Optimus V: From Purchase to First use and Beyond

[acffordyce973]

After being told about PCSpecialist in January I have been lurking the forums and reading reviews from a lot of customers. The support that I have seen is absolutely brilliant with members helping members to solve any issues they have. During one of the weekly LAN Gaming parties I attend I was getting fed up with the lack of performance and overheating issues from my laptop. At 02:47 AM (yes, AM) I hit the purchase button for my first PCS computer, the Optimus V:

Chassis & Display
Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4700MQ (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 4GB)
8GB Samsung 1600MHz DDR3 (1 x 8GB) - RAM, somehow, became incompatible after sending it in for repair. I was offered this instead.
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 765M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
250GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1202 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
Optimus Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Keyboard & Mouse
OPTIMUS SERIES UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 7 to 9 working days
Total Order Price
£778.00

I needed something that would be able to play any game I chucked at it and also be able to do all the other things I like to do such as web browsing and multimedia without breaking the bank. At £778 it was a real bargain. From lurking in the forums I found out that people were having issues with the Intel Wireless Cards so I decided to order one of the Killer cards instead. The 250 GB HDD was ordered because I already have a Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Hybrid Drive which I installed. I also have access to MSDN (now Dreamspark) so I got a Windows 8 license from there.

Three days in to Pre-Production I started to wonder if PCS could install the HDD to the second slot since the hybrid will be going into the first slot. I also wondered if they could install Ubuntu 12.04 onto this drive. I connected through the online chat service to Wayne, a sales advisor. When I saw "Sales Advisor" under his name I thought he would tell me to connect to some other department since my order was already placed. I thought wrong. He was very friendly and asked me how he could help. I asked for the HDD and he said it was no problem but they couldn't install Ubuntu onto the drive. I have to admit I was a bit annoyed as it's fairly simple to install Ubuntu but I just shrugged it off and prepared my pen drive for the laptop arrival. After disconnecting from chat I refreshed my order page and there was the change I requested.

On the eight day of pre-production I got a little impatient and posted in on the forums asking if eight days was normal. I got a reply on the forums and at the same time I got an email stating that my order had been built and was going into Testing. I had been reading that PCS had a large number of orders that were placed at a similar time as mine so this held up my build. At this point I'd like to say thanks to moosEh for answering my questions on the forums and thanks to Ben W for building my laptop.

So, my laptop managed to stay built from the morning on the eight day, through the ninth day (through a weekend) and into the tenth working day. On the tenth working day my Laptop entered the testing stage and only stayed like this until the next day, where I got an email at 8AM saying it was awaiting dispatch. It was Tested by Ben A and QC'ed by Carl, so thanks to them as well. Awaiting dispatch on the eleventh day, changed to dispatch on the same day and DPD had my Laptop. When I received the email saying that it was dispatched, I also got a very unexpected text message from PCS which also said that it had been dispatched and this included the tracking number. If I was out at the time this would have been very useful for tracking via mobile internet. A thanks to Liam for packing it.

The delivery was quick and painless. DPD gave me a text when they received the Laptop at their sortation hub stating that it would be delivered the next day and I would be given a time slot in the morning of that day. At 7:24AM it reached my local hub but by 11:30AM I still had not received any time slot information and looking at the tracking information it told me that it was still waiting to be sent out. At 12 I received an email saying it would be delivered between 14:21 and 15:21. I live about 5 minutes away from the depot and I had to leave for work at 4PM so luckily it arrived at around 2:40PM which gave me enough time to get it up and running with Windows 8.

I'll apologise for the blurry pictures, my hands are fairly shaky.

The Laptop was packed in a big box that I thought was a Desktop instead. The box had another, smaller box in it which was padded with polystyrene to stop it moving.

The Laptop itself was even further padded including a thin plastic sheet that protected both sides of the screen and the usual sticky plastic bits covering the frame. I must say that I was very impressed with how the Laptop was packaged. There was no room for it to move about so I was sure that it would not have been damaged in transit.

