Official Sager NP8130/Clevo P151HM1 Owners Lounge

I second this. If a bios update comes out with a better fan profile, can folks please report it here?

Thanks.

 

Check the Clevo BIOS thread on the forum, be careful flashing and let others do the testing for you.

 

Exactly.

I am hoping for a flood of "Eureka" posts if a good bios update is released.

 

Is the fan cycling thing really that much of a bother for people? I've just gotten used to it....

Which would you rather have? Better cooling or a silent operation?

For me, its the former every single time.

Mr. Mysterious

 

What type of headset are you using? Just curious as I have been using some of my studio equipment on the audio out with no real problem. What are the omhs of the headset you are use?

 

GTX 460m out of stock at xoticpc. I have to wait until June, but I get whatever the replacement is, plus or minus the new cost. Emo.

 

Go for the 8150 with the 6970M then.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Is it actually? I wanted to order this laptop in the next few days, do you know if the replacement will be that much better? Perhaps on par with the 6970M? Or do you think it is possible to get the 8150 with the 6970M and 8GB of ram and windows 7 under $1500?

 

I don't know about that, but heavy speculation suggests that the replacement GPU for the 8130 is going to be the GTX560. You will be able to OC the GTX 460M to that level easily, even if the 560 is even more overclockable.

Not worth it, IMO.

Mr. Mysterious

 

The GTX460 is out of stock right now? I placed my order 4 days ago. My echeck cleared today, but I'm not in phase II yet, so they haven't started my build. At what point in the ordering process did they notify you of the delay??

Granted, it seems like a win/win for me. Get an already excellent computer now, or have to wait a couple more weeks for possibly a GTX560.

 

Yeah, problem is, we don't definitely know when the GTX560 is going to come out. I mean, the 8130's only 5 months old...

Mr. Mysterious

 

The 8130 may only have been around for a few months, but the 460m was announced back in early 2010 and launched in September 3rd. In GPU terms, that's getting old as Nvidia typically does a refresh/ new model every 6 months to a year.

 

Well, it's doing very well for a 9 month old graphics card

Only three games on the market right now can challenge it: Crysis, Metro 2033 and The Witcher 2.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Looking at some benchmarks, the GTX560 isn't all that much faster than the GTX460, especially given the difference between the GTX460 and GTX485.

Mobile Graphics Cards - Benchmark List - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

Yep, only a 10% increase, which is easily surpassable with an OC.

Mr. Mysterious

 

That's to be expected. The 560m in particular is only a revised 460m. It has the newer GF116 versus GF106 core, a slight bump to core clock and shaders, and not a whole lot else. Put this way- the 460m has a processing power of 518.4 GFLOPS, the 560m is 595.2 GFLOPS, or ~%13 better. This won't translate directly to FPS improvements, but essentially you're not looking at an increase of probably around 10%. This is in line with what Nvidia can sometimes pull off in driver updates.

It's more of a die shrink/refresh than anything else. It's not a new architecture, and thus speeds won't be massively changed.

 

Yeah, we're going to wait for newer compatible architecture

Mr. Mysterious

 

So, last week i got my 8130 back from RMA due to the intel cougar point recall. It went directly through sager, and shipping was relatively hassle free.
The computer was out of my hands for roughly 10 days.

A Few notes and observations:
1: The bios that went to sager was 1.00.03 The one that was sent back to me was 1.01.08LS2. This is not surprising, but worth noting.
2: The fan is now on 100% of the time, rather than on and off at idle. This also has a side effect of lowering my idle temperatures from 38 to 36ish.
3: They sent back the original chassis and screen. The system had a small mark that i noted before sending, and that same mark returned to me.
4: My system has a new piece of software on it that was not there before. I am not particularly concerned, as it was a piece of diagnostic software, by the name of HWiNFO32.
5: Apart from said software, everything else (drivers included) seems unchanged. I did not need to restore any backed up data. I would still suggest backing up data though.
6: Once upon a time, this system was one of the ones exhibiting the occasional system lockup at idle. It hasn't been a common occurrence for a while now, but i haven't noticed any since getting the system back. If i notice any, I'll make a note of it.

