M860TU/NP8660 - Quad-core supported officially by Clevo

Clevo M860TU with quad-core CPU support

Not sure if someone has posted it yet.

But here it is:

http://www.clevo.com.tw/en/products/prodinfo_2.asp?productid=122

As of late, Clevo's site shows support for the:

Code:

- [B]Intel® Core™ 2 Quad processor Q9000/Q9100[/B]
(2.26GHz, 45nm, FSB1066, 12MB L2 cache, 478uFC-PGA, Socket P)

I believe the site had a bit of a minor typo....
- the Q9000 is 2.00GHz 6MB L2
- the Q9100 is 2.26GHz 12MB L2

Both Q9000 & Q9100 have the same TDP of 45w, both are 45nm, and should both be supported with the M860TU.

As for QX9300, there is no word for support, but the specs are the same so there should not be an issue for using it as well.

Finally, a 15.4" with quad-core and high-end (256-bit memory interface) GPU.

Game On People,
-Gophn

P.S. cannot confirm yet if there is a BIOS or revision update needed for full Q9000/Q9100 support... but 45w should be fine in current units.

UPDATE: apparently Sager reps are saying that a new motherboard/thermal revision is going to come out..... I am expecting a M860 ETU (like what happened with the M570TU/ETU)

 

Oh boy; that's good news, but there are going to be some upset little campers around today!

 

I strongly urge you to review this information before this false hope turns into a major let down.

We covered a lot of ground in the thread in the following link. Most of the important information is on page four and five. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=336438

This may also be worth noting. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4364772#post4364772, http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4369188#post4369188, http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4428807#post4428807

 

Is it possible to run a QX9300 or X9100 in the M860TU? With cooling mods?!

 

The only cooling mods that I can think of is using thermal adhesive to stick small BGA heatsinks on the CPU heatplate. It is a primitive way of upgrading the heatsink, but it's effective; that's how Mark used to mod the older M570RU heatsinks before he began using CAD and CNC machines to sculpt additions to the heatsinks.

 

Ask scourge18a about having a X9100 installed. Living proof that it works with the machine.

As for the Q9300, Clevo haven't officially stated whether that would work yet. I say yet, because when the Q9300 runs at the same voltage, TDP and uses the same socket as the other two Quad-core chips there really isn't any reason why it wouldn't work either. Apart from maybe BIOS support.

 

scourge18a's M860TU does function beautifully with the X9100. However, his laptop is dependent on the unique cooler that he constructed. The laptop would run fairly hot, in the range that most of us would be concerned, if operated without his cooler, or any other notebook cooler, to handicap the laptop's heat emissions. This is where it may concern university students and those who do not wish to take a cooler along with them.

Yes, I agree. I believe that the last component needed for the M860TU to function with a quad core is a BIOS update.

 

It already POSTs with a QX9300 installed, but ran hot.

zfactor stated this to be true.

Temps with X9100 but no cooler here.

 

ROFL. That's all I have to say

 

Those temps are touching on the hot side. But those are pretty good numbers.

Yes, that is what is interesting me the most. zfactor's stated that he has a friend who put a quad in it and had it POST. I am not saying that I do not believe him, but it would make many of us sleep easier, which I need right now, if zfactor's friend were to publish his feat in person. This also contrasts with that person on eBay. We also do not know who he is, but he is saying that his M860TU failed to POST with a QX9300 with the latest BIOS.

 

Double helpings on that sound advice to everyone who reads this thread!

 

Looks like the thermal budget, like all of them in the past, just got stuck right back up Clevo's a.......

Yep, so we were speculating this for a while, we all knew it had to happen, it was when we were not sure about.

 

I'll bet we'll still see a 101 new threads on 'do quad core chips really work with the M860TU?'

 

As long as the Sticky with cpus still remains...be sure that those threads will arise out of nowhere

 

They also hint that the 9800M GTX is supported as well.

Of course it can't run with a quad core since 45W+75W=120W (the M860TU's power supply).


This was referenced a bit in the sticky here.

 

From the information available at this time, the 8660 (M860TU) will have support for the Q9000 only. A revised motherboard is expected to be tested next month.

 

I can understand your skepticism, which comes from the conflicting report. For me, zfactor is the one who sold me my T9800, and he talked me out of trying out the QX9300, so I can't doubt the man who didn't want to sell me the product that would have made him the most money.

Regardless, I'm eager to see the stability of one of the first M860TU's that ships after the Q9000 is officially added to the line up. As far as I know, since there hasn't been a name change, the inside will be the same.

