My new Clevo D901C!!! Pictures, review and comments :)

It arrived Tuesday 22nd at around 6PM.
I'll start with the pictures first --









This is yesterday at the summer house... (pls ignore fishing-stuff clutter on the left...)





Here are my very first reactions --

Over all I'm very satisfied. I'm still coming to terms with Vista LOL... and discovering stuff. I played a little bit Assassins Creed and it was smoother than my 3Ghz C2D laptop with 8800GT single card.

I was surprised because even though I read that this notebook is very bulky and heavy.... lol c'mon it's not that heavy And it is more silent than my desktop even when I turn the fans on at 100%.

The only thing it's got worse than my desktop is the sound. But well the desktop's got Z5500's and lol I'd be crazy to expect the notebooks sound to compete with those!

I'll be writing a proper review in my next post, because I have to leave soon.

 

nice pics, i like that mouse what is it?

 

Man that's a beauty. You should pamper it and get it a notebook cooler.

 

waiting for your review

 

Wow, nice machine. Send it to me for testing?

 

i think im going to have to take some pics and maybe a few videos of mine, as ive had it like a month and still havent gotten around to it

 

Welcome to the family!!

While sure it is not that heavy, it's better to overstate it so that you are ready for the weight instead of being totally shocked.

 

Wow!!! awesome lappy u got there!!!

I'm sure u'll be more than happy on what it has to offer!!

btw by default it is that glossy??? (the body)
or have u gone for a full body paint job or something??
cuz as far as i've seen they look matte in finish!?

 

Thats an awesome system, cant wait to get mine. Its so beautiful.

 

Thanks for the pics (even tho they're a bit blurry ), particularly the ones with regular "stuff" sitting around, like the glass and the spray can - those things give a better sense of scale and size. Yeesh, but the A/C adapter is big!

 

3DMark06 -- 13670
SM2 5401
SM3 6331
CPU 3949

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=7583701

That's on my oldish driver 167.62

I'm going to update it to the latest one Sager have on their site. Hope that's OK since my notebook isn't branded Sager...
Been still getting the nvlddmkm.sys error for which I opened this thread...

I wrote an email to the seller about this problem and I got no reply.

ArmageddonAsh -- it's this Toshiba mouse. I must say - good... and cheap. Still performs fine even though I had been gaming with it over a year before I bought another mouse for the desktop.

Sohail99 -- no I didn't order a paintjob. It is all like piano black/grey except the top where the logo is, which is like semi-matte dark grey.

 

Good score!! + an awesome lappy + piano black finish = One Ultra Awesome notebook!!!

Enjoy!!

btw i'd recommend u try one of the laptopvideo2go drivers!! it might suit ur lappy!

 

Well, here's my review of my D901C. Well re-reading it it isn't really a review, more kinda 'a story'. I'll probably be making a more sensible review later...

Actually it's a D900C. The difference in the fourth character just refers to the colour of the notebook. Mine's glossy black/grey. I don't know what colour the D901C are supposed to be but somewhat everyone refers to them as a D901C?

I got the box on the 22nd July 2008 at around 6:00PM. It was delivered by MaltaPost courier - which was a surprise considering that I had been calling them and they said that the number is not one of theirs. Even more surprising since the seller shipped by DHL. But I soon learnt that DLH in Germany are a special subsidiary of Deutsche Post and hence even though it is definitely not the seller's fault since he did ship by DHL, I couldn't expect my parcel to be delivered by DHL here in Malta.

Back on topic. The box in itself was nothing impressive - on the outside I mean. It was a plain brown cardboard box with a large "Made in China" printed on it. However the box not being impressive is a good thing, considering the parcel was delivered by MaltaPost! To give an example, just on today's Times there was an article by the consumer affairs department, about people ordering games from play.com and not receiving them. Now play.com is a very reliable seller, if the parcel doesn't arrive they ship you another one again no questions asked. However one particular guy was embarrassed in informing them again because not even the second shipment arrived! Now they've apprehended a MaltaPost official who is setting up a DVD and Games Rental shop, all with stuff he stole while on duty. A very horrifying story indeed.

