**OFFICIAL W860CU/NP8690 Owners Lounge**

My Kobalt G860 arrived today, it's really great! Much more of an improvement than I was expecting over my M57RU, especially in Arma II. Wonder if that's the quad core mainly or the 5870...

Thumbs up though, worth the 3 week wait!

One thing though, the space bar seems a bit sticky. Is this just the way it's designed?

 

Yes. I have mine stuck to my desk actually. The arguments for and against removing the sticker are all based on speculation. The only hard data anyone has is that when you remove the sticker, CPU temps drop. So I would try it, and if you notice your ram start to catch fire, stick it back on if you want to.

Edit:

The i7 CPU options for the NP8690 are quad core, whereas i5 CPUs are all dual core. (Keep in mind that with Intel HT each core processes 2 threads at once to windows treats a quad as an 8-core CPU).

i5 also lacks the "Intel Turbo Boost" tech that automagically overclocks your cores when you work them hard. The i5 uses less power, but with this laptop, the difference in battery life will be negligible.

 

where can i find some of them, for example?

 

RAM is cheaper to replace than a CPU anyway, so better to have higher RAM temps than CPU temps, I guess. Though again, mostly speculation.

 

The party starts on page 98, and continues throughout the rest of this thread.

 

Never heard of ram overheating and burning in a laptop though, if the ram doesn't burn and overheat in smaller form laptops like envy or macbook without a fan to cool them and even lesser air flow, what are the chances that it will overheat in a Sager.

 

Has anyone seen a difference in GPU temps from removing the sticker? I wonder if there was some rationale that it would get more air flowing over the gpu heatsink itsef.

Also, just got word from Sager that mine is on the way back. They didn't replace anything, said they reapplied thermal compound and stress tested it and the temperatures were fine (I'm curious to see what they consider to be fine). Maybe I was having contact issues and whatever they did got the heatsink seated correctly again. I'll find out Tuesday or so...

 

Gratz with your new system.
Could you test arma II performance? I'd like to know how well it runs with an ati 5870 mobile. Arma II pref patched with the latest stable patch,

Could you run the intern benchmark and post it?(with the lastest arma2 patch offcourse)
You can find the latest patch, on the arma2 website (which I can't link to apparently because I have less than 15 posts) under support > Downloads. The benchmarks are included in the patch as missions.

Thanks
Also what CPU do you have?

 

Exactly.

Nobody who's removed the sticker has reported any adverse effects, because there's really no need to cool the other components in the system.

 

is anyone having trouble putting theyr machine to sleep? I have it set to sleep when the lid closes but sometimes it doesnt go to sleep..it just turns off the screen and keeps running and then i cant do anything to turn it back on so I have to do press the power button until it turns off..

I think it might have something to do with leaving the 3dmark06 "check your results" window open but i have to do some more testing...

Edit: Cant be 3dmark, cuz it just did it and i havent even ran 3dmark since my last reboot...

any help would be appreciated??

 

But for my RAM/HDD I will have a cooler.

Boy I'm smart

 

Maybe someone should make a thread and a poll about the lil black sticker. I noticed whenever someone buys this laptop they always ask if they should keep it on or off.

seeing as having the black sticker on my temps for the HDD was running around 41-43. After having it off the temps are hoving around 37-39. And as for the RAMS, well not sure about that but FzhFzh makes a great point.

 

Yea I don't know why it was there in the first place, but everything in my system has stabalized temperature-wise. With my heat-detection program it's always shown little flame symbols next to every core of CPU, now they're all checks and running at around 45-48 degrees Celsius.

ALSO THE NOISE HAS DECREASED DRAMATICALLY.

Now my Sager really does run like an absolute dream.

 

What GPU Drivers are you using?

Also go to your Power profile and check that none of your components are set to prevent sleep.

