NEW NP8150 from Powernotebooks.com; First Impressions

Specifications of my order is in my sig!

Been on my new laptop for a couple hours. Id like to give my thoughts thus far. Ill keep this short until I update it with more detail;

1. BEAUTIFUL notebook. Packaged well.

2. AWSOME Screen. ZERO dead/stuck pixels. First thing I did was check for anything wrong with the display and there is NONE.
I didnt even get the dead-pixel warranty so I worried night and day about broken pixels but there are ZERO! Very happy.

3. Next thing I did was check drivers/download hwmonitor/cpu-z/gpu-z
All drivers are up to date and running as it should be. Im downloading a couple games right now so Ill update on those later. (I got the 60% Gamut MATTE and Im very very pleased. I expected less to be honest because I normally use a 24inch dell monitor to game on, but this is [relatively] on par with it)

4. The keyboard DOES rattle a little. But I read there is a way to fix this with tape? Any link to this please?

5. The mouse-pad is the absolute worst part of this laptop haha. Its very hard to drag fingers across. WAY too much friction. However I do use a pretty good gaming-laser mouse so no big deal. And I went ahead and applied an extra iphone screen protector I had laying around. Not the best fix, but a big improvement.

6. The internal soundcard on this laptop is absolute garbage and I dont even want to comment on it. Using premium head-phones and the sound is muffled and low. Its even worse than my brothers samsung laptop, which is also horrible. I did buy a decent external usb sound card, but I thought I should mention this.
The speakers are decent. It still needs to burn in though.
Edit/ The speakers sound much better with the THX TruStudio settings tweaked.

7. Ill have benchmark score up soon.


Much love for Powernotebooks.com and NBR Forums

 

EDIT: Fixed, Thanks to MALIBAL #2s suggestion to run on HIGH PERFOMANCE instead of BALANCED.


Something is wrong. I need help.

3D Mark Vantage Scores:

OVERALL: P7133 (was aiming for around 15,000 so imagine my shock)
GPU: P5907
CPU: P18,900


8.902.0.0 AMD Drivers.
Should I upgrade to 8.920.0.0? Whats going on?

The FPS while running the GPU tests range from 10-25 ONLY

edit: Just checked Gpu-z and core clocks are running at 300MHz, memory at 900MHz, 30% fan speed idle, and 64.0 degrees IDLE???? Whats going on?

 

Did you check that your power settings were on high performance for both Windows and the hotkey icon on your taskbar? Is the machine plugged in? Those scores look like what I'd expect to see running on battery power. Which AMD driver are you running right now (listed by release, like 12.1, 11.9, etc).

 

Yes plugged in. It was on balanced, and I just put it on High Perfomance after reading your post. Is that what you are suggesting?


The Driver is under Catalyst 11.1

 

Oh you're running CCC 11.10!

Update to 12.1 and try it then. Your drivers are outdated.

 

Alright thanks, gentlemen.

Just ran on High Performance as suggested and got a 3D Mark Vantage score of P14661 3DMarks, 13622 for the GPU, and 19010 for CPU.

VERY relieved nothing is wrong with the GPU.




EDIT/UPDATE: I just tried to donwload new drivers, but when It came to the Catalyst Install screen, the window was very distorted in size so I couldnt complete the Catalyst Install. I think windows automatically re-installed the older version. 8.902 Cat. 11.1 (I uninstalled it before trying to install the newer version).

How do I go about installing these new drivers. Im probably missing a step or two.

 

Use Device Manager to install the new drivers

 

When I try this it just says the drivers are already up to date. When it is the previous version.

I just started experiencing stuttering during games. It was fine for several hours and just happened out of nowhere and I cant seem to get rid of it.

 

I managed to eliminate the rattle which also annoyed me, the thread is here:
P150HM Keyboard Rattling.

If theres any further questions just ask .

 

Is this normal?
My GPU Core clock is at 100MHZ and memory at 150MHZ idle.(and gaming)

This wasnt happening before, and now my games stutter.


edit/ restarted comp and games seem to be running fine. The GPU-Z still says Im running on 100/150MHz though. Im a bit confused.

 

Go to AMD's main site and manually download the drivers for your GPU. If Device Manager doesn't do anything, this is the best thing to do.

 

Is the sound card bad for all Clevo models for all resellers? How much is an external sound card?

 

man you guys are <s>picky like women</s> finicky like spoiled house cats.

The sound card is fine I don't know how your ears can say its poor quality.
The speakers are great how can you say they are average?

 

I can't wait to see you try out the Dynaudio on the MSI or the JBL on the XPS.

It may be good enough for you, but those that have tried out other better-SQ laptops generally feel that the SQ in Sagers are lacking..

 

oh really.

yea i havent tried those laptops but I heard they sound amazing esp the dynaudio msi ones.

its just maybe I dont expect laptops to sound good period, and when the sound fills my room im just happy its loud enough to mask the fans and well listen to without headphones.

but it is kind of true about the people in these forums they do tend to be on the picky side of things(hinges loose,rattling keyboards,flex,temps not under 40c ect ect)

 

Well to be honest I haven't tried Dynaudio.. Though I've heard the JBL on the XPS from my friends and it was truly amazing....

And also, this is the forum to go in depth about laptops.. So it's destined for any laptop to become exposed with weaknesses...

But I feel you. When I first got here I thought everyone else seemed picky, but now I think I've become more picky than others...

 

Dynaudio is amazing. They're like Bose for a laptop. (*hint*hint* Bose)

AMD uses a program in their VBIOS called "PowerTune". It's a little feature that under-clocks everything while idle. GDDR5 can go to 3000MHz, but it might not show up, even in Afterburner, if it's adjusting its clock speeds on the fly.

