*** Official Clevo W230ST/Sager NP7330 Owner's Lounge ***

Response from another thread:

Understandable.. I hope it's soon though!

 

Rumor was that the new W230SS model would be out at the end of February.

Today being the 1st March I've been refreshing the Sager/XoticPC sites every 30 minutes, lol, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen today

Maybe Monday?

 

It's the weekend, XoticPC doesn't have office hours.

 

I can't for the life of me again, after reinstalling windows 8.1 get the geforce card to get detected in windows and drivers for it to install... Its driving me crazy.. Any suggestions? I am using the latest bios by prema on it.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

Best way to get the announcement is like us on Facebook. Once they're available we'll be blasting out an announcement on it.

 

try to install, then reboot and try again immediately.
if your bios and driver download are ok, it should go well.
at worst, try that with official clevo drivers before trying nvidia ones.

 

If you are by any chance using the Win 8.1 update 1 beta...well that has a bug with this system regarding the GPU...
Did you already update to v2 of my Mod? It's based on a newer BIOS...

 

Done. Cheers.

 

I am using v2 of your bios mod. So I figured it out how to get it back. I have to shut it completely off and turn it back on, resetting it will not bring the card back.

Also this seems to get some sort of bsod after putting drivers on it that have to do with display directx drivers (watchdog.sys is the cause of the bsod)

Anyways I think I got it figured out now after fighting with it for a day. I hope I don't get any more bsods after putting drivers back on it.

IDK what is up with windows 8.1 and this laptop but whenever I install a new driver it BSOD's and then loses the nvidia card (it did this on the first drivers after the intel and nvidia card were added by windows update) and the only way to get the card back is by coldbooting the laptop. but when its back I cant install any drivers because it BSOD's on them while installing them. I dont know what I am doing wrong on fresh install of windows 8.1 Pro 64.

 

I fixed this by formating and installing my own drivers and never touching windows drivers from windows update, this was caused by Microsoft's nvidia driver... All is well now.. Such a crazy mess...

 

Does anyone know if this works with all the function keys? Coming from 7 years with Dell laptops, I'd really like to put Brightness Up and Down on the Up and Down keys instead of F8 and F9 where they belong.

I know that Fn keys are harder to remap than other keys because they have to tie into the BIOS but if I could find a Windows utility (or a Linux one; hell, I'd switch to Linux for everything but gaming just to do this) that can handle Fn key remapping that would be incredible. Let me know if anyone knows of one.

 

I don't think you can use Fn keys with 3rd-party utilities, but you could just use the Ctrl key instead.

 

.
no sign of the W230SS at Sager or XoticPC yet

 

Not sure where you saw Feb or who said it, but it wasnt right
All I can say for sure is as soon as we're allowed to post things we will.

 

I heard there is going to be an influx of Clevo laptops mid March and someone "guessed" it would come with that batch... holding out for Mid March now

 

whoa.. I didn't know you could get a multicolor keyboard backlight... hopefully that comes as an option on the W230SS

 

[HARDWARE MOD] Change W230ST Keyboard BacklightColor

 

I think it was somewhere on these forums.. or maybe whoever it was was talking about the 800M release, not the W230SS (or is it the 800M official release determining the W230SS release?). The withdrawal of the W230ST was a big part of that too.

 

HAH.. that's creative. So simple, so effective.

 

Usually people want a particular colour so yeah, sorts them out for that. All the systems are going to rely on Nvidia NDAs etc.

 

I've had mine for 3+ weeks now - so far so good, happy with it! My 2 cents (complaints, pointers) below...

CPU/GPU tweaks:

GPU: Stable +100 MHz core, +400 MHz memory. More (+120/+600) was stable in benchmarks, but resulted in driver failures under load in games such as Far Cry 3 and Fallout New Vegas (GPU resetting to low clocks in-game and requiring a system reboot to go back to normal).

CPU: Cores undervolted at -80 mV (-100 mV slightly unstable), core and cache multipliers all down by 2x. Nice lower temps (5-10 C) under load.

Power management:

I actually ditched Clevo Control Center. Win 8.1 power management works fine and there's no difference in benchmark or game performance between High Performance and Balanced (I did tweak Balanced a bit when it comes to timers etc., but nothing substantial).

I had a serious issue with the laptop not going to sleep or turning off properly (woke up instantly). Did a clean Windows install - no problems since then. I still haven't determined the cause.

Screen:

Backlight bleed is tolerable, but annoying nonetheless ( PHOTO).

The bezel is not very well fitted ( PHOTO), fortunately you can't see the resulting light leak at normal viewing angles.

Build quality:

The shiny plastic used for most of the casing is not the best choice - I have a ThinkPad at home to compare to and Clevo is definitely lower grade. Also, the palmrest vibrates slightly when the HDD spins (got both a system SSD and a storage HDD installed) - has anyone tried (and managed) to fix this?

Also, while the keyboard is very nice, the touchpad kind of sucks - it's definitely not responsive enough.

