*** Official Clevo P960EP6/ P960ED/ P960EF/ P960EN Owner's Lounge ***

Placed my order friday afternoon Now the waiting game!

 

You're looking at unclocked data which is worthless

Even without vbios modification my 3dmark firestrike is 19000
Over 2000 more

Then tong fan 15 owner has already flashed the vbios from the max p 2070 and his score was 20500

So lets just say rhe 2060 has no upside its already a max p yet the 2070 has a big upside.

But to agree with you and disagree avout getting a 2060

There does bot seem to be any purpose to using maxq software ina 2070 in any laptop. None run hot it's pointless underclocking

But dont buy based on scores buy the best hardware its 8 GB 256 bit interface

 

The 2060 is cheaper is its advantage.

 

maybe wait for this or old model when it´s discounted?

https://www.clevo.com.tw/clevo_prodetail.asp?id=1189&lang=en

 

Models with current gen GPUs tend to still do pretty well sales wise.

 

Hey all,

Has anyone ever happened to have instances of the Nvidia GPU (RTX 2060) crashing on the P960?
I used to get BSOD 'video dxgkrnl fatal error' repeatedly, but after a Windows reset it doesn't show a bsod, it just forces my laptop to shut down without warning.

When it crashes, the Nvidia GPU can't be detected after that, and after about 1-2 mins my laptop follows suit. It's been happening again and again.

 

Yes this is happening to me too, but with the RTX 2080 Max-Q. I've found that underclocking the GPU with MSI Afterburner alleviates this and leads to less frequent crashes, but even with the maximum underclock, it can still happen.

So far it's happened when I play Final Fantasy XIV and when I'm using SVP 4 to transcode videos. In fact, I can quite consistently force a crash just by doing the transcode at stock GPU settings. Underclocking solves this, but I didn't buy an RTX 2080 Max-Q to underclock it... It's pretty frustrating.

 

Speak to your reseller. Could either be a hardware fault or bad vrm heatsink contact.

 

Just got my P960EN. I'm not much of a reviewer, but I can do some tests or answer some stuff, if anyone here considering the unit wants to know something specific.

It's replacing an old P150SM and I couldn't help but take a few images for comparison. Notably, the footprint in width and length is largely the same, despite the larger screen, but it's only about 3/5ths the height.




It is overall lighter but is feels more solid/compact. Keyboard has a little flex but keys seem light to the touch but decent quality.

Charger is also much, much smaller in footprint - Mostly in thickness, but it's also a cm or so shorter and narrower.

 

After a long time the chargers on the market have slimmed down a bit

 

Yeah, it really seems like a minor thing at first until you have to haul the thing around. Then it's amazing. It matters almost as much as slimming the laptop itself in terms of practicality.

Edit: I'd also like to add how downright relaxing it is that it's not packed with a bunch of crap? There's nothing here but the usual Windows stuff. I guess this might depend on the reseller though?

 

I'm heavily considering purchasing this model from Sager. How do you feel about the thermals - for normal use, and for gaming? How does the display feel, in terms of input lag/delay, and in terms of color reproduction in general?

I'm also looking at the MSI GV63 and the upcoming Lenovo Legion 540 (I prefer the keyboard layout over the Y740), can anyone speak to comparisons between these three (build quality, thermals, keyboard, display)?

Thanks!

 

I'll be honest, I'm probably one of the worst people to ask about the screen since:

1: I just got it.
2: I hook it up to an external monitor/keyboard at home.
3: I'm really not able to discern an average from a good screen. It seems nice and quick to respond though.

It'd be muct better to ask professional reviewers that can measure those things objectively. Edit: See this - https://hexus.net/tech/reviews/laptop/127568-pc-specialist-161-defiance-v-rtx/?page=8 - seems to be middeling colour representation, good accuracy.

