*** Official Clevo P151EM1 / Sager NP9130 Owner's Lounge ***

Given the price of SSDs getting a full 128GB SSD and using it for OS and primary applications gives the highest benefit to most people. 256GB if you can manage it.

 

Hello another first post here. I have a NP9130 bought 2 years ago from xoticpc, it has Nvidia 670MX inside with the upgraded heatsink. I was wondering, now that so much time has passed over it, whether the gpu can be changed to a newer Nvidia models. Would the heatsink be able to disperse the heat of the new gpu and if the upgrade is possible, will the cpu (i7-3630QM @2.40GHz boosted to 3.15 with turbo) will bottleneck the system. It also has 16gb of ddr3 installed as RAM

 

I believe an upgrade is possible, yes. As for your CPU: no, it should not be a bottleneck to something newer as long as you're only running a single card.

 

Welcome to NBR and congrats on your first post.
The NP9130 doesnt officailly support upgrading the GPU unfortunately. At that time the NP9150 model at that time did. You may be able to do so, but would have to get a custom BIOS and vBIOS in there.

 

Where did the delete function go?

 

It was rescinded just to mess with you, Hutsady (this would be funnier if it were April Fool's Day).

Or maybe it's here...

 

That was the perfect link, thanks!

 

I am a longtime owner of the np9130 for going on three years now and I've finally decided to upgrade to an ssd.

Being that I already have the hybrid drive originally shipped with the unit and an open sata ii port by way of the optical drive bay - I was hoping, at the very least, to mirror the drives for redundancy or, at best, marginally increase performance with a RAID 1 setup. Is this possible or advisable given the use of two different ports (ssd on sata iii, hybrid on sata ii)? Are there any other/better options so this old hybrid drive doesn't go to waste?

Happy Easter and thanks for the help!

 

You can't raid a HDD and an SSD together (you can technically but it's a bad idea). Otherwise you could put two HDDs together in raid 1, the bus will limit the burst speed a little.

The issue is mostly an SSD on SATA III and II as the SATA II bus limits them quite often.

 

@tshirtvictim
Aye, better to not RAID an SSD with that hybrid drive. Your better avenue would be to use the hybrid drive as a secondary/data drive, and use the SSD for primary storage (OS and programs).

Hopefully you had a good Easter weekend!

 

It was egg-cellent, thank you!

As per the ssd/hybrid - that makes sense. I'll just establish it as a General storage drive and backup externally unless there's a big advantage to having the second hd back up in the laptop itself

 

Backups are best done externally anyway so that seems good to me.

 

Depending on how important your data is, having two in RAID 1 could be nice just in case one fails.

 

That was my initial thought but I am getting the impression raiding from the sata iii ssd to the sata ii hybrid would reduce my overall speed? If not, this will be precisely what I do. By the way, I remember you helping me when I purchased this laptop hutsady! Nice hearing from you again.

 

It really wont reduce your speeds if they are both HDD because SATA II is still faster then your HDD's can transfer anyway. You'll always be limited to the lowest common denominator.

That's awesome I helped you out with it originally, always here to help out

 

If you have an external backup in the form of an image you can just re image the drive. Raid 1 would only protect against a drive failure (internally), not system damage (both are likely to be damaged at the same time) or theft/loss while costing quite a bit.

 

Bought the gear and got all installed. Thanks much!

 

I have a XMG P502 Pro which is in fact a Clevo P151EM1. Yesterday i took my power cord out and the notebook went dead even though the accu was full.

After checking everything i found on the net, including accu in out, power cable in out, take out every parts from cpu, gpu, hdd till ram... it didnt start. It seems to have a shortcut since the power module is blinking.

I now went to a repair man and he says the mainboard must be it. I thought so too.

Now the problem is that i dont know where to get such a mainboard. The notebook is already relatively old now so i doubt they will still create these boards. And ebay is empty with boards. Only full notebooks and im surprised they still go for 500-600€ in used condition. I didnt want to buy another one.

Anyone knows where to get a mainboard from?

Thanks!

 

You can use a p150em motherboard too, it might help expand your options.

 

Thanks thats good to know.

Know you a source maybe?

 

Nothing special source wise.

 

Is there a difference in motherboards? I heard one can take higher TDP GPUs.

 

The 150 series are officially rated for more than the 151 series but the components are the same.

 

Hello everybody!

I've had my laptop for a good few years now and as technology has advanced so drastically in this short space of time, I find that my ageing system is struggling or outright unable to run recent video game titles. As you all know, this is poo.

So, I've hunted the internet for a little while now to see if there's anything I can do (hardware upgrades and the like) to breathe some new life in to my system for cheaper than purchasing a shiny new one. In my travels I came across the news that one of the updates made to the BIOS for the Clevo P151EM1 allows the board to utilise the GTX 680M (I currently have a 660M installed). So, I updated my BIOS to Prema's version of the latest release. All is well.

