**OFFICIAL Sager NP5125/Sager NP5135/Clevo B5130M Owner's Lounge**

I'm trying to get SpeedFan working on this. In the SpeedFan configuration, it asks for a motherboard manufacturer, but every identification program I've tried lists the mobo simply as Clevo B5100M. This is no help when SpeedFan only lists configuration files for big-name manufacturers like ASUS and Gigabyte. Anyone know what manufacturer makes the motherboard?

Also, what is the exterior lid case made out of? I've never seen this coarse material before.

 

Yeah it fits decently well. If it were any bigger it would be a problem. No problemo. Totally digging the bag, btw.

 

AMAZING!!!

AMAZING!!!

 

Don't try speedfan. It will mess with your optimus and keyboard.

 

I did notice that it turned on the dGPU every second while it queried it for sensor readings, but my keyboard was fine. What alternative do you recommend for fan control?

 

Just got mine a few days ago, and I have to say, I am mighty impressed. Here's a mini-review:

Performance:
It blew through 3DMark03 (17000) and 3DMark06 (6500), as well as wPrime (21s). It boots up very quickly, and shuts down even faster. It shuts down within 7 seconds of my pressing Shut Down in Windows 7 x64.

Optimus is working perfectly for me. It switches to the GT 330m when it's supposed to. I'm using the most recent Sager drivers.

Display:
The 1920x1080 screen is incredible. Coming from a 1280x800 screen, it makes my Dell Vostro's screen look terrible. Super-bright (i don't have a luminosity meter, but it's brighter than a Macbook Pro 15), and tons of real estate. I highly recommend the upgrade.

Build Quality:
Build quality is also great, and a big step up from the typical Dell/pre-aluminum HP. It feels solid, the lid doesn't shake when I shake the laptop, and it sits properly. The only thing I have to complain about is the keyboard, which is below average. It has a LOT of flex, and takes getting used to, especially coming from a desktop. eSATA, USB 3.0, and the S/PDIF all work for me (problems some people reported).

The speakers are pretty bad. In a given song, you hear the high end and the drums, regardless of how loud the bass is. Once you plug in the headphones, the laptop is clear and very loud. It feels clearer than my Dell w/ the same earbuds, even before I installed the audio drivers.


The other things:
I have an issue with my BD-ROM drive...it's not showing full-motion video properly. I don't think this is a problem with the drive, but one with the software provided. Barring that problem, the DVD-RW part of it is fast, and pretty quiet.

Fingerprint reader, card reader, webcam, USB3, eSATA, Optimus button, and HDMI all work fine after installing supplied drivers.

The Intel 6300 is excellent. I was falling in and out of range from my bedroom on my old Broadcom, but I get 3 bars and a consistent connection with the Intel.

Battery life was better than I expected. I ordered the laptop with the 42Wh battery, but it came with the 62.16Wh one It lasts about 4 hours on idle for me (no activity, WiFi on, BT on, GMA graphics)

If you guys want me to test any games, just reply to this with the game you want tested.

 

strange, i feel very little, barely any flex when compared with other laptop keyboards, if ur comparing it to a desktop keyboad, in the terms of flex of course theres no competition, but the keyboard is definetely well made and solid, at least on the one i got it is.

 

thanks for the review mcfadden.. greatly appreciated. how bright was your screen when it was on idle? also, about how long does it last when you're surfing the web and doing basic office apps (don't forget to tell me how bright screen is) ? also, can you weigh it with the 62.16wh battery

 

Does anyone else have problem with the wireless adapter? I installed the Integrated Wireless 802.11 B/G/N Driver for Windows 7 & VISTA 32BIT / 64BIT from the Sager support website because I ordered the integrated adapter for my np5125 and it is not working. The device manager is still showing that I am missing a network controller, and I can't find any wireless network at all. I am pretty sure I turned it on with Fn+F11 but it not working. Could anyone please help?

 

The screen was on minimum brightness (which is actually really bright...about as bright as 2/3 of the Dell's max). It's been on for 2 hours 35 minutes now on battery with me doing web, iTunes, Office installations, and a little Halo. It claims to have 38% remaining. Sager really wasn't messing around with the 3 hour claim, especially with the 62.16 Wh battery Speedstep and Intel HD enabled, of course.

As for weight, it's a little over 5 pounds, so about half a pound less than stated.

 

^Thanks a lot man! ^_^ I calculated with the 38 percent being used.. and it should be close to 4 hours and 15 minutes.. hmm, I was hoping it could go to 5 hours. I'm deciding if I'll buy the extra battery at 60 dollars since that's a pretty good price and would solve the shortage

also, i love the fact that it's lighter than stated!

