**OFFICIAL W860CU/NP8690 Owners Lounge**

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bstapley;

I posted a support request yesterday for the Sager version .18 bios (869bv18s I think it was), and got emailed the bios update today, BUT the mail system stripped it out as it doesn't allow .iso files. But I have provided them an alternate email address so fingers crossed there for another try tomorrow.

You might find this part more interesting, the tech says that based on my ship date (Feb 10) my system won't support upgrading to the 470m. You said you have a similar system (series 1) and you've got a 460m.

How much difference would there be between them that the system board wouldn't accept a 470m. Is it a power thing?

I'm wondering if I'll have to spring for a new mainboard now...

Schmagagled

 

^^ Hmm that is weird! I know that Babyhemi mentioned something similar to that but only mentioned it about the 470m and not the 460m. He said that for some people it will work fine (without the USB 3.0 ports) and others it will not. Originally when i purchased mine, I took a gamble in not knowing whether or not the card would work for sure as well. I believe (to my knowledge) that I was the 1st one to "try" a 460m out on an older motherboard. Luckily for me, everything has worked out perfectly!

Where did you purchase the 470m from? What's their return policy? If they allow for a return if it doesn't work, then I would go ahead and give it a try and see what happens! If not return it or sell it on this forum.

Edit: If possible, ask sager if they can provide some sort of explanation of what exactly the .18 BIOS does over the .16. Nobody seems to know for sure....

 

bstapley;

I spoke with Sager today and they have heard the same thing...that there are guys like you who have upgraded to a 460m and it works even though their official channels say it's not supposed to work and is not supported (on 'series 1' revision mainboards).

At the risk of cross-posting flames this is the direct link to the ISO for the .18s (Sagerized) bios for the NP8690 in case anybody wants to flash.

http://www2.sagernotebook.com/Sagernotebook/misc/869bv18s.zip

The Sager tech told me to have a go at upgrading to the 470m and let them know how it went. If it doesn't work I'll spring for the $400 to have the motherboard upgraded to the newer revision with USB 3.0.

S.

 

Thanks for the BIOS link. Maybe post it on the Sager / Clevo Bios thread as well for future reference.

 

I'm hoping a BIOS comes out that provides some fan control...

 

@bstapley

i have read a lot in these clevo thread, and you are the only one who tried installing gtx 460m in W860CU old motherboard(first revision w/o usb 3.0) and im glad it works!! same with me never been better with my new replaced card(280m to 460m) playing in DX11 really great!

 

that would be SA-weet!!

Glad to hear that it's working out for you as well. Hopefully that goes to show that Schmagagled's 470m may work out for him!

 

Hopefully it's something that they're working, although I assume they're probably working on support for future models. Oh well, I've assimilated everyone at the office and home into my mentality to accept/ignore the consistent white noise.

 

I'm still wondering if this machine will get the BIOS update for the 6970 to be compatible with it since its EOL already.

 

Well notebookcjek released a review on the 6970 on a w860cu platform.
That could be a good indication tnat we will get bios support for this card at the very least

 

Possibly.

There is no way of telling if it would be compatible and whether Sager/Clevo will spend time updating the BIOS and validating it electrically.

Edit: just saw Travelbug post, so it is promising. Travelbug, post a link for us

 

Review AMD Radeon HD 6970M Graphics Card - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

Yep here you go.

 

I'd say is more about proving that the HD 6970M will not get any support. Especially this sentence:

 

Didnt catch that line. But hioefully at least one of the resellers offers this, especially if they have the machine still in inventory. If so, chances are we can flash our bios with these.

 

I dont see them offering it when they can sell you a brand new laptop.

 

I just wanted to say that I emailed Clevo at [email protected] asking for a new BIOS that enables fan control. Hopefully, as many as possible can take 1 minute and send them a similar message.

Never hurts to try

 

I have followed suite and also wrote them an email concerning this. Thank you for the email address and the suggestion. Like you said, "Never hurts to try."

 

Great! Hopefully more will follow

 

I have received a response. I will post my initial email and the response from Clevo. Maybe we need to push Sager? Or maybe I was unclear in my initial email, let me know what you think.

------------------
My email
------------------
To Whom It May Concern,

I am using a Sager NP8690 (rebranded Clevo W860CU) and have noticed that the fan noise is quite loud, even when idle. This disturbs the setting in some quieter offices and meetings. I am wondering if there is a BIOS in the near future that will have fan control? I would really love to be able to drop the RPM of my fans while my laptop is idle or simply on the internet, checking emails, etc. This is a great product, an awesome laptop, and the fan noise is literally the only con that I can find.

Thank you for your time,
ME

------------------
Clevo response from [email protected]
------------------
Dear Sir

I’m sorry we can not provide technical service to the end users, Please contact your vendor or his distributor to help you.

Thank you

 

lol? Stupid Clevo Rep....you're email seemed very easy to comprehend. I would try the Sager route to see what they say.

 

I received exactly the same response down to the very last letter. They don't care and I wouldn't be surprised if it was just an android replying to all of us

 

Hi everyone. What kind of battery life are you getting on your w860cu? Is 45 mins abnormal? :S

Edit: during web browsing and low screen brightness.

Quadro FX 2800
4GB RAM
i7 720

 

That sounds a little low, but hardly... especially if you're viewing movies or anything of that nature whilst browsing. I get roughly 1 hour while not plugged in. This is really a machine that moves from one power source to the next.

