Recoil Issues

[rand526]

Hi Everyone

So I have just received my new laptop - specs below...

Chassis & Display
Recoil Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 8750H (2.2GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo)

Get Total War: Three Kingdoms & More w/ select Intel CPUs!
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2060 - 6.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB WD Black™ SN750 M.2 NVMe SSD (up to 3470MB/s R | 3000MB/s W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 3 in 1 Card Reader (SD / SDHC / SDXC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 180W AC Adaptor
Battery
Recoil II Series 46WH Lithium Ion Battery
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf European Power Cable
Thermal Paste
COOLER MASTER MASTERGEL MAKER THERMAL COMPOUND
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-9260 M.2 (1.73Gbps, 802.11AC) +BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x USB 3.1 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.1 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Keyboard Language
PER-KEY RGB BACKLIT UK MECHANICAL KEYBOARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days


I ordered on Tuesday and received on Friday morning - nice and quick. First impressions - not bad, nice sleek design and the keyboard is not as bad as i feared it might be. A couple of immediate issues however, and was wondering what people thought I should do. I've spent a little time installing various benchmark and performance monitoring software to do a little immediate testing. I was worried about potential thermal issues which is why i sacrificed a more powerful setup for a 8750h cpu and a 2060 gpu as i thought these may be a little more controllable and I could therefore avoid throttling.

First test was with Cinebench. Results below:

The score was okay, but was a bit worried about the max temps achieved during the test - up in the nineties is a bit worrying for me out of the box.

I then downloaded 3d mark and tried running that, but I'm getting crashes of various types consistently with this. Time spy crashes out during the first test and firestrike crashes during the second. Im also getting a lot of visual artefacts whilst the program is running, which led me to think there is a driver issue. I first used Geforce Experience to install the latest drivers for the rtx 2060 but when i was getting the crashes i installed the older 430.86 drivers which didn't make any difference. I have reinstalled 3d mark a couple of times but cant get to a stage where i can run a complete test.

I want to get past this so i can start stressing the cpu and gpu to ascertain what the actual thermal performance is. Also, can someone point me in the direction of a good method of setting up my fan profiles - not sure they are kicking in at the right times, but don't really know how to check this.

I have HWMonitor, Cinebench and 3d Mark installed. I also have the Gaming Centre from my PCS downloads and MSI Afterburner, but these both seem a bit crap although I don't really know what I'm supposed to do with them.

Any suggestions much appreciated.

 

[rand526]

okay, after a refresh of the graphic drivers, i finally managed to get some proper benchmarks done.

3d mark Skydiver

3d Mark Fire Strike

3D Mark Time Pilot

A quick blast in Aida64 Extreme

As you can see, the cpu max temps are a bit eye watering in places. Also, I am manually hitting the fan boost when running the tests. Although the fans are kicking in, they don't seem to want to automatically boost to the speeds you get when you hit the button. Any pointers about fan profiling much appreciated.

I don't have a cooling pad (yet) but i do have the recoil propped up to ensure airflow underneath the chassis. Are these temps acceptable in people's opinions? Are there other things i could be doing to test things further....?

 

[rand526]

A quick update. Managed to use throttlestop to undervolt the CPU core and cache by -140mV and the Intel GPU by -50mV. This led to a better score in Timespy and lower, more manageable max CPU temps. Results below:

I'm thinking mid-80s is fairly reasonable. I am going to get a cooling pad in the next few days and hopefully bring it down a bit further. Still unsure about fan profiles though. MSI Afterburner doesn't support fan adjustments on this laptop and i couldn't find anything in BIOS so still wondering about best way to proceed with this aspect.

 

[Oussebon]

I'm not sure you should have to undervolt to avoid getting ~100 degree temps in the Recoil. Certainly the Recoil II was very good at managing temps and I can't see how Tongfang could have broken the cooling altogether with a relatively minor refresh...

 

[rand526]

Thanks for the reply. So there's something up with the system? Bad paste job? It does seem to be the same cores peaking out each time. I just ran cinebench again to test with the undervolt:

Still running pretty hot. I really don't want to repaste, nor do I think I should have to on a £1500 purchase. Any advice on next steps much appreciated.

I saw the other thread with the guy with the 9750h and the 2070 having a similar set of issues. I thought going for the older chip and lesser card might make things more manageable but it appears not. I also saw the PCS replies intimating that these kind of temps are just "what to expect". My CPU and GPU are not even the most powerful to be in this chassis so I am thinking along the lines of a RMA.

 

[Oussebon]

I saw the other thread with the guy with the 9750h and the 2070 having a similar set of issues. I thought going for the older chip and lesser card might make things more manageable but it appears not. I also saw the PCS replies intimating that these kind of temps are just "what to expect"

If it's this thread:

RECOIL III - i7-9750h & 2070 RTX : Temps problem

The frequencies are normally lowered before the point at which we usually think of thermal throttling (i.e. hitting 100 degrees and nerfing frequencies to prevent damage). As Kitguru put it: Starting with the CPU, a peak of just 81C is a top result, and that is only furthered by the fact that...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

Then those are my views on that...

