Sager NP9260 ( Clevo D900C ) Review (Pics, Specs and Benchmarks)

Sager NP9260 ( Clevo D900C ) [/B][/font]

[/font][/span]
The Ultimate Gaming Machine - Powered by Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme "Conroe" processor and nVIDIA® SLI Technology also capable of RAID 0/1/5 with three hard drives coexisting with an optical drive, the NP9260 delivers unrivaled gaming performance and unmatched storage capacity that surpasses the competition!

NP9260 Detailed Specs[/URL][/B][/font][/font][/span][/p]

Display



17" WSXGA+ (1680x1050) or WUXGA (1920x1200) Widescreen "Super Clear Glossy" LCD
Display


32-Bit True Colors

Processor & Chipset


Intel® Core™2 Duo "Conroe" E6400 2.13GHz, E6600 2.4GHz, E6700 2.66GHz OR,

Intel® Core™2 Extreme X6800 Desktop Processor @ 1,066 FSB w/4MB L2 On-die
Cache with Arctic Silver 5 Compound Standard


Chipset: Intel® P965 Express Chipset + ICH8R

1066
MHz System Front Side Bus Speed[/font]

Disk Drives

[/font]Up to 3 SATA/150 Hard Drives
Raid 0/1/5 Supported (System can run 3 Hard Drives and Single Optical Drive
Simultaneously

DUAL
Layer Combo 8x8x6x4x Dual Layer DVD +/-R/RW 5x DVD-RAM 24x CD-R/RW


7-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/CF/MD/SM)

Memory

1024MB DDR2/667 or 800MHz Memory (expandable to 4GB w/64-bit Vista)

Two
SO-DIMM sockets[/font]

Video Controller


Single or
DUAL nVIDIA® GeForce® Go 7950 GTX PCI-Express™ 16X Modules with 512MB
(1,024MB Total w/SLi) GDDR3 Video Memory


Supports 2048x1536 external monitor resolution (resolution can not be higher
than laptop)[/font]

Audio & Multimedia Features



Built-in ALC655 AC'97 Audio CODEC Sound System


8 Channel output w/o External Decoder - 4 multi-function audio ports


4 Built-in Stereo Speakers


4 Audio ports:

1. Headphone out

2. Mic-in

3. S/PDIF-out

4. Line-in


Sound Blaster compatible


Wavetable 3D Surround sound[/font]

Network


Built in Ethernet 10/100/1000BaseT Network


Built-in mini-PCI Intel® PRO/Wireless 4965AGN 802.11a/g/n Wireless LAN


Built-in Bluetooth


Built in 56k V.90/V.92 Modem[/font]

I/O Interfaces



4 USB 2.0 ports


DVI & VGA External Monitor Output


IEEE-1394 Firewire Port (4-pin)(OHCI compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller)


4 Multi-Purpose Audio Jacks


S-Video TV output


TV-in Port (Requires Optional TV-Tuner Module)


Kensington lock support

Input Device


Keyboard with Full Size Keys including
10-key numeric keypad


MS Windows Function Keys


Integrated with Hot Keys for LCD Brightness, Suspend, Panel/CRT Display


Programmable 2 Button TouchPad w/Scroll Slider 2-way scroll function (up and
down)


Integrated with 2 User Definable Gaming Hot Keys [/font]

Express Card Slot



1 Express Card 54/34 Slot

Battery



12-cell Smart Lithium-Ion Battery 14.8V - 6,600mAH


Primary Battery Life is about 1-1.5 Hours[/font]

Electrical / Power



Full Range 100-240V A/C, 50-60 Hz Auto-Sensing, Auto-Switching Universal AC
Adapter[/font]

Cooling


Artic Silver 5 thermal compound standard[/font]


Copper CPU Heatsink[/font]

Size and Weight

11.75"W x 15.5"D x 2.35"H


11.55 lb. including battery[/font]

(with Power Adapter 3 Hard Drives, Battery, Single Video Card & Case it
weighs in at 18.5lbs)

Warranty

1-Year Parts & Labor Warranty


Lifetime Toll Free Technical support


One, Two & Three Year (ADP) Accidental Damage Protection Full Coverage Plans
along with Onsite service (Optional)[/font]

