Sager 8800 Update

Just curious...how many would have legitimately either: (1) NOT purchased the laptop they have now and waited until the 8800M came out; or (2) would have purchased another non-Sager/Clevo laptop instead (which presumably also would not be easily upgradeable with the 8800M)?

 

I would have considered the new dell XPS with dual 8700's. The price was $1000 cheaper.

Dell also says "upgradeable" for future hardware. It'll be curious to see what they do.

I really wanted the Clevo, but if I knew I was going to be treated like a Dell customer... then why not save the money and buy the Dell.

 

i think he who may not be named in this thread is a good bet that you will be OK.

and he who must not be named Treats XPS customers Awesome! Complete care etc. seriously.

 

I bought one of the 1st D901C's back in July of this year. I don't have quad support. I don't have 8800GTX support. But you know what? I am enjoying the heck out of my system. It's still powerful enough to run COD4 at 1920X1200 with 4x AA. (Which is plenty of eye candy for me) Crysis is such a pig that I have to drop down a bit playing it and lower shaders and shadows to medium. Hopefully patches and drivers will improve it. But for myself I'm still happy with my system. I had hoped that it would be less hastle upgrading. I've personally had more issues with SLI than I have wondering about if and when I could upgrade.

While I understand fellow users concerns and issues with having to upgrade the mobo again. I do hope that Clevo ponies up and rolls the mobo upgrade to include Penryn support. Just IMO. It would make more sense to get it done all at once instead of having another mobo upgrade later.

Why somethings cannot be done via BIOS, when they can be done on a 'true' desktop via BIOS is beyond my limited understanding.

Lets just keep the thread on track about the 8800M GTX upgrade though guys. Not derail it into 'X sucks Y is a better company' thread. Else the thread loses its focus and it will not provide useful info to other users without having to read through 500 posts.

 

Well I was going to jump on the 9262 preorder before Christmas but now I don't know what the hell I want to do. I was thinking of getting it with a single 8800 and buying another one later, and then I was just thinking of going with the 5792 and calling a single gpu good enough but now I've read almost every page of this thread and I think my head is going to explode. Maybe I'll just stick to console gaming, but then I still need a laptop for multimedia editing and converting etc.... I wish I could see the future of the 8800 gtx so I could tell if it was good to go with now or just a waste of money.

 

I still would have gone for Clevo (M570RU here), but I definitely would have waited for the 8800M, if I had known it required a different mobo (to fix sleep issue)

 

IMHO if you have a Clevo and you are happy with its performance you have a winner in your hands inspite all the issues around the upgrade discussed on this thread. You probably could have gone and bought a system from another brand, but you know what? You would find a different set of problems that you don't know about without being a customer.

The grass on the other side is always greener

But I understand what Kozi is stating. WuJen opinion can't be compared to Kozi becouse in July there were no other options comparable in the market.

Trance
PS: I don't know if I would have gone to Clevo in August and then back again in October honestly if I knew what I know now. Living in Portugal (Europe) the solid international presence of DELL would come handy in terms of support. I did got entusiastic about MXM, so conformace was of high on my list when choosing the system. Just becouse the price is high too, so anything that would reduce the cost in the future was high on the list. Well, expectations were down the drain and I got just a plain old upgradability issues as any other laptop, time to move on and learn. The only thing nice about it is really the high performance components it has ... and that is a big thing, but nothing I couldn't have gotten similar with DELL but with the good international support. I can tell you that if I sold a second hand DELL XPS 1730 today I could get much more money then I can with my Clevo d901c and that is worth something. I guess I will not get many Rep points, but who cares, we cannot always say marvels about something.

 

I would have bought mine when I did. I knew the 8800 was coming out soon. But I had waited for the quad core support because I knew that I wanted that for sure. As for the 8800 I was hoping it would work out the box with all of the work that went into the MXM support that went into this system. I am waiting to see what support for the new processors there is before upgrading to the 8800's just to minimize the shipping of the system. I use my laptop as my main computer for work as well as play and it currently fills my need in those areas So I will wait and try to do bith steps at the same time.

