Official Sager NP8130/Clevo P151HM1 Owners Lounge

Does the bios and chipset support RAID 0 with this model ?.

Thks

 

Hey you seem to know a lot about this sound stuff. Could you suggest some devices I should look into to improve sound quality. You posted a device earlier but that thing is pretty expensive. Are there any in the 30-80 dollar range and nothing to serious like just a small adapter for the headphone? And what difference is there between usb or the SPDIF/Optical output?

 

there isn't anything that small available...

 

USB has no sound output capability aside from internal software emulation or USB to what amounts to an external sound device.

SPDIF coax/optical is the industry standard for digital audio home theatre and high end production. With HDMI, it's value for home theatre has diminished somewhat because most people are more content to have everything delivered through one single interface but most high end recievers will still have a high quality DAC through SPDIF.

For small items in that price range, you are limited to budget USB soundcard type devices of which I cannot attest to the sound quality.

 

Yes the chipset should but I don't think you have enough physical ports to take advantage of it. There is only the single HDD bay and the optical bay. The HDD bay is SATA3 and the optical bay is SATA2.

You are better off buying a larger SSD which fundamentally is basically a raid version of the lower capacity versions inside itself.

 

Thanks for your reply.
I was wanting to use 2 128GB SSD's, so theoretically buying 2 sata 2 models is a workable solution via the module bay , or is sata 3 such a massive improvement, there would be no point in doubling sata 2 drives
Maybe I should email Sager to be on the safe side about what their bios will allow

 

Hey Guys ---

Finally had a day off so I had time to make the 8130 review.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/577524-sager-np8130-user-review.html

 

Thanks for this info - I appreciate it.

But now I have a much bigger problem - like a similar user on here - my np8130 is now flickering constantly on start up with the nvidia gpu has recovered error over and over. I was happily downloading and installing games all day and had just started playing sc2 for about 3 hours on max settings when all of sudden the screen did all sorts of weird stuff which eventually turned into the screen flickering black. I am glad I already planned for returning this notebook because its been a pain in the aye so far...

 

I forgot to mention that I started getting the nvidia not only after playing sc2 for a few hours but also with the power plug being disconnected accidentally. I'm guessing this might have caused the problem. You should all test if this happens cause it seems like it can do damage to your gpu - better to see it now then let it happen latter by accident. I have managed to fix the problem with a new driver but some colors don't work sometimes as bright shiny pixels replace them.

 

I don't know what you mean by this.

What is sound output capability? You mean analog signal or digital signal?

USB obviously does not have analog output. But by its basic device class specification defined back in 1998, it has Audio Device Class, which routes digital signal through USB ports.

This is no software emulation.

 

I am planning on getting this and i want to know how does this play modern games maxed out execpt for aa and filtering at native res of 1080p? Games like force unleashed, jc2, bbc2, empire total war and battlefield 3 when it comes out. Thanks! OH! how are temps?

 

Someone mentioned the SD card sticks out? By how much? I leave my SD card in my laptop at all times... also lack of an express slot is disturbing.
I don't know why they have to miss all the little things :?

 

As it stands, an overclocked GTX 460M in the 8130 is closest to a desktop GTX 260, HD 5830.

It can run Crysis at max settings @ 1920x1080 without AA.

The only game that I've had to reduce settings on is Metro 2033 but that's probably due to weaker tesselation power on the GF106 core. The GTX 460M is related to the desktop GTS 450 family but more powerful.

 

On the contrary, this laptop has all the little things most other laptops miss out on. It has an dual eSata/USB port, USB 3.0, HDMI, DVI, Optical SPDIF, Mini IEEE 1394, line out, IR port, etc. with support for TV Tuner coaxial output (not included) 4 ram slots, Mini PCI-E slot internally that can use SIMM card device, etc.

I understand your frustration with the SD card issue. They use a compact reader device to save space internally but I'm sure they could have found room somehow. The reader is the kind that is not spring loaded so half the card must stick out so you can pull it out again. It's just the slide in and out kind.

