Getting 9260. Which Re-seller to pick? Vista SLI?

I'm heading off to college and looking for a notebook to use as an 'everything' computer. Going into Mechanical Engineering, so I wanted to pick something with some horsepower so I could do CAD for the next several years.

Thats why I settled on a higher end 9260.
SLI'd 7950's, C2D E6700, 2GB 800mhz RAM, 3x160GB 7200rpm drives, 3yr Warranty + 3yr Accidental...

The works . And an extra battery for this juice gobbler.

My only question left, after being confounded by Gophn's comprehensive Clevo guide, is which re-seller to go with. Originally, I was going to just get it from Sager directly, but found neither its BBB rating or price to be very attractive after reading the guide.

I think I have it narrowed down to Xotic PC, PC Torque, or Hypersonic, mainly due to Gophn's BBB ratings and customer satisfaction estimates.

Any input? I need to know mainly about how 'good' or reliable the systems and tech support are for these companies before I pull the trigger on a $4k+ laptop. Mainly, the warranty and support quality.

Also, anyone know the status of Vista + SLI Drivers? Still messed up/non-existent?

Any info, even if apparently off topic, would be a help.

*edited for speeling*

 

Definitely would recommend:
- www.powernotebooks.com
- www.xoticpc.com

They have great reputations for service/support, and they are reps in this forum to answer any questions.

For the moment, there is no SLI support within Vista (drivers and support are currently being worked on for that).

If you read the Clevo D900C reviews (theres about 3 of them on this forum), you will find out that they are extremely well-made and well-designed (especially for the thermal output). It runs extremely cool and quiet for having so many powerful components within.

I would recommend to use XP if you want to fully utilize the SLI videocards... until Vista has its SLI drivers out (by Winter hopefully).

 

WINTER?!?!
That far away is ridiculous. You'd think Vista snuck up on nVidia or something.
As for the OS, I was teetering between XP & Vista. Since it'll be DX9 with the 7950's, XP is probably a better choice to get the fullest out of the system, but the ever-increasing number of Vista-only apps is sure to continue to rise.
And yeah, I was about to edit & add powernotebooks to the 'considering' list.

Another thing... How does 'upgrading' on laptop gfx cards work? I see people talking about doing that with the 8800's if/when they eventually make it to mobile, and it looks attractive to me as well.

Thanks for the quick reply!

 

Welcome to the forums Akilae Hunter

For your accidental damage coverage I would recommend going to www.safeware.com because then you will have a real insurance policy that also covers theft.

Then make sure you look at the Customer Satisfaction ratings for any company selling digital equipment at www.resellerratings.com. Look at both the quality of the ratings as well as the number of ratings over the years.

When choosing between Xoticpc, Hypersonic and PowerNotebooks notice that the main difference will be that Xoticpc offers a 1 year parts and 3 year labor (the labor part they provide for the last two years) warranty and Hypersonic and PowerNotebooks.com provide not only the standard Sager 1 year parts and labor warranty, but also Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC tech support.

Of course if you are already upgrading to the Sager 3 year parts and labor warranty then the advantage goes to Hypersonic or PowerNotebooks.com with the Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC telephone support.

 

Vista only apps? I haven't heard of such a thing at this time. If I were a software company I wouldn't even think of trying to market software that would only work with Vista. I think you will be better off sticking with tried and true XP if for no other reason than to get your SLi functionality.

The 8800M will not be released until this Winter. No one can tell you if you can upgrade to a card that doesn’t exist. The 8800M may have power and thermal requirements that exceed the current specs of the laptops that are out now. You can only hope and wait to see if it will be upgradeable.

 

There are a few Vista-only games (like Shadowrun) that came out... too bad that a hacker group cracked it and its fully compatible for XP as it turned out.... pretty much a kick to Microsoft's groin.

So I would not worry about the Vista-only propaganda that Microsoft is trying to spread... because XP will be around for many years to come. (especially in the eyes of businesses/corporations)

 

And with the upgrade ability, it would probably void any warranty I'd get, not to mention its hard to find mobile graphics cards by themselves.

And yeah, I'm definitely going to stick with XP for a while yet. If I really really need a Vista feel, I'll just skin/widget it. But thats unlikely, as it consumes resources.

So according to what you guys have been saying, and what I've been gathering from around the forum, XP will still be supported for quite some time, as will DX9.

Sooo, then until the laptop is obsolete, it'll be the king of the hill.
Though its unfortunate that the barebones makers only got around to a C2D SLI laptop only recently. They make the old AMD SLI laptops look like a joke.

