Sager NP9772 problems... Again...

What's up guys? Long time no see. Sorry to start a new thread but hoping for a little technical and emotional support.

Back in December my Batman took a win10 and a steam update. Postponed reboot a couple days. Finally decided to reboot and I get the HDD symbol but no post, screen, nothing. I am at a job that kicks my ass mentally and physically. It took me awhile to do all the usual troubleshoot procedures. Called up my reseller and they setup an RMA. I sent if off in March. Just got it back. SAME FREAKING THING after a motherboard replacement.

I am about to do some troubleshooting but the reason I started this thread is because I have no backup pc and only smartphone the last 4 months. Before sending it off on the RMA I, part of the reason it took so long was finding similar issues as mine. Seems most have been complaints about win10 and a recovery did the trick. Read a few GPU problems, GPU problems and I don't think I came across a dead motherboard in Batman. I think my power supply is fine. Never heard anything, no pops, no weird behavior. Stock BIOS. I had a very stable CPU UV at -75mv and something else -100mv. Somewhat regular repaste every 3-6 months with Gelid mostly (tried Noctua NT-H1 or whatever it's called, btw almost as good as Gelid depending on what's available in your region).Batman was rarely moved, mostly stayed on 24h (which is relevant bcuz less hot/cold cycles), rarely pushed the GPU or CPU. In winter I would sometimes run folding@home instead of heater but I had not done that yet as it hadn't got cold yet. Even with @home I had it dialed in where C/GPU would rarely go over 60°C. I don't game much and I forgot which game but the hottest my C/GPU would get is mid 60's, but really stayed below 60. I have a Zalman cooler on it that runs off USB 24/7 except those rare times I moved it.

If you've read this far are there any suggestions besides the usual? This is my third Sager notebook. My first was a Compal which the MB died 1 week after I got it. Had it back in a week. Forgot the last model but I do remember it had an Nvidia 540 GPU. I went all out this time and got the 4790K and 980M. I am so frustrated. I'm a loner and my laptop is my life in many ways. I love reading and being connected to the internet. My smartphone cannot make up the usefulness that my 65" monitor with steamlink that ran beautifully before this hiccup. I think I am in need of mental help also. I am supposed to have a 3 day weekend too. Batmanless.

BTW, fixing to swap my SSD's around again. Boot drive is Samsung SM951 I think? Wasn't that the m.2 or something that mostly could only be had through eBay, amazon or Lenovo strip? The second drive is 850 EVO and the 2.5" bays have 512GB 850 pros.

Supposedly Sager replaced the MB. I see an April 18 sticker in there. And due to Microsoft's BS unfortunately I was on Windows 10 before the RMA. Sager reloaded win8.1 pro which was fine as I was going to stay that way awhile if I could.

What is a nerd to do? Has anybody been far in the process of RMA MB replacements. I did not get extended warranty. Usually keep my lappies 3 years or so but had planned on running this beast 5 years. With shipping and MB price I will say the price came in reasonably under my expectations. What happens now with round 2 of RMA and this happens again?

Thoughts?

 

Oh and forgot to add I bought the 330w power supply for the extra overhead. Running power supplies near max doesn't help longevity.

Watching this reboot without POST is maddening.

 

So they sent it back broken?

@Papusan @Mr. Fox

You guys are more familiar with Clevo laptops than I am, any tips for the man in need?

 

Allegedly they tested and installed 8.1pro which wiped my drive. I have no way of verifying that. It's just a bummer. I justified this top shelf laptop with topshelf parts thinking that I would get value after at least 5 years of ownership. I am not a power user or gamer but I do make use of all the technologies available and sometimes fold@home mostly in the winter because of the wattage it pushes out. I also forgot to mention I disabled turbo boost so it never ran over 4GHZ. I really hope they come up with a solution or resolution. I'd rather have it fixed. ATM, I don't have time nor the money, I do but not really, to research newer stuff like ddr4 and ssd's. It is fine as is. I'd love to be able to take advantage of usb3.1 and possibly thunderbolt down the road, but this laptop is absolutely bonkers great aside from the same keyboards being used instead of 17 incher getting their own full width laptop.

 

Back to Sager it goes. GRRRRRRRRRR. I really need a laptop now.

 

Did you plug it into the same PSU? In the same wall outlet?

 

I tried battery first. Then with plug no battery. Then with both. Then tried different outlet. Tried two different surge protectors. One is heavy duty enough for the laptop.

I am really getting frustrated now. Sager is dragging their feet. I should have my RMA by now. I need to be back up and running already. 2 months ago.

 

No RMA. What other resellers are there that sell clevos? Sager has fallen off it seems.

