Official Clevo X170SM-G Thread

[Clamibot]

On 3/8/2024 at 9:04 AM, win32asmguy said:

 

I have not had much luck with the Ballistix kit so far. With XMP enabled it was only stable with a single stick in slot 1. It does train with both sticks installed but just crashes while booting up or a few seconds after.

 

I read that in desktop overclocking usually increasing VCCIO and VCCSA can improve memory stability. Unfortunately those voltage rails are neither readable. From the schematics it seems like VCCIO is 1.05v and VCCSA is 1.1v and both have overcurrent protection set just slightly higher so no tolerance for overclocking.

That's a bummer. I did find that the kit works fine for me if I use memory slots 1 and 3. Using memory slots 2 and 4 on my laptop (which is what I tried when I first got the kit) exhibits the same behavior you described. Perhaps try some nonstandard combinations such as the memory installed in slots 2 and 3 or 1 and 4?

You may be able to get it to work by installing one stick in slot 1, enabling XMP and booting into an OS, then shutting down and inserting the second stick into another slot of your choice (preferably slot 2 I know since that is the other easily accessible slot).

Perhaps also try swapping the slots the two sticks are installed in. This laptop is weird, so I'd try every weird idea you can think up.

[win32asmguy]

27 minutes ago, Clamibot said:

That's a bummer. I did find that the kit works fine for me if I use memory slots 1 and 2. Using memory slots 3 and 4 on my laptop (which is what I tried when I first got the kit) exhibits the same behavior you described. Perhaps try some nonstandard combinations such as the memory installed in slots 2 and 3 or 1 and 4?

You may be able to get it to work by installing one stick in slot 1, enabling XMP and booting into an OS, then shutting down and inserting the second stick into another slot of your choice (preferably slot 2 I know since that is the other easily accessible slot).

Perhaps also try swapping the slots the two sticks are installed in. This laptop is weird, so I'd try every weird idea you can think up.

 

Yeah I am going to try some other combinations this weekend. Just to clarify, slot 3 is the one closest to the motherboard and slot 1 is the one above it, correct?

[1610ftw]

17 hours ago, Raven said:

I recently got one, It is certainly big but in a quiet room with only the laptop and the power supply running, You can't really hear the PSU on my experience unless you put your ear up too it and listen directly, Even at the 450-500W load i've put on it I still havn't really heard it.

 

Personally I just find it a little on the dangerous side to be toying with things that have such High Amperage and prefer an OEM/Integrated solution myself, But if the mods work more power too you, Send it!

 

Looks like Eurocom has done something to the fans for their power supply as early iterations were criticized for fan noise for example at notebookcheck.com. 

 

The y-cable is my ticket so to say to take the X170 on the road without the hassle of carrying around a trunk full of cabling and power supplies. That always annoyed me and then there was the chore of extracting the whole assembly from its place in the office which also was rather painful. So it works for my use case and power cables are not something magical and with proper isolation there is not really an issue with having a Y-cable. Maybe at some point SlimQ will even produce one themselves which would be much nicer than having to resort to DIY versions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Raven]

On 3/7/2024 at 12:27 PM, Snowleopard said:

 

Absolute legend thank you for these!

[Snowleopard]

On 3/7/2024 at 4:00 PM, 1610ftw said:

 

Glad you got the one where the fan speed can be adjusted!

 

How loud would you say it is approximately when you compare it to the fan noise of the Clevo - like the Clevo at 30% or louder?

I just got a meter and can take some readings give me a little time.

 

On 3/8/2024 at 4:04 PM, win32asmguy said:

 

I have not had much luck with the Ballistix kit so far. With XMP enabled it was only stable with a single stick in slot 1. It does train with both sticks installed but just crashes while booting up or a few seconds after.

 

I read that in desktop overclocking usually increasing VCCIO and VCCSA can improve memory stability. Unfortunately those voltage rails are neither readable. From the schematics it seems like VCCIO is 1.05v and VCCSA is 1.1v and both have overcurrent protection set just slightly higher so no tolerance for overclocking.

 I am running 128gb of Crucial Ballistix, completely stable, but I can't get set it to the highest xmp level in the bios.

 

On 3/9/2024 at 10:41 AM, 1610ftw said:

 

Looks like Eurocom has done something to the fans for their power supply as early iterations were criticized for fan noise for example at notebookcheck.com. 

