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

terminus I used what is called Recall Ultimate 6.6 which is a theme pack for Windows. I also had to use UXTheme Multi-Patcher (Neowin Edition) 4.0.

Both are free to my knowledge. You have to use the patcher to break window's lock on the ability to use third party files first.

The wallpaper is from taenaron.deviantart.com he has wallpapers going up into the 1900+ range. Excellent space themed images.

My screen is the 1680x1050 size.

 

please post some benchmarks, not only 3d mark. games benchmarks like crysis, fc2, gta4, wic...

 

Working on that soon...

I'm trying to get my PCMark 05 results, but it won't let me see them
due to some error...

Battery life on the 97 is 2 hr 7 mins with Wifi on and light use.

Also got the pictures for the comparison with the 9262, bang for buck wise, the 5797 is coming out on top the deeper I get into it. The screen on this 97 is also clearly better than the screen the 9262 I have available.

Oh and something else important... the poor 97 speakers... turn on SRS WOW in Windows Media Player, or go get a copy of the SRS Soundbox... big big difference in sound out of the laptop. Can't wait to see how it does in games and versus my Astro Gaming surround sound mixamp.

 

Great. i´m going to wait your benchmarks results and compare those vs the asus w90 and the sager np 9262.

 

-edit- wrong topic

 

Anyone else experiencing Crysis freeze on launch, who's also running XP?

I'm trying to get the last batch of numbers before I writeup the review.

 

make sure it's really running in dx9 mode...

 

Any good clues as to how to force dx9? I'm not getting a settings panel or anything. Loads to a black screen and freezes. GPU and CPU benchmark batch files do the same.

 

are you running crysis ok?

 

To run in DX9 only right click on the crysis exe then in the target box you should see this: Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis Warhead\Bin32\Crysis.exe" add a space to it and add -DX9. All together it should look like this

Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis Warhead\Bin32\Crysis.exe" -DX9

Click apply and your done, every time you run the game it will automatically run in DX9.

 

yes it should. people in the dell xps m1730 forums are flashing there 8800m gtx to 9800m gt like crazy.

 

what crylo said.

and if it's just sitting on the black screen...click the left mouse button to see if anything happens or hit the space bar.

 

Doesn't work... still stuck on black, no actions from the spacebar or mouse.

 

did you install updates/patches?
what driver are you using now?
is physx enabled or disabled?

 

Still using the 6.14.11.7927 driver that came stock.
PhysX control panel shows that it's on but there's nothing else in that panel to say one way or another.

The game is the demo version, not the retail, so I doubt any patches would apply here.

 

windows updates installed?

 

Yes... all 118 or so.

 

then try the 179.48 off of nvidias website

 

Since the 179.48 complains it can't find any drivers for my system, I assume you're using a modded inf from lv2go?

 

no. i mod them myself..it a very easy thing to do. what are your device strings?

 

John you should write a tutorial on how to mod nvidia drivers. I'll be soon a proud np5797 owner

 

i think they're are a few around, but i think we can make it pretty easy for any one to add ones card to any inf they want to try.

 

I assume you want the strings under Details in the 280m device manager properties panel?

Which ones do you want, there's about 25 items in that list?

As you may have noticed, I'm not familiar with modding the GPU settings.

 

Just copy one of the strings with 0617 or 0608 in the inf file and then replace the 0617 or the 0608 with 060A.

It's as simple as that.

 

yeah, what he said if all the other strings match. maybe...since there seems to be quite a few...

[DEV_060A&SUBSYS_04811558] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M
[DEV_060A&SUBSYS_05771558] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M
[DEV_060A&SUBSYS_08601558] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M
[DEV_060A&SUBSYS_09021558] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M
[DEV_060A&SUBSYS_09031558] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M
[DEV_060A&SUBSYS_98001558] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M

 

Works even if they don't match but you have to delete the subsystem.

By the way, do any of those subsystems match the subsystem you have now johnksss ? Cause if they do, it might mean the 280M has been tested on your motherboard as well.