Taking the Laptop out of the box I was amazed at how light it was considering it is a little bit more chunky than the laptop it was replacing. Of course I then realised that the battery wasn't connected and thought that it would then become heavy. With the battery connected I compared it to my old Laptop and surprisingly it still felt lighter. I know that there are some people out there that like to have a good looking laptop but I really couldn't care. All I care about is high quality components. The Laptop is unbranded unless you count the ONKYO text on the palm rest. It wouldn't pass any awards in the looks department but it's not bad either.


I plugged in the power adapter and switched on the Laptop. The first thing that greeted me was a very weird boot logo.

This stayed for a couple of seconds before it logged me into the test version of Windows 8 that was installed. At this point I just had to stop and look at the screen. The quality of the default background looked amazing and the amount of space on the screen was brilliant.

Next Post is Part 2.

 

[acffordyce973]

Knowing that the laptop was working it was time to switch off, unplug and remove the battery to install my HDD. Opening up the main HDD bay was as simple as taking off one screw. I would recommend a magnetic screwdriver though as you would probably have to turn the laptop upside down to get the screw out. To open the bay all I needed to do was slide it towards the end of the laptop. Unfortunately, and to my surprise the first HDD bay had the hard drive I asked to be installed in the second bay. I wasn't annoyed for long as I quickly noticed that instead of a 250 GB HDD I was actually given a 320 GB one.


I opened the main compartment and removed the HDD from the first slot. There were no screws to remove as it just simply slides off the connector and then lifts up. Trying to install the HDD into the second slot was slightly harder.

There was a weird black cable that connected to the motherboard right next to the bay. This cable got in the way of the HDD but I managed to move it slightly and get the HDD installed.

With both HDDs installed it was time to get Windows and Ubuntu installed. Trying to get the Laptop to boot from the CD was a pain. Reading the manual it says to constantly hit the F8 key but this wasn't working. Spamming the Del key eventually got me into the BIOS where I had to disable "Boot Option 1". Upon restart it allowed me to press any key to continue for Windows 8 install. Windows 8 installed without a hitch and I restarted with my USB connected to install Ubuntu. Into the BIOS again, this time to make sure that the USB was boot option 1. Ubuntu installed onto the second drive also without a hitch but neither of the OS's had the option for the other in the boot loader. By this time I needed to head out for work so I would have to deal with it later.

So with both OS's installed (although the boot loader wasn't set up right) I began to set up Windows. The driver disk included had all drivers but one; the Killer card. Windows wouldn't even install a driver so I had no internet until I went to another computer and copied it over. I still haven't got around to fully setting up Ubuntu with Bumblebee for Optimus and whatnot. I plan to do this at a later date.

With everything working it was time to test everything and see how much I liked it.
I can't say I like the trackpad. It has a rough feeling which makes it hard to move my fingers across to move the mouse. Changing the settings made it a little better but I will just continue to use a USB mouse.
I do like the style of the keyboard and the spacing between the keys. The keyboards I have had before all had gaps which allowed everything to get under the keys. With this keyboard there are no gaps and the spacing between the keys is just right. I feel like I could type an essay on this easily. It didn't take long to get used to typing on it as well.
As I said earlier the screen quality is brilliant. Colours look good and I can't see any individual pixels unlike the Laptop I had before. The 1080p resolution also allows me to have multiple windows open at once without each window being blocked by the other.

Onto the sound now. On their own the speakers are... rubbish.
It's not that the audio quality is bad it's because you can barely hear anything. With my Sony MDR-V6 headphones it was the same. The audio from the built in card isn't the loudest. I installed the sound blaster cinema software and after finding out I could change it to headphones it made one huge difference. The sound through the headphones is now hearable and I can say the same for the speakers. They are loud enough to hear when you are close but from the other side of the room they still aren't the best. Another thing with the audio is a constant hissing sound when the headphones are plugged in. When not listening to anything it can become quite annoying.