If someone wants to let me borrow a Q9000 or Q9100 for testing, send me a PM, and we'll work out a collateral agreement.

Edit:

Oh my, this will be a whole new M86xTU SKU. So current owners are out of luck I guess.

 

My M860tu just arrived at my house today too

 

The only time I ever reeally use my cooler is when I am running high OC's on the video card. I don't like to carry any extra junk around, so the cooler stays at home when I am away. Undervolting cured any heat issues that my X9100 may have had. I think the highest temp I remember seeing without undervolting was 88 C. And now I have never been above 68 C. I run a full 20 C cooler than before and the system now idles at 24 C. I couldn't be happier.

 

hummm well im happy.. beacuseeeee

the only reason i want to quad is GTA4... but GTA4 Lost and the Dammed DLC comes out on 360 in 2weeks or so.. making GTA4 PC obsoleat (untill a good Online Mod comes out for it)...

now i can sit back and wait for quadcore mobile prices to fall and pick one up in 12-24 months..

Love u Rockstar. /pray no games come out with more than 2core requirements. eheheh


i do wonder about Starcraft2 thou... Blizzard likes to make the most of what it has.. and there are alot of lowspeed 2-3gig quadcores sitting around in gamers pcs......... ponder.

 

Thanks for the info.

I was thinking that it might be like the M570TU.

The M570TU has dual-core support fine and had a revision M570ETU to fully support quad core.

I expect the M860TU to become the M860ETU.

Its probably minor motherboard/thermal change(s)... for heat dispersion.

_______________________

Just in time to show off a quad-core high-end gaming 15.4" at the upcoming CeBIT.

 

Hello everyone, I'm a new user, Emmanuel from overclock.net
I'd like to shed a light on the quad-core support in the M860TU. I tried a QX9300 last week with the latest 1.13 BIOS from Clevo and the computer did not post with it, the CPU got a little warm to the touch, but nothing came up on the monitor and judging from hard drive activity leds, the laptop wasn't even booting. I tried removing wireless cards, hard drives and one stick on RAM hoping that freeing up some power would allow it to boot, but that was to no avail. I then quickly tried a P8400 and the laptop booted just fine. Now I've sold the QX9300 and I'm waiting for a Q9100 that should arrive either today or tomorrow, maybe I shouldn't have ditched the QX9300 already if it gets support in a few days/weeks
Checking Clevo specs for the M860TU, I also was under the asumption that they meant the Q9100 when they wrote down the Q9000 specs. We all know that all we need really is BIOS support for these CPUs and we can safely assume that the Q9000 is compatible since it's the bottom line mobile quad-core. However as a quad-core it sucks, I mean 6MB of Cache means that it's only 3MB shared among each two sets of cores, whereas with 12MB of Cache, at least you know that at least software that aren't really multithreaded will have 6MB of Cache. Because seriously, if an application doesn't use all 4 cores on a Q9000, it's almost like using a lame old P8300 running at 2.16GHz with 3MB of L2 Cache.
I'll keep you guys posted!
Hopefully at least the Q9100 will run as I didn't have a CPU in my laptop for the past two weeks!

 

Thanks for the post sir. Please keep us updated on how the Q9100 works out.

 

Welcome to the NBR forums.

nice info there.

I think a motherboard/thermal revision might just do the trick for this system to have full and safe support for the Q9000/Q9100/QX9300.

 

I will, if it doesn't work, I guess I'll have to repurchase an X9100...

That would suck though for us current owners of the M860TU because this would mean that we need to change laptops or at least motherboards but I never heard of Clevo selling their laptops motherboards seperately.

 

you're right....whats the point of making it compatible but not with old versions....

 

Is this how the individuals of the Sager 5971 and 5972 felt?

 

Well, the same thing just happened with the M570TU (5796) -> M570ETU (5797).

Like they say, it's never the right time to buy computer tech, because something else is always right around the corner.

I'd love quad support, but I wouldn't trade the last five months of M860TU gaming for anything.

What stings is that you'll now buy a quad equipped M86xTU for less than I payed for a P8600 equipped chassis, but I'm glad to have received the 9800M GT over the GTS. Now if it ever comes with an ATi 4850 installed, I'll shed a tear.

---> Will the two chassis still receive the same BIOS updates? Theoretically, we could flash the quad compatibility BIOS, then test the limits of the hardware's cooling ourselves.

