Official Sager NP8130/Clevo P151HM1 Owners Lounge

The Lotus P150HM I use gets loud enough to listen to music/audiobooks over the noise of doing dishes or working in a datacenter at 70dB. For laptop speakers, they're not bad, especially considering the form factor the laptop.

 

Ah man, this wait is killing me... When I placed the order I thought I had timed it perfectly, avoiding the recalled SB processors, only to be immediately backordered for a new GPU.

I suppose this will make it all the more glorious when it finally arrives...

 

Alright so after waiting a month and a half I finally received my laptop about two weeks ago. I have owned it now for about 2 weeks and I have to say that this laptop really is a beast, runs most games on the highest settings. I'm overall pretty happy about the laptop and I'm glad I made this purchase over an Assus.

Everything was running smoothly until yesterday when I noticed a stuck white blinking pixel near the center of my lcd screen... well that's just great. I tried "fixing" it using some screen blinking software but with no results. If the stuck pixel was somewhere to the side I could probably just ignore it, but its right near the center staring at me! Luckily I'm still 2/3rds within the 30 day money back guarantee.

I contact my reseller (pctorque) and they told me to contact sager, who in return told me to contact my reseller back because obviously I didn't buy from sager directly and they can't give me an RMA number since the laptop purchase isn't authorized by me.

To anyone who has had similar experiences; Are stuck pixels common? If so how likely is it for more to pop up on my screen if I don't fix the problem? And I was under the impression that it was my resellers responsibility to contact sager and try to get an RMA return slip from them since they're the ones I purchased from, or is it likely they might give me the runaround until my 30 days guaranty expires so I'll have no other choice but to go along with the stuck pixel (and possibly more in the future).

If anyone could give me some input as to what the best course of action would be when returning a laptop within the 30 day period (I believe that would be the smartest thing to do as I don't mind waiting) I would really appreciate it. Thanks.

 

Almost all Sager resellers and Sager have a "no stuck pixel" guarantee that you have to pay extra money for. If you did not pay for this extra service, then you are at the mercy of whatever your reseller will offer to do for you.

 

Except Sager offers an unconditional 30 days return policy, so you can always just return the machine and order a new one hoping the next won't have a dead pixel!

 

Although I'd expect most resellers to be reasonable and just have it fixed. This is just pure speculation, but Sager probably tries not to send units with dead pixels when they test the unit since it'd probably increase the number of returns which is good for neither party (I guess it's good for UPS).

 

Seems like I'm the only one having issues with Ubuntu 11.04. 10.10 runs fine but 11.04 refuses to boot to a desktop. Anyone know a good place to start troubleshooting?

 

Maybe the new stupid Unity desktop is the problem.

sudo apt-get remove Unity

 

I have to send my laptop back for RMA because of the sleep issue and most probably it will take 1 -2 months. Sigh...

 

Except I can't even boot to desktop. Booting hangs whether using the install disk or from the hard drive. 10.10 boots fine. Problem looks like graphics card or GRUB. I'm inclined to think that it's GRUB that's not happy with being installed to a partition and chainloaded. Unfortunately I don't see many other options as I'm not going to install GRUB to my MBR.

 

Have you tried creating a fresh install disk/USB drive and reinstalling? You may have had bad install media (though 11.04 has been finicky on all kinds of hardware, to say the least)

 

Has anyone noticed an imbalance in the output of their speakers? The left speaker is significantly weaker, but when connected to external speakers the sound is balanced.

 

I noticed the same thing. I sent it in to Sager for a different issue but I did mention the speakers as well. I'll see what happens.

 

Ok, so I'm getting a little concerned with all of the complaints regarding the speakers/sound on this computer. I realize that for every unhappy person there are probably half a dozen who are totally satisfied and aren't posting, but I've got an age to sit an dwell on this.. Did anyone get the Creative X-Fi external sound card? Will it improve the bass on this laptop? I've never used a USB sound card so I don't have any experience with it, but a quick google search kind of suprised me. I was expecting some kind of USB dongle, but it looks like a pretty substantial piece of hardware. I'm not sure I'd want a big box like that hanging off my computer all the time.

Edit: Ok, reading a little more about this, I'm confused... Will the X-Fi card actually effect the sound coming out of the laptop speakers, or only external speakers/headphones that you plug into the card?