Having three USB ports + one combo port is very helpful. All pervious laptops I've used had only three ports. With the addition of the combo port I can now connect an extra device which has always been something I wanted. Most of the ports are kept to the right of the laptop with only the sound jacks and one USB to the left. I will rarely use the Optical drive so having it against the wall is no problem for me. Having the power jack around the back is actually quite useful. It keeps the the longest and thickest wire out of the way.

I had a few issues with the operating system and the components. The Dedicated GPU light would stay on constantly meaning that it was constantly running. I managed to track it down to the speedfan software and after closing that it switched to the integrated graphics. The Killer card was also giving me some issues. Every now and then it would just randomly drop the connection. The Network Manager software showed that the connection signal dropped right down to 0%. Going into device manager and disabling the power saving setting fixed this.

I will also note at this point a fan issue which some might find annoying. The fan will randomly come on even while idling at 100% for a few seconds then go off only to come on again at 100% every 15 minutes or so. When the fan comes on full you could easily mistake it for a jet taking off (well, not that loud but you get the point). While gaming, some games, even the most basic will put the fan to 100% and this will stay on for about 15 minutes after the game is closed. It would be better if the fans slowly got faster or at least had some more speed options instead of just off or 100%.


I bought this Laptop for gaming so its only fair that I share some gaming performance. The drivers that came with it are version 311.27 which means that its missing some optimisations for the games that I played. To get the FPS and temps I was using MSI On-Screen Display while gaming. Do note that I have this laptop on top of my Coolermaster Notepal V3 with the fans on it set to maximum. I would recommend a cooler pad to anyone that games on a Laptop anyway.

The first game I tried is probably a game that any gaming computer can easily max out; Team Fortress 2. With all settings set to as high as they can go and vsync on it never dropped below 60 FPS. The temps also never got higher than 55C and this was after an hour of playing. The fan did come on full a few times but only for a few seconds.

I gave Remember Me a try on maximum settings with vsync on again. This game was very tough on the card but still alright in terms of FPS. Most of the time it would stay around 28-31 FPS but in some places it would drop to as low as 20 FPS and others 24 FPS. Hopefully with newer drivers this game will run better. The temps went up to 66 C but never got any higher and this was after about 2 hours of gaming.

I just had to try the new Need For Speed Most Wanted on the highest settings, again with vsync. The FPS never dropped below 60 and the temps stayed at 59 C.

Onto Skyrim now. With it set to the Ultra High preset and with the high definition texture pack the FPS was jumping between 25 and around 45 when outside and a constant 60 fps when inside. The GPU temp never went any higher than 62 C. Skyrim looked amazing at those settings.

After that came a game of Black Ops 2 Zombies on the Nuketown map. Again, with all settings at maximum and vsync on the lowest the FPS went to was 54. All other times it was constant at 60 FPS. We played the map a few times after we kept dying but the temps never went higher than 62 C.

If you are into older games then Saints Row 2, Call of Duty World at War and Red Alert 3 can be maxed out easily. If you want really old then you will be happy to know Red Alert 2 works nicely.

Final conclusion:
Although I got a little impatient, I can say for sure that when you order from PCS they will do their utmost to deliver top service and a top laptop. The laptop itself is a nicely priced beast. It won't win any awards in the looks department but it certainly will with performance. It managed to max out all games I played while keeping temperatures as low as possible. The only bad thing I can mention is the audio which can be solved slightly with the provided software.


Update:
Something messed up after I done a BIOS update which should have fixed the fan issue. I had to send the Laptop back for an RMA. It took three phone calls to eventually get it sent away. The first call I was told to put in the request myself but was declined. I then phoned them again and was told to downgrade the BIOS. The next day I had to phone them for the third time and they put in the RMA for me.
It was picked up on the Friday but didn't get to PCS until the Tuesday. On the Tuesday I was given a phone call telling me that my RAM, somehow, became incompatible. I was given three options; take one stick of Samsung 8GB 1600 Mhz, wait a month for 2 x 4GB sticks or wait an unknown amount of time for a fix. I took the one stick and the Laptop was back with me the next day.

