Sager NP5797 (M570ETU) with GTX 280M - User Review

Great Work. I will try this as well.

EDIT: Alright, successful flash here as well. Running as a 280M now.

 

good news for D901C owners... if any of them dare to do the flash.

 

Why??
I know that changing ID won't make the 280M recognizable

 

I know emike took the plunge for experimental reasons, but why is anyone else doing the flash? There's no gain.

At the end of the day, the 280M is still a completely different core.

 

Don't want to be rude, but it's simply because we can.

 

I flashed only to see if the DPC Lag issue would go away. But it did not.
This is the only "issue" that drives me crazy. I have found a way to fix everything else I did not like.

So I am back on the 9800M GTX bios now.

 

the 280 bios will not unlock anything on 9800M GTX and if D901C user flash their 9800M GTX cards will have to blind flash them back because we dont have System bios to recognize the new GTX 280M cards i try this ones with 8800M GTX to 9800M GT with bios that not support 9800M GT but i flash only one card

 

So what you are saying Gangstaone is that users of the D901C should be able to flash a GTX 280m with a 9800m GTX vBIOS and make it function in the D901C. It makes sense to me. I'd say thats very plausible.

 

Just got my notebook the xxodd xni570tu-2 (which is equal to sager np5797) 5 mins before closing time (picked it up at a local dealer).
Installing vista64 atm will try to get some benches done too

 

Well maybe we have to get the card and someone to test this

 

^^^
I'll bet you the card can be installed and blind flashed as a 9800M GTX. If somebody wants to buy the card and test it to see if it works, and fails, I'll buy the card off them; my way of supporting the cause (and getting a GTX 280m at the same time )

 

Anyone have a suggestion as to why my 3d mark scores are so low?
I'm just curious. I realize it's off stock old drivers (probably would have to use
a modded inf to make the newest nvida ones work) and I've got the lowest
speed processor/cache in there... but just wondering why.

 

I realize this is a bit late, but I'll post anyway for completeness. The screenshot was a big help; thanks. From that, it looks like your original setup had the entire drive formatted as one single FAT32 partition, which is why XP setup couldn't find any more space to make a new partition (the setup prog isn't smart enough to take some free space away from an existing partition and can only deal with unallocated space or wiping out an entire pre-existing partition).

The fix for that would have been to use one of the partitioning tools on the Ultimate Boot CD to resize that existing partition so that it didn't take up the entire physical disk, then format the fresh space you've taken from the existing partition as a new partition with NTFS file system so that it's ready to take XP (although, to be efficient, that last step could have just been left to the XP setup prog, which could have handled formatting the unallocated space into an NTFS partition).

Anyways, it sounds like you're way past that stage by now!

 

Yep... safely on XP... other than a couple unknown devices it all seems to be running along fine. 75 MB really isn't much of a restore partition if it was one anyway. The one on my Dell, and a Compaq desktop was about 4 GB.

Still would be interested in comments on the performance question above.

 

Also I forgot to say. I didn't upgrade the BIOS to the 1.12 version. I am still using 1.10 and it does work with the 280M.

 

it's basically the same bios. seems all they did was the same thing they do with their inf files...added the strings for the gtx280m. thanks for finding that info out.. i would still run the 90'c for the 9800 and leave it alone for the 280m(108'c)
also, you may need to adjust the timings. they have 1-7 to choose from and out of the 7 it's like 4 of them are actually different. this DOES make a difference in how your vga cards perform

 

Got another question, although this one is rather generic.

Looking to practice good backup methodology... I understand
that it's best to have Windows on C, applications on another partition, and
personal files on another. This being so that you can delete, wipe, etc without loosing so much data and reduce the effort rebuilding.

However, this sounds good... but what about the fact that when you install a program. It hooks itself into the registry, Doc & Settings/User/whatever..., and numerous other places?

If you end up wiping Windows but not the programs directory, what good does it do you to section off the applications if you're just going to end up reinstalling them to add the "hooks" back into the system so they can function?

 

What I do JGZinv is have a partition with the installers for the programs I use and drivers. So when I have to format and reinstall, all the installers are there and I can easily install everything I need.

 

good answer!!

 

Guess that makes some amount of sense, the other way, I don't see how they manage to pull it off. I've heard several people over the course of the last 7 years say to do it as I described, but they were strangely silent on the issue I brought up.


