Sager NP3652 / Clevo P650RZ

Hello,

My trusty Sony Vaio, after roughly four years of service, is ready to retire, and I'm looking for options. Whilst doing so, I encountered this model on Xotic PC, which seems like a killer rig at a very reasonable price.

Thing is, I can't seem to find any reviews, overviews or anything about it anywhere. If I'm going to shell out over 900$ for this, I want to know if it'll be worth it - my budget doesn't go higher than that, and I'm not looking for a gaming notebook (I don't game all that much) so... yeah. Why is this model such a ghost?

(Note: Main reason why I'm after a Sager / Clevo, is because I've lost all but one of the laptops I've ever owned to heating issues and I've heard it said that the brand is known for their effective cooling solutions.)

 

It's a fairly new model, but the more office orientated sager machines do tend to get less attention. I'd keep an eye out or phone up with any specific questions.

 

Thank you.

But, a question, what do you mean by "office oriented"?

 

rather intended for office work when compared to its big brother machines sporting dedicated gpus (the P650RZ only has an intel iGPU)

 

Thanks for clearing that up.

I'm not looking for a gaming laptop, so the GPU is a non-issue. The most demanding thing (and then mostly the CPU) that I do is music production on FL Studio, which is every day.

My concerns are mainly about cooling, build quality, durability, and whether or not it can last me a while.

 

It should keep going at it Clevo/sager machines are designed to be used to their full extent.

 

treat it well and itll last you a loooong time to come

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Oh I intend to The VAIO got me into the habit of giving it a once-over regularly instead of just abusing it.

Given that I'm on a very old model (with Intel Core i3 dual core, 4 GB RAM, about 600 GB HD) pretty much anything would be a huge step forward. The config I have in mind for the P650 is easily double that (in terms of RAM, it's quadruple.)

I think I'm just squeamish about buying something I have very little details on, especially with the whole cooling thing I keep yapping on about. Only got enough money for a one-shot, and it's gotta be good, gotta keep me going for a few years.

So I have to ask: do you think I should go ahead with it?

 

well, naturally, no matter what brand and model u go for, theres always a chance to receive a lemon, nothing can protect you from that

on the other hand, clevo is the first brand ive put enough trust in to get a machine from twice in a row. havent done that with any other machines / brands so far and im not regretting my decision! i plan to max out my 4 yr platinum warranty to the fullest with my current machine and only jump ship to new hardware once it gives out on me

 

That is true. I tried so hard to avoid it just to run headlong into it - the damn thing was borderline unusable in just a year due to a constant, persistent overheating issue. After two months of solid research, too. I don't know, at this point, for whatever reason P650RZ seemed right when I saw it. Better go with my instincts.

Now what's left is asking for advice. Two things I'm not sure of, so:

1-8GB or 16GB RAM? I'm on a 4GB now, so I'll be at least doubling that, but is 16 overkill?
2- Windows 7 or 10? Haven't heard many flattering things about 10 so far. I'm used to 7 by now, and I'm wondering if that's a safer choice.

Thank you so much, by the way, you've been a big help.

 

1) personally, id go with 16 and call it a day. two reasons: im already maxing out 9-10gb of ram in certain scenarios, so i dont recommend anyone to go below 16 anymore. sure, ur usage scenarios may vary, but id rather recommend smth future-proof also, most ram sticks tend to be 8gb nowadays, so with 16 ull avoid being stuck in single channel mode (1 ram stick) vs the much faster dual channel mode (2/4 sticks). if u have budget constrictions, id recommend going with the lowest possible ram config and then upgrade urself through aftermarket, definitely cheaper that way!

2) suggestion: go for win7, upgrade to win10, see if u like it or not, then potentially downgrade again inside the 30 days testing period ure allowed by microsoft before ur win7 license is irrevocably upgrade to a win10 one.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

That'll be a great laptop since you're looking mainly for an office PC and don't care about a GPU.

My 2 cents, 16gb isn't overkill, especially if you start multitasking with it. The music production can use a lot of ram so it could help to have more to ensure no bottle necks there.

