*** Official Clevo P150EM / Sager NP9150 Owner's Lounge ***

Are there relatively cheap ones that work well? Also, how does a DAC work? Would I need an external speaker or something like that? Also, I heard the asus xonar u3 works well too? I'm stuck lol if someone can give me pointers on a compact sound card or DAC that works well and is cheap I'd appreciate it thanks!

 

I was looking into such a thing before, and ive found a few prasing reviews of the Audioengine D1 DAC. It being relatively cheap and having pretty good performance.
You can read more on the review here:
Audioengine D1 DAC/ Headphone Amp (Playback 54) | AVguide

 

You will be able to upgrade to 37xx, 38xx, and 39xx for sure. Haswell will probably use different socket.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

Sandy Bridge are also compatible.

 

Ok that's good. I doubt I'll need to upgrade soon though, I am sure the 3610 will last a while because in the end it is the GPU that really bottlenecks graphical intensive programs and I ordered my Sager with the 680m so I should be good for quite some time Thank you for your help.

 

Hello. I recently received my XMG P502 (Clevo P150e) from Mysn.de (Beautiful machine and excellent service), and I just some questions I have been unable to find answers to anywhere, and I hope you guys can help.

The keys of the stock keyboard somehow feels more or less 'off' when typing. Some of them require a quite firm and centered press to register, and I often miss keys. I was wondering if I'm imagining things or if there is something wrong with the keyboard, and if there is some way to fix this?

Also, the power brick emits a very high-pitched squealing sound when plugged in while the computer is off or sleeping. Again is this normal and is there any way to fix it?

I'd really appreciate some input on this, and hopefully I won't have to send my newfound love all the way back to Germany for service.

 

I have the same issue some keys of the stock keyboard are very unresponsive I have to type very hard especially on backpace. I am planning to replace it with the msi steelserie keyboard. Can somebody confirm that the msi ss keyboard dont suffer from this issue? Thanks in advance.

 

Funny, had the same problem with the HDD plastic cover as well.. I ripped it out on one side...

I'll try to do something about that CPU heatsink and in the meanwhile be gentle on the CPU, sending it back is a huge hassle for me unfortunately :/ I'll try to drill into it or twist it out somehow.

 

Be careful drilling and don't get any metal dust on the motherboard!

 

Hi everyone. I was going to order a NP9150 with a 7970m but I was reading up and what i read from the forums is that it has a lot of problems. So I was wondering should I go for a 7970m with an 120gb SSD, 750gb hard drive, and a matte screen or should i go with a 680m with a 500gb Seagate XT and a glare screen?

 

I personally went with the 680 after hearing about all the driver issues with the 7970 and such but I would guess that they will eventually be fixed. If you can afford to fork over the money for the 680 I would do that although I would personally get a matte screen with it as well but then again I don't want to tell you how to spend your money.

 

Yea im just over my budget and I wasn't sure if an upgrade to the 680m is worth giving up an ssd. Does anyone know if i should go with the seagate or just a normal hard drive?

 

Maybe just get the hard drive for now and then remove the optical drive later and get an SSD? The SSD will decrease loading times and such but an upgraded GPU means better performance and I think that is worth it.

 

Ok I think i might do that

 

I would get the 680M now and get the SSD later, its much easier to find for purchase and install an SSD then it is a GPU.

 

It's nice to see resellers aren't actually recommending the 7970 anymore.

 

We can't blame them.

 

A DAC is just a digital to analogue converter... you will need either headphones or external speakers to work with it. Most plug into the USB but a few will plug into an optical output.

I've used Creative Labs Soundblaster cards for over 20 years. The USB ones I tried recently didn't dissapoint me at all. The ASUS Zonar U3 sounded pretty good too.

The stock keyboard is not good. The first had a dodgy Tab and caps lock and my current one has a dodgy A key. To get them to activate I have to hammer them which means that I can't touch type and am now awaiting my second replacement keyboard!
I'd advise to call them and request they send you a replacement out. I offered to pay for a new keyboard for them to refund on return of the old... my supplier just sent out a new one so that was cool. I'm awaiting the second now.

No the powerpack should not whine... thats usually the sound of an unhappy capacitor! But just as a thought have you tried plugging the PSU in at a different location to make sure its not a power quality issue?

Nope me either... upsell!!, upsell!!, upsell!! lol!

 

Accidental double-post.

