Two years later... with my D900K

Two years later... with my D900K
(continuation from my "one year later..." post)

I was making this thread yesterday but did not have time to post it.

Exactly two 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 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 within an hour. 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 the debut of the D900C, and now with so many owners of this new D900 beast... it seems that Clevo has been successful in both the innovation that is incorporated in the new notebooks, as well as the amazing thermal design... making it the fastest as well as the coolest notebook around.

I would like to reflect on two 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.


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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 WUXGA (1920x1200) panel 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.
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.


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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. Right now, I am annoyed at the drivers since the new Crysis 1.2 patch and some other patches are screwing up with my stock drivers.... other than that this system is fine.

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 8600M GT... so after two years my notebook can still game with the best of them... I am just a bit jealous with the 8800M notebooks.

As for CPU, having a notebook with a server class processor is pretty cool... since when I turn it on, the AMD Opteron 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 is my wPrime benchmark:


And for my 3DMark06:

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Problems:
From year one to year two, there has not been any issues, other than software mainly. Although, one of my Seagate's did fail.. which I sent back to Seagate for RMA... but the RAID-1 saved my butt.

Overall:
Of course my warranty has been up for a while 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 thats lurking around.

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

I am in the process of writing two books and updating my threads on this site... if all goes right, I hope to reveal my identity when my books break the news.

Special Note: I have never been a forum person until I have gotten my notebook and joined this one. I hope that the whole two 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 25 year-old.

Game On People,
-Gophn

 

yeah, nice read,

im glad someone takes care of there stuff
and its apprecaited that u help others.

 

Thanx you very much Gophn for your all your contributions since you joined

I hope that this does not mean that you intend to leave us all

On a happier note , 2 years huh?
Wow are any of those 2 books about taking care of a laptop?
But what are they about anyways?

 

Looks like the notebook is serving you well! And you're doing justice to it! Good going... hope to see your "Three years later...." thread a year from now!!

 

Time for an Upgrade

nice bud nice.

 

all 4 of mine serving me well too~cheers~

 

Well said (sniff, sniff).

 

/me hands Shyster a tissue.

Grab a hold of your self man!

 

Just goes to show ya, Clevo is the king of notebook manufacturers.
All hail king Clevo.lol
(rocks,tomatoes,eggs, quick duck,dodge)

 

Good to hear the D900K is treating you right. Mine has been the lemon from hell, so it has been a love/hate relationship. I bought mine almost exactly 2 years ago as well and have only just in the last 4 months worked out the issues.

-Faulty CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+
-Replaced recently with a new Opteron 185
-GPU had to recently be refurbished
-LCD inverter died
-PSU brick died
-Battery died

Most of these issues have been resolved, none of them were covered by the warranty except for the PSU which was broken by Sager while they were repairing my GPU. So while I love my laptop, it has been a painful 2 years for me, both in productivity and financial cost. Bought the notebook for around $3500 and have since spent around $1000 in repairs...

So believe me when I say that I am glad t hear that I got a lemon and that others out there haven't suffered as I have with this system, because I want to like it ;-)

 

ROCK... lol
*hails king Clevo*

 

I am hoping to be able to get a hold of a quad-core notebook with an 8800M/9800M GTX within the next two years...
... only if I have the funds... and if its warranted since my D900K is still fully functional.

Side Question:
If I were to sell my notebook (doubt it though, it would probably die with me ), would it be worth more since its mine, or would it just get the typical value?

 

Are you 25 years old??? You could be my son!!! LOL I don't know why, but I always thought you were around 40 like me...
Well it is nice to read you were so happy with your notebok... I hope I can write the same in two years... After two weeks I am still very happy

 

you probably could get 1600 bux for it gophn. 1800 maybe if you sat on it for a while.

I just see them going on ebay all the time.

i got 2k for my m1710 with 7900gtx WUXGA 250gb hdd, 100gb hdd wifi bluetooth, Blu ray burner, hd dvd drive, brand new packsack extra palmrest extra leds, extra lid extra fanset, vista premium and a top of the line t7600 processor.

I lost like a grand there.

I just really wanted to sell it so I made the deal real real sweet.

so I could get the leg up to get my d901c

 

Probably worth a bit more if you signed it (so long as your autograph has a nice flourish to it ).

 

I guess if you gave off an autographed copy of each of your books, you would get a higher value for the laptop

You still haven't mentioned what the books are about!

 

In due time.

 

OMG Gophn is a member of the gestapo!! I pegged you from the get go! lol.

 

ahhh your really DJ Qualls right?

 

Well, at least we know that you're not...

:laugh: ​

 

I added some quick pics of my two year old beast in the first post.

 

I think you can get a good 1500 for it...

Thanks Gophn for all your help in the Sager/Clevo Forum!!!!

 

just added the last addition.

3DMark06 score... and using new RivaTuner


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you will see the GPU temp, FPS, and CPU load in the OSD of the screenshot.

 

hey hkman could you dump the 8800m bios for me and gangsta.

we need it in what we are doing with the 8800m shader clock lock.

and your bios may be the key to solving the problem, we have the d901's and the dells. we just need yours bud.

gangtsa emailed you i believe.

could you peasek dump into nibtor then send it rapidshare and post the link to a pm to me or in my 8800 overclock thread?

greatly appreciated.