 

ugh lol jeez can we please stop with the black sticker thing

 

hmmm checked the profile everythng looks good...

it hasnt done it since i upgraded to the 8.74 drivers but then again i did start closing HWmonitor before closing the lid so it could have been that too...

ill do some more testing and report.. thanx

 

Found one dead pixel, im surprized at how tiny it is, its only visible on a lit dark screen. Should i claim my warrenty?

 

For sure if it really bothers you. You don't want to say someday should have, could have, but didn't...

 

If you bought the zero dead pixel warranty and you are really bothered by it that is.

That's why I didn't bother about buying the zero dead pixel warranty, because I know that is I have a dead pixel that is unnoticeable I'm not going to bother shipping it back. I do have one single dead pixel at top left of the screen though, didn't even know it's there until I ran a dead pixel test, not bothering me though, since in normal usage I can't even find that dead pixel anymore.

 

I have no dead pixels, no weird fans, no problems at all. I was so worried about getting one of those defective fans that sounds like a buzz saw.

 

Is it confirmed that ONLY sp-1 experienced the GPU contact "issue" with the MR 5870 on the W860CU?

 

Why is it so easy to get a dead pixel on this laptop screen. I mean i only had it for 3 weeks, and im sure Fzhfzh had it for about a month. And yea thanks for the tips, i dont see it almost at all but it is slightly bothering when i do, but looks like im not gonna bother about the warrenty till i see another 2 more dead pixels.

 

lol kevin, just buy the damn thing....if it has an issue you can always exchange it or return it...if you got american express purchase with that

 

i have one dead pixel too on the top left corner of the screen,it' very tiny.i have the laptop about 3 months.at start it bothers me a lot but now i have managed to live with it..

 

Well it looks like kobaltcomputers are now offering their G860 (W860CU) with i5's (unless my memory is really starting to fade, this wasnt possible with them before).
Its always nice with a lot of configurations from the different resellers, but the sad part is that the overall cost for the earlier standard config (i7 720qm) is now higher then it was before.
Looks like i'll have to rethink were to buy from/settle with i5 seeing as how the price is too steep now.

 

no problems here either; I don't know what people are whinging about with the I720. I have firefox with 15-20 tabs,outlook, J downloader etc open and play crisys warhead with everything on max without a problem.

Issues I have so far;
- screws of the main bottom panel are quite damaged when I got the laptop, not really an issue
- the 12V adapter sucks; it runs for 15-20 minutes and craps out. Now Sager/the reseller wants me to send the laptop to the US. NO F&%ING way I am going to spend 200-300 on shipping for a frakking accessory. This is still in progress.

Mick

 

are you talking about the car charger?

 

jup,the 12v car charger/adapter

 

i dont have the charger but my guess is that it just cant supply enough juice for the laptop.
did you check max watts for this charger?

 

well I ordered it with the laptop as an accessory (xotic), therefore I _ASSUME_ it will work with the laptop.

it works for a few minutes, gets really hot, "click" and then the thermal protection kicks in....so yeah it "works" just don't ask how long.

 

well it obviously doesnt.
however xoticpc is a v trusted reseller and i bought from them too. have you tried to contact them regarding this?
my guess is, it will work if you are not gaming but it will work doing 'normal' stuff.
if it doesnt work while doin normal stuff, then there is definitely something wrong.

 

I would not worry about the contact issues some have had. They still work just fine even with the issues and can be easily fixed if necessary. If you buy one and have any issues I would be more than happy to walk you through any adjustments that need to be made.

 

Yup, I'm pulling the trigger this week. Thanks for the help.

 

How many watts is the output on the adapter? and also what kind of car are you using it on.

I had the same problem, where I tried a 175,400,750 watt chargers and all of them would turn off after a few seconds of gaming but I figured out it was my car a 2003 civic wasnt putting out enough power to support the high wattage chargers.

So i tried a 150 watt charger that i have used before with my old asus and it worked just fine. The laptop only needs 120 watts

This is the one I have, and its not bulky at all like the review says.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3812863

As for my car not being able to power the larger ones, i have not figured out why yet..I have to take it to check if its the alternator not putting put enough juice.

