NP8662 - Heat & performance issue

This is pissing me off. Even when I'm using only the web browser, the laptop gets hot pretty quickly, and I have the cooling fan turned on all the time.

As for performance, it plays most games pretty well, but they all have occasional sound crackles in common. I tried adjusting hardware acceleration resulting in no noticeable difference. Also tried an external sound card to no avail.

Lastly, it gets awfully laggy when recording with Fraps. I understand it requires a beasty system to record in high quality without lags, but on my old laptop lags were much less often than NP8662. Here's a comparison:

Old laptop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3Gijw1F9bI

NP8662: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l2ZQ47EFCE

What's worse, as you can see, there are sound lags as well in the second video.

Any insight/suggestion for these problems?

 

Posting your hardware temperatures would probably help a little bit. I haven't heard anyone complain about a sound issue on the 8662. If you bought it from a reseller like XoticPC, try contacting them for additional support.

 

Okay, you my friend are having a very rare occurrence. It gets very hot even when you are just web browsing?Man, quick, contact the vendor you got this from and hopefully you can get their support. Because this happening on the Sager NP8662 is almost unheard of.

 

How hot is your laptop running, akstylish? Can we see some numbers please? Are you using your laptop on a flat surface or on a cooler?

When you are playing Vocaloid, are you on battery power or are you plugged in?

Have you tried installing the latest Realtek drivers?

 

It would help if you posted a screen shot of Hardware Monitor temps.

http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

Make sure your audio drivers are up to date.

 

It always good to have spare drives for troubleshooting. This way you can test with a clean OS installation and use that to eliminate possible driver and application issues. It can also tell you if it is indeed hardware related.

 

Actually I am having similar problems. When I am just browsing the web (also running skype and AIM in the background) the computer is getting hot. I used CPUID Hardware Monitor to find out the temperature of various things:



As you can see, the thing called ST9320421AS is up to 60 degrees celsius. Also, if you position your hands on the notebook as if you are typing, it is right under the palm of your right hand. You can FEEL how hot it is on your right hand but not your left.

Are these kinds of temperature normal? Any other information you guys need?

[EDIT]

Oh also it is on a more than flat surface. Not only is it on my desk, but I put 4 water bottle caps under the four corners to prop the laptop up about a half inch.

 

The CPU and GPU look okay, but the HDD is on the fence. What is the temperature in your room when you recorded those temps.

 

the heat in the right side comes from RAM and WIFI card...
and it will become hot regardless of how you use your computer for


that ST9320421AS is your harddrive..and yes. +1 it is hot

 

I don't recommend propping up the laptop. I did that, and the temp actually went up.

Also, ambient temp is a huge factor, that could give some insight as to the high temps.

 

1) Get Vista, XP is so old and ugly.
2) Get a cooler
3) Update your sound card drivers
4) Record fraps on another drive than what is being used to game

 

Great. All this and I get my NP8662 in about a week... How can the HDD get so hot? Bad design there. I may have to have them change my HDD to the cheapest (or maybe none at all if I can get the money back) and swap it for a cooler one like a WD. I'm not real fond of Seagate drives.

 

Chipset driver + IMS driver + Seagate 7200.4 = Cool.

 

Just remember that not all are that hot. I have said it before in a different thread but mine runs around 45ish ambient and around 50 max. With a cooler, around 5C to 7C decrease.

 

Wait. I thought propping the laptop makes it cooler? How can that possibly make it hotter when you're allowing more air to go underneath the laptop?

Also, yeah i do suppose ambient air makes a difference but it's been about 80 degrees Fahrenheit all day here and yet the laptop temperature is still the same even at night.

I don't understand what you are saying by "+1 it is hot" but I'm assuming you mean that it will be hot either way?

All I am trying to figure out is, are those temperatures you all get from using your sager np8662's for web browsing or is it just me and the original poster?

 

I have no idea why it got more hot, but i thought it was supposed to keep the temps down too. Then one day i got lazy and left my computer flat without anything underneath and i saw that it was cooler. You can just test it yourself, i could be forgettting something, but its what i've experienced.

 

60-61c is fine while you are defraging or running a virus scan. this is because the fans dont kick in to high while running these programs.
im running a western digital 320gb 7200 and it idles at roughly 50c and on load at 52-53c
i do notice much higher temeratures just after ive updated my graphic card drivers to about 56-58c for a couple of days and then they settle down again to 50-51c
80c room temperature sounds like the main problem.and secondly there has been a lot of talk that the seagate runs slightly warmer.
im running the original m860tu with a 9800GT graphics card and im sure its been said the new 260m runs slightly cooler.

 

umm, he said 80F room temp, thats ~27C. 80C would probably kill him

 

You need to install the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility + the Intel Matrix Storage Manager?

 

I am unfamiliar with what that is but I will google it. What exactly is it supposed to do and how does that lower temperature while browsing?

 

those are essential Intel drivers that you should install before most other drivers. The matrix drivers optimize SATA performance and hence improve your HD temps.

 

Those are the first drivers that need to be installed period.

 

I lol'd

Also agreed, the drivers will probably lower your temperature by a bit but it may still reach 60c on load (definitely shouldn't while web browsing though).

I've noticed the 'hot palm' issue under my right hand as well but that generally tends to kick in only while playing games and such.

Good luck resolving your issue

 

I'll be trying the aluminum sheets touching the hard drive seperated by electric tape very soon. Just got it cut to the right size and will put them in when I get a chance

 

Just install this, then this. Don't question it!