 

There are beta drivers available for Vista + SLI although I have not personally tried them.

I do not think DirectX 10 is that attractive at the moment. DirectX 9 will be around for many years to come.

 

Does this chassis of laptop have a 2nd optical bay? And are the one/two optic bays useable as modular battery or bracketed swap-able HD's?

 

I think it does allow for a second optical bay, IIRC, I think I saw a picture that had the laptop configured with two, but don't put me up to it, my memory can be a bit sketchy at times.

Maybe Donald or Justin might be able to better answer your questions.

 

the Clevo D900C/D901C has only one optical driver bay... compared to its previous D900T/K chassis, which had 2.

the D900C/D901C has simultaneous 3 internal HDD's and one optical drive... which is a better design since having two optical drives is not that useful.

 

Complete specifications for the Sager NP9260

It holds 3 hard drives internally (can be put in RAID 0, 1, or 5...or no RAID), not in a swappable bay, and only has one Optical Drive capability, and will only carry one battery.

 

I have a Clevo D900C, purchased as a Targa Raptor 60 from Targa Computers. They were very friendly and delivery was fast. I was very interested in having Sata II [3.0 gb transfer] Seagate Hard Drives [in this case three of them, one for System stuff, one for gaming and one used specifically for work - yeah I know, but it does work fast!]. They were competitive on the pricing that I could get through Tigerdirect for the Hard Drives - $ 178 each, and installed by them. They also installed XP Home, my preference since my work experience showed that file transfers and networking is faster on Home than professional. Probably due to security bottlenecks in the Pro version. So all in all Targa was fast (1 day to ship), reasonably priced and friendly. That said, I have begun reading this Forum and a few others and am very impressed with the support from Sager and Powernotebook.

By the way some notes on this System; Wxuga [nice, at work they call it my TV Monitor], E6700 [due to price of X6800], 2 gb 800 mhz ram, (3) sata II 160 gb hard drives, dual 7950 GTX SLi, XP Home.

Original 3d Mark06 score was 9072, oc [640/721] produced 9670. I backed of to 634 on the core and 719 on the memory, added (6) external 70mm cooling fans and run with the [fn]+1 setting for high fans. CPu temp at 24 to 28, video at 35 and hard drives at 45. Unfortunately I blindly picked the Game drive without testing first. Yep, its the one at the battery, and my left wrist. Part of the reason for the fans. I not into first person shooters, but it handles Oblivion [with a long list of mods] in 1400x1050 resolution very comfortably.

If I can answer any questions please ask and I will do my best.

Good luck with your purchase.

 

Alan, sounds like you got a clone of what I'm looking for!
I heard that the 160GB 7200rpm drives are only made by a few companies and are significantly faster than even other 7200's in the notebook segment. Thats my main reason for not going with some other config.

Though after building the same exact spec. rig on all the main competitor's sites, other than a few exceptions, they are all within $200 of each other, for the most part. If a company has an awesome reputation for great service, etc, I'll go for iteven if its the $200 more. (Hence why boutique pc shops flourish, though that's the extreme/elitist end of the spectrum)

But the idea of 1 drive each for OS/misc files, games, and work/school is very appealing.

How does someone go about setting the thing to [fn]+1 for the fans?

Thanks for all the input, everybody! It's been a great help clarifying things already!

 

The 7200rpm HDD's are great, you will find that the brands available are Seagate, Samung and Hitachi.

The Seagates are more expensive (usually) because they have developed a new low-level encryption for the HDD, as well as Seagates are notoriously quiet and fast.

The Samsung and Hitachi are also great quality and have larger capacity with 7200rpm.

it is already set in the low-level programming of the notebook. so you do not and cannot change it to anything else.

 

With the whole 3 HD's topic:
Anybody know which HD is which inside the thing? I'd like to set it up so that the one with the games is the one closest to an HS(F).

Also, anyone know of the (possibly 'user', but not necessarily) upgrade-ability of this chassis? Like, if a similar socket, similar thermal footprint processor comes out that I want to upgrade to... OR, if a similar thermal envelope gfx module comes out... etc etc. Is it possible to put new parts in it? Even if I would have to send it to the purchasing company, it would be cheaper to have them upgrade it than buying a whole new one.

 

After chipping away on my financial source's questions, we both (my parents and I) have a main question that needs answering.

I get the feeling that the 'Authorized Resellers' deal with the 'Sager 3year' warranty, in that if they sold it they have to replace/repair it.

My parents main concern was that if Sager is such a bad support company (as evidenced by BBB and Resellerratings), then why pay more for a better experience at one company over another if the warranty support is the same exact run-of-the-mill Sager support with all the companies...

