Questions regarding my new Clevo P775TM1-G

[MiRaGe]

Hi guys,

 

The time to separate with my beloved HP DreamColor 8770W has come.

I managed to get for a reasonable price of 1150€ Clevo P775TM1-G with 9900K, RTX 2080, 32GB 2400 DDR4 and 144Hz IPS screen.

As it is a new field for me (outside my comfort zone:) I have several questions to you and would be very grateful if you could give me some hand on some, why not all?:)

 1. Do I need unlocked sbios in case to control the DDR4s timings and would be wise if I upgrade the RAM to 3200MHz CL16 Crucial Ballistics? 
2. Which system bios is the best for this machine?

3. I found a spare Clevo RTX 3070 MXM, but the guy asks for 1200€ incl. modded heatsink. Is there a big difference between RTX 2080 and RTX 3070? Is it worth such an upgrade?

4. Which NVME ssd would you recommend? I would like something very speedy😊

 

For now I can’t think of other questions, if you can help me with those I would really appreciate it!

thanks!

and Happy New Year to all!

[srs2236]

Hi!

 

1. No, but an unlocked BIOS is preferred because you unlock a little bit more than stock and you unlock the possibility to choose voltage higher than 1.35V. I personally can recommend the Crucial Ballistix as it is by far the best SO-DIMM's you can get for this laptop unless you can maybe find the extremely rare G.Skill and Corsair 3600-4000MHz ones. I personally tested G.Skill ones aswell (3200MHz, CL16) and they overclocked very very poorly. The Crucials on the other hand are limited in frequency by the P775 motherboard itself and not by the RAM itself. For my unit, completely stable max frequency I can get is 3333MHz. And the Crucials love more voltage so I have run mine at 1.45V for almost a year now without issues. And the voltage is necessary because I have reduced the timings on my Crucials drastically, but here your mileage might vary. My RAM primary timings are 14-17-17-32 from 16-18-18-36 but secondary timings are drastically reduced aswell (keep in mind this is in 3333MHz). For more in-depth timing adjustments of the RAM you can ask me if you choose to go ahead and get these sticks. Just beware that there are two Micron die's available for the ballistix. Personally I would recommend going with 2x16GB sticks of rev. E die sticks. You can tell either by looking at the back of the sticks for serial number or by looking how much ranks the RAM has. The potential disadvantage here is you might get a single rank sticks opposed to dual rank which is technically better for performance and by my testing the rev. E overclocks a tiny bit better than rev. B but that could be silicon lottery. I can help you identify which die revision you will have if you send me some details.

 

2. This is just my opinion, but I am happy with the way I have it:

• Updated to latest Clevo BIOS;
• Unlocked it;
• Updated CPU microcode, RAID modules, Ethernet module, to the latest revisions;
• Updated the Intel Managment Engine to latest revision and also edited it a little to allow Base clock or BCLK overclocking in the BIOS (Can achieve interesting RAM OC results and etc)
• Added support for RTX 30 series GPU's

Some people say that Prema is the best but I have no idea because I have never tried it and I am not sure if someone even has it for this laptop specifically anymore. Any requests for them are apparently deleted or something here so yeah. If you have a hardware flasher and can make a dump of your BIOS I can help you with all these modifications but I have never flashed any of my modified BIOS binaries with software so I have 0 guarantees whatsoever that it will work for you in that case. And I just remembered there is some Dsanke version out there but I have never tried that aswell. I just updated to latest clevo BIOS and proceeded to do the rest as I put it before. I might have done something more that I just can't remember but thats the essentials basically.

 

3. No, I absolutely do not recommend the upgrade. The upgrade from 2080 to 3080 is already kind of dissapointing in itself. Only a slight performance upgrade, less heat and 16GB VRAM. Thats it. So for the 3070 its even worse, no VRAM upgrade, yeah would probably be much less heat but the performance difference is probably very tiny if not the same. I could only kind of recommend if its a 3080. I got my 3080 brand new for 789,43 EUR and the AliExpress heatsink for 247,31 EUR so thats not even a good deal for you. If you really want it try to keep an eye on eBay. Sometimes there are listings for bids which go for way less.

 

4. Well the absolute speediest of the speediest is KC3000 in RAID0 which I have in my setup. I would say go for KC3000 if you want the best of the best. However if you can't get the KC3000 I would just say go for the 970 Evo Plus in RAID0. I tested the Wester Digital SN850 in RAID0 and it had some dissapointing results to the point where there was no real reason to really choose it over the 970 Evo Plus. I havent tested the 980 Pro but the SN850 and the KC3000 is supposed to be better than it so I would guess there is no point of even looking at it. THERE is however a brand new Samsung SSD coming out but I am not sure about its performance on PCI-E 3.0 so can't really comment on it. You would have to make resarch on it yourself but it should be really good its the 990 Pro from Samsung.