 

An external sound card wouldn't make that big an improvement in bass, because well, it doesn't add speakers/subwoofers. What it can do is add software processing like Crystalizer and others that can affect the sound that the laptop puts out.

In general though, it's always better to find out for yourself before being too concerned. Screen quality, build quality, and sound quality (all things that are hard to benchmark as well), are all very subjective. Some people have different expectations for the same things.

Many find the speakers to be adequate or better than previous machines, while others say the opposite. Unlike performance benchmarks, it's hard to be quantitative about these types of things.

 

I am one of the people that has been quibbling over sound. I have to say it is really nit-picking overall.

The headphone sound quality does leaves something to be desired. This is not just a subjective eval. The lower end frequencies are subdued with headphones.

However, external speakers or through a stereo, it sounds great.

The built in speakers are fine. They aren't going to wow you with their quality, but I certainly don't expect that from a laptop. They are definitely load enough. I can hear video clearly from the next room.

I have to say, I have been completely satisfied with this machine since I got it. It has handled everything I've thrown at it like a champ. I'm not sure you'll find a comparable alternative for the price, anyway.

 

I've tried installing to a partition using VMware, installing from USB and updating from 10.10.

I own a Creative X-Fi USB soundcard. It's a little bigger than an external USB laptop harddrive. I bought it because my last notebook didn't have any options for 3 plug 5.1 output which I wanted for movies and games. I find it also helps keep my desk organized by reducing the number cables plugged into my computer. Since I didn't buy it to improve sound quality I don't have much of an opinion on the matter but I wouldn't recommend buying one to improve internal laptop sound or headphone quality.

 

Yeah, this is by no means a deal breaker. I suppose I'm a little disappointed because I was initially considering a Dell XPS, which has gotten some rave reviews on its sound quality. But I'll take performance over fancy speakers any day, and the 8130 will likely sound better than my Dell latitude D630, which has incredibly average speakers.

I do use headphones a lot....but I will reserve judgement until I can test it out firsthand. June cannot come soon enough!

 

The only thing you've mentioned that might differ from my install is grub. I do have grub on the MBR. Do we have identical hardware? I've got all standard components + 6230 wireless. It's been awhile since I was dual booting, but is there any particular reason you don't want grub on the MBR? I don't recall it ever causing a problem. Also agreed on Unity -- unfortunately although I got Gnome 3 w/ Gnome shell running on the loaner laptop I had previously, something has changed somewhere such that I can't seem to successfully get it installed on my current 11.04 build.

Do you have an old hdd sitting around that you could pop in temporarily? You could try a full disk install with grub on the MBR and see how that goes.

Just to be clear (as someone else who has commented on the sound) -- Neither the headphone issue nor the speaker sound quality would be something that would steer me away from this machine -- the headphone issue is tiny, and although the speakers aren't quite as nice as I'd hoped, they get the job done.

I really love this machine.

 

the speakers on my 8130 is way better than my old sony vaio.. which I only used it for 1 month.

 

Hi all,
I am considering getting the 8130 and I have been stalking forums like crazy the past few weeks. I am really interested in this laptop but I have some questions left unanswered.

1. According to some people, the 8130 would in the future use the Optimus IGU. Some others have said that it will not be used. So will it?

2. I read somewhere in this forum that because of the similarity of the 8130 and the 8150, the 8130's GPU can be upgraded in the future. Is that right? Just that we need to get the 180watt adapter.

3. It is said that the 8130 would have the 560m GPU instead. Anyone knows when will this be implemented?

Thank you so much for the help!

 

1) speculation, your guess is as good as anybody's, but hopefully it won't.

2) True, it's been tested by many people and if you seach, a clevo reseller tested it and said it works without issue with the bigger PSU

3) likely in the coming weeks as 460M's are apparently out of stock...

 

Seriously, could the speakers be a bit better, yes. But they are pretty good laptop speakers. Better than my 2009 MacBook Pro, whose speakers I had loved. Like many things about the 8130, you can nitpick a bit, but they're not bad at all. Just not "top of the class" perhaps as some were hoping/expecting.

 

popcornify: I haven't done much with sound in Ubuntu, since I mainly use it for work purposes, so I can't say. Sorry. I'll test it out later.

2MNY: I got ubuntu working by using the wubi installer. It basically installs ubuntu like an application on your windows partition. I still have a few problems where Ubuntu hangs at startup and shutdown, but it works most of the time. Tell me if you get the same issues as me.

