*** Official Clevo W230ST/Sager NP7330 Owner's Lounge ***

I received mine from Pro-Star yesterday, and I have to say that none of the reviews prepared me for this screen. It is simply amazing.

I haven't had much of a chance to run much on it yet, but the screen is amazing.

 

So idk if this is normal, but my sager 7330 seems to have insufficient cooling. I was playing Mass Effect and monitoring the temperatures and for the first 5 minutes or so of what was mostly cut scenes, I was getting 60-70 degrees on the CPU which was fine but once I got into the game and was exploring, the temperatures on the CPU quickly rose to 95+ and started throttling. I restarted the laptop and the temperatures were still 90+ and have taken nearly 15 minutes to get down to ~70 degrees. This is using intel tuning utility with a small undervolt and underclock to keep the temps down.

I opened it up and put on some new thermal compound and observed the same behavior. It just isn't cooling itself very well. I don't know if there's something wrong with the heatsinks dissipating the heat (the fan is on full speed but the air isn't even very warm). It didn't look like anything was wrong with it but I'm no expert.

Should I RMA it or do you guys have any suggestions?

edit: just played a game of SC2 against an AI and the temps rose to 97+, started throttling, getting less than ideal framerate. After closing out of the game, intel tuning utility reports my processor running at max frequency and with 0-5% cpu utilization and still 90+ temps very slowly declining. The air coming out of this fan is actually cold air so there's definitely something wrong with the heatsinks.

edit#2: just tried uninstalling the intel tuning utility to see if it was causing any problems. ran mass effect from the same checkpoint and had 99 degree temperature readings across the board. I think I'm gonna have to RMA this thing

 

anyone have a fix for this?

 

Ok, so it's not the CPU getting too hot that's causing the issue. When I was playing those games and monitoring the temperatures, I was laying down with my legs up and the laptop in front of me with the keyboard at an angle making sure it had plenty of airflow. I remembered reading something from earlier in this thread about how someone got better temperatures with the laptop on a flat surface (non-elevated).

It seems the GPU is getting very very hot when I play the way I described earlier and causing the heatsink to become very warm and as a result make the CPU very warm. I played Mass Effect for about 5 minutes this way and looked at HWmonitor and saw that the gpu was at 90+ degrees then layed it down on a flat surface (Mass Effect still running in the background) and watched as the temperature dropped and dropped quickly down until it settled around 60 degrees.

So for some reason when I play with the laptop at the angle I was talking about, I am it's somehow affecting the heat transfer between the gpu and heat sinks. When I re-applied the thermal paste I made sure to tighten the heatsink down securely, so I'm not sure. I'll just keep playing with it and seeing if it continues to be an issue and hopefully find a solution.

I can just increase and decrease the temperature of this gpu at will by just running a graphically intensive game and just lifting and turning this thing around lol...

 

Urgghhh the more I read the thread the more cautious I get about buying one of these laptops.
These cooling issues just seem unacceptable from a consumers standpoint.

 

Strange, because most of us get lower temps with the laptop propped up, which makes more sense anyhow considering it gets more airflow. But if you had the laptop at more than a 30 deg angle it could adversely affect the cooling. Propping it up 5-10 deg max is best for cooling. Considering it was sitting on your legs with them up, I can see it was likely propped too vertical.

 

I've tried unblocking the vdeck.exe via windows explorer but the prompt still came up so I just did a blanket enable for all 'internet files'.

control panel -> Internet options -> security -> custom level -> Misc -> Launching applications and unsafe files

-> change from prompt to enable (not secure)

Just be aware that the prompts about opening files will disappear, they annoyed me anyway.

 

What's everyone's BF4 running like after the patch? Mine seems worse, runs less smooth but it says the frame rates are good...

 

Yeah it's probably closer to a 45 degree angle. I make sure theres nothing blocking the vent below the fan so it is still bringing in cool air. I can actually feel the difference in the air that's being exhausted out the side of the laptop depending on how the laptop is angled. If it's flat, the air is very warm and the temperatures are fine and when it's propped up and I'm getting throttling and 95+ temperatures the air is cooler. When I get home, I'll re-apply the thermal paste again and make sure all the screws are very very tight and see if maybe the problem was the heatsink just not connecting properly to the gpu when the laptop is inclined.

I might also make a video demonstrating the temperature rise and drop depending on the angle because it's kind of fun to watch the temperatures go down.

 

No, it's a problem with the pipe's fluid/gaz flow.

 

idk what that means, but is it fixable?

 

Exactly right, the heat pipes aren't solid and have a conducting material within that helps with the temps. Propping it up too much causes problems.

 

That's too bad. This laptop isn't a desktop replacement for me so probably half the time I'm playing games on it it will be at an angle.

I ordered it through xoticpc and will probably RMA it if I can't find a workaround short of just keeping it at a lesser angle. It gets pretty uncomfortable to have your hand angled down towards the keyboard for a while..