 

I don't know what @Meaker@Sager does but I imagine he might be able to expedite what ever is holding up the rma.

Lots of people generally recommend hidevolution for their purchases

 

If you don't hear by the end of Monday then let me know the details and I can see what is going on.

 

Monday around 4pm'ish would technically be the 48 business hours. I am awaiting anxiously. This is driving me nuts. I've 'fasted' from the internet and my smartphone before separately and both but I really need access to my printer, duplex scanner and some studying I need to do to stay sharp, not to mention self educate myself and just read. I had taken on the daunting task of trying learn Deutsche when it broke down. With the temps I had at idle and just using my Batman I never would've thought this would've happened in less than 5 years. So frustrated.

Fixing to look at hidevolution. I wonder why mythlogic is going through a hiccup right now? I guess without starting a new thread, if I end having to get a new laptop the the current 1060 is about the same my 980m correct? Sucks because I finally had something I always wanted and 1080ight price me out. It is not consoling that they're comparable power wise. I am not a power user or use this for business. That said I know enough I know how to put a laptop with a desktop CPU and GPU to full use and I do occasionally. I have mine setup to be efficient and cool. Had a nice UV with turbo turbo turned. Some of my apps I had dialed in where they couldn't get anywhere near 80° and hard to pass 70°. I am rambling. Sorry guys. Biggest disappointment in awhile.

 

The issue with your laptop likely has nothing to do with cpu temp.

Just perplexes me why they send it back broken.

 

I just got an email to try a usb recovery drive with no drives in the system. The thing is I already tried it last time. I do not think it will work because it will not go into bios. Absolutely nothing shows on screen like last time. But I do have to try as this is the only step I have not done this time. Gotta figure out where I put that drive I made though.

Holy $h!+ Batman! Damn, HID is expensive. I couldn't even consider a 1080GTX if I wanted with them.

 

Just mentioning that because I didn't push system at all. Went for efficiency and low dB so heat couldn't be the issue.

And yes it is very perplexing. They claimed to have installed win8.1 on the drive I have in it. Samsung sm951 256GB. Yet absolutely nothing shows on the screen. Nothing. Can't even change the option to check which way to boot from. Highly doubtful it is drive as they would've mentioned that. I don't know. This is nuts.

 

It's a different ball game compared to when your machine was released. They charge more because the gpu is no longer cut down 1080 in a laptop performs within 5% of its desktop counterparts.

Not justifying, just context

 

oh I know. no more M designations. almost desktop in a laptop. but still.

anyways, guys. thanks for your time. my sanity is restored. i think what was kicking me in the balls was a ram slot by the gpu wasn't seated well. i thought the ram under keyboard was more important. but oh well. lesson learned.

golly gee whiz. i should've triple checked my work. well, now that i think about it, all I installed was ram underneath keyboard first. shhhheeeewwww. i had started researching the 8700k and 1060 and 1080. I am tempted. if i sold this laptop, hell selling the gpu and cpu alone would probably offset a nice chunk of change. i'll think about it. let me get back to work.

again. thanks guys.

 

All ram is striped across to help improve performance so all sticks are equally important Glad to hear it is working.

 

There's no error codes on those machines?

 

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH...

first off, it takes forever to boot. like at least 30 seconds at a black screen before I even see the sager logo. used to boot in 30-60 seconds easy on my samsung sm951. I never see hit f2 for BIOS either.

SECOND...I'VE BEEN NEEDING THE DATA OFF MY 2.5" SSD's!!! CAN'T FIND THEM. I GOTO BIOS... PORTS 0-3 NOT PRESENT!!!

what the hell sager?? just what in the freaking hell. my boot drive shows correct. my VM drive on an 850 evo shows correct. I've played with the BIOS and nothing. NADA!!! I want to scream. THOSE SSD's hold very important data. they're also my moneymakers.

 

wait for it... wait for it... damn it. i lost my ad blocker too. was loading up web pages and waiting for the ads and BAM!!! I am so freaking pissed right now.

 

Try unplugging and plugging them back in, sometimes happens to my hdd's in my m4600 after an OS installation.

 

Sounds like SM951 and using Legacy/CSM

 

If you're talking about BIOS settings it should be on UEFI correct? Because it is already. Played around there. Trying to figure out my 850 pro situation too. Doesn't recognize in the SATA3 slots, gets extremely hot btw, and also hasn't recognized them in a usb3 enclosure. If I lost my 850 pros I am done with Sager. Both those drive were redundant backups and have priceless memories, info, guides, backups, info relevant to my trade, phone stuff and countless other things.

