**D900F (Sager 9280) Owners Lounge**

I've been playing Aion with my D900F, happy to say I have it maxed out at 1920x120 with 4x AA and it's running at a smooth 100FPS! It drops down in the 60s sometimes in big cities with a lot of people, but its still 100% smooth and looks great!

 

lol wraith it's harder to find something you *can't* play with everything maxxed out rather than something you *can* play with everything maxxed out XD

 

What is the latest bios for the clevo d00f. I'm not sure what version I have, are there any updates? where do i get them

 

well thx for the reply but I was not able to install the HDD from my dv9535nr, different connection type....

 

Different connection type? That makes no sense at all, unless the dv whatever was somehow IDE or an earlier version of SATA, it should work in the SATA port provided...

 

You know what, Im an idiot. When trying to find a pic of what it looks liek online to show you I found one in a help forum, and the guy was having pretty much the same problem as me.

Read the answer that they sometimes install hardware on them to make them fit a certain reader and that was the problem, just pulled with medium pressure and out slid the rows of pins to reveal the standart port.

 

lol that's not idiocy that's just HP being a *bleep* ^^

Don't worry about it too much just enjoy your hard drive in your new machine lol

 

by the way for those thinking of buying laptop/notebook cooler for the d900f

i bought the zalman nc 2000 and i saw a temp drop of only 1-2 degrees.i ran farcry 2 benchmark ranch medium on loop 3 times also playing the game for 2 hrs.laptop fan was normal/auto. i saw a temp drop of 2 Degress for both the gpu and cpu with the zalman 2000 at max speed which is not much considering its powered by the laptop usb.thats not much im not happy. i also did try placing the laptop in diff positionsince the zalman 2000 vent placement is a bit lower.

anyone try the cryo lx on the d900f????what the performance like

 

I'm getting a cryo lx by the end of the month so when I do I'll post about it. I think the Zalman doesn't work with the 9280 because it just doesn't bode too well with the location of the fans. The Zalman increases the air flow toward the bottom near say the battery and dvd drive, but not where the actual fans on the 9280 are, or that is how it looks from the pictures I saw of vent location and some trigonometry on my part to judge where the laptop's fans would be. The cryo seems better though, I'll update when I actually get to try it out, and hopefully it won't be one of those duds.

 

I dont use a cooler fan but find this thing keeps itself coool as long as you hit Fn+1 before playing games/doing intense work.

try it,

 

It depends on your ambient temperature though, during the day I get temps of somewhere around 87 deg celcius while playing unreal tournament 3 and Call of Duty 4, but at night I wouldn't pass about 81 deg. I have no air conditioning and it's a hot country XD

Lower temps mean less crashing, card operating at peak performance all the time and my favourite, longer card life! Yay! Lol

 

thats true enanthate it does. but i want to keep it cool for il be taking it to countries were the temp is very hot.since i have tested the zalman 2000 1st hand i d like to know how the cryo lx performs.that would b gr8 help for those who own d900 and r thinkin of buyin the best coolin option!

 

I have now done a overclock of my graphics card - 650/1650/1025.
Seems to be stable with every game and benchmark apps I have. Temperatures are fine too.

Getting:

3DMark 06: 14008
3DMark Vantage: P7400 (5858/35122)

Crysis benchmark (gpu) @ 1900 x 1200, High setting, 64 bit, DX10: Average just a tad under 27 fps.

 

Can you check that clock speed with Fallout 3 for me? My game will get crashes of the GPU kind at that clock (I use 1000 for memory but the rest are the same) but when I lower to 630/1000/1600 it doesn't crash. I want to know if it's just my copy

 

Haven't got Fallout 3, sorry.

 

*points you to torrents and smiles*
It's a great game XD

 

My NP9280 arrives tomorrow and today I see that Dell has released new Alienware Notebooks with the i7 processor.

However I see that Dell is using the mobile version of the processor (lower clock speeds). I wonder how these will compare to the 9280?

 

Don't hold a candle to it. Inclusive of the lower clock speeds, these do *not* use hyperthreading. 4 cores instead of our 8. Basically a new generation Core 2 Quad

 

Anyone know what clock generator our motherboard uses by chance? If anyone is feeling frisky you could open it up and check on the motherboard, I believe it's listed there.

From what I understand, if we can get the clock generator number for our motherboard, setfsb will allow us to overclock!