 

Enjoy your P775 machine!

[MiRaGe]

Thanks a lot for all the insights!

 

would you tell me how can I make the cpu a bit cooler without loosing performance (I did repaste, but still it hits 99C…)

 

p.s this is what I get with some GPU O/C, RAM at 3000 CL16:

 

Is it good?

[srs2236]

Yours doesn't look too bad to be honest. Looks good. The CPU thermals is a real problem for the P775 so thats to be expected. I have the same issue. First thing I want to ask if you have tried is undervolting. Undervolting can work great for reducing thermals on the CPU. I think that should be the first thing for you to try. As for other things, well, I havent tried anything other than repasting and some K5 Pro so can't give advice. Some people Delid and put Copper IHS with liquid metal, some people increase mounting pressure etc. Havent tried anything like that unfortunately.

 

Also I forgot to say it but the P775 runs RAM best at certain slots. Best OC capabilities are when it uses one RAM in the slot under the keyboard I think it was Slot 1 (if my memory is correct its the one on the downside) and the other in Slot 4 (if my memory is correct its the top most under the back cover). These two slots work great for OC. Atleast for me anyways but I have seen similiar stories on old NBR forums if I remember correctly.

[MiRaGe]

Thanks a lot!

How can I undervolt it? I did -130mV undervolt under Adaptive tab in Clevo Control Center. Do I need to do something else?

On Turbo it still reaches 98-99C…at 4.7Ghz…

[srs2236]

10 minutes ago, MiRaGe said:

Thanks a lot!

How can I undervolt it? I did -130mV undervolt under Adaptive tab in Clevo Control Center. Do I need to do something else?

On Turbo it still reaches 98-99C…at 4.7Ghz…

That's really about it for now without a new heatsink or some cooling mods. Only thing you can do is run your fan speeds at max at all times. This is what I do when gaming.

 

And what you did is undervolt. You can do it in BIOS aswell if you want a more permanent solution but just make sure to find a stable value first using CCC or XTU.

[MiRaGe]

Wow, the ram works in slots 2 and 4 at 3200Mhz 20-20-18 1.35V. Crucial Micron 2666 CL19😳
can you send me your unlocked bios?

 

p.s seems I got a good dual rank Crucial (not Ballistic). Run stable at 3200@36-18-18-16 at 1.35V. At 1.45V may be 3400?

 

 

 

[srs2236]

Yeah, slots 2 and 4 is what I meant when I was telling you about the slots. The thing is that Slot 4 and 3 is labeled correctly but Slot 2 and 1 is for whatever reason swapped in BIOS and OS. So that's why I said Slot 1 instead of 2. I think if you will check in for example CPU-Z you will see the same thing. Slot 1 and 4 will be occupied.

 

I really don't want to send my own BIOS because of serial numbers and whatever else there might be that corresponds to my P775. Also I put a lot of effort doing most of the mods myself. However I can help you unlock it if you can dump yours. There are also other forums that can help with unlocking if you search it on google.

 

For now I would advice to just update to latest stock Clevo BIOS. Both the BIOS and the Embedded controller (EC). This is where you can find both the BIOS and EC latest revisions:

 

https://my.hidrive.com/share/yze8mg-wf8#$/BIOS and EC Firmware/CLEVO/P_Series/P7xx_Series/P7xxTMx/P7xxTM1(G)

 

If you need instructions let me know. I think for BIOS you will need to run WMEset.exe that's in the archive that will unlock ME Region write capabilities. For the EC I think you will need to flash the EC1 first and then the EC2. To update the EC I think you will need to make a freeDOS bootable flash drive with the firmwares on the root of the drive or something along those lines and flash from there.

 

I originally asked for my unlock of the BIOS on a specific P775TM1-G thread on bios-mods.com. However, now I am 99% sure I know how to do the unlock myself. When I have free time (on the weekends) I could try and test to see if my unlock would actually work. I am also quite curious about the Dsanke enhanced one. I wonder what enhancments other than unlocked BIOS does it offer. I have seen 128GB support talked about here and there. Not sure if the latest Clevo bios by default supports 128GB or not. Same for Prema... But I guess I will never know. I could poke around with the Dsanke one though. One annoying thing is that the latest Clevo BIOS unlocked allows Tertiary RAM timing changes, but will not apply them upon reboot. Changing some of those values for example in XTU can bring actually huge RAM OC benefits that I would like to have permanently set in the BIOS, but have not been able to up until now. (They get set to whatever values IMC chooses upon training the RAM)

 

If you have updated yours to latest, and want the unlocked one I can try to help. Also do you have a hardware flasher like the CH431A? Because I would give 0 guarantees whatsoever about the BIOS mods I would provide.