 

Eh, I've decided to skip the 8800. As much of a gamer that I am, I'm just really disappointed in manufactures failing to deliver on what's been promised here. That, and the price is just insane.

It'll be mid-2008 for the 8800 or the highest end 9000 series. Whichever comes first for me.

 

1000% i would have waited if i knew it was coming. or i would have looked elsewhere if someone else was offering it at the time even as pre-order but i feel i would have waited for the 5792 instead since at that time i really wanted the clevo. i know i bought this with the assumption when the 8800 was released like everyone else id be able to use it. that and the few issues ive had have made me a not so big fan anymore. sorry to say.

 

I am happy with my choice, still would still have gone this route (bought notebook in my sig), bummer it does not have 8800M support straight out. Initially I was pissed, but I find the upgrade cost is fine too, my only regret really is that I will be have to send my notebook in, rather than being able to do it myself (no I dont want to swap the motherboard myself, GPU np). So for 5-10 days, I will have to use my old backup notebook ...

 

i see you got the same specs as me brutal, cant wait for this beast !!!

 

I was waiting... all flipping summer. Eventually, when it got a week into grad school I just needed to pull the trigger. I do feel like we were all screwed over here.

 

Well if I could see the future I would be playing the stock market and making big bucks so I could simply buy a new box every time a k3W1 one came out and not have to worry if anything was compatible or a waste of money. And I would be spending lots of those big bucks on important things like wine, women, and song.

Unfortunately my time machine is no longer working so I will just have to put up with the companies that sell the toys I want.

 

I quote the advice a well regarded acquaintance of mine gave out:

"If it were me, I would wait a month or two after that to determine the RMA rate of a nuclear reactor in a notebook."

 

Ok, I hawe read through every single post in this thread, and I am now a little worried. Can anyone confirm for me what the PC MIcroWorks Blackhawk XR5 is based on, and rev' #. I am assuming it is a clevo from what I have seen. Can anyone confirm. Just wanted to get my facts straight before I added my $0.05 worth

 

The "Blackhawk" is a D901C. I bought one of the 1st ones. I have the revision 4.x motherboard. I.e. no quad support, no 8800M GTX support. The one you have or have ordered is 5.x support because you have a quad in it.

 

I would have bought a dell and saved money
i too will not be buying another clevo
i waited for 3 months to buy it because of the MB swaps
paid top dollar only to fine that the GPU is Not upgradeable
i do agree with most post that say All resellers know whats up but its just business.
its better to sell new lappys and not tell the customers that in 2 weeks they will be selling a new model 9260 9261 9262 i don't think its going to stop because people are still buying them. i think that there is going to be many more motherboard changes
1. for the DX10.1
2.penryn
3. and so on
it is better for sales to sell these as new lappys with one change for $4000and then sell another model with another change 3 weeks later for another $4000 then it is to do one inexpensive upgrade do the math
sell 50,000 lappys as models 926???? @ $4000 so u keep peeps buying to get the new lappy. or sell 10,000 9260's and a $200 upgrade its all about the money. they sell the new lappys $4000 and make it very hard to upgrade and very expensive $1700 once a month! that's the money baby!

its not the resellers that are doing it its the big business. Resellers have to go with the flow.
Why do peeps buy a new Porsche when they have a 2 yr old one???? because they make the new one with a new motor that gives 15 more hp and a 100 watt stereo verses the 95 watt stereo.
if everyone boycott the company's that are doing this they would change policy asas but we let it go on and we complain and wright them a new check its our own fault

 

Yeah I have ordered the latest XR5 with SLI and quad core (see sig). Thanks Wu Jen. At least with PC MicroWorks, there is the wholesale upgrade path option.

Ok Now I feel better informed, thanks again for the clarification.

-Coors916

 

You are the owner of the most powerful notebook system in the world, and you are complaining like mad! Get outof my eyes!

 

what kind of dell could you buy and save money?

Dell Vostro? ha....

I don't know if anyone here is qualified to speak of the profits/money that a manufacturer makes on profits vs new sales, certainly not me, and certainly not you.

