15.6" Recoil

Rairun

Bronze Level Poster
I've recently received my new laptop with the following specs:

Chassis & Display
Recoil Series: 15.6" Matte QHD 165Hz sRGB 100% LED Widescreen (2560x1440)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen™ 9 Eight Core Processor 5900HX (3.3GHz, 4.6GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair 2933MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 3070 - 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB INTEL® 670p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3500MB/sR | 2500MB/sW)]
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB INTEL® 670p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3500MB/sR | 2700MB/sW)]
Memory Card Reader
Integrated SD Memory Card Reader
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Battery
Recoil Series Integrated 94WH Lithium Ion Battery
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless Network Card
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ Wi-Fi 6 AX1650 M.2 GAMING + BLUETOOTH 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x USB 3.2 PORT (Type C) + 3 x USB 3.2 PORTS
Keyboard Language
PER-KEY RGB BACKLIT PORTUGUESE MECHANICAL KEYBOARD
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
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 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 12 to 14 working days
Promotional Item
Get 6 Months Founders Membership to GeForce Now w/ select RTX 30 Series Laptops
Welcome Book
PCSpecialist Welcome Book - United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland

First I'd like to say that I do not regret buying this laptop at all. It works wonderfully with anything I throw at it. Video and photo processing, games, etc - everything works perfectly so far. It is exactly what I needed and expected in terms of performance. Thermals are good too (GPU always runs cool; CPU needs a bit of Control Centre tinkering when playing games).

That being said, the negative:

I previously had a 15.6" Vortex from 2014, which I thoroughly enjoyed using. Compared to the Vortex, the Recoil has a really nice chassis (the Vortex was made of hard plastic - tough but a bit ugly). The screen looks great as well. There are only two things I think the Vortex did better: the keyboard and the webcam. The Recoil keyboard is sadly just not very good. It's a mechanical keyboard, but the keys are a bit wobbly and just don't feel as nice; also, sometimes you feel the feedback from the key, but the key press only registers if you press it a tiny little bit further, which every now and then results in typos. Re: the camera, it's just worse. Lower resolution, blurry image at the best of times but specially in the dark, seems to have a little bit of a delay, longer than I'm used to.

When you double tap the top left corner of the touchpad, you disable it, which is very useful - what is not useful is that it indicates it's off by turning a little light on. This would be good except this light is VERY bright! Annoyingly so. It's much brighter than the keyboard LEDs. I circumvent this by always leaving the touchpad on (i.e. light off) and telling Windows not to use the touchpad while a mouse is connected. On a related note: the touchpad is very good! Miles ahead of the Vortex touchpad.

If this matters to you, the power brick is a bit heavier than the Vortex's, and the cables are thicker. The laptop itself is lighter, though.

PCSpecialist also sent me the laptop without configuring the audio properly. There was no audio at all at first (both the Realtek and the THX drivers were installed, but they were not "talking" to each other). When I reinstalled them, the Realtek device then started talking to THX and was able to be configured via its utility. I really disliked the THX utiliy though, for one important reason: it automatically detects whether you are using speakers or headphones and applies different profiles to them. This wouldn't be so bad if the speakers profile didn't apply a lowpass filter to the audio, with no way to turn this off! It literally greyed out the EQ sliders under 200 Hz or so. This is not because the speakers can't handle it: after I uninstalled THX and left only the Realtek drivers, the speakers (which sound pretty good for a laptop, btw!) instantly sounded fuller. It's a shame that by doing this I'm missing out on the other THX features, but I don't really need them.

Finally, I've been having trouble with sleep mode. 90% of the time, the laptop freezes after waking up from sleep mode, and the severity of the freeze depends on how long it's been asleep for. If it goes to sleep for just a couple of seconds, it usually comes back without issues. If it goes to sleep for 30-60 seconds, when it comes back I can move the cursor around, but I can't click anything (and then I get a BSOD after about 20 seconds). If it goes to sleep for 60+ seconds, then the screen turns on but remains black, and then after about 20 seconds it simply restarts (no BSOD). I have not yet been able to fix this. The BSOD flashes on the screen for a split of second, and the event logs say Windows failed at creating a memory dump.

I actually need some advice here: I don't care about sleep mode (setting windows to only turn off the screen is fine). Since everything else seems to be working perfectly, would you advise against turning sleep mode off and forgetting about it? I don't care if it doesn't work, I just don't want to ignore possible hardware problems that might get worse down the road.
 

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Last edited:

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Finally, I've been having trouble with sleep mode. 90% of the time, the laptop freezes after waking up from sleep mode, and the severity of the freeze depends on how long it's been asleep for. If it goes to sleep for just a couple of seconds, it usually comes back without issues. If it goes to sleep for 30-60 seconds, when it comes back I can move the cursor around, but I can't click anything (and then I get a BSOD after about 20 seconds). If it goes to sleep for 60+ seconds, then the screen turns on but remains black, and then after about 20 seconds it simply restarts (no BSOD). I have not yet been able to fix this. The BSOD flashes on the screen for a split of second, and the event logs say Windows failed at creating a memory dump.
Try turning Fast Startup off.
 

