Calling all Defiance XS owners! - share your thoughts please

[jaslam]

Hi all,

Just received my Defiance XS yesterday and decided to do some testing to make sure everything was alright.
The build quality is good and overall it's a fine machine, can be summed up and it 4 to words: lightweight packed with power.

Now, alongside that power will come sacrifices, the first thing I noticed were the fans. I've read alot about the P950hr chassis around the interwebs to conclude that the fans kick in very randomly alot of the times. This can be controlled in the clevo control centre but that software is... not a masterpiece to say the least

The main reason why I posted this thread is to ask fellow owners if they're also experiencing heat issues with their machine... especially CPU temps. I'm quite happy with the temps of the MaxQ 1070 as after an hour of gaming it maxed at 80C~.. not ideal, but still acceptable in my opinion.

The i7 7700HQ Cpu on the other hand, I do worry about. In the same hour of playing PUBG, I saw the Cpu spike to up to 94C with automatic fans. This dropped to 89C when the fans were maxed out, but to me it's still a high number.
I tried to run something less demanding, CSGO and I saw similar results, the Cpu still reached 90C.

Is anyone also experiencing the same with their Defiance XS?
I'll post more details when I'm back from work if necessary.

 

[Tony1044]

That is interesting. There've been a few posts on here with new owners saying they're pleased but despite folks like myself and Oussebon asking, no one to date has replied with temps.

I'd be really interested in others' feedback on them too. Packing that much power - even when it's a slightly cut-down/crippled laptop variant into that little space has had me wondering about how the temps would be.

 

[jaslam]

I can post more temps tonight, but meanwhile here's a taster. ..

https://imgur.com/2T1dvR2

 

[relax24]

What bios do you have? Did you pay extra for the thermal paste? Where is your laptop located whilst playing? So many questions

 

[jaslam]

UPDATE: PCSpecialist tech support team has gotten back to me about the temps. I'm going to RMA this back as they've stated that gaming temps shouldn't supposedly go above 85C. I guess I'll provide an update after the RMA process... but if you guys have any questions you can feel free to pop them down.


To answer your questions though:
I'm using my laptop on a flat desk surface, there shouldn't be any major issues with that
Currently running the below BIOS:




I have indeed opted for EK-TIM paste although I haven't heard much/come across it before. You can see my specs below:

Chassis & Display
Defiance Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 120Hz IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 7700HQ (2.8GHz, 3.8GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070 Max-Q - 8.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Hard Disk
NOT REQUIRED
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB SAMSUNG SM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3100MB/R, 1400MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 180W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Thermal Paste
EK-TIM ECTOTHERM THERMAL COMPOUND
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Def. Audio + MIC/Headphone + SoundBlaster X-Fi MB3
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-8265 M.2 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) +BT 4.0
USB Options
3 x USB 3.1 Type A, 2 x USB 3.1 Type C AS STANDARD
Keyboard Language
RGB BACKLIT USA KEYBOARD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
DVD Recovery Media
NO DVD RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs

 

[relax24]

Did this get sorted, and how are your temps now?

 

[STEVIEBOOM]

I also had CPU overheating problems.

 

[relax24]

What temps did you get mate? And did you send it back. As stated in my other post in a diff thread, I contacted them to ask what my cpu temps were during their stress test, and they said 92degrees which is normal. To me that pretty high, but I get it tomorrow so will see.

 

[Oussebon]

92 degrees under gaming load would sound very high to me. 92 degrees max under a torture test is pretty hot, but not necessarily a problem.

 

[relax24]

Ok so quick little update. Received my XS (1070max-q, 1tb hdd, 1tb PM961, ek-tim thermal paste)

Temps out the box on prime95 small FFT tests were that the cpu got to 95 degrees. Nice and toasty! I have now undervolted my cache, core and igpu by -137mv which seems stable enough.

Firestrike:



Crystal disk Mark:



Just played Hitman 2016 on highest settings. Cpu max - 73. Gpu max - 67

My fans are quiet at idle, no odd spinning up for no reason unless there's load. To the guy that had the gradient issues, I see it too on that picture you asked to test, however, ingame, and all other pictures are fine for me.

Initial thoughts are that i really like it, I'm just a tad worried about the CPU temps, but I'll continue to mess around. Also the fingerprint reader is great!

 

[STEVIEBOOM]

It was over 90°, they said that it was too high. I send it back but I had a terrible experience as I only got the laptop back after 2 months. It's a problem with the defiance series and thin laptops in general. GPU well cooled but CPU not. They should start focusing on CPU cooling.

 

[Zfast4y0u]

It was over 90°, they said that it was too high. I send it back but I had a terrible experience as I only got the laptop back after 2 months. It's a problem with the defiance series and thin laptops in general. GPU well cooled but CPU not. They should start focusing on CPU cooling.

yes, a lot of laptop manufacturers focus more on GPU cooling and cut corners on CPU nowdays, thin laptops are best example, in my experience with gaming laptop, i had alienware 18 with 880m sli, fans were pushing hot air away from cards always no matter if in windows or ingames, hot air was coming out (when fans spin), while CPU even running at 65-70 degrees ingames had cold air always for some reason, that laptop had really good cooling for hardware inside, i7 4710mq never hit over 72 degrees under heavy load ingames, once on prime95 i got thermal shutdown as soon i started test xD due to fans lagging behind temperature (need time to react and temp went skyhigh in a second literally)

anyway, each GPU had fan for itself plus 1 fan for cpu and no component were sharing heat pipes with each other. if you give ur laptop a little more space under table for airflow, gpu's would max out on 72-73 max, and on ligher games would hower at 65 or so which was good, fans were at about 3/4 speed and not so loud. i was really happy with those temps, cause when you hit above 75c silicon degrading become a lot more faster, when you cross that mark.

i wanted to buy MSI gt83 with 1080 sli, but after a lot of research and checking i decided its not worth it, laptop was running too damn hot, it had 2 big fans for GPU's but even with that and almost 2 whole radiators for each GPU it didnt help, GPU temps are in mid 80's most of time on max fans (u dont wanna do that in late hours, u might wake up whole building). CPU had one half size fan of the GPU's and it had heat pipes spread left and right to the GPU radiators + 2 little pipes in middle just for CPU, thats too little and fan cant pull it off to cooldown CPU. CPU would hit 90c without problems, if you decide to delid and repaste with liquid metal, i read on 1 forum from user saying it help him to lower temps to 15 degrees. but its liquid metal and i wouldnt mess with that thing too much on such expencive mashine.

if you decide to buy ''gaming'' laptop nowdays, count on high temps. i would advice you to go for clevo/sager laptops, they have a lot of cooling, desktop CPU's, MXM GPU's and other good stuff, BGU ''gaming'' laptops are not worth it imho, they run too hot, if something major die, u can kiss it goodbye, only thing this thin laptops have are looks, like the new one from asus zephyrus, its pretty but only that cause when you open it, you see reality, soldered GPU and CPU, you dont wanna that thing to die, you really dont, but hey after 2 years gaming on 80 degrees, i wouldnt be sure about its long life span.

 

[jaslam]

To those that might've been wondering. I ended up returning this laptop.
Like, STEVIEBOOM 90C+ CPU temps made it very difficult to justify the purchase, especially it'll reach this temp consistently.

PCS had tested on 3 chassis with new heat syncs/pastes etc, and the problem remained... was the chassis itself.