Finalized my P170HM build...

So yeah, I've finalized my plans for my new p170hm from malibal:
CPU: 2760QM
GFX: 6990M
NIC: BF 1102
HDD: 750GB HDD + (128GB Crucial M4 + Seagate 750GB HDD- adding these myself)
ODD: Caddy for the extra hdd(will get an external optical drive for OS installation)
Memory: 4x2GB(will be upgrading to 4x4GB GSkill 10666 myself)
Display: Stock(will be upgrading to AUO V.4 myself)
TIM: Stock(IC7 myself)

And... my only questions are:
Does the thing actually supports 3 harddrives with two in raid 0(the two 750GB drives will be in raid)?

What brand HDD do they put in the thing?

Anyone try running the GSkill 10666 on this computer?

I guess this shouldn't even be in my mind to begin with(I think I know the answer already ) but...
Does doing all this stuff myself void the warranty? Malibal does say something about "written authorization" for modifications in their warranty policy... but IDK.

I took a look at accessing the RAM under the keyboard in the service manual, and it seems easy enough. Anyone that's actually done it want to comment on how scary it is to remove the keyboard?(I'm mainly concerned because the manual says "be very careful of bending the ribbon cable")
Keep in mind that I'm a computer enthusiast with a high level of tech proficiency.

 

Awesome, I got the p170hm from Xotic at the same time, almost identical spec!!!

 

I have to ask why you want to run 750gb in raid 0 when you already have a good SSD for all your important programs.

Also I believe the CD-rom bay is sata2 which will hinder your Sata3 ssd's performance.

 

I will obviously be putting the SSD in the primary hard drive slot and one of the two 750gb hdds in the ODD bay.

Anyways, I want the 1.5TB of space, and if I can run in raid 0 for large performance gains, why not? I will be putting a lot of games and other stuff on the raid volume(if its possible to make it in the first place) and that transfer speed makes a big difference.

I took a look at accessing the RAM under the keyboard in the service manual, and it seems easy enough. Anyone that's actually done it want to comment on how scary it is to remove the keyboard?(I'm mainly concerned because the manual says "be very careful of bending the ribbon cable")

 

llynx has 3 harddrives in raid 0 on his P170HM : http://forum.notebookreview.com/7899864-post91.html
Thus I'd say that it should work with 2 in raid as well.

If you need lot's of space you could consider getting two 1000 GB drives since they are not expensive. I will do that in my new notebook (but without raid).

 

1TB notebook drives are still very rough in the making... they have JUST recently transitioned(samsung exclusively) to fitting 1TB in the 9.5MM formfactor, and still have not solved the engineering challenge of making a 7200RPM TB drive...
1TB drives are meh for me because they arn't 7200RPM yet... llynx gets those speeds because he is running a 3 disk raid 0 array, not 2.

And also, Sager/Clevo/Malibal don't offer 1TB drives, which means I would be forced to get the stock 500GB drive and spend $200+ on two 1TB drives.

All in all, the 500GB extra isn't really worth spending $120 or so extra, considering I am running fine on my desktop with my 640GB 3.5" external, 320GB 2.5" External, 1TB Internal, and 60GB SSD. Yeah... I have quite a good amount of external storage.

SO ANYWAYS, It's good to see 3 hard drives working on the p170, which would mean it should support the raid 0 on two drives.

Anybody know what brand the drive that comes with the notebook is?

 

OK, that's a good point. I should add to my previous posting that for me personally the speed of my two HDDs is not really an issue because I will have a SSD as primary harddrive. Thus 5400RPM is fine for me if can gain 500GB extra. If speed would be more important to me than the extra storage, I probably would choose the same configuration as yours.

 

Yeah, a 128GB SSD isn't large enough for me to store all my games, and I'd still like my transfer speeds to be sufficient on my raid.

Anyways, anybody know answers to the other questions?

 

Once you go raid 0 you never want to go back. I went from Asus G50vt running in Raid 0 to the below specs and I miss it. This HDD lag kills me, and SSD is to much and they fail to often and I like to have my blu-ray burner! lol

 

I'm aware of the performance increases between non-raid and raid 0 on normal hard drives, but I've been using a Vertex 2 SSD which maxes the SATA 2 interface already, so I will probably be right at home
See, I'll be going with a 128GB M4 for priority games/productivity apps/OS, and use the raid for storage/downloads/games. "Fail too often" is a very uneducated answer. The average SSD will have 3000 programs... thats easilly 10-15 years of use.
Disk drives are the most useless things in the world in this age of fast internet, external storage, and cloud storage. This is why I am just getting an external DVD drive in case I need to use it for whatever reason(on the go and get a DVD to install something) but otherwise they are practically useless.

Storage is not what I wanted to focus on in this thread... so can we just shift to answering the small questions I had?(see OP)

 

I use the G.Skill and it works great.