Personally, I don't know a SINGLE person, who can afford to spend $4000 on a laptop, then spend ANOTHER $4000 on a laptop, two weeks later. then ANOTHER $4000 on a third laptop a few months later just to stay at the top of the curve.

There's definitely no way I would be able to do that. I would hope for an upgrade to be available, but there's no way I could justify having TWO D901C's in my house that are both exceptionally powerful. and I definitely would not want to have TWO M1730's.

For all the people I know, if they all bought 8700's right now and couldn't afford new laptops for 8800's. Clevo has lost money by not offering the upgrade.

Although, in my opinion, the number of people who are spending money on upgrades is small already.

What are you complaining about though? You bought a NEW laptop with 8700 right when 8800's were out. You KNEW there was no final word on upgrades. you KNEW the release time for it. you were given the opportunity for a FULL refund. You did a POLL asking if you should return it.

Nobody is forcing anybody to buy the newest technology every two weeks.

That is fine, everybody can complain, I have no problems with that. People can whine and be upset and speculate and regret, etc.

What I do have a problem with, is when people ( no names mentioned ) MAKE UP reasons and try to pass them off as FACTS.

These reasons have no more depth than one-sided arguments that you hear on Judge Judy at 1pm on a weekday about couples trying to fit over who has to pay the $19 phone bill because the other person cheated on them.

 

HAHAHAHA this made my day! Thank god I don't have TV! Too funny.

 

"What I do have a problem with, is when people ( no names mentioned ) MAKE UP reasons and try to pass them off as FACTS."

You should not say one thing in the specs and then when the s* hits the fan you simply say - "that nothing was ever promissed". If it was the other way around, that is if the upgrade instead of a mobo replacement was possible we would now probably be attributing the ability to MXM compliance. I know I would and Clevo would take full credit for it.

But becouse it doesn't work now you say "well I was never promissed anything regarding upgrades. Everyone that complains is just winning and need some kind ot therapy". I say, It looks like Clevo laptops are not MXM compliant as advertised in the specs... and I'll wait for the next mobo replacement for Penryn's. I'm will not for sure pay now to get something MXM compliant when I expected to have got it in the first place.

Indeed you see too much TV.

Trance
PS: The fact is in the business world no promisses are needed. Just do what you say you do and everything is fine. Leave promisses to religion man. All I ask is for a supplier to fully honor the specs of its products (I have not forced Clevo to publish the word MXM in the spec as much I wasn't forced to buy a d901c). If it does and still I'm still not able to upgrade due to other reasons beside MXM compliance I'm fine with it. Otherwise I can dealt with it but it does not mean I'm fine with it, may be you are, glad to know your sense of worth.

 

Duly noted, and this point is well-put. If everybody stated their case as you did, there would not be argument right now.

My problem is with the people who throw out rumors/false statements with the intent to slander the companies in this industry.

These are more along the lines of "wtf, they are ripping us off and lying, their motherboards are all lies, this is all BS, screw them. They just want more money. They knew all along what was going to happen. They have been testing this card for ages. I heard all this from a little birdie."



On another note, out of curiousity. Are there any MXM laptops that CAN accomodate the 8800m GTX?

 

Isn't the 570RU user upgradeable with the 8800M GTX with the only proviso that suspend on wakeup won't work? Or I could be mistaken and things have changed since. Haven't really followed the 8800M/Clevo saga all that closely.

 

Yes, that is correct.

For full details on the Sager upgrade program please go to http://www.powernotebooks.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2554

 

Want to know something ironic? I almost bought the 901C under the impression that between the 901C and the 570RU , the 901C would stand a better chance of an easier upgrade to the 8800M GTX because of the higher voltage support (as speculated by several posts here in the past). Turns out the M570 is more 8800M compliant. That was a surprise, to me at least.

I was THIS close to picking up a 901C but I had this little suspicion that it won't be that simple. While I was right in that regard no way did I expect the 570 will be compatible when the 901C wasn't. In the end I decided to wait for Clevo's Montevina refresh and picked up a cheaper alternative in the meantime.

I miss not getting a Clevo tho... have to wait till Q3 next year /sigh.

 

I request this thread be locked and closed. It has becocme a virtual slug fest over nothing.

