**OFFICIAL W860CU/NP8690 Owners Lounge**

I think we might get more than a few mins - or at least I hope. What got my interest is that I tried doing a battery test with to see how long I could possibly get with the following settings and actions:

Minimum Brightness
Power Saving Mode
pressed the (M) button on the panel right above the keyboard
WiFi ON
Bluetooth OFF
All USB accessories unplugged
Just browsing and posting on various forums online.

Results: I still got only <1hour, but the interesting thing I found was that while my CPU temps dropped from high 40s/low 50s to high 30s/low40s celsius, my GPU temp remained consistently around 60C the entire time, even with the minimal usage. So if that monster GPU is pretty much draining the battery at the same rate as normal use, I think we can save more than a few mins. Which is why I got interested in PowerPlay...

And yeah, I understood before I bought the 8690 that the battery was little more than a fashion accessory to close that gape on the underside of our notebooks, but still, I'd just like to see how long I can squeeze out of it.

P.S. The guy in the thread that I linked in my previous post extended his battery life about an hour by downclocking his GPU (on his G73), so even if I can extend by 30mins, that's still 50% more battery life than what I'm getting now.

 

i see i was talking more in general terms. as i understand it the 5870 doesnt downclock for 2d applications atm. am i right?
if that is the case , then yes you will probably get a major battery boost.

 

I had that problem originally as well and thought it would not work lower because 400 gave me problems. 300 works just fine though. you do not have to worry about ramping down or anything. Just set to 250/300 and you are good to go. I tried lower but had a crash when watching a a video if I recall correctly. If we finally get a better bios made up I am sure we could see lower idle clocks as well.

 

I think until we can get a bios that downvolts as well as downclocks we will not see much gain from downclocking. Even at 250/300 I'm still around an hour of battery with everything on low power. The other big problem is the i7 quads seem to draw about 15 watts at idle. I wish we could further undervolt but these new intel cpus do not seem to allow that like the older core 2 chips.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ00laVt62c

 

OK, good to go at 250/300. GPU core temp down to 45-46C at idle. That can't be bad. Thanks. +Rep

 

Sorry if this has been discussed earlier. I can't recall it being mentioned so i thought i'd ask.

The i5 is now configurable at kobalt computers, and i'm leaning more towards choosing it (i5 540m) instead of the i7 720QM as i had previously wanted. In order to cut down some of the cost.
I was wondering if i will be able to change to a i7 at a later date?
And i assume that the performance boost of the i7 is negligible when it comes down to pure gaming?

 

^^^
This is apples and oranges (2 vs 4 procs, and gaming- people have presented convincing debate for both)-
The answer is yes, you can upgrade later.

 

test 10.4 drivers

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/ATI-Catalyst-10-4-a-Hotfix.aspx

 

How's the fit of that caddy? Does it look nice on the machine?

 

I got it down to 300/300, and my temps dropped from 60C idle to 48-49C idle! I'll do a battery test next time I take an hour break or maybe tomorrow at lunch.

 

Life is good. LOL.

 

didn't actually put it in, just compared the side shape with the original DVD drive's shape and it didn't match exactly.

Just arrived in Shanghai yesterday, it's freezing cold here compared to Singapore, at 10-15C ambient temp, and i'm getting 70C furmark runs, bad thing about having a laptop with too good a cooling is that the handrest of the laptop is still freezing cold even after running a furmark. And my HDD temp is at 20C...

 

^ what are you going to do with your caddy then? and is there a positive risk of putting a regular harddrive into a caddy?

 

The battery is actually more robust than most of us realize.

I took my lappy to a friend's house about a week ago and wanted to show him Bad Company, so I hooked up the HDMI out to his TV. I set it to power both screens (his in 1080p, mine in 920p) and let loose on some commies.
I actually forgot to plug the power cord into the wall, and I didn't realize it until after 45 minutes of solid gaming, powering 2 HD screens, running on wireless, and pwning noobs. There was so little lag I didn't even think to check the power. I don't know how much battery was left when I finished, but it never conked out on me.
Needless to say, my friend was impressed.

 

^ sounds dangerous there, should check your temps.