 

Yeah, I had Firefox with over a dozen tabs, Photoshop CS4 with around close to 20 tabs, and working on a 36x48in poster in Powerpoint without a hiccup. I'm starting to wonder if the i7-720 might have been overkill for my usage lol.

 

My order @ kobalt is now in the build queue, ETA hasn't changed and is still on 29april.
The past days have been very busy so that makes the waiting more bearable

 

I use it on a boat and I have more than 500AH at my disposal, I thinks it's just ridiculous to switch the inverter on, I have a 2 kw one installed, and then to reduce it back to 16V. That is a double conversion loss, therefore I wanted one directly from the batteries.

Anyway, Sager wants me to deposit $50 and a $45 charge for shipping and a $25 for international transfer. No F%&ing way in hell, that is more then buying a new one. Have these idiots hears of credit cards? or are there no CCs outside the US?

I'll crack the adapter open and beef the step-up converter myself and include some cooling. The sager is a great laptop but incompetence is to be found everywhere....

 

i suggest you contact your reseller(xoticpc) instead. sager is not known for their customer support but xotic is quite customer friendly. i know for a fact however that xotic will not accept international cc's also.
i only know of one or two guys in this forum who bought the 8690 with the car adapter but cant seem to remember their names. it seems that it worked for them though. i believe they posted some stuff about it dec 2009.

 

Probably has more to do with how well the adapter reproduces ac current some are straight square waves some are more like sine waves and some look more stair stepped. The notebook adapter might be fine with a square wave but have problems with a poorly formed sine wave that is stair stepped etc.

 

I know that the Belkin AC Anywhere 300W will power a D900F np and from my experience they're pretty reliable.

 

Hey guys, im looking to replace my Optical drive for a secondary hard drive bay, im not sure which bracket will nicely fit my NP8690, any suggestions? Reason for this is im planning to use an SSD for the OS, and storage is more important for me than having a DVD drive.

 

^ let me know how that goes. i'd love to have any information on how to stick another hard drive in this thing. The ssd is amazing but too small

 

I live internationally and exchaning/returning it is very expensive.

 

Hi there,

Since there are many owners here, How is the NP8690? Are most of the owners satisfied with their laptop? What are the main problems that have surfaced since its release. I have to choose between this laptop and GX640.

Thank you

 

Yea, im actually surprised why no one has tried this out yet, thats why i posted on it cos i really want an SSD without paying too much money. SSDs go up to 512gb now but its amazingly pricey, id be fine with a 256gb but i cant afford those either. I heard these bays only cost like $50 but problem is i dont know which goes well with the W860. Some more mainstream laptops do offer a nicely compatible bay for secondary storage, but im not sure if Clevo's do.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=388625 Useful link about what im talking about, correction, only about $20 for bay but the shape of the W860 concerns me on how the laptop will look like after the replacement.

 

Really satisfied, amazing desktop replacement. The main problems will be the short battery life and the lack of bass audio jack. Battery life should not be considered a problem actually, its quite expected. Many owners have opted for a sound card for audio on this laptop, or you can get a USB Speaker/headphone or bluetooth headphone no problem.

 

I remember that there was some discussion on using the optical drive bay as another hard drive. I don't recall if it was somewhere in this thread or in some other one in this subforum though. Try searching for it. But if I remember right, there's only one screw keeping the optical drive in place, and it's easily accessible. As for a bracket, I'm not sure.

 

Yup, the bracket is abit tricky for the Clevo, thats my problem now, cos aftermarket brackets are more compatible with more mainstream brands. I do hope i can find one for the W860. I really find my ODD a waste of space.

 

Well as long as it fits inside, even if it's smaller than the original drive, I'm sure it should work? You might as well be the first to try and report back to us.

I'll probably opt to do this once SSD prices drop to ~$0.75/GB. Hopefully that happens before I need a new computer lol

 

^ yea, i know most claim to be one size fits all but im concerned about the outer appearence after putting it in, i dont want it to look too awkward.