Three years later... with my Clevo D900K

Three years later... with my Clevo D900K
(continuation from my "one year later..." and "two years later..." posts)

Date: 2009-03-23

I wrote what I was going to say last week and didn't post it since I was busy... so I thought I better post it now before I forget again.

Background:
Exactly three years on this date (March 17, 2006), I received my barebones for my Clevo D900K (a.k.a. Sager 9750, Alienware Aurora m7700, etc..) at the now defunct PC Club... of whom got it from Pro-Star for me through a special order (I was going to go through RJtech, but Pro-Star gave me a better deal). And assembled it with separate standard components that I got for great deals. It took me about half a year [of planning and saving up money] to decide to get this notebook because, at the moment, there were no other dual core notebooks on the market, as well as having a high-end videocard.

Last year I spoke about how the D901C was doing so well in the market since it seemed that no other notebook could ever match its specs. And flash forward to today... its still can hold its own after almost 2 years of hanging onto the throne. With the D900F coming out, I am a bit glad that Clevo has decided to bring it back to the D900 roots with the configuration of the fastest CPU, fastest GPU, and multiple CPUs. I think the D900F would make a great replacement for my D900K since I would very much like to have a Core i7 (with 8 threads) for my work and purposes... and a GTX 280M would be fine for my gaming needs.

I would like to reflect on three years worth of impressions and experiences.




Physical Appearance:
The casing is still as solid as when I received it. The hard/heavy plastic that is on the does not bend at all.... trust me. If you have heard my recent story about running through the parking lot to class and me bumping into an SUV... my notebook did not even budge in my backpack... while the SUV did receive a good dent.

I am glad that there is little to no wear on my chassis. Clevo sure knows how to solidify their gaming rigs. And like the year before, I have yet to remove the plastic film that is on my LCD casing (since I have got it).... even the logo is missing since I like it be unbranded.


( view large image)


( view large image)


( view large image)


( view large image)


( view large image)

This year I have had two minor case blemishes. One was from another similar run in with a SUV or truck as I ran to my class in the parking lot, I did not notice the tiny dent on my casing until later that day. Its not a big deal since the dent is in the aluminum trim, which I can just take out to reshape it to normal.


( view large image)


( view large image)

Then one day someone ran into my notebook backpack dead on... which I thought for sure broke my notebook's LCD or something... but all it did was give the LCD casing a small crack... which I did not find until the next day when I really examined the case carefully.


( view large image)

And I have yet to receive any palm grease stains because I type and gaming properly... without having to touch my palms to the rest area.

The keyboard is showing its age with a slight gloss over the keys.. from usage, but is still firm and with no flex.

My touchpad is still occasionally used, but it seems mint since I would rather use a mouse.

The Audio DJ front panel is still looking good and polished. I do not really use this anymore... other than to check the time when I am in-game.

The WUXGA 1920x1200 panel (LG.Philips LP171WU1) is still as good as it was when I received it... no scratches, no dead/stuck pixels, and still looks great for gaming and work.


( view large image)


( view large image)


( view large image)


( view large image)


Stability:
This notebook has not given me major issues since I swapped the faulty videocard module (after the first 6 months that I got it). The system is rock solid like any desktop with these components. Within the last year, I actually got an amazing deal for an AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 (2.60GHz)... so I had to get it to max out my CPU. I then found out that the D900K can actually overclock the FX-60 through software (namely RMclock), since the FX-60 has unlock multipliers, it made it easy for RMclock to OC it. I was not able to push it further than 3.20GHz without the system become very unstable.




If you do the RMclock math:
(16.0x) x (200MHz) = 3200MHz .... 3.20GHz

I do not normally use the notebook at faster than 3.00GHz... since I undervolted it to keep it cool, as well as fast and stable.


Performance:
This was the fastest notebook back when I purchased it and it showed, the 7800GTX was unbelievably fast for my gaming needs, as well as using it for 3D rendering in CAD, Maya, and 3ds. This system still outperforms current systems with the 9600M GT... so after three years, my notebook can still game with the best of them... I am just a bit jealous with the 9800M and upcoming GTX 280M notebooks.