I didnt get hard drives off my reseller so I cant comment on hard drive brand.

Also adding RAM or HDD doesnt void warranty, just that the parts are not covered by warranty.

The other parts stay under warranty.

 

The cable is very delicate but if you are very careful and take your time, you will not have any problems. I have done it before without issue (I do everything using a wrist strap too).

 

Sounds good... I'll see if I can get someone to steal me an extra anti static wristband from their workplace XD.

That just leaves the hard disk branding question to be answered.

 

Most of them use Seagate drives. You can check with the reseller though to be safe as its always possible to get something else. It just depends what the vendors got good group prices on for buying a crap load of them, lol

And like he said, keyboard is cake to get under.

As you want to replace the memory yourself just ask if you can get laptop without any memory, as most can sell without it. I know some say the memory is free but maybe if you dont accept any you can get a little more off it.

 

Great idea! I'll try it, but if the savings arn't $30-40, there wouldn't be a point because I can take the dimms out and sell them on ebay for that much.
I'll check with malibal since it seems like this is a variable thing.

 

1. You can run three hard drives no problem with RAID on the primary and secondary drive bays. These two bays are SATA III. The optical bay will be SATA II though.

2. Hard drive brand is typically Seagate, but if you want to add your own it doesn't really matter what the brand is.

3. It should work fine, there are other users running it without issues
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...7-sager-8150-malibal-lotus-p150hm-review.html

4. Adding RAM/Hard drive yourself won't void your warranty. Obviously, the warranty won't cover the new parts you've added though. Just be careful when you have it open.

5. Going under the keyboard isn't that difficult. The ribbon cable isn't terribly delicate, it's just more so than everything else. If you're gentle and don't bend it too much, you shouldn't have any issues. If you've got the service manual then I wouldn't worry- it's pretty detailed. If you want to save yourself the hassle, you can just order with 2x4GB which will be installed under the keyboard that way you won't have extra RAM to get rid of when you upgrade.

Let us know if you have any other questions

 

Like the other person suggested, does Malibal allow completely cutting RAM from the build(as in no ram at all)? That's the route I would like to take if the savings are in the $30 range.

And by "run three hard drives no problem with RAID on the primary and secondary drive bays." are you saying that I can't run RAID say, between a SATA II Drive in the Secondary bay and a Sata II Drive in the Optical bay?

 

Hi, yes you can remove the RAM from your configuration, simply request that through our sales department and they will get you taken care of. Thanks!

 

Well, I ordered everything.
Kinda annoying that they removed the -$50 for 4x2GB ram... Malibal said that I could either remove the ram entirely for -$45, or keep it. The gskill ram is $45... so meh, there was no point in removing the ram after all.
Doesn't make sense in my mind why 4x2GB ram would be -$50, but removing ram altogether is only -$45... but oh well.

 

Hit a few road bumps along the way with Malibal with them forgetting to apply the free shipping discount and some payment questions... answered today in the nick of time so I can pay on time tomorrow.
Time to play the waiting game... I plan on doing a full video review that doesn't just go over cosmetic appeal like all the other video reviews.
Excited

 

Why did you decide to leave the path of desktop processing, did you find your 9262 too bulky?

 

? 9262?
Anyways, I left desktop because:
1. College next year, can't deal with desktops anymore
2. Need the mobility of a laptop for LANs + being more productive in school
3. My desktop is quickly becoming outdated with its i7 920 and 4890. Upgrade route was EITHER to overhaul my desktop completely(cpu, ram, motherboard, gpu) or just get a laptop. I chose laptop.

 

Haha similar to me. I had a desktop but a bit older QX6850 CPU 8GB and GTX 260. Figured would spend about 1.5K to get it up to spec or spend a little more for a laptop and laptop won.

Sold my old Asus G50vt for 800, got this and plan on selling desktop. Only thing I miss is HDD speed (asus was Raid 0 and desktop 10kRPM raid 0) but currently out of money so no SSD for me, haha

 

But ah, you got a 2860, gtx 580 and 95% screen, so that would explain your lack of money.
See, I went with the super budget route and am replacing my screen manually... selling the stock hannstar screen in the process to effectively cut the cost of replacing the screen to something like $60

 

My upgraded screen was $65. New screen cost about $100 to buy on your own and while yes you can sell the old one what you don't get is Sager warranty with it.

I sprung for the 3 year warranty and if my screen dies any time during that I get it replaced, you probably get 90 days or MAYBE 12 months depending on the place you buy the screen from and are not really saving much more than me, if any.