 

I squeezed 2 hours 39 minutes (149 minutes) out of the 48Wh battery on the iGPU with Wi-Fi on at the lowest brightness, with an approximate discharge of 0.597% per minute. A modified version of the Power Life power plan was in effect. All I did was use Chrome to browse and watch videos. My model is the 15.6" i5 450M 2.4GHz. Temperatures ranged from 36 to 42 and for some reason the fan was audible during the entire process, despite ambient air temp being about 19C.

The power plan was mostly geared towards max power saving. Min. and max. processor loads were set to 1% and 100%, respectively. I've attached the power plan for anyone interested. After downloading it change the extension from doc to ".pow". You can import it by running the following command

Code:

powercfg -import POWERPLANFILE.pow

 

Regarding the pitiful speaker volume, you can substantially increase the maximum volume by creating a custom equalizer effect that has all the frequencies maxed out.

 

You may want to try Firefox under the same conditions.
My model is 15.6" Full HD, I5 540M.
I get right at 3 hours doing the exact same thing only with firefox and using the stock Power Life plan.
I am getting almost exactly 3:30 when just using Visual Studio 2010 and light internet browsing. 3:29 until power down just last night in fact.

Do you always have the fan on high while watching videos? You are using youtube?
---
I ordered my B1500M from Darkpcs.com, and just received tracking on my extended battery, so my dealings with them are complete. My order was a part of the tail end of the first batch of full hd screens and they ordered barebones from elsewhere because they were out of units and got me my laptop 2 weeks or better faster than had I been forced to wait for the next batch. These guys have been ontop of every detail and I would order from them again before anyone else.

 

why do all of u choose the Power Life power plan instead of the power saver? wouldnt the Power Saver plan have better battery life?

 

Yes, Youtube for about 40 minutes. The fan was actually on even before Youtube. This makes me wonder if there's something wrong with my laptop, given the temperature abuse (think 70C) I submitted it to for a few days during the summer. My model has the SD screen and a lower spec processor than yours, so one would expect it to last longer. The fan was audible the whole time. When you achieved your 3:30, what was the laptop physically resting on? Now that I think about it, the during my test run the laptop was resting on a bed for the entire duration. This may have caused the fan to turn on. Although, right now it's siting on a wooden table and the fan is still on.

I always have Daemon Tools and Logmein running in the background, but they don't really consume all that much power, I would think. What applications aside from FF did you use?

My power life plan is just a mixture of both power saver and power life.

 

I'm having a fan noise problem, too. Even in the BIOS the fan is distinctly audible. I started noticing how loud the fan was after installing the latest video drivers. When did you first notice your fan getting loud?

 

You've got to let the laptop breathe. The exhaust is on the left, and if there is bed blocking it, it could have damaged your hardware. I'll let you know if my laptop has fan problems. If it ever comes. Ordered it the 28th, and it hasn't shipped yet.
Try air dusting it. Also, there's a fan on the lid, slowly try to open it and make sure it's plugged in.

 

It was this loud since I first turned it on. It's not super loud, but it is noticeable in a quiet classroom.

 

Yess!!! I knew it would be lighter then stated! Its so great.. the 7110 was about half a pound lighter then stated so that was my guess with the 5125 and I was right hah its kinda stupid how they are off on the weight of every laptop.. half a pound is kind of a idk.. somewhat big deal.. thats like a college textbook... but whatever, as long as it weighs less, i don't give a care that they say the weight is different because that'll just effect their sales, I already have what I want [:

 

hey ya. So after a lot of back and forth about choosing my laptop i think im concrete about this laptop. I was first looking at some new asus models the u43 n61 and ul30. but just came across this and wow with all the options and build quality and PRICE can't be beat. so really only choice that i need some input on is where to buy it. im looking at rjtech.com becuase it ends up to about $910 with ssd and ram from newegg.com. at xoticpc.com it ends up to $941 with a ssd. the xoticpc comes with a 1033 ram and i don't know what brand but not better then the ram i can get from newegg.

so i never have bought barebones laptop. do i use the same sager drivers and applications?
also any pros cons about going with barbone or the sager configured xoticpc?

