**OFFICIAL W860CU/NP8690 Owners Lounge**

Or your eardrums, keep the options open.

 

Hilarious!

Is the issue really that hopeless? or are there any programs that can help the cause? I was reading on SpeedFan 4.40, don't know if it will do much...

 

I'm not sure SpeedFan will work to control the fan speed (with this chipset/mobo). It will report temperatures, but I think that's about it.

I don't know what to tell you bud.. I will admit the fans are louder than most laptops I've used, but not by that much, and certainly not to a point where I'd complain about it or think it's a serious problem. Of course I understand what doesn't bother me may bug the heck out of someone else. If it's really that bothersome to you (and assuming you didn't get a defective fan, like Joker5150) you can always return the laptop.

 

SpeedFan doesn't work very well with notebooks. For many W860CU users, this is their first Clevo notebook coming from another a mainstream notebook company such as Dell or HP. The fans are going to sound noisy for them. Just deal with the fan noise. This is nothing new for Clevo notebooks. The best cooling requires the best fans, even though the tradeoff is more noise. For me, I don't think the fans are noisy at all. But then again, I can sleep through the night like a baby with my five 1TB ES.2's thrashing away.

 

Don't get me wrong I love this machine, and I understand that such is the price for the performance. I think asking would not hurt, right? After all, we have some really bright people reading these posts, and maybe one of them knows something I don't, or finds something later.

 

Absolutely sir, that's how we learn! No such thing as stupid questions.. well, for the most part.

 

You can edit the DSDT tables if you want to set a different fan temperature threshold, but it's not going to address the fan noise since fans are already reported as noisy at it's lowest speed for some users.

 

Thanks guys!

I'm trying to find a post, I think I saw in another thread, where it was suggested that a BIOS update could make a difference, what are your thoughts on that?

 

I don't remember such a post (but I'm not omnipotent!) and seeing as how the fans are functioning as they should be, I see no reason why Clevo/Sager would change their speed. Like Soviet mentioned, dumping the DSDT and editing to your requirements would be the best bet, but it will certainly impact temperatures.

 

Yup thats all I have noticed so far as well. The system runs like it did otherwise.

 

Mine should be arriving via UPS tomorrow some time. Excited and nervous.

 

Congrats, be sure to tell NBR that it's working perfectly

 

Any Tutorial how to do this?

 

Honestly, reading this thread got me more worried than excited for my new laptop. After using it though I had no complaints.

 

Not for me^^ like i said, i found the slowest speed very nice and not loud at all... but it's rare to run it in these conditions since in automode it's always in normal not to raise temps, and in silent mode... well it fixes them to normal. So they almost never go to slowest speed.

 

we are just trying to turn everyone's problems solved

Cause nothing is perfect for everyone's opinion

 

Agreed. The fans on both the W860CU and W870CU aren't as loud as people think. I like the fans on my W870CU.

 

HAH! 7 char

 

You guys are to much

 

Yup,

Fans on this not as loud as my desktop....but if annoying one could always turn up the volume...oops what was I thinking...put on the headphones...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRnSnfiUI54#t=0m18s

 

Mine just arrived. I opened it with trembling hands (I dunno what I'm so nervous about). I brought it over to my mom's house, so I may have left some stuff behind besides the box, tho I didn't see anything in there besides some doodads, the manual, Windows DVD, and a cinema something or other DVD.

Anyway, I let it warm up, turned it on... was greeted by "Windows did not shut down properly". No worries, I thought, and had it boot normally.

I tried to login as admin. "This account has been disabled."

Okay...

Clicked "other user" and it wants a name and PW.

What gives? I see no documentation anywhere in the box describing this, but I guess I'll just have to look more closely before I e-mail Malibal about it. Hopefully this is normal.

Anyone have thoughts/help? I was hoping to get Firefox and WoW and some stuff installed, but I'll have to wait until I can log in to Windows, obviously...

 

Not normal.. You get prompted for a username and password right away? I'd send Malibal an email right away and mention this.

This is a silly question, but since it came with the windows DVD, I assume you ordered it with Windows? I would re-install Windows, but as I said this isn't normal, you shouldn't have to do that. Once you get into Windows I would definitely run some stress tests to make sure the hardware is OK.

 

Yikes, okay... Scary.

Yep, I did order it with Windows. That was my first thought, too, just to reinstall Windows.

Sigh... I hope everything is all right with the innards.

Thanks, I'll report back.

Edit: Other than that, the screen is awesome, build quality fantastic, love the keyboard, and so far the fans are not loud at all (assuming the loudest they get is equal to the "whoosh" upon first turning on the system, they're quite quiet indeed). I like the carrying case, too.

Edit 2: They wanted to know what screen I was getting (Windows login) and thought I could perhaps send a picture if necessary. I'm going to try reinstalling Windows first to see what that does. So far I'm really impressed even with how the partitions are set up. And the DVD drive is extremely quiet. I'm impressed with the ease of use of Windows Installation, too. I hope it doesn't take longer than an hour and half, cause that's when I gotta jet back home. Other than the can't log in issue, I'm really happy and excited overall. I need to see how the speakers sound and do some load tests to see if temps are normal and all.

One last thing--by reinstalling Windows, am I going to be overwriting any drivers or anything I need? Or is it pretty much just a clean installation of Windows that they ship with? I noticed there is a "system" partition off 200mb (167mb free) and then the Windows partition that I'm overwriting.

 

My DVD drive is actually kinda loud when in use, but nothing unbearable.

 

Glad they're helping you out! You might have to re-install your drivers, but they come on a CD with the laptop (check the bag pockets) so no worries there.

Let us know how it goes! Windows only took ~30 minutes last time I installed t on my W870CU.

 

I might be used to loud ones. The one on my laptop here is really quiet tho... I suppose it might depend upon the DVD too?

UPDATE: Reinstalled Windows 7 and I can get in now. It's showing my monitor as Generic non-PnP tho. Hopefully that will fix itself as it automatically downloads the right drivers (I hope...).

It's not recognizing my display adapter (should be the 280M!) automatically. How can I fix this? Will it work to download the official Nvidia drivers? Didn't someone say they don't work?

Do I need to get them from Clevo? Sager?

Any recommendations for what to use as a stress test to test temps and everything?

 

Ah, thank you! Found them! They were hiding behind the DVDSuite thing.

EDIT: Whoa. Do I have to install ALL of these drivers? There are a bunch... like 9... plus another 9 optionals.

 

i thin you do, to make sure everything is working properly before you do your stress tests

 

Yeah, good point. Well, I will just hunker down and install them all!

 

Yeah, it's not tough.. Just click the 1, then 2, then 3.. I didn't reboot between any of them until I was done.

 

You were right--wasn't so bad. I shouldn't have rebooted in between each, tho. That was a lot of boots!

So far this computer seems almost too good to be true. Gotta do a stress/temp test before I make that pronouncement, though.

What do you guys think of the fingerprint reader? At first I thought it was kind of silly, but it'll actually be kind of rad to autostart programs just by swiping a finger!! Steam on one finger, WoW on another, FireFox another......

 

Really glad you got it up and running! I'm ambivalent on the fingerprint reader.. It's uninstalled for now, but who knows. It's really a personal choice, whatever works for you.

A quick ~5-10 minute run on extreme burning with Furmark at full blast should give you a good read on your max GPU temp (you'll need GPU-Z installed and running the background).

Other than that, any multi-threaded benchmark (WPrime for example) should work the CPU's plenty and you can watch CPU temps while that runs.

 

I probably shoulda done the tests before installing a bunch of stuff, but I got excited. :s

A few silly questions:

What did we decide acceptable GPU temps are? It seemed like there was some waffling. Just on the desktop, it's idling at 50C. I hope that's not high. I thought some people were saying their GPU idled at 34C, but maybe I'm confusing it with something else. I know I just read it in another thread, but I can't figure out which thread it was.

Seems to max out at 84C. I hope that's not too high... I thought someone said theirs never hit 80, even at full load.

One thing I'll say is the fans are quite tolerable in sound volume.

Where can I go to see my CPU temps?

WPrime is giving me an error when I try to boot it up, so I'll have to find something else.

 

Yep, after a clean windows installed you will have to load up all drivers from the cd and install them again.