Once opened, what was inside the box was really impressive though! The notebook was very professionally packaged. The box was quite large in itself, it could have well held 10 similar notebooks were it not for all the protective foam, bubble wraps, isolating cartons and whatever else inside! The notebook was even already inside its carry-bag which I got free with it.

When I got everything out of the box, I was relieved that everything was whole - I had a big phobia of finding the laptop smashed up due to postal mishandling or something! I found that apart from the free carry case, I also had Vista Home Premium 64 bit, as ordered, a CD with Nero something (which I still haven't checked out) and a CD with the motherboard drivers and the graphics drivers.

I powered up the notebook, hoping that Raid0 was already set up in the bios....
To digress, I am quite computer-savvy. May 2007 I had ordered the parts for my desktop and the operating system and I built everything up myself. I had ordered an E4300 processor 1.8Ghz, 2 Elixir RAM at 1GB each, a P5B motherboard, a 550W PSU, XP 32 bit and an 8600GTS. Within a month I had overclocked the desktop to run at a very stable 3.0Ghz which I was very happy with. A month or so later I purchased an Xtreme Music X-Fi sound card.... and November 07 I sold my 8600GTS for 116 Euros and got me an 8800GT.
However when it comes to laptops.... I don't understand much in hardware. It still amazes me how on earth all the stuff which normally fits a desktop can be made to fit inside the inch or two space which a notebook can afford!

This notebook had several stuff which I wasn't familiar with, and never ever had:
-- It was actually a notebook (lol but this is the first notebook I ever owned!)
-- I had to install Vista;
-- The Vista was 64 bit;
-- It had 2 160GB HDD's in Raid0
-- It had 2 8800M GTX's in SLi

Resuming, I powered up the notebook. The bios post showed that Raid0 was already set up so I breathed a sigh of relief.
Before purchase, I had contacted the seller who had informed me that I would have to install the motherboard drivers, Vista and graphics drivers myself. No big deal because installing an OS and drivers is something I do frequently since I service the computers at work, my parent's and even some friends' pc's.... But it was a nice surprise finding out that the Vista was already installed. So were the motherboard drivers and the graphics drivers. That was really nice of Mr Seiler of www.notebookguru.de!

I navigated a bit through Vista and tried to see what type of teething problems I would have to go through.
I checked the Nvidia control panel - SLi was enabled and functioning well.

I switched off the notebook, to move it to a table closer to power in case I needed to plug it in (one can't expect long battery life from a notebook with a desktop Quad and SLi).

Powered it up again, and the first disappointment came. I got a blue screen, a BSOD, the horror of any pc enthusiast.
The BSOD was being caused by nvlddkm.sys, the graphics cards driver.
Further testing over the next couple of days showed that out of every 5 power-ups, 4 of them will be BSOD's with the graphics driver failing to load. I was very sad to say the least. Even sadder since I emailed the seller for advice and received no reply by the 25th of July at the time I'm writing this review. I checked the error logs however, and this problem never appeared to have happened to the seller during the 14th and 15th of July when he was assembling and setting up the software on the notebook.

I got various advice from various forums, which wasn't encouraging at all... neither were my google searches. Some people had solved this problem by changing CPU, others by changing RAM, others still by removing 2GB of their 4GB RAM, others by replacing their graphics cards.... and others by installing a more recent graphics card driver.

I checked my driver and it was 167.26 dated January 2008. I went to Sager's website, as per advice given to me here on this forum and downloaded Sager's latest driver. This I did on Friday 25th when I removed the old driver, ran Driver Cleaner Pro, and installed driver 176.02. I have powered up and switched off a lot of times since then, for testing etc, and I'm very happy now because I didn't get a single graphics driver BSOD since then!

Now something about the notebook as such. I was very impressed to say the least. It is beautiful. Looks rugged and heavy-duty. Very comfortable keyboard. I'm typing all of this on the notebook right now. It feels just the same as a regular desktop keyboard, if not better! I promptly attached the Toshiba mouse which I have had for some year now. I'm not at all accustomed to using the pad... and it wouldn't be good for gaming anyway.

