*** Official Clevo W230SS/Sager NP7338 Owner's Lounge ***

I have a question for everyone. I just got a np7338 and i am loving everything about the laptop but I keep getting a tissue with the track pad. It will be working and suddenly it will stop working. I have tried 3 different drivers and all of them cause the same symptoms. It will work then suddenly it will stop working or be extremly hard to move. I wont be able to move the mouse cursor to the sides. Is this a hardware defect at this point? or a common problem?

Thanks guys for the help!

 

I have prema bios installed no problem, however I dpn't use UEFI on the laptop.

 

you have the FullHD panel - so are not having that "black screen" problem. Only WQHD and maybe QHD owners? have it.

so just to confirm - its safe to cross flash the " Stock W230SS BIOS 306 & EC 302" over "Prema Mod W230SS_33_32_QHD_PM_v1.1 (BIOS 303 & EC 302)"
i was not sure about that and thats why i have not taken the risk to flash back yet... (i own a W230SS with WQHD and am having the "black screen in non UEFI Boot" problem too)

@Prema (or anybody else who has info about that)
which is the best way to flash back to stock from prema mod? and would you recommend the recovery flash method mentioned above over the blind flash (is it the xx.bat?) to get back to stock rom from Prema v1.1 WQHD

Or will a v1.2 or 2.0 come and to fix this?
i think to remember that your w230ss dev system is still broken...?

 

I'm not able to overclock my GPU for some reason. Both Nvidia Inspector's and MSI Afterburner's sliders do not move; I'm running the latest 347.52 Evolve Game Ready drivers. Also running Prema Mod.

EDIT: Reading on at this thread, it seems that Nvidia thought that the ability to overclock on notebooks was a 'bug' and removed it on recent drivers starting from 347.09. I concur with many of the angry posters there: it was a terrible decision on Nvidia's part and I'm quite disappointed. Let's hope @Prema can do something about it after he's done with his travelling.

 

I love nvidia for their GPUs and their drivers have always been solid for me but they are fairly rubbish in every other regard. Very close minded and selfish business practises and only ever just providing enough VRAM are pushing me away from them in the future.

I have the 1440p model and suffer from the black screen in non UEFI mode. I am sure that I flashed the QHD version of the prema mod. There is a post from ages ago on techinferno's forums where prema acknowledged the issue and said he would look into it but I found nothing else.

What I did to flash back without doing it blind was to use recovey mode. Download the stock bios from Prema's site and copy the file "W230SS.36" to the root of a freshly formatted FAT32 drive. Rename it to W230SS.rom.

Boot into recovery mode (hold Fn + B and turn on the laptop, keep holding until you get into that mode) the FAT32 drive plugged in and it should allow you to proceed with the flash update. It should have the stock bios now but I wanted to do a "proper" flash of all the stock bios bits.

I made a bootable MS-DOS drive with Rufus and copied all the files from the stock bios folder to that drive. I then booted into that drive ran update.bat and followed the onscreen instructions. Once that was complete I removed AC power, the CMOS battery and laptop battery, pressed the power button to clear all energy and then left it for a minute. Booted again, went to the bios and put it in UEFI mode restarted into windows 8.

Hope this helps!

 

The only reason because this laptop has an nvidia card is because they heat far less than the amd ones, yet I find myself using more radeon due to OpenCL rather than CUDA, OpenCL works almost anywhere whereas CUDA works only on nvidia, not to mention they bad practice of not updating to OpenCL 1.2, which is really, really, really necesary.

 

Hopefully more options will open up with the next release of chips from AMD

 

Here's some solid evidence that the W230SD exists. It's a page from TÜVRheinland, a certification, technical and safety company that issues certifications for different products and services. Here's the certification page for the W230SD, issued to Clevo on 8 January 2015.

Link: http://www.certipedia.com/certificates/50258111?prefer_desktop=1&page_number=03&locale=en

 

@Vect
I was reading your guide on undervolting the CPU and GPU in this notebook. 2 questions: Does undervolting the GPU still work via bios modification despite the new locked drivers (I assume so) and can you undervolt the CPU without Prema's bios?