I haven't yet taken the time to see if they changed out the ram, but eventually i will get to it (i marked the original sticks "1" and "2" for future reference, and if they are the same ones, the numbers should still be there.

 

Sounds good, Otterbyj. HWinfo is trustable, I use it on all my PCs.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Is there a place to download the 01.08LS2 bios? And what EC/FIRMWARE version are you running?

 

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

If you can't find it there, ask your reseller.

Mr. Mysterious

 

crysis 2 runs perfectly with an overclock, and metro 2033 is programed badly. And I've never heard of witcher.

 

Sager News 5/18/2011

1. Reducing blue-tine on LCD panels (coldness) in windows 7

a. Right click on an open desktop area then select screen resolution by left clicking
b. Left click on Advanced Settings
c. Left click the Color Management tab
d. Left click the color management button
e. Left click the advanced tab
f. Left click on calibration display
g. Left click next on the Welcome to Display Color Calibration screen
h. Left click next on the set basic color settings screen
i. Left click next on the hot to adjust gamma screen
j. You may adjust or leave it as default (recommended) then click next on the adjust gamma screen
k. Left click skip brightness and contrast adjustment
l. Left click next on how to adjust color balance
m. Select the blue slider bar with the mouse, sliding it all the way to the right then use the keyboard left arrow key to move the slider right to left till the blue tint is lowered to your liking.

This will reduce the blue tint and give you a warmer color temperature

2. Notice to Sager Customers that has purchased NP8130/NP8150/NP8170 and received their unit before the Intel chipset revision, Sager has begun our recall process early this month, and we have informed our dealers to send notices to customers to contact Sager Techsupport department to get their system motherboard serviced to the new B3 stepping chipset.

If you have not yet receive a notice from Sager or your point of contact, please contact Sager Techsupport to setup your RMA process.

 

I see 01.06, but not 01.08LS2.

 

I think there are some links buried near the end of the thread, page 130ish. Really though, the best way to get the latest bios is still to contact either sager themselves, or your respective reseller. It's pretty easy to do through an email or two.

Also, for reference, The KB/EC version was 1.00.05SA1

 

Check your LCD Panel product ID.

My NP8130 is AUO11ED and somebody over Alienware forum did a calibration icc profile for this panel.

You can add this profile into the windows color management system to display correct colors.

 

That's great Richteralan But really, is anyone unhappy with the color profile on their 8130?

Mr. Mysterious

 

Mine showed up yesterday around dinnertime!!

So though I'm not a regular here, I wanted to pop in and thank everyone again for the various reviews and for this thread which heavily influenced my purchase.

Just a couple of thoughts - none of this will be new to you folks here, but I just had to share someplace.

First impressions: WOW!

I have not had a PC which was within spitting distance of current technology for years -- even when building/buying I've generally been going lower end and/or older tech. So this is the closest thing to "top of the line" that I've sat down in front of since about 1999.

• Ubuntu 11.04 installed without a hitch, and I haven't had to fiddle with anything to get the hardware working. That said, I haven't tried to do anything with the fingerprint reader yet, and I haven't turned it up loud enough to be able to tell whether the low frequency driver is working or not. (most of my time with it last night was with headphones on due to a sleeping baby near me) This appears to be the same model as the System76 Gazelle, so I'm guessing the subwoofer and fingerprint reader should be supported under Ubuntu.
  
  
• Indeed, my earbuds sound noticeably less bassy than I'm accustomed to. I know this is no longer really being debated, but it's definitely an issue -- though pretty minor for me. I spent just a few seconds fooling with some sound settings and it seemed to help at least a little. At some point I'll dig into that deeper, but even if I can't get it any better than this it's fine.
  
  
• I would agree that the display is a bit on the cold side. It was almost the first thing I noticed, right after being amazed at how gorgeous it is. I don't know if I plan to do anything about that though -- I would imagine that within a few days I'll get used to it. I really only notice it when looking at large patches of white. There are a couple of apps out there that adjust your color temperature throughout the day for best readability - I might try one of those just to see how it looks.
  
