*** Official Sager NP8150/Clevo P150HM Owners Lounge ***

hm yeah, looks like a proprietary form factor rather than the standard mxm. id get a refund and look for a clevo card instead...

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So, I've had my np8150 for a couple years now, and a few months after I bought it, I started having some screen flickering issues. When they got bad, I would just re insert the video cable at the monitor end and retape the cable back against the monitor. I eventually found an area of the cable that seemed to have a faulty section, so after a long period of procrastination I finally ordered a replacement. In the past, I tried to open up the computer fully and make sure the motherboard side of the connection was intact, but had no success. I wasn't able to get the palm rest fully off; everything except for the back of the palm rest snapped off nicely once screws were out, but the back just wouldn't cooperate. I gave up with that endeavor, but knew I'd have to try again once I got my cable replacement.

So, last night I made the effort to disassemble the computer again and came up with the same problem. I finally decided that there had to be some more screws that seemed to be located under the heat sink exhausts, so I removed the heat sinks, and sure enough, 2 screws under each one. After that, the whole palm rest popped right off exposing the motherboard and all its glory! I replaced the cable and put everything back together and bam!!! it all works. Now I have to find some thermal paste and try my hand at repasting.

I just wanted to share my experience with you fine folks, I have posted my problem in here long ago, and everyone has been very helpful. Hopefully this will be a permanent fix to the problem. Next task will be upgrading my gpu, but probably not for some time. I have zero experience with computer maintenance, but am having a good time learning.

 

@sasquatch202, really glad to hear everything's working fine! Thanks for the advice on how to access the motherboard, I couldn't figure out how to get under there.

 

I ordered some ram for my NP8150. Is it as simple as popping them into the spare ram ports (under side) and away we go? Is there anything I need to do during startup or on the software side to get them working?

Here's what I ordered. Buy the Crucial 8GB Memory Module Kit at TigerDirect.ca
Crucial 8GB (4GBx2), DDR3, 1333mhz

 

basically yes, thats all u need to do whats ur current ram config? and which slots are they taking up? are u swapping the new modules with the old ones or are u adding additional ram?

 

Thanks. Adding additional ram. I have the 2x4gb ram that originally came with the laptop. It's on the top side underneath the keyboard. So adding 2x4gb more on the other side, I should have total 16gb.

 

aaah ok. easy peasy then, enjoy ur new ram

 

So, anybody with a 6990M managed to get brightness control working on Windows 8 ?
I'm using 13.2 BETA 7 and I tested with 13.1 and 12.9

 

for me it works normally. I use Catalyst v13.1 on Win8 WMC x64. When I press Fn+F8 or Fn+F9 I see slider on left top corner showing brightness going up or down and of course brightness goes up or down. Once when reinstalling windows I forgot to install chipset first (I let windows update to do it only) and I saw only the slider was working... nor brightness itself, it was still on 100%. So maybe the chipset will be problem. After I installed chipset it started to work as it should. I used the newest one from this site - Intel Chipset Driver v9.3.1.1009

 

I couldn't find this driver version, on intel website i can only find 9.3.0.1026, and when i try to install, it says that my computer doesn't have the minimum requirements...

 

My P150HM came with 2720ES cpu, have been told that last guy had no problems. should I keep or should I replace it with a QM cpu. i will be doing a lot of photo and video editing on this machine once i get hold of GPU. (PS if any sell a GPU let me know as i need one quick.)

 

gotta be a lil more specific, what cpu and gpu model did u have in mind to be upgrading to?

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should i change to 2720QM or should i stick with ES cpu. i have no gpu at the moment but the unit did have a ati6970m. but looking at any that will get me going at the moment gpu wise.

 

well if u already have that es cpu it wouldnt make much sense to sidegrade to the same model in oem. if u dont have any cpu and can get a good deal on an es tho, go ahead! as for gpu, if u want performance go for either 680M or 7970M, if u want cheap go for smth like a 560M

 

here you go: Intel Chipset Driver v9.3.1.1009.rar | Ulo
this one worked for me

 

Hi guys
Does any one knows if gtx 680m 4gb engineering sample work with clevo laptops ? ( N13E-GTX-A1)

 

I think the 680M cards (though this may have been sorted) have not played well with the HM series, you are better off with the 7970M and a proper retail card.

 

where did u get that info? havent heard of any general issues with 680m cards in hm machines...

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I haven't seen any specific cases of them not working either. I definitely hear more people going the 7970 route in the those machines, though that may be due solely to the cost.

 

I was under the impression that for HM series you had to flash to a custom BIOS so that it would recognize the 680m/6xx series (like Prema's Bios).

Although, cost and no Enduro was the main reason I looked at a 7970m when I considered keeping my 8150.