 

No problem, but thanks for being willing to do a comparison. I'm just surprised that my brother in law's old mid-range Toshiba (which had a subwoofer) that would be about 10 years old now if it still lived, had such immediately surprising sound for a laptop and this one does not.

Actually, having played with it a bit more at higher volumes the clarity is actually very impressive even if the frequency response is not what I'd hoped for.

 

This notebook is so damn fast and has so much power in the Sandy Bridge CPU and the ability to use so much ram that I just run Ubuntu and everything else through virtualizations inside Win7. On an SSD everything loads almost instantly.

As far as Optimus is concerned,the issue is a hardware one and it hasn't been supported by Clevo because they couldn't get the quicksync to work without bugs (ie: Punkbuster will kick you out IIRC). I doubt we will be seeing Optimus in a Sager/Clevo notebook with a higher end discrete GPU until a model refresh.

 

Thanks for the reply myamid & Electric Shock.
Helped me out.

Shall wait for the 560m then.

 

Bah, and my review becomes obsolete in a few short months

Mr. Mysterious

 

Finally got Ubuntu 11.04 installed and working without a hitch. Managed to install off of a USB key. Think I somehow messed up GRUB all the other times I tried installing or upgrading. Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions and advice.

edit: problems with fingerprint GUI in Unity using Terminal. I have uninstalled fingerprint GUI for the time being.

P.S. Haven't used pcie_aspm=off and haven't had any problems with crashing or power save modes the 2 days I've been using Ubuntu. Using the latest Clevo BIOS so perhaps it fixed the issue.

 

From Sager via XoticPC:

 

XoticPC says my order will be moving through production in the next 3-7 days, and that the new (though still not officially released) graphics card will be standard. No indication was given that the price will be different. I think I placed my order literally just before the 460M went out of stock, so other people can probably expect to see their orders moving again in the next week or so.

So excited!

 

^^ Ah lucky you!!

I've had mine about a week. Apparently I was the last guy not to get the free bump to the 560. ;_;

Actually I'm totally fine with it -- I was going crazy with waiting, and I'm not enough of a gamer for the extra few frames from the 560 to matter -- waiting another coupla weeks would have driven me insane.

I do think I must have gotten one of the last ones though.

Enjoy your laptop, I know just the anticipation you are feeling right now!

 

Yes! My body is ready!!!

I'm in the same boat, I placed my order the night before clevo/sager told xoticpc the 460m was going out of stock (at least they told me that, perhaps it was just....A MARKETING PLOY??). Nonetheless, I was given the option to change my laptop order or cancel it, but confirmed my order though, because for my needs, there's no better deal out there.

I'm praying to have mine by June 10 because I'm traveling for business, but we'll see I suppose. I'll definitely have it before PAX this summer. Woo hoo!

 

Seriously, the waiting...I was in Microcenter the other day and I paced around for an hour, debating whether or not I should buy the ASUS G53. I need my fix man!

 

Ordered mine yesterday and got this msg today.

Your order will soon move through production (estimated 3-10 business days), and we would like you to confirm your order information. Please confirm that no changes are needed for your order, and we will continue with payment processing and production as soon as possible. Please note that the 460M GPU option will be replaced by a newer, upgraded option (not yet officially released).

 

@mtreay, I got that same message today too (ordered last week). Just sent an email asking if the new GPU will come with a change in price.

 

Okay. My laptop will be delivered today to Malibal. So hopefully I'll hear something soon from them on what they think the problem is/was.

I still hold fast to my theory of some bad hardware though. But we'll see.

 

@moo, the way the email was worded made it seem like they are just refreshing the GPU and haven't updated the site to reflect the change. I replied asking what GPU will be in it. No reply yet.

 

They won't officially say so until their NDA lifts, but it's almost certainly the GTX 560m. What that chip will be able to do in comparison to the 460m remains to be seen.

I would assume Sager/Clevo has a bunch of newly upgraded 8130s with 560m GPUs ready to ship, but they have to wait until nvidia gives them the go ahead to send them out. No different than when a new desktop GPU comes in - vendors have them for days or weeks before they can start selling them.

 

they gave me a time frame of 3-10 days for the build so we'll see soon enough.

 

Are you trying to dual-boot? I was able to do it with EasyBCD ... however I had to get the latest beta version in order for the GRUB2 loader to get properly recognized. (You'll have to signup for EasyBCD forums to get that.) Once I had switched from the production to the beta version of EasyBCD, I am up and dual-booting with Win7 and Ubuntu 11.04.