[MiRaGe]

(just a quick „between“ question - does yours attract scratches and marks on the lid too, I toughr it is a bit sturdier, but I come from HP 8770W and it is built like a tank..:)

[1610ftw]

1 hour ago, MiRaGe said:

(just a quick „between“ question - does yours attract scratches and marks on the lid too, I toughr it is a bit sturdier, but I come from HP 8770W and it is built like a tank..:)

 

The 8770W is in a class by itself - VERY good build and the P775 is nice but no match for it, especially not regarding the durability of the surfaces.

 

If I was you I would rather cover the ugly ONE logo and in the process the whole lid except for the fake metail parts maybe and you will not have to worry about it any more 🙂

 

To add to what @srs2236 said I would just downclock the 9900K a little. You do not really need that much all core performance and even in single core backing off a little will not hurt you much outside of benching in Cinebench maybe. So I would just drop those speeds a bit for normal operation until you do not exceed 80 degrees any more except in extreme cases - I doubt it will cost you more than a few percent in games.

 

You may also want to compare your temps in certain benchmarks with other users and also the wattage that your system pulls - if you can sustain a lot less than other then it is time for another repaste / heatsink readjustment and possibly a delid!

[MiRaGe]

I thought on deliding the cpu already and may be it is worth the shot… it will certainly reduce the temps by 8-10C. 
But frankly, I’ve never done it and I am a bit scared😊 

 

[MiRaGe]

@srs2236 can you share how much dropped the temps with the new heatsink from AliExpress?

[srs2236]

2 hours ago, MiRaGe said:

@srs2236 can you share how much dropped the temps with the new heatsink from AliExpress?

For me it is hard to say because I didn't drop temps =D

 

However, I can sustain much higher TDP under load. Now it maintains pretty much 100W under heavy load. So thats 135 to 150W + 100W. But the CPU is constant 99C so no changes there xD

 

I think before with my 9900K was like maybe 60W or maximum 70W. It's hard to say but my 9900K was not able to sustain 4.7GHz under load in games that was for sure. But now my 9900KS is more like 4.7Ghz to 5GHz hovering all the time depending on the load in the game. But almost never going below 4.7GHz so there is definately an improvement.

 

The biggest improvement in temperatures was for the GPU anyway. Most of the copper mass is added on the GPU side and not the CPU side. The temperature difference for the GPU was massive compared to old heatsink. But thats probably also to do with the fact that the die size of the 3080 is actually smaller than the 2080 at the same TDP.

 

It is definately an improvement but its hard to say how big. Hope it helps a little. You could try doing some benchmarks to see the maximum TDP on the CPU. But yeah I am already used to it being 99C all the time. I don't know if its going to be bad in the long run or not. See the thing is that the actual problem is that only one of the cores will mostly hit 99C for me. The others are sometimes 90C while one other is 99C. So not all cores are actually 99C. Most of them are not. Thats something I have noticed on my P775.

[srs2236]

6 hours ago, MiRaGe said:

(just a quick „between“ question - does yours attract scratches and marks on the lid too, I toughr it is a bit sturdier, but I come from HP 8770W and it is built like a tank..:)

Ahh. Mine is already scratched like hell and the empty area to right side of touch pad is even squeaky when pressure applied to it xD Also the power cable comes out so easily. A little pull and it's out.

[1610ftw]

57 minutes ago, MiRaGe said:

I thought on deliding the cpu already and may be it is worth the shot… it will certainly reduce the temps by 8-10C. 
But frankly, I’ve never done it and I am a bit scared😊 

 

 

I can definitely understand - not something that I would long to do myself 🙂

 

There are more things you can do that may add up:

 

Tweak the fit of the heatsink

use a cooling pad

lift the back of the laptop with a stand

adjust undervolting

reduce clock speeds

 

If you gain a little with each option that may already be enough.

[1610ftw]

11 hours ago, srs2236 said:

Ahh. Mine is already scratched like hell and the empty area to right side of touch pad is even squeaky when pressure applied to it xD Also the power cable comes out so easily. A little pull and it's out.

 

That power connector is a mystery - it is obviously very shitty and falls off all the time yet it has been used in several Clevo, MSI and I am sure other laptops, too.

