*** Official Sager NP8170/Clevo P170HM Owners Lounge ***

Guys,

My Sager NP8170-S1 started to shutdown, so, after some tests, look at what I realized, the CPU Heatsink is BROKEN! It's a 2 parts heatshink and got these 2 parts got disassembled! Look at this images:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_X0ux7SQYHDRDVjZHR2MGxPYUE/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_X0ux7SQYHDODliclJCeEFOQWc/edit?usp=sharing

I have a question to you guys: do you know where to buy a new heatsink for the CPU? I can't use the laptop with this thing broken =/

Please, help me! I need a new one asap!

 

What GPU did you have originally and what is it doing that makes you think it fried? Those models support up to the 680m or the 7970m I believe.

 

Contact your reseller, that's a big manufacturing defect.

 

Videos cause an instant crash of my computer. Driver rollbacks or upgrades don't fix it. And the computer runs perfectly fine with the driver disabled using onboard graphics.

I have an ATI 6900m in it. So is it fairly easy to buy a replacement and do the handy work, then?

 

The 680M is plug and play I believe, you either need to get a 7970M with a HM bios or blind flash it using the guide. For ease you might want to get a kit with the right heatsink.

 

Yeah it's a pretty simple upgrade if you have the kit that Meaker mentioned. Pretty much same process as installing a CPU in a desktop. Before spending a couple/few hundred on a GPU have tried other software programs to play those videos or play any games to see if the GPU really is the culprit?

 

Damn, thought so...

And now I'm stuck with a burned out GPU and one I can't return because of upgrademonkey's GPU return policy...

 

Hutsady,

I have done that 3 times now. Still continue to get them.

 

Yeah, I would go towards the GPU being an issue too.

However when you are running without the driver it's still the dGPU putting out the image as the IGPU is disabled in the HM series.

 

Just reinstalled windows again, got another bsod while installing sager drivers.

Now it keeps turning off on its own after Sager screen..error code 0x000000DE.

 

Yeah, at first it was just when videos played (youtube, on the computer, etc.), but now it even crashes if the drivers are enabled for more than a few minutes. It works fine if I uninstall the drivers and run the 'Standard VGA Graphics Adapter'.

Do you think a reformat might be worth doing?

Also, I was quoted $900 for a new 580M, $410 for 560M, $600 for 6990M. This seems absurdly expensive to me. Any cheaper options you guys know about, even if I have to take a performance hit?

 

Pricing is pretty much what you're able to find online sadly. Laptop GPUs tend to stay pretty pricey as they're not commonly available and people have already invested the bulk of money into the laptop itself and don't want to replace the entire machine, so demand stays relatively high and prices as well.

For those parts costs, I personally would jump on a reinstall just in case and it sounds like it'll be a very good chance of fixing the problem too.

 

I tried updating my bios. Got stuck at 28% erasing flash. Then turned off on its own. Now won't even start. Lights works and fan works, but black screen. Any help on what to do?

 

Some how I lost the ability to toggle audio with FN+5 when I installed my SSD as a main drive - Does anyone have any ideas why?

 

Do you know if a replacement 6990m bought on eBay will work in my Sager?

Something like this : Dell Alienware M17x HD6990M AMD Blackcomb XTX 2GB Graphics Video Card RDRGR | eBay

or this:

0RDRGR RDRGR 216 0811030 HD6990M HD 6990M 2G MXM3 0 DDR5 VGA Video Card for Dell | eBay

 

Nevermind - for some reason you can't toggle it with headphones plugged in. LOL. Learn something new every day. Somewhat related but it's pretty dumb that THX TruStudio Pro removes Realtek "Sound Effects" tab.

What's the general consensus on THX TruStudio? I've have a lot of problems with it but that may just be me.

 

You must use a sager card.

 

Okay. After extensive searching without success I need to get some input for a boot problem I've been having.

For a long time now, if I start up my laptop from power-down status, I get the Sager flash screen followed by a black screen with the message "BootMGR is missing, Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to Restart" When I restart it, everything loads normally. A restart from within Windows also works fine, as does a start-up if it has only been powered down for a short time. This makes troubleshooting very time consuming since I have to let it sit for several hours before I can see if what I tried worked.

At first I thought it was a problem with my OS install and tried about everything under the sun to fix it. No luck. Recent events have changed my theory. I had my Windows 7 install disk in the drive from one of my latest attempts, and of course it asked me every time I started up my lappy if I wanted to boot from the DVD. What I was doing was adjusting the boot order to see if that was causing problems. I put my SSD (with the OS) at the top followed by my optical drive, and my secondary HDD. After waiting several hours I checked to see if it made any difference. To my surprise, it asked me if I wanted to boot from the Win7 disk. I let the time elapse to see what would happen. BootMGR Missing. Next time I loaded from the install disk and ran the system repair option. It couldn't find my OS.