  
• Back to the display/GPU -- it's without a doubt the nicest looking LCD display I've ever sat in front of. The only game I had on hand to try right away was Trine. I know that's nothing in terms of really stressing the GPU, but it was still so decadent feeling to max out all the graphics options, marvel at how different this made the game look compared to how I'd been playing it with everything dialed back, and just drink in the richness of scenery as I played. (And so much more smoothly -- it's like a different game to me now.) I played for about 45 min and I think temps looked to have peaked at 69C.
  
  
• I understand that there are technically significantly better panels out there, but the range of colors, and particularly the deep blacks, are just stunning. Can I find out exactly what panel I have without opening it up?
  
  
• Chassis -- I know there has been some controversy over these comments from others, but I have to agree that it's flexier than I wish it was. With the lid closed it feels rock solid -- and this is generally how I would carry it around anyway -- but just lifting the rightmost front corner of the desk with the lid up produced much more of a bow than I was expecting. I wasn't even trying to test this, I'd completely forgotten about those comments, was just repositioning it on the desk. It didn't creak, but it definitely deflected. OTOH there is no perceptible flex at the wrist wrests when typing, so if I assume that this thing should be engineered well enough that the flex isn't going to cause premature failure of some soldered component on the motherboard, I don't really care.
  
  
• I love the matte finish and the "nothing to see here" appearance of it. It looked even better once I pulled off the THX\HDMI\Core I7 stickers.
  
  
• I've got no problems at all with the trackpad -- I know some weren't crazy about it. I'll also probably almost never use it, since I hate trackpads for most things -- but this doesn't seem any worse than any other one I've used.
  
  
• I haven't done enough different things with it yet to have had a real "WOW" moment with it regarding speed. Ubuntu might have installed a bit quicker than I'm used to, and of course it's snappy, but I'm looking forward to throwing a batch of RAW image processing at it to see how it goes. I would think I'm going to be pretty blown away -- the next fastest CPU I've done that kind of thing on is a T7100 C2D.
  
  
• Thank you very much to Larry at LPC Digital for the good communication, answering of general questions, and not showing any annoyance at my impatient questions regarding the ordering and shipping process.
  

 

They never charged my card, but I'm going to pull the trigger to get in line when the replacement GPU does launch. So Phase I, IIRC. If you're in a build phase you may get it, but I'd follow up to see what's happening. My belief/info suggests that the replacement will be the GTX 560m, which Nvidia will launch during Computex. I'd be fine with the 460m, but I s'pose I'll have to wait.

8150 not a good option for me, because of both its much higher price and that it comes with a glossy screen, which I hate. Good idea though.

 

I'm not really sure what the complaints have been about the trackpad...

For me, it has been great. Granted, I don't really use any gestures. But for me, the pad has been very responsive and accurate. I have not experienced any stuttering or jumping at all.

The only quibble I'd have is the buttons seem to be hinged toward their inside. This is where my thumb naturally sits and they are slightly less responsive here than if you click toward the outside of the buttons.

But really, its been great.

Anyone know if there is a way to disable the "tap-click"?

I can't find a setting. I always turn this off, as my palm tends to hit the pad when typing and move the cursor...

Thanks

 

I haven't had anything but trouble from 11.04. I can't even get it to boot from the install disk and whenever that happens Windows won't boot unless I boot to Safe Mode first. No luck with getting either Lan or Wireless working under 10.10 either.

Check here to get biometrics working. Everything installed without a hitch for me and I had it up and running in about 10 minutes. Daniel Menelkir: Upek Biometric Touchchip/Touchstrip Fingerprint Support on Ubuntu 10.04

 

Hmm, I paid with paypal check, and the check has cleared, but I'm not out of phase 1 yet, so I'm not sure if I will be affected by this. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. I actually kind of hope I can get the better card.

 

Thanks very much for the link!

Regarding 11.04, I'm really surprised that you've had such a different experience than me when our hardware should be close to identical. I've got a default 8130 spec except for one step up on the wireless. I'm not sure what to suggest unfortunately. I had a quick look at the System76 section at Ubuntuforums.org, but (interestingly) the only 11.04 issues that jumped out at me were that apparently there can be problems with the fingerprint reader.

If I run across anything later when I have a little more time to look around, I'll pass it along here. As I said, I'm about 99% sure that the System76 Gazelle laptop is a P151HM1 (betting you already knew that) -- so that does give us a nice base of Ubuntu-specific discussion for our model.

