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

No no it won't

You will have to wait for the new Samsung M8 1TB drives that will be the right height.

 

It'll only fit in ODD bay with 12+mm caddy.

 

Ok, how difficult is it removing the ODD bay and replacing it with the hard drive?

 

Not very hard at all, just one screw to get the ODD out. The caddy goes together pretty obviously and then just put it back together. Its like 5 minutes the first time, maybe.

 

Keep in mind the ODD caddy only provides SATA II but that is no problem for a mechanical drive.

 

Hey,

So I just tested out my first game on my new P150hm: Battlefield Bad Comany 2. Obviously I was both stunned and thrilled at the performance at max settings (1080p high) as I have never owned a powerful pc before. However there are problems :/

Every 5-10mins the game freezes and then crashes completely. I lowered the settings to medium and still no difference. What is going on? I just installed the latest drivers for the 485m and I am using a Zalman 2000 to cool my notebook so I don't think temps are a problem. Last I measured, my gpu was on 45'C about 3mins after having crashed bfbc2. I also installed all the drivers on the Clevo disk and ran all the windows updates (around 80 of them).

*Plea for help* ..

 

I know this is a stupid question but...

Do you have your settings on "High Performance"?

Mr. Mysterious

 

What version of the nvidia drivers do you have? Does it crash doing anything else? Is it a total hard-lock or can you CTRL-ALT-DEL out of the game?

Could be any number of issues from memory, to bad drivers, to bad luck.

 

Not a stupid question but i did mention it in my above post. I was playing on 1080p at medium performance. However It is probablly worth noting that I am downloading two other game clients at the same time, which I can't stop at the moment. That could well be the cause - too many things running at once; I guess I need to get a feel for what my new lappy can handle. If that is the case I guess I'll have to wait till the tomorrow morning to see how i handles it without other software chewing up performance.

My current 485m driver is 275.33 (the latest). It has not crashed doing anything else. The screen just freezes on the picture for 3 seconds, then program quits and I have full control again - I don't Ctrl Alt Del out it just quits on its own after 3secs, no other programs quit just bfbc2. I'm going to try it once more on low settings and report back . Oh wow it seems the servers are down as I'm getting a message "Unable to login, please try again later" lol never happened to me in all my time playing bfbc2. I'm not the only one who is unable to login.

-----------------
Edit
Ah s*** it happened again. This time playing on low setting 1080p, and with only 1 game client downloading in the background. My temps are very stable, gpu at like 65 just after game quit and dropping fast. Something must be wrong because the gameplay feels superb and then out of nowhere it just stops. What could it be?

-----------------
Edit
After snooping around a little bit I found that many other people have experienced the same issue in Battlefield. So it is related to the game itself and drivers, and it appears people were able to solve it by tweaking certain settings. I just got to work through it on my own I guess, but thanks anyways!

 

I think he may have been referring to the Power Options in Windows on the bottom right in the system tray.

Are you getting any blue screen errors at all? Have you tried any other games?

 

Hey Pepi,
I see you finally got the glossy screen. How is it so far?
What about outdoors or in conditions with a degree of glare, is it still visible?

Thanks.

 

Oh ok sorry. I actually ran it using different settings on my power plan. I tried high performance and balanced and some other.

No no, no blue screen. If you Google "Bad company 2 crashes to desktop" you can see that it is not an uncommon issue. It seems to be directly related to the game itself and although I didnt have problems on my last computer it sounds as though it doesn't like my software/drivers or something. It seems I need to tweak it a little. I also just realised that there are some more windows updates that I need to install and it is recommended to install them all before playing the game - I am doing that now.

Well I wasn't suprised by this and neither should you be since you know my view on the matter , the v7 looks absolutely beautiful. As soon as you turn on it is stunning and the viewing angles are phenominal; from the sides and top you can see it clear right untill the you're eyes are inline with the screen, the bottom angle goes dark after about 45-50degrees. When you play games or watch a movie it is godlike and you really feel like you got what you payed for. I haven't had a chance to take it outdoors yet but as a glossy user my whole life, I'm not going to see anything new. I have not any glare issues at all, again to be expected from a glossy user. I will post pics anyways in the next few days of the screen indoors and outdoors in one of my threads (I have already taken some).

 

I think it I tweaked it right now, I was able to play a full game for the first time just now. I had to change my setting.ini (documents/bfbc2/setting) settings to something a found on a forum and it seems to work now.

So there you go just a bfbc2 settings issue with my new lappy.

 

Hey all,

When I use an external monitor, and extend the display (ie using both the laptop screen and external monitor at the same time), my GPU temperatures idle at about 68 degrees C.

I assume that dual screens will work the GPU more than powering a single screen, but is this temp too high or normal?

Thanks

 

It's because the power saving feature (powermizer) is turned off when more than one display is enabled. There's a program that manually sets the clocks. I believe it was mentioned somewhere in this thread.