I personally like windows 10, while i know a lot of people do not because of the snooping, jaybee's suggestion is a good one, and gives you the opportunity to trial it without being committed to it.

 

This has been most helpful! Almost there, just one thing remaining: the age-old question. Thermal compound. Stock, or ICD7?

I've looked up some other threads, and reviews. Some say it'll slowly devour the heatsink like a hungry parasite, others swear up and down that it's the second coming... and some say it doesn't make a difference.

But which is it?

 

stock TIM? no way jose!

ICD7 has its quirks, in that its viscous and it can cratch the surfaces its applied on, although ive never seen a case of ICD making hardware unusable

alternatives would be Gelid GC Extreme and Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut, both are more performant than ICD, do not scratch surfaces and are also less viscous, thus easier to apply in terms of performance, kryonaut is king of the hill at the moment, but beating GC Extreme only by a tad.

 

That was the thing - that it scratched up the heatsinks and thus undermined them (I don't know how that works either.)

Wait, do the custom shops (e.g. Xotic) apply it themselves, or do I just get the tube? XD

 

From us we would apply it.

We've applied it on a lot of machines and never had any issues come back of unusable hardware due to it. If you dig online like it sounds that you have you'll find some of those blemishes called out. However there are a lot of factors at play when applying it properly and 99% of users are extremely happy with it.

 

I dug online XD With no other way of determining what this ICD7 thing is.

Alright, then I'll ask this: what's the effect of having the heatsinks scratched? (I'm assuming that's not the same thing as "cracked", naturally)

 

ICD7 = Innovation Cooling (brand) - Diamond compound. 7 carat.

About the heatsinks: probably no effect, but it depends on the extent of the damage. If we're talking about how ICD7 might mar them a bit if you wipe the compound off, then it really has no profound impact on the heatsink, it just doesn't look perty afterwards. Serious scratches or gouges might affect cooling potential on that particular heat sink.

 

Exactly my question - standard stock or ICD7? Or do all thermal compounds do a bit of damage? I mean, I don't care if it looks like Esmeralda or Quasimodo, so long as it works like a raging workaholic the literary equivalent of which may not be apparent in "The Hunchback of Notre Damme."

Just to add, I'm not planning on wiping it off or anything. I just don't want to get something that might cause problems later "just to be on the safe side." Cooling is the one bit I'm paranoid about, so.

 

well as mentioned before, theres been reports of scratched surfaces but never reports on damaged hardware of worsened cooling due to ICD7. i myself have been using it for years now, have indeed gotten scratches on both gpus and cpus but never had hardware malfunction or performance of my heatsinks lessened because of it

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Double posted by accident. See below.

 

A scratched CPU sounds kinda ominous... or is it just me not being the most technical boy in town? When you say scratche, is it like label or (I dunno) paint?

Also, to add, I'm not gonna apply it myself. Sager / XoticPC gives me the option of having it applied during build. That said, I don't think I'm the type that will change or re-apply thermal paste either, I don't feel confident enough to mess with that.

Lastly - is the ICD7 a big improvement over the stock?

 

Yeah, I've had CPUs and GPUs scratched by ICD, I personally don't like it, I like MX4... people say it degrades over time but my temps are just as good as they were months ago, no pumping effects or anything..

 

CPUs have a relatively thick protective layer, the thin scratches that sometimes happen with ICD should not impact cooling performance or have any chance of impacting operation.

 

thats good info, ive lately been considering getting myself a tube of mx4 for testing purposes and / or whenever im building rigs for others, no reason to waste expensive highend pastes for such things

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

So, let me get this straight - this thing does scratch up your hardware, but the damage is only surface damage / light, and nothing that would adversely affect the hardware itself, so it shouldn't be that big a deal, or rather, as big a deal as I'm making it out to be?

 

yo

 

Should I take that as a yes?

 

yes!

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Alright, thanks. I'm ordering this rig tonight, then. With the ICD7, and Windows 10, and extra RAM. XD

(There's a reason why this place is my first and only stop when seeking advice.)

 

good stuff, keep the community updated on your impresssions of this machine

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Good choice, enjoy I look forward to your impressions.

 

Agreed.. This might be my next office machine in my dreams lol.. My crappy T450's screen is irritating me..