 

Any bios level changes to clocks or power still work yes, I think you can with XTU, but I am not 100% on that.

 

The GPU undervolt and slight overclock works with bios no problem, just be sure to backup your original bios. Also it is possible to undervolt the CPU with intel XTU, the only thing that Prema Bios with the processor is to unlock TDP and current limits (or so I remember), prema bios however it is useful for memory timmings.

 

Hi all i was wondering if anyone knows if there is a possibility that this laptop gets a refresh this year and receives a new graphics card, thanks

 

Yes, there most likely will, and it'll probably be called the W230SD. My guess it'll have a 960m or 965m...
See previous page for the latest update on that.

@Vect
I tried to find it on your profile, but I couldn't find it. Could you please be so kind as to post a link to the mentioned undervolting guide?

 

Here http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...38-owners-lounge.748242/page-136#post-9871290

 

Been playing around in XTU and found that my turbo boost was never actually boosting anywhere near 30x, it would normally sit at 25x during IBT runs. Spent ages playing with multipliers, voltages, power limits and just gave up.

Started undervolting (reason for getting XTU) and now it boosts better but still doesn't ever sit at 30x. The odd thing is that temperatures have always been around 70°C.

 

How d'you turn on the USB port power when switched off? I'd like to charge my devices without having to keep my laptop powered on...

 

FN + Power Button sets the first USB 3.0 Port to be "powered"
(LED is blinking)
pressing those buttons again turns it off again

 

Thanks. How about the rest?

 

i think its only the first port that can be used for charging - with the Laptop powered OFF... it also has a logo (lightning icon if i remeber corretly)

 

Yes it's the one with the logo on it

 

Darn. Thanks, anyway - got it working perfectly.

 

guys did someone tried windows 10 yet? any issue with drivers or whatsoever?

 

Is now a good time to buy this laptop? I've been burned by waiting to buy the newest thing and having it not meet expectations so I'd rather buy a model that's been reviewed and is a couple months old. What are the biggest downsides to this laptop?

 

I would browse this post before making up your mind
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...rst-clevo-w230-possibly-through-xotic.771412/

 

When I plug headphones into my computer the sound is awful. It sounds squabbled and really messed up. Eching and just all over the place.

The audio is otherwise fine, but not for headphones. Whats up with this?

 

Do the headphones do the same on other devices? You've had the machine for a bit so maybe the ports got a little gummed up. I've heard of people using q-tips and isopropyl to clean them out before. Otherwise those connections are pretty subject to being damaged with the plugs sticking out of them. I've broken 3 or 4 myself through the years. Might have got banged around and also may be the cause of it.

 

Hi , I have read many post here about 3 monitors with w230ss . 3 monitors is working together (TV, 27" screen , internal monitor). But I have very annoying problem. Monitor thet is connected via VGA time to time become BLACK for a sesond. I've tryied different Intel and NVidia drivers, nothing helps. It became black even when TV(hdmi) is disconnected and internal monitor is disabled. Can someone help me?
I have tried Windows 7, Windows 8,1. Changing resolution of the screen.

 

Have you tried a different cable/display?

 

Do you have the soundblaster cinema installed? Found that it made headphones sound like absolute dog and I am not a fan of software based EQs affecting my sound so I completely removed it.

 

jap, have tried ,different display and cable. I'm wondering maybe Intel is switching to some other mode or to NVidia GPU itself . Or it's just hardware problem :/

 

I've installed Mint 17 Linux, it's working great with the exception of the Nvidia 860m. Apparently that's not the easiest thing in the world to get working on this particular laptop. Best I can tell, I need to be able to disable the Intel video, and the stock firmware doesn't have that option. Do I need premamod to do that, or is there some sure-fire install method that I just haven't happened across?
For what it's worth, the things that I do are much faster in Linux than in Windows 8.1 (excepting gaming until 860m works). Webpages open much faster. Arduino compiles are instant, vs. 2-3 seconds in windows. Everything is just a lot snappier.
Thanks for any assistance.