I guess firstly I wanted to check I'm not being silly and this is actually something that can be done on the P151EM1 board (I've seen talk of it being possible using the P150 board but information seems scarce for the P151EM1. I've read I'll need a more powerful, 180W power supply.. Is this likely to ruin a P151EM1 board?) Has anybody actually successfully completed this upgrade before?

Secondly, if it is possible after all, does anybody know of a place that they can point me so that I can actually purchase an nVidia GeForce GTX680M 4GB GDDR5 card? I'm struggling to find one, though I'm not sure if this is because they're just not about anymore..

Everybody's replies are greatly appreciated, thank you.

EDIT: Also, if there are any other better, more recent GPUs that the board can take with the most recent BIOS revision, if you could name a few that'd be fab. Thanks again.

 

Yes, luckily for you prema has updated the EM series to support the GTX970M/GTX980M.

You will need to get a 180W brick and to be aware that while your board is the same as a 150 series board it is technically not rated for 100W GPUs (not tested to that standard).

The 970M is an excellent value upgrade and you can get it with the right heatsink to make it plug and play. Get Prema's bios from premamod.com and throw in some beer money if you can

 

Thanks for your speedy reply Meaker, that's banging news!

I don't suppose you've any idea how/where I could find the card with the heatsink, would you? (Don't suppose your company is a reseller for this?)

I'll keep in mind that I do this at risk to my board, but it's a new board anyway (had to have it replaced recently) so I'm not too worried.

I think I've already updated the BIOS to Prema's most recent so ready to go there.. would it be worth downloading and implementing the VBIOS when I get the new card, too?

I'll definitely make sure to support Prema when I get it all working. Oooooohhh, I'm getting all giddy and excited!

EDIT: Okay so I found somewhere that sells the GTX 970M 6GB and the Heatsink together, but I can't find my model (P151EM) in the list. The closest one I can see is P1510SM-A. I assume this won't fit? Thanks.

 

Yes it's the sm model you would need, the heatsink fits.

 

Wonderful, thanks a bunch Meaker! I'll report back when I've got everything I need (next month I expect) and let you all know how it goes

 

Please do, good luck with it

 

Hey guys,

I bought this laptop 2 1/2 years ago. It's an amazing laptop. It has the GTX 970m in it and I'd like to upgrade it to the latest GPU..Is that possible on this type of laptop?

Thanks!

 

Yes it is with prema's bios (I think you mean 670M? for your current card). You need a 180W brick and the caveat that the components may not be tested for 100W GPUs.

 

Thank you, Meaker. I guess it's just best to buy a new laptop altogether.

 

Depends on the cost and what features you get with a new machine, but you do get the warranty support.

 

Does the NP 9130 support/have UEFI, to take advantage of quick boot up times with an ssd?

 

I know the NP9150 can so I think so, double check by browsing the bios settings and looking at the boot options.

 

the option isn't there, but I was just wondering if maybe updating the bios would make it an available option. I'm currently on the original bios from 2012 when I bought the laptop.

 

Has anyone tried a P150EM keyboard? The connectors for both and the motherboard appears the same even. I figured getting one with the modified bios would work but I could be wrong of course

 

They are basically the same hardware, but the upper casing is a little different I think.

 

Any problems for upgrading to Windows 10 from Win 7?

 

I would suggest taking a backup image before trying it and then give it a go That way you can just re-image it back if you run into anything.

 

It should go pretty smooth (for the most part for everyone). If it was me i would make sure to backup everything and also possibly download the drivers for windows 10 off and put on a USB drive just in case

 

Where would I find the drivers for Windows 10?
At the Sager webpage there are only drivers for Windows 7 and 8...

 

Use the 8.1 drivers and if you have issues go to the device manufacturer (especially for the GPU and chipset drivers).

 

Does anyone here know how thick the thermal pads are for the 7970m?

I have a P151em NB and would like to put new ones on my GPU's vRAM and vrm's.
Does this even make sense or should the stock ones still be sufficient?

 

I know this is an old thread but is there any way to get an official copy of the Prema custom bios for this system? I realize Prema pulled down the site he used to host due to infringement, however I am hoping he may make an exception for a system this old?

 

I don't think Prema will just make old Mods publicly available again while leaving newer ones private.
However, you can still contact him with a pm and hope for the best

 

We have GTX1060 and 1070 working in P150EM. We will test next week P151EM and verify if they work in P151EM too. P151EM has TDP limit for GPU so we may not get 1070 working there. So stay tunned.

 

@Prema I am brand new here and can't PM, only trying to find out how I can gain access and install PremaMod Bios onto my NP9130. Is that still an option?

 

I'd say your best bet is to gather enaugh "points" and then directly contact Prema through a PM.

Gathering points is done by trying to help others

 

We provide complete package with our GPU upgrade kit consisting of GPU with proper VBIOS + X bracket with screws + thermal pads + ICD7 + proper BIOS. Modded VGA heatsinks are available too as some GPUs such as GTX 1070 require modded heatsink.