 

*sigh* core i7s do not use FSB technology. They are akin to AMD processors in that respect. You *cannot* overclock an i7, i5, new i7, mobile i7, mobile i5 or the yet-to-be-released i3 and mobile i3 processors using set FSB. They have no FSB to change. This is why they can use RAM no matter the speed of the RAM, due to no FSB limitations, whereas to use RAM clocked at 1333 and 1600 MHz before you needed to adjust your FSB to match, with AMD processors this was not a problem, it was cpu/chipset bound.

In short though, no overclocking i7s without an unlocked BIOS (or maybe a die-unlocked multiplier + nvidia system tools etc)

It's powerful enough already though, you don't need to overclock these systems unless you're really going deep into say moviemaking and you need to encode and de-interlace (if I spelt that right) audio and video and you need every ounce of processor you can muster.

 

I did an overclock of 645/1650/1000 and i got 32 fps at high (higher overclock doesnt really help so much anymore - 34 fps was max i got with 685/1725/1125 but i wouldnt be comfortable running that for a longer time than just the benchmark).. your fps at that overclock is a bit low really..



And i got a higher 3dmark score without any overclock..

 

can i disable hyperthreading in my d900f? how do i do it! and what abt undervolting
anyonE?
thanks

 

Yeah, I noticed that ... what's your secret? I don't think the better CPU counts for that much increase alone.

Edit: Well your Crysis results makes sense - you run it at 1680 x 1050, me 1900 x 1200. With 1680 x 1050 I get 31.5 fps average, even with a slightly lower clock (650/975/1625), which is what I use now as a 24/7 clock. And that is with normal background stuff running, including 8 sidebar apps and antivirus realtime scanning, and my external monitor enabled as well. Turning all that stuff off, gives me an additional 1-2 fps ... but I never do that.
Your 3dmark scores makes good use of your higher clocked i7, I suppose.

 

I know you cant change the damn FSB, we've been through this before. The setFSB tool have been updated to allow software overclocking on the X58 chipset according to his patchnotes.

 

but we use X58 chipset....

 

Corrected, you know what I mean.

 

no offense but why would you want to? And don't even think about undervolting... Just taking off the power supply makes so many things lag, let alone a proper undervolt O.O

 

Well you try it and see? Personally i have no use for overclocking this thing, it runs so perfectly in the first place.

 

I received my 9280 today!
As I expected after reading this thread - it's an awesome machine.
Windows 7 64bit (RTM) installed without a glitch. From a cold boot, it only takes 40 seconds to get to the logon prompt - fantastic. I hope it stays that way.

Next, I have to install some games......

 

Congrats tjp888!

It's a remarkable system, it's really a beast when it comes to speed. The only "downside" is the lack of overclocking features and the middle of the line video card. However, that "middle of the line" card runs everything I throw at it at 1920x1200 with 2x AA at LEAST while keeping framerates up!

Bear in mine I havent tried Crysis on it, but that game has HORRID optimization. Seeing 150+ people in a massive city in Aion online and still getting 100+ FPS with 4x AA and the settings cranked ON THE SAME ENGINE I cant even begin to believe crysis is optimized correctly!

Anyway, my X25-M G2's are in the mail and scheduled for delivery on this Sat! I'll let everyone know how the RAID-0 with the three of them looks =P

 

Thanks Wraithxt1
Yeah, I played Far Cry & Crysis on my previous Core2Duo system with a GTX8800 card and I had to be pretty conservative with the video settings. Those 2 games are killers.

Wow - so you're getting 3 X-25M's! Amazing. I'm afraid to ask, did you get the 80 or 160GBs?

 

That "middle of the line" video card is the most powerful single video card available for laptops to date >.>
In desktop land it's middle of the line, but in laptop line, it's king

 

I have a question, and lots of people may come to know that I am very anti-windows 7 at this point, but *why* did you use windows 7 on this machine? Why does everyone either want windows 7 or windows XP for these machines? Is there something wrong with Vista?

 

I'm using Windows 7 and honestly, it's just a better operating system than vista. It has everything Vista has but it feels better to use. The windows look better, they added a few awesome interface feature like Snap, and it's a smaller install than Vista.

The real reason is, why the hell would you bother installing a three year old operating system when the latest and greatest just came out?

It's like wondering why people started using windows 98 instead of 95. It's just all around better.