I don't know if it's a bad paste job, a bad fan profile, a defect on your specific unit, or Tongfang somehow breaking the cooling in a minor refresh.

For all I know a new version of the BIOS or the Gaming Centre software stops the chips from throttling down to 3.something GHz as they used to under heavy load.

Whatever the cause, it does strike me as extremely odd that a laptop which for so long was praised on these forums and through independent hardware reviewers as being effective at managing thermals now is not in an apparently increasing handful of instances...

 

[rand526]

I appreciate your comments. I think I'll spend the weekend conducting further tests and then phone PCS first thing Monday and see what they think about it.

 

[rand526]

Another update in my quest to tame the thermals on this build.

I received some advice about the following:

On throttlestop when you press the tpl button next to fvir you can set the tdp draw. Mine was pulling 70w on hw monitor which is pretty high considering the cpu.. I set the short term boost to 40w and the long term boost to 35w and that curbed my temperatures massively. Results below:

Time Spy

Cinebench

Aida64

A little drop off in performance, but much much better results regarding thermals. I think there is still some tweaking to be done to achieve the best performance/temps balance - i notice that I'm not always achieving the best processor speeds, but at least I'm not melting them either.

 

[Oussebon]

The thing is, what you're doing is running the CPU below spec in order to manage thermals. Which isn't something I'd consider okay, since you paid for the hardware on the basis that it could operate at whatever defaults Intel, Tongfang, and PCS had it set to (though PCS don't normally change the BIOS from Tongfang afaik)

 

[rand526]

Oussebon

I agree entirely. I am still ringing PCS tomorrow to speak to them about whether they feel these temps are acceptable with this setup. However, I wanted to post this solution for anyone else who may be experiencing these type of issues and are maybe outside of their warranty period. Surely not running at 100 degrees is better than achieving maximum performance.

This said, I bought a rig with a certain spec and expect it to perform to this spec. Whilst good value, these are not exactly cheap pieces of gear.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Oussebon

I agree entirely. I am still ringing PCS tomorrow to speak to them about whether they feel these temps are acceptable with this setup. However, I wanted to post this solution for anyone else who may be experiencing these type of issues and are maybe outside of their warranty period. Surely not running at 100 degrees is better than achieving maximum performance.

This said, I bought a rig with a certain spec and expect it to perform to this spec. Whilst good value, these are not exactly cheap pieces of gear.

Any laptop chassis with laptop cpus, I’m not talking ultrabooks or anything, but any normal laptop, should NEVER reach thermal throttling. Even on the latest 9the gen parts. What you’re doing is nerfing the chip heavily to be able to use the laptop safely. It’s like buying a Ferrari and sticking a limiter on it to max out at 30 because you live in the city, it’s nuts.

IMHO, it’s totally unacceptable and especially on that chassis (going by its predecessor). If it is the case that in the refresh they’ve changed the design of the thermal management and it doesn’t meet targets anymore then the chassis needs to be recalled.

 

[rand526]

Spydertracks

Thanks for the response.

I agree with your sentiment and will be posing these questions to PCS tomorrow. Ill see what they think the underlying issues are. If they take the line that this is just what you should expect with a slim chassis, ill be returning it straight away (only got it on Friday), and looking at spending a bit more on a tower build which really meets the expectations of what i need. I had already reduced my spec down to the bare bones to try and get something which gave decent CPU, GPU and thermal performance but with good portability. It currently doesn't feel like this is realistic with the current generation of intel mobile CPU's (have to say the thermal performance of the 2060 seemed fine). With a bit more time spent, I'm kinda hating the keyboard too - lots of imprecision and constant random trackpad movements when typing - almost unbearable after using a macbook for the past year.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Spydertracks

Thanks for the response.

I agree with your sentiment and will be posing these questions to PCS tomorrow. Ill see what they think the underlying issues are. If they take the line that this is just what you should expect with a slim chassis, ill be returning it straight away (only got it on Friday), and looking at spending a bit more on a tower build which really meets the expectations of what i need. I had already reduced my spec down to the bare bones to try and get something which gave decent CPU, GPU and thermal performance but with good portability. It currently doesn't feel like this is realistic with the current generation of intel mobile CPU's (have to say the thermal performance of the 2060 seemed fine). With a bit more time spent, I'm kinda hating the keyboard too - lots of imprecision and constant random trackpad movements when typing - almost unbearable after using a macbook for the past year.

If you can wait, literally a few months, AMD mobile chips are slowly making their way into laptops and thermals and performance is looking very promising. This isn't even their upcoming 3000 series CPU's, when they're released I think it's bye bye Intel in the mobile space, Intel chips just aren't able to be cooled effectively anymore, they're not fit for purpose imho.