 

You can't disable the intel IGP and get anything useful, the internal display and outputs are hard wired straight into it.

 

Hi, does anyone cnow , how so set Numlock On on startup - didn't found this option in BIOS. And can I charge via USB, when notebook is OFF

 

Hi, I'm getting less battery life than I expected with this laptop. Anyone, with prema-mod, mind listing all the powersaving options? Also, is it possible to underclock the cpu directly on prema?

Thanks!

 

Does it have to be Mint? Manjaro supports Optimus "out of the box".

 

No, doesn't necessarily have to be Mint.

Your post got me pointed in the right direction though - Optimus. I needed to focus more on Optimus. Things are changing so fast, it's hard to get a relevant solution when googling. The newer drivers have features that older ones didn't, things get better, things get broken, etc...

I managed to get the nvidia driver working (I think), glx, multi monitor, basically everything I wanted. I had to add an "edgers" repository, modified my bumblebee setup, all kinds of stuff. I really don't know what exactly got things working, and I hate the thought of having to recreate it. Hopefully this setup will last a few months, and I'm sure things will be different by the time I decide to reinstall another distro.

Thanks for the help.

 

Very close to getting this laptop (yes I know the W230SD is coming soon...I'm not super psyched about a fake GPU upgrade and I'd rather get something tried and tested). This laptop looks like the perfect mix of beating my old desktop (i7-920 and a 6870) and remaining portable with a 5 hr battery life. I'm about half way reading through the this thread and I have a few questions:

- If I got Samsung 840 EVO 250 GB SSD for around $100 and put it in the mSATA slot in addition to the 1 tb 7200 HDD, would I get net energy savings on battery (less hdd activity?) or net increase in energy used (more devices?) Has anyone else had problems with the head crashing when rotated as was reported early on in the thread or is this crazy to worry about?

- I've heard complaints about the audio jack which actually does matter a lot to me. How bad is it?

- What retailer should I buy from? There are so many choices and they're all about the same price.

- Has the two-finger-scrolling issue been worked out?

- Is it really worth shelling out extra for the Intel 7260? I know one of the Xotic folks mentioned they thought it was a good idea but then again, that is their job. I'm comfortable doing an upgrade like that myself so I'm very tempted to just go with the stock chip.

- I'm upgrading from a barely 18 month old Ultrabook with broken keyboard, trackpad and DC jack (UX31A - Asus is currently majorly on my ****list). Is the 2 yr warranty worth it?

- Lots of resellers offer a no-branding option. Will this increase ship time if I don't do any other customization?

 

I've said this to many prospective W230SS buyers, and I'll say it to you too: have a look at the P65X series first before you make a decision. Although they're 15-inch notebooks, they have more bang for buck than does the W230SS. It doesn't make sense to buy a laptop with a previous-gen GPU when a newer one is about to be released.

Yes, even in spite of the fact that I own a W230SS myself and really like it.

Next, to answer your questions about retailers, XoticPC caters to the U.S., as does MythLogic (the latter pre-installs Prema Mod). Other retailers like Eurocom, XMG and Schenker cater to Europe. Aftershock is Singaporean and sells to Malaysia and Vietnam too (but shipping is paid by the customer).

Go for the 7260AC if you've got either a 5 GHz 802.11ac router and fibre broadband or a very good 2.4 GHz 802.11n router. If not, the stock one should suffice.

I haven't experienced any earphone jack issues yet - this seems to be rather hit-or-miss on this notebook. Several fixes are posted throughout this thread if you encounter any issues.

Two-finger scrolling works fine, but don't expect MacBook Pro levels of precision, unless you install a modified Synaptics driver.

On the SSD/HDD issue, they all use an approximately equal amount of power, so it doesn't really matter. You might experience differences in battery life of at most fifteen minutes. So go with whatever fits your (storage) needs as power usage for storage devices is honestly negligible relative to the CPU and GPU.

 

Thanks! Correct me if I'm wrong but the 960m will just be an increase in clock speed to the 860m, not the die shrink, right? I need this laptop now, since my keyboard just want kaput on my ultrabook. I'm also not willing to compromise on battery life with that P65X and I really like the form factor this is in since this will be my school laptop and I need to balance it on chair desks to take notes.