Nice. Be sure to post the results.

 

Using the aluminum sheeting on the hard drive (separated by electrical tape so it doesn't frig up the hard drive in any way) I did a disk defrag as well as played Team fortress 2 at the same time, normally a disk defrag would cause my drive to reach a level of 62C but with the sheeting, it only went up to 57C, so it brings down the temperature a few degrees in high intensity conditions.

However, the feeling on the palmrest is a different story. The palmrest is warm instead of hot with these temperatures and putting the laptop in an air conditioned environment cools down the palm rest even more. So the feeling of heat has greatly diminshed.

All this is being reported without using a cooler or propping the laptop with anything.

So I would recommend this mod to anyone who is having the high hard drive temps and uncomfortable palm rest heat.

 

Very nice, Deathwinger.

 

Deathwinger,
Can you explain how you did that mod to your HD to lower the temps?

Did you add the aluminum plate to the side of the HD that faces the motherboard, or the side of the harddrive that faces the plastic cover? How big of a plate did you use? Where can someone go a buy a thin piece of aluminum like that?

Any chance you can take a picture? I guess I'm having difficulty understanding how you did this.

Thx

 

What if you install the the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility after some other stuff???
Also does windows update auto-install this?
Also how do I know which chipset I have? Specs below...
Do I need this, not having temp issues?





I installed the the Intel Matrix Storage Manager, a day after I installed my OS and after a bunch of other drivers, I am not seeing any drawbacks.

 

Hey when I tried to install the first link it worked successfully. When I downloaded the english version of the second link, it started loading and then it said that "The computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing the software. Setup will exit" where my only choice is "OK".

Looking at the readme I see:

* 2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
************************************************************

1. The system must contain an Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo or
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Extreme or Intel(R) Pentium(R) Processor
or Intel(R) Xeon(R) Processor and one of the following
Intel products listed in section 1 above.

2. The system must be running on one of the following
operating systems:
- Microsoft* Windows* 7
- Microsoft* Windows* 7 x64 Edition (NOTE 1)
- Microsoft* Vista*
- Microsoft* Vista* x64 Edition (NOTE 1)
- Microsoft* Windows* Server 2008
- Microsoft* Windows* Server 2008 x64 Edition (Note 1)
- Microsoft* Windows* XP Home Edition
- Microsoft* Windows* XP Professional
- Microsoft* Windows* XP x64 Edition (NOTE 1)
- Microsoft* Windows* Server 2003
- Microsoft* Windows* Server 2003,
Web x64 Edition (NOTE 1)
- Microsoft* Windows* Server 2003,
Standard x64 Edition (NOTE 1)
- Microsoft* Windows* Server 2003,
Enterprise x64 Edition (NOTE 1)
- Microsoft* Windows* Media Center Edition

NOTE 1: If the system is running Windows* 64-bit version,
the Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager driver supporting
64-bit should be used.

3. The following operating systems are not supported:

Any version of the following Microsoft operating systems:
- MS-DOS
- Windows 3.1
- Windows NT 3.51
- Windows 95
- Windows 98
- Windows Millennium Edition (Me)
- Windows NT 4.0
- Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
- Windows 2000 Professional
- Windows 2000 Advanced Server

Any version of the following operating systems:
- Linux
- UNIX
- BeOS
- MacOS
- OS/2

4. The system should contain at least the minimum system
memory required by the operating system.

5. The 'Intel(R) Chipset Software Installation Utility'
must be installed prior to installing the
Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager.

----------------------

I had done all of those things and yet it still doesn't work. Yes I correctly installed the first link and then restarted my computer. I had in fact done that step about a week ago but decided to follow your link and do it again yet it still doesn't work. Any solutions? I had verified that my computer follows all of those requirements...

Also the aluminum thing is pretty interesting...maybe you can include some pics since a couple people are asking about it?

Thanks for your help guys (and gals).

 

In your bios you need to set the installed OS to vista. However, doing this post install of the OS will result in a blue screen, so you need to use a registry tweak to enable AHCI in the OS first, then enable it in the BIOS, then install intel matrix storage manager.

Here is the registry tweak you need to make before changing the bios:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

 

theRiko

Do I need to install the other Intel Utility mentioned? (Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility ?)

I already installed the intel matrix storage manager, and enabled AHCI and everything using the registry tweak.

 

The intel chipset utility is recommended as it ensures that all parts of your intel chipset are running proper drivers. It should really be installed first when you install windows, but installing it late is better than never.

 

Does this apply to XP or Vista? Cause I'm running XP.

Also, I still don't have a good fix for why I can't install the second link besides the whole vista thing which I don't think applies to me?

 

for xp the workaround is more complicated as you need to manually force the intel matrix driver before the bios change (rather than just changing a registry key).

Try this method

 

How do I know which version of the utility I need?

 

use the most recent version 8.9 I think

 

Latest version was 9.1 release 8/18/09..

I installed it...... does it do anything? How do I check to see if it installed correctly? It just extracted a bunch of stuff and said it was done.....

what does it do exactly? how do I use it?

Right so its installed? How do I make it check to see if everything I have installed is correct? I just dont get this becuase I installed it and nothing happened....

 

sorry, I thought you were talking abt the matrix storage manager when I said version 8.9.

When installing the chipset utility, ensure that you run it as administrator, and once it's done, it's done.

 

Alright I didn't run it as admin, but it seemed to work fine... just unpacked a bunch of files - does it actually do anything else?