*** XMG Apex 15 with Ryzen 3950X / Clevo NH58AF1 Owner's Lounge ***

Not really, but I have noticed Shadowlands and raids produce some decent spikes that never happened before on a few cores. I actually backed off my
5ghz 9900ks clock settings on my P870TM1-G because of the spikes into the 90s on a few cores. This didn't happen in BFA.

 

Actually, WoW isn't the most CPU hungry of the games I've played. But it doesn't stress the CPU all that much.

 

That's interesting, 5Ghz on all 8 cores is a big ask I suppose.

 

Usually takes awhile to get there and it will spike time to time then go back into the 70's/low 80's on average. Everything else (5 mains, questing, dailies, etc..) temps stay much lower but raids do push harder.

 

True, it gets a workout in 25 player content @ 1080p in some situations. The Denathrius encounter is what I use to test temps as it seems to have small blips of spikes.

 

I also want to confirm that after the latest BIOS update I got no more freezes, and I am playing daily on World of Warships, World of Tanks, Genshin Impact (all using the WASD keys heavily).

 

Stock IHS on yours?

 

I ended up delidding it a few weeks ago because temps were getting a little toasty gaming at 5ghz. I was running it at 4.5ghz w/ a shim mod and great temps turned into even better temps with a delid and installing the BartX 4.3mm in place of the shim mod I was running.

 

I've never had the courage to rip apart my machine for any reason other than simple cleaning, like with compressed air. The farthest I've gone is removing the fans to clean them and blow out the fins.

I've never done any repasting or whatever "shim" thing is. I might be willing to try something like that if it means lower temperatures. My machine came with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. I haven't had any real temperature issues until I flashed the EC Firmware and BIOS to fix the lockup situation. Which I'm fairly certain the EC Firmware is responsible for the quieter fans and higher temps. They don't ramp up very much at all.

 

A shim is a piece of metal added to help reduce the gap between a heatsink and a chip where one may exist. Metal is a better conductor than paste so with a large gap you may want to use it instead of just thicker paste.

 

After more than two weeks, no more freezes. So it seems that it was indeed a EC/BIOS issue.

 

My only issue now is that the fans will not function properly with the new EC Firmware. They don't ramp up like they used to. Fortunately, I can FN+1 and max them out as necessary. Otherwise it seems to run pretty hot around the 90's.

This isn't a huge issue, really. I just have to remember to engage Max Fan when gaming. Until I can purchase Obsidian PC Fan Control license again.

 

As I wrote, I also had issues with fans. When updating, they went very slow/stopped, which led the laptop once to restart (it did not happen again later). When reaching Windows, they instead went all maxed out. It also happens that Clevo Control Center starts everytime in "Performance" mode. I tweaked the settings manually to get them to a manageable level, unfortunately it goes to "performance" mode everytime I log in. Obsidian PC license (which I had) stopped working even if I have a paid license: Yes, I could buy it again but I don't see why I have to. Obsidian PC support is silent.

 

Is there any way to retain obsidian fan control following a bios update? I wanted to install the latest bios and EC but I also rely on obsidian fan control to keep this laptop usable (3950x...). Is it possible to prevent the UUID from changing or breaking obsidian software?

 

Leaving this here for posterity.

I experienced the keyboard freeze on Manjaro (5.14.10-1-MANJARO). I've been using it since January 2021 and had the freeze for the first time.

According to pacman, I installed tuxedo-control-center at 11:58pm (Wednesday, 03 November, 2021 11:58:11 PM).

I played with the settings and ultimately settled on 2 logical cores (threads) @ 2.2ghz each. I have the Ryzen 5 3600 6 cores/12 threads model from Sager NP7958F1.

Keyboard got stuck/frozen while I was typing in vim, pressing "k" (I saw the cursor going up). Touchpad doesn't work as well. External mouse and external keyboard still worked.

In panic, tried to reset the tuxedo-control-center profile back to default profile with all 12 logical cores enabled. But htop shows that 10 logical cores/threads are still "offline". Previously I could change the number of threads from 2, 4, 6, 8, etc.