For thermals therefore I also tend to put it at 'quiet' in the clevo control center, since I care more about noise than thermals. At rest the GPU sits at about 45 degree C, the CPU at 55 degrees. Running Furmark GPU as well as the CPU burner makes the CPU temperature rise to about 85 degrees gradually as the fans kick in, while the GPU maxes out at about 70-75 degrees. The laptop seems intent on keeping GPU temperatures 15-20 degrees below CPU if at all possible. Interestingly, in the Clevo Control center, the fans hit about 4500-5000 RPM at 85-ish CPU temps, while putting it at maximum increases fan speeds to 6000-6500 RPM. That is to say, it doesn't seem to feel the need to put the fans to their maximum during their absolute load - that might change if you want to try to burn test it on a rug instead of a hard surface, I guess - I do not!.

There are custom settings available for the fans in the clevo control center. Turning the fans to maximum did seem to hold the CPU temps below 80 degrees on my unit when stressing.

This review seems to have the same findings regarding temperature: https://hexus.net/tech/reviews/laptop/127568-pc-specialist-161-defiance-v-rtx/?page=10 - they are right that the 'top' of the laptop near the F keys gets a little hot!

During the double stress test, the right side of the touchpas is a little warmer than skin temperature, the left is somewhat warmer, but not uncomfortably so. It never hits a temperature that would make me hesitate to rest my wrist on it.

The noise, coming from a 150SM, is not bad. Loud at 4500-6000RPM sure but it's not the high-pitched loudness of the former laptop. A decibel app on my phone reports 55 decibel at the actual maximum and 60 if I manually set the fans to maximum, however I have reservations about the accuracy of mobile phone recordings of these kinds.

I did consider Lenovo laptops but declined them due to pricing as well as limited customization options. I think a fair judgement is that those legion models almost certainly have better cooling in term of fan noise levels (which doesn't necessarily translate into CPU/GPU temperatures). That considered, you will pay a hefty premium for the same hardware.

 

Most resellers offer a clean build.

 

Does anyone have a good way to access the hardware on this model? It's far more locked down than I thought. I have an old 512GB SDD I'd like to add, but the bottom cover which I thought was removeable does not appear to be so. Heck, the manual promises fire and brimstones concerning the warranty if I do...

 

on youtube there is a dissasembly of the previous model by gentech pc

I would say the only tricky part is removing the keyboard, there are 2 labeled screws for keyboard removal labeled on the bottom,
and then it pops out with a credit card be very careful of 2 ribbon cables.

then you hit all the screws on the bottom the bottom panel pops off. so you have a sata ssd 2.5? or what? ok it has 1 sata pcie 1 pcie only nvme, then it has a sata 2.5 it should have the caddy you need there in place

all visible.

I guess I can say the pcie/nvme one is in the middle of the whole thing and the pcie only is next to the single fan. so I mean depending on what you are doing you have to change those two maybe. cheap adapters on ebay for 2.5 sata to nvme sata is a wiser move than using up a pcie slot

its definitely removeable whats going on with you?

 

Could you link the video? Also, I meant that the panel appeared as if a removeable plate when i looked at it, but apparantly you need to remove... the keyboard first?

Anyway, it's a 840 EVO, so it's already a SATA.

 

oh ya you have to pop the keyboard then undo like 5 screws ya thats right

so its sata is it also a 2.5 inch sata or is it a nvme sata?

 

the heat sink inside is different but every dissasembly part is the same

ok so if a 840 is a .... nvme sata it needs to go in the middle nvme slot and remove that one to put it on the side

if its a 2.5 inch sata it should have a little caddy in place for it.

i take it back
the previous model does not have the pcie only nvme slot but this model does, its beneath the single fan.
you can see the bottom looks like it has a seperate panel that would come out of the bottom, but its faux and actuallt the entire bottom peice comes off as a single peice.

so there may be things to make it look otherwise but the whole laptop has just 4 peices, 2 for the lcd and 2 for the body that are screwed together. there is an internal frame underneath the keybard that the bottom is screwed to is what you are missing.