 

Thanks guys.

I would say these speakers are good enough for whatever use. But I play music on very high grade hardware. (Rane ttm-57 Mixer) and I have some great speakers/headsets.

The external usb sound card I got is a joke itself compared to my mixer, but its wayyy better than the provided internal sound card.

Id say the sounds are good enough for regular users who dont have to work with as sensitive ears as I have.

Theyll do fine with regular computer speakers especially with the THX settings tuned. But when you hear the difference between very high quality sound, its hard to enjoy sound thats of very sub-standard quality.


Im veryyyy impressed with this laptop and I couldnt be happier with my purchase.

 

Well this thread prompted me to finally try my headphones out.. and, yeah, it's pretty disappointing. I guess I took my previous laptop's (MBP) good internal sound card for granted. I have an external sound card anyhow but I thought I wouldn't have to use it since the speakers do actually sound pretty good.

Honestly, I'd like to say it's only a problem for people with picky ears but it goes a bit beyond that.. I was originally going to reply saying "garbage" is a pretty harsh word but it's justified.

 

Hm so I just tried updating my drivers again, followed the instructions on the AMD website.

So I download and install 12.1 >> Restarted computer >> And now some of my icons on the desktop and taskbar show that "unrecognized" icon(but they still do work, like google chrome, torrent, etc, just the icon is gone).

What is causing this?


edit/// also: When I check what driver is running it says its still the old one, even though the install said it went successfully.

 

The soundcard is bad.

even for a laptop. its quite bad. It sounds worse than my 5 year old toshiba 13inch.

if you find it 'fine', well, consider yourself lucky I guess. Just saves you some money on the audio upgrade. I personally can't stand it.

I agree the speakers are decent though.

you mean the default generic "window" icons? is the issue still there after a reboot?

mayby you should try driversweeper. I personally dont know it for a fact but many people say the AMD proprietary driver install/update software can cause problems if you dont fully uninstall the previous version before updating to a newer version.

so heres the error-free (supposedly) method of updating the drivers

1. download and install driver sweeper
2. boot into safemode, (spam f8 during boot sequence), go to device manager, and uninstall display device
3. run driver sweeper (still in safe mode) and remove everything amd/ati related
4. reboot into normal mode (which should now be in pixely low-res mode), and reinstall latest ATI drivers

 

Go get Driver Sweeper and use that. Then reinstall your drivers. AMD has a nasty habit of not uninstalling effectively. This could be because of Windows, but nVidia doesn't seem to have this problem.

Edit: Sorry, didn't see cradle_empire's post

 

The internal soundcard is pretty weak... With THX the speakers do a decent job, but my headphones now sound real cruddy and silent compared to my previous laptops. I do wish we could change the internal soundcard on this thing, its the only shortcoming of this great laptop (and for some like me id prefer to have a finish like P170HM withou any rubber, but i guess thats "picky" again).
ATI GPUs have powerplay which downclocks the cards when its not under any significant load (there are more clock profiles but thats the simple explanation). But it should clock up when you put it under heavy load like gaming. As you describe it id say you have issues with messed up software and/or drivers.

 

I'm trying to reboot normally but the computer freezes mid boot up on the 'Starting Windows' screen...

 

I had to restore my system.

I restored to how it was yesterday before all this updating drivers mess happened,

But NOW I can not open Catalyst Control Center.

Everything is restored, all I have are a few programs I downloaded yesterday (google chrome,3d mark vantage, gpu-z, hwmonitor)

What is going on, this is such a pain in the back.

 

I suggest you stop wasting time with that broken install and just do a fresh one properly.

 

+1.

Read THIS nifty little guide on how to install drivers for ATi / AMD drivers. Somewhere there's a more updated version, but this is a good place to start. If someone can find that updated version, much appreciated.

Jason

 

Could you please try connecting your mixer to the digital output of the card and see what quality you get?

 

Curse these ATI drivers.

Apearrantly they havent fixed these registry issues, even though loads of people have been complaining since 2006!

Re-installing windows 7 all over again will have to wait, Im already tired having issues.
Ive just restored the system, of course CCC is still having registry errors and not opening, but everything else is fine and Im playing my favorite games at 90-110 FPS.

Ill just enjoy my new laptop for a few more hours until I decide to take further action.

edit/ Im talking about registry issues specifically dealing with the Public Key Tokens in C/Windows/Assembly.

 

Damn ATI, the only thing holding me back on purchasing ATI is their damn drivers.. so many blue screens with ATI, promised myself never to return to a desktop ATI and now this. I hope you get it fixed

 

Dont blame the ATI drivers for user incompetence.

 

Assuming that you're talking to me. I am not, just saying that I've seen at least a dozen or more problems with ATI and close to none nVIDIA problems so far. Besides the bad memories from the past make me go sad, they had a rough time back in the days.. so many crashes, problems, bugs..

 

I'm going to chime in and say there is no discernible difference between nVidia and AMD drivers having used so much of them both.

As long as you take the steps that are recommended - Uninstall drivers, boot into safe mode and use driver sweeper, then install the new drivers - they all function well out of the box, decent performances per revisions.

 

Yeah lets just blame my slight incompetence instead of the real issue. Very practical.
If following AMDs instructions exactly makes me incompetent than you must be a perfect being sent from the gods?

So first I uninstalled my old drivers and followed AMDs instructions.
Then I take advice from NBR, sweep the drivers, properly install, still experience errors.

Im sorry my small monkey brain isnt following. How can I be more like HeavenCry? God have mercy.
Anyway this laptop is a beast to game on and Im using older drivers. Thanks to all those who had the patience to help me out.