 

Is there an equivalent to Powermizer for AMD? I thought that was NVDIA only?

 

Oh sorry missed your signature.

 

Hey,

I have this problem too, but fixed it with this method.

Download this: OrbLog Blog Archive NVIDIA Inspector 1.95 – Tool

Then after putting the EXE somewhere, load it up.



Right click on " Show Overclocking." Then click on " Start Multi Display Power Saver."

You'll see this screen:



So here, tick the " Run Multi Display Power Saver at Windows Startup."

Let me explain now, the GPU has three mods; P0, P8 and P12. Each are High, Medium and Low performance respectively. The left column specifies programs that need to have High performance modes (e.g. Games, benchmarks). Add programs you think you need in P0 by right clicking on the column and adding from file or from a game that you are actually running at that point. Same goes for P8, that clocks the GPU at medium levels for video applications.

You can also set the threshold levels on the bottom. This allows automatic clocking (P0 or P8) when a process/game/application reaches the GPU usage given by your threshold level. I did both threshold and manual adding of programs, just in case it doesn't clock itself properly.

Finally, with this program, it will set the default clock to be P12 and runs very quiet with dual monitors. I idle at 38C with this method, clocks itself to high levels when gaming, and medium levels during minor GPU tasks. Definitely increases the life of this laptop.

Hope it helps !

 

He has an AMD card.

 

Oh dear, sorry

I guess I'll put that up for NVIDIA users !

 

Either way, thanks a billion for that, +1. Good to know. If you save the clocks in a shortcut and put it in your startup will it save those clocks too? Or does nVidia inspector have to be running all the time?

 

That's why the " Run Multi Display Power Saver at Windows Startup" is for. It boots with the desktop. NvidiaInspector doesn't need to be run at all ...kinda like a separate program.

 

Hey, about p150hm temperatures, when running high end games on high settings (take bfbc2 for example) what gpu temps would be OK/normal? I just installed speedfan to keep track of my temps and I think my temps are fine + I'm using a notebook cooler. I just wanted to know what temp levels are dangerous for cpu/gpu so I can watch out for them.

One other thing, can anyone link me to a good and trusted guide on keeping you're computer healthy and safe? I know I found a good one or two on nbr but I can't seem to find it again and I have been looking. Things that will prolong my laptop life like battery life maintenance, overheating prevention, cleaning registry, unecessary services, optimizing performance etc are what I am looking for.

Much appreciated!

 

Temp wise, you want to always see your temps below 95C on the GPU. Above that and you may have a serious problem worth contacting your reseller about. Typically though, temps should stay between 60-80C under load. The CPU typically runs in the same range, though idles a little higher and stays a little lower under load for most.

 

Ok thanks allot, my GPU is at 82 while playing bfbc2 on 1080p + Medium settings. Unfortunately I still get crashes too often for my liking the game is playing fine 1 second, half a second later I am on my desktop hence the label "crash to desktop". I reinstalled the game and it's better now, doing it less frequently.

 

Hey pepi , wanted to ask you if BC2 is playable on your system at max settings.
I see you mentioned medium... why not high?

 

It works just a smooth on high as it does on medium ie flawlessly both at 1080p). I just happened to have it on medium as I was fiddling with settings.ini file allot trying to stop the CTDs (crash to desktop) from occuring. It's so frustrating, every time I think I solve the CTD it happens again. I can't believe EA still haven't fixed it properly yet.

 

Thanks for the detailed help Lamp! However, as mentioned, I have an AMD card. Does anyone know a similar approach to fixing this problem with an AMD card?

 

One thing to watch out for, is if you boot up your computer while it is running on battery, the overclocked settings from the nvidia inspector startup file will not take effect because the computer will refuse to go to pstate 0, hence it won't save the settings and you will be on default speed, even if you plug in afterwards. If you boot up on battery, you'll have to run the file again once you plug the AC in.

 

Ok guys, do many of you owners travel with this laptop? I'm seriously after how this laptop will go with travel for business/pleasure. Is it much bigger than a normal laptop? Too much/heavy to travel with? How would it compare size wise and portability to say the mbp 15?

 

Dimension-wise similar to a 15" mbp but about twice as thick. A tiny bit heavier (I don't really notice it).

 

i bring it around almost everyday.
i use it for business aside from video editing and gaming.
i also bring it when i go on my dive holidays.
the laptop itself isnt heavy but the psu does add significant weight. but its nothing that an averagely healthy male cant handle.

 

I chose this chassis because it's the smallest 15" high performance model I could find. The Asus G53 for example, is almost 1.5" wider. You'll find it quite portable but a little heavy due to the strong metal chassis and big heatsinks inside. I carry it to work everyday inside a cheap freebie bag from some conference that is smaller than all the 15" laptop bags I have seen for sale.

