Does 5720 need Arctic Silver?

I discovered this computer by browsing the powernotebooks.com website, i'd never heard of Sager before. Quickly fell in love with it, and have ordered one from them to be here soon (2.0MHz, 2GB RAM, 80GB 7200rpm).

However, before I found it i'd been looking at other powernotebooks models and noticed a lot of them gave the option to have Arctic Silver applied for $50 (seems like a lot, but I'd definitely pay to avoid doing it myself).

So i was suprised that the Sager didn't offer this option. I'd thought maybe powernotebooks were putting the arctic silver on themselves, but it seems of course that it's a manufacturer option, which Sager does not offer.

Is this really a big deal? One reason why I chose the 5720 was because of the Pentium M and lower heat output - my current lappy is a 3.0 Pentium 4 and it really overheats, especially during gameplay. I'm expecting the 5720 to get warm (7200rpm HDD, 7800 GTX), but not hot.

Because I'm worried about heat (and I don't use air conditioning in New York in the Summer) I would have jumped at the chance at getting the AS applied. The guy at powernotebooks.com told me it would make a difference of about 10 degrees or so, but I'd have to apply it myself.

This would void the warranty though, right? It's a pity Sager don't offer it as an option! Or do you think the Pentium Ms don't really benefit that much from it?

Oh yeah, I use one of those Targus cooling mats as well for my Pentium 4 - seems to help a little with the heat. Maybe this will be perfectly adequate for the 5720.

 

I would first check the temp without it. Maybe you will be satisfied. And for that money you can buy a very good cooler pad.

Cheers,

Edit: and Hi KingPup, welcome to the forum.

 

Artic Silver is a thermal compound, designed to keep the heat down. I've never heard of a Sager 5720 overheating due to it not having artic silver. The Pentium M is a cool-running processor as it is.

I don't believe it voids the warranty. You can check for yourself in here:
http://www.sagernotebook.com/pages/warranty.html
You can also email Sager, you can do it from their site. Doesn't hurt to ask.

Yeah, I agree that a cooling pad would be the best thing . . . artic silver helps the CPU and keeps the heat down, but a cooling pad can do the same thing to the whole notebook and is more cost efficent.

I have a Sager 5320, which is a 15.4" version of the 5720. I have no problems with heat at all. I bought a Targus ChillMat at Best Buy - works great, keeps the laptop at a good temperature. You should check out the aluminum cooling pads offered by Vantec, those are much better than a plastic Chillmat.

 

The only applicable part of the warranty I could find was:

"THIS WARRANTY DOES NOT APPLY IF THE PRODUCT HAS BEEN MODIFIED WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF SAGER"

So I guess this means that any kind of "modification" at all (HD replacement, memory upgrade) has to be passed by them first?

I think I'll call them and ask.

 

Hm. . it also says this in the warranty:

I think that they allow you to upgrade whatever you want, but they will not warrant it.

Yeah, that's what I am confused about . . I think that they mean actual modifications to the product itself, not upgrades.

Be sure to post what they say.

 

I've used Arctic Silver on many desktop builds and have never seen any sort of dramatic improvement over stock thermal compounds. I'm sure it's better but I'm not so sure "better" translates to improved performance.

Also, $50 for Arctic Silver is insane. A bottle of the stuff is like $10 (and can be used for several CPU installations).

 

I doupt you could tell the difference

 

My 5720 also has a 7200rpm hdd (although its a 100gig not an 80) and so far, even playing games like FarCry, which while maxed can be fairly demanding, i havent had any real overheating issues. The case will get warm, but I've had P3 notebooks with integrated video cards that run hotter while just surfin the net than my 5720 playing FarCry Maxed does. I also have a targus chillpad, and it seems to help keep its operating temperature down a little bit. You dont need the arctic silver, your computer should be fine without it. I

 

Cool, thanks. No pun intended.

I have the Targus chill pad with the USB hub, wish I hadn't now because it needs its own power supply unlike the cheaper one which just powers off the USB. I'm getting the 7200rpm also and I was a little worried about the heat of that - my current laptop gets very warm on the left palm because of the HD there, and it's only a 5400. Mind you it's an Averatec, lol

 

yah, the right "mouse button" for lack of a better word likes to heat up a little buit on the 5720 because thats where the Geforce 7800 is, and the center of the panel the power button is located on will heat up do to the processor, but it shouldnt get so hot as to where u cant touch either of them.

 

I have an Averatec too. I have a feeling there will be many refugees coming here from there.

I'm planning on getting the 5720 with the M class as well. My question is about the fans. Do they run continuously too? And what's the expected battery life on this unit?

Sager 5720
2GB 533MHz RAM,
GeForce 7800GTX
Pentium M 2.0GHz
17" WSXGA+ screen

I'm not a gamer... just a programmer that has at least four apps running simultaneously, one of which is usually a Skype conf call.

 

Michael, if you don't need the powerful GPU, I would take a look at the Sager NP-5710 - it has a 128MB X700, which will run cooler.

Since you are running so many applications at once, have you thought about considering a notebook with a dual-core processor? That would really benefit you. Sager doesn't have any right now, but other manufacturers do - Dell has the E1705 17", give that a look.

 

What will a dual-core give me? Is it essentially the same as dual processors, but in a single chip?

What else is different about the 5710? I'm not a gamer but I do expect I'll be watching movies and doing video editing.

 

Yes, that's correct. Essentially two processors on one chip. Much improved multitasking.

5710 is the exact same as the 5720, just doesn't have the Go7800GTX.

 

my 5720 with 7200 rpm HDD gets no hotter than 60C even after 12 hours of World of Warcraft or 7 hours of day of defeat source. thats with no fan, and in a room thats about 85 F (its hot i know, but the people i live with are hippies of sorts)

 

That makes me feel a lot better. I'm kind of a hippy - in that I use no air conditioning in the New York summer. I don't knit my own yoghurt though.

So heat is a real issue in the summer. My P4 Averatec only just made it through last year! Looks like I made a good choice with the Pentium M.

Was supposed to get my 5720 today - I'm having it delivered to a friends place because I don't trust my building and packages. So they came yesterday while he was out and left a note saying it would be be delivered between 5pm and 7pm today. Very nicely, my friend arranged to leave work early. He got home at 4pm to find a note which said they'd tried to deliver again but missed him. I HATE THOSE IDIOTS AT UPS, I REALLY DO. What's more, when he called them to ask if they could send him back, they told him they have NO POSSIBLE WAY of contacting a driver once he's out in the truck.

Excuse me? Is this the year 2006 or 1976?

I HATE UPS SO MUCH I THINK I'M GONNA EXPLODE.