*** Official Clevo P37xSM-A/Sager NP9377 owner's lounge ***

I'm not biased in the slightest thank you very much *cough*

 

Being without my machine is killer.

Sager got it Friday, hopefully it won't take too long. My old Dell is extremely unpleasant to use after having SSDs and a quad-core...

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

I know once you get spoiled by an SSD it's hard to go back, luckily the machines I use day to day all have SSDs

 

I kind of don't like that I haven't heard a peep from them yet when they got it around 1130in the morning on Friday. I guess I'll have to check with xotic.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

Monday and Tuesday can be quite frantic, give them a call if you are unsure.

 

Do they usually send status updates or anything or is it just nothing unless they have to talk to you about something?

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

I have no idea, sorry.

 

I always forget you're in England. lol

I sent an email to Xotic asking for a status update. I don't really like not hearing anything. Makes me nervous.

Sending expensive things in for repair is not good for someone that has bad anxiety which is why I put it off for so long.

 

If you shoot your service team member an email for an update I'm sure they'd provide you one. We typically don't give an update unless there is an update to give. When packages arrive they do need to be processed through our receiving department and then on over to service among all the other machines and items we receive in the same dropoff. Can sometimes take some time for the service team to even know it's arrived unless they're tracking it specifically.

 

Yeah, I sent an email and Tanner told me Sager has it but hasn't given any further updates. Just paranoia on my part, I've had issues with other companies in the past with shipping things back and tend to be really paranoid about it now.

 

We're always looking to be the exception when it's in a good way. :thumbsup:

 

You guys are great, it's Sager that I'm not so sure about yet. And I miss my machine lol.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

Just got the RMA update. They replaced both graphics cards and it will be here Thursday. I guess both GPUs were found to be defective? Should be interesting to see what kind of performance the new GPUs have if that's the case.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

Now I really really REALLY wish I'd gone with XoticPC and Sager...

 

Yeah I'm impressed! It took longer than it would have with Dell but it was right in their goal of 5-12 business day turn around (today was the 12th business day lol) and hopefully it was done right since it was sent to the same place that builds them in the first place from the Clevo barebones as opposed to a repair center. I've heard bad things about the Dell Depot and their in home techs are hit or miss.

Hopefully the new cards are better than the old ones, I'd really like to see lower voltage like another example I saw on the forum who has a July 880M (mine was May) where neither uses more than 0.968 stock. His temps are much lower as a result.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

Well now I know who to call next time.

Also realized one thing: the 4820K is essentially a poor man's 4930/4940MX. If you don't mind sacrificing a lot of portability and lugging around 2 PSUs + converter box, an equally spec'd P570WM with 4820K is $300 cheaper than a P377SM-A with 4940MX. With better GPU cooling, and better OC ability as added bonuses.

 

I don't know, according to Meaker, the GPU cooling is pretty similar between the two and the tests I've seen with a 9570 used in a "normal" environment without extreme cooling it actually seems like the slave GPU is maybe even 2C hotter.

But yes the 4820K would be nice..

There are a lot of sacrifices with that system though. No 120hz or even matte LCD, its huge, no msata, etc.

I considered buying the lowest 9570 configuration and swapping parts from my 9377 into it and vice versa then selling the old 9377 but I don't know... Lets see how it is when it comes back.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

If Clevo ever refreshes the P570WM to the X99 chipset that's probably what I'll end buying next, unless Alienware gets its sh!t together or I decide to build a desktop.

Don't really care about portability, my P370SM has left the desk exactly once in 9 months of usage. 120Hz isn't an issue since I'll most likely run an external LCD anyway, and 3 2.5" bays is good enough for me.

 

120hz can be modded into the machine if you get a sager (the screen can be overclocked to around 100hz too), it is big yes.

 

I thought that the motherboard didn't have the eDP connector for the 120hz display? That makes it more attractive if the 120hz display can be used. Not only because of the refresh rate but because its simply (in my opinion) the best gaming display I've ever seen on a laptop.