Everything else about this laptop is perfect too

 

Yeah, it's something that you'll see on just about every machine. So if that's a necessity you'll probably want to go with a slightly larger machine. Same performance can be had, but the larger machines have better cooling as a result and so you'd be less likely to experience that uncomfortable heat. You can also try a small lap table or cooling pad to keep that heat off your body. In the past in a pinch I've even tore the lid off a pizza box and used that.

 

The heat coming out of the laptop doesn't bother me, it's just the throttling when it gets too hot.

Do you know if the ASUS N550JV, Lenovo y510p, or gigabyte p34g would be better for me? Also, how does SLI'd gt 750ms compare to a single gtx 765m?

 

They would perform better than GTX 765M FPS wise in games provided that appropriate drivers are available. However Y510p in that configuration runs extremely hot and doesn't have switchable graphics, so it has very short battery life.

Gigabyte p34g also has the same throttling issues if not more than W230ST.

 

Yeah I don't really like the look of the Lenovo, and are you talking about the throttling caused by holding the laptop at an angle?

 

Can you explain in more detail what you mean by this? It's definitely not "stagnant air" as some people have suggested because the temps get that high even if I take off the back cover and hold the laptop at an angle (being careful not to touch the fan or any of the heat pipes).

Is it possible to replace the heat pipes?

 

Some fluid or gaz (I assume it depends on which way it goes, but I'm unsure how it exactly works) gets heaten up by the cpu/gpu, which makes it travel through the heatpipe to the heatsink, where the heat is dissipated. Once cooled off, it goes back to the cpu/gpu to be heated again (please correct my grammar/vocabulary if it's wrong, that'd help me).

I assume gravity prevents the process to work at some angle.

It's possible to replace the heat-pipes of course, but since you'll be replacing them by the same kind, they'll have the same problem.

 

Really?

I have had this laptop for about 2 months now and ... it has no cooling issues with me. It has not gone above 83-85 degrees when playing games on Max settings. The fan is powerful and fast.

As long as you are not using it on your lap or at an angle it is no problem. I have a 4702MQ.

I honestly have 0 complaint about the cooling.

 

Yeah mine is similar, it shows 50-60 fps on high in fraps but it is not as fluid as you would expect it to be at those fps, i wonder what settings others are using???

Also my gpu is very unstable when i OC even a little bit, especially while gaming, games keeping crashing any1 else having issues with gpu oc???

 

It's been real, but I am going to sell my W230ST.

I want to get a PS4.

 

You're on a dark path... there is still time to turn around.

 

Haha, I know I'm gonna regret this. Never had a laptop I've loved so much.

I think it's time, though. :O

 

I've previously RMA'd my laptop due to screen bleed. Over the last few weeks I've been noticing issued again, is this normal:

 

That's a bit extreme. Depending on where you got it they may just be able to RMA your screen. It's quick and easy to replace.

 

IPS type monitors show this more then a TN panel does, its just how the screens work. You typically only will see it that way when there is nothing on the screen and usually only noticed during boot up. Take a picture that is all black and make it full screen and see if the bleed is still like that, it usually isnt. If its not, then I wouldnt worry about it.

 

I've got a very specific problem. On BF3 and BF4, ever since the nVidia R331 driver "fork", VSYNC no longer works properly in either game. Specifically, the game starts to stutter badly anytime the refresh rate hits 60fps. Lower fps scenes are no problem. Turning down the res or graphics features therefore actually makes the issue worse. With VSYNC off, there are no problems with stutter - regardless of fps.

The only solution thus far is to drop back to 327.xx or disable VSYNC. I have tried the following:
1) Enable VSYNC but cap fps (using NI) at 59fps. This eliminates the stuttering but you lose VSYNC, as I can then see screen-tearing as if VSYNC is off.
2) Disable VSYNC and caps FPS as above. Works fine, probably the best solution, but now you have plenty of screen tearing.
3) VSYNC on and change max pre-renderered frames to 1. Doesn't help.

Anyway, has anyone figured out how to fix this, or am I just frozen out of the R331 series of nVidia drivers? Please note that with the exact same drivers, my desktop GTX670 works just fine with no issues re: VSYNC and stutter. Also, I haven't seen similar problems in any other games except BF3 and BF4.

Obviously it's some sort of interaction between these particular games and the R331 drivers and the GTX765m and/or the W230ST as configured. I even reinstalled Win7 just to be sure I didn't screw up some setting. Win7 is fully updated and so are the games themselves. I'm not running any sort of background processes (plus, my desktop is running plenty of those and there no issue there).

I'm about to go nuts here. Did anyone ever crack this nut?