 

I gotta scrape up an old hdd somewhere to try. After that I am doing a fresh os install.

 

850 Pros CANNOT cross 50c, they have measures in them to mitigate heat and delay performance slightly to meet this target. If they are not doing this then they might be dead. You might very well have to be done with Sager. And yes, I meant UEFI boot being on. I wish I could help more

Sent from my OnePlus 1 using a coconut

 

I'm not doubting you D2 but the drives were never recognized. As soon as I seated that ram correctly I out my drives in and out it in my zalman cooler right away. It took me about 30 mins or so before I realized hey wtf are my drives? Playing around twice and pulling them they had to be over 50°/120°. Then I started the cleaning and swapping game. When I woke up this morning I slapped them in enclosures. Windows recognizes the enclosures but not the drives.

BTW, in Bios, port 4 shows my m.2 Samsung Evo. Port 0-4 show not present. Any insight to that?

 

M.2 NVMe don't show up in SATA ports in BIOS. I really hope your drives aren't dead but the fact of the matter is that if they are you're still under warranty and will be for at least 7 years from now still, so get on that Samsung contact.

Sent from my OnePlus 1 using a coconut

 

Jesus Christ D2. I am hoping to get these running as the info on them is waaaay more valuable than the drives themselves and not to mention dealing with Samsung. Thanks a lot.

 

I mean Samsung may be able to make it work and extract the data

Sent from my OnePlus 1 using a coconut

 

Are these drives you got with the system and were werted along with it?

 

what is this sorcery you speak of? does samsung offer this service? i know there data recovery services but they're expensive. i also haven't read up on how viable it is with SSD's.

btw, just got home. grabbed my WD cinema, my hdd's and both are immediately recognized. good news is I can scrounge up most of the data that is invaluable to me through backups, 2 of my phones and SD cards, giving dropbox $200, $100 each for 2 accounts. the bad news is do I have the special pictures I can rattle off in my head of china, canada, europe, my nephew and some other notable memories that would be cool when I get older to whip out.

but seriously, does samsung offer a data extraction service for SSD's? that would save me digging though dropbox, some phones and SD cards and sorting through multiple copies. I need an answer now. just kidding. i'm devastated. i just emailed xotic to see how to proceed. no way in hell i am putting another hdd/sdd in the sata3 slots, even after an install. they weren't encrypted so should be available through usb3. I just formatted them and made a volume and started using them as backups. sad thing is since i kept both backups in the same hardware i should've kept an off hand one up to date more often. ugh.

 

Just contact Samsung and see. Your drives have 10 years of warranty. They probably can make a drive that won't turn on reset its performance functions. I don't know, but really, that's why you have 850 Pros right

Sent from my OnePlus 1 using a coconut

 

what the hell is this? i don't have either drive installed. sager did not have these 850 pros. yet they show in disk management. took me awhile to figure that out because 8.1 and 10 are so wonky and I went virtually trouble free almost 3 years. if they did a fresh install on my sm951 how would disk management know i had 2 drives in sata slots? this is blowing my mind.

 

Hmmm... I'm looking at the details and it seems it wasnt a fresh install. My unallocated partition is still there on os drive. The 850 pros were separate volumes made on their own. They had no inclusion or ties to windows. I had a couple apps that automatically saved after they did their thing though. Still doesn't explain why disk management sees two failed disks and why they get hot when I put them in SATA slots. Brainstorm people.

If I did a fresh install with drives in I would have to give them a name and they would be reformatted this losing data right? I think at first it was recommended not to do this but peeps have figured out how to install Windows with other drives in without issue.

Y'all think if I did a fresh install without any drives in there they could be recovered through disk management? This is blowing my mind. I doubt it. I don't know exact temps of the drives when I felt them. I do know it was above 120°F/50°C. Searching around it seems 150°F/70°C is the breaking point. I know it was hotter than tap water but I could hold on to it fine. This is crazy.

Help. The 100% free on both of them scares me. That makes me lean towards not being able to add a volume to it and getting most if not all my data back.

 

Well I eliminated those phantom failed volumes. I stuck one in first and tried to activate it. Stayed up late last night and reinstalled windows. Tried again. I have two dead drives.

I don't have any other drives to try. The only ones I have are enclosed in a WD cinema, a backup hdd which needs to needs to be updated and a dead hdd. I have nothing else to fry in my SATA slots.

Your move Sager.

 

I have a SSD on the way one day shipping from Amazon. Need to get this tested and squared away ASAP.

 

It might be you have an area of the house where static is generating a fair amount, it could be worth investing in a wrist strap.

