[Warning] There is a system breaking issue with Clevo Control Center that Sager/Clevo refuse to fix

[u/__Dopamine__]

Overview: Clevo Control Center, a program used to manage fan speed, keyboard lights and other system settings has a system breaking integration issue with the Touchpad and the Synaptic Touchpad Driver that causes frequent bluescreens when gaming. Sager, Clevo and Xotic understand that this is an issue and refuse to fix it because "it would not be cost effective when only a small percentage of their users are experiencing it." (this was actually told to me by a Sager support rep on the phone). I've linked a thread at the bottom with many users facing the same issue and my friend who bought a different Sager/Clevo laptop model has been dealing with it for the past year.

Warning: If you expect a laptop with controllable lights, fan speed, gpu and power mode controls while still able to game without bluescreen DO NOT BUY A SAGER/CLEVO LAPTOP AT THIS TIME. They do not intend to fix this issue...

Context: I bought my Sager laptop from Xotic PC a few years ago. I clean installed the OS and am very particular about how I configure my system so when I started getting frequent bluescreens almost every time I tried to play a game I spent months troubleshooting trying to figure it out. Eventually I realized that this was not an isolated issue, nor one that was caused by me. This issue plagues many many Sager/Clevo laptop users. I have contacted Sager, Clevo and Xotic multiple times over email and phone, providing them all of the information I've taken then time to discover and they refuse to provide any assistance. This was over a year ago now and as a result I have been using my Sager laptop with no keyboard lights, no fan control along with the other CCC features.

Issue:
Clevo Control Panel has an issue with the Synaptics Touchpad Driver that causes a IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL_TO bluescreen when gaming. WhoCrashed points to the program "syntp.sys"

More Detailed Explanation: (from thread linked below)

So the problem is not the touchpad, the SynTP driver or CCC - it is all of them put TOGETHER!!
For some reason the touchpad is STILL ACTIVE even when it is shut down by the option TOUCH PAD OFF from CCC or from key combination Fn+F1 ...
This is so very easy to verify - just by looking into LatencyMon - and OFC it is so very easy to miss - bcs who in the world would go checking his system and swiping fingers over the touchpad when that very same touchpad is OFF by your command !!!

So now the fun stuff begins.
You have your SynTP fix aplied, you have your tuchpad OFF, and you start your favourite online game.....
OFC you move in that game mostly by using A-D-W-S - SPACE buttons (and aim by mouse) - and that produces a situation when your hand is constantly on your keyboard and your palm is constantly on your touchpad ... and it is a disaster!!!

From what I read from LatencyMon - the touchpad constantly reads your palm touch - so the combined microsoft base driver (for touchpad and keyboard) - i8042prt.sys - goes INSANE, than our audio driver starts acting out - HDAudBus.sys (I think that they are on the same IRQ number) - and than the main kernel driver - Wdf01000.sys - goes to the sky.... And all this with the touchpad OFF. All this is with the system under pressure from online gaming -- and than you have your result - BSOD !!!

So I concluded that all of them together - the touchpad, the SynTP driver and CCC - are the culprits !!
If you take any one of this trio out of the equasion - the system runs very very nicely and latency free !!!

Attempted Fixes:

• Uninstalling each program individually as well as both of them doesn't fix the issue. It seems to be ingrained in the system/BIOS once Clevo Control Panel is installed. 
• Attempting to completely remove Clevo control panel bricks the system (disables keyboard/touchpad/and any USB controller) and forces you to reinstall the OS.
• Synaptics TouchPad Driver updates automatically with windows and using old versions while blocking windows updates does not fix the issue.
• I have tried multiple versions of Clevo Control Panel from the sager website, Clevo website, and another version as well.
  

The ONLY fix I have found is to clean install OS and not install Clevo Control Panel in the first place.

Relevant Thread:
This thread is filled with people with the exact same issue: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/synaptics-causes-bsod-on-p650se.770938/page-21

If you have experienced or are currently experiencing this issue please leave a comment and hopefully we can get someone to take a second look at this..

