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

Hotkey issues not a problem anymore. Video card is toast. Boots only in CGA, scrambled or nothing. Going to see how well it stands up to a 12 GA and then probably send it back to Sager. I'm done with it.

 

Intel wireless n ultimate 6300

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

 

I'm not sure what choices are out there for a budget non-performance video replacement - but the general suggestions for video card swaps are 7970 (there's a direct clevo option with correct vbios or you can blind flash with a modified vbios) or with the 680m.

I'm bumping your old comment because I believe my 6990m is likewise on the way out - http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo-reviews-owners-lounges/655837-official-clevo-p150em-sager-np9150-owner-s-lounge.html#post9693656 Am I still correct in these being my main options for replacement/upgrade? There seems to be quite a bit of price difference between the 2Gb and 4Gb varieties of 680m - anyone have thoughts as to what is preferred (or more worth the money)? There is a direct Sager/Clevo kit for the 680m, but it's a little pricey!

 

Hi everyone! I've read from other posts in this forum that you can buy from items from members, but couldn't find a Buy,sell,trade section. I have p150hm and my 6990m crapped out. I was wanting to buy a 7970m with modded vbios or point me to where i can purchase one. Thanks so much!

 

It's called the NBR Marketplace

 

You do need quite a few more posts before you can post in the market place though. For GPUS you'll typically have the best luck using google to search or to hop on Ebay.

 

Was the card working correctly before?

 

Yeah it was working fine before

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

 

What changed before it happened? Did you open the system, install new drivers? Can you test it in another machine?

 

I ordered myself a Clevo 4Gb GTX 680m to swap in place of my failed 6990m. Am fairly sure I had the latest bios installed before (it's slightly awkward to try upgrade now as video is pretty hard to read in the BIOS). No problems installing or updating the drivers - just noticed that I've lost the ability to resume from hibernation or sleep. On another post I was advised it's because there is no ACPI resume code for this card in the bios - so need to disable all hibernation.

 

Can't test it in another machine sicr I only have the one working laptop, how else can I diagnose?

 

I have my p151hm1 for 2 years now. I am trying to do a Virus scan using usb bootable linux antiviruses. I reboot and start computer with usb key and So far I have tried Eset and Bitdefender but they all freeze after the first menu and while loading...
I tried the usb key on another laptop an it worked perfectly.

Have you got any idea what might be causing the problem?
my specs: cpu: i7-2760 ram:8gb video: gtx 560m

thanks

 

Did you decide to run the anti virus because the computer was acting like it was infected? The freezing you're seeing could be the virus doing its thing.

 

It sounded to me like he was booting on a Linux from USB key. If the virus from Windows managed to spread and was having impact when booted into linux running from USB, he's got a big problem!

 

I didnt know such a virus exists!
No, computer is alright. I just found out that I had an infected usb key and windows doesn't find any malware on computer. I just decided to check through linux to be sure and this happened.

 

I don't believe it does - I'm pretty sure they are still limited to a single OS. I would think it's just a matter of something not being properly detected and working in that distro - try another?

 

Well so far I have tried Eset and Bitdefender free linux antiviruses.
I hope it's not something related to bios. I remember when I got my laptop I tried to update the bios and it froze. gladly it rebooted again. i don't want to try that and brick my laptop.

 

So I just oven baked my 6990m for the 4th time. It worked everytime before but now after doing it the laptop wont even start up. The power light comes on for like 3 seconds and hdd or fans don't even start. Does this just mean the graphics card is fried for good or I'd there another problem here? I'm guessing it's just the graphics card, I just figured it would still start up just with no display and don't wanna dump money into a new one if there is by car chance another issue.

 

Does it react the same if the card slot is left empty?

 

Yes, exactly the same. I tried power cycling but it didn't work. Seems like maybe the motherboard is failing but Idk cause I'm far from an expert at fixing computers. It would be very coincidental to have 2 parts dying at once though and I know the graphics card is without doubt.

 

Anyways, as a follow up to my graphics card question I saw this post. Would this be a legitimate solution? Right now I'm on a but of a budget and seeing as I don't really play Computer games anymore I'd be fine with a cheap graphics card to do me over for now, I just want to know it will work before I buy it. I'm a bit new to this so not sure how to tell lol.

