**Official Sager NP5160 / Clevo W150HNQ Owners' Lounge**

One week till arrival!

 

I haven't seen any :/

It seems that the iGPU is not that new, but mine was outdated anyway. And the Hotkey one I couldn't get to work, it fails during installation.

 

The Hotkey one failed for me as well, but i uninstalled the current one and installed the new one and it worked like a charm.

 

Wow, 50 days. That is ridiculous. Did you get your laptop yet?

I guess I'm alot more impatient than you are. I ordered on May 5 and by May 25 (which was 15 business days, 20 total days) I was ready to cancel my order. I couldn't believe that it would take so long to ship a laptop but then I hadn't been reading these forums and had no idea that others had been waiting alot longer than I had. I had a hard deadline of June 1 to receive my laptop because I needed it for a trip and would need time to prepare it, and so I told xoticpc that they had to get it to me by June 1 or else I would have to cancel the order.

After some haggling back and forth they agreed to ship it on May 26 with 3 day shipping for an extra $8 (half of the $16 that it should have cost to upgrade to 3 day shipping). And oh yeah they threw in a 4 GB flash drive (worth like $3 I'm sure, although they said "$19.99", hah hah). I was still not happy to have to pay extra to have my laptop arrive nearly a month after I ordered it but I went along with this because the alternative - cancelling and then fighting them on the charges that they said they would make me pay that they incurred shipping the laptop from Sager to them - was just not worth it.

Anyway I hope you received your laptop by now. Mine is scheduled to be delivered (has a UPS tracking number and everything) on June 1. I also ordered the 1920x1080 upgraded matte option which was a big part of the delay due to the parts back order. Despite all of that I really thought that 15 business days for a build was excessive and there is no way in the world I would have waited 50 real days for my laptop as you have!!!

 

Just ordered all my parts:

* Clevo w150hnq w/ 1920x1080 screen (Rjtech) - $449
* i7-2720QM (eBay ES) - $180
* 8gb g.skill ram (Newegg) - 79.99
* 500(+4gb NAND) Seagate Momentus XT (Amazon) - 99.99
* Intel 6300 (Amazon) - $41
* Total = $850

Similarly priced computer from a Sager retailer
$1249

The only trade off I see for the $400 price difference is I'll only be getting a one year parts/labour warranty and I'd have to assemble it myself.

When putting together this laptop, how detailed do y'all want me to log it? (pictures, or just a simple "it was 'x' difficulty" ???

 

the more pictures, the better!

 

In regards to details, dont take for granted little things for granted. Every detail makes a difference.

 

I understand that the Sager NP5160's eSATA port does not support port multiplier. Also it does not have an Expresscard but two Minicard slots, one of which is used by the WLAN card, so I cannot slot in an upgrade card. So how do I get my 5160 to work with my 4x2TB HDD DAS array, aside from using USB3.0?

I've googled around and the MPX-3231 looks promising as a Minicard upgrade. Is it possible to fit it in my 5160?

 

Some of those parts may have no warranty at all - I'm thinking of the engineering sample CPU. Of course, I've never had a CPU go bad on me so that's probably not really an issue.

Also you are not getting the 'peace of mind' of knowing that someone is guaranteeing that all of your parts will work and work together. This may or may not be worth anything to you; but there is greater risk of things just not working out well when you buy separate components, especially from eBay. You can decide how much of a risk that is for you vs. the value of saving the money. I have had many experiences in the past where I had just wished I'd paid more up front instead of spending days/weeks/months with the hassle of poor support when something went wrong. Not saying this is going to happen to you, but some of that $400 you saved is exactly that cost.

I would like to know how it worked out. Saving 50% of the cost of the laptop is nothing to sneeze at although I personally would never buy an engineering sample CPU (is it even legal to run it in your laptop? Was the CPU ever 'sold' to whoever is selling it to you or is it still Intel's property? Not sure but very suspicious ...) so that would add $100 - $150 to the cost right there, and then your savings is really only $250 or so. I'd have to think hard about not spending $250 for the extra peace of mind of a better warranty and the guarantee that all of the parts will work and work together with little or no hassle.

But still, let us know how it goes, it will be interesting.