 

I use gestures a lot and that would be where I feel the touchpad is greatly lacking. But I am also coming from a Macbook gesture pad, which is incredibly responsive and easy to use. I'm just hoping I can maybe get use the new pad, or maybe some new drivers might make gestures usable for me.

 

The uncalibrated panel is unsuitable for doing any image related work.

 

Can anyone tell me how check the actual panel ID from Ubuntu/Linux? Google is failing me.

Thanks!

 

Does anyone know where I can get keyboard covers for the 8130? I want one...

 

Sorry I have no experience with *nux OS...

 

Hello guys and gals

Is Sager a reputable brand to buy from? I am interested in the 8130, but I am wary to spend $1200 on a brand I'm hearing of for the first time!

How are you guys finding your 8130s? Any problems? Please let me know so I know I am making the right purchase!

Thanks!

 

Of course. If you haven't heard of them before, Sagers are based on Clevo barebones kits. Companies like VoodooPC, Falcon Northwest, and previously Alienware (before being bought by Dell) all use them Sager is just a North American importer of the Clevos.

Sager Notebook Computers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you have any specific questions, there are quite a few of the resellers on the forums here that would be happy to answer them (look for anyone here with a gray username).

And of course the community is also a fantastic support tool.

 

I just got my 8130 last night -- upgrades were the 6230, 95% matte screen, and the i510 250. I'm very happy with the performance, the look, and the buid quality. Unfortunately for such a big purchase, though, there are some significant shortcomings:

1. The front edge near the touchpad has a very sharp corner. On my previous Dell, this was rounded, so it was comfortable to use for browsing hours at a time. I checked my T61 at work, and this area is angled to be more comfortable there too. The Clevo is quite uncomfortable on the palm when using the touchpad; I used it for a while last night, but my palm hurts enough from doing it that it's very sensitive and painful today to hold it up against that edge. This is the potential dealbreaker so far.

2. Counterintuitive keyboard layout -- I miss the arrow keys all the time, and always have to look down for the home and end. Plus, I miss having dedicated buttons for volume -- I have to hunt for them too, especially without backlighting. I figure I'll get used to it over time, but the layout is still really bad. If I have to, I might add some tape to the left & right arrows (maybe the mouse buttons too) to work as guides like there are on F and J.

3. The keyboard feels unresponsive to me. I'm a pretty fast touch typist, and this thing seems to drop a lot of keystrokes. I have to backspace and replace things ALL the time, which I've never had to do on any keyboard before. (Three times in those three sentences.) Maybe I will get used to it, but the initial impression is poor -- it feels "mushy" or unresponsive, and I'm afraid it's going to slow me down even if I'm able to adjust.

I really want to like the machine, there is nothing else on the market that gets this graphic performance (460+) with this size or weight. I like the business look of it, and the battery life is nice -- BatteryBar estimates 2:50 sitting at the desktop when I unplug it. I only wish the keyboard were higher quality, and that the front panel edge was not so punishing to my palms. Has anyone else figured out a way to make it more comfortable? Something that can be attached perhaps? I'm sure there's no way I could smooth out the panel itself without voiding my warranty.

This is my first Clevo, and overall my first impression is pretty mixed. I wish they had paid any attention (at all) to ergonomics or usability -- some simple shortcut buttons, a better keyboard, and a front edge that was *not* a torture device would make this a perfect machine. It's like all the design went into the performance, not the usability.

 

@ ckevin -

Can't say much about the "sharp edges" but if the design is anything like my NP8170, there must be something wrong with your build because while mine isn't "rounded" it's still blunt. And I never rest my palms on my laptop while typing or using the touchpad, maybe it's just your personal style I dunno.

Regarding the keyboard (same one in my NP8170), I think it just takes a little getting used to like most keyboards. I'm a fast touch typist as well, and I realize these keys require a slight bit more travel to activate a key press, so with a little more typing you'll get used to it, at least I did. Plus regarding arrow keys, again, every keyboard is different, and unless you get a full desktop type keyboard layout, laptops vary quite a bit with the layout.