 

Holy [things I'm not allowed to say on this forum] that video makes light of this thing.

Disengaging the keyboard requires *quite hard and frankly concerning pressure* from underneath before there's an opening for a credit card and also a lot of force snapping it open from the vents. I don't know if that's my lack of workmanship, a version difference or he already loosened the keyboard before filming.

The good news was that I really didn't have to disconnect the keyboard, just lie it down gently after removing the screws underneath, without snapping it in, and you can still shut the screen and open the case. Anyone doing this as well: All the screws are identical, but count that there are 5 underneath the keyboard!

The other good news is that the operation was a success. Thanks man, the EVO 840 lives to fight some more battles. (sorry about the out of focus image, also what's with the crappy tape all over the place?)

 

I can totally confirm this is the exact case (albeit with different games). MSI Afterburner has been a godsend.
Borderlands 2 will 100% crash in 15 mins, with underclocking it can go 1 hour +++ or beyond
Other games are fine without underclocking though (others not so much), it's oddly selective at what will crash.

I went with Meaker's advice and called my resellers, I'll be sending it back for them to take a look at.

 

Tape (and it's the non conductive kind) is used to hold down cables to make sure they are not just flapping around and potentially getting caught.

 

RTX 2060 version here. LM applied. Good temperatures, 4.1GHz at -130mV.
Some more pictures (below) taken during the LM processes and some results all after LM on GPU+CPU.

One question to MSI afterburner users: I would like to under-volt because the GPU reaches the power limit waaay before the temperature limit. I did the following move to the voltage curve (basically shift select and moved it up +136 so that the higher frequency is reached faster), and the Superposition extreme 1080p score increased from 3473 to 3660. But the core frequency shows as ~1400 during runs (which cold not be right I think). Played games at these settings, no problems. Can someone help me drawing the line for an under-volt, or am I already doing that? Also I had to modify the cfg file with:
VFCurveEditorMinFrequency = 700
VFCurveEditorMaxFrequency = 1500
VFCurveEditorMinVoltage = 500
VFCurveEditorMaxVoltage = 1050

otherwise the graph would be off by a mile.
Voltage editing in MSI afterburner
https://drive.google.com/open?id=15AuF7PUGVjTPHfDIb9wJrGBy2c2h8NyZ


I have placed google drive images, hope it works... links here:

rest:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1eJftZ4SCHtcIcBYqyQjjrA_6u0mXgit8
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cFQQnGBCi59yCdWTK2O--uW5l2AhW9Bs
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qsJ_YW7W4aP5WzJrb2CWY7r3VwIRPx8O
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1A0D9DoxwQw1Ki18vu0wd162zfTpBe61a
https://drive.google.com/open?id=15qiq9370LFrh14N2_x7-yigTxbTJzEqx
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AQOjIBkrBIhAgQwipGNA5pOR6oySJ2fM

 

Mr. Fox put a video on curve tuning on YouTube I think.

 

Has anyone been able to enable xmp memory speeds above 2500 in bios?

 

That can depend on the sticks being used and what their XMP settings are, for sodimms they tend to be hit and miss, they wont work on my 3000mhz modules.

 

ok but you have a different machine. im not able to find a setting in bios to turn on xmp . I bought 3000 mhz ram from sager, and 3200 mhz on my own but xmp is not enabled and i cant find a place to enable it in bios.

this machine has a different bios manufacturer yours is going to be phoenix this one i forget its name at the moment but its the same as alienware common name

 

American Megatrends/AMIBIOS maybe? Either way, if I bite the bullet on this model (thank you for the advice btw!) I'll give it a go in helping out. Even if nobody else has tried unlocking it or anything, I'll give it some research on my own. Can't even seem to find a generic BIOS on Sager's site for the E series P960's. They don't even have a downloads section for their R series P960s yet, so I'm guessing it's just the youth of the line. Or maybe folks weren't impressed with the platform for some odd reason.