 

The site linked below (which I'd imagine is old hat to most of you folks here -- new hardware is rare enough for me that I don't always follow it) helped me work through some of the decisions that ultimately led me to the 8130.

They only have 2 synthetic benchmarks for the 560m, but the 460m is compared throughout the article and for those two benchmarks if you expand the relevant graphs.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

I tripple boot off of 2 drives, first is Intel SSD with Win 7 set up to boot from 100mb system partition. Second drive is 500gb drive with 3 partitions, NTFS data, HFS+ and ext4 with Ubuntu. Grub2 is installed to the ext4 partition. BIOS is set to boot from 500gb drive which has Chameleon bootloader. Chameleon is used to chainload Windows or Ubuntu. Everything is booting just as it should now with no problems. I think earlier issues stemmed from Ubuntu being installed through VMware in Windows, booting the Ubuntu ISO from a NTFS formatted USB drive(I used xboot) instead of fat32 and not properly configuring GRUB when upgrading from 10.10 to 11.04.

 

I have Ubuntu 11.40 desktop, Ubuntu 11.40 server, and Windows Server 2008 all running off Virtualboxes inside Windows 7 (boots in 10 seconds - can start Oracle VM right away)

I see no need to actually go to a multiboot grub scenario. All the above work perfectly with full access to network and devices and 3D acceleration and CPU acceleration and blazingly fast and I run several at a time because virtualization support and 4 cores w/8 hyperthreads on a 2720QM can handle everything I've thrown at it. Just make sure you have a fast SATA3 SSD and 8-16GB of ram.

 

That's one of the biggest wins for the Sandy Bridge chipset and processors. They put out enough power while sipping so little power that multiple virtual machines are definitely within the realm of possibility. You just need to have enough RAM to spare and voila, multiple VM's can go without problems.

Just a generation or two ago, this would have been a feat for laptops due to limited processing power and caps of 4GB of RAM or less due to chipsets.

If you don't mind the extra work of setting up a VM, this is probably the easiest way to make sure you've got hardware compatibility with all your operating systems as well.

 

Just ordered my 8130, can't wait for it to go in production!

 

Congrats, Vapkez.

I'd like to do a quick check for all current NP 8130 owners...how are your machines treating you?

Mr. Mysterious

 

XoticPC is now showing a 560M for the NP8130. http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8130...ustom-sager-laptop-p-2973.html?wconfigure=yes

 

NDA is not up yet. NO new video card has been annouced yet. Thanks.
_

 

I ended up requesting a refund for my 8130. I sent it in for warranty service, but was told that both issues I was having were normal. I was given the choice to have it sent back to me with that knowledge or, since I was still within the return window, to have it refunded. I chose the latter.

Here are a few impressions of the 8130 based on my limited time with it:



Liked:

-The stock screen was amazing.
-The keyboard was really good too. It was my first chiclet keyboard, but I had no problems adjusting to it.
-Build quality was good for the most part, but there was on area I really didn't like (see Dislikes).
-Plenty of ports.
-The matte plastic didn't feel as cheap as glossy plastic tends to.


Disliked:

-While overall build quality was good, there was a lot of flex on the bottom where the optical drive is located.

-I noticed rattling when I typed. The rattling stopped when I rested my palms on the palm rest (as most people do, I assume), but as I type with my index fingers, I'm not usually touching the palm rest. The rattling was loud enough to be audible over the TV. Sager told me the rattling was normal (I don't necessarily buy this), so that was one reason I decided to get a refund.

-I also noticed an imbalance in the speakers. Specifically, the right side sounded a lot louder than the left. This made is seems as though the sound was coming from somewhere to the right of the screen, which was really distracting when watching videos. I was told that this was normal because there were two speakers on the right side and only one on the left (for some reason). This was the other reason I decided to get a refund.

-I didn't like that the matte finish extended to the track pad and that the track pad area was pretty shallow in relation to the palm rest. I found that I would occasionally end up with my finger on the palm rest instead, which wouldn't happen if the track pad had a different finish. I'm sure I would have adjusted to it in time, but I still feel that it was just laziness on Clevo or Sager's part.




The rattling and the speaker issues are what ultimately led to my decision of getting a refund since Sager said they were normal. It's give-and-take with any laptop, but the 8130's takes were just too distracting for me.