xxTD_TF/N9xTC_B10706.zip
There are four .bat files (EOLWIN64, EOLTESTWIN64, FlashMEWinX64 and MEINFOWIN64) and various exe inside.
I don't know the best way to proceed to the update, could you guys help me ?
Thanks in advance and best,

Omar60

 

Does it not come with a guide? Can you get one from your reseller?

 

Thanks Meaker@Sager,
reading a guide from Eluktronics, the following update instructions for Windows 10 are given:

1) plug in the AC adapter;
2) navigate to the "ALL" folder (located in the saved download location) and run file WMEset.exe (this should reset ME and reboot OS ready for further BIOS flashing);
3) follow prompts to agree to make changes (the system will automatically restarts);
4) once PC has restarted, run CMD (DOS Command Prompt) as administrator and change directory to "ALL" folder;
5) run FlashMEWinX64.bat and press ENTER;
6) once completed, the system will restart automatically;
7) accept the two prompts (press ENTER twice);
8) proceed to the Start Menu and shutdown the PC;
9) remove the AC adapter for five seconds, re-insert the adapter and power on the system.

Sorry for wasting your time and I hope this can be helpful to anyone.
Best,

Omar60

 

Better asking than rushing ahead, I hope everything worked ok?

 

Thanks Meaker@Sager and yep, everything perfect,
the update process is just that (with some differences): first off run WMEset.exe, after restarting Windows asks for a new PIN for the account and then right-click (not DOS CMD) on FlashMEWinX64.bat (as Admin), after bios updating the system will automatically power down (without rebooting).
Though not strictly necessary, I suggest to reload default bios settings.
Just simple as that !!!!!

Before:


After:


Happy Blessed Virgin Mary Feast and best,

Omar60

 

Nice job Have a merry Christmas.

 

Thank you very much Meaker@Sager,
Happy XMas to you too and everyone here !!!
Best,
Omar60