As for CPU, having a notebook with a desktop enthusiast CPU is pretty cool... since when I turn it on, the AMD Athlon FX logo is displayed as the BIOS splashscreen. It makes people baffled that a notebook can house such a CPU... I guess they just do not know about Clevo.

If you are wondering, here are my wPrime and 3DMark06 benchmarks:

Stock:


( view large image)




Overclocked:

FX-60 @ 3.00GHz



FX-60 @ 3.10GHz (its gets unstable past this point if I OC)


Both CPU and GPU OC'ed.

( view large image)

I know I can push the GPU further, but I am too lazy to do the test.


Problems:
In the last year, my only issue was with the memory. One of my original Kingston DDR400 1GB sticks went bad, and I received a replacement... still had issues. Found out that the system forces the memory dual-channel mode even if the memory sticks are not matched paired.... meaning that the replacement memory Kingston sent me was not identical to the one I already had. So I contacted Kingston about this and they were gracious enough to work with me to find two more identical 1GB DDR400 SO-DIMM sticks... which they got available for me within a week. During this fiasco, I found that dual channel kits for memory (for notebooks) did not exist until DDR2.... weaksauce.

But my system is fine now... although I would like a BIOS option to enable or disable Dual Channel memory if this was to occur again.


The Extras and Accessories:
I have been on the look out for accessories for my notebook over the years and have finally think that I got what I need now.
Here is what I have in my backpack:
- Mouse: Logitech MX518 ... ASUS edition with carbon fiber exterior
- Soundcard: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS PCMCIA
- Notebook Cooler (for gaming, not in the backpack): Zalman ZM-NC2000
- Notebook Cooler (for portable use): Vantec LapCool4
- Notebook Backpack (not in pic): Kensington Contour Backpack
- Portable Surge Protector: Kensington SmartSockets® K62635




Overall:
Of course my warranty has been up for over two years now, but like I have been saying so often:
"If you take care of your notebook, it will take care of you."

I still, til this day, am adamant about taking care of my notebook, and hope that my experiences and advice will help the next notebook owner that's lurking around.

I am still a poor college student, so I had to care about such an investment.


Update on me:
I am in the process of editing my two books, my domain just came up ( www.Gophn.com), and I will be moving and updating most of my articles there since I do not have limits of post sizes, as well as having a place to host my files and pics (since imageshack has removed some of my pics over the years). And the Clevo Guide might be moving there as well.

I will appreciate any suggestions for improving or updating the site since it is for the public... you.

Special Note: I have never been a forum person until I have gotten my notebook and joined this one. I hope that the whole three years that I have been in these forums that I have been of some help to others. I stick around this forum to try and answer anything that I can, even if there is no monetary gain. I only do this because I enjoy helping others about my own experiences and knowledge... especially for a 26 year-old.

Game On People,
-Gophn

P.S. I know that there are a few unfortunate D900K owners (*cough* K-Tron ) that have had very bad issues with their systems that they could not really control, but like in the posts of these forums... the people that usually come to post would be the ones that have problems, which do not always reflect the total population of those with the same systems that does not have issues and so.. do not need to join a forum to post anything.

 

Same here... Glad the notebook is holding up well. Unfortunately all my other notebooks (3.5 and 5 yrs old) are dead due to one reason or another. Lets hope this one will live up to expectations.

 

Wow! that's really amazing that a systems can hold strong for more than 3 years.
Good luck finding funds for your next notebook.

 

I hope so too.

Donations will be taken at my site in a bit.

 

What????
Yours still looks brand new. You still have the plastic protector on the front metal panel

Do you even touch your laptop?
Or do you use external mouse and keyboard?

I swear I dont believe it.
I had my black D900K, looked just like yours for literally 5 months before I painted it. I had 800hours of use on mine at the point, and the black palmrest had two massive blemishes where the paint disappeared to the bare plastic. And most of those 800hours was the machine sitting on its own. I dont know how you do it, or my hands have some chemical which eats paint, but mine looked like yours at 3 years of use in about a week of my use.

I will have the 2 year of mine soon, and I have a feeling mine is going to be very different than yours.

I stopped by Gophn.com before, its nice you started posting

K-TRON

 

amazing! Sager notebooks really do hold up like no other....