 

If you owned a Rev.4 Or Rev.5 Motherboard, you may find your intrests may be differant......:

Since you have a Rev.6 on order, I can see where you would think this was over nothing.

unless you wish to upgrade 6 months from now, and that upgrade was 1.7k

Walk a mile in our shoes.

LOL

 

*looks for his crayons and construction paper*

Ah, here they are. Maybe I can put this in terms simple enough for you people to understand.

This thread has moved from keeping people updated on the status of the 8800s to people stating their conspiracy theories and then being attacked by people trying to proove their epeen is bigger than the others'.

Justin, Was that the intended purpose of your thread? If so, I apologize for saying this thread has become WAY off topic and is no longer providing valid information.

Maybe I will try the virtual attacking to see if it makes me feel all tall and mighty.

In the past 2-3 months I've researched buying a laptop I discovered the future release of the 8800's and the penryn's.

I plan on using this laptop for gaming and not much else, so to me the penryn processor is meaningless. The e6850 or the q6600 would be MORE than enough for my intended use. With this being said there was no need for me to wait for the penryn processors.

Now, for the 8800m Have a look here. It took me all of about 10 seconds to pull from a google search. Notice the date of the article. Your telling me you didn't know?

http://laptoping.com/nvidia-geforce-8800m.html

"oh, but the 8800m is not compatible, That is why we are doing all of this *****ing."
In all of my reasearch never once have I seen ANYTHING that states the 8800m would be compatible with existing computers. You and a few others assumed it would be. Sucks to be wrong

Why is it so shocking when a company makes money off ignorant people? Dentists make more money than most, simply by telling you, you have a cavity. Ever get a 2nd opinion that tells you, you do not not have one? Or is your thought process, OMG I need to get that fixed as soon as possible right?

Im in sales myself, I'm very successful at what I do. Know why? My morals stop where your intellegence ends. Successful companies have this philosophy. Of course, they do not advertise this. They advertise the complete oposite. Why? Because that is what makes you warm and fuzy.

"walk a mile in our shoes"

No thanks, spend 4 grand on something I did little research on only to get mad at myself and blame the world for my ignorance, does not sound very appealing to me. But I really do appreciate the offer.


In the end I do not feel tall and mighty. I actually feel bad that I have stooped to your level.

 

You Post This after you first posted this?

"I request this thread be locked and closed. It has becocme a virtual slug fest over nothing."

And You insult me and call me ignorant?.....WOW!

No where did i insult you., And calling everyone that posted there disapointment over the upgrade, (or realy the cost of the said Upgrade)
" ignorant " is what could be the cause of your thinking this thread is a slugfest?

I must admit, the thought to insult you back was tempting, I will let your own words stand for themself.

 

I figured you would reply as such.

It appears you think I was picking on you, but I'm not. It was not directed at you alone.

Please read and fully comprehend before qouting and commenting.Thanks

 

Glad your so far ahead of me.

Reread this line of the above post.:

No where did i insult you., And calling everyone that posted there disapointment over the upgrade, (or realy the cost of the said Upgrade)
" ignorant " is what could be the cause of your thinking this thread is a slugfest?


If i have not been able to comprehend everything, I am not alone.

 

*kiss kiss love*

Read my sig and own up to the fact you could have done more reasearch so we would not be having this conversation.

 

Thanks for participating in helping me proove to the mods this thread is dead and done with. =D

Next!

 

DJDave

I mean no disrespect to you. I was prooving a point. I apologize if I said anything you took offence to. This thread just needs to die and go away.

Thanks

 

Anyone would like to sell me a 7950GTX for Christmas? I could use another one…. Santa said he did not have any new ones left and even if he did, he told me he would not give me one.. I must have been a naughty boy..

 

I think that was the whole point of your posts.

You belive the mods here need your help in choosing what threads to leave open and what to close.

thats fine.

maybe think about useing the PM feature for the forum mod directly next time and avoid posting trolling posts to get the resiuts you think are necessary.

I'm sure that if there is more updates from Juston he will start a new thread anyway.

but thats up to him.

