Soon to join the PCS fold

R

RType23

Bronze Level Poster
Currently processing.... can't wait for it to arrive:

Chassis & Display
Octane Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790k (4.0GHz) 8MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
32GB KINGSTON HYPER-X IMPACT 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (4 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 980M - 8.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
M.2 SSD Drive
120GB KINGSTON SSDNow M.2 2280, SATA 6Gb/s (550MB/R, 520MB/W)

ASUS™ XONAR-U7 Compact 7.1 USB soundcard and headphone amplifier
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N-7265 M.2 (300Mbps, 802.11BGN) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
4 x USB 3.0 PORTS (1 x POWERED) + 1 e-SATA/USB 3.0 PORT COMBINED

I have a pair of Seagate 1TB 8Gb 64Mb SSHD's to fit too. I have a decent BenQ 24" 1080P external monitor to use when at home, although it's 6 years old its was near £600 new, though probably superseded by now I'm sure. I'll be scoping a 27" or 32" panel in due course.
Cheers all,
Rich
 
R

RType23

Bronze Level Poster
VM environments, although I have pretensions of eventually getting back into music production too. I'd been looking at getting something workstation or laptop for ages and kept procrastinating until I saw my friends PCS 17" i7 32Gb laptop last week, and he sang its praises. I'd have gone 17 too but having had a HP XW workstation previously I crave mobility over screen real estate when I can usually blag a spare monitor from wherever I happen to be working.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
RType23 said:
VM environments, although I have pretensions of eventually getting back into music production too. I'd been looking at getting something workstation or laptop for ages and kept procrastinating until I saw my friends PCS 17" i7 32Gb laptop last week, and he sang its praises. I'd have gone 17 too but having had a HP XW workstation previously I crave mobility over screen real estate when I can usually blag a spare monitor from wherever I happen to be working.
Click to expand...

A colleague of mine has the same build but with the 4790 and 16gb ram and he's bowled over by it, really nice, especially the screen.

On my build I have 24gb ram for vm's, does make all the difference.
 
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S

Spuff

Expert
I made music on a PC for years with 4GB of memory and never needed more. I didn't need to load up big data into software instruments though.
 
R

RType23

Bronze Level Poster
Ahhhh, I get quite nostalgic for Cubase on a 1024ST or Apple LCIII, used to rn like clockwork. I'm currently helping a mate get a studio back together so have pooled our remaining samplers and sound modules and TASCAM DM24 I reconditioned from 2 part working desks. Neither of us had the cash for a decent computer to run soft synths / samplers etc.

I could say how I serviced and SSL desk that still used 8in floppies a good number of years ago that was older than I was, but I'd be showing my age ;)
 
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R

RType23

Bronze Level Poster
So, I've gone for a 2nd 120gb SSD now M2 card. Tried to switch up to expiated build and delivery but the 330w psu's are out of stock. (I'm not cryin' - I have something in my eye)

I also found this forum and wanted to check its the same unit? 780+ pages is far too much to trawl through but I've gleaned some info. I'm keen to fully understand and exploit any spare ports and capacity, but being honest M.2 stuff is all new to me. Nothing I use has it, or at least not on the builds I work on. My assumption is from the forum below is the the two M.2 2280 slots will be occupied by the 120GB ssds, and the M.2 PCIe will be occupied by the wireless / bt card - anyone know if this is correct? Hunting around only storage or a few comms card can use the M.2 standard as yet?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...lounge-welcome-to-the-batcave.767105/page-778

Edit: port miscount I think, 2 M.2 slots and not 3, one of which is pcie compatible.
 
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R

RType23

Bronze Level Poster
Like Elvis, my Octane has left the building..... :)

I've a couple of drives to install when it shows up along with my Win 8.1 / 10 to sort out so will take pics and report back.
 