Seems I'm having an issue with partitioning the drive, so I'm probably going to just reformat and start over now that I know a bit more about it. Saving all the installers to a usb key as I write this.

 

1: make 2 partitions using acronis disk partition or windows partition software
2: make the first partition about 100 gigs and your second partition the rest of the space
3: install os of course
4: copy everything you own or want on the second partition first. before doing all your drivers (drivers/games/applications)
5: once everything you want on your machine is there, then run all the installers from the second partition.
6: i would ditch that part about installing applications on anything other than c drive. if you don't pay attention you will get mixed up along the way. better to be safe than sorry. store it all on c:
7: use acronis true image and back up your drive c: to a esata/usb/or the second partition. make sure you create a bootable media using the wizard.

this should give you a running good start and incase of system crash, you also have a very fast restore partition located on your other partition or your esata/usb drive. usually takes any where to reimage....10 minutes to about 30 minutes depending on what you have loaded.(times very if you have a lot of games)

 

So far I've tried Partition Magic Portable and using the UBCD.

PMP goes to applying the changes I want, but on reboot nothing has changed.

UBCD, now it comes up with an error and fails out.

XP now loads and can't find a x***2002 file to run the drive autocheck.

So I'm thinking a format is in order before I get deep into installing this stack of software I've got here.

I'll look into acronis before I hit the format key though.

 

got 10898 3DMarks with vista64

sager5797/xxodd xni570tu-2
t9600 2.8ghz core2duo
280m gtx 1gb ddr3
4 gb ddr3
320 gb 7200rpm

Like jgz said does anyone have some good tips to be able to achieve higher marks?

 

Nice score.

No need to push it further unless if you want bragging rights.

you can run the benchmark with resource hogs turned off:
- disable Indexing Service
- disable System Restore
- disable any anti-virus / anti-spyware programs (disconnect from internet as well)
- Classic Theme Mode (disable Aero mode)
.... etc...

 

i think maybe i would do a full surface scan of your hard drive first.
then check your memory.
when installing the os, it should not fail 2 percent of the time. maybe 1 percent on a fresh install. (on a general install using a 100 person comparison)

we got a few....

yes we do. to many people bad mouthing the 280m....but if he is not an enthusiast..then by all means... that's a right nice score.

 

Personally I think it's partially related to power settings. Like I said before it seems to stick in low power mode for regular laptop use... then all the fans kick in and it'll hit 80 fps in some of the tests... stay there for about 5-7 seconds and then back off to around 40 fps. Then slide back and forth for the rest of the test. Doesn't seem like it's running at 100% throughout the whole test.

 

that's how the test runs.... when you run it a few times, you get a feel for what parts should be where in fps...

 

I'm not sure if I'm comparing apples to apples or apples to pears, but I thought I saw in the np8662 thread with a 260M GPU a score of ~10300...is there really only an ~5% performance difference from the 280M??

 

this percent thing is not straight across the board...
in one thing it may be 5% while some where else it's 1% and then somewhere else it's 35%

and again..everything is based on drivers and the user running them drivers...
whether you tweak it or run it out of the box or over clock. allot of variables. and i'll say this again. older drivers are better for 3dmark06 while newer ones are better for vantage and gaming.

 

Well I'm about up to where I was this morning, shouldn't take long before
I can put the last of this thing together and writeup the review I think.

Did go back and format the drive into two partitions. Reinstalled XP from scratch. Reinstalled all the drivers from scratch.

Also formatted my poor USB key in the process... over a year of stuff on there went poof, which no recovery program could salvage. Oh well.


Edit - and something to add... without installing the Nvidia driver/control panel the screen looks just fine at
1280x800 using Windows drivers. As much as I like that resolution, I figured the card itself would likely run better
with Nvidia drivers.

 

All in all, I'm more than impressed with the NP5797. Build quality is exceptional, the screen is great, performance is obviously very good, and cooling is impressive for what's under the hood (Max ~44 on CPU, 74~ on GPU at load!?). I haven't taken the battery for a spin yet so I can't comment on that, but since I haven't used it yet it's obviously no concern for me. If I have a complaint, it's the speakers, but I've got real speakers or headphones to fix that...

How can I check what screen I have? Dxdiag just tells me it's a generic monitor. I was a bit concerned it would be dim, but I'm happy with mine.