Decide to take a quick look at dmesg before restarting, with the following errors (these five lines repeated until 1:41:37 am, when I decided to restart):

```dmesg
Nov 04 01:36:42 aes-nh5xax kernel: ACPI Error: AE_TIME, Returned by Handler for [EmbeddedControl] (20210604/evregion-281)
Nov 04 01:36:42 aes-nh5xax kernel: ACPI Error: Timeout from EC hardware or EC device driver (20210604/evregion-291)
Nov 04 01:36:42 aes-nh5xax kernel: ACPI Error: Aborting method \_SB.DCHU.ZEVT due to previous error (AE_TIME) (20210604/psparse-529)
Nov 04 01:36:42 aes-nh5xax kernel: ACPI Error: Aborting method \_SB.DCHU._DSM due to previous error (AE_TIME) (20210604/psparse-529)
Nov 04 01:36:42 aes-nh5xax kernel: ACPI: \_SB_.DCHU: failed to evaluate _DSM (0x11)
Nov 04 01:36:42 aes-nh5xax kernel: clevo_acpi: failed to evaluate _DSM
```

System could not complete reboot. I see a black screen, The power and battery indicators still yellow, and the power button still white. Waited a few minutes before trying to long press the power button, but it is unresponsive and I am unable to force shutdown the laptop. EDIT: And I can hear the fan still spinning.

Decided to unplug the power and wait for about 1 hour to deplete battery before turning on again. When I unplugged the power, both indicators are still yellow and power button still white.

Won't be messing with the cpu settings anytime soon.

 

@SonnyRage

I have been using Fedora 34 for quite some time now. Thanks to Steam and Lutris I have most games that I play successfully running on Fedora Linux. I've yet to have any issues after updating the EC Firmware and BIOS from the links I provided above.