From this, it seems that my SSD is getting bypassed in the boot order for some reason. I don't know if it's a BIOS problem, or if the SSD takes longer to power up than the system is allowing before moving on (not sure why this would happen), or if it's something else entirely. I don't think that it's the drive itself because I had similar problems with a previous drive. Other than that, I'm at a loss.

I should also note that I also have the "issue" that the Sager logo flickers twice as other have described, but it could be unrelated since they didn't have the other issues.

Here's my system info: Xotic PC P170HM | i7-2630QM | GTX 560M | 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 | Vertex 4 128GB SSD | 500GB 7200 RPM HDD | Windows 7 Ultimate

 

Do you get the same message if you disconnect the SSD and try and boot off your HDD?

 

I haven't tried that. I haven't installed an OS on the HDD as I only use it for storage. I have an old HDD from a dead laptop that I could put a basic install on for testing.

 

Hi Guys. So I'm thinking of getting a videocard on eBay and trying myself to upgrade it. Do you guys know if this card will fit into this laptop? It's from a different model, but still came from a CLEVO:
Clevo Alienware NVIDIA GTX 560M w Heatsink | eBay

Also, are there any video tutorials or help guides about how to open this laptop? What sort of screwdrivers I need, for example.

 

Looks like it should work. Is your current video card bad? The 560M is also the default card that came with your NP8170, if something may not be correct it would be the heat sink assembly but you can use the one you currently have in the computer.

 

Actually the 6990M came with my computer by default. Is this heatsink assembly the same as the 560m? That's what I'm worried about.

Thanks for helping.

 

If I remember right the NP8170 used different motherboards at first for the AMD and Nvidia GPU's so it may not be interchangeable at all. I'd send your reseller an email to see if yours is compatible.

 

I think the main issue was trying to put an AMD card in the 120hz version which would not work without putting in the 60hz cable and screen.

 

Wow, thank you! I ordered it from XoticPC in January, 2012. I need to know for sure before I make any purchases, obviously.

 

Best thing to do is go over to our site, click contact, then request RMA which will get you to a form. Enter the requested info so we have everything we need and select "request tech support" in the details box ask if your computer will support both Nvidia and AMD GPU's. We'll find out from Sager and then let you know.

 

Thanks. I contacted them as you suggested, and this was their response:

~
Danny,

Unfortunately, we cannot offer that type of support. We can only support items that we would sell and install.
~

So that didn't help much unfortunately. I only want to know if a 560M bought from a different model computer would fit into the configuration of my computer. It's frustrating that it's such a difficult thing to find out... :-(.

 

Sorry about that he misunderstood the question as your inquiry asked if a Dell GPU will work in a Sager computer, which that is what he meant by we cant offer tech support on the Dell GPU.

I did find this post from Sager "The Sager NP8170 system will be split into 2 internal models, one with an NVIDIA GPU and the other with an AMD GPU. Note that these two models each require their own system version and GPUs will NOT be interchangeable. So, if you order an NVIDIA GPU system you will not be able to swap to an AMD GPU later, and vice versa."

 

Jumping into this convo - what's the highest-end nVidia GPU we can put into these rigs (mine originally came from XoticPC with the 485M)? Thanks!

 

The Sager NP8170 supported up to the GTX 580M.

 

Thanks, Hutsady!

 

Hey guys,
I've had my P170HM for about 2.5 years now, and I've always cherished it. However, recently my laptop has become unusable, and I'm not sure how to diagnose the issue. With the problems of the 6990m, it wouldn't surprise me if it was graphics card, but let me know what you think:

Specs (Sorry they're not exact):
P170HM, from Malibal
8GB Ram, all 4 slots, Samsung
i7 Quad Core processor
x2 750GB Hard drives in Raid 0
6990m Radeon HD
Windows 8
Linux Mint

It started out as the monitor graphics spazzing out and Windows saying that it "successfully recovered from a Graphics Driver error". Then soon after this happened, console text (like in the RAID setup and booting Linux) became corrupted (letters that were suppose to be "A" would be "S", etc). It booted fine in Linux in recovery mode, but it used the wrong resolution, couldn't change it to anything else (it was not using the AMD driver). I usually used the latest available driver from AMD in both OSs, not any beta ones.

Also, the internal network card went out, so I had to buy an external one.

I've tried re-seating the RAM and the graphics card, but it still does the same thing.

