Some problems with my Sager, I think I need help.

Hello, I'm new here! This is my first post to the forum and unfortunately, it's to ask for help. I bought a NP8150 about 3 months ago and I'm planning to write a review based on my experience but for now, that's on hold. As of last week, I noticed some problems when using my laptop and I'm posting here, hoping someone is kind enough to help me. I'm going to try to keep this as concise and as possible, but be warned my post may still be long! Without further ado, here is a summary:


The problems started last week. Upon noticing the problems, I formatted one partition and re-installed Windows 7 64 bit on it, and kept the other partition the same. I only have one 500g hard drive. Problems #1 - 3 existed before and after the format + reinstall. Problems #4-6 were introduced after the format + reinstall.


PROBLEMS:


Existing before and after:
===============================================
1) Greatly decreased performance with all settings ultra/ the same catylst control settings, tested in:
A) Starcraft 2 - (FPS before on the same exact campaign stage was 50-40, now it's 20-10)
B) Experiencing lag even in plants vs zombies! (Worse without 3d accel. enabled.)
2) Upon starting up games, the fps is unusually low and then stabilizes after 10 seconds. (1 - 5 fps, than 30-60.)
3) Unusually bad performance when loading websites with many images or multiple tabs at once.

Introduced later:
===============================================
4) WerFault.exe - application error.
5) Screen goes black for 2 seconds right after logging in to windows but than resumes as normal.
6) Intel Rapid storage doesn't work on start up, it usually takes about 5 - 10 minutes before the check mark indicating that it's working is there.





ATTEMPTED SOLUTIONS

For Problems 1-3 (General gaming)
===============================================
1) Formatting and using all the drivers off the original drivers disk.
A) Although the 3g or combo blue tooth driver would not install.
2) Trying the ATI 12.2 release.


For Problem WerFault.exe
===============================================
1) Couldn't find a proper solution.


For Problem 2 second black screen
===============================================
1) Couldn't find a proper solution.


For Problem Intel rapid storage
===============================================
1) Tried updating the driver posted in the clevo driver thread.



Some Observations:

1) My video is clocking correctly, at least according to the catylst radeon overdrive.
2) Only 20-30% of the core-7 processing is ever used.
3) Memory test on ram was perfect.
4) Most of the system resources are almost always free.
5) Video card heat max is about 78C, I-Cores are way less.
6) No noted over spinning of the hard drive or bad clusters. (Although I'm going to do a disk check to be sure.)
7) I'm hoping it's not the video card but, alot of things make me think it is.


So... Any ideas? ANY post would be helpful, and as a reference below, I'm going to post my system specs with order. Also, I'm going to format the drive to the original 500g NTFS partition and do a fresh installation of windows 7 64 bit with cd only drivers in the meanwhile. The only program I will install is firefox and starcraft 2 for benchmarking purposes. I'll be back here in an hour or so. I'm going to once again try to resolve this but, I have a feeling that I'm going to need help. I give great thanks to anyone that read through all this!


SPECS/ORDER:

 

Hate to come back and post again before anyone really read this post but, I'm backing up some files now for formatting. I just noticed that my USB 3 doesn't work...... Gonna be a while longer.

 

First thing I always say when this happens... Are you plugged in? Are you in performance mode? As for your usb3, what are you using it with? has this device worked in the same port before? and is it a usb3 or usb2 device? I don't think bad graphics cards typically lower FPS, they would do stuff more along the lines of random crashes. With the screen, is it possible you have something loose? Don't worry about asking for help, we're here to help you!

 

The two things that come to mind are 1) Are you sure you're not accidentally running in power saver mode in either Windows or the hotkey power settings? and 2) have you recently done a check on your hard drive? It sounds like it could possibly be failing.

 

I had the same problems especially with loading multiple tabes and reduced frame rates in BF3/SC2.

I noticed that I was plugged into a extension cable with multple sockets. And the line was shared by an Electric Fan, Cellphone Charger, Speakers and the Laptop. I plugged the AC adapter directly into the adjacent wall socket and behold, everything sped up like nothing happened!

I'm suspecting that insufficient power from the extension cable caused the laptop to run Ala-power saving mode.

See if this works for you and let us know.

 

HOLY #$#&(%( It worked! You need some +REP! It's like shocking a slow beating heart and watching it come to life. After changing the placement of the plug and it seems that the power strip has a couple of bad connectors, so everyone that has this problem, TRY THIS.

In short, what is solved thus far is the terrible performance that I've been getting. Also, I just wanna let everyone know that my USB 3.0 has been working. I'm thinking that I may have missed installing the drivers it the last format.

I would also like to point out something obvious to high end users but not something that everyone like myself would know until they have to format the system twice:

If you use an existing NTFS partition with data and format the other to install windows 7 on, using the windows 7 format..... You will have problems. When I did that, I constnatly had a werfault.exe error. Also, games with protection would not work at all and random crashes while using winamp would happen. [The existing data partition was made with easus and the new one during windows 7 installation. I'm sure someone with a great understanding can explain the interaction correctly.] (What is it that causes the problem, the security settings, indexing or something else?)

Now that I formatted the drive to the original, everything will probably be fine. Also, the chkdsk log is below if anyone wants to read it.

Well thanks everyone that replied thus far, I really appreciate it! I'm going to install a few more games, update them and then post here to let you guys know the final verdict. Also, as a final question, would anyone know if the 12.2 drivers are better to use over the current 11.11 ones? When I had 12.2 installed, I was having issues and couldn't tell at all.

 

For Problem Intel rapid storage
===============================================
1) Tried updating the driver posted in the clevo driver thread.

This is normal behaviour - the intel rapid storage service is set to 'delayed startup' by default. This means Windows waits for a while after startup before launching the process.

Glad you got your other problems figured out - hope you enjoy your laptop

 

Glad to help! And glad it worked for you.

I'm suspecting a lot of performance problems may be linked to this insufficient power.

 

Heeeeey, I asked if you were properly plugged in first...
Well, good to hear it's working.

 

Hello everyone, thanks for all the help and quick responses. I just wanted to post an update and say that everything is now working perfectly. Also, I have discovered the source of the werfault.exe error:

Sandboxie 3.64 causes a werfault.exe error with avast. If you have that error and have avast, I strongly consider you upgrade sandboxie to version 3.66. Once again, thank you everyone, I may soon begin my review.

*EDIT* Can a moderator add [Resolved] to the thread title? I don't want the reps to have to read through my long post only to get to the bottom to see that the problem was resolved.

 

Glad to hear you got everything working. I didnt see a follow up on the USB 3.0 ports, just wanted to mention those need to have drivers installed before they will work. 2.0 ports have the drivers built into Windows but 3.0 needs you to put them on before they work.