Warning: Sager / Clevo

Their laptops have very high hardware failure rates. If you're considering buying from them, do yourself a favor and Save your money. Google Clevo boot issue or Sager boot problem and be surprised at amount of threads from various forums discussing hardware failure at random.

 

Ive owned 2 machines so far, both working normally.

 

same. 2 machines, one 7 years old and other 1 year old and no problems.
yes the original 9800gt died but that was nvidia and nothing to do with clevo.

why not google every other make including dell,alienware, msi, acer etc etc.
when companys sell thousands of units worldwide there is always going to be some lemons.

 

I've owned about 5 and reviewed about 10. No issues to date with boot issues. I'm not saying it can't happen, but if you google for anything it will come up with a list of results... just sayin'. Substitute Clevo with Dell or HP or Alienware or Acer or Asus...

I"m sure we'd hear a lot about it here since I believe NBR is one of the largest online user bases for Clevo laptops. A lot of it can be vendor specific too, between Sager and Eurocom and individual resellers who might offer a unique BIOS.

 

OP's P170HM just died.

 

You are confusing Clevo with ASUS. 2 of the 3 ASUS products i've owned have died on me within a year.

 

Seriously or just conjecture?

If so,

A three year and a half year old gaming laptop dies on you. I guess I consider that a good run, and not being cynical. Gaming laptops are notorious for burning themselves out just because of the continuous high load and heat. It's like anything, buy a decent warranty for the product to last as long as you want it. It does suck, but it's also an unfortunate reality of the product. I could see if you bought a three year warranty and it failed at three years and a few days, technically they wouldn't have to service it but any place worth a salt will still manage it. But if it's well beyond warranty period, well, it is what it is.

 

He has been posting, notebooks are very complex pieces of kit, failures will and do happen (with all brands) which is why researching support is so important.

 

Considering that it wasn't a gaming system for me, it's surprising that my 9 year old vaio still runs in perfect working condition. I'd like to note that within the three years mentioned, usage was at a minimum as work travel consistently have me on-the-go. Just giving heads up to others who are considering the Brand.

 

I found that intolerable whatever the way owner is using it if he is respecting the hardware and not overclocking.

 

People very seldom write about how their new laptops are working perfectly and without a glitch. Most of the time they write about problems they have with their machines (in order to find solutions). That's why, no matter which brand you choose, when you Google the name of the brand + "issues" or "problems", the search results you will get would indicate, that it's a worthless piece of junk.

 

Meh I could say the same about my 2.5 year old Toshiba Satellite, what an absolutely horrid overpriced POS. HDD started clicking a week after use, now has over 2000 reallocated sectors and on the verge of failure. LCD failed within 6 months, replacement LCD failed a week after, now on my 3rd panel which thankfully has been holding up.

In contrast, my 8 year old Compaq Presario V2000Z which is still running Windows XP boots to this day. All the more impressive considering I never cleaned out the fan or repasted, and experienced at least a dozen thermal shutdowns due to CPU overheating.

I'm of the opinion that with proper care and maintenance a computer should last about 10 years, barring unforeseeable hardware failure. Hell we have lab computers that run off a P4 Williamette and Win98 and are still kicking strong. I used to use a Pentium II desktop for 8 years until it became unbearably slow and obsolete, but never once did it have any hardware issues.

 

This is why I spring for the 3 year warranty always on something this expensive.

My first Sager was a NP8150 (P150HM). It took 3 exchanges to get a decent one due to various screen issues, case/fan rattles etc. At the end of it they got me a perfect one. A little over a year later the GPU died (580M). They replaced it for me. A year after that the onboard Nic and GPU died again. They replaced the MB and GPU again, sent back to me and was DOA (would lock up after 5 min of usage). They replaced MB again and finally it worked.
Does that seem like a high failure rate to me? Yes, but also once the first Mb and GPU was replaced the rest generally are refurbs, so I say faulty QC on refurbs. It's also possible the MB caused the GPU to die. That said it was running great at the end and I finally sold it with 9 months out of 3 year warranty left.

What did I do? turn around and buy an NP8250. Guess what though? I sprung for the 3 year warranty again.
So far this machine has gave me 0 issues. My only possible concern is the mSATA issue some are having but I also am not using the mSATA so not too big of a deal for me.

My only true complaint is Clevo didn't listen much as far as physical design and cheaped out on silly things but you know what? I have learned nothing is really perfect and still chose them again over any other manufacture.

Everyone has a an opinion and preference. We also are all subject to bad luck. Every issue I have ever had Sager took care of me. Sometimes I had to go higher up the chain but that happens with every company. So long as my end result is me a happy customer I can't complain much.