 

My notebook is used at least 8 hours each day on average... for the last week almost 12-20 hours each day.

I do not use any external keyboard, just USB mouse.

and you have a good eye if you saw the pic and noticed that the original plastic film/cover still on the mesh metal LCD casing.

 

Gophn is a cyborg, and there are no marks on his notebook because his metal alloy fingers and hands leave no marks, obviously!

Great report; I'm jealous and wish I had gotten a 17incher now Having a tilted notebook cooler sure helps with proper typing, I've got to say.

 

Great job over the years w/ the D900K Gophn. ..And the Legacy continues. Clevo FTW!

 

Congrats Gophn! Nice start to the website, BTW.

 

You should have a Donate button to the top right of the page Gophn. I can't find it.

 

Glad to see that your machine is still holding up and good luck with your new machine.

What happen to your site? I couldn't access it now.

 

seems fine to me.

I will also have the Paypal Donate button up again... either in top corner or in left sidebar.

 

Bad url reference underlying Gophn's post - somehow, the last parenthesis got dragged into the url reference, so that when you click on it, you get this:

take that errant parenthesis off, and you should be good to go.

 

ah... I see the problem now.

fixed.

 

I really appreciated this thread. I just bought a Sager 9262 this week. I'm already convinced that I chose the correct laptop but to be able to see how good these things hold up with decent amount of use and travel makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

So really, what gives with the non worn out keyboard? Do you wear rubber gloves when typing? Creepy.

 

see kmi, is like me a doubter. I doubt he uses his system. I have a D900K but that doesn't mean I use it. Honestly the D900K was the worst laptop I could have ever imagined. Sometimes I really wonder if Gophn is stating the truth sometimes. Those pictures could be three years old.
I mean seriously, this 1.00.10b thing. You state you did it, but never posted any pictures or proof. I believed you and guess what. You know as well as I that it killed 4 motherboards. I tried two floppy drives, USB and a CD, all of which corrupted the BIOS. I take most of your knowledge as true, but seriously that BIOS thing I do not believe it for one second anymore.

K-TRON

 

Aw, your post is sad, K-Tron. What eventually happened with your notebook? Trashed it?

 

Nope, its working right now. I have it sitting on my desk. It gets used about 10 minutes a week to make sure the battery stays in running form. Most of my problems had to do with mismatched memory cells, which the AMD K8 processor forced into dual channel mode regardless, thus causing problems. The memory controller is like a snoty brat, you need to satisfy it 100% or it crashes on you.
Needless to say it works, but I do not do any homework on it because as my past experiences with it have taught me, the second I try using it and put a little trust in it, it coughs back at me and dies to me off.

K-TRON

 

Those pictures could be three years old.

If he took a couple pics with a current newspaper next to it, would you apologize for your baseless accusations?

 

Why is that so hard to believe? My 5 and 3.5 year old notebook looks as new as that. Not that hard to keep something in good cosmetic condition.

 

yay to the clevo d900 series.. my Np9262 is still going strong and hopefully be as good as yours gophn. in 3 years time.

by the way.. has sager or clevo announced anything about joining in into the netbook market.??

 

K-TRON,
I dont think that D900k is a bad machine.
Form my view, you are doing things that is beyond the expectation of the manufacture. Your knowledge are way ahead normal user. Therefore, Clevo can't handle your situation. Or VooDoo just have a very bad customer service.

 

Okay lets sort one thing now, I did nothing to break my board. It first stopped working, so I resoldered the northbridge with a heat gun. That fixed the main problem, then one of the parts on the motherboard burned out, so I replaced it. I didnt do anything to cause these problems, you all confuse me fixing the problem with breaking it. Honestly I have posted this a number of times. Learn to read before accusing me. The one thing which killed my first motherboard was that last BIOS revision. I thought the bios corruption occurred because of the floppy skipping, but apparently that wasn't the case since the problem also occurred when I flashed from a CD, and from a USB device.

The only thing I broke was the screen inverter, but all that broke was a fuse, which I fixed.

K-TRON

 

have you read the Clevo Guide... its already shows Clevo netbooks and netbook tablets.... which were all debuted this month at CeBIT.