Additional Features

Integrated Digital 1.3Megapixel Video Camera


Built-in TV Tuner w/Remote Control available


Deluxe Carrying Case Standard


XP Home / XP Pro / Vista Home Premium / Vista Business / Vista Ultimate
(Optional)


Drivers and Utility CD


User's Manual[/font]


1. Telephone Cord
2. Thermal Compound
3. Audio/Video Input through S-Video
4. AC Adapter
5. Power Cord
6. Drivers CD Windows XP
7. Nero 8. Drivers CD Windows Vista
9. 32-Bit Vista Restore CD
10. User Manual
11. 64-Bit Vista Restore CD
12. Power DVD
13. Sager Warranty Info
14. Black Business Case


1. Multi-Functional Audio Jack Out
2. Multi-Functional Audio Jack Out
3. Microphone
4. Headset Audio Out


On the right side of the machine you will find (1) 4 USB 2.0 Ports and (2) and Kensington Lock



1. Air Vents
2. Power Input
3. DVI Out
4. Air Vents
5. Air Vents
6. S-Video Out


Shown with a Quarter standing up on the Side to show the thickness of the 9260.




1. VGA Out
2. S-Video In / Cable TV In
3. Modem
4. Gigabit LAN
5. Mini IEEE 1394 Firewire
6. Express Card Slot
7. 7 in 1 card reader
8. DVDRW Optical Drive

Very nice front-panel Audio Access.

Hot keys at the top from left to right:


email, internet, user programmable, and power by default. (2 Custom Gaming Buttons on Left Side of Keyboard)


Below is a picture of the 9260 next to a 15.4" Asus V1JP

and next to a 13.3" Asus Z35FM



The RAM

The unit has two memory slots which, will handle 4GB of RAM. At this time of testing we are using 4GB (2x2GB) SODIMM DDR2 667MHz Ram. There are also options for the use of DDR2 800MHz Ram up to 2GB. The Ram Dimms have a dedicated fan located immediately above the sockets.

The Graphics Card

The 9260 is being released with the NVIDIA 7950 GTX. It's a socket type GPU and it can be easily removed. There is no word to confirm a future option and how it would be upgraded (end user, Sager). This unit uses PCI-Express Video Cards.

7950 Heatsink:

Here is the 512MB 7950GTX Out of the machine



The Processor

Intel® Core™2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz, E6600 2.4GHz, E6700 2.66GHz OR,
Intel® Core™2 Extreme X6800 Desktop Processor
1,066MHz FSB w/4MB L2 On-die Cache with Arctic Silver 5 Compound Standard


1. CPU
2. RAM (2 SODIMM Sockets)
3. #1 Video Card Slot (SLI Capable)
4. #2 Video Card Slot (SLI Capable)
5. 3rd Hard Drive Bay / Battery
6. Dual Hard Drive Bay
7. Vents

The Cooling
The 9260 comes equipped with a well designed copper heatsink system with dedicated cooling for many components. The CPU, RAM and Each Graphics Card have their own dedicated Fan.

From Left to Right - GPU Copper Heatsink, CPU Copper Heatsink

From Left to Right - GPU Copper Heatsink, CPU Copper Heatsink

From Left to Right - CPU Fan, Memory Fan, Video Card Fan

Bottom of CPU Copper Heatsink





1. CPU
2. RAM (2 SODIMM Sockets)
3. #1 Video Card Slot (SLI Capable)
4. #2 Video Card Slot (SLI Capable)
5. 3rd Hard Drive Bay / Battery
6. Dual Hard Drive Bay
7. Vents

Temps:
Our room temperature was at approximately 77.2 degrees. We tested during the Fifth through Seventh repeated run of 3D Mark 06 and observed the following temps
1. Keyboard 90.3
2. Wristpad 81.8
3. Right Side 81.6
4. Left Side 82.8
5. Back End of Laptop 95.1
6. Front of Laptop 81.4
7. Power Brick 100.7