 

I am now the proud owner of a P150EM! Well, at least I will be once it's built and shipped . What an exhausting laptop search spanning over a week of reading dozens of reviews! I really wanted something to replace my aging MacBook Pro but the early 2012 revisions did not have a display upgrade over my current 2008 model besides the high-res upgrade, which at that point it would be worth springing for the Retina MacBook Pro. Though I was not ready to spend $2,200 on a laptop, maybe in a year or so.

Fingers crossed Mac OS runs flawlessly via the hackintosh route! The system could be thinner and feature more metal, but otherwise it'll be everything I wanted in a laptop for the time being once I swap out the stock backlit keyboard for the SteelSeries. Highest quality consumer screen and best performance for the price and 15" size! The 95% color gamut display is what really sold me. It took way too much debating whether to choose glossy or matte; I guess I wanted both the increased contrast but no reflections, which is practically impossible. So to my hesitation I chose a glossy display since I could not give up the richer colors.

Big shout-out and thanks to Eurocom for giving me a great deal! I will be waiting in anticipation for my P150EM! (Wow, I try to never put two sentences ending in exclamation points next to each other for risk of being obnoxious but I had to here hahaha..)

 

The 7970M is quite an underdog GPU. You will be getting a much better value with the 7970M, hands-down. It is superior to the 680M in some benchmarks, they are quite neck-and-neck. The upgrade to the 95% color gamut display is a must if you care about display quality. Go glossy if you value richer colors, but only if you'll use the system in optimally dim lighting conditions.

 

Yeah.. until you face the Enduro problem that is... ups all the value thrown out the window!

 

See i was pretty dead set on getting the 680m but then there are people like you who say the 7970 is as good or even better than the 680m which makes the decision all more harder.

 

7970m is good, but it does have performance issues, not due to its architecture, but due to the Enduro software which is required on the Clevo laptops due to how it is wired. If you were updating an HM model with either 7970m or 680m I'd go with 7970m only because there's not switchable graphics to contend with.

 

Last question IC Diamond Thermal Compound worth it?

 

P150EM Count + 1 Another poor soul joining the list.

3610
670m
No ram, hdd or o.s. (have spares)
HDD Caddy
Glossy stock
Everything else left at stock

If all goes well, I'll get it by the end of next week.

 

It is in the sense that it does help lower temps. But if you are capable of doing it yourself, the $35 is too high. You can get a whole tube for less than $10 and apply yourself. If you aren't familiar with the process, it is easy with online videos. If you are too afraid, then yes it is worth it.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

Read about the issues with the 7970 before making any decisions.

 

New 680m drivers up at Clevo's website: CLEVO --> E-Services --> Download --> P150EM --> VGA

BAM!

 

I did go with the 670M since that's all the power I'll be needing for at least a year.. it may even be overkill but I do enjoy maxing out my games. Assuming nothing better is released that the P150EM can support, the 7970M would be my next upgrade if I ever start seeing games that can't be reasonably maxed on the 670M...

 

Interesting, but there are several games that cannot be maxed out on the 670M oh and the 7970M is facing weird problem (Enduro alert) the 680M is ultimately the beast if you want to max everything in every game out there (well sorta)

 

The 680M is almost double the performance of my 670M, which I can live with for now. Very few, if any, games can't run near max on a 670M comfortably. The 680M is not worth the $500 upgrade now unless you're absolutely needing 60 frames per second and enabling one of the performance-killing subtle settings (i.e. DirectX 11 support in some poorly optimized games). If you are keeping your P150EM for 3-4 years, it makes more sense to upgrade to the 680M when prices drop significantly and you start seeing issues running newer games. Heck, the P150EM may even be able to support a 770/780M when those eventually release or further new NVIDIA/ATI releases.

 

I am feeling some buyer's remorse over my P150EM as it is still in the building phases. It's become more apparent how plain the design is, despite the rubberized coating making it a little more premium than the P151EM, especially in comparison to any of MSI or Asus's laptops. Namely, I am considering the G55VW as the design is a much better aluminum and rubberized combination although I got a better deal on the P9150EM than I can get on the G55VW. Especially considering how the 95% gamut screen upgrade is $125-$165 on the G55VW.

For about the same price:

G55VW - Much better design, more premium look and feel overall. Appears thinner.

P9150EM - 670M vs G55VW's 660M, upgradeability, 95% color gamut display, thinner actual dimensions, SteelSeries keyboard.