As other have said, online you will ALWAYS find more info about duds and failures before good reviews because people generally only post when they have an issue. I have worked in the computer field for well over 10 years and can tell you every manufacture has it's faults and no one is really better vs. another because they are all run by the same race, humans, and thus all subject to good and bad people in CS etc.

 

Mine is 5+ years old... hmm...
But to be honest, in my experience, computers made 10 years ago seem sturdier than those you buy today.

 

I agree, but you have to take in mass production, a LOT of fragile parts and best of all, billions of small parts.

 

My experience is that electronic device die faster if you don't keep them working 24/7.

Btw, not sure how high is "high" ~~

 

Owned 2 Toshiba, 1 Asus, 1 Acer and 1 Clevo P150SM (Currently)
Both my Toshiba is still in a working condition(Windows XP both)
My Acer (Don't mentioned~ just died few times because of MoBo issue)
My Asus Multimedia N Series died first day i bought it, go for replace a speaker, then realize the Antenna is in a wrong position that you always get half or less 4/5 Bar when you next to the Router, but i use it as a desktop replacement so~ it won't bother much.
Clevo~ just get it recently~ so far~ nothing much to say but the fan noise is somehow irritate me a little, but not so when you wear headset

 

Well said. I am 100% with you on 10+ years if the computer is handled with proper care.

 

Yes that is the hope but with the increasing complexity of these chips and the fact that death will occur if even one transistor fails then you can't rely on that any more.

 

I usually run my laptops for about 5 or 6 years. Battery never lasts that long and the CD/DVD drive usually will give up before that time too. Hard drives are usually pretty much luck of the draw. The rest of it is usually no problem. Did I mention "usually". lol

 

To be fair for the OP's suggestion of "Google Clevo boot issue or Sager boot problem" you can replace that with any brand notebook and have hundreds of results (I just did just to see)
Forums are made to get help from other people who may know how to fix the issue, so if anyone has boot issues regardless of brand they often go post on forums looking for help.

The important thing is was that issue resolved and how so.

 

E.g.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...oot-starts-up-1-2-seconds-then-turns-off.html


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWfoA3aawgs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

I had a good experience with Clevo. Bought my old laptop from XoticPC in the spring of 2009. It's still alive and kicking, doing perfectly well, I still love the screen and use it in the bedroom.

Before that one I had Asus G1 which promptly died after a little over 1.5 years of use (GPU failure, no overclocking).

Later I had my Lenovo Ideapad, which looked great and served its purpose, however it had really flimsy build quality and when disassembly was required several parts proved to be made out of really cheap plastic. Right now it's my TV machine for streaming and things of that nature. I also spend the summer working at non-proft refurbisher and fixing/upgrading older used laptops for re-purposing. I got to work hands on with a lot of different models and really appreciate the difference in quality. (People who let their cats sit on their keyboards should do jail time )

My new W230ST is lovely. I think that Clevo sometimes require a bit of expertise to configure and setup properly. It's an amazing machine for people who actually enjoy doing mods, changing out parts, trying new things, researching, min-maxing. The build quality and engineering design is way better than cheaper consumer models. However sometimes it may not be so great for people who like to "set it and forget it" and have perfect out of the box experience. Well that's just my opinion.

 

Same here (or at least I try to). Battery is usually the first to go since I always have mine plugged in. Hard drive like you said really depends on your luck. I actually haven't had any issues with the optical drive crapping out on me but then again I barely use it. Never had a CPU or GPU die on me.

Actually come to think of it, apart from the POS Toshiba, never had to retire a computer due to hardware failure (knock on wood and hope the trend continues). All were voluntarily retired after becoming far to obsolete:

1.* Packard Bell Pentium DX 66 MHz / 500MB HDD (95 to 97)
2.* Acer Aspire Pentium II 333 MHz / 4GB HDD (97 to 04)
2.5 Sony Vaio (parents' laptop, only remember it had a P4-M; 02 to 06)
3. Compaq Presario AMD Turion 64 ML-30 / 60GB HDD (05 to 11)
4. Toshiba Satellite i7-740QM / 640GB HDD (11 to 13)
5. Clevo P370SM i7-4900MQ / 512GB + 500GB SSD (13 to at least 18 )

* = desktop

 

Right. Kinda like I posted here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/741880-warning-sager-clevo.html#post9516265

Proper care of course. But even with proper care components can still break down, especially if they are run near their temperature and voltage limits frequently, which is what most gaming laptops do. It's akin to running your car near it's redline frequently. Even if you change the oil and other regular maintenance, it will likely fail much sooner (fewer miles) than someone that that drives highway 60-70mph all the time.