The Hard Drive's

The Sager 9260 has the option for up to three internal mobile SATA hard drives and they can be configured with RAID 0, RAID 1, Raid 5 or as three separate drives without RAID.
Raid 0 is known as "striping" and is for pure performance. What happens is the two drives look like one as far as storage goes and data is written/read from them both at the same time. The hard drive can often be the bottle neck in programs and when you have three drives that the system can write/read half the data each at the same time it can do it much faster than writing/reading all of the data from a single drive. If one drive fails, there's is no recovering data from the drive still good. In RAID 0, two 100GB hard drives would show up as a single 200GB drive in Windows.
RAID 1 which is known as "mirroring" and is where one drive is cloned to the other one when writing data. This is for backup type purposes but keep in mind a virus will corrupt both drives so the main thing you can protect yourself with RAID 1 is if one of the drives physically fails, there's a chance the other can be your recovery drive. two 100GB drives in RAID 1 will show up as one single 100GB hard drive in your Windows interface.
RAID 5 is a Striped Set (3 disk minimum) with Distributed Parity: Distributed parity requires all but one drive to be present to operate; drive failure requires replacement, but the array is not destroyed by a single drive failure. Upon drive failure, any subsequent reads can be calculated from the distributed parity such that the drive failure is masked from the end user. The array will have data loss in the event of a second drive failure and is vulnerable until the data that was on the failed drive is rebuilt onto a replacement drive.

With the 9260 two hard drives are mounted in a dual hard drive cage and the third is housed under the battery.




We tested with two 100GB 7200rpm SATA drives in Raid 0. We received better scores with Raid due to the throughput of the SATA technology, when combined with the raid configuration.

The LCD

The WUXGA (1920x1200) option has the glossy/glare display. We could find no ghosting at all.












The WUXGA has very good viewing angles.

The Audio

The on-board audio output consists of four speakers standard. This is a setup we have seen in many of the recent notebook releases. The sound actually sounds really good, with no tin can sound and none of the vibration sounds you usually hear. If they don't do it for you, you still have the 8 channel sound system you can plug speakers into.

Below you will see the 4 speaker layout:





The TV Tuner
Hooking up your cable TV is very simple.
Just launch the Avermedia Software and it will auto detect and set your channels. The unit supports both NTSC and PAL without any hardware change required. You can control your TV in full screen or windowed from a distance with the remote control it comes with. The TV Tuner is an option and the S-video port next to it also has the ability to capture your input video.

The Software

Standard with all 9260 systems comes Nero for burning and Power DVD for DVD Playing. With the TV tuner option comes with software for Windows XP / Vista. Our 9260 came with Vista Ultimate 64-Bit Installed. When purchasing the 64-Bit version you get both the 32-Bit and 64-Bit Install CD's for Windows Vista. It is just like a regular Windows install and requires you to load the drivers after the install.
By default through most resellers the model is by default configured without a OS. Whether you purchase a Operating System or not you will receive the drivers & utilities CD's for both Windows XP and Vista. If you purchase a Operating System it will come fully installed and ready to use right out of the box.

The Camera
1.3MP Bisoncam

The camera takes very clear pictures.

The Battery

The battery is a 12 cell Li-Ion 14.8V 6600MaH held in by 3 retaining screws
Tested with WIFI On and Bluetooth Off
Screen 40% Brightness: 1 Hour and 38 Minutes
Screen 100% Brightness: 1 Hour and 19 Minutes

Other

The keyboard is a solid design with very little play/flex/bounce that you often see in laptop keyboards. The number pad on the right is something that's become standard with many of the Sagers these days.

The AC power adapter is larger then most notebooks to accommodate the heavy power requirements. Below is a picture of a Aus V1JP (15.4") AC Adapter on top and to the left of Sager 9260 AC Adapter.





Game Shots with the WUXGA




The Benchmarks

Our testing bed:

Intel E6700
4GB of Ram
Single 7950GTX 512MB
DVDRW
(2) 100GB 7200RPM on Raid 0

nVidia NTune 5.05.38.00 is what we used to overclock the Video Card.

Stock scores were all ran at there default detected speed

How the test were ran.
• 3dMark05 = default (stock and overclocked)
• 3dMark06 = default (stock and overclocked)
• HD Tuner = default, (stock)
• Super PI = default, (stock)
• Windows Experience Index = default, (stock)
HD Tune:


Super PI:


Windows Vista Experience Index Scores





3DMark '06
Using stock nVidia Driver
Score (Stock) Single Video Card - 5413 (575 Core / 700 Memory)
Score (Stock) Dual Video Cards on SLI - 9162
Score (Overclocked) Single Video Card - 5918 (643 Core / 723 Memory)

3DMark '05
Using stock nVidia Driver
Score (Stock) Single Video Card - 8693 (575 Core / 700 Memory)
Score (Overclocked) Single Video Card - 9141 (643 Core / 723 Memory)
(!!Overclock at your own risk!!)