 

[DEV_0617&SUBSYS_09021558] NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTX

just waiting for someone to get around to flashing a 280m to a 9800m gtx... if it works. then we should be able to run a 280m in this machine..as long as it fits. (speculation of course and that's if the bios doesn't already support it.

 

I don't understand why people are buying the 5797 when you can get an Asus W90Vp for about the same amount of money? The W90 destroys this laptop.

 

Price Start at : $1349.00
this is a single card laptop not a dual card one.

 

Yo people this string is for D901C DEV_060A&SUBSYS_09021558] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M maybe we too will get GTX 280M upgrade for our D901C

 

looks promising or they just added some extra numbers to the inf for possible compatibility issues...

 

We've already flashed the 9800M to 280M. I am running my card on the 280M BIOS in the M570TU. WITH NO motherboard BIOS UPDATE. I am still using the 0.10 BIOS not the new 0.12 BIos.

And it also works pretty damn good. I played Empire total war for 2 days on the 060A BIOS and had 0 problems.

 

smood I'd really appreciate it if the thread didn't become a asus w90 vs. comparison. There's other threads that's been talked about already several times.

I'm not a mod, but we're trying to focus on getting benchmarks out of the unit for review purposes here.

Thanks.


john - here's the numbers from that program


I submitted the bios to the NiBiTor folks as well.

 

updated my drivers from the stock clevo drivers from yearzero to nvidia 185.68_vista64 drivers (it's easy yeah) and got 11051 3DMarks stock (no oc or whatever out of the box and with running some small programs in the background) with my 280m 4gb ddr3 and t9600 so thats at least 150 pts increase over the old drivers (afaik) not huge but still nice to see 11k+ without oc or whatever lol.

 

those are great scores. but remember that th real power in the geforce cards are in games not in benchmarks like 3dmark. please np5797 owners post benchmarks

 

Well I've got the supcom demo, farcry 2 demo, crysis (not working atm) demo, and Sins of a Solar Empire demo.

Wanted to stick the CoD WAW and Left 4 Dead in there, but I'll be darned if I can find either one that isn't out of date, and Steam doesn't even have the L4D demo anymore.

 

kind of why i said flash the 9800m gtx bios on to the gtx280m

get familiar with that timingset stuff..you may be using later on to get better performance out of your cards.

what did it say for voltage as well?

 

John one question.

the np5797 comes with the bios locked so you can´t overclock unless it has an xtreme processor. is there any posibility to oc a non xtreme cpu in the np5797????

 

another clevo mistake. and the only other way to over clock it is to get the pll number off the motherboard and then use setfsb to over clock it, but...yes there is a but...clevo is good about locking that pll some kind of way....

 

How do i get the pll from the motherboard. and please some mp5797 owner could try it? xoticpc is going to have new stock but i have to wait until late april early may

 

All I can get it to show on voltages is VID Mode >
0.7V 7 - 0.7V

Can you restate what you want done with the INF file since we've got several code lines floating about here?

 

i thought you downloaded that posted inf already? that wasn't the right one?
if not, ill do it right now.

 

I've not done any changes yet. But I feel I need to note some weird stuff going on.

In the Farcry 2 demo it works for about 2 minutes and then the textures go completely out of whack. Psychedelic textures, misplaced textures, bushes that look like cubes. This happens on any quality setting. Was able to run on high for a little while before it went nuts.

Also ran Crysis demo (figured out it was my firewall) and it was buttery smooth on all high settings. Got up to the part where you have to take out the GPS jammer and popped up of the grass... everyone started shooting.. then all the text, textures, menus, and so forth had color, or texture problems. The gameplay started to freeze as well so I couldn't see or save myself.

So... um yeah. Seems really screwed up at the moment.
I installed the March 09 DX update as well in case that was part of my issue.

 

exactly what is installed?

 

Are you asking for an entire list of what programs I've got on the computer, or something more specific?