 

I get up to 1 hour and 15 mins with my gpu downclocked to 200 gpu and mem 300

 

Crikey. Is that whilst running anything in particular? Lots of power saving features enabled?

 

I just downclock the gpu and set windows to battery saving that turns the screen a bit darker and thats about it, lol

Because these clevo ati cards dont have powerplay I just made a shortcut icon on my desktop
that clocks it very low and gives me an extra 20 minutes of battery time,
without doing that I get max 50 to 60 minutes batt time.

I think you can clock your card down using msi after burner and bind a hotkey to it, or even with rivatuner (I use that to boot with these low clockspeeds)

 

If you install 1600MHz memory, will it work?

 

It will work but at a downclocked speed of 1333MHz.

 

I see. Thank you for the info.

 

bstapley;

Got the 470m last evening but it came without a heatsink. Eurocom.ca (vendor) indicated that I was to receive a heatsink with it originally, but their first shipment got lost and so they resent by Expresspost. I got the 'second' shipment but, it arrived sans heatsink.

I believe Eurocom vendor is under the impression that I will eventually receive the first card they sent out, and that may be the one with the heatsink in the box.

All this background chatter is leading up to the question...Can I use the heatsink that's installed on the GTX-285m now? Or are the heatsinks totally different (and I need to wait for that to come in before diving into the mod).

S.

 

What you described is precisely why I never buy GPU's or anything else from Eurocom. With regards to your main question, I am pretty sure that the GTX 470M will not work well, if at all with the GTX 285M heatsink. Even if it some how fitted, you would find very poor cooling due to the chips not completely matching up to the heatsink design, particularly the VRAM chips.

You should also consider that the GTX 470M may not work to its full potential on the S1 according to Sager. Some resellers suggest only S2 can handle it perfectly.

 

I agree with LaptopNut. The 460m heatsink is quite a bit different than the 280m heatsink that I have. I would not risk putting your brand new 470m in danger by trying to use your older heatsink. Hopefully you get your new heatsink soon!

 

Evening all,

Is anyone currently using the recent nvidia driver release 266.58? And if so, is anyone experiencing any problems with their W860CU?

I installed them recently and noticed one or two soft lockups (1-2 seconds with skipping music during loading), but will not be able to test the system extensively until i go abroad, at which point i may not be able to solve any issues that crop up.

If you have had any problems please leave a reply.

Cheers

-Zal

 

Get the latest version of Driversweeper and reinstall the drivers, see if it helps.

Phyxion.net - Downloads

 

You know, I always just assumed this was one of those wonderfully charming limitations that my Sager came with, but can OTHER people adjust the brightness of their screen?

Because I can't. Not using the laptop, or the controls in Win7.

 

You should definitely be able to adjust the screen brightness.

Do the keyboard controls (Fn+F8/F9) work in the BIOS?

What graphics driver do you have installed?

Do you have the hotkey software installed?

 

That's really strange. I'd go through what theriko has already asked.

 

Guys, i asked kizwan to make a bios for w860cu so i gave him the w870 mysin bios together with the clevo w860cu 0.18 bios and now he made something with ALOT advanced chipset settings.

LINK: Clevo W860CU W86CU_BIOS18 MOD.rar
I used ec 0.10

Note: BECAREFULL "Please make sure your notebook can recover corrupted BIOS with CRISIS disk before flashing BIOS with this modified BIOS image. I will not responsible for any problem. Good luck" (thats kizwan his text )

 

Are you using it?

 

Yep, right now
It contains prettymuch settings for everyting on the motherboard I gues.

I can even set the memory from auto to 800/1066/1333/1600 (mine runs stock at 1333) and im not sure if my ram would surivive 1600 but i want to try lol (setting it to 1600 doesnt work it will go to 1333 )

Right now I have disabled hyper threading.

Ill make a photo tomorrow.

 

What other features are enabled?

Fan control?

 

Yes, but im not sure if editing the value's really works
Cant say that it got quieter after increasing the fan temps...
Ill tell you more / show more tomorrow

Ive also updated my EC to 0.11 and its still working

 

Our chipset is capped at 1333Mhz afiak. Maybe the newer ones can got to 1600Mhz?

 

I had that problem. Had Hotkeys installed and everything else was fine.

I somehow fixed it when I did a clean install of a different NVIDIA driver, and that enabled me to change the brightness. From then on, it was smooth sailing with the newer drivers. Must've triggered something then

 

Strangely enough, it was the hotkey software. Odd, because volume control, mute, disabling the keypad, etc.. all worked, except for the brightness. Installing the hotkey software not only enabled the brightness hotkeys, but also the brightness controls in Windows.

Thanks!

 

Looking forward to more information!

It is my experience that the fans kick in when the CPU reaches about 50 degrees and runs for some times. WHen idleing my cpu fan stopped and didn't start agin untill it hit these temperatures atleast.

Perhaps you could try setting the threshold closer to 60 degrees to see if editing the values work?

EDIT: For my 285m I found this value to be 48 degrees. The GPU-fan is disabled at 38 degrees

I'm very psyched about this, but I want some more testimonials before I go ahead and do the same

 

You can set the temperature from 30 (or even lower) to 97 i did set it to 63 but i cant say that it sounds different because mine is still spinning even at 39c. (perhaps this doesnt work because there are some other options involved in this temperature)

About the GPU fan, this is a separate setting in the VBios wich you can alter in ati RBE (for ati cards)

 

I see. Any chance of getting some pictures of the bios?

Also, does disabling HT lower CPU temps?

 

Only by a few degrees, if at all. Did some tests a while ago.