3DMark05 Results and comparison:

Sager NP9260 (Core 2 Conroe 2.66, Nvidia 7950GTX 512MB) 9,141 3D Marks OC'd
Sager NP9260 (Core 2 Conroe 2.66, Nvidia 7950GTX 512MB) 8,693 3D Marks Stock
Sager NP5760 (Core 2 Duo 2.33GHz, Nvidia 7900GTX 512MB) 8,175 3D Marks
Sager NP9750 (AMD X2 4400+, Nvidia 7900GTX 512MB) 8,313 3D Marks
Sager NP9890 (P4 3.2GHz, Nvidia 7800GTX) 6,319 3DMarks
Sager NP7620 (P4 3.6GHz, ATI X800 256MB) 3,702 3DMarks
Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60 Nvidia GeForce Go7800 GTX) 7,078 3DMarks
Asus V6Va (2.13 GHz Pentium M, ATI Radeon Mobility x700 128 MB) 2,530 3D Marks

CPU Temp during testing was 41-43C.

A Word about Quad Core




We were able to boot the system and do many things within Windows without problems. However when trying to test the machine with synthetic benchmarks (with a single video card) we encountered random problems when the Intel Quad Q6600 was installed. We do not recommend using this processor as it will cause gradual deterioration to the machine. Sager wanted to post the following regarding the Q6600 below in our review:

Conclusion
Overall this a excellent desktop replacement laptop that is unique and has unmatched performance and storage capacity for a laptop. This is one of the very few laptops that have broken the 9,000 Mark in 3D Mark 06.

Pros:

-Solid build and attractive overall look & design
-Very little flexing
-Built in 1.3MP Camera
-DVI & VGA Output's
-Dual Video Card Capable on SLI
-Up to 3 Hard Drives (Raid 0/1/5)
-Superior gaming performance - 9000+ with Dual Video Cards in 3D Mark 06
-Numeric Keypad
-Great Cooling System that is quiet considering the 3 Internal Fans
-When Vista 64-Bit is purchased you get copies of both 32-Bit and 64-Bit
-Very nice WUXGA screen.

Cons:

-Heavy (with Power Adapter 3 Hard Drives, Battery, Single Video Card & Case it weighs in at 18.5lbs)
-Low Battery Life
-Runs a little warmer then most other notebooks
-Large Power Adapter

The Cons are to be expected of a DTR notebook of this nature.

I hope you all enjoy the review as much as we did reviewing it If we have overlooked any typos or if there is any questions you have, just ask

 

WOW. nice review.

Awesome detail and pics.

I love the thermal design for this beast.

That thing puts all the other gaming notebooks to shame.

 

Thanks Gophn I agree, all other gaming notebooks are left in the dust

 

Dare I say....
:twitcy: I WANT ONE! :twitcy:

LOL. My D900K just suddenly felt smaller.:cry:

 

That is one very detailed review Justin, thanks for taking the time to create and post that! I like the interior pictures - I won't be taking our review D900C apart but it is nice to know where each of the components is located.

Everything you said as far as I know is accurate. I should have my review up at the end of next week or the beginning of the next week. We had our review unit configured with XP so we could get the dual Go7950GTXs in there.

100% agreement; this is the king of laptops, period.

 

Thanks Chaz, I really enjoyed using the machine.

I will watch for your review, I am sure yours will be stellar as usual

 

What were the temps of the gpu and cpu's during testing?

 

the software we normally used for these temps didnt work under Vista 64. I will see if we can get something up on the C.PU & GPU

 

Oh wowwow a reseller review again! Haven't seen one of those in awile! (or have I?)

Thanks, I hope to see more reseller reviews.

 

Any typos, don't blame him, blame me. He asked me to proof it.