 

The gold key sticks are not xmp I think, they are just spd programmed that way.

 

After lurking around this thread for a bit got the P960RF (i7-9750H - RTX 2070 Max-Q) from HIDevolution. Will let you guys know how it is.

 

New models are coming out with INSYDE BIOS.
Almost all of them with exception to P7xxTM

 

The new GUI on the INSYDE setup utility is a nice change on the surface, even if it doesn't add much. Hello 21st century!

 

Psh 1990 ftw

 

Is that on the new P960RN from Prostar? Just wondering if we can adjust more of the power and memory settings if anything. One reseller offers prema bios but it be cool if even stock opens things up a little to undervolt without needing throttle stop yada.

 

@TomoPrime - Much of the layout and settings are very similar to the old Aptio BIOS; no adjustments for power or overclocking except for the P7xxTM1 models (which are still using the old interface). But yes, many of the new models, including the P960xx, have the new setup utility with mouse support.

 

All Clevo BGA systems after the P6-series pretty much already ran at their hardware limits right from factory.
Still evaluating how much headroom (cooling / ac adapter) is left in all these new models and if / which ones can handle a Prema Mod without power throttle:

Spoiler

[/SOILER]

 

Yeah the VRM is designed for stock to keep size and power down.

 

I'm seriously considering a P960RD to replace my ever ageing P150EM. Looking on xoticpc's site (since that's where I bought my current laptop) I see two options. Sager and an in house Xoticpc model. The xotic one would cost me $150 more for the same configuration as Sager but offers the Prema bios. Is it worth the price difference for control of undervolting to help keep from throttling? Or does the Sager model offer the same control?

The thing that irks me the most with my 3840qm is it never maintains the turbo speed. I see it drop down to 2.8 all the time with turbos under load capping at 3.4. I'd like to not have that happen as much as possible.

 

XTU does let you undervolt so it comes down in temps and power. The 150em could be flashed to the 170em to give greater control.

 

What's the difference between undervolting via Prema bios vs. XTU?

 

The BIOS setting is OS agnostic but functionally it works the same.

 

Could you further clarify? As for my P150EM I am running Prema BIOS currently.

 

Well that depends on the options you have. For sustained clocks I think 3.1Ghz sustained is achievable with power tweaks and undervolting.

 

Thanks for confirming. I ended up purchasing one of your P960RN builds. I am literally checking it out while posting. My initial impressions are pretty good so far.

I have a couple of questions:

1. Is there software utilities for this model provided by ProStar or by Sager that I should download for this machine? I have not looked at what was on the provided USB Thumbdrive yet.
2. HWInfo64 says my 16GB dual channel 2666Mhz ram is running a max clock of 1330Mhz. I guess I can correct this by booting into BIOS?

Thanks again.

 

Just the Control Center software, nothing exclusive to us. You should also have the Sound Blaster utility.

No, that should be correct. The I/O bus clock is 1333 MHz, that's what you're seeing. The data rate is 2666.

Edit: Congrats by the way!

 

Ah that's the true clock vs double the data rate (DDR). Where should I download Sound Blaster util? Is it in Windows Store?

 

If you purchased Windows from us, it should already be installed - there's also a Drivers folder on your C: drive where you can find the setup for it and reinstall from there. Otherwise you can get it from our drivers page, or just side load it from the USB you received (that should have the Windows setup and a folder containing drivers & utilities).

 

Thanks I did. There is a windows license on the bottom panel. I don't see the sound blaster program in installed in programs the Creative folder is there but empty. However I see the drivers folder on C:. I assume this is the SBX folder? There are 2 programs. One is called Speaker EQ Web Release. The other is called Creative Audio Effects Component Setup. Device Manager says it's a Realtech(R) Audio device though.

 

Yep, that should be the one. It's essentially an equalizer with effects. No utility anywhere, though? No icon in the system tray or splash when booting into Windows?

That should be the installer. Or if you have the .bat file, that might automate the install for you.