 

@grim yes!

If the W230SD ships with a locked GTX960M vBIOS then a W230SS with OCed GTX860M will even outrun it on stock vBIOS...what an irony.

 

But then there's always PremaMod to the rescue.

 

http://forum.techinferno.com/clevo/8296-gtx-970-980m-overclocking-thread-9.html#post124918

 

I've read through all 147 pages of this thread and there are two issues left I am concerned about. I think this will be the 13.3 performance king for at least 6 months since the SD is not a real upgrade and my computer just broke so I need this now. Once performance reaches a certain level (max out TF2, BF3, Supcom:FA and play The Witcher 3 on medium - honestly anything that can beat my aging desktop i7-920 and Radeon 6870 which I think this does) I am happy. This is currently the only computer that has a good battery life, a good price, and good performance. I am willing to repaste and underclock and all that, it doesn't sound too risky at all.

This needs to be my school laptop too, so I am slightly concerned about build quality and battery life. First, would a case like this hold it (for carrying, I would leave the case in my backpack and just slip it in?) protect it from screen flex and break?. Second, I'm a stickler for keyboard flex. Has this got any?

Second, I would like 5 hours out of it at minimum brightness taking notes or browsing the web. I read a few pages ago there was a guy who only got 3.5 - what gives?


I guess one more question - will adding an mSATA SSD eat into battery life if it makes the HDD idle more? I'm trying to choose between no HDD and a 500 GB BX100 and the 1 TB HDD and a 240 gb Samsung 840 mSATA evo.


Finally - when considering the configuration, the GIGABYTE P34Gv2-CF4 has a similar price. I'm pretty well versed in the issues of this notebook from reading this thread but can anyone recommend one over the other? Is this W230SS the right choice for my needs (primary: good battery life, good keyboard, under 5 lb, under 15", pretty good gaming performance, around $1000 so I can spend extra to upgrade SSD).

 

And the W230SD has been officially listed on the Clevo website: http://www.clevo.com/clevo_prodetail.asp?id=779&lang=en

Although it says nothing about the GPU it will be using.

The Gigabyte notebook is prone to overheating as a result of sub-par cooling. Go for the Clevo.

As already mentioned, don't worry about SSD/HDD power consumption. Adding an extra SSD may leave you with perhaps five to fifteen minutes less battery life, which is rather unnoticeable among the other factors such as CPU load, display brightness and so on. The person you mentioned above may have badly-configured power settings both in the BIOS and in Windows. There are also several suggestions posted throughout this thread, take a look.

At minimum brightness, mere Word document editing, light Web browsing and with the proper power settings, the battery life of the W230SS can easily exceed 5 and a half hours - don't worry.

There isn't keyboard flex on this, but the lid does flex, and that's an unfortunate design choice of Clevo's to use two small hinges near the edges as opposed to one large centred hinge a lá MacBook Pro.

You shouldn't need to repaste your notebook if you order it from XoticPC (and probably other retailers too) - they paste IC Diamond in their factory if you ask for it.

 

It has been for quite some time already.... And prema kinda confirmed it will be shipping with gtx960m!

 

You do need to select the IC Diamond option though, or it will be just the thermal compound applied at their factory when it was made. Its one of the best options to select though for any notebook if you plan on gaming.

 

Correct - that's what I meant when I said 'if you ask for it'. The process is nearly identical for all retailers, I would suppose.

 

I did read it that way too, just wanted to double stress it I think its the same way as well. The only ones I know of that come with it by default are the Sager "-S" models. They also specifically says its included.

 

Has anyone found a good carrying case for this that would allow me to throw it in my backpack with books? Aside from gluing on a titanium sheet...

 

I use this for school too - it's fine without a carrying case, although the keyboard imprints on the screen and you've got to clean it off. The same thing is likely to occur even with a carrying case. The build quality of this notebook is really, really solid.

Nevertheless, any 14- to 15-inch carrying case should fit.