By the way, Justin:
Sager 8790
P4 3.2 Ghz Prescott
2 x 1GB o' DDR400 RAM
ATI Mobility 9700

PcMark05: 1728

 

For GPU: I know that RivaTuner works in 32-bit and 64-bit.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=81852

For CPU: Speedfan works in Vista 64-bit
http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

At the moment, Notebook Hardware Control only works in 32-bit environments.

 

Thanks Gophn, I have always used NHC. I will put the system through a couple runs of '06 and post the GPU/CPU Info

 

I have been checking on the videocard modules, it looks extremely like MXM-Type III

Where's Ice-Tea?

 

Terrible. I've got a 5760, but seeing one of these beasties makes my mouth water.

3 HDs? I don't need SLI, but 3 internal HDs is gooood for me!

As long as I can dump the WUXGA and Vista, I might try my hand at one o' these once they get settled in.

 

What. The. ****??

Clevo uses MXM for real??

*goes off to check hell's temperature*

 

LOL. Thats what I felt when I saw that too.

So is it MXM Type-III we are looking at
....or is this the supposed MXM-IV?

I guess you have some updating to do your site.

 

Looks like a Type III. I'd love to put one in my "regular" MXM notebook. I suggest we call it Type IV if it catches fire and Type III if it works.

 

OH!

It has an extra tab on the connector on the right side!

 

Yeah I noticed that too....

Is this a MXM-III / MXM-HE hybrid or something?

Maybe it is the new MXM-IV.:confused2:

 

Just checked. By the looks of it, this is simply a HE card.

...

I'd give a leg to take one of those to the lab!

 

Well where are you located, maybe you can borrow one from a Clevo reseller.

In the Clevo Guide, it has a number of them in Europe, I have more resellers that I have yet to add on there yet, hopefully with the next week I can push out the next revision of the guide.

 

On top of the card it is labeled MXM VGA V4.0A 512M. Is that what you were looking for?

 

Obviously stealth marketing.

Die hard 4.0

 

I dont think Sager or Clevo would try to trick users with any kind of marketing scheme. I think nVidida will eventually announce more on MXM 4.

 

It was a joke. Not particulary good, but hey! I'm a engineer, I'm not supposed to make good jokes.

Anyway, I know for sure "MXM 4.0" is not in nVidia's plans. Once mentioned this to some lower brass there and he sounded like he fell out of a tree. I'm forwarding some of these pics to him.

Looks like MXM-HE anyway, so there's nothing for them to announce, they launced it in 2004 with the rest. The card just has two additional tabs for main power, that's it.

 

Whatever MXM it is...
I am still amazed that it looks standardized (over being proprietary).

 

Amazed.. and somewhat dismayed... Now I'll have to change a few pages on the site

 

So does this means that Clevo stopped using a proprietary MXM interface and we can by a video card supporting the NVIDIA specs from anyone? That is good news ... I think.

Please can you clarify this?

Trance

 

If they indeed adhere to the nVidia spec you could plug in other cards..

But:

1) Probably no SLI
2) May not be supported by the ACPI system
3) Why would you? You're not gonna find anything faster.

 

Dang that system will be able to use 3 250gb total of 750gb 3/4 tb. Or 3 300gb 900 gb total. Slower hard drive. That blows away Note books that say they support half a tb. The temps are high but I trust sager. They build very good systems.

 

We have contacts supporting that MXM 4.0 is for real and from what we know a compliance facility is in the works.

 

Nice beast.

Hey Justin, was working on the laptop comfortable? I mean it is far higher than the 5760 in height. Was it comfortable typing on it?

 

It was comfortable typing on it, but pretty heavy to carry around

The 9260 is pretty thick, did you see the image with the Quarter standing next to it?

 

So far i have tested the CPU temp and during the 2nd Run of 3D Mark 06 it was at 41-43C. I am working on the GPU and hope to update it shortly.

 

2 questions.
1. On the vista rating it's 5.4 out of what? ie 5.4 out of 10 or 6 or?
2. what's the noise level when the fans are running full?
Do you have a db measurement maybe?

 

As I understand it, this machine is capabale (maxed out) of hitting a 5.9 on the vista scale which is supposed to be a maximum rating.

