My NP8660 Review (More to Come)

BAD NEWS GUYS MY SYSTEM HAS ENCOUNTERED A "UNEXPECTED SHUTDOWN DECTED" ERROR AND AFTER TALKING TO THE TECH IT SEEMS ITS A HARD DRIVE FAILURE SO SO FAR I'M NOT FEELING GOOD ABOUT THIS, I HAVE TO SEND IT BACK BUT DO U GUYS THINK I SHOULD RETURN IT FOR REFUND CAUSE I ALSO SUDDENLY SAW A STUCK PIXEL YESTERDAY I DIDN'T SEE ANY ON THE DAY IT ARRIVED I TESTED IT TOO. BUT IT SUDDENLY APPEARED. SO I'M REALLY PISSED RIGHT NOW

OK i'll be writing a review but right now i'm just putting in my first thought and how this things have exceeded my expectations

first of all the looks of this thing is amazing, its not too stylish and not ugly either just falls between these two.

after carefully reviewing the screen under white/black bg i see that i have no dead or stuck pixels so that was a relief cause i was getting a little worry about that.

the windows vista experience rating is 5.0 because the RAM is given the lowest score i think the reason might be that vista maybe doesn't recognize the DDR3 completely, cause there cant be any other reason why it would score lower than a DDR2. But i dont really care about the score there kind of pointless.

Keyboard/TouchPad - keyboard is just so nice, i got use to it in just few minutes . I have read about some space bar issues that it louder than the other key, i think its because it the biggest key in the whole keyboard so realy i dont might that noise at all.

Touchpad is also great, really sensitive,


















I will be doing some benchmarking on the following games
-Crysis Wars
-Crysis Warhead
-Battlefield 2142
-Call of Duty 4 as soon i can soon buy it

also it might take a while because i need to get a mouse for this beast, i was trying to use my wacom tablet mouse but that thing has its limit to how much it can do.

3D Mark06, 3DMark Vantage, PCMark Vantage, I will put them up as soon as i can get some free time today hopefully after work.

Picture will also be up today

Ok i'll write more as soon as i get some time off today

 

Nice one. I guess now you shouldn't need to replace any driver (e.g. chipset) to sort the HDD problem, as ones shipping now will hopefully have the drivers already installed, or go to the Sager site to get any needed updates.

Mine is due to arrive on the 21st!

 

CoD4? You should also get CoD5. For the mouse, some good stuff is the Logitech G5, or Microsoft Hardware gaming mouses. They have some good stuff. Also, Logitech have released another weird mouse like Microsoft one. Would be nice to have more benchmarks about this laptop.

 

I went to futureshop looking for gaming mouse but they are all weird cant find the perfect one

 

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pr...665000FS10094050&catid=14265&logon=&langid=EN
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10093985&catid=
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10080488&catid=
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10093050&catid=

They may look weird but they feel great in your hand and have high precision. Just don't get wireless or one of those Logitech Revolution for gaming.

 

i like wiresless mouse but i guess they are not that great for gaming?

 

Wired ones are better for gaming, I like the Mx518 from Logitech. 40 bucks on Amazon.

 

Logitech MX Revolution is excellent for gaming. Wireless and rechargable. No need to worry about wires and batteries. To give you an insight, in cod4 to counter strike source, I'm always in the top 3.

 

I believe its not the mouse Anyway, I believe you won't die if you have a wireless mouse but with some gaming grade mouse, you have more precision, on-the-fly DPI (even if I never use that) and more gamer features. Battery isn't the biggest pain since most mouses use AA battery. But for special battery like on the Logitech G7, you can't buy extra batteries and you can only replace them when you have less than 30min. of battery life within the 1yr warranty. Corded is just cheaper and equal (or better) for the precision. Comfort depends on the user.