 

yeah but this looks like it came stock with the laptop since they are showing it off.. lol

 

Here maybe:
http://s472165864.onlinehome.fr/support/pdf/Specifications/2013WW43 Clevo Roadmap.pdf

 

there it is. thanks.

 

Unfortunately this doesn't work for Fn keys md5hash. Apologies for any confusion.

 

I see, they must have pushed things back a bit since their original plans in Oct.

 

They're trolling us!

 

Question - with the withdrawal of the W230ST from XoticPC and Sager, is that because the existing stock is being physically upgraded to W230SS, or will the W230SS be a newly manufactured unit?

 

It is a NEW unit with a lot of similarity to the W230ST...if it was just an upgrade then Clevo would have kept the W230ST model name...

 

Ok good to know, thank you :thumbsup:

 

Hmm, might have to drop a PM to Larry soon...

These models.. drool..

 

Are you guys allowed to say what's changed beside screen & gpu ?

 

A user manual was posted up, you could try reading through that.

 

Thread regarding the W230SS drivers and manual here for reference.

 

I didn't go through the user manual, but from the thread posted above it'd seem only the gpu and lcd are upgraded, so that I don't understand how much of a new model this is.
The model name is not much different either... According to mysn the speakers and battery life are the same.
So..... Are you just trying to boost sales, or is there really an important design change ?
The only hope I have is better thermals from a reduced gpu power draw... I assume perfs should not change much, and I don't think the build quality will be improved unfortunately.

 

Hmm, speaking of thermals, I should probably do a repaste soon. Anyone know if there's an expiration date on IC Diamond 7 paste? I havent used it in at least 1.5 yrs, but it's been stored in a box vertically with the nozzle pointed down. Should I just squeeze out the first few blobs onto a napkin before use?

 

Hey guys!

So long story short - I decided to go for the w230st as it ticks all my boxes. I have only one major concern: heat. Hence my 2 question for people, who already own this lappy:

1) Considering I'll have the configuration with i7-4700mq, is it possible for this laptop to last at least 2 to 3 years with arctic paste and a cooling pad? Just how bad the heat actually is? Note: I'm note a hardcore gamer, this machine will be more for uni purposes + some casual skyrim, fifa, diablo etc

2) Since, as I mentioned, I'm not a hardcore gamer, I do not play CPU-intensive Battlefield and I do not do anything CPU intensive generally (eg rendering, photoshop), do you think I would be better off downgrading the CPU to i5-4200m? I'm mostly interested ofc how it'll improve (if at all) the temps

Cheers!

 

If you haven't gotten it already, wait for the W230SS to be released.

 

Hmm when will the w230ss be released? I kinda need the laptop urgently unfortunately, my old one broke down :/

 

It should be very soon! Retailers have started taking down the W230ST from their sites. Unfortunately they can't say exactly when it'll be out. I think they have an NDA with Nvidia.

 

Will there be any massive improvements other than the rumoured 4k screen (which I'm not so bothered about anyway, full hd is already plenty for a 13.3 laptop). Daaamn, it's so hard to decide I might as well pull out from the small factor and go for some bigger clevo like p150sm, but with i5 CPU then...

 

The gpu is being changed too.

 

I'll think about it then. To sum up though, would i5-4200m be noticeably cooler than i7-4700mq and hence will have potentially longer lifespan?

 

The i7 is a nice performnce boost, but only for really intensive CPU tasks. HTWingnut posted a thread on this debate here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo-reviews-owners-lounges/735721-dual-core-haswell-i5-4200m-review-using-sager-np7330-clevo-w230st.html

Pretty much, it will have no impact on gaming or on everyday tasks, but if you're going to do something really CPU heavy, like programming and compiling or digital design, then the i7 is going to have a nice oomph to go with it. It does get hotter, so most people undervolt it.

 

Some games will benefit, but as for a longer life span, not really.

 

You can thank LPC-Digital too for providing the CPU.

 

Some more info on the W230SS posted on Clevo site that I had not seen before (thanks Larry for pointing it out).

Somewhat dubious about the claim of " Battery life : 430 minutes (UMA mode with 62.16WH battery)" ..that's over 7 hours!

Displays:
13.3” (33.78cm) QHD+ (3200x1800) 16:9 panel, 2.6mm ~ 2.8mm
13.3” (33.78cm) WQHD (2560x1440) 16:9 panel, 2.6mm ~ 2.8mm
13.3” (33.78cm) FHD (1920x1080) 16:9 panel, 2.6mm ~ 2.8mm

Can't be far away now... I hope.

" Plenty way for game on." teehee :thumbsup: Clevo - all your base, yo..

 

Maybe I miss something but I can't see any more info than what was already posted here 3 weeks ago : http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/745312-w230ss-drivers-manual-loaded-clevo-website.html
.. where it might be better to keep the discussion on that "new model" until it's out at least, thanks. Just wait 2 weeks, buy it, wait another 2 weeks and then come back to tell us if you think anything is improved except the screen and power draw.

 

They need to add a smiley for flipping the bird..

 

Let me help :

View attachment 109619

Just sick of seeing excitement around nothing, but I will just unsubscribe the thread, no worries.