 

I would definitly think that flashing the old board with the new board's BIOS should be fine as it's only going through a revision; it would therefore remain the same board overall. Let's cross fingers on this though, however are we sure that there is actually going to be a motherboard revision? I'm thinking that maybe the new M865TU is what the revision is all about, maybe it's not just a few changes to the look but maybe it also carries the new motherboard. And we all know that there shouldn't be any bad thermal issues, I've been running an X9100 prior to trying out quad-cores and it didn't overheat or anything and didn't exceed 70c during IntelBurn Test, and that CPU running at 3.0GHz definitly runs hotter or the same than a quad-core at 2.5GHz (QX9300) I'm sure. So that thermal budget is BS and it really sucks that we are being victim of manufacturers unwilling to give us the latest CPU support since the hardware definitly supports it.

 

If the X9100 is not supported by Clevo on this chassis, the QX9300 won't be also.

 

Have no worries.
Someone will build it.
And I bet they will sell it.

 

As I stated earlier, the X9100 runs perfectly in this laptop, I had one running for a month before I took the stupid decision of trying out quads and selling my X9100 before actually being sure that the QX9300 would be compatible...

 

Dude, I just noticed your sig... Is that core/memory/shader? Crazy high clocks.

 

nah, it's core/shader/memory, he's just doubling the memory clock (as it's ddr) to make it look better, it'd normally read 640/1600/1000, still pretty crazy though

 

Hey H-Emmanuel did that 1.01.13 BIOS do anything for your cpu whining noise?

 

Lol yeah it's core/shader/memory. Crazy clocks I agree, I run them 24/7 and it's completely stable, I really have a great overclocking GPU. Regarding the whining noise, I never had it so I wasn't expecting any fix from the BIOS update, I was more hoping for quads support.

 

ahh ya.....i have no HDD so the only noise I get at all is the CPU whining and when I play games the fan. But then I usually have sound cranked so it doesn't matter. It's just when I'm surfin the net that the noise drives me to want to murder people.

H-Emmanuel did you ever do 3dmark 06 with those clocks?

 

Yeah with these clocks and the X9100, I scored around 11 600 3DMarks. I was hoping to break 12k with the QX9300.

 

If that's all you score, it's just diminishing returns. I score 11,260 at 610/1525/945, which would probably be 11.5k with the X9100, so you're probably overstressing your card without gaining any performance from it.

Anyway, is your Q9100 coming in today?

 

Ya maybe the card is overstressed but I'll check the day I actually have a working M860TU. My Q9100 just got home, I'm heading home and will let you all know if it works or not in about an hour. Crossing fingers...
Also, I don't technically have a hard drive either so I'll try to hear if there is this whiny noise.

 

Ya once I go past 600/960/1500 it's not really worth it. I scored 11277 with that clock and 11471 with 620/975/1550. Not a huge difference then.
Just wish I could OC my X9100.

 

I very much doubt if the q9100 will work I'm afraid. I'm almost certain that the M860TU needs a physical motherboard upgrade to support any quads.

 

And you are right because I just tried the Q9100 and... NOTHING, it doesn't boot nor POST. Guess I'm back on the X9100, that sucks, now I have to sell the Q9100. I guess no quad-support on that laptop that six months ago was rumored to support the 9800m GTX and the QX9300.
It's now official, no quad core support on this laptop other than the crappy Q9000.

 

Sorry it didn't work out mate, but perhaps you should hold onto it, at least until the new chassis and BIOS come out. Or do you need the funds from the sale to buy a new processor?

 

Yeah I kind of need the funds from the Q9100 to repurchase a X9100. And if I had the choice the CPU that I would have kept would have been the QX9300 since I know that I wouldn't settle for less than the fastest mobile quad-core! This kind of things makes me want more and more to go back to high end desktops lol.

 

So wait is the X9100 still the best? I don't want to upgrade yet it has only been a few months -____-.

 

I doubt if the q9000 would work in the current mobo evision, they are testing a new mobo for the quads. If one quad works, theoretically they all will (temps/power draw is a different matter though, we'll just have to wait till the new board comes out and see)

 

my money is on bios ... just look at the other clevo "mobo" revisions that just turned out to be bios upgrades...

i will hold out on hope.. but yer ... pondersorus

 

Yeah well for now the X9100 remains king, I should be receiving mine hopefully today and not Monday.

 

Hi H-Emmanuel. Just out of curiosity, how much are you planning to sell your Q9100?