I've also installed the Tuxedo Control Center on Fedora using COPR and it's worked great for managing the fans and other necessities.

```
CPU: 12-Core AMD Ryzen 9 3900 (-MT MCP-) speed/min/max: 1965/2200/3100 MHz
Kernel: 5.14.11-200.fc34.x86_64 x86_64 Up: 2h 16m Mem: 3625.2/31985.8 MiB (11.3%)
Storage: 2.73 TiB (27.4% used) Procs: 520 Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.06

Graphics:
Device-1: NVIDIA TU106M [GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile / Max-Q Refresh] driver: nvidia
v: 470.74
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: nvidia
resolution: 1920x1080~144Hz
OpenGL: renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 470.74

computer
description: Notebook
product: XMG_APEX15_XAP15E20 (Not Applicable)
vendor: SchenkerTechnologiesGmbH
version: Not Applicable
serial: [REMOVED]
width: 64 bits
capabilities: smbios-3.2.0 dmi-3.2.0 smp vsyscall32
sku=Not Applicable uuid=[REMOVED]
*-core
description: Motherboard
product: NH5xAx
vendor: SchenkerTechnologiesGmbH
physical id: 0
version: Not Applicable
serial: [REMOVED]
slot: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
*-firmware
description: BIOS
vendor: Insyde Corp.
physical id: 0
version: 1.07.07RTR1
date: 04/08/2020
size: 128KiB
capacity: 6784KiB
capabilities: pci upgrade shadowing cdboot bootselect socketedrom edd int13floppynec int13floppytoshiba int13floppy360 int13floppy1200 int13floppy720 int13floppy2880 int9keyboard int10video acpi usb uefi
*-cpu
description: CPU
product: AMD Ryzen 9 3900 12-Core Processor
vendor: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]
physical id: 4
bus info: cpu@0
version: AMD Ryzen 9 3900 12-Core Processor
serial: [REMOVED]
slot: AM4
size: 2195MHz
capacity: 4359MHz
width: 64 bits
clock: 100MHz
capabilities: lm fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp x86-64 constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc cpuid extd_apicid aperfmperf rapl pni pclmulqdq monitor ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs skinit wdt tce topoext perfctr_core perfctr_nb bpext perfctr_llc mwaitx cpb cat_l3 cdp_l3 hw_pstate ssbd mba ibpb stibp vmmcall fsgsbase bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 cqm rdt_a rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb sha_ni xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves cqm_llc cqm_occup_llc cqm_mbm_total cqm_mbm_local clzero irperf xsaveerptr rdpru wbnoinvd arat npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save tsc_scale vmcb_clean flushbyasid decodeassists pausefilter pfthreshold avic v_vmsave_vmload vgif v_spec_ctrl umip rdpid overflow_recov succor smca sme sev sev_es cpufreq
configuration: cores=12 enabledcores=12 threads=24
*-cache:0
description: L1 cache
physical id: 5
slot: L1 - Cache
size: 768KiB
capacity: 768KiB
clock: 1GHz (1.0ns)
capabilities: pipeline-burst internal write-back unified
configuration: level=1
*-cache:1
description: L2 cache
physical id: 6
slot: L2 - Cache
size: 6MiB
capacity: 6MiB
clock: 1GHz (1.0ns)
capabilities: pipeline-burst internal write-back unified
configuration: level=2
*-cache:2
description: L3 cache
physical id: 7
slot: L3 - Cache
size: 64MiB
capacity: 64MiB
clock: 1GHz (1.0ns)
capabilities: pipeline-burst internal write-back unified
configuration: level=3
*-memory
description: System Memory
physical id: 25
slot: System board or motherboard
size: 32GiB
*-bank:0
description: SODIMM DDR4 Synchronous Unbuffered (Unregistered) 3200 MHz (0.3 ns)
product: NMSO416E82-3200E
vendor: Unknown
physical id: 0
serial: [REMOVED]
slot: DIMM 0
size: 16GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 3200MHz (0.3ns)
*-bank:1
description: SODIMM DDR4 Synchronous Unbuffered (Unregistered) 3200 MHz (0.3 ns)
product: NMSO416E82-3200E
vendor: Unknown
physical id: 1
serial: [REMOVED]
slot: DIMM 0
size: 16GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 3200MHz (0.3ns)```

 

Well its quite much to read through here. Anyone mind giving me the low down of this clevo? What should I know?

 

It’s a weird beast, tons of CPU power, decent GPU, very quirky if it doesn’t have bios/EC updates - just a little quirky once if it’s all patched up.

If I was in the market, I’d look for one with a 3900. From experience, the 3950x in this platform works but requires a lot of fiddling to get it dialed in to reasonable heat/fan noise vs performance. The 3900 and lower CPUs are much more “plug and play”. My other gripe is the GPU, I wish it was MXM of course, but also the 2070 is just slightly underpowered given all the CPU on tap - I wish it was a 2080 on the board.

 

Does it have freesync or that nvidia one? I imagine adding the mxm would double the price in an instant like every other mxm laptop.

 

G-sync would only be on external panels, the AMD CPU has no IGP so there is no AMD graphics involved.

 

It's a beautiful machine and unfortunately no longer available from the seller from whom I purchased mine. It took a bit of tweaking as @SamuelL421 said. You should do the crucial updates, use an upgraded or hacked BIOS like I did; https://www.reddit.com/r/XMG_gg/comments/ib9fve/new_bios_and_control_center_for_xmg_apex_15/ <-- available here.

The EC update will prevent system locking up due to a keyboard quirk. I also decided to install Fedora Linux on my machine and have been very happy gaming with it with ZERO issues.

Although I am currently in the market for a replacement keyboard because the F7 key has decided to pop loose for some unknown reason. I'm looking at getting a Japanese keyboard from e-bay designed to fit this model. But if anyone could possibly point me to a guide as to **how** I can replace this keyboard I would greatly appreciate it. I have yet to find a how-to for this particular model or a model like it.

 

I take it under the key is damaged and it wont pop back on?

 

Yes, it's the bottom right corner of the F7 key. It appears the little tiny teeny attachment seems to have broken off somehow. I'm unsure how this happened. I merely woke up one morning, put the laptop in my bag as I usually do. I opened it up at work and noticed the F7 key was sitting weird. So I took it off and looked at the bottom - didn't notice anything unusual at first - and tried to line it up and push down to pop it back on. I heard it click into place but the F7 key still didn't sit right. So I took it off again and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't go back on. It wasn't until after a few more attempts that I realized the attachment on the bottom of the key itself is broken. Somehow. It's weird because I never use the F7 key. I have no reason to use it. The only F-keys I use is F1, F3, 5, 6, 8 and 9.

 

Got a friend with a 3d printing pen perhaps?

 

I sadly do not.

I have found a few keyboard models for this machine which are available. What I need is a guide or a how-to for how to replace this keyboard. I don't feel comfortable being without my machine for a long period of time and I feel reasonably confident in my ability to maintain my own equipment. I'm very particular like that.

 

You may download Manual-Service_XMG-APEX-15_NH57Ax.pdf from https://download.schenker-tech.de/package/xmg-apex-15-xap15e20/ . There is a chapter called 'Removing the Keyboard'...

 

Thank you so much!

 

It's usually not too arduous a thing to do.

 

Yes. It's why I'm such a fan of Sager/Clevo machines. They are typically very tinker friendly. I previously owned a P157SMA with a NVIDIA 970. I had upgraded several times and replaced the keyboard and screen.

It lasted me many good, solid years and I hope this one will last as long.

 

Ah such a classic chassis, my first was a p150em which I had a lot of fun with.

 

Can't find any mention of the successor in the threads on here. Can be because I can't figure out the Clevo model number.

Anyway Eurocom already released it on their site as the "Nightsky ARX315". Takes up the desktop socketed Ryzen 9 5950X and has a fixed 8GB RTX 3070 (only 115W?). Site says also can have RTX 3060, but there isn't an option yet it seems. (Only one screen option so far as well)

https://eurocom.com/ec/images(481)NightskyARX315

 

Naughty, you need to list tdp next to each card offered. Then make it clear what stock TDP is Vs boosting.

 

Hi, what about 5950x future upgrade for this laptop?

 

I don't see it happening to be fair.