Or is the Sager warranty just the set of rules that the authorized reseller conforms to when dealing with RMA's?

Thanks, Don, Gophn, Alan, Justin, etc etc etc!!!
(You guys have really been making my pre-purchase laptop purchasing experience a very positive one already!)

 

Tell your parents to look up Dell, Sony, HP/compaq, etc... BBB and reseller ratings... they will find thats these "known brands" have a worse record.

I have said it before, Sager is a great notebook distributor, but when you want to get a notebook, get it from their resellers... whom you will be dealing with directly for support.
- www.powernotebooks.com
- www.xoticpc.com
etc... in Clevo Guide

They have amazing ratings and reputations for the best service/support compared to any company.

 

I read it and was aware of it. Dell has thousands of BBB claims on its record. Powernotebooks has NONE, and a near-perfect (9.98/10) reseller rating, versus Dell's 4.38.

From what you say, that means that the resellers basically play by Sager rules in warranty stuff? As in, the reseller fixes it and deals with it, not Sager? I'm not very experienced in warranty matters, and just want to make sure that I'm getting what I think I'm getting, to prevent any surprises down the road.

Previous post was really to make the cash source happy, since I told them I was in correspondence with reps from resellers.

 

The reseller will handling any all and service/support that you will need... Sager will only be needed if there is a hardware swap/RMA required.

So the warranty will be going through the reseller and Sager.

 

OOOOK. Makes sense now. Mostly. If a swap or RMA is required, does the reseller interact with/ship to Sager on my behalf and make sure its done right? Or is that kind of thing done on a per-vendor basis?

 

Yup, the reseller will instruct you on everything that needs to be done if such an event were to occur.

 

Accidental Repeat Post- the vice of too many tabs.

So the reseller is the middleman in everything. This is good.

Now I'm psyched about it... Will ambush cash supply when they get home.

 

For the most part, the reseller will be the middle-man.. for support/service (technical as well).

The only thing you might have to do if a hardware issue occurs is to ship it back to Sager... but that is if your reseller tells you to (if your problem turns out to be hardware-related).

Donald... Justin.... wanna step in?... anytime now....

 

I've had Toshibas [good and solid], Dells [ok, but you an retire trying to communicate with tech support], Sony Vaios [conservative and slow to new technology] and now finally this Clevo. It seems pretty rock solid, from the packaging thru to the clean simplistic design. The hinges and body are solid, the fans pump at high speed, and I'm not sure why someone tries to sell a pic warrantee on the Display. This display is as good as the HP 17" units that all my friends have, but mine has a full blown desktop cpu.

Comparing some of the benchmarks to online tests, I suspect that a minor bit of overhead has been saved into these Laptops. I don't think that they will run neck to neck with a full blown similar desktop, but it looks like it's only a very small (2%?) bit behind. Meanwhile it toasts T7600 numbers by (10%) or more. I don't see the downside except for battery life, which in my case is irrelevant.

I started by looking to build a gaming Desktop, but found that I could build a great portable for under $ 3,700 with shipping included. My gaming Desktop was topping $ 4,600 with an overclocked E6600 [Overdrive PC]. But this solution is much easier to move to our cottage or to take on sales trips.

For my next Computer, I would definitely look at some form of Clevo. I just think that Powernotebooks and Targa Computer are less into whistles and bells, and simply sell basic great machines. They don't oversell like some of the other groups. Get your best price and then call the group that you guess has the best support, and then negotiate seriously. Don't jerk them around. Treat them like you would want to be treated, with respect. If you don't like their response, call another. But if you like what you hear, then help keep them in business by supporting them. Cool enough?

 

When someone buys a Sager laptop from PowerNotebooks.com they get Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Toll Free Customer Service provided by us, not Sager.

From the time you buy it we are there as the 1st line of technical support. If our technicians cannot resolve your issue we escalate it to the Sager factory technicians. If they cannot resolve the issue on the phone they will issue a Return Merchandise Authorization with shipping instructions to return it to Sager for repair. If at any time during the process our customer is not satisfied with the service they receive they can contact their Sales Advisor who will become a very strong advocate for them to intercede with Sager when necessary.

Therefore our customers can always look to PowerNotebooks.com for full accountability.

 

90% on the decision for Powernotebooks.com
Just sent them an email about the nitty-gritty of the ordering, shipping, and timing.

Looking forward to ordering soon!!!

 

They respond to e-mails pretty fast, you'll be satisfied with your experience with Powernotebooks. I know I was.