R

RType23

Bronze Level Poster
14 from order ack to pre-production, day 14-15 in-build, day 15 test, day 16 pack and dispatch, but the 330w PSU's and extra battery were out of stock until day 12, and they forgot to print the build note to hand to the build team two days running. I can forgive them though, past couple of weeks being like they are, just lucky I called to remind them!
 
R

RType23

Bronze Level Poster
Just over £1800, base was £1300 but the add-ons (which made my eyes water) are - uplifted 970m to 980m which also required a 230w to 330w PSU change, 2nd 120Gb M.2 SSD (so dual 120Gb M.2 SSD), Bluray Ext drive and 2nd Octane power pack. I binned an option for an xbox controller as it would have been a further 2 days wait, and I have spare PS3 controllers.

When it arrives I'll be installing 2 x 7mm SSHD 1TB Seagates too.

Accoutring to clevo I can raid 0 the M.2 SSDs (boot / pgm drive of 220ish GB) and raid 1 the SSHD's (data drive 950ish GB) - I'll partition the SSHD's to make a system restore partition of the boot drive.
 
R

RType23

Bronze Level Poster
So, any Octane owners using the 2.5" bays? I've dropped my two SSHD's in but there are no drive sleds or ways to secure the drives other then closing the panel back, which leaves them losish on the sata connector.

any ideas?
 
Stephen M

Stephen M

Author Level
Not sure if this will be any use, the Clevo site: http://www.clevo.com.tw/clevo_down.asp?lang=en

You can get drivers and manuals from there, although not sure the manuals offer much of advice, if any on adding components.

You could also have a look around this site, there is worthwhile stuff on it, this is the link to the Octane review: http://www.notebookcheck.net/One-K73-5N-Clevo-P771ZM-Notebook-Review.135088.0.html

If you decide to email Clevo please let me know their response, I am two weeks into waiting for one.
 
R

RType23

Bronze Level Poster
Yeah - there's a decent enough manual for features, but install stuff there's nix, other than 'here is the drive bay' lol
 
Stephen M

Stephen M

Author Level
I was afraid that would be the case. Unfortunately it is a pretty new machine so we are all having to learn as we go along. If I find anything will post it.
 
R

RType23

Bronze Level Poster
Can't get the thing to boot from USB either, I've tried the bluray I ordered with it and an older Panasonic too......grrrrrr, not even showing in BIOS
 
R

RType23

Bronze Level Poster
So, finally, post job change I have time for a review!

So , build wise I went straight to Win 10 Pro. It runs very slick with only minor hiccups, and my assumption being is still relatively new and will get better. On a handful of occasions its locked up
I've no issue resetting as with sub 10 second boot times it's play, pause, play again. While not used in anger I've had 7 Virtual Box VMs (2012r2, 2008r2, Win7,Win8, Tails, CentOS etc) running with little to no lag. VB is installed on my OS drive and the VM's on a single MX100 SSD, all VM's point to my 1TB SSHD for a shared folder. Gaming wise I've played more Titanfall than is probably reasonable and both nVidia 980 and screen perform well. I really need to invest in a decent external monitor and will be heading over to that section of the forum in a bit for 144hz G-Sync advice.

Like a couple of other people said the screen/ lid feels quite lightweight and flimsy, but this is in contrast to the tank like construction. Second thing is I didn't need the external usb audio as the Octane has optical out on board. My bad for not looking at the spec properly.

Only real bind is the control center software which after a single use falls over. My keyboard was a nice orange colour for a couple of days but has been blue since as I can't be hassled with the software. This isn't a PCS thing, its a manufacturer thing. Fingers crossed for an update.

The drives were easy to install, and should the opportunity to upgrade anything else arise I'd have no issue doing it myself or paying PCS to do it for me.

One question I have is on the bois load it lists 5 device slots, 1 is my 1Tb, 2 is my 256GB, 4 & 5 are my M.2 120GB's - so what and where is slot 3? and can I install anything on it? Q2, there is also a sim card slot in the battery compatment - does anyone know if I can get WLAN on this, and if so how?

Bottom line, would I buy from PCS again? Yes.
 
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