UPDATE:

Check out this web page:

http://www.intel.com/support/processors/sb/CS-030747.htm

The processor you bought is stolen goods. I guess that's one way to save money on a laptop but it's not one that I would use.

 

So I just ordered my NP5160 from XoticPC. Fairly basic build as well:
Stock 1600x900 Matte Screen, i7 2630qm, 4gb ram, 320gb 7200rpm, intel n 2630.
I really don't need it until the fall, when I start my 2nd year of university, but having it during the summer would give me the time to have a little fun.
However, since I just placed the order and it's Memorial Day weekend, I have the weekend to think it over and cancel my order if need be.
Should I hold off for a month or two in case anything changes?

 

It'd only be an issue if he in fact got an ES model, functionally theres no difference between ES and QS and Intel won't be coming after him or anything like that but someone did overstep their bounds by selling an ES if thats in fact what he got.

Theres also something that needs to be taken into account here, not every user actually know theres a difference between ES and QS or that different versions even exist and simply see the cpu model they want, you can't really consider all of these people as being deviants looking for any legally questionable way to get cheap parts.

As far as the end user is concerned the ES just guarantees no support from Intel.

 

Recently received my 5160 from Xoticpc. I regret not choosing the 2nd Hard drive Option. Can anyone point me to place to buy a caddy case that will fit this model? Also, any recommendations on upgrading RAM?

Thanks,
Gol

 

I'd expect most enthusiasts building their own notebooks out of parts would know what an engineering sample is, or at least take the time to go look it up when encountering an eBay auction selling one, to be informed about exactly what they are getting.

Who knows if this person knew or didn't know or cared or didn't care about the fact that what they are buying is Intel's property and it will still be Intel's property even after they "buy" it. That's not really my point. My point is that a big chunk of the savings was due to buying stolen components, wittingly or unwittingly, and I think that it's not really accurate to portray the build as being $400 cheaper than an official reseller build.

I think it's more likely that a person can really only save a couple hundred bucks building the laptop versus buying from a reseller, and that is with the extra cost of personal labor and a less hassle-free warranty policy.

I'm interested in ways to save money on a laptop build; I already put my money down for an official reseller version and the idea of saving $400 sounds attractive, so my curiosity was piqued. But now that I see the deal for what it really is I'm less convinced that there really is worthwhile savings to be had rolling your own. I wouldn't be surprised if, like I said, you could save a couple hundred bucks if the warranty support of an official vendor isn't worth it for you; but 50% of the cost of a laptop? No way.

 

Also I'm confused by your questioning whether or not he bought an engineering sample. He called it out as such in his post and also the price he quoted is right in line with the other engineering samples I've seen listed on eBay. I can't imagine what else it would be.

 

I'm curious - you didn't mention an operating system in there. Just wondering what you intend to put on it.

I personally bought from xoticpc without an OS and will put Arch Linux on it. On every laptop I've ever owned Windows has only been useful for the first year or so for me, and even then only for light gaming; soon thereafter the system requirements for games inevitably leaves the laptop in the dust and I boot Windows less and less frequently. Have only had Linux on my current laptop for a couple of years now even though it came with a licensed Windows XP Professional (it's a 6.5 year old Panasonic Y2). Didn't even bother to get Windows on my new laptop because I don't think I'd ever even boot it. There's a nice $100+ savings right there

 

I just re-read his post, did not notice that ES in the part by the ebay on first read, it's 2 AM and it was a long day i'll chalk it up to that, my bad on that part.

 

I bought a cheap one off ebay that works great. SATA 2nd HDD Caddy IBM Thinkpad T510 12.7mm DV16 - eBay (item 300547091410 end time Jun-11-11 19:58:01 PDT)

It doesnt have the ability to mount the stock faceplate on it though. If you want to retain the factory appearance of the laptop theres a $50 caddy that allows you to put your dvd faceplate on it. Wasn't worth the extra $40 to me...

 

I have one of those caddies that allows you to swap out the optical drive faceplate. I'm not using it any more. PM if you're interested, and I can provide a price.