 

[keynes]

Nice review

 

[acffordyce973]

Some more images:






If anybody has any questions or wants to know something then don't hold back.

 

[keynes]

If anybody has any questions or wants to know something then don't hold back.

How is the sound with headphones?

 

[acffordyce973]

How is the sound with headphones?

Without the Sound Blaster Cinema software the sound is rubbish. The sound is very quiet. I had the audio turned up full on several Youtube videos and still could barely hear it. The quality of the sound was alright though.
After messing about with the software it's a lot better. I now have the volume to about 75% since any more than that is too loud.
This setting and changing it to headphones is the one that made a difference:

 

[pedrojardim]

hey acffordyce, nice review and pics arent bad, hd even compared to some ive seen here haha

you said the fans run at 100% and ive seen other people complaining about it but are they really loud? like, if you are on call in skype would the sound from them be annoying to the other person?

and how is the computer doing? notice anything that makes him go slower or had any problems yet?

 

[acffordyce973]

you said the fans run at 100% and ive seen other people complaining about it but are they really loud? like, if you are on call in skype would the sound from them be annoying to the other person?

When it decides to go on full it can be a bit on the loud side. Without the audio software the fan does get in the way of the sound. I was actually using Steam voice chat while playing Killing Floor earlier and some people did complain about a weird background noise that sounded like a fan. It didn't bother them though.
I just started up Remember me and changed it so I could listen to the mic through the computer. I did hear the fan slightly.
When not playing a game it only happens every 15 minutes or so and only for a few seconds when it wants to cool itself down quickly. I suppose how annoying it would be depends on the person.

and how is the computer doing? notice anything that makes him go slower or had any problems yet?

The only thing that is still bothering me is the Wireless. It just randomly loses its connection but I think that's a Windows 8 problem. It's playing everything I throw at it with maxed out settings (I should try Crysis 3) and managing to keep cool (with the fan on full).

 

[PCS]

Nice review, +rep. We have added your review to the configurator section on our website.

 

[pedrojardim]

hey how long does the battery last?

 

[acffordyce973]

hey how long does the battery last?

I tried it on battery a few days ago and just managed under 5 hours while doing some web browsing and word documents. I will rarely use it on battery though, I never bought it for that.

 

[crispwc]

Going back to the fan noise, is it really that intrusive?

Also, I am hoping to play the Total War games, Company of Heroes and Star Craft 2, have you played these on there yet or anything equivalent?

 

[acffordyce973]

Going back to the fan noise, is it really that intrusive?

It's about half as noisy as a hair dryer. I currently have the audio coming out of the speakers and it's slightly getting in the way of the audio but not much.

Also, I am hoping to play the Total War games, Company of Heroes and Star Craft 2, have you played these on there yet or anything equivalent?

I just gave Shogun 2 a shot on the Very High preset in a custom match. Two vs Two with the max amount of units on a siege. It didn't handle it too well. Away from the battle the FPS was around 35 but in the centre of it the FPS got as low as 9.
With a normal amount of units the FPS was around 25. As long as you don't plan on going overboard then it's fine.

I have the first Company of Heroes but I don't have the second and probably don't plan on getting it.

 

[tsukeyomi]

Hi,
thanks for the insightful review. I have a few questions:

1) Have you already tried Metro Last Light? Please let me know the performance with that game.

2) Do you advise to choose the Intel Wireless card? I read that you're having problems with Wi-Fi dropping randomly... Does that happens with Linux too?

3) Is the sound really rubbish? I'd need a quality sound since I use good headphones, do you advise to get an external sound card?

4) What about the fan? Did you fix the problem?

5) Overall, are the pieces of this PC replaceable? Can you easily find parts such as fan, battery, cables and so on?