 

Just came in, literally five minutes ago. First impressions, superficial:

1- It's light. Like, proper light. It just looks like it'll be heavier than it actually is.
2- The back panel has two exhaust grills: one directly under the fan, and another (I think) under the GPU, both are accessible if I were to remove the panel, which is held by three screws. That's it, no "remove the keyboard first" nonsense.
3- The side-vent, on the left, isn't a series of tiny little lines like the pictures on the website show: the lines go down at an angle and pretty much cover half of the left side. Ethernet port and 3 USB ports follow that.
4- It's smooth to the touch. Palm rests are rather comfy.
5- The speaker, I thought was right above the keyboard, is somewhere to be sure, I just haven't been able to look for it just yet.
6- The keys are a bit beefy. Puffy little marshmallows. There is a numeric keyboard, but it's sort of squeezed into the right side. But, they're light and responsive.
7- The matte-finish screen looks better than the glossy one I had on my Vaio. So far, visually, it's satisfying. I'll be able to test how it looks from angles other than dead ahead later on, but so far, it's sleek and vibrant.
8- The power adapter is smaller than you'd think it would be, it fits (width/girth-wise) into the palm of my hand. The cord itself is a bit short, though, or my Vaio had a cord taller than I was. Possibly the latter.
9- The mouse pad is rather large, but it's very responsive to the touch, and easy to drag your finger around on.

I got mine with a Windows 10. So far, performance-wise, it's too early to tell, but I spent every minute after it came on going through what's pre-installed. Whether its necessary or not. Before transitioning, I intend to fully purge whatever needs purging, and do a startup.ini run just to make sure I'm there.

Bloatware-wise, I haven't seen much of Sager's stuff (they're quite unlike ASUS in that regard, if I'm not mistaken.) Microsoft's own stuff may be useful for certain types of users, but I have no use for most of it - Cortana included.

Furthermore, the rig came with one HD partition, C:, which I'm not very fond of as I tend to... well, hoard pretty much everything (VSTi, sample packs, music, pictures, wallpapers primarily) and not everything stays on there for long. Maybe it's just a superstition of mine, but I've always viewed the C: as a "system mods and error corrections only" type of deal.

The fans only picked up twice in my entire session, and when I say picked up, I mean just a little revving and then silence. So far, so good.

Will continue once I crank it up a notch or four.

 

Thanks for taking the time to share your impressions on it. Glad to hear that you are liking it so far.

You're right about bloatware on Sager, they really don't put much on there and are pretty good in that regards.

Keep us updated with what you think on it. Thanks!

 

I intend to continue as I move along. Gonna take a while to transition, I mean I can't believe how bad my filing system is - everything is everywhere. It's taking time just organizing what to move.

I think I found the speakers. They're underneath the palm rests, two specks of speaker-grill dots drilled in. Sound quality test will be posted later.

On the other hand, the boot up time isn't excellent. Maybe it's because it's not broken in or something, but currently, it boots up roughly the same time as an almost-4 year old Sony Vaio that I put through hell. That's not a big thing, and I think it has a little bit to do with the fact that I didn't yet mess with the startup. I couldn't get to that the way I'm used to, and I am pretty sure the Task Manager has some pretty extraneous stuff eating up my startup.

I'm also acutely aware of the fan exhaust, though it doesn't kick up often, so that's something.

That, and I'm not sure what the Soundblaster Cinema 2 does, or if it's really all that necessary to start up along with Windows. Any advice, anyone?

 

To help with the start up time, did you install Intel RST on there, or any other utilities that may be needed for your SSD (if you have them) like Samsung Magician?

Soundblaster is going to be audio software, giving you more options than what Windows does by default for changing sound settings. Could leave it in, I don't think it will eat up too much resources from your system.

 

Check your services and startup items in msconfig. You might be able to trim the fat, decreasing the boot time. (Intel RST isn't really necessary; it's just an alternative to the native Windows SATA driver.)

SoundBlaster is there to compliment the audio experience, for lack of a less corny way of putting it. It's just software that gives you more control over audio tweaks, but it's certainly not necessary (your audio driver is the Realtek driver, which also has software offering minor adjustments).

