Update on Radeon 7970m (Sager/Resellers)

RAID0 and RAID1 work just fine on the P150/P151, yes its SATA2 speed because of the ODD bay, which is kinda sad, We actually know how to fix that but alas we don't have the 50K in cash to make the right board to make it work (SATA3 optical bay)

But besides that RAID0 and RAID1 work just fine on the P150/151 using the HDD bay, ODD bay, or mSATA slot.

The P170 will do RAID5 using the two HDD bays and the ODD bay (Again SATA2 speeds).

So will the P150/151 if you want to get real crazy and can match up 3 SSD's one msata, one hdd bay and one odd bay. We'll do it via special request

 

Mythlogic, can you confirm that the P170EM can do Raid 0 at Sata III speeds with two Sata III SSDs in the two dedicated HD bays?

 

Interestingly, if you download the latest "NP91X0" manual pdf from Sager's website, on page 1-5 it shows "RAID Level 0/1 Supported" for the P170, but for the P150 models it just says "Not Applicable" for RAID support. Kind of goes against what you've discovered.

 

The latest "NP91X0" manual pdf from Sager's website doesn't seem to mention anything about "Enduro". Instead, it says that switching between the discrete Radeon video card and the Intel CPU graphics is done by something called "AMD PowerXpress 5 Technology". Anybody have experience (or benchmarks) with that?

 

Wait, 50K per board or just once for R&D? Because if it's just for R&D, you might be able to attract some investors there... Also, if that's possible, how hard would it be to change the DP to thunderbolt, turn the last usb2 port into usb3, and build bluetooth onto the mobo so we can use it with 6300/1103?

 

The SATA Controller in the Sager NP9170 has two SATA III ports, port numbers 0 & 1, which are the 1st & 2nd hard drive ports.

So yes, the Sager NP9170 will support 2 SSDs in RAID 0 at SATA III speeds in the dedicated HD bays.

 

The HM77 series chipset does have 2 sata III ports, why is the optical bay only sata II ? Where is the other sata III port?

Mythlogic, are you guys modifiying the bios and putting in different firmware for the sata controller to modify the raid capabilities?

 

What model are you asking about?

For the Sager NP9170, Sager NP6165 and Sager NP6175 both SATA III ports are used for the dedicated hard drive bays. For the rest of the Sager models the second SATA III port is not used.

The BIOS is copyrighted, and cannot be modified for a Clevo by anyone other than Clevo. They are the only ones that have the license to modify it. Hacking it would violate the copyright and be illegal for anyone without a license to do so.

 

Thanks for the confirmation, Paladin44.

 

I dnt why xotic pc put me on the second batch considering i ordered on april 29. I see that people who ordered later got their orders shipped. This is really disappointing from xotic pc. I know its not their fault why it got delayed again..but really....i think...I'm going to just cancel my order and decide later again. I didnt put any extra besides the killer network.

 

Though humanly impossible, would it be illegal to write a new bios from scratch?

95% gamut and 16GB ram look like extras to me...



EDIT: post #1111

 

And the IC Diamond Thermal Compound too...

 

I believe that one of users confirmed from Xoticpc that the reason for this to happen is that the 1st and the 2nd shipments were expected to arrive in pretty quick succession and hence Xoticpc assigned customers their respective laptops in no fixed manner as they did not think the 2nd shipment would be delayed and only certain people would be getting their laptops (i.e people assigned to the 1st shipment). If only things has gone according to plan and both the shipments had arrived, you would have got your laptop along with the rest. But since Clevo screwed up noting could be done at the last moment. I wouldn't blame Xoticpc though because the 1st shipment was small and the 2nd shipment was supposedly large enough to cower all the remaining orders. Hence they decided to put in orders not in any specific order under the idea that the 2 shipments will be coming in close succession according to Sager and will cater to all the current orders. But once the 2nd shipment was sent back by Sager due to problems during testing, everything became a mess here.

The resellers are not to be blamed. With thousands of orders in line it is really hard to keep track of such things. If you did not add any extra upgrades then your laptop will be shipping directly from Sager. You might want to confirm once with Justin@Xoticpc. The 2nd shipment is supposed to arrive on or before 11th June. They are being pretty cautious with the date after this disaster of the earlier shipment. So I wouldn't be surprised if it turned up later.

If you want a laptop immediately you can order the Alienware with the 7970m and I have seen people in this forum who expect to receive their laptop by around the 6th June. But the Sager date is just 5 days from there. So if I were you I ed wait. But then again the choice is yours.

 

They should really make time stamps of every order for when situations like this arise. Some first batch people ordered in mid may- like 11/ 12

 

Yeah, those people are really getting on my nerves, and I don't even have the 7970m.

 

It depends on who you ordered it from, which in my opinion is one of the biggest decisions in choosing a Sager........

Malibal/Mythologic are builders which means they always get their shipments after the Sager factory is supplied, so they are going to be slightly behind the times in getting orders out. That's not necessarily a bad thing as there are more options/perks to pick from usually when going through a builder rather than a reseller.