As for Expresscards, I haven't seen support for them in many consumer laptops for a long time aside from business/enterprise laptops.

If I were in charge of design, I would have omitted the optical drive. That would give the laptop a ton of extra space including a larger battery, more HDD expansions, express slot, full SDcard reader, etc.

 

I'm sorry to hear about your problems, it sounds like you have a defective GTX 460M and you should get it replaced. Most people with this laptop seem to have working units so yours may just be an aberration although Nvidia notebook GPUs have a history of failing.

Keep in mind that the NP8150 is completely identical aside from having a more powerful powersupply (and glossy screen and rubber coating) and you may encounter these problems again if you get another defective videocard but the chance of that are unlikely.

 

cool thanks! I tell ya I hate how there are no gameplay vids of this thing. Makes me want to get the m14x instead because i know what the performance is like.

 

-edit nevermind

 

There's the 3DMark Vantage benchmark video by XoticPC on Youtube. I personally wouldn't get the Alienware. It's way overpriced and I hate the look. It does have a backlit keyboard and optimus technology however.

 

Metro 2033 runs poorly on all gpus because the pc version has shoddy coding.

 

Well, yeah, but it still looks really realistic...

Mr. Mysterious

 

Sorry, I previously meant a heavily overclocked GTX 460M can get you similar benchmarks to a desktop GTX 260/HD 5830 and not a 285.

At stock, it's about the same or weaker than a 5770.

 

You mention sim in the mini pci express slot. I just started looking around and saw stuff like this Unlocked Sierra Wifi MC8781 3G HSDPA Medom GPS +Antenna | eBay

But I don't think you insert the sim card into that, but rather into the laptop, but the sager does not have a sim slot.

I have an iphone 3g, still pay for data and all, but I never use it, would love to get it working with this.

I could go the usb route, but having it all internal would be ideal.

If you have knowledge about this could you tell me about it?

 

The Sager has a built in SIM slot. It's in the battery compartment. Take out your battery and look in the back, there is a slot and symbol for SIM card. The slot is there but like the TV Tuner port, the hardware has not been included by Sager. Clevo did design the laptop with the slot though, you just need to figure out what reader goes with it. The manual shows this as well.

 

How long is the battery life on this for office activities? (Surfing/Word/Excel)

This is a one pound weight increase from the NP5165...does one pound really make that big of a difference?

 

Best case scenario, you get 3.5 hours of battery life out of the 8130 with spartan requirements (wifi off, brightness all the way down, etc.)

And that's a personal preference you will have to answer.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Do you think I could buy that thing and it would just work after I put the sim in the sager? I don't know how that would work, but this would be super awesome if I could get it to work.
(I have not bought the sager yet, so excuse my lack of knowledge )

Also at Xotic pc, there is an option for this other LCD panel, anyone know if it's better? It's 190$ more.

 

The reason why I bought the 8130 is that it already comes stock with the *better* matte screen that many people (even the XoticPC review) said they liked more than the glossy screens in the more expensive models. You do not need a screen upgrade on the 8130.

Theoretically, it should work perfectly fine as the motherboard and case are designed to take a SIM card reader device. The problem is I don't know what device is compatible and you would need drivers too. This is something you need to ask a reseller, Sager, or Clevo about.

 

I see, but my main problem is, is the sim card wired to anything or is it just like a plastic mold? I've emailed sager, xotic, and clevo. I doubt I'll get a response, but I hope something comes up.

Yeah the normal LCD looks great too, but I was wondering how that Xotic one was too, and if anyone had a comparison.


EDIT: found some stuff http://www.xoticpcforums.com/showthread.php?t=9911

 

That's what I am saying. The slot is there and I'm sure there's a place on the motherboard to hook up a reader but you need to buy the hardware. It's just a slot right now with nothing in it.

 

Where would you place this hardware? If it's just a plastic mold with nothing in it, I don't think a user could make use of it :?