 

I don't notice any tearing, but I see a lot of texture popping. Like the level with the huge telescope dish, the entire dish will sometimes pop in and out of view. I just turn vsync off, limit fps to 50 (primarily to keep temps lower), and it seems to work just fine.

 

I don't know you guys... I really want to buy this laptop. But I am worried! About the cooling and noise issues. That seems to be the main issue I can see here. For a user like me who doesn't even plan on doing any INTENSE gaming, do you think it will be okay?

I have been holding off buying a laptop of this size for so long. Waiting for the perfect one! This being literally only my second post here, and the first one was in 2007, so apparently I have been waiting over 6 years...
I was going to buy a Sony VAIO Z last year but then they got discontinued, so this seems like the current best thing, right?
There's nothing else better coming up on the horizon either, yeah?

 

If you're referring to my comments about the cooling, it's really not the case. I'm just not very familiar with laptops and was using it in such a way that it couldn't cool itself properly. With the laptop flat or at a 30 degree or less incline, the laptop actually cools itself very well, especially for a 13.3" laptop. You would be hard pressed to find a laptop with this much power, with this quality of a screen, for the price.

With a small undervolt using intel extreme utility, my cpu temps cap out around 75-80 and the gpu temps cap out around 65 during heavy gaming.

I've done some looking around for similarly priced laptops and honestly the competition isn't very impressive. The gigabyte laptops have questionable QA, aren't much lighter, and cost 150$ more. Anything else uses lots of glossy plastic, has much worse temperatures, worse display, bad keyboards, weaker performance, or some combination of those things.

 

IC Diamond is definitely better... haven't gone above 93 C so far (BF4), thanks HTWingNut!

 

I was in the same boat, took a chance after reading everything i can find. Got my laptop from Mythlogic, seemed to be the best price for what I was getting specced out.

For the price, nothing beats this laptop spec wise for the price. Same deal on the size, nothing else beats it spec wise in the form factor.

As for the problems, only one I've found that really bugs me is that they faced the speakers down out of the bottom of the laptop rather then the top. This causes the sound to sound a little off, but it's still better then the sound i was getting out of my cell phone when wathcing youtube videos.

Heat is not a problem, I've yet to see my laptop get above 90c max. I think it has more to due with quality of the pasting job more then the design of the laptop.

Fan noise, doesn't seem so bad, i know it sounds like there was a bursting issue at first, but it got worked out. I'd say on max fan it's loud, but i don't think mine has ever gone to max speed on the fan. Only thing that really makes the fan noticeable is that it can go from silent to slightly noisy.

As it stand there seems to be four fan speed levels, off, low (can't hear it, but you can feel the air flow), Med (where it sits gaming, no louder then a standard desktop), Full blast ( only seen it hit this by using the max fan speed over ride).

 

I recently realized that my CPU speed is locked at 1,5GHz max while on battery, which caused my W230ST to lag quite a bit on battery. Is there any way to disable this limit ?

I tried set the Power Option to Performance mode, and CPU max limit at 100% but no luck.

 

It's certainly more noticeable during booth then other time. That photo was taken with a fullscreened black image though...

 

Disable clevo control centre in startup, i think it may be called hotkey, also allows the inegrated gpu to run at its full speed and batterylife is not reduced.

 

So I've finally got my laptop and right now in the middle of testing. I've repasted with IC Diamond with technique suggested by HTWingnut.

The idle temps are mid 50C and the stress test temps around or under 80C. Notebook cooler dropped idle temps a little under 50C. -80mv Undervolt and 28x modifiers for 3 and 4 cores worked for me in XTU. I also tried overclocking GPU with +125Mhz Core and +560Mhz memory clock to get about 500 points improvement in 3dMark11 and a bump in fps while gaming. Has anyone else tried to overclock GPU far beyond that with stable results?

I wonder why some people choose to increase voltage of iGPU or voltage of GPU itself. Is there a practical benefit to this and are there serious risks involved?

 

Congrats on the new machine! Those look to be pretty good temps. Really not much of a benefit of clocking the iGPU from what I've seen. You get marginal improvements when on iGPU and you really don't care about that because you're doing stuff that doesn't need the performance. I'll leave the GPU clocking advice to the experts though, not much personal experience on that with the laptops.

 

He's speaking of iGPU overvolt, not overclock.
I assume people are doing this to improve stability when undervolting the cpu, but I'm not sure about the logic behind.

 

Saw some people here asking to get OS X going:

http://goo.gl/Ixnhbq

 

Achieved 77C on High Settings for BF4.

Battlefield 4: This is all you do.... 24/7 - YouTube

-Capped framerate at 62FPS.
-No other modifications to BF4 engine (user.cfg only for maxvariablefps)
-Turboboost Disabled
-No undervolt
-Decreased multipliers (2.39GHz is max without turboboost, just had to bring down performance of 4 cores)
-MemClean Tool (to clean out memory every 5 minutes; this does not remove other types of memory such as page memory)

 

Hey guys. I would like to share my impressions about Assassins's Creed IV Black Flag on the W230ST! If you don't care, just skip my post.

