*** Official Clevo x7200 and Sager NP7280 owners lounge ***

In regards to the new Intel RST 11.5 driver, I myself keep waiting until they update the main driver (the one found in the x7200 driver page in my sig). If you look at the desktop board "supported products", those don't seem to be one of the x7200 components. I'm too chicken to try it out, as I don't want to restore a system that has been stable for almost 30 months.

However, there are others a lot more adventuresome than me. In this thread - http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...ge/679501-rst-11-5-whql-released-finally.html - all but one has had success w/ the new drivers.

In regards to Myth's info, there was another post that mentioned this quite some time ago. I took Myth's post as confirmation, but nothing I've seen is concrete (directly from Intel), but perhaps that has something to do w/ the BIOS update and all. See my post in that 11.5 thread regarding this.

HTH

 

I donno, I would like to see something concrete saying there is no TRIM over raid unless the BIOS part is updated also. Not saying Myth is wrong, but he got his info from somewhere...

I also am not going to be updating to that driver for the exact same reason, I see no X7200 components listed.

Granted if there IS TRIM over raid, honestly, I am not about to go and do a raid0 with SSD's, and a Raid1 mirror, while nice is a bit on the spendy side.

Although I read a paper yesterday about INtel SSD's reliability and was impressed. I have debated going to the Seagate XT 750GB Hybreds in raid1 though.

Regarding Win8, I donno, that metra is just...UG.

 

I've been a software professional for well over 20 yrs. This has got to be one of the next biggest blunders next to MS Bob!

You should see the next set of Dev Tools MS is planning to release. Egads!!

I'm not sure why they just don't get it. This is a COMPUTER not a PHONE. The interface on my computer SHOULD be different than the interface on my phone. Just as the interface to my calculator is different than the interface on a phone than is different than an interface on my GPS device. I don't need nor do I want a "touch screen" interface on my computer. My keyboard and mouse get messy enough the way it is. None of this makes any sense to me.

What's even funnier yet is there are others who must agree with me. Otherwise things like - Start8 for Windows® 8 - Bringing back the Windows Start menu wouldn't even exist. Sheesh!

 

Does a post from the intel forums work? - RAID0 TRIM?

 

Bah.......I was holding out hope. Realistically though, goind Raid1 or 0 for that matter w/SSD would be a expensive proposition. I am not sure I could attempt to justify it.

Thanks

 

Well go figure....all these iterations of raid tests and such, the only disk I dident have in raid mirror, C: crapped out, the ssd Sigh, so now I have a Seagate XT in there (restored the image I had) and am debating, raid1 mirror of them or risk aneother single SSD.....

 

It was the Corsair that died? That uses a SandForce controller, correct?

 

Yup and Yup. I am debating if I wanna go back to a SSD as boot drive or put 2 XT 500GB's in there as a raid1 mirror and boot off them.

What REALLY sucked was it happened while I was working........

No warning no errors , just died....I tried restoring my morning image to the drive, no go, it was totally dead. BIOS dident even see it anymore.

 

I've heard a lot of bad things regarding SandForce based SSDs. Most users on the SSD forum recommend Crucial, Samsung, and non-SandForce intel for that very reason.

Hope you get the system back up soon.

 

Oh, had it up within the hr. I am a backup-retentive (mass images etc..) its running on a XT 500GB now as the boot drive. What I am debating is wether I want to go aneother SSD as boot or use 2X 500GB XT's hybeds in raid1 mirror as boot drive now and just deal with the slower boot tradeoff for the uptime reliability of mirror

 

Well, decided NOT to put in aneother SSD. While I liked the faster boot time, and what happened probaby wont happen again, not gonna risk it. I am goimg to go with Seagate XT 500GB Hybred X2 in a raid1 mirror.

My other option was a raid1 mirror w/ssd'd but I just cant justify that cost.

 

Should be fine. FWIW, my config (SSD - os / XTs data) has served me well - coming up on almost 24 months.

 

Yea I keep telling myself it was a freak death of the SSD so.....

 

680M works on this machine using an INF mod on the drivers. Just in case you guys didn't see that thread.

 

Not that I plan on doing this, but it has been reported SLI for the 680m as it is unknown if previous nVidia heatsinks will cover all of the the 680m vitals for an SLI configuration.

 

Hello all,

I would like to swap out the i7 990x cpu for a Xeon W3680 (it looks like some other people are here on the forums using the Xeon W3680). The problem is will the BIOS support ECC ram? I only want to get the Xeon for the ECC ram support, but I've read the BIOS must support it too. Thanks for any info!

 

Could you explain what you mean by that?