 

As others have said, the laptop itself isn't that bad. The power brick is the only chunky part of it. That said, I end up carrying my Lotus P150HM and a second ultraportable and quite a few other things in a laptop bag and it's not all that bad. It's still a convenient size/weight especially considering how powerful it is. It's a bit heavier than a MBP, but obviously many times more powerful.

 

Hi,

I recently purchased a P150HM with the following specs:

i7-2720QM
Radeon 6970M
16GB DDR3-1333 RAM (a lot I know)
OCZ Vertex3 240GB SSD
Intel WiFi 6300
LG BT10N Blu-ray writer
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

I love this machine, but my main issue is the battery life. While reading reviews and user experiences I was expecting 2.5-3 hours with a low workload, but I'm barely getting 2 hours.

This is with power save options on 'Power Saver', the power conservation mode on 'Energy Star', the screen on the second-lowest brightness setting, all devices not in use disabled (optical drive, wireless, card reader, fingerprint sensor, camera, microphone) and all the visual effects in windows disabled.

I'm suspecting it's the Radeon 6970M, because whenever I saw the 2.5-3 hours mentioned it was always with one of the NVidia cards. What battery life are other 6970M owners seeing?

Does anyone have any more power conservation tips? The only thing I can still think of is taking out 8GB of RAM, but I'm not sure how much difference that would actually make.

Since I would like to get 2.5 hours out of it (long train rides) I was thinking of just getting another battery...

Thanks for your help!

 

ure suspecting right, its the AMD card`s "fault" so to say, since it wouldnt downclock as aggresively as the 485M from nvidia. total difference in battery life would thus end up being around 1 hour less, according to the reports ive read so far.

cheers

 

An idea would be to set three profiles in your overclocking tool app, one for everyday usage, one for medium tasks and another for gaming.

There's a post somewhere around here that specifies exactly how to do that (and on a 6970M too), so search around and that would help you.

Mr. Mysterious

 

^ Thanks for the prompt replies re. laptop size. Much appreciated.

 

I carry mine around all day between 3 offices across the county. I use a mobile edge messenger bag, and have no issues. Of course, I also went to this from an Asus G73 17". So this seems so much lighter and mobile to me. But I have been doing this with the Sager for several months now, and still consider it not to be very heavy on a daily basis.

 

Yep, it's an unfortunate side effect of the AMD card. They idle at higher wattage and can cut up to about an hour off of the expected battery life. As others suggested, underclocking/undervolting will make a huge difference.

 

It's a real shame that Sager chose not to include some sort of Optimus tech. Really could use better battery life than 2 - 2.5 hours whilst on the road/plane. Still, can't really complain too loud when you see the performance on offer in a 15" laptop...

Looking between the NP8150 (Clevo P150HM), the Alienware M11x and the Apple MBP 15 with ATI 6750. Yes, I know, quite a varied assortment of laptops there. But trying to get the best performance coupled with somewhat ok battery life and a little portability. The Sager ticks all the right boxes, except for battery and the massive power supply. The Apple is expensive, I'm not a fan of OSX, and it seems like alot of money if I'm primarily just going to be running it with Windows 7. The M11x is a great little machine, but sacrifices alot of performance. Choices, choices...

 

Thanks for the replies everyone, if I had known beforehand I would have gone for the GTX 485M.

 

Is this the thread you mean? http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/576540-6970m-undervolting.html

How much extra battery life can I expect to gain from underclocking/undervolting?

 

It depends how aggressive you are. The CPU already does a pretty good amount of it, so the 6970m is the only thing that's worth bothering with. At most it's probably an hour or so extra.

 

An extra hour would be very impressive, that's almost a 50% gain!

 

I have now received my P150HM, and as expected my HDD will not fit where it is supposed to be. Are there any instructions on how you can remove the DVD drive from the caddy anywhere? It doesn't look like a trivial task, as I have unscrewed pretty much everything that can be unscrewed.

 

If you're trying to remove the optical drive, its held in by one screw. On the bottom of the machine, find the HDD bay (small, front and center compartment). Remove the two screws on that cover. Underneath should be the HDD itself. Off to the side of it (nearest the optical drive) is a single screw. Remove that screw and use the screwdriver to push the drive out. To install your HDD caddy, mount the drive to the caddy, slide in to the empty slot and put the retaining screw back in.

 

I think you misunderstood my post. I have taken out the caddy containing the optical drive (a trivial task), but my post concerned the possibility of removing the optical drive from the caddy itself and inserting the HDD into it. I hope that is possible, as from what I've seen it is quite expensive to buy a new caddy (on the order of $ 40, which I think is ridiculous; Then I might just as well skip on this completely and buy an HDD that will fit into the standard HDD slot).

 

You have to purchase an HDD caddy in order to put a hard drive in the optical drive bay. You can find cheap ones on eBay for around $20.

 

Ok. The question is just what caddy will fit. It would be a benefit if I could avoid having an ugly thingie sticking out of the side of my notebook.