 

What wirelss router are you guys running with this laptop? I have a WRT54g here at base and e3000 6000 miles away at home. So, I am stuck with the WRT54G.
The internet speeds are identical from WiFi to LAN connection. Is that normal on this laptop?
The WiFi says 54Mbps and the lan says 100Mbps, yet when I test both separately on speeddtest.net, for example, they are the same speed download and upload with a 76 ms ping.

 

That is exactly what you should expect. The speed is limited by your connection to the internet (your router) which is certainly slower than either 54 Mbps or 100 Mbps.

 

Has anyone figured out which notebook cooler works best for this model?

 

Relevant question!

 

I'm using the Logitech N700 Amazon.com: Logitech Speaker Lapdesk N700: Electronics

Works great, lowers my temps by about 5 degrees C (CPU temps hover between 40-45 idling with the cooler vs 45-50 without), it's quiet, has built in speakers which work great (let's face it, the speakers on this laptop are terrible). It's comfortable on my lap for long hours. Overall a solid design. The only quip I have is regarding the alignment of the fans. The fan on the NP5160 is placed slightly to the left, whereas on the cooler it's in the middle. In real practice, it doesn't seem to make much of a difference in temps if I place my lappy right in the middle or offset it to the right to better align the fans.

 

Newegg.com - ZALMAN Ultra Quiet Notebook Cooler Model ZM-NC1000 Black

I've seen the Zalman NC1000 recommended multiple times (And it's on sale!)

There's also a Notebook Coolers: A Buyers Guide thread
http://forum.notebookreview.com/accessories/304671-notebook-coolers-buyers-guide.html

 

This one is really interesting.
I already had one cooler (very cheap) with built in speakers and that seems to be the perfect solution for this notebook. But mine doesn't make much difference, I can get that same result (something like your 5 degrees) by lifting the back of the laptop instead of using it completely laid on the table. It seems to me that the base is quite ineffective.

I just think that, if aligning yours base to the laptop inlets doesn't make a difference, probably it isn't that effective...

What would you say? Have you tried to use it by lifting the back? The cooling base is really more efficient than that?

And what about higher loads no CPU and GPU? The base efficiency would be better availed on this situation...

Sorry for the asking, but I may buy one of those depending on what you have to say

 

Yep, i definitely support the Zalman NC1000

 

The alignment isn't totally off, just slightly off-center but still in the cooler zone.

The Logitech works great for me cuz I like to chillax on the couch with the laptop resting on my thighs. Cloth doesn't offer the same ventilation as a hard table-top. This thing is very comfy.

When I lift the laptop, i get maybe 2 degrees less vs the 5 with this cooler. Vs the Zalman, the Logitech doesn't compare to the 10-15 degrees drops i see reported with other laptops, but I like the features on the Logitech more, particularly the speakers.

As far as higher loads, my numbers are all over the place as I haven't been able to keep the CPU under consistent load.

Anybody have any solid numbers with other coolers?

 

I'm having some issues with my W150HNQ - I'm dealing with my supplier but I thought I'd post here to see if anyone experienced something similar. I don't believe it is OS/driver related since it happens pre-POST.

Sorry for the long winded post, but just wanted to describe everything well.

Every now and then, when I attempt to switch the laptop on it will appear to not even get to the POST stage. I've noticed two different behaviours after pressing the power button:

-lights come on for approximately three seconds, then the laptop turns back off
-lights come on and stay on but nothing is displayed on the screen and nothing happens to indicate any activity

Originally, I was unable to see a pattern. But after more and more use I notice that it does this when it's been left off for a while. Specifically, when it has had a chance to cool down. This is consistent with my observation that I don't have the problem if I simply restart or quickly turn off/on the computer after having been on for a while, and why I do have the problem after leaving the system powered off for an extended duration.

I've confirm this after several attempts of letting it cool to room temperature (leaving it off for an hour or so after shutting down) then trying to turn it back on. When I leave it, the boot problem is present. If however it enters the previously described state in which the system remains on, but does not get to POST or display anything, the internals still get warm despite being presumably idle. So if I leave it for 30 seconds or so in this state to get warm, then power off then back on, it seems to boot.