 

The y-cable is my ticket so to say to take the X170 on the road without the hassle of carrying around a trunk full of cabling and power supplies. That always annoyed me and then there was the chore of extracting the whole assembly from its place in the office which also was rather painful. So it works for my use case and power cables are not something magical and with proper isolation there is not really an issue with having a Y-cable. Maybe at some point SlimQ will even produce one themselves which would be much nicer than having to resort to DIY versions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe, my 780 watt eurocom power supply is really quit and its half the size of carrying around 2 bricks, I would absolutely hate 2 bricks.

[electrosoft]

On 3/7/2024 at 11:06 PM, win32asmguy said:

Palm rest / lid removal guide (useful for getting access to the bios chip):

 

1. Remove bottom panel, battery, CMOS battery, and heatsink.

2. Remove 15 screws highlighted in red and two screws highlighted in blue. Note that the screw near the SSD cover is under the ribbon cable for the RGB module.

3. If you are removing the lid, remove the eight screws highlighted in yellow.

4. Turn the machine on its side and push out the keyboard.

5. Open the lid and disconnect the keyboard, removing the two screws for the interposer board.

6. Disconnect the five ribbon cables under the keyboard tray.

7. Unsnap the palm rest from the top left and right corners, it should lift off.

8. If removing the lid:

a. Remove the back bumper from behind the screen, it unsnaps from the rear edge near the ports.

b. Remove four silver screws now exposed and four black screws on the other side of the screen near the hinges.

c. Remove the eDP, wifi and camera cables from their channels closest to the hinges (it is not necessary to disconnect them).

d. Remove the four screws (two on each hinge) setting the screen down where the palm rest used to be.

e. Now the plastic fascia below the hinges can be removed. There are also two plastic pieces that limit how far the screen can open that can also be removed.

f. An indentation in the plastic fascia can be cut out so a SOIP8 pomona clip can be used without removing the lid next time!

 

Feel free to let me know if there are any questions. I am pretty sure the process is the same on the X170KM as well.

 

 

Awesome! I'll add it to the launch page.

 

How does the System76 Firmware compare to Prema?

 

 

[win32asmguy]

16 hours ago, electrosoft said:

How does the System76 Firmware compare to Prema?

 

It is both better and worse. Everything is configurable as both the bios and ec are open source. However there are no traditional bios menus to make adjustments so you have to be a software engineer familiar with C and Coreboot/FSP/EDK2 toolkits to really make use of it.

 

These are also special ordered from Clevo from what I can tell without Intel Boot Guard active, as the bios is not signed. Some work they have put into changes might be appreciated, like the Intel ME being fully disabled for instance. You can also completely disable Intel DPTF. They have also added support into the bios to apply the amplifier chip EQ settings so the speakers sound great without needing any additional configuration in Windows or Linux.

[Clamibot]

On 3/8/2024 at 11:40 AM, win32asmguy said:

 

Yeah I am going to try some other combinations this weekend. Just to clarify, slot 3 is the one closest to the motherboard and slot 1 is the one above it, correct?

If I remember correctly, yes, slots 1 and 3 are on the underside of the motherboard, closest to the CPU, with slot 1 being the closest one. Slots 2 and 4 are underneath the keyboard.

I also just edited my last post as I realized I said I had my memory sticks installed in slots 1 and 2. They're installed in slots 1 and 3. My bad.

[win32asmguy]

6 hours ago, Clamibot said:

If I remember correctly, yes, slots 1 and 3 are on the underside of the motherboard, closest to the CPU, with slot 1 being the closest one. Slots 2 and 4 are underneath the keyboard.

I also just edited my last post as I realized I said I had my memory sticks installed in slots 1 and 2. They're installed in slots 1 and 3. My bad.

 

I tried the other combinations including just a single stick installed at a time but everything was throwing errors. I also temporariliy reinstalled the 10600k to test and it did not improve stability with the Ballistix kit.

 

I was talking with one of the System76 employees and it sounds like there may have been a firmware issue with memory configuration as he was not able to get 128GB stable at 3200 or even 2933 which was possible with the priorietary firmware on the same hardware. Maybe the same configuration issue also effects dual rank at lower capacities. I guess 2666 C15 dual rank is stable, but I was hoping for 3200 C20 or better to work.