 

Eh, It's not like I'm planning to do something like that ever again.

 

dangerous? how?

 

Question . . . for anyone with a 8690 with the HD+ (1600x900) screen . . . how is the screen quality? It's also LED right? Is the brightness pretty even, good colors, etc...? I like the 8690 a lot, but want to make sure the screen is good for photo/digital editing type work as well as gaming. The FHD res screen is too high for a 15.6" notebook for me, given my failing eyesight.

Thanks!

 

Well, it really shouldn't be. If either the CPU or GPU overheats, which isn't likely to begin with, the computer will shut down instantly.

Of course it wouldn't be a good idea to subject any computer to that kind of abuse regularly. It would significantly reduce the lifespan of the components.

 

^yea good point, i didnt think it was safe to power all that on battery mode. Bad company 2 is quite graphically intensive.
But yea Clevo's cooling is unprecedented.

 

Which amazes me further that with everything turned down/off, I still get only 1hour from basic internet browsing...
But yeah, I guess you'll never forget to plug in your notebook after this! hehe

 

i am not such why clevo didnt make a 9 cell battery on this. Hopefully future models will have better batteries and a binary graphic switching function. Probably get up to 6 hours on that

 

probably to cut down price/cost and increase profits. i think they consider this machine and the 8760 as desktop replacements. and as such battery, sound, fingerpad are not priorities. in a way they are right, and when i got my 8690 back in oct 09, it was still cheaper than other gaming laptops with lesser specs.
however they should have included a 6 or 9 cell option for the battery at least - and they could have made extra money doing so i think, cause almost everyone would have gotten it.

 

And probably weight as well. They were probably too embarrassed to advertise a 15.6" notebook that weighed 8lbs or more. lol

 

lolz
yeah that too. but having it as an option would kinda 'hide' the weight.
i tell you, if they prob came out with a 6 or 9 cell batt almost all of us would get one.

 

If they do come out with a 9-cell for a later model, hopefully it will fit the 8690.

Not like I ever run mine on battery.

Oh wait.

 

so everybodys averging out about 1hour of battery life with minimal settings?

 

My current laptop lasts about 15 minutes unplugged (the battery got busted during a surge?) so I'm pretty sure anything more than that will feel like a big upgrade.

I would like to be able to game in the garden though.

 

wow portable ups indeed

 

At least my battery lasts 15 minutes. My brother's battery (also killed in the same surge) only lasts long enough to boot Windows. :laugh:

 

That panel is very bright, evenly lit, has very little bleeding (not noticeable), and I think the colors are pretty accurate (I don't do any photoshop work). You won't be disappointed. Mine came with zero dead/stuck pixels. I picked this panel for the same reason. I'm only 21, but my eyes fail me.

I've never seen the FHD screen's quality so I can't give an accurate comparison. I'd say the quality is pretty similar to the samsung's http://www.buy.com/prod/samsung-t24...lcd-monitor-10-000-1/q/loc/111/208166509.html that's the only comparison I can make since its the only monitor near me. The one on the clevo isn't as bright as the samsung though. Hope that helps... since screen comparisons are very subjective.

 

hi guys, what are your 720QM load temps?

 

Oh man. I really thought that the power adapter was supposed to protect the battery. Sometimes when I"m not at work or at home, I plug it directly into the outlet thinking that. I guess I'll be more careful from now on - since there's no way in hell I'm going to start carrying a surge protector in my bag.

 

It was at an old house with crappy wiring, where the main fuse box would blow a fuse every month or so. That surge also fried the power adapter.

I guess you could use one of those small and cheap Belkin surge protectors on the go. I doubt they'd last long, but at least they're portable.

I'm definitely going to buy a good one and take it with me everywhere; I've learned my lesson.

 

Any high quality, but light and portable, surge protector you're looking at?

 

I'd completed making a post with a couple of surge protectors I saw at Amazon, then NBR failed on me.

Anyway I don't know much about surge protectors, so I'll probably just get whatever looks good at Amazon.