 

LOL.

Look at the pics, the pics of the LCD are recent since my avatar switched to my new one.

And if thats not enough, my D900K with accessories pics have my Zalman ZM-NC2000.... which I did not get until this recent year (story found in my posts).

But if you want a pic, I'll take one for ya... hmmm gotta get a newspaper since I only read it online.

 

Sorry about that.
You must have bad luck
My asus motherboard came DOA twice in a road, so anything can happen.

 

I'm no doubter. I did appreciate the 3 year follow up post. I'm impressed to hear the laptop is holding up so well. Makes me feel even better about my recent 9262 purchase. I can't wait to get it.

My current dell L.620 of 2.5 years of age has obvious signs of use. A few scratches, a constant supply of cat hair on the case and in the keys, the extra floppy screen/lid syndrome, a few chips in the paint etc. I'm not super hard on my gear but I do use my tools to their potential.

The fan is clean and so are the vents but this laptop now gets hot. So hot it locks up the box. I'm just doing .Net and SQL stuff most of the time. You can feel the heat through the keyboard, it's not just a little warm - it's hot. I get worried that it will start smoking.

I actually had a corporate issued IBM thinkpad billow out smoke and melt a bit of its case once. No there wasn't anything blocking the fan or vents. I think this 620 is going down that road.

To see a 9262 in great shape after 3 years is good news for me but I think that is a combination of a great case with excellent cooling and someone who takes care of their gear.

I hope my (currently being built) 9262 will look as nice after 3 years. If it doesn't it won't hurt my feelings. I just hope it stays cool and runs quiet. My 620 here could be used as a food warming tray.

 

The D900K is actually the Sager NP9750, not the 926x, but it's a similar chassis design (predecessor of the D900C)

 

Ok doubters, want the proof, here it is.

I did not want to go buy a newspaper, so I just grabbed some tech mags near me.


( view high-resolution picture)

Description in pic:
- the one on the left is TechNet (April 2009 release)
- and the right one is Maximum PC (Holiday, Dec 2008 release)
..... too lazy to go through my mags to find the March release.

And for the pic of the back:


( view high-resolution picture)

You would notice that its sitting on my Zalman NC2000, and a piece of paper I taped over the LED since its annoying at night to see.

There you have it, my 3-year old Clevo D900K.

-Gophn

P.S. Paypal Donation up on my website (on sidebar). Thanks for the support.

 

Nice try Gophn, but you can Photoshop those pics.

I want to see a YouTube video of you, your laptop and Barrack Obama in the Oval Office playing GTA4. Maybe then I'll believe you!

 

LOL.... that might be possible... if he needs someone to fix his high-end notebook.

 

Okay I believe you on the keyboard, but on your site dont mention that BIOS update, and dont recommend it to anyone here. It cost me $170 + shipping back and forth each time, which amounted to about $80. So yeah that revision you said would work cost me over $250 and a lot of time, so do not recommend anyone else to upgrade to it. I dont think they will be as forgiving as I

By the way you copied and pasted this page to your site, and included my name on it. I dont think anyone who browses your site is going to understand who I am. You should probably leave that part out

K-TRON

 

I know, but whoever goes to my site should know its an extension of my work on NBR.

 

No photoshopping in these pix - ExIF data is still intact and doesn't appear to show any of the standard photoshop tinkering.

The second image was shot with a Sanyo S650, probably one that looked something like this:


While the ExIF date/time data can be easily tampered with without leaving obvious fingerprints, if that data hasn't been tampered with, and the date/time on the camera is set properly, then the pix were taken on March 25, 2009 (at the camera's then local time) and the second pic was taken at 1:48 and 58 seconds, local time.

The camera's filter function/exposure program/scene mode was set to "Portrait" - I'm guessing Gophn mostly takes snapshots of people with this camera. The fact that the sharpness factor is set to "soft" is more circumstantial evidence that this is the case.

The flash was set to auto (i.e., neither turned off nor set to forced flash), and the flash fired.

If anyone wants the rest of the ExIF data, a wonderful little console app called ExIFTool can be had from its developer, Phil Harvey, for free.

 

Shyster is a sleuth.