 

Clevo builds chassis for companies other than Sager. Some of them choose to make use of it, Sager doesn't. It's the same reason that your car might have plastic covers on the steering wheel or dash where extra features go- that particular model or manufacturer chose not to make use of the option.

 

o i c.
Well, the np8130 has a free mini pci express 1x slot right? I could just get a MC8781 with antenna and then the MC8781 sim adapter, that way it would work.
~50$ total, but I'd say well worth it...
It would be ideal to place the antenna inside the lcd, but I doubt that will happen.

 

The mini pci express 1x slot is right where the sim card slot is so I suspect it's for a mini pci express sim card reader.

There's also a spot for a TV tuner that is empty.

 

The mini pci express slot is empty though right? Just making sure

 

Yep. Here's the list of slots directly from the P150HM manual (the P151HM1/8130 is identical other than the power ratings and a few other small things- this is still the same in both models)

Mini Card Slots
Slot 1 for WLAN Module or Combo WLAN and Bluetooth Module
(Factory Option) Slot 2 for 3.75G/HSPA Half Mini-Card Module

 

Been gone a while and missed a few posts. I don't quite feel like catching up at the moment. So, I had a little problem with a BIOS update and ended up bricking my notebook. Probably my fault for trying to update the BIOS boot block while in windows. Anyways I have to say i am really impressed with the speed at which Xotic and Sager handled my RMA. Sager received my notebook late last Friday, fixed it and had it shipped back to me on Monday. I picked it up from UPS today after missing the deliveryman. While speed was phenomenal, I do have some gripes. First, I had to pay for shipping both ways which ended up to be about $70 in total. Seeing as how bricking the BIOS was a result of my own actions and I wasn't asked to pay a dime in repairs I can't complain too much. Second issue is that Sager has no system for RMA notifications. By the time it occurred to me to call them up and ask about the status of my RMA I had already missed the delivery of my laptop. It wouldn't hurt for them to send UPS tracking information once they return a laptop and would have saved me a trip out to the local UPS hub. In short, repair quality and speed was excellent but communication was very poor and needs improvement.

 

Ok, so let's see here. I got my Np8130 stock with 2 year warranty from reflex notebooks based in Canada last monday. It took 5 days to ship (7 with the weekend).

When the box arrived it was rather dirty with black grease like stuff that rubbed off on the arms and hands. But all my worries were gone once i opened the 2nd box inside a box that revealed my laptop. Held in place by styrofoam so it wouldnt bounce around the laptop was flawless visually.

I turned it on and charged it up as it was at 40% battery and started to install windows 7 and once that was done installed all the drivers from the instructions in the booklet.

The case material is a nice plastic that is easy to clean if it gets dirty. The keyboard is wonderful to type on and has no flex on the left side but around the enter key area there is a little flex. The speakers are better than average and am quite impressed with them. The screen is plenty bright and I always turn down the brightness when on webpages with white backgrounds because it blinds me. The track pad I have no complints about and theres nothing that bothers me about this laptop.

Now on to Gaming and Heat! I played WoW on this and was able to play ultra max settings for every thing with 30-50 fps never going below 30 in even the most densly populated areas. There was some heat from the GPU fan but nothing ridiculous maybe around 60-70 degrees. I also played starcraft 2 and could play campaign on ultra with 60+ fps but turned it down to high for online play such as 4v4s that get more demanding. On high online i still got 60+ fps though. Starcraft 2 made the GPU get a little hotter but still not above 80 degrees and the keyboard palm area never got hot. The fans can be a little noisy when they do kick in but only when i was tyring to hear them if you have music or game sounds playing with headphones or the laptop speakers you will hardly notice it. The thing that actually got the hottest was the battery pack i've had starcraft 2 open for 4 hours now and the battery pack is pretty hot but it cools down when not useing major components.

The webcam is also good but when I skyped my friend with the laptop microphone he said he heard a high pitched squealing noise so i had to resort to a headset and test out the microphone some other way. Also I have never seen a dead pixel but i think i can see something of what people describe them as if i put my face 2 inches from the screen. I think i have a red one on the right hand side of my screen but can only see it on white backgrounds and when i put my face really close so hardly a problem.

