Overview Link to heading

Clevo Control Center, a program used to manage fan speed, keyboard lights and other system settings on Sager/Clevo computers has a system breaking integration issue with the Touchpad and the Synaptic Touchpad Driver that causes frequent bluescreens when gaming.

This is a post-mortem of my experince investigating and troubleshooting this issue.

Troubleshooting Link to heading

I bought my Sager/Clevo laptop from Xotic PC a few years ago. With a fresh OS install and proper drivers I started getting frequent REFERENCE_BY_POINTER and IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL_TO bluescreens while gaming.

I first used the Windows Event Viewer logs and WhoCrashed to investigate the cause of the bluescreens.

I noticed in Event Viewer that one of my usb drivers was consistently not responding before the crash. I used USBDeview to reference to VID number provided in the Event Viewer error which pointed EgisTec ES603 Swipe Fingerprint Sensor.

  • I disabled the EgisTec ES603 Swipe Fingerprint Sensor driver but that did not resolve the issue ❌

WhoCrashed pointed to the syntp.sys program which is associated with the touchpad driver. However, I have my touchpad turned off as I use a mouse.. Why would the touchpad be having issues if it’s turned off?

System Information (local)

Computer name: xxxxxxxx
Windows version: Windows 10 , 10.0, build: 16299
Windows dir: C:\Windows
Hardware: P65_67HSHP, Notebook , Notebook
CPU: GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz Intel586, level: 6
8 logical processors, active mask: 255
RAM: 17129033728 bytes total

Crash Dump Analysis

Crash dump directories:
C:\Windows
C:\Windows\Minidump

On Tue 2/20/2018 7:53:14 PM your computer crashed or a problem was reported
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\022018-7312-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: syntp.sys (0xFFFFF80107B75174)
Bugcheck code: 0xD1 (0xFFFFB003CB44B000, 0x2, 0x0, 0xFFFFF80107B75174)
Error: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\syntp.sys
product: Synaptics Pointing Device Driver
company: Synaptics Incorporated
description: Synaptics Touchpad Win64 Driver
Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode driver attempted to access pageable memory at a process IRQL that was too high.
This bug check belongs to the crash dump test that you have performed with WhoCrashed or other software. It means that a crash dump file was properly written out.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: syntp.sys (Synaptics Touchpad Win64 Driver, Synaptics Incorporated).
Google query: syntp.sys Synaptics Incorporated DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL



On Tue 2/20/2018 7:53:14 PM your computer crashed or a problem was reported
crash dump file: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP
This was probably caused by the following module: syntp.sys (0xFFFFF80107B75174)
Bugcheck code: 0xD1 (0xFFFFB003CB44B000, 0x2, 0x0, 0xFFFFF80107B75174)
Error: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\syntp.sys
product: Synaptics Pointing Device Driver
company: Synaptics Incorporated
description: Synaptics Touchpad Win64 Driver
Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode driver attempted to access pageable memory at a process IRQL that was too high.
This bug check belongs to the crash dump test that you have performed with WhoCrashed or other software. It means that a crash dump file was properly written out.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: syntp.sys (Synaptics Touchpad Win64 Driver, Synaptics Incorporated).
Google query: syntp.sys Synaptics Incorporated DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

A look at LatencyMon showed that, despite the touchpad being turned off, it was still active and registering input… 🤔

  • I tested with different versions of the Synaptics TouchPad Driver which required blocking windows updates as its updated automatically with windows. This did not resolve the issue either ❌

After further research, I was led to the Hotkey driver as it’s associated with the touchpad driver. Attempting to troubleshoot and investigate that is what led me to the Clevo Control Panel. Turns out Clevo built the Hotkey functionality into the Clevo Control Center (CCC), so troubleshooting Hotkey entails a relation to the CCC.

CCC controls the system’s fans, keyboard lights, keyboard hotkeys, GPU switching, overclocking and even audio which made testing and troubleshooting it extremely difficult.

  • I first tried uninstalling all associated programs and drivers and using different combinations and versions. The issue continued to persist with every attempt.. It seems to be ingrained in the system/BIOS once Clevo Control Panel is installed ❌
  • Attempted to completely force delete Clevo Control Panel by uninstalling, removing leftover files and using Autoruns to disabled the startup tasks resulted in a bricked system with disabled keyboard/touchpad/USB input. The only way to recover was a reinstall of the OS ❌
  • Tried multiple versions of Clevo Control Panel from the sager website, Clevo website, and another version as well. This required a drive wipe and OS reinstall for every attempt and none were succesfull ❌

Reaching Out To Support Link to heading

Support was no help whatsoever during initial attempts to identify and resolve the issue.

I discovered one year later, over a call with Sager/Clevo support, that they were aware of the issue but weren’t in the progress of fixing it as “it would not be cost effective when only a small percentage of their users are experiencing it.”

This “small percentage” of users can be found in the 21 page thread below, one of many regarding this issue:

Resolution Link to heading

After my troubleshooting attempts, I ended up wiping my drive and reinstalling the OS without installing Clevo Control Center. I have not experienced a bluescreen since. I found no other way to uninstall CCC without bricking your system.

As a result, I no longer have control of the keyboard lights, fan speed and other system settings “provided” by Clevo on my laptop.

Alternatives Link to heading

There are recent reports of people resolving this issue with new 3rd party Control Center Apps: https://code.obsidian-pc.com/clevo-software/

Disclaimer: I have not attempted to use this program as I’m hesitant to install any control panel programs with my laptop heavily in use and currently stable.

Currently Link to heading

2 years later, there is still no offical fix or disclaimer from Sager, Clevo or Xotic…

While the existence of these new 3rd party apps is great, this is still an ongoing issue.