But I would love some dedicated media keys and a backlit keyboard too.

 

It's not an issue when typing -- it's when keeping one hand on the touchpad all the time, like when browsing or playing games. My hand rests on the front edge when my fingers are over the touchpad, and it gets very uncomfortable in short time.

I figure the key layout isn't a big deal. That's not an uncommon position for the arrow keys, after doing some comparisons -- I think I was too harsh before, it's probably just the lack of a guide tripping me up. The home, end, page up, etc. keys are in weird positions, but that I can get used to. The mouse buttons are a little stiff, but again not a huge problem.

Maybe the keyboard feel will work out, maybe it won't. It's hard to say after only a day of ownership, though I can't imagine having to hammer down the keys is going to be good for speed. After doing some research, I find it hard to believe that almost everyone is using chiclet keyboards on their gaming machines -- this is my first one, are there others with better feel?

The thing killing me is that it actually hurts my hand to browse the web on the machine, with that stupid edge. I've been doing research tonight on the older laptop, to give it a rest. Apparently the Macbook Pro's had a similar front edge for a long time, which people complained about for years (and some of whom fixed by filing down the case).

 

OK, this I find really interesting -- from comparing pictures online, the NP8170 does not appear to have the sharp right angle on the front edge. It has a 45 degree angled section, while both 15" models have the corner.

 

No need to file it down or anything. Just put something soft between the edge and your wrist/palm.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Just remap the keyboard. There are a lot of keys I find never get used or are redundant so I map them to other things.

Between the space bar and the right CTRL there is the right ALT and the context menu button. I usually just use left alt and never use context menu - besides it rarely works except on desktop and a few apps, otherwise it does nothing.

I simply remapped left alt and context menu to volume down and up and it does wonders. Dedicated volume controls are essential.

 

I use autohotkey to remap my volume to Win+up arrow / down arrow. But in your case since you don't like location of the arrow keys, that might not help much!

 

OMG.

Thats an amazing idea. Pardon my ingnorance, but whats the easiest way to do that? What mapper did you you use? Will the newly mapped volume buttons work in full screen aps, like games?


EDIT: I used SharpKeys to map the volume as described above ( http://sharpkeys.codeplex.com/) and it works brilliantly. Great suggestion.

Note: I tried mapping vol down to num / and vol up to num*. I don't really use those keys and I'm used to the Vol buttons being at the top of the board. However, the num / key would not support a "press and hold" volume down function. I had to keep tapping. The R-Alt and R-App buttons work perfectly though. And since I never, ever use them, its an elegant solution.

Thanks again for the great suggestion.

No more putting the laptop to sleep while trying to turn down the volume! Now... Where to put the Mute button!?

 

Hi All.

So, I've been trying to check things out as much as possible to identify any issues, and really everything seems just about perfect.

I did notice an oddity with the fans though.

As far as I can tell, they work perfectly under normal use. They ramp up under load, and from watching temps under various conditions (including graphing them during the Unigen benchmarks) the fans and cooling seem to be working just fine.

However, when I Fn-1 to kick them into full speed mode as had been mentioned here, the CPU fan has a rhythmic momentary blip in its output every couple of seconds -- if it were any less of a blip it would not be perceptible, but it's enough to hear it, and just barely enough to feel the airflow dip just for a moment. This is NOT the way it functions normally, but OTOH I probably haven't stressed it enough to get the fans to full speed yet.

How much should I worry about this? I don't really want to be without it for 10 days or more (if I would have it repaired) + pay shipping over something that really doesn't matter -- also is there any reason I couldn't replace the fan myself? I've built my share of desktops and disassembled a few laptops in my day, but don't know whether to think I could get the fan independently of the entire heatsink assembly.

I'm also curious if anyone else notices this.

 

Quick question about the OS choice...

My university gave us a free copy of Windows 7 64 bit Professional (downloadable from school's site) and the instructions say that I can burn this onto a DVD to boot or use it using Daemon Tools to install on current pc.

If I choose the option on the 8130 with no OS, just drivers, all I have to do is burn the win7 pro onto a dvd and load into that to install OS?

Also, can you guys tell me who you feel is the best reseller for the 8130? I'd like one with good customer service and good price too if possible