Oh yeah, I was wrong about how long my repair took. It was only 8 business days... it just seemed longer. And its debatable whether you count the day of receipt so I'd say it was between 7-8 days since it likely sat in a receiving room for the first day.

 

Hey guys, just to let you know that the 780m's work fine in the P377SM. I'm running them at the moment. I haven't tested any games or anything to test temps. I currently have the P370EM CPU and VGA 2 heatsinks at the moment keeping my CPU at around 90C max when running 4 cores @4Ghz no mods.

I do have an issue which I may make a separate thread about it. My keyboard can never achieve the absolute red colour. It seems my app has a bug where when I select red, it gives R:255 G:0 B:24 when I actually want B:0. It's really annoying as I want a red colour and I am ending up with pink...

 

I wish I could get 4GHz with 90C max. Glad the 780M work, I'm assuming you need Premas bios though?

 

I installed Prema's mod straight away and didn't have time to test the 780m's with a stock bios. Either way it is cool. I'm just getting the machine up to scratch before installing games and benchmarks onto it. Right now I just have the single hotkey annoyance. I have also installed the new HyperX Impact rams and they run at full 2133Mhz speeds

 

Wow what chip are you using that has such nice performance?

 

Depending on your luck you may be able to overclock them to 2400MHz if you mess around with the timings.

 

Yeah I'm going to try. It will take some time though. I tried jacking just the speed to 2400Mhz and ended up having to reset the CMOS by pulling out the battery under the keyboard LOL. Also, during idle, my GPUs have a big temp difference but not the way that one would think. My master hovers just under 50C while my slave is around 42C. This actually bodes well because I'm sharing the GPU 2 fan with the CPU heatsink but stress tests may tell us another story. Developing...

Edit: I also did some stability tests and managed to get my CPU running at 4GHz indefinitely, not limited to just 28 seconds.

 

Is that an MX or MQ chip?

 

Yeah I haven't been able to do 2400MHz @ CL11 with 2x8GB sticks, but I think this is more due to the IMC than the actual ram itself. I have a set of GSkill that can do 2400MHz @ CL11, but that's 2x4GB. The best I could do with the Vengeance 2x8GB was 2400MHz @ CL12. Just be aware of diminishing returns, I actually suspect that pushing the IMC to its limits hampers core performance, and 2400MHz is really only good for benchmarks that benefit from increased memory bandwidth.

You have the 4930MX right? There's going to be some varability in IMC quality so it complicates things, but even a base 4700MQ I tested could do 2200MHz @ CL11, so I don't think a 4930MX should have no issues running 2400MHz, assuming the ram can handle it.

 

An MX chip. I have the 4930MX. Prema bios has loads of options for everything but it is missing the BCLK tweaks which are present in the P370SM plus SCC spread spectrum %, where the larger the percentage, the larger the difference between the bios and OS readings of the BCLK. For example, in most machines, even though the bios reads 100Mhz, the OS reports it as 99.8Mhz. Tweak this settings can achieve accurate CPU readings in the OS. (The second part is just my OCD )

 

That P370EM heatsink must be really good. Its too bad the 880M cards run so hot or I'd consider getting one for my 4940MX. I can get the 4940MX up to 3.9GHz without throttling, so close lmao.

 

So you're running a 4930MX and 780M in P377SM-A is that correct? If so, good to know there's at least backward compatbility.

 

Yep that's right

 

Spread spectrum spreads the clock accross a range to reduce EMI peaks, if you set it to 0.5Mhz then the clock will alternate between 99.5mhz and 100mhz, the OS will correctly report the average over a second of 99.7/99.8mhz.

 

Oh right thanks. I'm just going by my past experience with it.

It seems I got a good chip. Using TS Bench 1024 to test, I was able to compete a run with a -108mv undervolt resulting in temps under 80C for a 4Ghz run lasting 240 seconds. I've dialed that to -99mv for now because as previously discovered, undervolts in synthetics don't scale perfectly with daily apps. I'll make a thread about it with some of my tweaks and mods to help others.