But yea, the GTX 580 kicked my a** lol and the CPU didn't help either. lol

 

I'm planning to go with this config:

1st: SATA 3: Crucial M4 SSD 128gb 6Gbps For the OS.
2nd & 3rd (optical?): Raid 0 for SATA 3: Seagate momentus 500Gb + SATA 2: Seagate momentus 500Gb

My only concern will be to know which bay is 1st, 2nd and 3rd (if not the Optical bay). And how shall I place them to get the best performance possible? ^^ I wonder if having 1 of the HDD on SATA 3 and the second on SATA 2 will create any kind of Bottleneck

Actually... is it even possible to configure the 2nd and 3rd HDD on RAID 0 leaving out the SSD? I hear SSDs lose TRIM when included on a RAID config, so I prefer leaving it only for the OS.

Thanks!

 

The bays are pretty easy to tell apart on that machine. The primary hard drive is in it's own bay in the front center part of the laptop. The secondary drive is underneath the optical drive bay on the front left. Here's a link to the service guide courtesy of NBR member Theriko:

P17xHM_ESM.zip

You won't have a bottleneck placing an HDD on SATA III and one on SATA II. A mechanical hard drive cannot even come close to saturating a SATA II connection right now. SATA III is overkill for anything but the newest/fastest SSD's.

It is better to leave the SSD out of RAID as it does lose TRIM support when you add it in. TRIM is the garbage collection algorithm, which means it keeps performance and longevity on the drive at optimal levels. Without TRIM, it will slow down over time and potentially shorten its lifespan. When you set up RAID, you can choose which drives to add to the array, so you can always leave out the SSD. You should be able to RAID just the HDD's in the secondary/optical slot independent of the SSD.

 

Cool! Thanks for the info. I will read the service manual before receiving my machine and be ready to do it right away.

I already have my Crucial M4 waiting to be placed ^^

 

Well, everything BUT my notebook has shipped so far. By next Tuesday, I'll have everything I ordered(SSD, HDD, Ram, Cooler, Screen, ICD7). I already got my Orochi and Wenger Pegasus... and love both of them.
But... I won't have my notebook until at least next Friday.
This will be me:

 

Just placed an order for a minimally configured Malibal Satori.

Ugh, second guessing this P170HM (bigger laptop bag in overhead bin;weight, ++brick) yet looking forward to the bigger footprint on my lap (didn't want kids and I enjoy the tingle -don't judge me) and screen I have to stare at all day. I imagine that the larger chassis aids in cooling, but that's pseudo-science if there isn't adequate ventilation...which these appear to have.

It was sooo difficult not to pimp that box, but even at the low end, this is leagues ahead of where I am now.

How long is 5 days again? That long, eh? Sucks.

 

lmfao. no kids ftw.

 

Well my notebook shipped today and is slated to arrive early on Tuesday... it's like they knew I was getting everything by Tuesday

 

Now I have a problem... I just received my new expansion bay for my P170HM Optical drive 12.7mm, BUT it says its SATA 1.5Gb... >.< OMG I did not expected to be 1.5... =/ SO if I want to make a RAID-0 for my secondary Seagate Momentus 500Gb 7200 RPM... will that become a Bottleneck?

If so, where can I get the Expansion adapter for optical drive at SATA 2 (3Gbps)?

Thanks!

 

Well... if it has some sort of hard drive controller on the bay(I don't see why it would) that operates at 1.5gbps... it's still plenty fast. 1.5gbps is 1500mbps which is 187.5MBps... which is far past 7200rpm drives.

And...
I'm getting my shiny new p170hm(HOPEFULLY in full working condition) tomorrow! Yay

 

I was planning to put 2 Seagate Momentus on RAID-0 (1 SSD [OS] + 2 500Gb).

I believe SATA 1.5 can't even provide the whole 1500mbps because the communication its also also used for 8b/10b encoding.

So taking everything into account, if I want to increase the reading times for Games or transfer information from my Hard drives to my external USB 3.0 drives will the SATA 1.5gb become a Bottleneck?

Shall I use my 2 Seagate momentus separated, or go for the RAID-0?

Edit: on wikipedia SATA Description: "As of April 2010 mechanical hard disk drives can transfer data at up to 157 MB/s" So that means 1.5 Gb ports can be a real issue... or not? =S

 

As far as that goes, the burst speed may reach 157MB/s but sequential/random read writes will be very low as it's still a HDD... the Raid will benefit the speeds greatly but it compounds two harddrive channels, so I'd say you're fine with 1.5gb, although I don't know how the caddy could itself be 1.5gbps anyways, unless they put something other than a Sata "extension cord" so to speak in it.
The raid will more than balance out any potential read bottlenecks... if there are any to begin with.

 

Okay I have it all setup... I went through a lot to set this laptop up(1 hour and 35 minutes of work).
Sum of what happened(I have a video of everything):
Cut myself really badly opening the box because i was excited.
Took 30 minutes to figure out the hard drive caddy
Inserted the ram underneath the keyboard wrong, noticed the computer didn't turn on, tried 3 more times, realized I inserted the ram the wrong way after checking how the factory installed their ram, and then reseated it.
THEN it finally booted and is now installing windows XD
I'll post up a video review in a week or so after I have enough time to get used to the notebook.