 

I actually had a fan problem when my 7110 arrived.. it was always sounding very loud and when I say loud.. I mean it would disrupt the classroom if I were to bring it to school (reason why I didn't) After stressing out about it for a while, I popped off the back to find out that the fan was actually somewhat crooked and was scraping the metal casing around it which in return made it sound to be spinning A LOT faster then it was... I just put a decent amount of pressure on different sides of the fan until it seemed somewhat level.. screwed everything back on and boom! couldn't even hear the fan anymore. I mean this may not be what is happening to you because when it was spinning fast I also heard a tiny tiny tiny like scraping noise along with it but when i first got the laptop n heard it all i thought was it was just spinning like holy fast..

ANYWAYS, I felt really bad about having to literally somewhat bend the fan and although it fixed it, I just talked to xoticPC about it and they had no problem sending me a new fan (seeing as they are extremely easy to replace yourself) so if this happens to you (WHERE YOU OPEN IT AND IT IS ACTUALLY SCRAPING THE METAL A TINY TINY TINY bit and you can actually fix the problem by bending the fan a tiny bit by applying pressure) then you should be able to contact the seller and they will just send you a replacement fan in the mean time. I mean when you pay $1,200 for a laptop.. I think they can shell out the $2 fan over to you if that is the only problem they will be more then happy.

ANYWAYS hope I maybe helped some people but if not oh well, this was just my experience.

 

The ram used on the 5125 is major brand and is certified for the machine. The brands do very but they use major brand in these systems. Dont know if it matters much to you but if you purchase a fully configured system your warranty is all at one place and no one pointing the finger at the other. Most enjoy the peace of mind of a centralized warranty (and also having shipping charges covered under the warranty term).

 

I can honestly tell you that I believe you are having the same problem that i had.. read my above post and if you are really hesitant about taking it apart well,

1) don't be.. this thing is really well built and a laptop that is ACTUALLY meant to be taken apart to upgrade etc.

2) if it is the fan problem then you can always just email the seller about sending you a new fan and they will be more then happy to... but ONLY do this if you know for a fact that the fan is scraping the metal a tiny bit.. we don't want to annoy xoticPC otherwise because they are a nice company [:

3) really I was somewhat scared about applying pressure to the fan but really i put a decent amount of pressure and it actually worked and fixed it.. so just read my above post to fix it (if you were having the same problem as me)

 

Hey Justin, I had a question.. I have been working with Justin W. on my laptop ever since I ordered the 7110 (where I am at now is I returned the 7110 for a exchanged 5125) The tracking information told me that you guys received my 7110 two days ago and I am curious of the progress of this whole exchange. I placed the order for the 5125 quite a while ago, and I know that you do not order it from sager until my laptop is received and goes through some testing to make sure it is fine.. I was just wondering if it was done with testing now or soon so I have hope of getting my new laptop within the next two weeks because i desperately need it for school.. having to send back the 7110 has been killing me.. I can't take notes so fast free hand! ]:

Thanks Justin!

 

Please send me a email direct and I would be happy to help.

 

Alright, I sent the email to [email protected]

If this is the wrong address then please address it here so I can re send it to the proper email. Thanks!

 

fak i was just about done with my reply and this piece of sh1t HP laptop decided to freeze now i gotta start all over good thing it will soon be gone with it's faking crap..

ok so yes the ram is major brand but what kind specific model? I plan on getting Newegg.com - Mushkin Enhanced Essentials 4GB (2 x 2GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Dual Channel Kit Laptop Memory Model 996643 i doubt that it is better than that. i don't know how much performance i would see honestly i don't plan on doing a lot gaming but i would have best RAM for it.


One point i do understand is, at xoticpc customer service is excellent and really unmatched. Warranty i don't if it will cover my situation. I plan on moving to Sweden do you cover shipping cost from there? i know the live chat tech is valuable also..

with my configuration it is about $30 more at xoticpc but i will be getting a HDD, also i have option to buy battery for $60 as opposed to $100 at rjtech.
only parts different is the RAM which is only thing keeping me from pulling the trigger. Please get back to me as i plan to purchase asap either today tommorow so shipping will be first thing. thanks

 

EWWWWWWIEEEEE every single comment on that ram was people replacing it in a macbook. EW APPLE!!!!!! but don't you see it a tad bit weird that not one person has reviewed that ram because they put it in a PC.. every SINGLE comment about it is a macbook.. lol

Not to mention, it is just ram.. not like it is a processor or graphics card or anything.. you wont notice much of a difference between companies.. I would just go with XoticPC if I were you.. the customer support is well worth what more you will be paying to go with them.. and the warranty isn't something to complain about either like what justin was saying

NOT TO MENTION the waiting music when put on hold at XoticPC.. I wish I could get that song or whatever it is.. it is the best "holding" music I have ever heard.. extremely catchy.. it ain't no classic old opera or elevator music.. I just don't even know how to explain it

PS. the whole SSD apposed to HDD thing as well.. I would just be happy with the 7200rmp HDD over the SSD.. although SSD's are awesome and Harddrives are usually the bottleneck in laptops and computers now adays, they are just so expensive for such little space. I need at least 500GB on a laptop.. I don't know how someone could settle for 40GB of SSD and paying like twice as much as a HDD that has like 10X the space.. One day SSD's will drop in price and become a lot more mainstream, this is when I will probably upgrade my laptop as well as PC with a SSD.