 

-108?! Damn! Mine does -85 and still has issues with some games.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 on Tapatalk

 

I got my machine back today. Cards are performing much better.

Valley throttles but Catzilla barely throttled... Scored 13,495 on stock CPU and GPU with it boosting most of the time.

Bioshock boosted most of the time and never dropped below 954MHz except when it was changing scenes.



Everything is pretty linear between the two cards, temps, core, the works. The slave still uses more voltage than the master though.

Basically, that slave card was definitely defective the whole time. Things still aren't perfect but I'm hopeful that nVidia releases a vbios fix soon.

 

Haswell has quite a bit of variation in it.

 

Indeed. And I have a 4940MX instead of a 4930MX anyway.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 on Tapatalk

 

hi, could someone please guide me for the vbios mod
i currently have gtx 870M in SLI. I tried nvidia inspector and evga but it didn't work
plus i have an issue with the backlit keyboard program, it's not opening however i install it
and the light is on blue all the time, unchangeable
sorry for noob question
thanks in advance

 

All vbios mods can be found on TechInferno - NVIDIA Kepler VBIOS mods - Overclocking Editions, modified clocks, voltage tweaks

As for the keyboard, there is a specific order that you have to install the items in, that's the order they come in on the disc. Your best bet if you can't get it working is to erase the machine and start over and patiently install each item in order and reboot after each one to make sure that everything will work properly. I even disconnect the internet to make sure no updates even get installed until after I've put all of the factory drivers on. Its a pain, I know, but in the end it will result in less of a headache.

 

Finally it works, thanks!!
although sometimes when i just boot up the system, the keyboard won't change color until desktop shows and i press "fn+/"
sadly i am not a member of techinferno. could you, (if not troubling) by any chance upload it somewhere and send me the download link?

 

I'd imagine that is frowned upon, just join up to Tech Inferno - you just need to make 5 'good quality' posts (not spam) and then you can download the files you want.

 

Yes that would be sharing people's work without their permission.

 

Glad you got it working. As Meaker and Robbo said, we can't just post the file. If you don't wish to make 5 posts to get access to the download, I believe you can donate a small amount to remove that limitation as well but I'm sure you can find things to post on between the vbios thread, Prema's modded BIOS thread, etc.

 

You gain the benefits permanently so it's a good deal.

 

I think I just made fool out of myself, my bad
Yeah, will definitely joined the forum
just saw recent thread regarding gtx 980M releasing in october
started to doubt my decision pulling the trigger with this machine :/

 

Don't fret too much. You have a good machine and it should be viable for quite a while.

 

Well this is annoying. I've been playing around with the undervolts and because the way you UV on Haswell is that you reduce the offset which affects the voltage at every level in the voltage table. Running stressful benchmarks means my CPU is pegged at 4Ghz which can easily sustain a -108mV offset. Unfortunately when the computer is not completely stressed nor completely idle, where the CPU hovers around the 3Ghz and below zone, I get crashes and blue screens everywhere. It seems that other speeds in the voltage tables don't like an UV of that much. I have reduced it to -60mV which solved most problems apart from one time where my system decided to black out and restart when doing nothing... So I've put it at -50mV and it is stable. I'll try and squeeze some more out of it as I play around. I suppose one way around this is to turn off C-states and leave things at 4Ghz all the time but I don't want to wear out my CPU, although idling at 4Ghz I still get decent temps below 40C.

 

Haswell is the finickiest chip I've ever come across. My -85 undervolt that was stable since I got the machine bsod the other day... I'm at -70 now after it happened two more times. Degradation? Seems to be kind of common with Haswell where all of a sudden settings that worked for a long time no longer will stabilize.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

It's really tricky. I love it though. Performance is reasonably good but long gone are the days of the massive clock-to-clock performance leap from Clarksfield to Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge. I have got some of my own cooling mods to do a write up about