 

yea i might get a wired logitech g5 specially since its available at circuitcity for 40 bucks but lets see '

COD5 right i meant to right that, i did get the beta entry but my desktop wasn't powerful enough to handle it, wonder if its still working,

omg my pictures are in small size cause i took them on my cell phone 2 mpx i forgot to enlarge the image size before taking the images XD

for benchmarking should i optimize my system first or just do a fresh benchmark then optimize to see some change

i still have the factory settings and drivers nothing updated

 

If you had the choice, I'd recommand CoD4 instead of CoD5. In my opinion, Treyarch just did a bad job with Infinity Ward engine. If you ever played CoD3, this is what CoD5 is like. You can see there is more similarities in the gameplay in CoD, CoD:UO, CoD2 and CoD4. Anyway, both of the games have pretty much the same system requirements.

Don't forget the latest Intel Matrix Storage for the HDD

 

give a razer brand mouse a shot btw, might be pricey but they're amazing.

 

your information doesn't feel me to full more more

 

Razer, Sindwinder, G5, G9, G11, Habu. They are all great mouses. You have to compare them by yourself, wherever you need on-the-fly DPI, thumb buttons, weights, LCD, macros, confort, etc.

 

Bad News Guys My System Has Encountered A "unexpected Shutdown Dected" Error And After Talking To The Tech It Seems Its A Hard Drive Failure So So Far I'm Not Feeling Good About This, I Have To Send It Back But Do U Guys Think I Should Return It For Refund Cause I Also Suddenly Saw A Stuck Pixel Yesterday I Didn't See Any On The Day It Arrived I Tested It Too. But It Suddenly Appeared. So I'm Really Pissed Right Now

 

you should not have to send it back if its the harddrive.

ask for a cross-shipment for a new HDD.

 

well not exactly sure it is the HD just that after doing some research i think that might be the problem but the Sager Tech said they'll need me to send it back because they're not sure what it could be

 

OK question, idk yet if i wanna go with the RMA or just refund it but if i am should i send everything that i received with the laptop or just the laptop.

 

You should contact them for an RMA number and specify if its for a refund or for repairs so they can process the RMA efficently. If its for repairs, I believe you just send the laptop. If its for a refund, you send everything back. For repairs, you should get a UPS prepaid label.

 

Ouch.

Excuse me if I've missed something, but what's with this problem np8660s are having with HDDs? (over-heating, failing etc)

 

firstly sorry to hear of the problems jimprime.
if we can help you out we will.
does this problem happen every time you turn the computer on or was it a one off and then you contacted support. have you managed to load any software on yet or not attempted to.
if its possible could you try and load HD Tune and post the results on here so we can have a better idea of how to help you. Get HD Tune HERE

there have been a few hot HDs but in general the majority are hunky dorey (ok). anything below 65c is ok but over that you need to start crappin yourself and returning it for replacement.

 

Ok the problem exactly is that every time i turn the pc on the "Unexpected Shutdown Detected Initializing [1-99%]" error after it reaches 100% the Windows Error Recovery pops up i tried all the mode safe/normal/last best setting and so on but it loads the windows vista loading screen but in few sec the PC restarts and the cycle continues. Now tech support went though some troubleshooting, he asked me to try to use the recovery cd by editing the CD positioning to the first in bios. tried that but no luck the error still came. I'm not exactly sure its the HD's that is at fault but since the operating system is not loading at all i started to think maybe the HD could be the one. Also according to some research on the ERROR it seems it might be the HD but i don't know. So the tech asked me to RMA it back to them. PS: I was monitoring the HD with the HWmonitor the HD never went above 53-55 It also was working perfectly the night before and the morning of the day it happened, but when i came back from work i tried to use it and bam i saw the error.

So right now i'm thinking about what to do, refund or RMA to get it fixed because i really want the computer, but after two days of normals use (notice i have not done any gaming so far, just 2 futuremark so i don't think i overloaded the system.) its ended up like that what would it be in the future.
If i do decide to send it back would i expect it to be returned in the same condition i'm sending it to them. its only two days old, all the wrappers and protecting wear is still on the notebook, i have not taken any of them off yet.

 

those HD temps are perfect.
sounds like a return might be the best option. as trying to get it sorted with advice from support and us all on here will send you round the twist.

i went through exactly the same thing with my m15x and was onto support within an hour of it being taken out of the box. so i do feel your pain man.

all i can say is try and stick in there as this laptop is a beast and has been the best computer buy ive ever made. once its working and you start playing games on it you will defo not want a refund.

lets just hope they get it sorted for you pronto.