I've done this several times now (leaving it to cool, trying to turn it on and having it fail, letting it warm up in the powered on failure mode, then turning it off and on)

One warning flag could be that I cant seem to run memtest86 from its own bootloader, it gives some details about the cpu and memory then hangs immediately before performing any tests. I've tried with different SODIMMs as well but the same behavior is observed. I have however been able to do a memory test from within the OS and it did not report any problems.

Other things I've tried have been various burn-in tests to check overall
operation (prime95, some graphics benchmarks, large lengthy code
compiles using all cores) and no problem occurs - cpu temps get high but
I think that's normal for my CPU as its a 45 watt (i7 2720QM), and the
throttling works well to keep temps from damaging levels so I'm not
concerned with that - its just this strange boot behavior.

The laptop was bought as a barebones chassis, and has the following components in it:
-Crucial C300 64gb SSD
-2x4gb Corsair DDR3 PC3-10600 SODIMMs
-Intel i7 2720QM cpu

CPU is from ebay - apparently the CPU is an engineering sample. I guess it is easy to blame that as being the problem, but the CPU seems to perform flawlessly when doing its thing though. The supplier does not seem to think the CPU is the problem as well, however I broke down and ordered another CPU to try just in case, since I don't have any other sandy bridge CPUs lying around to test with.

Firmware Details in BIOS:
MB Series: W150HNM/W170HN
BIOS version: 1.01.03RSA
KBC/EC Firmware Revision: 1.00.01

I've also tried turning it on with the laptop lid closed/open as I recall on a previous laptop, it would not POST if you close the laptop lid immediately after pressing the power button, but that doesn't seem to be it (this one still boots even with the laptop lid is fully closed). It also has the same issue with the battery in/out and the AC adapter in/out

Thanks for any help!

 

I wouldn't even try any more troubleshooting until you test out the CPU replacement. If that doesn't fix it, then I would contact the vendor of the barebones system and ask for a replacement. If that doesn't fix the problem, the I guess you'll have to live with it.

A few posts back we were discussing the wisdom of buying engineering sample CPUs (aka stolen goods) and rolling your own laptop from parts. When it all works, I guess it's a nice money savings; but when it doesn't, I think almost anyone would have rather spent a couple of hundred bucks than deal with the headache.

 

I got my Sager NP5160 with the upgraded 1920x1080 matte screen from xoticpc last night.

I'd just like to say that, the fan is really loud. When the temperature is low (if I can trust the lm_sensors program, around 42 degC or lower), the fan either stops or goes into a very slow spin (can't tell which) and is more or less silent. The first fan speed above silent is annoyingly loud. There is no "low whoosh" setting for the fan from what I can tell; it goes from silent to annoying. There are a few steps above annoying too, maybe two or three; with a big compile job I got the CPU up to aroud 70 degC and the fan was pretty loud, although only marginally more annoying than the first annoying fan level.

I figured out how to shut off the discrete GPU and that helped alot - with the discrete GPU on (not even doing anything as far as I can tell), temps are about 10 degC higher than with it off, and that is enough to keep the fan going all the time even when the system is idling. With the discrete GPU off, during idle periods the fan actually shuts off, but it doesn't take too much CPU activity for it to spin up again.

My expectation is that when Ivy Bridge comes out, I'll be able to put an Ivy Bridge CPU in because supposedly Ivy Bridge is socket compatible with Sandy Bridge and these Clevo laptops give good access to the CPU socket. I'm assuming that Ivy Bridge will be alot cooler running than Sandy Bridge so hopefully that will allow the laptop to stay within a thermal envelope most of the time that keeps the fan off or on whatever really low setting it's at when it seems quiet. Also I'm wondering if there would ever be a quieter after market fan available - looks to me from the pictures I've seen that there is good access to the fan as well so maybe that's an upgrade option down the road.

Linux support for this laptop is spotty; thankfully, control of the Optimus system seems to be coming along and turning off the discrete GPU is easy (I don't need it for now - I even ran the OpenGL program that I am developing at 1920x1080 on the laptop using the integrated graphics and it ran flawlessly so I don't see myself even needing the discrete GPU at any point in the near future). lm_sensors kind of works and I can get a single temperature reading. Sound works fine, Wifi was easy to get working. Some things that I haven't yet gotten working well are fan control (it would be nice to exercise some control over that annoying fan!), cpu frequency scaling (not sure that Linux supports this on any Sandy Bridge CPUs yet), and hibernate/suspend.