Thanks, I'm eagerly waiting for replies to my questions.

 

[acffordyce973]

1) Have you already tried Metro Last Light? Please let me know the performance with that game.

I haven't tried the new Metro game as I don't have it and probably don't plan on buying it. I would advise you to check the Game Benchmarks at the bottom of this page: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-765M.92907.0.html.

2) Do you advise to choose the Intel Wireless card? I read that you're having problems with Wi-Fi dropping randomly... Does that happens with Linux too?

The Wi-Fi issue was Windows 8 randomly trying to put it to sleep while I was using it to save power. I went into the Device Manager and unchecked the setting to allow the device to be switched off. It has been working brilliantly since then.
I've had no issues with Ubuntu 12.04.

3) Is the sound really rubbish? I'd need a quality sound since I use good headphones, do you advise to get an external sound card?

I have Sony MDR-V6 headphones and as long as you can get the Sound Blaster Cinema software working the sound is adequate. If you are one of these people that need the best then I'd suggest an external sound card.

4) What about the fan? Did you fix the problem?

The fix has to come from the company that makes the Chassis, Clevo. It hasn't been released yet but PCS will be sending out the update once it's available.

5) Overall, are the pieces of this PC replaceable? Can you easily find parts such as fan, battery, cables and so on?

You can't really replace stuff in a Laptop unless it's the HDDs or RAM. The battery is available from PCS. You can get access to the fan in the main compartment but I doubt you can replace it yourself.

 

[rav007]

Looks as though you have had this for well over a month now, anything major probably would have occurred by now. All I want to know is do you have any regrets or is it all good? I am pretty much in love with this beast of a laptop and I will buy it in the next month based on your review alone it seems it has improved significantly enough from the optimus iv with an almost negligible price difference.

My desired spec is slightly less than yours as I will just go for the basic intel card and if issues persist probably get a better one off ebay. The best thing is that there are 2 hdd bays without compromising the optical drive. I would have gone for the vortex but it only has 1 drive. I also like how there are 2 mini card slots too, they offer msata but Im more intrigued about fitting a 3g mini card in there if mobile broadband becomes more reasonable in price in the future.

 

[acffordyce973]

Looks as though you have had this for well over a month now, anything major probably would have occurred by now. All I want to know is do you have any regrets or is it all good?

There was one major issue with it that involved it being sent back to PCS for an RMA. The graphics card needed to be replaced and the Kingston RAM I originally had somehow became incompatible.

As for regrets, I can't say I have any. It's been able to do what I expected and more. I no longer have to put the games on low or have to exit out when the temps are too high.

I use the main drive for Windows and the Second drive for Ubuntu. It's useful having it that way since I don't have to fight with Windows 8 and another OS on the same drive.

Just take note of the fan issue and maybe wait a bit if you can for the update before buying. If you can't wait, like me, then go for it!

 

[rav007]

Just take note of the fan issue and maybe wait a bit if you can for the update before buying. If you can't wait, like me, then go for it!

I anticipated this to be a problem given theres 1 fan for 2 pretty epic components, but I have a Toshiba at the moment with a similar issue. Also the sound quality on my laptop is poor so I bought a logitech z205 sound bar from amazon for 20 quid a few months ago which I can honestly say is the best intermediate solution to decent speakers and portability all in one, they are usb power/output too. I hope Clevo do sort out the fan issue, or we find another software that allows better fan control.

 

[celtic1597]

Hoping to buy this laptop soon and i was wondering about which wireless card you would recommend also how well does shogun 2 run on high settings. great review btw

 

[acffordyce973]

Hoping to buy this laptop soon and i was wondering about which wireless card you would recommend also how well does shogun 2 run on high settings. great review btw

I'd recommend the Killer card if you play MMO games as the software definitely makes a difference.
Shogun 2 runs nicely on the High Preset. See a few posts above for when I tried it on Very High. Close in it didn't run well.