I didnt even know you can look up the camera used, as well as the settings for the shot.... interesting.

I am not a camera person though. That cam is actually my little sister's.... my cam broke last year and I havent gotten a replacement yet.

 

You can actually get even more data by viewing the file in a hex viewer directly than from ExIFTool sometimes. For example, I just ran one of the images through Tiny Hexer and it would appear that the serial number for that camera is: ZN7**022 (the two stars represent two characters I removed in order to preserve some semblance of anonymity).

At any rate, yes, there is a heck of a lot of info that gets stuck into most camera files as metadata that no one ever thinks about when they send pix out into the wild.

The best way to get rid of that metadata, btw, is to simply open the pic up in a photo editor, select all and copy, and then post into a new document and save as a new JPEG file - the standard JPEG metadata will be there, but none of the ExIF metadata from the camera should have been preserved.

EDIT: Just 'cause I like to be a showoff, here's what the first 256 bytes of the first image look like in Tiny Hexer:

 

nah I'm good.

too lazy for that.... but proof is proof.

thanks for the confirmation Shyster.

 

congrats gophn

btw, can we make a poll in a thread?

i want to make a poll between M980NU and D900F

 

Congratulations, Gophn. My E1705 has been going strong for more than 2.5 years now with no signs of wear or scratches, except for the keyboard which was used extensively for a year before I got an external.

It's true what you say that if you care for your NB, it will take care of you. So far I haven't once had to send it in to Dell. My warranty is up but I'm sure it will continue to last for a long time. Good luck to you.

BTW, you say you are in college? What do you study/research? (If you don't mind me asking that is)

Duane

 

I can't believe, that with your level of activity, reputation and knowledge that you provide this forum, you had to do all that to prove your notebook was still in this good of condition after 3 years. Why is it so hard for people to believe that others take exceptional care of their things?

Well, either way, thanks for sharing your experience.

 

Then I should post pics of my HP , 3 years after
If you take care of them, of course they`ll look good...

 

Nice, glad your system is still running strong.

And I am actually doing Business Entrepreneurship as my major with a second major with Leadership Studies.

these majors are still quite new, so I find them interesting over the usual business majors... which are boring.

 

I assume you go to college 3 years ago... so this means you're in your final year, am I correct?

 

nah, actually I have been going to college for almost 6 years now... originally going into economics, but branched out... so its still dragging out.

 

LOL
I'm almost 8 years....

 

I hope I can hold onto my M860TU for three years. This is the first notebook that I feel invested in, and I'm like, in love with it. My obsession with having the latest mobile technology is getting kinda scary, so hopefully the GTX 260M can quench my thirst for a while.

Nice topic, Gophn.

 

I managed to stretch it out for 11 years, counting from start to eventual degree. Of course, there were three years in the middle where I was a drop-out, so depending on whether or not those still count, it might be only 8!

Computer-wise, I'm going into the 6th year with this $#)%$^$*(% _Sony VAIO Z1A, which has at least continued to run - so long as I feed it a new hdd about once every 2 years (I just finished dropping in the third hdd this past weekend ). I've been thinking that, since I have to basically dismantle the entire thing to get to the drive, that maybe I should replace the casing screws with those quick-release jobbies you see on some race-cars (basically a cotter-pin fastener).

 

How much space is needed on the said HDD(s)? If size doen't matter it might be better to invest in an SSD!

 

Good point; however, I think this VAIO would just barf up something as exotic as an SSD. _Sony did a lot of silly things in the BIOS that are nothing but pure aggravation, including hard-coding a 137GB limitation on how much of a hard drive's available space the system will recognize. I've managed to end-run that little stupidity by putting new hdds into an external enclosure and formatting and partitioning them using another computer before I put them into the VAIO.

I've been told (on decent authority) that doing that should not permit me to evade the 137GB limitation; however, it works - the newest hdd I just put in is a 160GB (i.e., approx. 149GB in reality instead of in marketing hype) and I can see and use all 149GB of the physical drive, which is partitioned into three primary logical drives.

In terms of the space I need/want - 160GB is about the minimum I really want to have in this thing; any smaller and I spend too much time swapping stuff onto and off of the home server.