I recently picked up a pair of GTX 680M's for my X7200, and after installing them and getting the drivers to work, I can't seem to enable SLI. Both cards are working fine, everything can detect them both, but there is no option for SLI in the nVidia control panel. It's just using one GPU as a dedicated physx card.

Any one have any idea what might be wrong?? If I can provide any info to help, let me know.

 

Sure. If you search the forums you'll find a post where someone tried to upgrade their existing 580ms w/ a pair of 680ms. The heat sink for the 580m SLIs wouldn't quite fit over all of the components of the 680m.

Perhaps resellers now have properly fashioned heat sinks for the x7200. I don't know. Mostly my post was raising awareness regarding the heat sink issue.

Could your problem be BIOS related? My x7200 shows the 460m in one slot and the other as empty. Is there a BIOS entry to enable SLI? There is on my desktop, but don't see anything related to SLI on the x7200, but I wonder if that is just hidden as I only have one GPU.

 

May I ask if anyone is aware of where the wireless card is located? I am considering removing my 6300 for the stock in the X7200 so the 6300 can be freed up for a more mobile notebook I have laying around.

I have no idea where the card is located though on my NP7280.

 

gizmo,

It is under the keyboard.

Paraphrasing from the x7200 Service Guide:

+ Turn off computer, unhook any AC power, and remove the battery. Hold down the power button afterwards to discharge the unit completely.

+ Next Remove the bottom 3 screws (which are holding in the LED "touch panel")

+ Flip computer and carefully unsnap the LED touch panel from the unit.

+ Remove screws and "tabs" to remove the keyboard - Note, do not lift out until you gently have lifted underneath, and "flipped" the locking bar for the keyboard ribbon cable, and removed that. Then you can remove the KB.

+ Unscrew screws and slide out the metal keyboard shield plate.

+ Wireless LAN on "bottom left" as you would look at the unit normally.

Wireless LAN has a cable which should be removed first and then you can unscrew the card from the module socket.

HTH

 

Thanks jclausius...one other question for anyone out there that may know. If I have an x7200, 950 CPU, and 560M SLI, will I need two PSUs bridged, or will one do the trick?

 

FYI Vmware Workstation9 is out. seems snappier to me. Picked up yesterday and running all my VM's in it.

On a seperate note, has anyone looked at storeage spaces in win8 as a Intel RST Raid1 replacement, looks interesting.

 

Depends on what kind of OC'ing you're planning. If you'll be running @ stock speeds, you shouldn't need it. If you push the power draw of both GPUs as well as your i7 950, then you might want to look at getting the second adapter.

 

Up for sale the bridge and PSU go then!

 

My 7280 keeps crashing periodically. Sometimes it will give me the blue dump screen and other times it just shuts down. I spend the next 6 -7 attempts trying to log back in at the password screen while it continues to shut down before Windows completely loads. I haven't upgraded any hardware since the original purchase in Dec 2010. Any suggestions? Let me know what other info is needed to help me troubleshoot. Can't afford to buy a new laptop...don't need that wife aggro at the moment!!

 

Are you always on AC power? Is this on battery?

Random shutdowns are sometimes caused by heat, but I don't think I've ever seen heat issue cause a BSOD. Is it possible you have an overheating CPU/GPU?

 

I have it on AC power full time on my glass desk with an additional monitor hookup.

 

This may be a waste of time, but if you monitor your CPU/GPU temps, are they both staying under 95C-100C range?

Another idea... Have you tried to run memtest for an extended period of time to check the memory?

 

No I haven't. Is there an app for monitoring CPU/GPU temps? I'll try to download a memtest program but I fear it will shutdown during the process.

 

I'm sure others may want to give you their suggestions, but for for monitoring, I use HWMonitor and HWInfo64

 

jclausius,

Thanks for all the feedback. Haven't really worried about the "was" intermittent issues because of work and school. Now I have more time to play around and it seems it has gotten worse. Thought I would try a new game (Guild Wars2) to past the time (after a near 2yr absence from WoW) but it crashes after 5 mins of gameplay or watching videos online. I'll check out our recommendations and keep you posted.

 

MemTest is a no go...shuts down by Test #3, 1% Pass. As for the other tests, not really sure what I was looking at but the summary showed the following:

VALUE MIN MAX
CLEVO CO. X7200
Temperatures 91 C 90 C 93 C

Intel Core i7 950
Temperatures
CORE 0 92 C 91 C 93 C
CORE 1 93 C 93 C 93 C
CORE 2 90 C 90 C 94 C
CORE 3 92 C 91 C 95 C

Those numbers were after the system shutdown while playing GW2 for maybe 10 minutes. The value temperature numbers flirted with 97, 100, 97, and 98 respectively while making the ISO disc for memtest86 which I previously mentioned would not complete without shutting down. Any other suggestions for testing the memory?