Not to mention, constantly writing on SSD's will really wear it out iv heard from multiple people that they do not last as long as HDD's because they can only take so many writings on it.. whereas HDD's are the same.. but they can be written to manyyy more times without damage.. Oh well I guess this is up to you but I would just go with XoticPC.. you can upgrade this laptop at any point in time so you dont have to worry about getting all of the best in it day one.. give it a year or two and SSD's will drop dramatically in price.. thats just how technology works there will be this new thing called STD's (Solid Transferring Drives) that are 3 times faster then SSD's and that will dramatically drop the price of SSD's (hopefully you know i'm joking but understand my point) [:

Solid State Drives IMO are a great idea for PC's because you can have multiple Hard Drives in them at once whereas you can only have one in a laptop(at least this laptop). Everyone I know that has a SSD in their PC just has windows and few startup programs installed on the SSD so it is a fast boot speed but as for EVERYTHING else, they use normal HDD's. I honestly believe sold state drives are only worth biting the bullet IF you are thinking about doing it on your PC.. Laptops just seem out of the question because who wants to carry around an external harddrive at ALL times to have access to all of their information? just seems like a huge pain in the butt.

**PSS. very important, sorry i am talking so much too.. I enjoy giving my opinion oh well. ANYWAYS! what do some games take up? 8GB of space.. 4GB of space? on a HDD okay who cares but on a 40/80GB SSD... you can bairly have any games installed on your damn laptop.. I mean Im not buying my laptop to just game on or even that often.. but hell if im in the mood to play a game.. id rather have it installed on the laptop already so i can just play it. SORRY FOR TALKING SO MUCH, I really am.. I mean you don't have to read what im writing so if you so choose to and have read down to this part, then hopefully i gave you some insight and actually helped a bit.**

 

srry didn't see this

 

Wait...
how did you get 6.5k on 3DMark06? What driver are you using ? I know I've been tinkering with my driver, and I never break 6.1k with i5 520.

 

I think he was talking to me audible.. I asked about a question with my order progress.. srry /:

 

infinite012, when did you order and receive yours? If the loud fan is caused by the newer drivers, and Sager shipped your model with these drivers, then this might lend more credibility to my theory that they are causing the issue. I have uninstalled the latest Sager video drivers and reinstalled the original July drivers that came on the disk, and guess what happened? The fan noise problem went away. Just to confirm that the new drivers are indeed causing this, I'm going to remove the older drivers and install the news drivers one more time in a bit.

 

Long story: Out of Intel backwards magic, I guess. Passmark actually ranks the i5-450m higher than the 520m, because it has a faster QPI bus (4.8GT/s vs 2.5GT/s). That's why I didn't have any hesitations buying the cheapest processor. I worked for Intel and got to test these before release, and I saw that QPI speed is a major component of a processor's overall performance.

Bottom Line: same frequency, same cache, more QPI = faster proc = better performance.

And I'm using the newest drivers from sagernotebook.com.

 

how does the i5-450m compare to the 540m? i mean if the 450m is better then the 520m.. please atleast tell me that the 540m is better then the 450m...?

 

This one's a little tougher to figure out. The i5-540 and 520 both have that lower QPI bus speed of 2.5GT/s, but in the case of the 540, higher clock speed and substantially higher Turbo Boost speeds apply (2.53/3.06). Passmark rates the 450 just above the 540. I have no idea why Intel made the 5xx line have such low bandwidth...

also, you can see all your proc's specs straight from the horse's mouth at ark.intel.com , the website containing all recent Intel processors and their specs and features.

 

Honestly no clue, I was stuck at a hospital the other night so I tried it out, I got almost exactly the same times as with my own customized plan.
I originally was getting just at 3 hours with power saver doing just Visual Studio 2010 and light browsing. When I built my own power plan I was getting an extra 30-40 minutes.

I should note that AERO is on in Power Life and I get more than using Power Saver... Although obviously these are times where I am actually using the laptop rather than just testing it so depending what I am doing is obviously going to throw off the expected times a bit.