 

ok I guess I have another question.
The batter life you posted, was that at idle or was the 9260 doing something like 3dmark etc.
This is a curiosity for me mostly since if I were to get this system I wouldn't be sitting in the garden with it and drinking tea. I expect to use this as a "portable" desktop replacement and not a laptop.

 

I believe the Windows Index is out of 6, but I am not for sure. I am sorry we didnt do any db tests. The system ran pretty quiet even considering there were 3 fans in the system we were testing.

We were not able to get the score over 5.4 for the vista index. The battery life we posted was using the machine with average tasks, such as Web Surfing, email, Word docs etc..

 

It only goes to 5.9 atm Justin, as time goes on Microsoft has said they are going to add 6.0 - 6.5 then later 6.6 - 7.

Did you run it with a X6800 processor?

 

No, we ran it with the E6700. The X6800 would surely bump it up a couple points..

 

I don't know what they used to test their unit but the site I got the info from about the D900C getting a perfect score was this one.

Code:

[B]Perfect Vista Experience Rating[/B]
The Black-Hawk is a record breaker and is the first laptop to achieve a perfect
5.9 rating in the new Microsoft Windows Vista performance analysis.
A score of 5.9 is the highest score possible in five different categories
compromised of: Processor, Memory, Graphics, Gaming graphics, and Primary hard disk.
The Black-Hawk surpasses most desktop scores and reaches this perfect 5.9
experience index rating in all five categories for the ultimate power computing
experience with the next generation operating system from Microsoft.
Take full advantage of all  the great new features found in Windows Vista with
your brand new Black-Hawk laptop from PC MicroWorks.

I'm guessing that they maxed the system out to get a 5.9

 

maybe they used an x6800

 

I have a question about the SATA interface. I read one spec sheet that said it had a sata 150/300 interface. Will it support sata 300 drives?

 

even if it didnt it should still run them at 150 eh

 

The notebook supports SATA II (i.e. 3GB/sec..i.e. SATA 300).

 

Hi, new to Forums, but have enjoyed and learned from this Forum, so I thought that I would try to contribute.

Have a Targa Raptor 60, E6700, 7950 GTX SLI, 2 gb 800 mhz ram, (3) sata II 160 gb 7200 rpm Seagate hard drives.

Didn't buy the X6800, due to pricing. Assumed that I could overclock to 3.0 to 3.2 for great performance, and then wait for the price to drop on the X6800 and/or the release of the X6900 and/or q6600 upgrade, or if that was too hot, the release of the Q6400.

Used mostly for work [drive #3] or Oblivion [I prefer RPG to bang bang].

It gets hot, although not as hot as my ex; a Dell XPS, 3.4 EE @ 3.4 mhz, 2 gb ram, ATI9800, 120 7200 rpm hard drive. Ran Oblivion about 25 outdoors at best and dropped into mid teens during battles. Entering a City, go find a short article to read. Or open a chest and waaaaait, open inventory and waaait.

I've used Coolbits and played with 3dMark06 [licensed edition using some of the money I saved on the processor] and Oblivion to test some overclocking of the Video. Currently can run stable at 635 core and 720 memory.

Obivion idles at 30 fps outdoors and 50-60 indoors. Even cities, with all the people [have about 100 mods installed] only dip quickly into twenties and then jump to 30 to 30+. Best 3dMark o6 score is 9677 [ 639 core and 719 memory oc].

Haven't been able to do anything with the cpu speeds. CLockgen won't save adjustments, and I can only modify and svae the spectrum tweak, which yields too little to bother. Notebook Hardware Control faults, because it does not currently support desktop core 2 cpus, only the portable versions.

For cooling, have a Coolermaster W1, with a Vantec LapCool5 sitting on the canted surface. The Coolermaster works on the four Laptop fnas and the Lapcool5 blows directly under the hard drives. A TT Mobilefan II unit is placed at each side of the laptop. This System does stay cool, 23/27 cpu temps, 45 at the hard drives and the Hardware monitoring reports 34 at the GPU.

The only thing holding this Laptopn back is high cpu pricing [for swap out] and lack of oc software and the Phoenix BIOS that won't let you touch the CPU/FSB.

 

Welcome to the NBR forums.

Glad to hear that you are enjoying your beast.

HOWEVER... I have some concerns and recommendations to go over with you.