All in all this computer is amazing i was deciding between this or the NP5160 for more battery life but weaker graphics and am amazed with this laptop.

 

I wonder if the 470m GTX works in this model? Resellers know anything? I got one brand new for sale.

 

Thanks for letting us know about your thoughts and feelings for the laptop I'm glad you're enjoying....

Well we know for sure the 485M works in there. Plus the 8150 and the 8130 share the same chassis, and the former offers the 470M as an option. So theoretically it should work fine You might have to buy a better/bigger AC Adapter though, like the one for the 8150, which is $100.

Plus, no offense, but the 470M is a rather disappointing card, lol. You'd easily to get to those levels with a decent overclock of the 460M.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Hello there.
I'm a proud owner of a clevo P151HM, 8GB 1333 Ram, i7 2720QM and I have changed my HD with the 500GB seagate momentus hybrid
( Momentus XT | 7200 RPM | Seagate)
but I would like to add the new mindblowing FAST OCZ ssd vertex III 120GB. So what I want to do is to have 2 HD and remove the cd-rom drive. What do I need to do that (I saw in the manual that there is an extra tray to put the 2nd hd in) and where can I buy the extra tray?

 

You can get it from Sager or your reseller for around $50. Another user also said he bought one for cheap ($20) off ebay and then took the plastic panel off his dvd-rom drive and attached it to the one from ebay and it worked also.

Like this:
9.5mm Serial ATA Optical Bay Hard Drive Adapter/caddy on eBay.ca (item 310281612281 end time 19-May-11 22:18:20 EDT)

 

You'll just need to get an optical drive HDD caddy. Most resellers carry them and they're available elsewhere as it's a standard size. Just be sure to get the SATA, not IDE version. Then you can add the drive into the caddy, attach the bezel from the old optical drive to have it match your system, and pop it back in.

Removing the old optical drive only requires removing one screw from inside the original HDD bay (it's off to the side a bit)

 

thank you guys
I'll post the performance comparisons with all the differenent hdd mounted (500gb 5400rpm,500gb hybrid 7200rpm, 120 OCz vertex III sata 3 ) here after I finish with the build

 

so this:
SATA 2nd Hard Drive Caddy IBM THINKPAD T61 T60P T60 S2 | eBay UK
or this:
2nd SATA HDD Hard Drive Caddy Bay for IBM ThinkPad T6 | eBay UK
would be ok right?

 

I ordered my Crucial M4 128GB last night And I"ll mount the 500GB drive in the optical drive and see how it is. Will post the results here soon...might even take a few pictures, lol

Mr. Mysterious

 

Ordered!!!!

Standard Matte Display
i7-2630 Processor
IC Diamond Thermal Compound
8 GB RAM
DVD drive
300 GB SATAII SSD
Intel 6230 wireless card
No Redline Boost (I can handle that myself)

I overshot my original self-imposed budget by a little bit.....but I don't care! Now the waiting begins...

Does anyone recommend a clean install of Windows once it arrives? How much bloatware will I have to deal with?

 

No, you won't need a clean install at all. The PC comes with no bloatware

Mr. Mysterious

 

Nope, the machines only ship with the drivers installed that also come on the included disk. There won't be any extra bloatware. You may need to run Windows Updates though, as well as downloading the newest drivers from Nvidia, Intel, etc because not all of those drivers may be current. (Windows Updates should handle most of those though).

 

Look at the side of your notebook and you can see the edge where the dvd-rom drive is is not flat. You will need to take the plastic front off your current drive and somehow attach it to those hard drive caddies.

I ordered an official one from Sager but they are taking forever to send it to me, hopefully it will already be in the shape of the notebook otherwise I wasted an extra $30.

 

Did you order Windows with it? I ordered mine with no operating system and the harddrive came blank. It was much cheaper this way.

Which SSD did you buy?