 

Lolz wrong thread dex?

 

well thats a great read Gophn
I tend to get itchy for an upgrade every 2 years.
my old notebook the Acer really aged I paid UK£1200 for it in Feb 2006
within 6 months the keyboards texture was worn away, and my watch was catching the casing (I take it off these days, the watch that is )

but the ageing only seemed to be the finish. I have not had to replace any components, however the battery now only lasts 30 minutes, and the notebook keyboard and touchpad dont work if Microsoft battery management is switched on (common acer problem)

I have sold it on for £250 bit of a loss there.

now I have a clevo and yes the build quality really is THAT much better.
so I am glad to read that it has served you so well.


And SpartacusMagnus, why am I not surprised that your machine is from Alienware.

I really want to like alienware but I keep reading horror stories.
they should maybe just do case mods

 

Sure, will do my this weekend at least, if not by tommorow.

 

Uh, it's NOT an Alienware. It's a Sager NP9750 which is a rebranded Clevo D900K. Alienware also rebranded the D900K as their m7700. The only thing Alienware on my laptop is the plastic lid and LCD inverter, which I'm pretty sure doesn't affect performance or reliability ;-)

I've never bought an Alienware due to the premium you pay, but I do like their styling.

 

Nice read Gophn

You really understands taking care of your possessions It's hard to see that it's 2-years old by now

 

My apologies SpartacusMagnus, I was going by your sig.

 

wow. your two old amd processor by wprime benchmark standard is as fast as mine. i usually get about ~36.5 seconds.

 

I am impressed Goph

 

great job

 

Well I'm already at 2.5 Years (Laptop delivered on 28th December 2005) with my D900K I always wanted to jump to the AMD Opteron processor, but the AMD Athlon X2 4800+ has been going strong since the first delivery of the laptop.

I'm a IT Consultant, and I travel in my area a lot. My D900K has traveled a lot with me, and I have not had any major troubles with the laptop. Recently I started to see some of the bottom screws fall out on my desk, due to the 30 months of usage/vibrations.

The screen (1680x1050, yeah my eye sight is just not good enough to truly use the 1920x1200) is just as good as when I received it.

My only problems over the last 30 months have been the hard disks. They just overheated in my config. I first used to make Software Raid 1 with two Seatage 7200rpm disks, then I used separate Seagate 7200rpm disks. Even so, the disks overheated. I'm now running a single 5400rpm disk, and it works fine, stability is more important to me than performance. It's the back-to-back packaging of the disk that seems to be the issue. When I upgrade to the latest D901 machine, I'm looking forward to the more distributed HD placement.

In the D900K we also had the space to have an secondary optical drive. This seemed to be a waist of space. I would rather have had a HD in that slot.

For the Operating System, I've always used the Red Hat Enterprise Linux version in 64bit on this laptop. From RHEL4 to RHEL5 (5.2 right now). On top of the Linux operating system, I used the VMware Workstation and only inside a VM have I used my corporate Windows machine (Productivity tools).

I'm looking forward to upgrading to a new D901 machine with a Quad Core and the 4GB (maybe 8GB for running multiple Xen/VMware VM's).

Geekbench Result 2878 (Geekbench 2.0.15 for Linux x86_64) for my Sager 9750 at http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/61878

Erik

 

I have RAID-1 as well.... but I do not get too many heat issues.

I recommend for you to get the best notebook cooler for this model:
- Zalman ZM-NC2000

its the best on the market.


As for Opteron's, they are the same as AMD X2's... just a name really.

your 4800+ is equivalent to the Opteron 180.

 

Gophn,can you take more pictures???

 

Cool Gophn,
your d900k looks brand new. Mine had more wear before I painted it.
I love having that Opty in their, its so sweet.
The Opty 185 I have, only gets about 0.7 seconds faster than your 180. Not bad, it still has plenty of power. It is way cooler to have an Opty cause it still beats out the latest generation mobile cpu's with ease. It is massive for a notebook, and I kinda pushed that to a further degree with my Screen mod.

I am glad your system is running so well for you.

It has gone through hell with all of my mods and soldering to the motherboard, but it chugs along.

My system has some strange problems sometimes. Usually as its loading XP, it just restarts itself, and than runs fine. Sometimes the system just restarts while I am just doing work. I think its from some unstable underrvolting settings. My opty doesnt like to go below 1.3Volts on the upper end, and sometimes it just hangs from not getting enough power.
I just need to find a good multiplier stability tester, so I can find where this problem is occuring from.
It is annoying, cause its been happening since day 1.

The harddrives in my d900k used to break 180F after antivirus scans, but that no longer happens with my super cooled memory and harddrive bay. I put a high performance EBM Papst cooling fan in their, and now my harddrive temperatures never break 125F.

Other than that its been a great laptop, not as reliable as my Dell, but a good system.

Good luck with the books and school,
I cant carry mine around anymore, cause of fear of cracking it. I am learning how to sew, so I can make the ultimate liner for my steel laptop protector.

K-TRON