Rairun

Bronze Level Poster
Try turning Fast Startup off.
Thank you! This does seem to have improved it a lot - out of 5 times it went to sleep, it only froze once. The one time it froze was when I left it asleep for longer (about 3 minutes), but even then it did wake up (I could move the cursor, see my background and desktop icons, but couldn't click anything). Then after about 20 seconds, BSOD. So this is an improvement, but still not reliable enough to use.
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Thank you! This does seem to have improved it a lot - out of 5 times it went to sleep, it only froze once. The one time it froze was when I left it asleep for longer (about 3 minutes), but even then it did wake up (I could move the cursor, see my background and desktop icons, but couldn't click anything). Then after about 20 seconds, BSOD. So this is an improvement, but still not reliable enough to use.
If you've had a BSOD does the file C:\Windows\Memory.dmp exist? If so check that the date and time is related to your BSOD and if so, upload the dump to the cloud with a link to it here.
 

Rairun

Bronze Level Poster
If you've had a BSOD does the file C:\Windows\Memory.dmp exist? If so check that the date and time is related to your BSOD and if so, upload the dump to the cloud with a link to it here.

The memory dump file exists, but it's from 2 days ago - I think is related to the time I accidentally disconnected an external hard drive. No minidumps from the last couple of days either. I think these are the relevant event logs, sorted from newer to older.

LevelDate and TimeSourceEvent IDTask Category
Critical
10/06/2021 16:27​
Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
41​
-63​
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
Information
10/06/2021 16:27​
Microsoft-Windows-FilterManager
6​
NoneFile System Filter 'npsvctrig' (10.0, ‎2025‎-‎01‎-‎06T03:41:12.000000000Z) has successfully loaded and registered with Filter Manager.
Information
10/06/2021 16:27​
Microsoft-Windows-FilterManager
6​
NoneFile System Filter 'FileCrypt' (10.0, ‎2002‎-‎03‎-‎01T12:12:42.000000000Z) has successfully loaded and registered with Filter Manager.
Error
10/06/2021 16:27​
volmgr
161​
NoneDump file creation failed due to error during dump creation.
Information
10/06/2021 16:27​
Microsoft-Windows-Ntfs
98​
NoneVolume C: (\Device\HarddiskVolume4) is healthy. No action is needed.
Information
10/06/2021 16:27​
Microsoft-Windows-FilterManager
6​
NoneFile System Filter 'WdFilter' (10.0, ‎2028‎-‎08‎-‎11T17:16:59.000000000Z) has successfully loaded and registered with Filter Manager.
Information
10/06/2021 16:27​
Microsoft-Windows-FilterManager
6​
NoneFile System Filter 'Wof' (10.0, ‎2024‎-‎08‎-‎23T15:35:41.000000000Z) has successfully loaded and registered with Filter Manager.
Information
10/06/2021 16:27​
Microsoft-Windows-FilterManager
6​
NoneFile System Filter 'FileInfo' (10.0, ‎2062‎-‎12‎-‎23T06:21:06.000000000Z) has successfully loaded and registered with Filter Manager.
Information
10/06/2021 16:27​
EventLog
6013​
NoneThe system uptime is 11 seconds.
Information
10/06/2021 16:27​
EventLog
6005​
NoneThe Event log service was started.
Information
10/06/2021 16:27​
EventLog
6009​
NoneMicrosoft (R) Windows (R) 10.00. 19043 Multiprocessor Free.
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
In your System log I can see entries referencing MBAM - Malwarebytes Premium and also for Windows Defender Antivirus. Are you sure you don't have both turned on? Two active real-time antivirus engines is know to cause problems.

TBH I would uninstall Malwarebytes, even if only temporarily. It's far from uncommon to find a third-party antivirus tool causing problems.
 

Rairun

Bronze Level Poster
I only installed Malwarebytes after writing this post, and I only used it to run one scan. I'm very positive the live scan feature is not on (I only have the premium version because they give you a trial upon first install).
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
I only installed Malwarebytes after writing this post, and I only used it to run one scan. I'm very positive the live scan feature is not on (I only have the premium version because they give you a trial upon first install).
If the premium version is enabled then the live scan is enabled.

You have to end the trial otherwise it will conflict with your existing AV
 

Macco26

Expert
Since you saw PCS install wasn't pristine (e.g. the THX bad talking with the Realtek), I'd suggest you to fully image backup (e.g. with Macrium Reflect Free) your current state (just to restore it if nothing changes, in a matter of minutes), and go the hard route:
completely free any partition and reinstall Windows10 from scratch. After than install the provided PCS drivers and CC and see IF something on the standby issued got any better.

If continues, you restore it and don't proceed to reinstall all your apps, of course.
 
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