 

So here's the round-up.

Appearance, Keyboard, Weight

The rig does resemble an old office laptop. It's seemingly sharp edges and overall angular design is quite pleasing. Despite how sharp it looks, it's very soft to the touch. Whatever it's made of, the palm rests are very comfortable.

The keyboard has beefy keys and a numeric keyboard, however, the numeric side is a bit thin to accommodate the rest. The function keys aren't readily apparent as the function icons were done with dark blue instead of white, and while visible under bright lights, it becomes a bit of a problem in the dark. The keyboard is not back-lit.

The website said five pounds plus, and it feels like it. Although larger (if slightly) than my VAIO (who died a hero's death) the Sager is barely any heavier. It's easy to carry around.

The power adapter isn't a brick. It's compact enough for this kind of rig.

The Screen

No problems with colors or hues. They're vibrant, nothing too high contrast. However, when watching something, and when viewed at an angle not too near the center, the matte finish makes the screen misty. I miss the gloss of my Vaio in this department. You can't stray too far from dead ahead if you want to get a decent visual. Haven't yet tested it on something HD, but I doubt that'll change.

But, the matte finish does mean it's not reflective, so I don't have to watch myself staring at whatever I'm watching every time I watch something. Not too bad a trade off.

This thing has a display of 1920x1080 resolution by default, and just on its own, and/or with a nice wallpaper, it's eye candy.

When watching hi-def movies or just staring at the GUI of a VST, the screen comes to life.

The Sound

The speakers are tiny, and so the sound they produce isn't that much, however, they handle sudden bursts of noise (e.g. eplosions) with ease, no static or buzzing. I usually crank the sound up to 60% or more when doing anything with speakers, otherwise, with headphones, I've found more than 28% to be a bit loud. The sound is crisp and clear.

Far as headphones experience and music production goes, you know, I never realized how awful and dirty some of my sounds were until this rig. And that's saying something. Even with your standard iPod earbuds, I can hear everything clearly, despite the earbuds' frequency bias.

The CPU

Now my primary preoccupation was with music production, and for the first time since I started, I can do practically anytime I want. Unless the instrument is a completely unoptimized CPU monster, it handles the load admirably. I can load multiple instances of instruments that I would have trouble with only one instance of, and so it's a breeze. I acted like a kid in a candy store with this, and have yet to choke it up once.

Moving files from remote hard-drives to this is also a lot faster than it was before. The transfer speed is between 3-5 MBps, from what I recall from my great migration.

I was also proven right in the start-up department. Once broken in, it starts up in about ten seconds.

The GPU

Untested. But I doubt it'd hold up to the latest games, or even some of Steam's more esteemed titles.

Heat and Noise

The fan only spools up when it needs to cool the rig down, and then stops once it's actually cooled. It's effective. One thing it has trouble with is that I choose to sleep it rather than shut it down, and since the fan doesn't work but the CPU does (slowly but steadily) it can get a bit warm. The laptop rectifies this by spooling up the fan the instant the screen is lifted with a high-energy burst of air. In fact it's cooling down from a workout as I type this.

Fan noise is moderate, even when I'm cranking it up.

The palm rests are tad warm most of the time, but nothing uncomfortable. Once, however, I've noticed that the right palm rest was very warm while the rest of the rig was hot - I don't know what caused that, but it only happened once. So far, so good.

System Stability

Now, I'm usually pretty rough on my rigs. Uploads, downloads by the terabytes, that sort of thing. During the migration, I saw that I had over a thousand project files for my music stuff, very few of which I actually carried, but already I'm approaching three digits. Then there's all the VSTs. So thus far, apart from that unfortunate update incident, no problems.

But, big plus - very little bloatware. It doesn't come bundled with SAGER AWESOME UTILITY TOOL or anything.

That's it from me. Been enjoying this rig, and hope to do so for the many, many days to come. I'm also treating it with a bit of respect, trying not to use it like you'd use a dish rag, so.

 

Hello everyone
Just got this laptop 2 days ago
Thinking of upgrading the hdd to ssd
How do i remove the back panel
I only found two screws
Where's the third one?
And how do i actually remove the panel after removing all the screws?