It sort of sucks when this is the only gaming PC that I have. So, what should I probably do? I could send it to Malibal, but it's out of warranty. I was initially thinking of buying a graphics card replacement which would be the cheapest option. I was also possibly thinking of basically re-doing it and buy a new motherboard (since the network card is out as well). But then at that point, I may as well buy a new one. Just not really sure...

Thanks for reading, and thanks for trying to help if you do.

 

I'm not so sure about that though. I had an exchange of e-mails with XoticPC support going earlier this month about buying a replacement GPU and they gave me three options which were compatible with my computer, two of them being Nvidia GTX options. So if my computer originally had the 6990M, you're saying it shouldn't technically support Nvidia chipsets also?

Ah, this is getting really confusing.

 

They are not officially supported upgrades.

The 560M is quite a step down and the best bang for the buck would come from a 7970M with HM series vbios.

 

guy i have a sager np 8170 but i have 2 major problems...1 is my pc always shut down when i play high graphic game which b4 i max out dont have any problem..2 is sometimes my lappy bluescreen then shutdown....im not sure what the problem.....i think not the heat coz i have one gigantic cooler n my room always full aircon....anyone have suggesttiion? i already format like 3 time....after format it when good but after 2-3 month the old problem come back....huhu..anyone help me T.T

 

my spec is i7 6990m n 8gb ram

 

1. Clean your vents. Take off the bottom cover and really get in there. Some people say vacuum some say duster. We use an electric duster. Just hold the fans in place when you blow.

2. Uninstall old drivers and update to new ones

3. Possible 6990m dying.

Edit.

4. Repaste with artic silver or ic diamond

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

already did number 1 n 2....if 6990m dying so im suppose to replace new one?but im going oversea in a week...huhu...plus here at my country hard to find notebook GPU sad

 

Monitor your temperatures, also it could be your power brick.

 

what is the newest catalyst control center version?

 

Hey guys, I thought that I would report back on what's going on with mine.
Turns out the problem was the graphics card.

I figured I would try and "bake" it in the oven (nothing to lose at this point) and I can safely say it's working.

I usually run it with another monitor, I was thinking that maybe I should only run it with one. I initially undervolted it a tad to that it wouldn't idle at 60C running two 1080p monitors (including the one on the laptop), it now runs at around 53C idle. Is this ideal?

I guess the real question is how long will it last? Better start saving up for a new 7890m...

 

Hi
I have Clevo P170HMx with 2860QM CPU
I will want upgrade to 2960XM
Now my BIOS V 1.01.10 EC_KBC V 1.00.09
I have insatalled Intel XTU 2.1

What will I have really from this upgrade (to 2960XM)?
Intel XTU will be enough for overclocking 2960XM ?

 

Yes you will get multiplier and power limits controls at least and I think voltage IIRC.

 

Will I can really change TDP and Turbo Boost duration IIRC by Intel XTU??
I read in posts (if I correctly understood) that by Intel XTU to change TDP not possible!
Sliders can be moved.... and saved, but this not apply really!
Like as changes made in the programs XTU - really no changed...
It is correct or not?

 

Hi,

my np8170 from Xotic died on me last month after 2 years and half of use.

- Gpu: 6970m
- BSOD atikmpag.sys > reset > BSOD.
- Complete format but problems remains. Only Safe-Mode or Normal Mode without video drivers.

Almost since the beginning it had this micro-freezing or stuttering, , like a fragment of second, evident mostly when playing videos.

Most 'professionals' close to my home tell me to do this reballing but they are TRULY untrustworthy. I live in Peru, btw.

Any advice guys? I'm getting kind of anxious, this was my main equip for work.

 

You could try baking the card but if the machine is used for productivity you will want to replace the system or the card.

 

edit:
Didn't know this was a real method.

Any other way to fix it? what happens if I send it to reflow o reballing here and they make a cheap job?

They say it will have only 4-6 months after dying again, for real this time. But internet says a good reballing should last 2~3 years.

Can I keep doing the process over and over?

 

Your card is dead so it cant hurt but a machine used for productivity wont want that blade hanging over it.

 

The guy from repairs told me probably one of the memories was desoldered, but not the GPU itself, otherwise my lap wont even turn on.

Any reason why this happens? I used to play on nights but with the back removed and my U3 with 3 fans at full.

Never went over 82ºC after getting the cooling pad.

I fear the damage begun on the first days while playing crysis. One time it went up to 100ºC before I realized.
It was my first gaming rig so I may have been careless.

So this is a dead card now? Saving it sounds simple (just trying new soldering on mem one by one), but the right instruments/technicians for reballing seems hard to find on my city.