Exactly that. You go from about 50 million transistors from old AMD Sempron and Intel Pentium 4 chips to ~ 1.2/1.3 Billion of today's Core i CPU's, that's ~ 25 times more transistors, so higher risk of failure.

 

Have not read replies but what bs is this?
Is this a justified thread or pure rhetoric and feed the troll material?

I have same notebook as op and not a single issue since i bought it and upgraded it to 680m gpu as well. I have done about 10 bios flashes and ec not a single issue. I think op has suffered some issue and blaming the brand now.

 

This is exactly why I turn down or even disable AA, and cap FPS at 60 for games where AA and unlimited FPS don't seem to make any perceivable difference. This way my 780Ms never run above 60C, although I'm sure most will argue this is a huge waste of 780M SLI. But personally, I'd much rather under-utilize than stretch a hardware to its design limits. I guess the closest analogy would be driving a Corvette vs Civic at 90 mph every single day. The Civic is bound to wear out a lot faster.

Plus I intend to get as much useful service out of this laptop as I can (preferably 5+ years), so doing every bit I can to reduce wear and tear.

 

If I remember right, the OP's NP8170 died due to a GPU failure. There have been a lot of posts of 6990m GPU's failing. And yes, mine failed 2 days ago. Laptop was 2 years and 4 months old. Sure electronics fail. But with so many reports of 6990m's failing, it begs to wonder if there was a bad batch or other issues gong on here. My NP8170 was regularly cleaned, kept on a U3 cooler 100% of the time, and never abused. I was sick to the stomach when I saw the vertical lines, then white screen with failure to boot since I have been reading about this issue for 6 months or so. I guess I hoped it would not happen to me. Maybe I should have sold the laptop before it's GPU failed. Oh well, I have the means to replace it and I did with another Clevo/Sager. Who's to blame? IDK. But it kills me to know that out of the 6 laptops I own, this is the only one to have failed. Hell, I still have on old Dell Inspiron 3500 circa 2000 that I boot up every now and then for fun (and some Win98 nostalgia).

 

the OP laptop didnt fail, their ati graphics card did so how can that be sager/clevo's fault.
clevo and sager are not the only ones to supply the 6990m
like mine, my 9800gt lasted 2 years and 2 months and died on the day of crysis 2 release.
was still covered by extended warranty and gpu was replaced the same day by supplier with a better 260gtx which is still going strong today.

 

Let me preface this by saying I am not trying to get into a flame war and I don't place the blame on anyone. And I must have some faith as I just spent $2K+ on a new Clevo/Sager. But by your example, if a laptop's motherboard dies, for example a Clevo using an Intel MB, it wouldn't be Clevo's fault but Intel's. IMHO, I don't think most people look at it that way. A GPU is an integral part of the system as is the MB, CPU, etc. Sure we can blame ONLY Ati/AMD... But you would think that Clevo, by choosing to use this GPU in it's systems, would share some of the blame. Just saying.

 

I think your statement is 100% true had that Clevo model had only one GPU option available, and if GPU wasn't replaceable (like for my current laptop). However since you had options, and the situation can be remedied it makes it more of a gray area. In your case I would just skip on AMD card and see how long NVIDIA will last you. For example, if you upgraded you hard drive at some point, and it failed, then who is here to blame? I guess Clevo is at fault for offering 6990M in the first place just like 9800GT.

 

Most definitely... My replacement P177SM is coming with a Nvidia 780m which, crossing my fingers, will not see an early death like the 6990m did... =)

 

That np8170 could be given a lot more life. Will you fix it yourself or maybe sell it on here as a project machine?

 

Hopefully XoticPC will be able to assist me with getting her going again. If not, I will definitely be going the route of replacing the dead GPU.

 

If you havent hit up our service dept you can do so by opening a service ticket under the "contact" section on our site. They can help you with replacement parts and hopefully getting it up and running again.

 

I hate to sound like a fanboy, but I've been visiting this forum for a little over a year and I have lost count of the number of threads related to AMD problems. 6000 series dying left and right. Enduro problems with the 7000 series. Bad Drivers. No Drivers. Bad Single card performance. Horrible micro-stuttering over crossfire. Am I mistaken or overreacting? What gives?

 

You can google any notebook company and their failure rates, all will be just as bad or worse. Alienware is obviously one of the worst when it comes to quality control.