 

Well it was listed earlier in the thread that you have to go to the screen entry in the device manager and get the hardware ID.

Mine tells me exactly zip though...


To john -

Yeah I already put the files I needed in order to reinstall the drivers I downloaded. I ran the stick through about 5 programs that would have had the best chance of saving any of the files... nothing.

What probably messed it up was I interrupted the format once I realized what I'd done. But what's done is done.

I'm not worried about my native, I'm more concerned with being able to read/view things without strain and play old games without massive resolution issues.

 

http://download.cnet.com/Everest-Ultimate-Edition/3000-2086_4-10662415.html

acronis disk director
easy recovery 6.04
got a few other programs i use as well...forgot what they are at the moment.

what happens is it just does a quick format. or in windows it will reinitialize a usb drive...well in this instance you can un do it most of the time. if you didn't do an fdisk or start loading files back on it. usually best to attach it to another working computer and work on the drive...do a raw recovery (no drive structure only file names) was doing that very same thing to day...format recovery. did it about 10 times as a matter of fact, but it worked with my two main programs so i didn't have to dig up my thumb drive software...

 

I take it you want some part of the report off that?

 

Well, everest didn't know what monitor I have either. All I got was a hardware ID, APP9C72 which returned no google results. But I did discover I have a Hitachi version of the 320GB 7200 RPM drive, KTRON would be proud...

 

so it looked nothing like this. no date or anything?

 

Anothergeek.... we're matched then in LCD and HD.

john - tried doing such a recovery and one of the programs I used has previously seen through 7 full formats of a hard drive with data written over the top of each one, and still gotten data off. So it was fried... oh well.

 

Found funny things...Although flashed the 280M BIOS, Everest reads still 180M....

 

No serial, no manufacturer

Just played through 2 demanding CoD5 levels maxed out and didn't skip a beat. Kinda strange, I think the latest patch fixed stuttering for people by enabling vsync by default. I had vsync off and fraps on, and it was 30 FPS throughout, the rare drop when I got blinded by explosions and fire, heh (tank level). It's extemely playable and the game looks great maxed like that (4x AA, 16X AF, the works).

EDIT: yay for 500 posts!

 

so you basically fdisk the drive is what happen.

what did it drop too when you we're getting shot.
did it look like this when the frames we're dropping?

 

No, post processing blur did not dip FPS. It's not as problematic as in crysis... the only time FPS dropped below 30 was when there was so much smoke and fire I couldn't spot a target. Like using the flamethrower on the tank level, and only one occasion that I can recall when an air strike dropped in the following level invading berlin.

Also just ran L4D, naturally it ran very well although I had to disable multicore rendering for some stuttering. Triple buffered vsync for the hell of it since I have so much vram and tearing annoys me.

 

nice! so the card feels good while gaming.

 

Pictures really do not do the screen justice... certainly not in the brightness category.

But here's a few to compare between the 5797 and a matte Inspiron 6000.
Both at max brightness... still need to do a roundup and a minimum brightness.











I can tell you how to get the theme and wallpapers if someone's interested.

 

you want to see how bright it really is...do what i did...

 

Well the only place around here to do that sort of thing would
be a BestBuy... and since we can't seem to find out what screen
this is (by comparison), the Gateways may well be using a different screen
than this latest version of the 97.

Either way... it's bright enough to say "that's too much."
I'll still be doing that roundup with the 9262, sony desktop monitor and the Inspiron again.

 

that was an example of me showing my brand new lg screen i installed in that laptop. i was doing a screen compare at the near by frys electronics store.
sorry, but that's not a stock AU screen which came in that model gateway.

and you only need to take the bezel apart to see who the screen is made by.




and you may need to turn up the digital vibrance to get vivid colors using nivida cards. i use to advertise that for like a 6 months.

 

Yeah the screen (1920x1200) is really good had to get used to the glossy finish having always used matted ones but even in sunlight the screen is readable.
As for the sound yeah the speakers are horrid whe you ply a song straight out of the box but with some tweaking the sound is ok (the sound on my acer 5920g was better, the sound hurts your ears when it comes out of the box it rips your eardrums apart).
If you go to hd audio and select from the environment sound the carpeted hallway equalize volume (can play around with virt surr too if yo like).

 

is that Sager 5797 1650x1050 or 1920x1200? additionally, yes, I would like to know where you got that theme and wallpaper; they look awesome!