The choice should be obvious.. I will be disappointed if the P9150EM's design is more plain in person since the Asus shows much better in pictures and video. In the age of the MacBook Pro, it should be no surprise design is so important haha. For now, I'll continue on with my P9150EM order although I would switch to the G55VW if only I could get the 95% gamut screen for the same price. Then again, NotebookCheck did find the G55VW default display to have a higher contrast ratio than that 95% panel.

Any worthwhile homemade cosmetic modifications? I would be interested in incorporating aluminum somehow, keeping the palm rest rubberized.

 

so how do we overclock our 7970m?

 

MSI Afterburner

 

I was wondering the same thing recently and was linked to this guide.
Just scroll down to the overclocking bit.

 

Hey guys, I'm considering this laptop and would love some input on the speakers (it's the only major downside of this laptop for me)
I've heard that even if you plug in a mic and external speakers through the jacks on the laptop the audio still sounds mediocre.
I've also heard that a solution to this is to buy an external sound card and use its jacks, is this true?
Also if it is, will their be a lag from when sound is transmitted via the laptop, through the USB port to the external sound card, then through its jack to the speakers/headphones?
That is my main concern, that I will be watching movies or videos and their will be a noticeable delay between what is seen on screen and what I hear.
Also do all these fix's still work on the Sager NP9130?
I realize that this is a lot of questions, and I really appreciate any help. Thank you so much!

 

To add to his question- has anyone used the optical digital output to a receiver? If you do that, you bypass the internal soundcard codecs and amplifier alltogether. ANYONE?

 

I haven't tried the optical myself, but I wold expect it o sound fine. It will bypass all the crappy analog bits in the soundcard.

As far as the sound lagging goes, that totally depends on what amp/dac you buy. The ones I own dont seem to have any lag, but I have heard people complain of the issue with different ones. In any case, this has much more to do with the particular product yo buy than the laptop itself.

 

Are their any external sound cards (preferably USB connected) that you would recommend?

 

It sounds fine to me. Signal is timed fine with picture through my amp too.

EDIT
I just realised I've only used it for DVDs and Blue-ray not games so DTS or Dolby Digital track is being drirectly transmited avoiding the soundcard. I'll try a game sometime, but I'm thinking that the sound may be deminished as a game would be processed though the soundcard.

How can a normally reputable sound card be so bad in this notebook. The Realtek one in my ASUS F3Sv sounded a thousand times better and is 5 years older!

 

Is LGD02D9 still the P150EM's 66% gamut matte screen?

 

Check out the Fiio line, also there is the iBasso stuff like the D4/D6/D7. There are quite a few good options out there.

 

can i use a catleap monitor with the 9150? they use dual-dvi

 

From what you guys are saying in all honesty how bad is the keyboard? and if its that bad how could i go about the means of replacing it?

 

Hello all,

I'd like to start off that I've lurked here for many many months and I very much find this an invaluable resource and community when it comes to laptops, from assistance in purchasing, to buyer's tips, pro-reviews and more! A big thank you!!

I do have a question though. I recently bought a P150em from Mythlogic (the Pollux 1612) and I haven't been able to figure out why the FN key is not working as "matching" with the keyboard icons. For example, FN+F3 mutes my PC in practice whereas the keyboard icon displays disabling the trackpad. Another example is FN+Left Arrow should decrease my system volume, instead it merely moves my cursor around (just like the regular arrow key).

Any tips?

I do have the latest driver installed and have already completed a fresh format with OS and then again the latest driver. Is this normal? Is there a "keyboard" mapping based on hotkey?

PS I fetched the driver from the Clevo site which I assume is where Mythologic did as well since the driver files are the same.

Thanks in advance!

 

I've currently only been considering USB connected external sound cards, but are their advantages to using otherwise connected ones? If so which ones?
Thanks

 

I am pretty sure the DVI is only single-link, meaning you would need to use the DisplayPort connection with an adapter that changes it to DualLink DVI.

Sounds like you have the steelseries keyboard. This is not the stock keyboard, and has the wrong icons for our machines. The FN key combos in reality map up with the icons on the stock keyboard, even with your different keyboard.

USB is essentially your best bet. It takes as much outside of the computer as possible. SPDIF is a good choice also.

Its bad enough it bothers me quite a bit. I think I will be going with the steelseries keyboard eventually.

 

That's right I do. Is a mapping available for the original keyboard layout per chance?

Thanks for your help

 

Contact your reseller, as I believe they were working on a remap app.