 

I'm pretty sure all it needs is a special Vbios that Sager can provide which allows the use of the cards, but it's very possible that a BIOS flash will be necessary as well. I haven't helped a customer do this as of yet and it's been a while since I've seen a thread on it.

 

7970m needs a modded vbios with enduro disabled whereas the 680m just needs modded nvidia driver .inf files. no need for any special system bios,just use the most current one

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Does any know were i can get a gpu spreader for Ati 6970m card and screw. my laptop didn't come with a gpu but it did have the heat sink. can not find one on ebay or any where in the uk. i a have also tried ebay.com. if someone point me in the right direction it would help me a lot.

 

hey all, the 6990m in my p150hm is fried, not exactly sure what went wrong with it, but I'm wondering if I can replace it with something a little LESS, just so that I can get my comp up and running. it's really hard to find a 6990m, but I see a bunch of mxm 3.0 cards that were in mx17's..

My Question is... can I put any mxm 3.0 card in? as long as power requirements are met? I just need to have ANY gpu that will work, I don't even care about gaming performance at this point, I'll wait until I have more money for that... Thanks for the help

 

a lot of dead 6990m :-( I was secretly hoping it was more of an isolated issue until mine died tonight.

The gpus from Dell/alienware generally do not work. you'll want to look for a 480m, 6970m, 560m to stay on the cheap side. Sorry for your lost.

 

I think my 6990m also died :C. Being a complete noob, where exactly would I go to purchase a replacement gpu for my 8150? And is installation easy or would i need to go to a repair shop? Thanks so much!

 

I'm attempting a reflow. I just baked it for 9 minutes. In the cooling stage right now for about 20-30 minutes.

Replacement isn't very difficult. Make sure you get some thermal paste for the reinstallation.

You can go to mythlogic to see what they'd price for a replacement card, or filter through eBay/nbr market place.

In total, there were:

4 screws for back plate
3 screws for the bracket
4 screws for the heat sink
2 additional screws for the bracket holding gpu in place

That was it. Just be careful not to tear the thermal pads from the bracket when removing it. Be gentle, but there will be a little resistance.

I used rubbing alcohol to remove the old thermal paste from the gpu before baking it. If you're familiar at all with computer parts it's not too hard. I run an IT shop so I do this stuff quite often.

Hopefully this trick works. It will be a temporary fix until I replace the laptop with a lighter one. I'm quite disappointed in the quality of this card, as well as the customer support from my reseller.

4 balls of aluminum foil. 385 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius). 8-10 minutes. For step by step there are a few videos online. Good luck!

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Yeah I've replaced the paste before and figured out to take out the gpu without much effort. Thanks for the tip, I will definitely try this out later.

My friend is actually telling me that it might not be broken since the device manager still recognizes it. Maybe it could be the screen or some wire problem? Could somebody here maybe help me out? Please let me know if this is the wrong place to ask. I do not know much about hardware so please forgive me. My 8150 is a bit over 1 year old (no more warranty), never overclocked 6990, rarely played intensive games, and never dropped.

Basically I was watching videos last night when randomly my screen started to get a bit "glitchy". Very unusually color lines until it covered the whole screen. I ignored it and went to bed. This morning when I turned on my laptop, there were still unusual glitchy colors. I could still get to my desktop and everything, but the screen was reversed in half. The left side showed the right side of a normal view and vice-versa. I restarted into safe mode and looking around I decided to roll back the driver for my display adapter (radeon 6990m). Not sure why I did that but after rebooting I would always end up with a blue screen. I believe it was error stating that "attempt to reset display driver and recover from timeout failed" stop: 0x00000116.

At first I thought it was a driver problem so I went into safe mode, uninstalled the display adapter driver and manually reinstalled up to date amd driver for my 6990m. But it didn't solve anything and the blue screen continued. sometimes instead of the blue screen it is just a blank black screen. Booting with lower resolution also didnt help.
After several hours of getting nowhere I decided to do a complete reinstall of windows 7 and drivers using the 2 cds the 8150 came with. Of course it didn't work.

So here I am. I can bypass the blue screen without having to go into safe mode if i disable my display adapter in safe mode first. Both modes have glitchy colors and horizontal lines.

I do not have another graphics card to replace my own to test. I will try to hook up my laptop to a monitor tomorrow to see if it also gets these glitchy lines. But in the meantime, anyone got some other things I can try? Also, as a student I heavily rely on my computer. Is it safe to continue to use my computer with the display adapter disabled? It is glitchy colors but I can still surf the internet and use applications.

Thanks for reading through this. Hopefully I won't have to replace it!

 

I've also tied to bake the 6990m, nothing changed, I hope I didn't ruin it more, but I'm reading about flashing the vbios,. I found a couple pretty good guides, I'm gonna try a blind flash. (my comp boots into windows, but no display, no splash, no nothing). I just want to try everything before I cough up the dough again....