The resellers which most of us (i think?) chose to use are just companies that sell, customize, and provide support for the computers which Sager assembles at the factory. Now I am assuming EACH of these resellers had a predetermined amount of laptops that were to be built/shipped for them in the 1st and 2nd shipments AFTER Sagers OWN pre-orders were shipped. Which basically means if you chose Xotic or one of the other large/popular resellers then you were in a significantly larger pool of orders than compared to one of the smaller resellers, making you proportionately less likely to receive one.

I could be way off the mark, but that theory makes sense to me at least........

 

Just slightly off the mark. Sager fulfills their larger reseller's orders before they fill their own...which is just another reason to buy from a larger Sager reseller than directly from Sager.

Sager reseller's, even the bigger ones, do not have a pre-determined amount of units...there is no 'allocation' system at Sager that gives so many units to this reseller and so many to that one. They fulfill orders based on when they come in to Sager.

 

Hmmm.......Hold on a sec while I remove this foot from my mouth.......


I don't really know how else to explain the weird shipments then, how does someone like myself who ordered in the middle of May get one before people who ordered in April? confusion.........

 

Chances are (you would have to check with LPC) they had a cancellation just as you paid for your order and Larry was able to slip you into that production slot. It happens sometimes...it is just a guess.

 

Just a guess on my part, but it seems like that wouldn't hold up in court as long as people aren't modding the BIOS for profit. I would think the ruling that determined jail-breaking is legal would also apply here. I guess it'd probably have to be an end-user rather than one of you retailers though.

 

My order date is April 24th, and I'm second batch

 

Well it's official, I've defected to the AW camp. I can just taste the dual 7970m's already.. Mmm nom nom nom...

Man you can't beat a 15% discount either!! I gots extra dough for ram and ssd's. I appreciate all your help paladin44!! ;-)

 

Weren't you that guy who paid like only a week before the 7970M's began coming in?

 

Getting a 7970m right now would be awesome, but I'd rather wait for something I could pull out of my backpack without being ashamed. That's assuming it looks like their model usually do. Seriously though, does anyone really like their designs? I'm having a hard time figuring out who it appeals to.

 

I wouldn't call their laptops ugly under any case. Gaudy or may be attention seeking would be right term but definitely not ugly. But still every one is entitled to his own opinion. But if it really was ugly I doubt so many people would still buy it.

 

Second that, i think it looks so "childish". With all those flashy lights, and aliens everywhere. Much rather like the classic, stylish look of the 170EM/150EM models.

 

Not exactly ugly, but the laptop looks as if it's geared towards 10 year old CoD-loving fans imo

 

^, ^^ and ^^^ Some people like it, others don't. The lights can be turned off and the alienhead is only on the back, no where else afaik. There's no heads.....plural. Looks don't matter to some. As long as there is performance, big deal. Also, be ashamed for what? What someone who you don't know and will probably never again meet thinks? Performance is all that matters. If it can chew through any game thrown at it for the next three years, then imo, there's no counter argument.

 

I don't know why Dell doesn't make a 15" alienware anymore. If they did and included the 7970m as an option I'm sure even more people would consider it, including me. 17" is too big.

 

Yes of course it will work just fine doing that, we wouldn't suggest doing SSD RAID0 at SATA3 on these, it just has never been that stable in our testing, at least till we get TRIM for RAID which we HOPE (AKA Don't quote me) will be this summer at least for us

I got a P150 right now next to me that has two drives in RAID0 (2 x 500GB's) working like a champ <knock on wood>

AMD PowerXpress 5.0 is nothing more than the real name of their switching technology, also known as PX5 or PX5.0 by the time they went to print with it AMD hadn't released the "Enduro" name.

50K for the design and production How much they cost after that is a function of how many were ordered. The rest of your wish list your are a little screwed on As thats chipset changes, not just a board change

On the P150 the extra SATA3 slot is "no where" see reply above.

We have our ducks in a row and yes we do a LOT of BIOS work on our stuff so thats its not quite the same as a say Sager BIOS. Updated RAID firmware, updated ME firmware, etc etc One of the reasons why we are a little more expensive. Those tools licensing fee's are not cheap lol

 

I think a lot more would buy them if they weren't ugly. Look at how good Apple is doing, and a lot of that is thanks to design. At least that's why I never considered them.
I'm sure there are people who either like it or don't mind since they only use them at home though

 

Could you elaborate on this some more. This is one aspect of the 170EM I was most eager about. What are the technical issues and consequences?

 

Well nobody can make something that everybody likes now can they? It all comes down to ones own choices. But the fact that there is a large fan following for the Alienware clearly states that a large portion of the crowd likes them irrespective of what we feel about them. I myself have never owned one but I have always wanted one and shall probably own one in the near future

 

Myth FTW!

 

So is Sager really receiving the "good" cards by june 11? because its game over for me if they extend the delay even further...

 

Depending on the controller (Sandforce I'm looking at you) they don't do well in RAID, they might show a drive missing, or won't post, or will just hang, or BSOD randomly. We've seen that with all SSD's, but especially Sandforce driven cards. Also TRIM (Garbage Collection) can't run on RAID'ed drives as the controller doesn't support it (This time the RAID controller, aka Intel).