 

You successfully proved nothing, except for the fact that you could reiterate everything already said in this thread all the while sounding like a child saying "haha i told you so."

So, if you give a disclaimer before attacking...

then it makes everything ok eh? take a step off the high horse and get real. Leave the forum control to the mods.

 

even though you claim you done your research you appear to be mis-informed by putting full blame on the end user and this thread does not need to be closed.

you must understand that people got screwed and they have the right to vent as they put trust in the product and the resellers that stood behind it. and no, it's not because these people did not do enough research as most clevo D900 owners are more technically informed than other laptop owners.

with clevo plastering MXM IV for their D900C specs and some resellers even straight out claimed "user upgradeable" no amount of research would have led you to belive that the D900 is indeed, not upgradeable. add in the long known fact that the 8800gtx was MXM III and you get a rosey picture that was painted for everyone that was in the market for the D900C.

 

Well as much as there are PCI Express interfaces on the desktops able to acomodate the next generation video cards (Nvidia 9000*). That is what hardware "standards" are for as far the consumer is concerned. But that is not the point is it?

I'm glad you understood me Sorry for being so arsh.

Trance

 

Crazy Habib,

"Im in sales myself, I'm very successful at what I do. Know why? My morals stop where your intellegence ends."

I do agree with you that there is no point on this thread anymore. Each opinions are well defined. I don't agree with them all, even the ones that are contrary to yours, but I do concur with mine

As a note, I don't think that Clevo or anyother related company actually lied or intended to mislead the customer (read my previoust post). Simply a problem on MXM compliance was diagnosed after the fact, it happens. It happened with Sony batteries not so long ago and it was fixed with no cost for the customer.

Habib, indeed I'm glad your are not my supplier. Not becouse I'm afraid of your intelligence, but becouse I don't have time to teach you how to read and listen (at least my posts).

Trance
PS: As a sales person you should start by reading the product spec sheet given to the consumer before you even try to sell it (just a note from someone that was involved in IT sales)

 

"no cost for the customer" is the key in your above post. i have dealt with companies in car and home audio that have released a product and there was later a fault or some non compliance and even though it was a say 3000$ home amplifier the parts/repairs needed to make it do what it said were free to the consumer.

imo they knew (and i still stand by that) early enough that they should have pulled the "user upgradeable" monger from all the web sites and all the adds. at least to let everyone know---hey if you want to buy with either a 8700 or 7950 now great. you will not be able to go further with it. if you think you will then wait for just a tiny bit longer. they would have still sold notebooks to the people who didn't care about the 8800 and were satisfied with the 8700. im sure they would have still sold them no questions there not everyone even now is willing to shell out the extra 400+$ it costs new to get the 8800.

i know i for one was one of those who bought the system with the upgrade 100% in mind. and had i have known i would have still bought a sager/clevo no problems but it would have been a month later.. big deal they would still get my money.

yes this issue is beating a dead horse but for those of us who are pissed off about the situation are the ones who really got screwed here. since we are stuck with a system we paid for new and now would have to almost buy 1/2 of a new system again.. i know for one i would not buy another clevo again. had they have advertised "possibly upgradable" and told me when i called that it was not 100% (which they did tell me on the phone i got the "oh yeah you'll be able to drop the new card in there" and yeah we are using the best ... newest mxm 4 which is only for us right now etc etc etc..and said well if you want to be sure wait a bit longer even if they were locked to invidia for release info they didn't have to say when just to "wait just a bit longer". honestly i would not feel the way i do about them sager included in this because they are in fact the ones i spoke with before buying my system and calling justin at xotic and i do know its not his fault here. no problems with him he can only go by what sager told him also.

my point is i feel they knowingly continued to push the "non-upgradeable" systems as "user upgradeable" to make sure they didn't loose sales and they didn't have extra stock. and now no way id spend 1/2 what i paid for a less than 2 month old system to simply upgrade just the video card. if it was worth 1/2 the notebook than maybe. but even new its only a 400$ upgrade per card or about that much. and the whole we are helping the customer out as much as we can.....bs....major companies have taken HUGE losses for things like this being misrepresented in the past and they have sucked it up and taken the hits even putting some out of business or close to it.