 

I've only repasted my cpu but I think I need to re paste my gpu too.
I've read somewhere that some thermal pads need to be replaced during the process. Since I live outside the us, I would rather not have to purchase these pads.
So is there a way to re paste the gpu without the need to replace said pads?

Sent from a Galaxy far, far away

 

You don't necessarily need to use thermal pads. If you have a way of getting access to thermal compound it'll do the same job. Something like IC Diamond or Arctic Silver 5 would work nicely.

 

So I can just remove the old thermal pads and replace them with thermal compound? Won't that leave some extra space between the chip and the heat sink?

Sent from a Galaxy far, far away

 

I have heard that it does leave a gap which some people solve with the use of thermal tape, but safe temperatures should be maintainable without worrying too much about it. Just keep your eye on a temp monitor, allow a little time for curing which should improve temps by a few degrees itself, and if you're still seeing unsafe temps possibly look into a thermal pad then or locate some thermal tape.

 

As long as the thermal pads aren't worn out, you can re-use them. If this is the first time you are re-pasting your GPU, then I'm positive that the thermal pads aren't worn out yet. But if you are anal on replacing them, there are thermal pads here in the Philippines.

 

You SHOULD NEVER replace thermal pads with thermal paste application. If you do that, there will be absolutely poor contact between the vRAM, VRM, and MOSFET modules and the heatsink. Conversely, you SHOULD ALSO NEVER replace thermal paste with thermal pad application because that will produce too much space between your heatsink and video card which will make the pressure screws useless.

If you don't want to believe me, try to google about this and you will get many hits. @Derek, thermal tape are used when attaching additional individual-module heatsinks that do not have a mounting mechanisms on them. The tape is used to hold them in place. A better alternative to thermal paste is thermal glue like the ones used by Arctic Cooling. Thermal glue has better performance but is harder to remove.

 

Where would I get the right thickness thermal pads here if I decide to replace them in the future?

Sent from a Galaxy far, far away

 

Try to look for them at tipidpc.

 

What thickness do we need.

Sent from a Galaxy far, far away

 

That I'm not sure. You have to estimate the stock thermal pads you have or ask Sager for the exact thickness.

 

Okay thanks.
and hopefully one of the resellers can chime in regarding the exact thickness needed for these pads.

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Hello everyone, my 8150 had been working great for 2 years but was recently dropped. After analyzing the dump files, (I was getting constant BSOD with the amd drivers on) I believe my 6990m is dead. While I know you can upgrade the gpu forwards (potentially needing a new psu too), how is the compatibility backwards? I have an old hp with a 5650m and I also see a 4870m on sale. At this point I just want to salvage the laptop without breaking the bank.

 

ive seen 8150 owners ask this kinda question before,but havent actually seen anyone do this. afaik, the lowest performing card in the p150hm would be the 460m.

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Planning on changing my main drive to an ssd. We use 2.5 " and sata connectors right? Just making sure

Sent from a Galaxy far, far away

 

Yes. All recent SSDs are 2.5" anyway except for the mini-PCIe and PCIe versions, of course. For the 2.5" versions, all of them have SATA connectors which can fit right in your laptop. For the best performing SSD, buy a Samsung 840 Pro but the price is kind of expensive. You could get away with the Samsung 830, Samsung 830 Pro, or Samsung 840 though.

 

Thanks kevin, just making sure it's not an msata slot we have.
I'm looking into the new crucial m500 480gb or 960 gb. Check them out.

Sent from a Galaxy far, far away

 

Yup no mSATA on the NP8150, they didnt include them until the NP91XX.

 

Oops, I forgot about msata. Yeah, no msata for our machines.
The Crucial M500 has a new technology that haven't had any reviews yet. Wait for a while if you're eyeing for that. On the other hand, the 840 pro is stellar.

I have a Crucial M4 on my laptop and a Plextor M3S on my desktop. You really won't notice any difference when it comes to day-to-day tasks. I reckon you are not much into games, so I can say that any SSD of this generation would be best for you. But I understand that if you are buying now, might as well buy the best already.

 

After reading Anand's review, it would seem the m500 is mostly storage at the expense of latest performance. I am not for sure but you might be better off with a faster OS SSD and replace the ODD with a fast 1 TB HDD. Maybe someone else with a better understanding can help with this, but it seems it is a midrange performer with large storage space. Maybe not so much latest and greatest.

 

That makes sense because of how large the storage is. I agree, it would be wiser to have a faster OS SSD and replace the ODD with a fast HDD; this is exactly what I did with my NP8130. M4 with Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB. My system is blazing fast with this SSD.

 

u said faster os ssd, then why did u stick to the M4? its always been a midrange performer, albeit a very reliable and cheap one

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