 

The new connector on the other hand that is used by Clevo for the X170 and by MSI in newer units, too is a lot better and does not come out as easily any more - real progress for a change.

[MiRaGe]

Does P775‘s chipset support NVME Gen. 4? 
 

[srs2236]

1 minute ago, MiRaGe said:

Does P775‘s chipset support NVME Gen. 4? 
 

No, only PCI-E Gen. 3

 

But based on my testing there still can be benefits of a Gen. 4 drive in a Gen. 3 system altough very small.

[MiRaGe]

I did read and as far as I know there isn‘t any information regarding laptop s/n or similar sensitive stuff, stored on the bios, so I would be veeeery grateful if you spare me a lot of effort and send me the bios you are using.

😊

I would be really thankful if you share your default RAM timings in Bios for 3200MHz.

[srs2236]

I won't send you my BIOS, but I can refer you to dsanke BIOS. I tested it myself it's unlocked and works fine. You will have more control over your memory. The filename you are interested in would be P7xxTM1-0729-9900KS or the one with 128GB ram support. I would recommend taking the one without 128GB ram support if you dont need it.

 

https://mega.nz/file/GF5hWJzT#72_PDOPkchG4DR0GR4OhQYOtwy-WxhhWr4tmnaK755k

 

I still recommend flashing with hardware flasher and so does dsanke. I flashed with hardware flasher. Also me sending the default timings for 3200MHz won't do you any good. You have to experiment and find the lowest for your kit.

 

 

[srs2236]

I take it back.

 

I re-read what you wrote about your RAM and see that you have Micron RAM operating at the same primaries as Ballistix. When I have time I will send you the default timings of my sticks. Also I don't think you will be able to do 3400. The P775 is limited by motherboard at that point. Like my Clevo will train the ram once no problem, boot into windows with 3400 no errors everything is perfectly fine. Then, upon either sleep, shutdown or restart it just wont boot back up. It will restart and get stuck in ram training loop which is super annoying. Yet it will sometimes train the RAM with absolutely ridiculous timings crash litterally at bios but never retrain. Super annoying.  I feel like im being held back in terms of frequency by some design flaw either in BIOS or hardware for 3400... I have even had 3466 once boot to windows no problem just to get stuck in memory training one restart later. And the most annoying part, the first boot always works. It's only after that next system restart or whatever that it gets stuck. And only thing that helps is CMOS battery removal, no FN + D helps there.

[srs2236]

On 1/6/2023 at 1:49 PM, MiRaGe said:

I did read and as far as I know there isn‘t any information regarding laptop s/n or similar sensitive stuff, stored on the bios, so I would be veeeery grateful if you spare me a lot of effort and send me the bios you are using.

😊

I would be really thankful if you share your default RAM timings in Bios for 3200MHz.

Default XMP for Ballistix.

[MiRaGe]

Thanks!

can you share your current timings?

My motherboard won‘t take 3300, at this frequency it starts a boot loop (which you mentioned earlier), where only cmos reset make the laptop bootable, so I found stable 3200 32-16-16-14 for 24/7. 

Either your CPU or mobo are better than mine with DDR FSB over 3200. 

I found e-die Ballistix btw.

Do you think the 60Hz 4K panel is better than 1080p 144Hz?

I intend to use it mainly for gaming (Warzone), would be significant decrease in motion if I upgrade the resolution (and most probably color coverage and reproduction) but downgrade the refresh rate…? (4K AUO vs 1080p AUO)

[srs2236]

I am not home anymore so can't share timings, but I found an old post of mine on reddit, this should have all the same timings as I have now.

 

 

I doubt that your motherboard is better than mine, I would like to believe the tolerances between them would be smaller. I think that when I changed my 9900K for 9900KS there was a change in RAM OC headroom. I remember that I could lower my timings even lower than before. So it might be CPU affected. But it to be honest shouldn't be. Maybe it's a case of how well the CPU can manage bad signals or something because on desktop the i9-9900k shreds at RAM oc.

 

Also, I just noticed my 4th Slot has some pretty serious burn damage only god knows from where😂😂 so so much for a good mobo. Luckily it was only ground pin but still odd. I will be adding a heatsink to that ram though, so hopefully the temperatures will go down.

 

About the screen, the 4K is nice for anything but gaming. For gaming it is absolute trash. Ok maybe some story games but absolutely not for competetive games like Warzone. Stick with your 1080p panel. Me myself I use a portable 240Hz asus monitor. Also 1080p.

[MiRaGe]

Thanks a lot!

btw, there is no point of tRAS at 32. It‘s a sum of tRCD and tRP so it can‘t go lower than this and be effective. 
34 in your case is the optimum.