1) The Cooler Master NotePAL W1 is NOT recommended for any 17" gaming notebook... especially Clevo notebooks.
- it WILL physically damage your notebook's chassis if you continue to use it (the front panel and the bottom).
- its a poor design because the stage for the notebook is not deep enough, which causes the notebook to be unbalanced... causing it to fall backwards.
- and the poor design actually decreases the airflow since there is not enough space between the notebook and the stand.

The best 17" notebook cooler is Zalman ZM-NC1000. PERIOD.
- it will fit your notebook and give the correct cooling for the entire stage.

2) Remember to use the Fan Speed Toggle (Fn+1) to switch all fans speeds to Max Speed during gaming sessions to truly help prevent overheating.

3) Notebooks are not made for overclocking... even the Dell XPS M1710 (which has BIOS overclocking options) shows that overclocking wont get more than 5-10% performance increase.

Finally
lemme give you my pre-requisites for owning a gaming notebook:

Remember these things to have your notebook be healthy for years:

1) Battery: to maintain the longevity of any rechargeable battery
- you must NEVER overcharge it [especially for long durations of time] by keeping it plugged into AC
- when it reaches 100% you should unplug it and let it discharge to 5-15%, then plug it back to power
- OR you can just charge it to 50%+ and remove the battery and store in cool place.. not the fridge [remember to use it occasionally 3-4 time a year to charge and discharge it].

2.) Heat: to prevent a healthy notebook from overheating
- ALWAYS use the notebook on a hard & flat surface
- RECOMMENDED to be used on a notebook cooler... namely the Zalman ZM-NC1000
- check your fans underneath occasionally (at least once a month) for any dust clogs [clean them out with Q-tips and air cans/compressors]
- ALWAYS monitor the temps (CPU, GPU, HDD, etc..) to watch for fluctuations, which would indicate overheating

By doing these simple things, your entire system will easily last for more than 3 years.

 

I agree, that by itself, the Coolermaster is too small for the job. But by placing the Lapcool5 onto the tray of the Coolermaster, you create a shallower surface for the Laptop and add two more fans and (3) USB ports. The rear Laptop feet sit in the groove on the Coolermaster and the middle zupport pad of the Laptop and two rubber feet of the Lapcool5 support the front area of the Laptop. The result is a shallower setting angle for the Laptop, (3) extra USB ports and a total of four 70mm cooling fans at work. Using the [fn]+1 toggle finishes a pretty cool package.

Obviously this set up is only good for a desktop station, but lets not kid ourselfs, the D900C is not really a Laptop. I believe that "portable desktop" is a better description. Keep the Coolermaster box, its packs all the cooling stuff and the Laptop power brick and powercord and the box comes with a carry handle.

By tweaking (oc) the video, the 3d Mark06 score moved from 9072 to 9650+. Of course we don't play benchmarks. In Oblivion, at 1400x1050, I could bump up the distances for trees, grass and objects, move from almost achieving a 30 fps outdoor pace to comfortablly idling at 30 fps. You can feel the difference during play.

I bet the X6800 cpu purchase would have done the same change, but the tweaks I have made buy me the time to wait for the cpu prices to tumble.

I plan to update to faster video and/or a faster cpu when the choices become 1) available and 2) cost effective.

Footnote for those shopping, I have lugged my XPS on field [business] trips and have had the opportunity to lug the Clevo package. I actually prefer carrying the Clevo. It just seems lighter. Of course as I said above, the power brick rides in the Coolermaster box [with all the little stuff inside] in my other hand. For airport travel, the Coolermaster box rides in a travel bag.

Finally, thanks again for the heating and maintenance tips. It's why I kept reading this Forum. The site contributes more than just lame chatter, there is actually insight presented.

I'm a mechanical engineer, and I like to ask why, test alternatives and most of all, to push the envelope. It's how we get ahead.

 

I would really recommend to look towards the Zalman ZM-NC1000, its definitely got everything that other notebook coolers dont have.

But I am glad to hear about your positive impressions thus far.

 

Thanks Gophn. I actually had my eye on the Titan unit originally http://virtual-hideout.net/reviews/Titan_G4T_Pad/index.shtml
but it does not seem to be available here as yet. So I am trying to develop some patience [not one of my virtues I'm afraid].