 

did u get the m15x back, and if u did was it in the same condition u sent it to them. like i said will i expect to get the same condition i'm sending it in cause it would be bad if the issues are fixed but the condition of the product is worn out

 

i was totally messed about by them.
was promissed an extended return refund policy as a show of good will for all the problems i had had. after 19 day i had had aenough so i asked for a refund. was told i cant as i it had passed the 14 day refund date. in the end i sent it in. 2 days later i get a call saying there was nothing wrong with it. i asked had they seen the jpegs i had put on the desktop. 3dmark06 scores of 9700 on day 1 and 3000 now. they replied oh yeh,we will get back to you.
6 days later i get it back.new mother board and new chassis. dont know why they changed the chassis as there was nothing wrong with it.
anyway when i checked it over i see they had given me someone elses chassis with their nameplate on it. cancelled there and then and got a refund 3 weeks later.

i dont think you will get this sort of treatment from sager. ive heard they are very good.
dont give up on it yet. give it one chance.

 

yea i'm def gona give Sager a chance since its not really their fault so i'm gona send it in monday and lets see what happens

 

Exactly happen to me one time on my Asus laptop. I also thought at first it was the hdd crapping out on me but it wasn't entirely. It was too strange that all of a sudden it didn't want to boot into windows when all was fine before that. So I took the hdd, memory ram, and intel turbo memory out and put them all back together nice and tightly and then guess what-every thing worked again. May be something was knocked loose causing the computer not to read properly I don't know. You should try that and report back. Hoped that helps.

 

oK I mailed it back to them for repair yesterday even shipping it back i went through some problem first the ups wouldn't accept the pre-paid label that sager email me, they were like "its was not the proper UPS label" so i had to get a another one, so i had to go back and forth twice.

 

Almost reconsidering CREDITING MY UNIT, i just saw the whole holiday package and i asked them if i can still get some discount on my current system which i just got few days ago and sent it back again after 2 days. they said i can credit the whole unit and reorder to qualify for the discount, now they said about deducting credit from the $$ which includes the original shipping , then the RMA shipping they sent me, and now I have to send in the rest of the stuff that i have back to them again so i'll be deducted around more than $100 just on shipping, they also said after the unit goes under inspection any scratches or soemthing like on the LCD and the system will also be deducted from the credit so i lose around 200 bucks that way automatically

so my original order was around 2478 USD - 200 USD or more = 2200 USD. now after i reconfig my order with the current setting i have on the system would come around 2100 or so not including shipping, so what you guys think should i go for it or now

any suggestion PS: my system hardware was already at fault so i don't think they'll deducted anything from that but the screen had a stuck pixel on it i don't know if they'll consider that in the damages of the system.

 

If you really want to save money and can live without your laptop for some time, then why not

 

well i can live that long that around 2-3 weeks i mean i've waiting for like 4 months i was planning on getting the laptop since sumemr but i waited so i think i can wait

 

OK i applied for a refund more like a credit for my current unit, I sent everything back and after the refund issued i'll reorder it again

main reason is that i wanna say some $$, i did ask them that if there was a way to qualify for the holiday saving since i received my system a week before they announced the discount package. They said that issue a credit for this unit and order a new one.

So have anyone out there ever refunded from Sager, i no silly since most sager notebook are almost perfect, i would like to know how the process went, and the deduction and all.

currently my deductions would be the shipping mostly they did say about if there is any scratches on the system will also be deducted from my refund, but i doubt there are any since i only used it for 2 days also all the protective wrappers were on it.

 

Just reordered my Sager NP8660 today the same spec just with 3 years warrenty+30day no dead pixel warrenty.

I saved around 200 bucks after the deductions of shipping from my credit so it is still pretty good deal

 

nice deal indeed.

 

sorry to hear that, but, italics or bold > CAPS... (it took my eyes far too long to read what you were getting across)

gl

 

If time wasn't a problem, that was a good deal overall.

 

indeed it was a good deal plus i dont mind waiting like i said before i wait ed around 4 months before so it wasnt a big deal for me
l
Plus its in phase 2 already XD