Besides that are there any other budget gpu options? I can't seem to find a clevo 6990m anywhere. The 7970m is a bit more than I'd like to spend but if I do go that route would it just be plug and play? If not what additional steps do I have to take to make it work? First time replacing a graphics card so I just don't wanna mess it up and waste money.

 

7970 should be plug and play, but the HDMI doesn't work - need to keep that in mind if it's a feature you utilize. I swapped out to a 680m, where I had to remove the ATI drivers and put in a slightly tweaked nvidia driver - and disable standby in Windows as that won't work, but otherwise it works great (including HDMI). Not really the budget option though.

 

So this should work?


NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M 2GB DDR5 MXM 3 0 VGA Card for Laptop | eBay

Any instructions for the slightly modified drivers? I mean will I be able to boot up to install them if I plug in the new graphics card? Not sure hhow I'm supposed to do it exactly lol. Sorry if thsts a stupid question.

 

I wouldn't - you need the ones with the correct firmware, which will all say Clevo, and I believe are 4Gb not 2. Instructions for the driver are Nvidia INF driver modding (Guide) - Guru3D.com Forums

 

Alright thanks for your help

 

The 2 GB cards are alienware so yeah very likely to shut down after 30 seconds.

 

Hi all,

Very frustrated P-150HM user and hoping to get some advice from you all. The basic problem is terrible fps in MMOs like SWTOR. Tried everything I can think of from fresh windows, to many versions or drivers, Direct X (including 9c), tweaking ui files the lot. No joy. <20 fps. System is clean, and passes Win 7 memory test. Interestingly CPU frequency failure on Intel CPU diagnostic tool but I have read that cannot be trusted. All setting on high performance. All drivers up to date. Using Win XP compatible mode on the program. No firewall/anti-virus issues as have tested with them off. In game setting have very little (1-10 fps) difference from Highest to lowest graphics settings. I do notice that in Device Manager the onboard CPU graphics adapter (intel HD 3000) does not show up but I assume Clevo auto disables it.

System is: P-150HM
16G DDR3 RAM
ATI HD6990M
i7 2670 QM

At my wits end and would dearly love some expertise and advice.

Thanks in advance.

 

There are some apps/games that just don't work terribly well for some hardware - I know a lot of people have performance issues with Diablo 3 which are rectified by disabling sound within the game - but this isn't specific to our hardware, it's impacts many different platforms.

Are there games where things work properly, or is it just SWTOR being impacted?

 

Hi Hubris,

TY for the reply. Multiple seem effected, but SWTOR the most. The game has engine / fps difficulties at best but this has got to be my machine...its is aweful. Others, like Wildstar, run poorly but better with higher system requirements. May I ask if u see the intel graphics adaptor in device manager or it it disabled by Clevo? Another silly question...is ther any way I may have throttled the CPU speed down by accident. BIOS are default.

cheers again.

 

I swapped out my 6990m with a 680m (which shouldn't really matter). I'm fairly sure the onboard graphics should be disabled - have certainly read that if you remove the graphics you don't get onboard.

A couple things I'd suggest. First, I've had times my computer was running games terribly and found that it wasn't plugged in - the default powersaving scheme clocks down the CPU pretty hard if you're on battery. Second - install a 3D testing app to see if there's an overall issue with your hardware, or whether it benchmarks anywhere near the expected results for your CPU and GPU. I've used Futuremark and 3dMark before. Try disabling sound in the game - as I mentioned earlier, I know a game where tons of video effects cause extremely low framerates but it's due to the way sound is handled - and it significantly improves if you turn off sound in the game (far from ideal - but this is largely the fault of the game coding).

 

The HM series don't wire the IGP to anything so it's never on.

If you are having issues, chart CPU and GPU usage/temperatures/clocks over a period of gameplay, take a screenshot and post it up here.

This is of course unless it's just a single game having issues in which case it's likely just a poorly programmed game.