 

This surge protector has the highest joules rating of any portable unit out there. I have one on each of my laptops, They are about the best you will find that is made for portability.

http://204.12.56.131/en/products/model.cfm?txtSeriesID=830&txtModelID=2638

If you want the best at home protection these two units here will do the trick

http://204.12.56.131/en/products/model.cfm?txtModelID=104

or

http://204.12.56.131/en/products/model.cfm?txtModelID=106


I have many years of experience with these units and they are top quality, which does make a difference when it comes to protecting your equipment.

 

So I would need something like this for the toslink right? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882339090&cm_re=toslink-_-82-339-090-_-Product


Also, so you all know, there is something buggy with the HDMI sound drivers (part of the ATI stuff I believe), at least the stock ones. I was having issues with it taking forever to load certain things, and then giving me an error when I shut the computer down about the log off sound being frozen. I was thinking Sager did something to my hard drive when they had it, until i realized that everything I was having trouble with was sound related. Sure enough, I deactivate the HDMI sound and there are no problems again.

I haven't tried it with the 10.3 drivers yet; I'll do that this afternoon.

 

yes something like that.
do note however that i havent tried it myself becasue those cables are v hard to find in my country.
there should be no reason for it not to work though.

 

Are you sure it is optical output? All previous Clevos have had only digital coaxial SPDIF and this one looks no different in terms of manual/service manual...

 

How is this unit in terms of size and weight? I hope it's not it's not as big as the actual adapter.

I was also looking at this little unit. Its size and weight look good, and it has 918J protection (125V only, though).
http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Mini-S...ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1272118801&sr=8-7

 

That Belkin one might as well be disposable. One surge and it's toast I'm betting.

 

but it's small and cute?

 

No worries if it isn't, I'm going to be grabbing the creative card soon anyway.

I have to get the older one though, looks like the newer one doesn't have anything other than stereo headphone out (why on earth would ATI downgrade? The old one has optical and 5.1 outputs...).

The HDMI audio is definitely screwed up. I installed the latest drivers and it still has problems loading sound files (or any program that includes sound, like games) when it's active.

The guy I'm rooming with next year and I plan to buy a big TV, and I'm going to get a nice home theater system, so it looks like I'll input the hdmi for visual and optical for audio into it, then use dvi for my monitor. Hopefully no one will say all the convoluted wiring is a fire hazard.

 

These are pretty small and light compared to the power cube. Course I am using a bigger cube with my 160W. The unit is about 2" at its widest and maybe 4" long eyeballing it.

I swear by mine. I had a very stupid accident yesterday with my laptop/power cube/surge protector. I was plugging in my laptop cube, as I leave it unplugged at the ac line when not home, and we have this brass ring around the floor outlet. I was moving the brass cover out of the way and did not pay attention to how far over I had it and when plugging the cube in, It made contact with the hot lead of the AC plug and WHACK. I had to go out to the breaker box to reset the fuse. I then prayed to the laptop gods that my machine was okay, and viola it turned on okay. It was the stupidest thing I had done in a long time. (Not as stupid as what I did later on that night on our less than a year old oak table, with a spare hard drive taking a chunk out of it when I dropped it on it). Anyway I digress.

 

Just A quick Question. I just received my NP860 form xoticpc with the i7-820qm processor. It idles around 50c and the cpu fan runs all the time. It does increase speed if i game. Also the power brick does get quite toasty during gaming. Is this normal? Temps during gaming range from 68-74C.

 

i wonder why you have problems with hdmi sound. ive been using hdmi ever since i got my 8690 with no problems. could it be a settings issue?
my only problem with my setup is the wiring the prevents me from getting hdmi 5.1 sound.
basically you have to connect your laptop-HT-HDTV. unfortunately my old HT does not come with a hdmi in so i have to connect it this way laptop-HDTV-HT. i still get good stereo sound however.
do note that you have to set the hdmi to accept sound in your tv/ht and you also have to switch to digital output as default in your playback devices (volume control icon) in your laptop.

 

seems similar to mine but my ambient temps are 32-34*

 

Yeah I'm wondering too why you have problems with HDMI sound. I had a W860CU before with a GTX280M and the HDMI Video plus Audio worked flawlessly with my HDTV FHD.

Is this a problem only for ATI?