 

Yes even though both graphics manufacturers have problems, AMD still seems to have more frequent problems. As a previous AMD owner that was told, "Their bad driver problem has been fixed" or "The bad driver problem was a thing of the past, everything is good now" I believed this stuff when I got a amd card. People still quote the same crap now that was quoted to me when I bought my card: "The driver issues were a thing of the past" I for one will not be buying a AMD card in the near future and now I know better then to believe the "Their drivers are really good now" quotes.


I just got a new computer with a nvidia 780m. I am not saying this graphics will also die on me but I guess I'll know in 2 years.

 

If you have a medium AMD card without Enduro crap there is no issues generally. They work good. The thing gets different when Enduro or very top cards 69xx that had big troubles with drivers.

 

I would refrain from posting nonsense like this unless you have good evidence that Clevo failure rates are any higher than any other manufacturer. You must not have much experience with computers if you don't understand that hardware sometimes fails. It can be frustrating when it happens to you, but that's the nature of the beast and that's what warranties are for.

 

So you're Clevo died. That has absolutely nothing to do with the brand's longevity, it's just one example, and says nothing about if it happens to Clevo's more than any other brand. Sometimes electronics crap out on you before you expect them to. In other words - anecdotal evidence means nothing. All laptops/brands are susceptible to the issue you describe, it is not specific to Clevo.

I understand that you are mad that your laptop has died, but that doesn't mean you need to go spewing BS. I had a friend with a Alienware stop working after 2 and a half years, does that mean that he should post on forums saying WARNING: ALIENWARES HAVE VERY HIGH FAILURE RATES! ...absolutely not.

 

I have to agree with many here that there is no real evidence to suggest the failure rate is high compared to any other manufacturer. I've still got a 10 year old Sony that works. Sounds like a jet engine and two HHDs have failed, but that's component for you. Some last, some fail. Certainly with the drives, they do have a lifespan,and there is no reason to think Sony fitted a component they knew to be faulty, as it is with the Clevo or anyone else. I've also had an Asus where the 8600 GPU failed after less than 2 years, as was the way with those Nvidias at the time, and bricked the laptop. My current Clevo has been fine though, not even any AMD driver issues, unlike the 8600.
Further to the Slovedon post:
WARNING: ASUS HAVE VERY HIGH FAILURE RATES!
WARNING: SONY HAVE VERY HIGH FAILURE RATES!
WARNING: HP HAVE VERY HIGH FAILURE RATES!
WARNING: ANY MANUFACTURER OF ANY COMPLEX PRODUCT HAVE VERY HIGH FAILURE RATES!
WARNING: LIFE HAS VERY HIGH FAILURE RATES! DEAL WITH IT!

 

Warning! NBR has a very high failure rate! It gets our threads messed up all the time!

 

Hey OP, a sample size of one does not a trend make.

Anyway if the GPU died bag AMD/ATI! you really need to update OP to tell people to google 6990M failures since that's what's apparently more common. Comment straight from an Aus reseller of Clevo who knows because he has to deal with the returns! Glad I got 580m in my p150hm.

OP is example of the worst rumourmongering you see on forums, he vents out of pure emotion with nothing remotely looking like a fact to support his statement, but the next random reader may take what is said seriously and believe it.

NBR rules or mods have a failure rate for not deleting this thread IMO.

Sent from my DROID4 using Tapatalk

 

The 6990m issues are well documented. There are some good upgrade options at least or fairly cheap replacements.

 

I have more faith in Clevo builders to fix my problems than any other big brand name.

 

what if I have 5 dells purchased at roughly the same time, 4 died on the 3rd~5th year (3 year warranty with 4 claims each) and another one is still running fine (6 years with no claims on the 3 year period) does that make dell have a "very high failure rate"

data collected from me and my father who owned all those from dell bought at the same time

no offence but a very good actor fast and furious actor died in a car crash last year, i hope that's enough statistics for you to think "life has a very high failure rate", on the other hand trillions lived through their 80s, now what does that imply, note that having a hard life does not contribute to failure rate

 

I just think about the same, and if you have a problem, even when the builders dont answer quickly you have the most fantastic team working for us Prema, SVL7 are just some of the names.

I had 3 Asus Laptops in the past, and really Asus gave me problems in 2 of them, specially the Asus N53SV dc jack, it's going to be the third time i'm going to replace it, and these repair's Asus only give us 3 month warranty, regarless of it i'm not going to say it's a bad machine and not even that has lots of problems because there are threads all about it.

 

Life has a 100% failure rate with MTBF of about 75 years.

 

Well, by that standard every kind of machine has 100% failure rate.

Usually if the observed life time of a sample reach a certain value we call it a success.