 

Please let us know how your RAID-0 goes =) if you can, perhaps we can see some crystal mark comparison before and after you set RAID ? ^^;

Thanks!

 

I don't have a before(Didn't want to install windows, have it put system files for no reason on the raid even though I install on the ssd, and then have it wiped and have to reinstall)... but I definitely have some benches of how fast my SSD/Raid is

Here they are: I'll enclose a full bench review in a week or so.
M4 first... don't have time to do the raid atm(cdm actually takes a while)
This is on battery power, so it's not at 100% performance.

 

Wow you have some nice speeds still, except for the 4K writes that seems oddly low to me o.o

=) I will be looking forward to your benchmarks.

 

Found time to run vantage. This is fully stock speeds on the gpu.
AMD Radeon HD 6970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2760QM Processor,CLEVO P170HMx score: 18002 PCMarks

 

lol. Me too! I was confused at how it would be secured on there. But then I removed the hard drive bay plate and saw the hole for the screw. The rest was just assembling.

 

A quick question, I have 8 GB of DDR3 1333 (4x2 DIM) lying around from my previous laptop, can I upgrade it together with whatever ram that's in my future sager laptop as long as the speed match each other? Do I have to worry about timing them?

 

Nope, as long as your new machine has empty slots and the old RAM is the same/faster speeds, it should work without issue. Even if it's slower, it'll work fine- it'll just slow down all the RAM in the machine.

 

I ordered this configuration 2 days ago FYI. I was going to get the 15" but I decided to get the 17" when I noticed that it had a 120Hz panel option.
It's interesting to me that I've not seen many people choose to join the Radeon with the fast panel. Any thoughts on why this is?

Also, FWIW, Mythlogic was cheaper than all the other Clevo dealers when I ordered. Eric, their sales rep, has been helpful and accommodating to special requests. Give them a look if you are in the market.

 

Sager resellers and Malibal only offer nvidia cards for the 3D 120hz screen.
I think mythlogic is the only one that will match a 6990m with a 120hz screen.

 

Is there a review on the 120hz screen? I've been looking around and I can't find toomuch about its color and brightness compared to the other screens.

 

Yeah I'd like a comparison too, kinda torn between the 2

 

I'm pretty sure Malibal offers the 120 hz screen too(I've asked and they seemed to point in this direction).

Before I go to bed... as a first day's full use impression...
Productivity and multi tasking wise, this computer is a powerhouse. It is WAY faster than my old desktop(in part due to the SSD + RAID HDD combo).

BUT! Gaming on this computer will take some getting used to. The MAJOR issue with the keyboard is that it only supports 4 held keys at any one time. I don't know if this is because I connected the keyboard ribbon cable incorrectly, thus disabling some inputs, or what, but this cannot really qualify as a true gaming keyboard... that much is for sure.
I have had to compromise my play style in games because 99% of shooters will require more than 4 keyboard keys to be pressed at one time. The Logitech G15 supports up to 6 or 8 keys pressed at the same time, and will repeatedly macro the keys until they are released. This keyboard should have designed with the same features in mind... perhaps the keyboard can be optimized with a bios update, because it is annoying to think of ways to change my gameplay(though, in a couple hundred more hours of gaming, I will adapt, it is a huge disadvantage right now).
I also noticed the keyboard does not support more than 3 keys pressed if TWO of the WASD keys are pressed down. I don't know if this is some sort of fluke with my keyboard or if it is prevalent throughout the clevo keyboards, but yeah.

Backlighting is another thing... if I ever move my hands to say, find the delete key or the arrow keys/num pad, I have issues and it takes a bit of time to see in the dark... but regular typing and gaming on the QWERTY side is natural for me.

The keyboard issue is the only issue I've detected with this laptop so far... it runs real cool on my cooler master U3.

 

I had requested some reviews also in the owners lounge thread and no one responded. My rep Eric, said it was an awesome panel though. I googled the LG panel model # listed on Mythlogics web site and it appears to be the same one in the Dell XPS 17 3d (L702x) and the Asus G74 3D. Looking at short reviews on line, everyone raves about the screen. I've not seen any real detailed reviews like those that I trust from Anandtech's.

Read at least the first page from this link though...
AnandTech - ASUS VG236H 23-inch 3D Display Review: 120Hz is the Future
It is a different panel, but the point I took away is that 120HZ blows away anything else for gaming above 60FPS, blu-ray movies, and just even moving windows around.

I'll post my thoughts when I get my system. Additionally, I'm pretty sure I can find a way to get 3D movies to work, although AMD's website says that 3D gaming won't work with the 6990M card yet.