[Clamibot]

On 3/13/2024 at 7:16 AM, win32asmguy said:

 

I tried the other combinations including just a single stick installed at a time but everything was throwing errors. I also temporariliy reinstalled the 10600k to test and it did not improve stability with the Ballistix kit.

 

I was talking with one of the System76 employees and it sounds like there may have been a firmware issue with memory configuration as he was not able to get 128GB stable at 3200 or even 2933 which was possible with the priorietary firmware on the same hardware. Maybe the same configuration issue also effects dual rank at lower capacities. I guess 2666 C15 dual rank is stable, but I was hoping for 3200 C20 or better to work.

 

One factor affecting stability could be that my machine has Premamod on it as I bought the laptop from zTecpc. My kit runs at 3200 MHz CL 16 rock solid stable when installed in slots 1 and 3. This is just the default XMP setting and I haven't tried pushing it further yet.

 

I believe I remember someone installing some 4000 MHz SODIMMs in the X170 from G.Skill I think, also a lucky owner of a Premamod imbued X170, but I don't think that this individual was running them at full speed. I think they were running the kit at 3200 MHz with extremely tight timings instead.

What vendor did your X170 come from? System76?

[win32asmguy]

On 3/14/2024 at 7:21 PM, Clamibot said:

One factor affecting stability could be that my machine has Premamod on it as I bought the laptop from zTecpc. My kit runs at 3200 MHz CL 16 rock solid stable when installed in slots 1 and 3. This is just the default XMP setting and I haven't tried pushing it further yet.

 

I believe I remember someone installing some 4000 MHz SODIMMs in the X170 from G.Skill I think, also a lucky owner of a Premamod imbued X170, but I don't think that this individual was running them at full speed. I think they were running the kit at 3200 MHz with extremely tight timings instead.

What vendor did your X170 come from? System76?

 

Yes, my X170SM is from System76 using their open firmware. I was also going to ask you what CPU microcode Premamod is using. Mine is using an older version CA but I have heard that EC may be better.

 

By using a custom profile I did get my HyperX 32gb dual rank kit working at 2933 cl17 1.2v. Originally I was trying for 3200 cl18 1.35v but that would not boot with a stick in channel A.

[Bidelloman]

How the hell isn't this thermal throttling??

[1610ftw]

23 hours ago, Bidelloman said:

How the hell isn't this thermal throttling??

 

That GPU is cooking, better check what is going on!

[Bidelloman]

7 hours ago, 1610ftw said:

 

That GPU is cooking, better check what is going on!

Said gpu had eaten all of the liquid metal..funny how it only happens gpu side..cpu is always there..maybe a bit crusty after awhile (conductonaut).

 

Wondering if there are better offerings around

[1610ftw]

14 minutes ago, Bidelloman said:

Said gpu had eaten all of the liquid metal..funny how it only happens gpu side..cpu is always there..maybe a bit crusty after awhile (conductonaut).

 

Wondering if there are better offerings around

 

The X170 have very good GPU cooling so you may want to look into using PTM7950 - temps may initially be a bit higher than liquid metal but it is reported to last extremely long. I have only used it for maybe a year and have been very happy with it, very consistent. If you use it I'd go for the sheets and not the paste - takes out a lot of the guesswork.

[win32asmguy]

7 hours ago, Bidelloman said:

Said gpu had eaten all of the liquid metal..funny how it only happens gpu side..cpu is always there..maybe a bit crusty after awhile (conductonaut).

 

Wondering if there are better offerings around

 

I have been using Alphacool Subzero on mine, just because I had noticed it was what XMG used on the X370 so I wanted to test it out. Seems to work as well as Phobya Nanogrease Extreme. I will likely switch to PTM7950 after I am done testing bios changes and do not have to worry about a full dissassembly to make a recovery flash to the SPI chip.

 

My temps on the X170SM have been 89C on the CPU under load, and up to 75C on the 3080 mobile (85C on the hotspot) with it pulling 150W. I also have the aftermarket fans from the Taobao seller, but have their speed limited to 50%.