 

Thanks you once more Hubris and Meaker,

I will try the graphics benchmarking utilities you suggest Hubris. Am I looking for a 'score' with these or just that the GPU does not fail / crash? Last night I ran PassMark and no errors were detected (score was 1261...unsure if this is good(?)). I also ran Unigine-Heaven benchmark. Took a while to 'load' but when it did it ran. Basic settings were giving me 30-40 fps and Extreme setting around 20fps. again, unsure if this is acceptable or normal. There was some stuttering on Extreme. Meaker I will chart them with SWTOR as you say. CPU-Z and GPU-Z OK for this?

I really do appraciate this help guys. I know SWTOR's ized Hero Engine is problematic...but I feel something is up hardware/laptop sorftware wise as <20fps is insane. Doubly so when changing all ingame graphics settings to low does not improve it at all.

 

For my part, many tools will compare your result against 'expected' results given the CPU and GPU hardware - as long as your results there are similar to expected, all is well. If there were a major hardware or driver issue, I would expect your benchmark results to differ significantly from the 'expected' results for a 6990m and your CPU. If your benchmark results are good, it would seem the issue isn't so much with your computer as with that particular game - and you'll want to search game forums specifically around those particular issues - there might be a non-documented configuration that can be made in a gamefile, different version of a driver, etc that might help.

 

So, I just read a bunch of 2011 Macbook Pro owners complaining about their laptops dying most likely from dedicated GPU failures, similar to what we have here from the 6990m, though the failures here seem to have sprung up at a faster rate, about a year. Any thoughts on this? People are pushing Apple to replace their laptops as they have done in the past, even if these products are out of warranty.

 

I thought the general explanation for the fault seen in the 6990m was solder cracking, related to overheating (please correct if wrong) which is why 'baking' temporarily fixes things, as the solder can reform and reconnect the GPU. This would be a design flaw in under-spec'ing the cooling to save some money. There hasn't really been any explanation which I've yet read to explain the fault on the imbedded AMD video in the Macbooks which would show them to be related beyond the manufacturer name.

 

Hello guys,

Something of an update although I did not get the chance to work the system and take some screenshots of CPU/GPU load/temp. Will do that ASAP. However, I ran PassMark again and had a close look at the results. It seems to me the HD6990m is doing fine. The expected 3D graphics benchmark was something like 1600 and it scored 1570 - or close to it anyways. However, the expected CPU score for the i7-2860QM was 7000 and mine scored 2200. This is in addition to a CPU frequency failure using the intel CPU diagnostic tool. So it seems to me (a complete novice) that the CPU is under-performing / broken. Just to be sure I flashed the latest BIOS successfully but no change in the scores. The puzzling thing is the system is stable and otherwise running very smoothly - except when gaming. But I guess this is the time the CPU would actually be under pressure. The CPU clock speed seems to me to be stuck on 790Mhz and never moves (even when gaming). I understand this to be an 'idle' speed - but should it not jump to 2.5 GHz or close when the load is on? Again, everything set to max performance no power saving, etc. Unfortunately the new BIOS (like the old one) has nowhere I can check / select anything to do with the CPU. In fact, the adjustable options are pretty much nil.

Any thoughts / advice would. as always, be very much appreciated.

 

Sounds to me like your CPU is throttling to the low-speed power saving mode and not cycling back up when under load. Is there a bios option to disable CPU throttling/power saving, and see if you can get it to run at full speed at all?

 

Hey Hubris,

There is no BIOS option at all relating to this. In fact, the only 'option' in advanced seems to be for bluetooth. Strangest BIOS ive ever seen in that there is nothing that can be adjusted. I can find no option for this in Win7 either aside from turning all powersaving modes off. Both old and new BIOS were (are) in default.

 

You can change the power plan to high performance, that will make the CPU sit at a higher speed more often but also use more power, the CPU does not need to remain at full speed all the time.

 

Hello Meaker and Hubris,

Yes I have have all settings to High Performance for a while but it made no difference at all.

However...EUREKA...problem is now, I think, solved!