In all of them I turn down screen brightness to minimum this screen is so bright anyways.

I would agree on at least the screen should take less power and it is the biggest determining factor of notebook power.

I had it sitting on my lap, on a bed, and a few times sitting on its non-vent side on the floor.

I run a lot more stuff in the background than you more than likely too using VirtualCD, MirandaIM and all of the background crap that 3D StudioMAX, Adobe CS5, Office 2010, and Visual Studio 2010 runs.
I had firefox with a number of tabs open although I don't think they add much to overall use, Visual Studio 2010, and a few times I would be running the App I was working on with and sometimes with out the debugger.

I would say that you are having some issues, I hardly ever hear my fan unless I am gaming. I don't game on battery side one time of WoW and even that did not throw the fan into high.

 

Could anyone please help with the adapter issue? I am anxious to get the computer working, and I can't get to Sager technical support on the weekend. This is such a bummer

 

a lot good points you made about the RAM and SSD. I must disagree about lifespan of SSD. Newer Ones have a lot more write capacity and it is not soundly know about lifespan as ssd are new and have not been around in peoples hand too long to get sound proof. I would actually bet they are more reliable than mechanical HDD. HDD you never know can very easily get corrupted and damaged hell just putting a magnet close to it will fak you up lol. Believe me i have an SSD in my HTPC and man it is amazing the performance boost it's like using an appliance instant on and off..

I think 40gb is plenty of room for me i don't know about other users and what they will use it for. Since i won't be doing much gaming i could easily install 2-3 games and still have plenty space. Plus i never really put too much stuff on my HDD i always back up to something. I have plenty of movies music and what not but i never leave it on my HDD unless i need it and after watching movie i usually move it to external, plus i have HTPC so i won't be downloading anything on the laptop..

Xotipc yes they have awesome customer service don't know about the music i never bought from there but got a lot e-mail back and forth when i was deciding about the asus just excellent contact keep..But warranty aspect is not usefull when 6000+ miles away .

So yes you have been helpfull cause i think i will just stick with Mechanical HDD and RAM i can always upgrade later. Plus SSD$ will go down. if i could keep price below 900 then it's great..i will keep posting thanks for the input

 

Yes, just made the request and they told me how much extra it would be after checking with Sager.

It was $75 extra. I thought that it was a little steep, but still cheaper than me buying my own 4GB stick, and it was less than getting the 6GB config and later ditching the 2GB stick.

 

oh geeze yeah.. $75 is kinda nuts.. almost better off just getting nothing n buying them off newegg.. but this is how companies make money.. they wouldnt be a company anymore if they just sold it to us for what they pay.. lol I dont know if i would go with what you did but I am somewhat tempted.. in the long run I am going to end up wasting the $150 or w.e they charge for two 2gb sticks so yeah.. I mean if I KNEW for a fact that i would want 8GB then yeah i would do what you did.. though I just dont know if i would really need 8gb for anything anytime soon so thats why im just sticking with the 2x 2gb /: thanks for the info tho

 

Has anyone tried to install a driver for the graphics card while running Ubuntu? I'm dual booting Ubuntu and Windows and Windows shouldn't be too big of a problem, but I can't figure out how to get the Optimus technology to work on Ubuntu? Anyone figure out how to do this?

 

This may be a silly question, but why is the np5125 so much cheaper @ xoticpc and powernotebooks than on the sagernotebook website?

 

First Post.. Yay.

Anyway, I'm the friend of Mcfaddenator and I followed the instructions you guys said to try. It worked perfectly. Thanks!


I'm loving the screen, but I think I may be having some issues with how the optimus system works. I tried playing Portal on all high settings and I was only getting 10-15 fps, which makes me think that Optimius may not have been working correctly. Have any idea why it is that it may not be working correctly? (I downloaded the most recent drivers and installed them)

 

You might be looking at the "cash" price.

 

im pretty sure it has to do with steam (if thats what ur playing portals through) ive noticed no games from steam seem to register with optimus...

also, about the laptop being installed wth mainstream brand, well when using CPUZ and checking the RAM manufacturer its listed as "Transcend Information" now idk about you, but i sure have never heard of that brand...

 

it says 899 base price on sagernotebooks and 809 on the resellers... am i missing something?

 

The $809 price is with no Operating System (we don't force our customers to pay the Microsoft tax). However you can order any of the versions of Windows 7.

Sager's $899 includes Windows 7 Home Premium.

 

Ah, thank you for clarifying =D

 

QPI ? Could you explain this?

Gah, if I knew this fact before I bought mine...