i have been in retail electronic sales for nearly 15 years, i OWN 2 different locations, i have never dealt with a company like that and if i have had a bad deal with a company like that i dropped them like a rock. i NEVER tell my customer anything unless i'm 100% SURE thats why i am succesful at what i do. they comeback for that reason. that and i take care of my customers like family. i have eaten products many times in the past for various reasons and i have done so with a smile on my face during the process. some think i was crazy to take back certain things but i say those are now customers for life unless at some point they are done wrong. keep them as long as you can imo.

people tell me "well its business" when it comes to telling a customer sorry to bad.. talk to the customer and see to whom they would return to after that..you tell me who they would go back to...

okay enough ranting i will not post again about this topic but a few recent things threw me off and i had to clear my chest..ill leave my thoughts at that.

 

zfactor

amen brother.
good post

 

So could you please reveal to us what was the purpose of the MXM compatiblity which was one of the main advertising points of the 9260/61. Or how about the fact that Clevo knew in September that 8800 would not work with 9261 but choose not to disclose this to its customers ?

Why do you want this thread closed ? If it bothers you simply do not read it.

 

great post zfactor. I work in IT industry as well and we always make sure the customer is satisfied even if they change their requirements on us late in the design and implementation process. Leaving the customers high and dry as Clevo and Sager are doing is the best way to lose their business in the future.

 

Just to let you know that I don't fully agree with zFactor neither with Gmau. I have no reason to doupt the good will of Resellers and Clevo regarding this subject. Indeed within the spirit of good will I think that no one has any reason to doupt any the information that has been posted. Indeed I have reasons to believe the contrary. The professionalism and overall product quality as been up to the par as far as people have been posting including myself.

But I do think that asking current owners money to cover the costs of a new motherboard plus replacement just becouse "hey a mistake was made when implementing the MXMIV interface that we have found only now when we tried to fit in the 8800M GTX", is a wee bit too much without further information. Usually I pay for my own mistakes. I don't know why a company should not.

I do understand that resellers can't do it by themselvess most probably. So it needs to be a solution orchestrated between Resellers, Clevo and NVIDIA where customers are out of it (at least finantially). If it is done in this way, it would only increase the consumer confidence on MXM standards, just becouse the suppliers are indeed available to fully honor it, and in the end sales for sure. But this is as far as I care about a problem that is not mine.

Stay cool,

Trance

 

"Or how about the fact that Clevo knew in September that 8800 would not work with 9261 but choose not to disclose this to its customers ?"

This argument can easily be made against Nvidia. Perhaps they told clevo that the new gpus would work just fine with their current tech and there would be no issues (and no cables needed for sli). So clevo could have been in the same boat as the rest of us. Even with a test product that wasn't finalized, Nvidia could have been telling them the same stuff we heard before it was released, perhaps they told them they were working on a solution for easy implementation. Clevo could have easily been running on assumptions just as the rest of us did.

The whole point is that the industry spins as it spins. None of us work for nvidia or clevo so none of us can really make accusations like the one stated above.

I feel really bad for those that have to pay for this upgrade as I was almost one of them, but I waited for confirmation of the 8800m gtx. Its really unfair to be honest and it down right sucks. That is the bottom line we can all agree on, it just stucks. But what are ya gonna do?

I just ordered "the latest and greatest" from PC Microworks thats gonna rock. Guaranteed that it isn't going to be able to use the new intel CPUs, and I also guarantee that it won't be able to handle 9000 series when it arrives without a mobo upgrade. Heck, it wouldn't even surprise me if nvidia released a 8900 series before the 9000 for notebooks but that will require an upgrade as well. Either way, I purchased what I wanted thats current and I really can't bank on cheap solutions for anything new thats coming because the industry just doesn't work that way in the world of laptops. Desktops are far better for this.

Either way, I just wanted to chip in. I do really feel for all of you out there facing this hefty upgrade cost...it just sucks! I think it can be said as simple as that.

 

Trust me, it would be highly unusual if Clevo did not have the specification and early samples in September. It takes a while for manufacturers to test new graphics chips and do any necessary modifications.