Anti windows 7? I've been using Vista x64 since the day I picked it up at bestbuy release week. Ultimate edition too! Windows 7 is better, period.

Also, I ordered the 80 gig X25s. I'm going from my old 150 gig raptor to 240 gigs of SSD, so I dont think I'll have any issues. My old PC had a 500 gig internal magnetic drive, but I'm just going to pick up one of the 1tb passport drives when they come out and roll with that for my music/movies/torrents.

 

If you think windows 7 is better than vista, then ok. I'm not going to argue with that. But in my experience, as I've posted lots of times here on NBR, Windows 7 isn't ready for general release. But I've seen plenty people installing it and lots of people getting errors using it too, so it comes to ask why. That's all. And yet people will receive Vista and want to wipe it and place windows XP on it, saying it's better the same way. I just don't get it.

 

You just dont get it? You're in that group of people you mentioned. You know, the ones who get Vista and wipe it to put XP on it!

Of course you get bugs and errors, it's a new operating system. I've been using it since the beta and I havent had any issues whatsoever with it. Some people will have errors, but for every one of them, there are 50 others with NO issues. You never hear from them because they have no reason to complain about it!

People always hate the new thing, they like things the way they are, they are scared of change, thats all there is to it. I adopted vista early and loved it, and I'm adopting 7 early and I love it .

Then again, I always use new hardware, I dont bother with anything more than a year or two old. That may have something to do with it.

 

I'm in that group? I'm very pro-Vista and I don't use windows XP anymore... I stick with Vista SP1 after seeing some slight issues with SP2 Vista. Maybe I'll update to it later, but not right now.

And I don't just "hate" the new thing, I've used XP for 6 years and more, Vista for about a year and a half and win 7 since the RC came out. I've had somewhat less extensive experience with Windows 7 than Vista or XP, but I've done more than my fair share of delving into XP and Vista. I just find Windows 7 needs a little more time, there are lots of end users who aren't as adept at finding what they want and fixing what doesn't work in their computers, and some who are just too lazy to do so. And older hardware is indeed a problem trust me.

Windows 7 in the hands of someone like myself (or my old boss, who taught me a lot of stuff as well as an attitude of "if you're a technician you can't just say you can't fix it, because then who will?" which is what I stick by now) or most possibly you would have no problems getting things done right. But it's not ready for the mass public, just like vista had lots of driver issues pre-SP1, and also wasn't ready for the mass public at its RTM time. I just find less problems with it than Vista. Especially people who live in poorer countries where hardware is far more expensive to come by, they can't be bothered to always upgrade new hardware. Hell, my printer at home is 6 years old, and I don't need a new one, so why spend the money I don't have to upgrade it? It's Windows 7 capable, I'll give it that, which is rare for such old stuff, but there are others with my situation who find a problem when they get a new computer or have a friend put on the new windows for them in an upgrade, etc etc and then have to spend more money replacing stuff.

I'd say it could do with a little more sitting time, there are some GUI bugs I can also call that aren't nice to deal with, and home users who are finicky about window sizes etc won't like trying to resize two Windows Live Messenger windows only to select the other one and have both reset in size (me being one of them). Some won't like having no expandable taskbar, (I know it can be expanded but they aren't going to know about it) some won't like having to single click newly pinned items to the taskbar and double click what's inherently pinned to it etc, people going to miss the "Run" button, etc etc. It's a heavily drastic change.

I'm not saying it's a bad OS, I'm simply saying people could give it a bit more time before throwing their all into it.

 

As long as you're not pro OSX, you're straight.

 

*thinks back to fixing Macs for people who call it the best thing ever, yet can't figure out how to so much as enter a password to connect to a secure wireless line, when I'd never used a mac before in my life*

Hmmm.... Why would I be pro OS X? It sends shivers down my spine to think that people actually pay extra for that O.O

 

hah! Here here Soviet!

I see your point D2, just like with Vista I think it boils down to New hardware=upgrade slightly older hardware=wait for new drivers.

The only driver issues I ever saw with Vista were issues with older hardware that still worked on XP, but used ancient drivers designed for Windows 2000 or early on XP. Webcam and printer drivers were the two major ones. In my experience I just recommended users to get an upgrade copy of vista and ditch XP.

EDIT: At the school I worked at we had to install a few hundred of the new at the time "eMacs", the white ones. The damned things were constantly crashing, the GUI was laggy as and they were impossible to work on. Honestly, forget mac. if you want to be special, go for linux!