 

For anyone looking for a longer power cord, try and find a longer cord going between the wall and brick since they do use standard cables. Keeping it to the high voltage side will improve efficiency and keep it in spec.

Yes two screws hold down the cover, remember to remove the battery before opening it.

 

Thanks for the reply

 

You're welcome, enjoy the machine

 

I am in need of dire help.

After a freezing incident, I had to do a hard shut-down. Immediately after that, Cortana returned with a vengeance and all these processes that weren't there before popped up. I can't get rid of any of them, I don't know how they're loading, and they're overheating the rig. The fan that kicked in every so often is now spooling up nearly all the time. I don't know who else to turn to. Is this a Windows 10 thing?

 

Do you have a screenshot of your task manager showing what they are, or how much they are using up for CPU usage? Are you able to close them out in the task manager? On the startup tab in the task manager you can turn programs off so they don't turn on at start up. Have you tried checking for viruses as well?

 

I agree it's suspicious services would just come back like that.

 

I have:

Application Frame Host
COM Surrogate (2-3 instances)
Cortana (yeah, I know, but it's disabled as much as it can be, and it wasn't here until the shut-down.)
Host Process for Windows Tasks
Windows Search Filter Host
Windows Search Indexer
Windows Search Protocol Host
Runtime Broker
Sink to receive asynchronious callbacks for WMI client application (2 instances)
Spooler SubSystem App
Usermode Font Driver Host
Windows Audio Device Graph Isolation
Windows Wireless LAN 802.11 Extensive Network
WMI Provider Host (2 instances)

None of these can be shut down in the task manager. If I end their task or process tree, they just pop back up again. From the way my startup time is now four times longer than what it was, I think something is loading at startup, but I don't know what.

ALSO, after the hard shut-down, these start-up items popped out of nowhere:
Delayed Launcher
Creative UpdReg
Windows Host Process (Rundll32)

I did take some screenshots, but they're pretty crappy, hence why I listed the items. The processes often push my disk usage, quite spontaneously, to over 95% while the laptop is idle.

Avast antivirus hasn't found anything wrong in anything. Both drives were scanned.

 

Have Fast Startup disabled?

 

I'm... not sure. MSconfig has always been normal startup, and I just checked, THAT particular fast start-up is turned on.

So you're saying that there's a thing where services and stuff load unnecessarily on start-up, that these are all legit?

'cause I can't stop them from loading, and "end task", "end process tree" and the like aren't doing anything as they pop back up almost immediately.

Edit: I managed to stop the Print Spooler from Services. It's always on, looking for printers, and was on Automatic. There's a messload of services that are on automatic, but I'm not sure about just disabling them at random.

The Windows Search, for instance. Do I really need it..? What does it even do?

 

I'm done with this piece of junk. Today, it decided that playing back audio was for wusses, and so now it can't play .wav or .mp3 files without mangling the audio horribly. A Sager Laptop is unable to do what the cheapest, second-hand mp3 player does, which is a rotten shame and since I'm all about music, whether that's making it or listening to it, it makes this laptop a pile of worthless trash. I'm currently cruising for a new laptop, and I haven't used this one for a full year yet, which should say everything that I want to say - I regret ever going Sager.

Addendum 1: Figured it out. If I knock hard on the right side of the mousepad, on the hand rest, the audio switches between bad, really bad, really bad and distant, good but muffled, and then as it's supposed to f***in be. Every time I move the laptop, I gotta knock hard on it to get proper sound. Wonderful craftsmanship, seriously.

Addendum 2: Also, it can no longer properly play audio CDs. Static overtakes the audio to such a degree that I can't properly hear anything. Wow. A 1000$+ laptop, unable to do what an outdated (some may even say obsolete) discman does, ffs.

Addendum 3: It also started to claim that it can't find the correct booting device at random startups, but usually after the system locks up when checking my hotmail or, opening up a notepad, y'know, things that extremely tax the rig to the point of freezing. Seems to go away when I do the only thing I can and do a hard reset, but it tells me that this thing may one day decide not to boot up, period.