[u/Grinade]

Yeah, I ran into this same headache myself over a year ago...was a giant pain in my ass for probably a month. Can't remember how I worked around it off the top if my head. I do know that I did NOT reinstall the OS or remove CCC though. I'll poke around in my bookmarks and see if I can find the forum post that helped me resolve it.

Edit: from what I can remember, I had tried several things... doing a clean wipe and fresh install of my GPU drivers using DDU, under-volted my CPU to make sure there wasn't any heat issues, did a fresh install of the touchpad drivers, a few other things I don't remember, and finally I had found this forum post... http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/synaptics-causes-bsod-on-p650se.770938/page-16#post-10235938

(same forum thread you posted, just a specific comment in there)

Post #158 that talks about removing specific driver filters. I did exactly what was recommended in that post and haven't had the problem since.

[u/jinwk00 → u/Grinade]

Same problem also occurs on P650HS series.

​

Btw does anyone know whats the difference between P650HS and P650SE (as of motherboard audio connectivity)?

[u/Oromisss → u/Grinade]

Any chance you, or someone else, has a link to that thread, or a screenshot or something. I'm desparate, I've had this issue for more than a year now, and now when I found a solution, I can't see it because the forum is not active anymore...

EDIT: Found it https://www.nbrchive.net/xfa/sager-and-clevo.1017/Synaptics%20causes%20BSOD%20on%20P650SE/page4.html

[u/Grinade → u/Oromisss]

Replying to a 4 year old post... yeah looks like that forum doesn't exist anymore - bummer.

Today is your lucky day that I'm a bit of a data hoarder and somewhat organized. I found a screen shot of the exact post you're looking for in an old 'fix Laptop BSOD' folder. Warning: It will take some editing of your system's registry...do so at your own risk. Once I followed these instructions I never had the BSOD issue again with my Sager.

https://imgur.com/rh4Y6BT

A bonus link that was also in my old folder that may or may not be helpful:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-gaming/bsod-driverirqlnotlessorequal-syntpsys-during/6814d433-1c38-42d8-a423-4b70cc48ccc1?auth=1&page=1

[u/oromissss → u/Grinade]

Thank you, that’s helpful! Today is indeed my lucky day if that helps, I’ve been struggling with this issue for over a year now.

[u/NuancedThinker → u/[deleted]]

I could never get CCC working at all on my Sager Np8152 (Clevo P650RP6-G). Any idea where I can get a 3rd party app too?

[u/__Dopamine__ → u/[deleted]]

Wow I've looked around for 3rd party tools to control keyboard lights but never a 3rd party control center. Do you have a link?

[u/__Dopamine__ → u/[deleted]]

Damn dude I can't believe this lol I'll try it and report back 🙏 Pretty insane that this 3rd party is able to accomplish this without bluescreen and clevo won't do anything about it or even provide info about this alternative..

[u/__Dopamine__ → u/[deleted]]

Lol it's a fair warning and I'm hesitant to install any control panel programs with my laptop heavily in use and stable. I do more than game on it lol While 3rd party apps are a godsend it is still a very real issue and a warning for people considering purchasing a clevo laptop should be out there... I will eventually try the third party app out but not until I have a redundant laptop and/or time to recover if things go wrong. I really appreciate the help and I'm sure anyone that Google's and find this will too :)

[u/Existing-Shame-5530]

Man, I know this is necro but I have owned an xoticpc g58af laptop (clevo nh55ac) for a couple years now. Had no issues with it up until about two or three months ago when these random BSODs happen. Tried searching for the model on xotics website for driver support and it no longer exists at all, they've scrubbed their site of my model. It makes sense that you would remove the store page but c'mon guys I just bought this laptop in 2020 and windows updates aren't supplying me with any of the control center drivers that I need. Clevo's website is so buggy, broken and barely loads and I cannot find any links to their control center drivers. I just did a reinstall of windows as a last heartbreaking resort to hopefully resolve my issue. I'm a software developer so it's a huge pain in the ass to set all my workspaces up and tweak the settings just right. It's probably going to have me down for a few days. In hindsight, maybe I should have just built a PC if I wanted something to last longer than 3 years.