 

^ Is there really a reason to have two SSDs in RAID especially when one is backing up regularly (on a USB 3.0 HDD)?

 

if you RAID 0 some SSD's you can essentially double the read/write speeds. People have gotten 1GB / sec read/write speeds with RAID 0 on Samsung 830's and other high speed / high performance SSDs.

Most people really don't need that insane amount of speed; but for designers/modelers that work with 3d allot or edit videos or large photos [multi gigabyte photos] then it does make work a lot faster. Otherwise its really not worth it in my opinion, getting 400-500 read/write speeds on an SSD is plenty for most peoples needs. Already 10 times faster than a normal hard drive haha.

 

Only if you are lucky and have minimal upgrades. It will probably take days to complete backlog builds, and upgrades such as backlit keyboard will extend that further.

I just cancelled my order with Xotic. I may choose to re-place my order in 3 weeks when they begin shipping again. But it makes no sense to send money to them now when I can wait and perhaps the price of some upgrade components will go down by then.

For what its worth, Xotic's price was the best I could find, and I like their presence on NBR. I did not like getting an email that said I would get a phone call that never happened (and why it takes a full 24 hours is exemplary of a process that needs attention - and I wish they had a more detailed informational flow to the end customer with a better web interface.)

 

You think that's bad? I originally ordered the 9270 from Xoticpc on April 4th, cancelled it and ordered the 9170 on April 23rd, and paid with a credit card (which has been charged).. and I was not in the first batch. I'm losing patience.

I sent an email to Alison at Xoticpc inquiring about the availability of the 675m.

I'm close to defecting to Alienware but I really want a matte screen and I don't think that option is available on the 17mx.

 

On my desktop computer I use a pair of Mushkin 120 GB Sata III SSDs in Raid 0 for my C drive. Have been doing that since last fall, and the ATTO disk speed hasn't changed at all...still over 1000 MB/s. Mushkin told me that if you occasionally log off Windows, but leave the computer on, the Raid array will somehow do garbage collection. I've never confirmed this, but like I said, the ATTO readings haven't changed.

I've also heard you can use CCleaner to clean things up.

 

Yea on desktops it all works just fine, its the HM's that seem to have random issues with SSD raids. We build lots of desktops using it however and yea works like a charm

 

What about the EMs?

 

Sorry, was using HM in like HM77 (Intel Chipset) not P150HM. Sorry for the confusion

 

Why I wouldn't AW:

Faithless refund/return policy - 20 to 21 days from INVOICE date, NOT shipping date, NOT delivery date... INVOICE DATE! That IMO displays a lack of product faith from Dell, and personally, makes me leery of purchasing a unit that may come with a week or two return/refund period. After which, I can/could find myself living one of those AW $2k+ lemon horror stories that litter the interweb. Its just too easy to find these stories, where Dell refuses to replace units that constantly fail, leaving customers with very expensive laptops that are frequently unusable. People only 7 days to a month into ownership, with Dell refusing to refund or replace units arriving DOA. I see a company with a running policy and policy enforcement, that locks your money in as theirs ASAP because they know too often FULL REFUNDS would be requested by a high rate of failures within 30 days. Leaving you stuck in a constant repair loop until your standard 1yr warranty expires. It's too much ca$h, for too little promise.

....another reason would be what I find to be less than acceptable running temps, especially on the R4 units. It an invitation for hardware failures, and a guarantee that your laptop will live a 'shorter than should', life. Just compare the average m17x temps to that of the new G75's, there's a BIG difference, because Asus put the work into seeing that the units properly exhausted heat. Now I know there's a significant gpu difference, but because of average interior heat levels, theres going to be a significant difference in hardware failures and lifespan too. I'd rather spend 1.5k-2k on a unit that lived out its cost allowing me to game the entire time, than spend it on a unit that leaves me out a bundle of cash, left me with a unit frequently unusable...and a laptop that at 'lifes end' didnt earn its price tag (for me)

Note: I own neither the R4 m17x or the G75, but I have been and continue to deeply research (far beyond just NBR lurking) the options and issues before settling on a unit.

 

Hey Rem, you should mention the good side of Alienware not just the bad side...
I am a living proof that mine M17x r2 is alive and kicking after one year. This bad boy will hopeful be compatible with 7970's corssfire or even 680's Sli soon!

 

Well this is just awkward. I originally wanted the P150EM instead of the P170EM because it had the same pixel count, but was smaller and lighter. But then when I found I could upgrade to the P170EM for just $90 *and* double my drive speed with Sata III raid, I decided to switch to the P170EM.

Now you've sent me back to square one again...

 

Well you can still go to the MSI notebooks, buy it with their best GPU option right now, and latter make GPU upgrades indefinitely...

 

I think you are wrong about the cooling in the M17x R4. According to Notebookcheck reviews the M17x R4 has very good cooling systems installed. 158 F for the 7970m and 176 F for the 3610QM after running Furmark for a whole hour is definitely acceptable.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/typo3temp/pics/bb8f637f7b.gif

Review Alienware M17x R4 Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews