**OFFICIAL W860CU/NP8690 Owners Lounge**

You'll be surprised how well toothpaste could do compared to these pastes if applied correctly (not that I'm recommending it).

 

Yeah, I think many of us read the toothpaste / Vegemite article. I still think I'll stick with proper compound though.

 

I know someone who did try it. I was skeptic at first too as I thought the water in the toothpaste compound would cause problems but the performance wasn't bad at all (sorry I can't remember the figures). It was short-lived however (<1hr) as the toothpaste eventually became dry and sort of brittle.

Hmm, I'm going off topic but yes, the application, is in my opinion, a lot more crucial compared to which established brand you use.

 

Ordered mine with PC Torque and sent it back because of the flickering screen and stuck pixels. Just got an email that there were "several scratches on the top case cover, back case cover, cpu cover, and top case cover". Surprising since I only had it out of the laptop bag three times. Once to inspect it and run tests. Twice to take pictures of the screen for sager and run a few more tests.

They are going to be sending pictures later today, but how it could have gotten so scratched up so easily... Is a bit troubling. I didn't notice any scratches. Should have taken pictures of the laptop myself just in case. I'm guessing the laptop bag itself scratched it somehow. They said they usually charge $199 for but will reduce to $130.

 

Did you post this before? I remember reading someone had the exact same problem with PCTorque, they said it was scratched, and then offered to cover some of the cost. I've never heard of this happening with any other reseller. I certainly don't want to imply that PCTorque is doing anything untoward, but it is interesting if this exact same thing happened more than once.

EDIT - Found it. brianvp had this same issue with PCTorque.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5517874&postcount=991

 

Well, I do have toothpaste on hand, but I have to order some thermal compound.

I was looking at Newegg... How much thermal paste will I need? Do I also need the remover and surface purifier to get the old off before putting on the new?

I'm searching around in the forum, but I always have awful luck searching (I must not have the skill of correctly using keywords).

Yeah, I suck at searching... I'm getting kinda nervous here. A few questions (and thank you guys again for all the help).

1) What kind of Arctic Silver 5? It seems like there's a lot on NewEgg.
2) Do I need the remover and surface purifier as well?
3) How much do I need?
4) I need to apply it to the CPU and GPU both, right?
5) What tutorial do you guys recommend that will work well for this? Something close in type to my PC, or doesn't it matter? I searched and could not find anything. I know there are here tho...

Thanks, guys... I'd be lost without this forum.

 

Good catch BrandonSi, very sketchy indeed. Will be placing my order for an 8690 in the next month or so and thinking more and more of going with Malibal...

 

Very interesting post. I contacted Sager and after much talking with many people and being hung up on once. Found out the total costs for the parts... $25.00, $35.00, $25.00, $45.00. Which they said were the back face cover, front face cover, cpu cover and top cover. Total: $130.00. The "discounted" price from PC Torque. Where as they said they usually charge $199.00.

I also found out something interesting. I paid PC Torque $2031.18 which they gave me free shipping for my customized 8690. They paid Sager $1873.00. The one who hung up on me slipped up and told me the actual refund amount to PC Torque after damages was $1743.00.

So PC Torque got $158.18, minus shipping. Unsure if that includes the labor paid to sager for two years.

 

After messing around with the laptop for a day and trying to figure out windows 7, I really like the laptop. I have a question though, I want to download some stuff on Steam but it'll probably take the whole night so I want to leave the laptop on for that period of time. What can I do to allow the laptop to download so that it won't overheat and while not necessary, close the lid. I have a Zalman NC-2000 if that's any help.

I googled it and someone said to go to the battery options and change the settings so that it wouldn't shut down if I close the lid, I couldn't find that option in Windows 7 and I think he was referring to Vista/XP.

 

I'd certainly stop short of accusing PCTorque of anything, hopefully they have a reasonable explanation for all of this. It is bordering on "fishy", though.

 

You really don't want to ever have the lid closed while a laptop is running.

 

Why close the lid? Just look under power settings and have it turn off the display after ~15 minutes, or whatever your preference is.

 

Not accusing them of anything. Already asked them in email about the difference and awaiting a reply.

 

I think he's right. I don't have my laptop with me right now but I believe the battery options are under system settings in the control panel. You can tell it to not switch off as well as edit what happens when you close the lid or press the power button among other things.

 

Not saying you were, gedekran! People just have a tendency here to take a post and run with it, without bothering to confirm its accuracy. I just wanted to make it clear, so that no one would run around disparaging PCTorque without having proof!

 

PC Torque has been great so far. Even gave me free shipping on the 8690 to me. So not trying to say anything bad, just very interesting the post you found. Though since I confirmed the same cost with Sager, nothing fishy about the damages. Other than two people who used PC Torque. So it's not like PC Torque made up the costs, unless Sager is in on it which I doubt.

Only thing to question is why they would state they normally charge $199.00 for the damages specified and offer a discounted price of $130.00, when the actual damages listed from Sager itself is $130.00

 

I had previously asked for an itemized list from PC Torque. Just got emailed back with the same itemized list of 25, 35, 45, 25. When I asked why that was $130.00 and the cost they first specified was $199.00. They responded that these were the reduced prices.

Going to get them to send me back those pieces since I'm paying for them anyway. Will just have to pay more in shipping for it. So if anyone here wants those parts, then I can send them.

 

Don't mean to interrupt the above discussion, as it's an important one. I'm freaking out about thermal paste tho.

I found this excellent tutorial on how to replace the thermal paste on a Dell. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=412389
Will this apply, in general, to my Clevo? Or is there stuff I need to watch out for? :S I'm really scared I'm gonna mess something up.

Other than that, I think I will order the remover/purifier stuff as well as the big tube of Arctic Silver 5. I don't know how much I'll need, and I don't wanna run out...

 

It's in the Win7 Advanced Power Settings, I created a custom power profile. My laptop is set to full performance, and not to turn off hard drives or go to standby while plugged in, and the LCD turns off when closed. This way I can connect to it through LogMeIn and I have had no heat issues.

 

Why not? My temps have been fine. The LCD turns off and its not like it blocks a vent. Most of the laptops here at work are closed and live on docks with large external LCDs.

 

<s>My number pad does not work. Anyone else have this issue? Do I need to enable it somehow?</s>
I see, the number lock button enables it. Here I thought numlock's only function was "autorun" in WoW.

My fingerprint reader also decides to stop working seemingly at random. Doesn't seem to register, or it keeps saying fail or bad read and goes into intruder lockout mode. Not handy. When it works, it's super handy and cool, but I can't figure out why it does some times and not others.

 

I was curious about all this talk about applying thermal paste. Do ALL the Sager laptops come with badly applied thermal paste? Also, if you re-apply it, do you have to keep doing so over intervals, or is it just once, and then no longer again?

 

I want to know these things too, my man, but I figured I was getting annoying with all my posts. I'm going to start a new topic and hopefully get help... and answers to these questions and more.

 

Jesse,

Not sure if you've seen this, but theriko has service manuals hosted here. (w8xCU is on the 2nd page).

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=de6b0df1b481af0fc79b87b207592a1c64c55eb7d7564d4e947708e37b913e74

It will make dis-assembly much easier if you'd like to replace the paste.

 

jesse

your laptop is ok man.
although it is a few degrees higher than normal, just as others have said it more likely just a thermal paste issue.
just think of this: the i7 really runs hot and the 280 gpu definitely heats up. it is an engineering triumph having these components run as cool as they are on the the 8690's 15-inch form factor. if you look around the forums, you will see many thermal issues with other notebooks with lower hardware specs and bigger sizes.
as i have mentioned before, i feel that we are quite lucky considering what other guys have gone through with their much more major issues with their high end laptops.
but with that being said, a number of posters have complained about a the lowering of build quality of the clevo/sager notebook line. they used to be at the very pinnacle of build quality. not so anymore imho. the thing is however, these are all minor issues which could be easily addressed by sager/clevo.

hopefully they realize that build quality is indeed their niche market and find ways to improve their QA.

just my 2 centavos

 

It's one of those things... you shouldn't have a cup near your laptop, but everyone does. Better not to do it, but the chances of it harming anything are pretty slim. I've run tests, and my GPU temp increases by ~3C with the lid closed after an hour or so (on my Dell). Of course the GPU barely cracks 63C at full load so it's not an issue. Others, for example, the ASUS guys, might want to be concerned about a 3C increase.

 

I agree with trvelbug. Your temperatures, while slightly elevated, are well within operating specs. You're not risking anything by leaving as is. Unfortunately when you hang around here for a while you start to see little things as big problems. If your GPU was closing in on 95, we'd be concerned. Take a look at the Asus AG50-whatever owners if you want to see people who should be legitimately concerned about temps.

Edit - Here's an example from the G51 Owners lounge.. This guy's GPU was at 86C from running Furmark.. And that is considered a "good" G51, without the temperature problems. Keep in mind that's a 260M, not even the 280M, and it's underclocked from the factory.

 

What do you mean what kind of Arctic Silver 5? There's only one Arctic Silver 5.

Ideally, yes. You will want to pick up the ArctiClean set as well. You can also use rubbing alcohol as an alternative, but it leaves a thin film behind if you don't clean the alcohol off the surface thoroughly.

You do not need a lot of paste since the CPU and GPU die are relatively small. The 1g of X23 that I used on both my CPU and GPU is still not empty yet, and I've already done quite a few mounts on them already. The 3.5g syringe of AS5 will last you a very long time.

Both the CPU and GPU have been applied with a buttload of thermal paste at the factory, I can assure you. It doesn't hurt to reapply both of them yourself.

Just make sure you remove the power plug and the battery and properly ground yourself. Use an old gift card or playing cards to spread the thermal paste evenly on the die. That's pretty much it.

 

jesse

look around the forums man. go on over to asus, alienware and hp for starters.
in the hp forum(which is what i used to have) for instance, a thermal issue would actually mean your gpu actually frying itself dead.

 

I got that too and after a couple reboots, it kept saying bad read, and kept thinking I was scanning my finger when I wasn't...got really annoying so I just disabled it. Oh well.

 

are you sure your doing it right?
it took me some time to realize that you need a slow deliberate finger stroke for the reader to correctly register your fingerprint.
give it a few more tries, it may just be a matter of getting used to it. and youve only had your laptop for a few days anyways.
tell us how it goes

 

I am actually having a similar problem. When coming out of sleep or hibernate no matter how I put my finger it always get a bad read and I will have to put my password instead. Turning the computer on from a shutdown doesn't have any problem though.

 

rarely i notice my log on defaulting to my password instead of the finger reader. i think this happens after a windows update. im not sure if this is a feature of the program or some glitch.
its got some quirks thats for sure. but i still find it very usefull. i use the the personal safe for my business files, and swiping a finger beats typing the same longish p/w everytime.

 

Alright, I've managed to make a custom power profile now I'm worried about the battery, should I just remove it while plugging in the charger? I heard that one should never overcharge it for long periods of time.

 

Thanks so much, you guys. Brandon, thanks for the manual, which I've downloaded. That's exactly what I needed to help me with disassembly (as I think I'll go ahead and try to reapply the paste, unless temps keep dropping in the mean time--then again, a little further never hurts!).

You guys are exactly right; I hung around here too much and started to freak out about little things. Sure sign of a noob. It seems like everything is fine. Malibal probably thinks I'm a nervous nut from my e-mails, though. (I kind of am! Ha) I didn't know what the proper temps were, so I was thinking mine were a little dangerous.

About the whole LCD closed thing, I actually changed my profile so that nothing happens when I close the lid (the LCD shuts off automatically). This makes it easy for me to close it, unplug, and move to a different room without anything more than pausing the game or minimizing the window or whatever. I was also going to just leave it on with the lid closed tonight and let it download my Steam software. It sounds like that's a no-no, though? I'll probably leave it open just in case. Got it set to stop what it's doing and turn off after 5 hours to give it (and the thermal paste) a cooldown break.

About the post directly above ^, this is something I've never heard. It's not good to keep laptops plugged in with the battery for a long period of time? That's kind of worrisome if it's true! I know with other stuff, a PSP for instance, it seems to be okay to keep it plugged in and charging with the Sony charger but not necessarily with a third-party charger, or the battery could blow. If that happened with a laptop battery, that would be a pretty big bummer.

The whole "charge your battery all the way down every 30 days" is new to me, too, tho, so shows how much I know. When doing a monthly battery drain, is it sufficient to get it down to 10% or whatever the critical level is? Or must one change power setting so the battery is allowed to deplete entirely? What's a good way to do this? (I consider the battery on this PC more like a limited-time UPS than anything.)

I'll just have to get used to the fingerprint reader. Maybe I'm not doing it right. There does seem to be something, though (sleep mode, hibernate or Windows Update... or something!) that messes it up and makes it need a reboot, though. I'm not totally sure. At the Windows login screen, it doesn't mention scanning my finger. It just shows the password box, though I thought I set it up for both (PW in case the reader is being touchy). Sometimes it just randomly seems to not accept fingering (er...) at all.

I also discovered I can push that little button right under the screen to make my web browser pop up. Cool! Doubt I'll ever use silent mode, though, and the e-mail button does nothing since I use Gmail via browser. A shame one can't reconfigure those buttons to access other programs or functions (kinda like the fingerprint reader).

Thanks so much for all the help, you guys. I was going to thank people in particular, but if I start singling folks out, I know I'll forget someone. This forum has been such a huge help. I would be stuck with an overheating ASUS most likely if it hadn't been for you guys.

I love this laptop! I will post impressions at some point, not that it's necessary, but you know, doesn't hurt.

Sorry for the length of this post. Thanks again, folks. Big kudos. Hope I didn't miss anything.

 

After studying the pictures sent to me of the scratches, and mimicking the way I use my current laptop, I think I figured out what happened.

My fingernails are short, but they are not cut so far back like people who bite their nails. The biggest issue it seems is not the length but with the way I grip things.

When I close the lid of a laptop, I use my left hand. While closing it, while not touching the screen I grip the front and back of the left hand side of the lid. In doing so my fingernails come into contact with the plastic on the front and back.

While using the touch pad with my right index finger, my right three fingers touch the right hand rest and move accordingly, which explains the scratches there.

So that explains the front, back and top cover scratches. The cpu cover has a scratch on one of the screw holes. I must have nicked it with the screwdriver when I opened the cpu cover to test out the affects of the cpu sticker.

I have scratches in the same places, (front, back, top) on my vostro 1500. The interesting thing is that the scratches on the vostro are no worse than the ones on the 8690. I've had the vostro for a year and a half, and have been very brutal to it at times. I tried to be very gentle with the 8690 the three times I used it. So the vostro must have used way harder plastic or something. I can only imagine what the 8690 would look like after a year and half. Or my newly ordered 8760.

Just in case there is something wrong with the 8760 and I have to send it back. I'm going to buy me some of those latex finger gloves, or full latex hand gloves to inspect it so as to not have these issues with scratches again.

 

I read it in the Sager and Clevo guide Gophn posted here.

He states:

1.) Battery: to maintain the longevity of any rechargeable battery
- you must NEVER overcharge it [especially for long durations of time] by keeping it plugged into AC
- when it reaches 100% you should unplug it and let it discharge to at least under 50%, then plug it back to power
- OR you can just charge it to 50%+ and remove the battery and store in cool place.. not the fridge [remember to use it occasionally 3-4 time a year to charge and discharge it].

Also, there are a couple of other tips on maintaining your laptop, it's really interesting and you should go have a look.

 

heres the best tip i can give you.
enjoy the laptop.
play a few games. join ss's klevo gaming brigade. kick a** in steam.
the reason you have a warranty is so you wont have to worry about the things your worrying about

 

do you guys do this?
i always keep my dtr's plugged in 99% of the time. and i believe thats the way their supposedly made for...

 

Leaving them plugged in 99% of the time is fine. Just fully cycle the battery once a month to keep it in shape. The directions in the Clevo guide are excessive and unnecessary in maintaining good battery health.

 

yeah thats what i thought too

 

I will check out that guide! I read some of someone's inspection guide, but I didn't read that part.

Sounds like a pain, though. I'll definitely to the cycling bit, but having to constantly plug and unplug seems like more work than it's worth.

When you guys cycle your battery, how do you do it? Does it have to run down to 0%? 1%? Or is the 10% that Windows sets as critical okay?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5169436&postcount=3
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5555217&postcount=11
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5505107&postcount=791

 

Thanks for clearing that up, I was under the impression that I always had to unplug the charger when it hits 100% and got rather annoyed.

 

Well...I've been spending alot of time with the np8690 for the past couple days, and i have noticed something.

I reapplied artic silver 5 and things were going great. Oblivion at highest details maxed out the gpu at 75C.

Then I got dead space...Dead Space at highest details maxed out my GPU at 92C!

Opinions?

 

Everything going great then it's like



maybe u put too much?

 

Your computer freaks out and starts displaying anime? Yes, get that checked out soon.

 

Seriously guys...should I contact my reseller or something? My ambient temp is pretty high though. 28C

 

Mine is always at CPU 45 ºC and GPU 35 ºC when not asking much from it...

Opinions?