First off appart from the first game it's the only AC that I anxiously waited for. Why? Cause it's got swashbucklin' pirates in it, yaaarrrrrr. Also it's one of the first games designed for the PC and "downscaled" for the new consoles. So I assumed the grapic will be awesome.

I faced two problems when playing the game at first:
1. Some higher instance limited the game to 30fps. And for some reason I experience anything on the 765 below 32fps is just stuttery.
2. The temps went higher, than I was comfortable with (I reached 81°C on the CPU after an hour of gaming)

So I asked myself: What would a pirate do?

A bit of research and tweaking and I found out, that the Anvil Enginge does not support Triple buffering out of the box. So that means, when you want to use the VSync, your game can only be rendered at screen rate (60Hz). As soon as the frames drop below the screen rate, they can only be drawn at half of the screen rate. If they drop below that, they can only be rendered at one third of the screen rate and so on and so forth. So only divided whole numbers of the screen rate. So you have to switch on triple buffering yourself. You can do that in the nvidia driver panel or using nvidiainspector. For me it worked, but as soon as I Alt + Tab it's double buffering again and I have to restart windows. :C A patch might fix that.

For the temps I did the following. I decreased my CPU multis to 2,6, since the GPU limits the game anyway + the Anvil Engine scales great on multi-core cpus. And I UV to -100mV. I overclocked the 765 +100 +100. Now I play the game with everything on highest (no soft shadows, no SSAO, only FXAA) and frames don't drop below 34 (That is in a city at night with rain)
Also my temps now stay around 75°C CPU, which is awesome. I don't even bother monitoring the GPU anymore, as it stays so cold (never had it reach 70°C)

Oh and the last point: The game looks awesome. It looks even better on my desktop, but it's already an extremely georgeous game on the W230ST!

Fair winds to you me seadogs!

 

Unless your CPU temps are above 95 degrees, I wouldn`t be concerned, the Clevo actually has decent cooling, and although its quite noisy and the internal temps are a tad high, it never throttles and external temps are really cool compared to competitors such as the razer blade and gigabyte, both laptops with which I have had extensive exposure.

 

Still I am eager to keep the temps as low as I can. There is no point in letting the CPU run as fast as it can, unless you need the power. Plus I sense a tempereatur around 90°C on a permanent basis as worrying.

 

I get decreased performance, minimum FPS drops too low without running at least at 3GHz, but I set my 3x and 4x to 3GHz, lock FPS to 50, and temps stay below 89C.

 

What kind of voltage are you running HT at those speeds?

 

@HT Are you still refering to BF3 or do you mean AC IV?

Sent from a device with a program.

 

Hello, I've read back over 100 pages in this thread. Could someone please provide some advice on configuration for me. I was looking at ordering from Mythlogic (or other if recommended). Currently I have a new XPS15 touch that I think I'm going to return due to a few different issues (high pitched whine, touchpad sucks, scaling of QHD screen). My primary use will be for work, I'm a system admin and typically have lots of RDP sessions running in VisionApp Remote Desktop, along with browsers, command prompt, etc... I'm not a huge gamer, but would like to play the occasional COD or BF session in my downtime. I understand that this machine isnt ideal for battery life, but I can live with 3-4hrs.

I was considering a 4702 cpu, 16GB, dual plextor 256 msata in RAID 0, 1TB spindle for .iso and backup usage.

Any input or advice to maximize battery life, while still being able to play some games occasionally?

edit: since I do use this at work, it does need to be somewhat quiet at work... thats why I was considering the 4702

Thanks in advance.

 

Has anyone been having issues with temperamental connections on their USB 3.0 ports? My front two ports seem a little dodgy when using cables (tested a few out)...

 

Sorry guys for asking all these questions, but does the CDs include recovery media software of some sort in case of system failure? Maybe something that allows imaging the system partition onto iso file or something.

Additionally, my supplier will provide Win 8 installed on the HDD before shipping to me but they will not provide OS installation CD, but I want to add in an mSATA SSD later and install the OS on the SSD. Is there any good way to move the OS partition from the HDD to a new SSD? Hence why the question I asked earlier about recovery media, since I believe that is the best way to do it? If there are other ways which I can install Win 8 onto the SSD that would be nice, I dont want to end up spending another $99 to buy a new copy of Win 8 just to change to a SSD.

I know there are cloning software but I heard they are far from ideal due to different management natures of SSD and HDDs like TRIM, disk defrag etc etc

On another note, I have watched HTWingnuts's videos for undervolting but not sure if the turbo boost is turned on or off? Also will the CPU dynamically clock down when computer is idle? I am concerned that by increasing performance through manual clock settings, the CPU will not clock down to save power.