[Bidelloman]

18 hours ago, win32asmguy said:

 

I have been using Alphacool Subzero on mine, just because I had noticed it was what XMG used on the X370 so I wanted to test it out. Seems to work as well as Phobya Nanogrease Extreme. I will likely switch to PTM7950 after I am done testing bios changes and do not have to worry about a full dissassembly to make a recovery flash to the SPI chip.

 

My temps on the X170SM have been 89C on the CPU under load, and up to 75C on the 3080 mobile (85C on the hotspot) with it pulling 150W. I also have the aftermarket fans from the Taobao seller, but have their speed limited to 50%.

yes after cleaning and re"pasting" my temps are exactly the same as yours (cpu after 2 cinebench runs (81C) and 1 shadow of the tomb raider at max settings run). only 75C is the hotspot instead of normal gpu core temp

[MaxxD]

On 10/26/2023 at 6:44 PM, srs2236 said:

I am not sure, if there would be compatibility problems, but the RTX 2080 is 150W and RTX 2080 Super is 200W. So that's a pretty big difference in terms of TDP. Not sure how that translates to performance but the difference is definitely there. Also I think the 2080 Super has a little bit more shader cores or something.

 

For me close ~220W was the 2080S it X170-in. 🙂 

 

[Pfudaniel]

Just baught a x170sm-g from XMG second hand barebone.

 

i managed to get a 3080 and a i9-10900k. 
also baught the water/air heatsink from ali since the 30series needed a new heatsink anyway ( from km-g ). 
waiting for parts and everything to arrive now🙏 

Wanted to know what ram i cud best run on it.  And is the prema bios anywhere available now or is it stil lockedout and hidden? 
 

Shud i go for kryonaut grizzle paste of kryosheet or ptm ?

 

[MaxxD]

On 4/1/2024 at 5:17 PM, Pfudaniel said:

Just baught a x170sm-g from XMG second hand barebone.

 

i managed to get a 3080 and a i9-10900k. 
also baught the water/air heatsink from ali since the 30series needed a new heatsink anyway ( from km-g ). 
waiting for parts and everything to arrive now🙏 

Wanted to know what ram i cud best run on it.  And is the prema bios anywhere available now or is it stil lockedout and hidden? 
 

Shud i go for kryonaut grizzle paste of kryosheet or ptm ?

 

 

Yes, I wanted to buy it too, but I talked about it. Unfortunately, the 3080 is not so good for SM-G because it is in a KM-G machine...

 

I use Kryosheet and very good!

[Pfudaniel]

6 minutes ago, MaxxD said:

 

Yes, I wanted to buy it too, but I talked about it. Unfortunately, the 3080 is not so good for SM-G because it is in a KM-G machine...

 

I use Kryosheet and very good!

Why is it not good for the SM-G ?

 

awsome i got some kryosheet still! 

[MaxxD]

10 minutes ago, Pfudaniel said:

Why is it not good for the SM-G ?

 

awsome i got some kryosheet still! 

 

The forum was discussed and who used or tried it was written about it. I don't remember anymore, but Gpu Boost (150W+) was a problem and a G-Sync lack and a few more things. It can be used, but not 100% unfortunately.

[Pfudaniel]

22 minutes ago, MaxxD said:

 

The forum was discussed and who used or tried it was written about it. I don't remember anymore, but Gpu Boost (150W+) was a problem and a G-Sync lack and a few more things. It can be used, but not 100% unfortunately.

Seems unlikely if u ask me. Sure g-sync might not work but for the rest it shud actually. Id assume just a inf edit wil do its job. Or a change in code from bios to whitelist the gpu. 
 

remember u can even put a 3080 in p870 or p775 without to much problems. 

[MaxxD]

9 minutes ago, Pfudaniel said:

Seems unlikely if u ask me. Sure g-sync might not work but for the rest it shud actually. Id assume just a inf edit wil do its job. Or a change in code from bios to whitelist the gpu. 
 

remember u can even put a 3080 in p870 or p775 without to much problems. 

 

I didn't dare to do it. 🙄

I will look forward to your opinion and experience. 😉

[Pfudaniel]

6 minutes ago, MaxxD said:

 

I didn't dare to do it. 🙄

I will look forward to your opinion and experience. 😉

Thanks il be posting as soon i receive the parts! Either way i can microcode to edit the bios if needed. But it shud not be needed :).