NP 8150 Arrived!

Hi everyone.

Recently received my NP 8150 ordered from Malibal and will have access to the laptop by the 14th as I am not in the states yet.

Configs as shown in my sig, does anyone have any advice as to what I should do as soon as I get it? Drivers etc and also BIOS updates even.

Thanks in advance!

 

Drivers are normally located in the CD included with the purchase. BIOS updates...well I don't think you'll need it unless problems arises. To be honest, there's nothing much except to wait .

But put your SSD, HDD and RAMs first before doing other stuff. Also check your boot order in the BIOS so it reads the SSD first then HDD second.

 

If you look at the top of the page in the Sager and Clevo forum page. You'll see a thread that is stickied called What to do after unboxing. Has a pretty good write up of what to do when you receive the laptop, drivers etc to download and install. Things like that, worth a read.

 

@Pommie,

Thanks read it!

@Thisisalamp,

How do I check the boot order or even access the BIOS? Sorry, kinda noobie when it comes to these stuff.

 

Buy yourself an SSD!

 

Yeah, thinking about it. My funds are getting low so I was wondering if it mattered much if I got a 64gig one compared to a 128g one? I understand the larger it is, the higher the seq write but is it worth the extra money since I'm just using it for mainly OS stuff + microsoft office.

 

probably F2 during boot up.

 

Why not to share your purchase experience here
Reseller Feedback Forum

by opening another thread called:

Malibal (USA)

Was your experience positive or no.

And hopefully one day we'll have Malibal (USA), mysn (GER), Fortnax (CAN) etc etc

Rather then opening up separate threads all the time to express ourselves, lets keep them in one place. One company one thread.

Remember to be factual and do not fall into any conclusions without any proof. And hopefully it gives good reasons to improve any services we get for our hard earned money.

Thanks

 

This is an excellent idea. Don't forget to do a user review though.

In terms of the SSD, it will come down to available funds. If I were you, I'd splurge a bit more and pick up the 128 gig, 64 gig would just be too small, even for OS only with files.

 

A larger SSD doesn't really equate to faster speeds. It just so happens that more recent SSD's are also larger due to cheaper production, and since they're new tech- they're faster.

That said, there's no problem using a 64GB drive as long as you can plan well. For example, setting up a symlink on the C:/Users folder to save space and installing big programs to a second hard drive in the optical bay.

My laptops all run larger 120GB SSD's, but my old desktop has been using the C:/Users symlink for a few years to save space on the 64GB drive:

Move the Users Directory in Windows 7

Going from any HDD to an SSD will give you a massive boost, but going from a slower SSD to a faster one won't make much of a difference comparatively.

 

The differences come between 128GB and 256GB SSDs, usually. You'll note the larger ones have higher writes, and better random reads (in some cases nearly double) than the smaller ones. They also stay faster longer.

This may not equate to real-world-performance faster, but they are.

I've seen more reviews with data to show this, but I could find only this one from AnandTech: AnandTech - OCZ Vertex 3 (240GB) Review

 

Yes, I'm planning to do a quick overall review. As I said I won't be getting to actually SEE the laptop till the 14th so I have to do it when I get there.

Don't expect too much though as I don't have much of a camera and I've never done a review before so it'll be an interesting experience.

 

So I read about the SSDs falling off peak performance after a while. I was wonder how long this will take for a 64g m4 Crucial and how much of a dip in performance will it be? Very noticeable?

 

Depends on your usage pattern. If you transfer huge files every day, about 2 years.

If no, you're looking at 5. And "noticeable" depends on how much you are able to perceive the differences between speeds

Mr. Mysterious

 

Realistically, as long as you keep TRIM enabled (which it is by default) and don't do lots of full disk sector-by-sector writes (like formats/encryption) you shouldn't have any issue with the disk wearing out. SSD's are "over-provisioned", which means that if you buy a 120GB disk, it may have 10% extra space (132GB) with the extra used as sectors fail/become unreadable due to surpassing the write limit. If you buy a reputable SSD and use it in a typical home environment, you'll get years out of it.

 

Since I'll be using the SSD for word and such and the OS will I notice much difference in the difference real life performance wise if I chose a 128g m4 compared to a 64g one?

 

No, you won't.

The differences are not able to be felt subjectively and will only show up in benchmarks.