Oh one weird thing - the laptop would not boot my grub bootloader until I set the first partition's bootable flag. I have never needed to do that before on any system I have ever used. Strange.

 

This is a weird question, but has anyone ever tried removing the Sager logo from their laptop?

Somehow I just like the idea of a completely generic laptop with no logos on it at all. The Sager logo stuck on the lid feels like it might just be glued on top of the shiny surface, not 'baked' into it, and I wonder if it's possible to remove it. I didn't want to dig too hard at it for fear of marring it without being able to remove it. Maybe a hair dryer to soften it up?

 

i'd just like to say that the fan volume is subjective. for some its loud and some it's no problem.

I know at times if i'm sitting in a completely silent room i definitely hear the fan running.

As I type this i'm in a hotel lobby and can't hear it at all. It's fairly noisy at the moment. When I put my ear to the exhaust port I can definitely hear it running.

All and all I would say it does run at random times. Even when its relatively cool i'll hear the fan kick on and it can get loud (in a quiet setting).

It's really hard to say......I'd still recommend this lappy though

And even though Ivy Bridge may run cooler. The fact this lappy has the CPU and GPU on the same heat sink is the big issue with cooling.

 

In response to my earlier question, I bought a CoolerMaster Notepal U3 today. I will see how well it works when I get my laptop tomorrow.

I think that being able to move the 3 fans around and place them in the optimum locations should make this a pretty solid cooler

 

It's very hard to communicate the sound level of the fan using text forums, I was just trying to make it clear that the fan is definitely audible, it's not a barely-audible fan. When it's going, you can hear it. Of course if you are in a noisy environment you might not but that's not the environment where the volume of a fan is typically judged.

It surprises me how loud it is; it skips straight from inaudible to very audible, with no in-between barely audible state. Of course like I said I am using Linux, maybe Windows has fan control built in that can put the fan into intermediate speeds, I assume that my fan is being controlled by the BIOS (Linux sure isn't doing it) and the BIOS might just have crappy granularity on the fan speeds.

Yeah the GPU obviously puts out alot of heat and it will probably by itself be a major reason for the fan to come on regardless of the CPU. That being said, I disable the discrete GPU because I don't game (I consider the discrete GPU to be totally extra, I didn't buy the laptop because of it and would have bought it (probably preferred it!) if it didn't come with a discrete GPU at all) so that is not so much of an issue for me. My plan going in with this notebook was to use it for a year with the Sandy Bridge and then get an Ivy Bridge when they come out and drop in price a bit, with the expectation that the much cooler Ivy Bridge will eliminate most of the fan noise.

Fan noise is, like you said, subjective, and I have for 6.5 years now been using a completely fanless Panasonic Y2, so my tolerance for fan noise is pretty low. Still, the fan in the NP5160 is clearly louder than even my desktop system which is sitting next to me right now gently humming away.

 

guys, do you know if I can order NP5160 without nVIDIA GT 540M? Would it still work w/o the GPU?

 

You will probably need a bios update for Ivy Bridge. Hopefully Clevo keeps the updates coming...

 

I don't see any listing for BIOS updates on Clevo's or Sager's site. What do you mean by "keeps the updates coming"? Have BIOS updates previously been coming? If so, where can I find them?

 

do tell sir. I would love to know where to get BIOS updates.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/416916-clevo-bios-thread.html

 

The GPU is soldered on to the motherboard, so no.

Edit: To clarify, the machine has a switch that allows you to run on the integrated Intel GPU all the time. If you're going to do that, why not just buy a less expensive machine that solely has integrated graphics? If you're thinking that you'd add a GPU later, then that's not possible for the reason I cited above.

 

No Bios updates that I know of yet. What I meant was I hope Clevo does provide updates to the bios and drivers when needed in the future. Generally speaking in order to get the motherboard to properly recognize a newer generation processor you have to update the bios. Just because its on the same 1155 platform does not mean the motherboard will support it. This is my first Clevo so I'm a little weary of their support for this model in a year or two.