 

Finally found the time to start part swapping....I have successfully moved the Intel 6300 from my NP7280 to my NP8130 without a hiccup.

Moving the 6230 to the NP7280 is giving me trouble though...the wireless works fine (have not tested Bluetooth), but only after I turned it on via the LED strip with speaker, bluetooth, camera, and wireless controls. Once I press that to activate it, all is well.


Any ideas what could be causing this? Intending to sell the NP7280 once my replacement processor arrives, but would prefer to have everything in tip top shape before shipping.

 

Temps are kinda high (for me, idle temps ~50s. load temps ~Low 80s at 21C or 72F room temp). What are your motherboard temps? Not sure what the threshold is for a system shutdown, but you may be getting there if you're pushing well past 100 to 110C.

You could try taking off the CPU/GPU heatsinks, and repasting to see if you can get your temps down. Don't know if that is the problem or not.

However, if you think it is memory related, you could also try pulling out your 3 memory chips and testing the system w/ 2GB for each chip to see if a particular memory chips is at fault.

 

Hi jclausius,

I'll have to try and run that test again and see. I can get an initial idle temp from first startup before I try anything that may seen intensive. I have never really done anything extensive on a laptop other than changing RAM, but I have taken the X7200 apart according to the owner's manual. Is the repasting of the heatsink difficult? I don't want to permanently ruin it. I do not think it is a RAM issue but I cannot completely rule it out and will try anything to solve the issue.

 

Here are some pics of my system temps after the initial login, idling for 5 mins, and then gaming for 10 mins on Guild Wars2. Note, I only walked around town talking to merchants and zoned in and out of a quest area once. Just wanted to show the progression of temp increase from login to minimum gaming activity...not too extreme.

login idle


5 minutes of idling


10 minutes of gaming

 

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Anyone having a 680M running in the X7200 here yet?

 

The P270WM moniker has been replaced as the "P570WM" Rumor is two months or so for release.

More info on the rumor here:

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/images/pcspecialist_attachments_5hg7dd/P570WM1.jpg

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/images/pcspecialist_attachments_5hg7dd/P570WM2.jpg

http://forum.notebookreview.com/wha...y-no-i7-3930k-gtx680m-laptop.html#post8810475

 

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Can anyone recommend a reliable thermal paste, compound, grease? Any tips before I attempt to apply this paste to my CPU heatsink?

 

I've used Arctic Silver 5, and while you need to be a bit careful on overuse (as it is conductive), it has worked just fine. Other popular options seems to be Innovation Cooling's Diamond 7 or Prolimatech PK-2 or PK-3.

 

Ok, I'll have to order it online cuz BestBuy only has the Dynex brand available in store. Finally got the MemTest to complete and now errors were found, so I will move forward with troubleshooting the CPU.

 

Does the X7200 have CPU overclocking available in the bios with the i7 980x? Any bios overclocking options?

 

I own a originpc eon17 (clevo x7200) with 460m SLI. Is it possible to upgrade to 680m SLI? If yes, is there a guide available. Do I need to change heatsink (some mentioned some incompatibility with previous heatsinks)?
Links to other GPU upgrade guides(threads) for clevox7200 are also very appreciated.
Thanks!

 

Unfortunately, Clevo expects you to do this with Intel XTU, so BIOS options are limited.

Note, you may find an "unlocked" BIOS from Prema, but again, what is available for tuning is still lacking.

HTH

 

Jclausius,

I see you have exactly my same configuration...Clevo x7200 | intel i7 - 970 Hexcore 12MB L3 Cache, @ 3.20GHz (stock) | 12 GB Corsair RAM DDR3 SDRAM @ 1333MHz | nVidia GTX 460M GPU with 1.5GB GDDR5 | Crucial C300 256 GB SSD system disk | 500 GB (2 x RAID-1) Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid data disk. (Except mine is from originpc and I have SLI).

I see also you are around this forum much longer than me...do you know if we can upgrade our laptop to 680m SLI?
Thanks and sorry to ask direct question...but again, we have exactly the same laptop and you are around longer.

 

It has been reported the 680m works with some "modified" drivers. Dunno about two of them in SLI. See - http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...ger-np7280-owners-lounge-612.html#post8766883

May want to check with OriginPC, Sager, Mythlogic or other builders.

 

Any one got there 680m sli to work in the x7200?

I got the eurocom version of the same computer (panther 2.0)
with 480m sli. I really want to upgrade to 680m sli.

 

DelRax,

Have you managed to get 680m SLI working on the x7200? From which GPU did you start the upgrade? Any problem with heat-sink? Drivers? firmware? Can you please post some more information? Many here are trying to understand if this is possible and you seem to have done already a lot of progresses.

Thanks,