Anyway, we should take this conversation elsewhere.

The D900F is 100% windows 7 compatible, and thats what matters for the readers in this thread. The support for TRIM (soon) is going to be a major bonus for me once Intel releases the TRIM firmware for the X-25s.

 

Yes please let's take this conversation elsewhere... I'm tired of always having to say over and over again what my deal with windows 7 is lol. But oh well. And SSDs are a topic I cannot comment on, wayyyy too expensive for me. You all can send me a nice lil SSD for Christmas or something if you want though, I'll load all my games on it =P

Anyway we must remember to be upstanding members of the KGB... Right soviet? XD

 

OK GUYS i need help installing the intel x25m ssd on my d900f!

i need a good guide on how to install the ssd on the laptop! but 1st i have afew questions

1.can i buy a external sata to esata dock to connect the ssd...if yes will there be a performance hit as aginst installing the ssd insside the laptop

2.either way how do configure the ssd and 1 interal hdd...i seen some options on the bios achi/raid

3.how do i install vista on my ssd and clear my vista os on the hard disk?

4.has any1 of u d900f owers had any problems installing

a good detailed guide or link..tips.1st hand experience if possible.

thanks people!!!!!

 

1 - no performance losses, it's the same as a plain old SATA connection. Do not do this if you wish to install your OS on it.

2 - they cannot be combined without problems in RAID. Just leave them as two separate disks.

3 - If you mean without losing anything you've done so far, then you need to clone your first drive and implant it on your second. Otherwise, a plain old install of Vista on that SSD and reinstalling all your programs will work swimmingly.

4 - I have not used any SSDs, but as long as you did all the updates for your machine and installed all the stuff from the drivers disc, it literally would just be plug n play. Plug it in, format it, use it. No hassle.

Any more questions just ask

 

I had no problems installing my X-25M 80GB drive (the manual has great instructions for this). However, there is one detail that I still need to solve. The new Intel drive ships without the small mounting screws. So, in order to get by I had to "borrow" 2 screws from the 320GB HD that were on the original drive. I need to get new screws for this ASAP.

I didn't install Vista, but Win 7 which is supposed to me more aware of SSD drives and make the appropriate changes. From what I read W7 is supposed to automatically disable background defragging and super prefetch for the drive. I found after installing W7 (RTM) that these were still enabled.
These are 2 things you should turn off in Vista after you have moved to the SSD.

 

Installed my 3x X25 G2 drives last night! I'll be posting back here with benchmarks if anyone is interested.

The installation was extremely simple, just look at your manual.

 

Hey guys im also installing an x25-m 160gb tomorrow and im wondering about something else..
On this install i have now (3-way raid0 320gb hdds, windows 7 rtm) i keep getting the "explorer has stopped working" and consequently "explorer is restarting" every now and then when right clicking or opening/closing folders, and to cure the problem i have to either log off or restart. The problem is irritating and ive searched the web for a cause or solution but noone knows what could be wrong.. So now when im going to do a fresh install on the intel ssd (im keeping two hdds in raid0 for data storage and using the ssd as my os drive) ill try to keep the installation of unnecessary drivers/programs to a minimum - i already didnt install some drivers the last time (synaptics - since it caused problems on the last lappy - the m17 and the audio - whell that installed itself so i didnt bother). With this i am hoping not to install any driver or software that might be causing explorer (ntdll) to crash but at the same time i need to know which drivers are essential to be installed (besides graphics).
So if anyone has got an idea which drivers, if any at all (ill download the latest nvidia drivers from the web), i need to install from the driver disc provided with the D900F please do speak up since im not really sure which drivers are automatically installed or even needed by win7..

 

woah it's been months. what's up?

for the whitebook, it was the graphic driver. it can also be a antivirus and some other security conflicting with each other.

 

Alright here's a bench of my Raid-0 of x25m's! 128k stripe, might lower that to 64 to bring up those small reads/writes.

 

Hello Folks,

Looking for help with two things:

1. An official XP driver list for the D900F,

2. A BIOS that supports Turbo Boost AND XP for the D900F.

Where #2 is a lot higher priority than #1

Please see this thread for more information on #2:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=420851

Thanks in advance for any and all help

 

Id be actually willing to pay for a BIOS that supporting Turbo Boost in XP! Whatever it takes... but, it will never happen...