The monitor is awesome. It doesn't have any bad pixels. A really good point in favour of notebookguru.de is that they give a whole 6 MONTH pixel warranty against a payment of 70 Euros! I never heard of such a long dead-pixel warranty.

I was afraid that I wouldn't be liking the glossy screen, but it's great. Colours are much crisper, and the definition of 1920x1200 makes my desktop 22" LG 226WTQ @ 1680x1050 look very bland, fuzzy and pre-historic by comparison!!! It's got a much greater viewing angle than my LG as well.

I had been posting on other forums where people told me that this notebook is too heavy, that it consumes a lot of power, that it would have only 2 minutes of battery life and all the like. One guy even told me it's akin to attaching a monitor to a brick... lol...
Well, I had been expecting what I got. Actually I was prepared to get this notebook even if it weighed the double! After all, it'd still be far easier to carry around than a desktop. And after all I bought this as a desktop replacement - I'd be carrying it to various places, but by car. And the places I am carrying it to always have a power supply for charging. If I had wanted anything not for gaming but for lightness and battery power I'd have purchased a Macbook Air or whatever it's called.

I still think that 5.5KG isn't that heavy. Sure I don't plan to go hitch-hiking with my notebook so that's why weight and battery power are not imperative for me.

I was also impressed by the sound. Very good for a notebook. I will be purchasing a head-set in the future, not because the sound isn't sufficient but so as to be able to immerse myself in gaming without hearing my husband watching TV in our quite small summer-house.

I'm further impressed by the silence of this notebook. While I'm not gaming I leave the fans on 'auto', and they're just not heard at all. I mean... here we're speaking of 4 fans for heaven's sake! By comparison, my dad's got an Airis, it's 4 or 5 years old now, single core 1.8Ghz, 1GB RAM and integrated graphics. When its single fan starts whirring it sounds like a helicopter!
While gaming I normally put the sound of the notebook 3/4 the way and put the fans on max (Fn+1) and I don't hear the fans either that way.

The final praise to notebookguru.de is that I think I had good value for money considering the specs.
Before committing myself to buy, I sent an email with the same specs to 6 or 7 local Maltese suppliers. They either didn't stock such high-end notebooks, or else quoted a price above 4500 Euros. One particular seller quoted a price of 2990 Euros but when I checked he was going to give me 8600GT SLi rather than 8800M GTX!!!

I also checked various other European sellers. All notebooks with my same specs were in the 4000 Euro range, maybe a little more or maybe a little less. Only notebookguru.de had the price of 3044 Euros. I paid a total of 3229 with the 6 month pixel warranty, Vista Home Premium and shipping.

Running 3DMark06, I got 13670 marks

That's all so far!
Thanks for reading!

 

I was thinking, is a notebook cooler REALLY necessary for the D901c? I mean i never ever go above 57-60 degrees celcius even when playing crysis.

I know it might increase the longevity of the notebook, but it cant be by THAT much

-Have fun with your new toy by the way!-

 

Welcome to the 9262 family.

 

I thought the power brick on the nx9600 i'm replacing with a 9262 was as big as they get, but THAT is muy grandioso amigo

 

I woulden't go as far to say that it's necessary but my 9262 with the Zalman 2000 does run cooler and it gives some peace of mind IMO.

 

While gaming the CPU cores go up to 71 degrees (not all of them and not all the time, but it's still kinda ...) True it's the hottest time of the year but I'm always in a room with AC with ambient temperature @ 25 or 26 degrees most, and I game with fans at 100%.

I haven't yet checked out the GPU temperatures because AtiTool won't work (I have now downloaded the beta version which is supposed to work on x64 Vista).

I have ordered the Zalman NC2000, it should arrive some time this week. I hope that it helps my temperatures.

As regards the graphics driver, so far I found the 176.02 from the Sager NP9262 Website to be the most stable. I've tried others, like 177.41 and 177.79 from laptopvideo2go, they're stable but I get a decrease in fps while gaming and in the OpenGL Fur Benchmark I get half or less the marks I got with the 167.02 (I made sure SLi was enabled). I'm thinking that those other drivers were downclocking my gpu's... I wonder why they seem to work fine for other ppl with 8800M GTX SLi...