Fingerprint reader to me at first was just a gimmick. But damne...after using it some more I started liking it. I mean it actually works and serves its purpose well.

 

Woops, looks like FurMark and GPU-Z reported different temps. FurMark said it peaked at 84C, but GPU-Z said it never even hit 80.

 

Your GPU temps idling at 50c and maxing out at 84c is high for this laptop. You're witnessing a bad thermal compound job done by the factory.. Just get new thermal paste and reapply properly. Below are my temps running on idle.

 

Ugh, what a bummer.... I hope it's just the thermal paste! I guess I'd better e-mail them about it. Am I reading that right? Your temps max out at 38C?? What's the range I should be seeing? If it's supposed to idle at 34C, then 50C seems REALLY high...

Man, I'm so disappointed. I hope I don't have to send it back.

I'm running another FurMark with CPUID open, and I'll take a screen and post it once I get the min/max, but it does not look good. Even my CPU temps at idle are higher. That sounds like more of a problem than just the compound on the GPU.

Will edit the screenshot into here in a sec.

 

Well, comparing my temps to those of other users and what was written in Brandon's results page, it appears my temps are unacceptably high. This, along with the whole having to reinstall Windows 7 out of the box thing, is leaving me rather unhappy.



Comparing results with Suade above, my temperatures are MUCH higher, all across the board. What's wrong? It couldn't all be due to the compound being applied poorly, could it?

I'm mortally disappointed. Other than e-mailing support, is there anything else I could/should do?

 

What is the temperature in your room? Are you using your notebook on a desk?

 

Actually my max GPU temp is 69c-73c depends on the game. You are not alone with bad thermal paste. Some users here also had theirs reapplied
and all worked well after. Try not to freak out yet...reapply it first and see how it will go. My bet says you'll be okay.

 

Like what Soviet mention. What is your ambient temperature?

 

Ambient temp is about 70 degrees F. Let's say 68-74. Definitely no higher than that. Very dry, too (central heating).

The first tests, I was getting up into the 80C range on the GPU, and that was done on a kitchen table. The second time it was a little cooler (or so it seemed to me--and that's where the above screen is from) with the computer sitting on the cardboard shipping box.

Definitely getting higher than 69-73C, and my CPU temps look higher than average, too, not just GPU, even at near-idle, which is why I'm wondering if it's not something besides the thermal compound.

 

Sounds like the thermal paste alright. Just reapply it and you'll be as good as new again. Sager is notorious for applying way too much on components.

 

Whew.... Well if that's all it is, then I'm relieved. Do I need to apply it on the CPU as well?

I will seek a tutorial with images. I've never been inside a laptop or applied paste before. I might as well buy the best paste I can get, too, and do it up right, unless Malibal can just send me some.

Thanks, you guys. Hopefully I won't be too much of a nag during the process since it's my first time doing this.

 

I just got my Sager NP8690 today and I plugged it in to charge. How long should I charge it for before I power it on and start transferring my data?

 

Congratz man! No need to wait, you can go ahead and power it on and do whatever you want with it. Just cycle the charge once every 1-2 months. Meaning draining it completely and charging it back up to full.

 

Alright, thank you very much. I thought I had to leave it on for the whole day and it was excruciating not being able to use it. Just powered it up and gonna start transferring my data from my PC.

 

SS is right, we've seen it a number of times, unfortunately. Couple of tidbits that should make you feel better.. Yours is actually right on the border of what I would consider "too hot from the factory". We've seen some people who had much worse temperatures, your temps are not that bad, considering. However, if I were in your shoes, I'd re-apply just because it would bug me.

Plenty of tutorial/posts about application of thermal paste.. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the top few pastes lately according to the NBR group-think collective have been Arctic Silver 5, ICD7, and Shin Etsu X-23...

 

Add MX-2 and MX-3 to that list. Really, the truth of the matter is, unless you're chasing benchmarks or records, almost any garden variety thermal paste will do. The key often lies more in the application than the material. Arctic Silver 5 (which is getting a little long in the tooth, admittedly) can practically be considered the standard for after-market paste at this point, and using the higher grade stuff will generally only lower your temperatures by 2-3 degrees compared to AS5, if everything is applied properly.