 

why didn't you order Intel 6300 from Rjtech for $40 ?

 

pssssh is that the best you can do?
Intel 6300 $39.99 Intel 6300AGN lenovo Y460 IBM T410 X201 T510 60Y3193 on eBay!

in all seriousness yeah I bet he didn't even look for the 6300 on rjtech

 

GAH, I boot up and immediately notice a green stuck pixel that is JUST outside the center area of the screen, and a blue pixel that is about 1.5" above it. Awesome.

 

My matte 1920x1080 option screen from xoticpc also has a stuck pixel - a red one about 3/4 of the way to the right and a bit more than half the way up the display. It didn't show up for the first day, it just sort of popped on at one point. A few times I got it to go away by physically pushing at it (it would flicker a bit and then go out), but by next boot it was back. Now it seems to be back for good.

I paid for the no dead pixel guarantee so I wouldn't be worried about mine though, it would be fixed for me for free. However, I'm in the process of getting an RMA number to return the laptop for good. After two days of fiddling I can't get hibernate (suspend-to-disk) to work under Linux on this laptop and alot of other features are not working well under Linux, which is what I bought this laptop for. Clevo should do a better job supporting Linux. They don't get my money after all, I'm returning the laptop.

BTW the laptop itself was quite nice hardware-wise aside from an annoyingly loud fan. The matte upgrade screen from xoticpc is absolutely *GORGEOUS*, it is much better than any other computer LCD I have ever used, even on desktop systems. So if you're a Windows user you will probably be very happy with this laptop if you are considering it. However - Linux users, beware.

 

*facepalm*

Whooops...

 

Could you please elaborate on "a lot of other features are not working well under Linux" ? As I am planning to buy this model and install linux so any details would be appreciated.
Thanks !

 

Good news! I figured out a fix for the major issue that was troubling me, and now I won't be returning this laptop.

The issue I was having was that hibernate (suspend-to-disk) was not working. I figured out a few things:

1. The xhci_hcd module cannot be loaded as it breaks hibernate (I just disabled it for the moment, there are more elegant ways to unload it just for the duration of the hibernate). This is probably because USB3 (which xhci_hcd controls) is so new.

2. Hibernate was not working well with the trick I was using to turn off the nvidia GPU to reduce system heat and fan noise. Turns out that when the nvidia GPU is turned off, hibernate hangs. I suspect that the ACPI BIOS or maybe the kernel or something is trying to access the nvidia GPU and since I disabled it, that just hung forever. The fix is to add a script to /etc/pm/sleep.d to re-enable the nvidia GPU right before the hibernate and re-disable it right after the hibernate.

I also had to disable the nouveau driver, but it might be something that can be loaded only when the nvidia GPU is enabled or something. Disabling the nvidia GPU while the nouveau driver was loaded and then trying to hibernate was causing problems.

OK so that was the major issue, and the showstopper for me with this laptop (I absolutely must be able to hibernate a laptop, my usage pattern with laptops requires it).

The minor issues are:

- No fan control; Linux can't figure out how to manage the fan, so I'm left with the BIOS control and it seems pretty loud to me

- No cpufreq control, so CPU throttling and such cannot be controlled. Mostly this is another fan noise/power drain issue. This might be a general problem with Sandy Bridge chips or might be specific to this notebook, I am not sure.

I can't think of any other Linux problems with this notebook.

By the way, I am using Arch Linux, which is pretty hands-on; other more desktop-focused distributions like Ubuntu or Fedora might have just worked out of the box for some or all of these issues.

 

Thanks for the tips ! Your feedback is very useful to me as I will install Gentoo on this machine. So yeah, looks like it'll be quite an adventure to make everything work...

 

That sounds about par for the course for new hardware support under Linux. Significant hardware updates (Sandy Bridge and the new Nvidia optimus cards) tend to have a bit of a lag between introduction and support under Windows, to support under linux. As for the fan control, that feature is still missing from Windows users as well (other than auto or full speed options- no granularity). Most driver support issues should end up being fixed over time.