I followed up on the 'CPU not getting out of idle' idea and installed / played around with ThrottleStop. As predeicted all 8 threads were functioning fine but the CPU was remaiing at 790Mhz regardless of load. I then unckecked (turned off) the BD PROCHOT button. This button is explained in the excellent ThrottleStop guide on these forums as:

BD PROCHOT stands for bi-directional prochot. PROCHOT stands for processor hot which is the signal that is activated within the CPU when it reaches approximately 100C to 105C depending on the model number. This signal is what initiates thermal throttling so the CPU can slow down and keep from over heating. Intel included a bi-directional feature so if something else like a GPU is running too hot, it would be able to send a PROCHOT signal directly to the CPU and force it to cool down so the entire laptop cools down. Very few laptops seem to use this type of throttling. This feature was added for the Asus G51. Disabling this will allow your CPU to continue to run at full speed. Disabling this will not prevent your CPU from thermal throttling at its normal Intel set thermal throttle temperature.

All of a sudden we had CPU activity on all threads. Frequency was, with no load, staying at 790MHz but jumping up a little now and then. Things seemed to have woken up. So I ran PassMark and the CPU score jumped to to 7500 for CPU (as opposed to previous 2000). Also, Clock Speed during the test raised up to 2.5 GHz. The I ran intel CPU diagnostics and instead of getting a 'Frequency Fail' I got a pass. Then logged into SWTOR (the original problem) only to find it running smooth and stable in hoh-pop zones on 'Very High' setting at around 40-60 fps. No real heat issues (75-80 degrees on CPU).

I have no idea why this worked other than at some stage it appears that PROCTHOT had locked the CPU into an idle frequency of 790 MHz from which it would not arouse itself! I'm thrilled with the result but will run the laptop in a cooling rack with the battery out for a while until I am happy there are no temperature issues.

I would not have followed this idea up but for the suggestions on this thread. Huge thanks all. I hope this helps anyone else out there with a similar problem.

 

Glad to hear you've found the cause! To me, this still means that somewhere there is a sensor incorrectly reading CPU temp - and while it's good there is a method to override the signal, it does leave you with a risk of genuine overheating. If you still had warranty on the device and could reliably repeat hardware sensors showing an overheat condition, I'd send it back to have the systemboard/sensor corrected.

If you're just trying to get maximum life out of a laptop and aren't so fussed - it's great you found a workaround that makes it a workable laptop again.

 

Its out of warranty actually and from what i read my workaround does not override the chips own protective shutdown at 105 degrees (i think). Yes mate just trying to keep it alive a bit longer. any risk associated with actually keeping it on th cooling board permanently with battery out and the plastic cover removed from the back exposing heatsinks, etc? This is never actually used as a laptop but as a desktop.

Sensor makes sense as well - cheers

 

I'm looking to possibly upgrade my Sager 8150, does anyone think I'll have any issues installing:
1). A 1.35v 8GB SODIMM alongside the existing 8GB 1.5v one? I don't neccessarily care if dual channel works.
2). A new SSD such as the Samsung 840 Evo or Crucial MX100?

Thanks.

 

1) Dual channel and fine.
2) should be fine.

 

Hi guys,
So I opened the bottom of my P150HM to clean out the fans and heat sinks. I managed to clean two but couldn't unscrew the one by the video card that is held by screws numbered 5, 6, & 7. I also reset my memory chips since my laptop had recently decided to ignore one of them which had me running on half the RAM I am used to. I put it back together and now I power it on but I don't even get any activity apart the power and Bluetooth indicators.
Keep in mind that I used the manual on my manufacturer's website (Malibal) to take apart and put it back together.

Please help, classes start soon.
Thanks,
Jonathan.

Edit:
Solved the problem. Re-opened, and reset memory, and tightened heat sink screws. Got my full 8GB ram back and my finger printer reader is working more consistently too. YAY!!!

 

Yes the screws mist be fully tightened, most likely the ram not seated right. Good work getting it sorted and thanks for sharing

 

Hi, I have a laptop with a card CLEVO P150HMx, native gtx560m power is not enough and want to buy a more powerful version that suggest? Talked with the seller says that gtx 675 is suitable and possible gtx770.

 

The 680m (original shipping bios) or 7970m with hm vbios (first revision pcb).

They need to be clevo/sager original boards.

 

Thank you card with this announcement fit? Видеокарта для ноутбука Nvidia 680M GTX 2Gb MXM купить в Санкт-Петербурге на AVITO.ru

 

2GB cards are from Dell, talk to prema to see if he thinks that will work.