Mr. Mysterious

 

AnandTech just did a really cool writeup on SSDs. It hit my RSS reader just a couple of minutes ago. AnandTech - The SandForce Roundup: Corsair, Patriot, OCZ, OWC & MemoRight SSDs Compared

 

Read this if you are gonna buy a SSD.

HARDOCP - Introduction - NAND Flash Faces Off - Synchronous vs. Asynchronous

Visit these threads: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/596883-what-do-after-unboxing.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/573379-clevo-driver-thread.html

 

I read those and even took a couple hours reading anandtech's SSD reviews a couple weeks ago about how SSDs work, SLC, MLC the whole boatload of it.

@Mr_Mysterious
Thank you sir! + rep

 

You know what, I'm sorry but I really think threads like this are not very useful.
Like Matu73 mentioned, there is a thread for reseller reviews.

Also, if you have a specific question then you can ask it in the owners lounge.
I'm not saying that the discussion in this thread is useless. But just look at it, most of this has to do with SSDs.
We have an entire SSD section now.

If you are the first person to really review the laptop, then go ahead!

There isn't anything your supposed to do when you first get a laptop, but play with it! Start enjoying it, immediately! The retailer should have done everything exactly as it is needed to work perfectly for you.
No need to anticipate there being issues already.

And when you look at it, and are completely satisfied? My apologies again, but I don't believe that deserves a thread. Also another great post for the owners lounge.
I've literally found myself having to sort through all the threads like this since the Clevo forum gets about half filled with them. And if you DON'T like it, for a reason based entirely on personal preference? I don't really need to know that either (yes, the keyboard sucks bla bla bla)

 

I agree with you a bit, niffcreature.

Mr. Mysterious

 

You could always report it and ask the thread be moved. That's what the reporting button is for!

 

So something JUST occurred to me. I have no optical drive on the laptop I ordered and I have the laptop configured to have no OS as I have a copy of it myself. I have an XP installer on my external hard drive that I was planning to use before I get an external optical drive to install my Win7 onto the laptop.
Is this possible? Or is there a link somewhere I could follow to do this.
Not sure if the laptop will be able to detect the external without drivers and such to utilize USB ports.

@niffcreature,

I apologize for cluttering your search results etc. But I posted wherever I thought it would be relevant. If I have been a nuisance to anyone I apologize. Wasn't my intention. If I posted in the wrong section then I apologize for my inconsiderateness.

 

In the bios, change the boot order so that USB is on the top of the list.

 

So you want to install Windows XP from an external hard drive? I did a quick google search - it looks like it could be complicated.

I've installed (and will install) Windows 7 with a USB flash drive, but not a hard drive.

 

installing from a hard drive follows the same procedures as installing with a usb flash drive. 1.) Format 2.) Load boot code 3.) copy windows xp files onto hard drive.

 

hmm you could possibly make an iso image of the disk and then use daemon tools to install it.

 

So I tried to load Xp from a USB using guides. In a blue screen from the startup, it says my partition is corrupt and cannot be repaired. It says the partition only has 2gb, is it only showing the flash drive as I'm sure the built in HDD has more than 2gb.

 

This is why I always include OS in laptop purchase because of hassles to install OS on the laptop.

 

Is your screen fine or is it affected by the ghosting issue?

 

Out of curiosity, why are you trying Windows XP? You may have a pretty ugly time trying to get all the drivers you need for anything newer than Vista. If you need XP, it runs great in Virtualbox or through XP mode in supported Windows 7 versions. (and Vista/7 are dead simple to make bootable USB drives out of. There's even an automated Microsoft tool out there for it).

Also, Windows XP does NOT have native TRIM support for SSD's (though a few manufacturers do have firmware support that gets around that issue). This means that over time you'll potentially see a marked degradation in SSD speed if you add in that M4 you were planning.

 

Xp as a temporary measure. My copy of W7 is in college and it'll be a couple weeks before I get there. Also SSD isn't in yet, still waiting on a good sale

 

I'd say run Ubuntu for a few weeks then

It's simple to install with the .iso, flash drive, and uNetbootin. From other reports, the P150HM should be fully supported out of the box. Simple and free, and you get to learn a bit of linux if you care to for the short time you need it

At the very least, it's a much more modern OS.

 

Do you know if it's possible to run live distros from the SD card slot?

 

As far as I can tell, no. While you can make a bootable linux SD card, it's not recognized in the bios at boot. If anyone has had luck in other models though, feel free to correct me