 

Waiting for somebody to mention that. My desk is dedicated to my laptop. Uses a usb powered zalman. That desk is grounded. I use my strap on my feet when I mess with ram or just barefoot doing minor stuff like hdd/SSD. Work gives us straps. Some of these newer elevators have more sensitive electronics and it boggles my mind to see some of the old farts how they treat the newer stuff.

Waiting for my SSD to come in tomorrow. Going to transfer what I can to it. Then use the hdd's to test.

BTW, SATA should support hot swapping if in AHCI. Do Sager's not support hot swap? Anyways did and would not take that chance and battery was removed. And 850 pros have the longer ground contacts to avoid shorts.

Evidence points to it happened when motherboard went kaput, windows 10 update (which I suspect is the big culprit here) or my SATA ports are bad from new mobo. The drives get pretty damn hot in the slots. In my enclosure barely warm. Don't know power specs for SATA off the top of my head but I know it's higher than USB3 spec.

I read Samsung's warranty today. Samsung is really flaky from reading others experience in multiple categories. There is hope if they conform to their warranty. They claim they can repair or replace at their discretion. The thing is do they even try? I've searched and it would be $300 a pop to send to Cali for data recovery. I've looked at Dropbox. I have pics up until May 16 sorted in there. I still have my note 4 with pics and music. I have most of my music in FLAC on at least 2 cards. I've had my LGV20 since I got it.

I'm worried most about my nephew pictures, visits to other countries, boondocks visits and what MP3's I lose. Not sure about my MP3 collection. At most I would have to rip 10 CD's for FLACs which I doubt. MP3's which I rarely use but have music that can only be had in MP3 format as no optical, vinyl or hi res is/was available.

We will find out tomorrow.

 

interesting. did some snooping with recuva. i can see where i held off the steam update earlier 12/20/17. around 6:30ish is when i rebooted. that's when it's get wonky and a lot of stuff say c:\?withgibberishhere. i can see microsoft, possibly chrome were involved. there are some c:\ blanks too. and you can see where i tried to reboot several times because i didn't know what my computer was doing but there's no way to tell what exactly happened. there are 13 files that don't fit. 2 involve gpu cache. but from what i've read windows 10 updates have done some weird stuff. geez i am hoping these drives are recoverable. need to see what they do with the new mobo first. i did make a back image on a few blu rays after a few months when i felt my laptop was good to go. don't know if should try it or just keep going. hate doing all this setup not on a new laptop.

has anybody dealt with a data recovery company before? i would hope my data is recoverable. samsung's xp941 went well over 100 degrees celsius. sm951 was cooler but not by a whole lot. i doubt the drives went over 60 degrees celsius. i would think the nand's are pretty robust?

 

I know one SATA slot works. will verify other later. just dropped samsung a call. they can repair drives but legal obligations say they gotta wipe drives first and data recovery is not an option. soooo.... this sucks. i'm trying to figure out what to do. $300 a pop for attempted recovery. no charge if can't. pictures and music are most valuable. there was a lot of other semi valuable stuff on there. and then I had folders with setups for software which would've been really nice because i'm trying to do this off the top of my head and i'm not getting any younger. yada yada.

kudos to sager and xoticpc for getting this going again. but it's tainted a little bit. 2nd mobo failure out of 3 laptops. the 2nd with 2 SSD failures. my goal with p770zm is to go another 2 years as was my goal it being much more expensive than my last 2.

I am still waiting for clevo to come out with software to regulate battery charging like compal does. after a little over 3 years that battery had lost about 5 percent. my current battery is at 15.8% wear and I've only used it a handful of times. I am sure the hardware is there, it just needs to be activated or coded into the software part.

I'll update if anything else goes sour or great. thanks guys.

 

This sounds like what FlexiCharger does. It's a BIOS setting in the Skylake and later models that lets you set percentage limits on when you want the battery to start and stop charging.

 

totally forgot about that. wow. so it is clevo stock bios? how well does it work? and do you really have windows 7 pro on a p751tm1-g? how'd you pull that off?

 

Yeah FlexiKey is in the Clevo stock BIOS, haven't tried it yet though.

Windows 7 Pro installed just fine after making a USB key using the Asus EZ Installer to slipstream the USB3 drivers into the ISO. Piece of cake really. Drivers just used the latest from the manufacturer website or Clevo.

 

i'm so tempted to look into that but don't really have time. need to sort out this mess i have now. don't know if i want to spend $600 on recovering drives. wouldn't be charged if unrecoverable but as of now it's looking optimistic.

 

Jesus Christ. I found a 640GB WD blue hdd. May as well use a micro SD card.