Xotic PC and Sager

I'll be updating my post on my experience with Xotic PC and Sager here.

My first order was for a Sager NP8651

March 5 2015: Order Placed
March 6 2015: Final Verification and Payment Processing
March 9 2015: Payment Processed and Inventory Gathering
March 10 2015: Sager Assembly
March 11 2015: Packaged and Shipped
March 16 2015: Delivered

Unfortunately, when I received my laptop I noticed that it had coil whine from the GPU when the GPU came under load. I requested a RMA from Sager.

March 17 2015: RMA label generated and shipped
March 20 2015: Sager received laptop
March 26 2015: Called Sager but no update
March 27 2015: Called Sager but no update
March 30 2015: Called Sager, said they replaced GPU fan.
March 31 2015: Emailed Sager and said that I believe the motherboard would need to be replaced to fix.
March 31 2015: Sager responds that they will replace the motherboard.
April 1 2015: Sager ships laptop
April 3 2015: Laptop delivered.

After receiving my laptop back the first thing I did was check to make sure that they fixed the issue of coil whine. Much to my dismay the issue was not resolved and the coil whine was still present.

April 3 2015: Email sent to Sager asking if they replaced motherboard.
April 3 2015: Response saying that the motherboard was not replaced and it would have to be sent back.

At this point I did not want to send my laptop back again because it would be outside of the 30 day refund window by the time it came back.

April 3 2015: Email asking if they would extend the 30 day window and any sort of compensation for the hassle
April 6 2015: Response saying they could extend the 30 day window but no compensation.
April 6 2015: Contacted Xotic PC about different options.
April 6 2015: RMA request generated by Xotic PC.
April 7 2015: Sent laptop back for refund ($80 shipping to Sager)
April 7 2015: Order placed for NP8652-S.

Overall, this entire process has been quite stressful. I was very disappointed that Sager was not able to fix the machine properly when I first sent it in for RMA. I am also not pleased with how they said they would replace the motherboard and instead shipped it back without doing it.

Xotic PC overall has been responsive to my questions, but I never could manage to get someone on the phone at their service department the times I have called.

It would be nice to be refunded the shipping cost of the system because I am refunding it due to the failure to fix on the previous RMA, but Xotic PC and Sager do not seem willing to do this. It would be nice to get some sort of compensation from either company for going through all this trouble, but I have heard nothing from either.

The reason I chose to order a new system was because I did not want to have to worry about sending the old one back and it still having the issue. In addition, it seemed that upgrading the GPU to the 980m would provide more longevity of the system.

Current Status:

April 8 2015: Order Pending More Information Needed (No email, website status)
April 9 2015: Order Pending More Information Needed
April 9 2015: Billing Error (Xotic had a typo on the billing address)
April 9 2015: Billing Error corrected
April 9 2015: Payment Processed and Inventory Gathering
April 13 2015: Sager Assembly
**April 13 2015: Original Laptop received (no email confirmation, UPS confirmation)
April 14 2015: Shipped (Delivery expected Friday)
April 17 2015: Laptop Delivered (No game code included)
April 20 2015: Email sent to Xotic asking for game code
April 20 2015: Laptop Stability Issues (check post below)
April 21 2015: Email sent to Xotic detailing issues
April 21 2015: Email from Xotic with game code
April 21 2015: Forum post from Hutsady saying RMA for original has finished and refund soon.
April 21 2015: Email from Xotic saying RMA with exchange (not correct, I did RMA for refund) and no shipping compensation.
April 21 2015: RMA request for 8652 laptop.
April 22 2015: Email from Xotic saying the first was a mistake and a refund was issued.
April 22 2015: Email from Xotic saying they want to remote troubleshoot (I had already called and tried the steps suggested)
April 23 2015: A few emails back and forth and after showing my images of the artifacting it was decided best to just send to Sager for repair.
April 24 2015: RMA Shipping label generated
April 24 2015: 8652 laptop shipped with provided label
April 29 2015: Refund for original laptop went through with no shipping compensation (Refund was made on 22nd but took awhile to show up)
April 29 2015: Laptop received by Sager
May 4 2015: Email from Xotic saying laptop has been sent back (shipped May 1)
May 6 2015: Laptop arrived but frame was misaligned and coil whine still present.
May 11 2015: Response back from Xotic saying they will contact Sager.
May 12-13 2015: Sager suggests trying while on battery and re-seating the fan.

After not having any success of eliminating the noise on battery power and explaining that the noise is only present while the dGPU is on and will stop if I alt-tab to a non dGPU program, Xotic said they would ask Sager to swap the system for another. I took the weekend to decide what to do because I felt like it was just a defect in the manufacturer parts, but Xotic and members of the forum had not been reporting issues of coil whine on this model.

May 14 2015: RMA label created.
May 18 2015: Laptop sent to Sager.
May 21 2015: Sager received laptop
May 29 2015:Requested update on RMA status
May 29 2015:Xotic says Sager contacted Clevo and confirmed that this is an issue is normal
Jun 2 2015:Xotic asked how to proceed
Jun 2 2015:Asked for laptop back and for them to fix the speaker panel (small bubbling on right side)
Jun 3 2015:Laptop sent back
Jun 8 2015:Laptop received

 

Hello ShadowedIce,
I will take a look into this and talk to our service dept and see what they can fill me in on and follow up with you shortly.

 

A follow up, we are working with Sager to see if we can get anything to help you out with the shipping costs.

 

That would be great! Thanks.

 

Update:

I received my laptop Friday night and unfortunately did not have much time to play with it because I was traveling. I did manage to install my OS (Windows 8.1), apply a few updates, install Valley Benchmark, and install Magic 2015 to play in the car. The first thing I did was start Valley Benchmark to see if there was any coil whine. Much to my dismay, the coil whine seemed nearly the same as my previous laptop. I am assuming that because it is present on both a 980m and a 970m there is some manufacturing defect on these cards.

On Monday I attempted to install another SSD and put Windows 7 on it so I could run a few applications for work. Once I had placed the drive with the OS in, it no longer would allow me to select either my Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 drive as a boot option even though the BIOS could see both drives. Also when I would start my computer the BIOS would not show the splash screen. I then attempted to reset the BIOS back to defaults, unplug the battery, and unplug the CMOS battery. None of those fixed the issue, but eventually it allowed me to boot from either drive.

Windows 7 was the one I first came back to and it had issues when running my application and the NVIDIA drivers. It would occasionally crash the kernel for the driver. I then went back to Windows 8.1 and started noticing more problems. If I would shut down the system, it would not come back up and get stuck during the user profile loading (black screen). At this point I removed the Windows 7 drive because I felt that it was causing issues with the Windows 8.1 drive.

After removing the Windows 7 drive, my system was able to shutdown and startup properly. However, sometimes on startup it would have the Sound Blaster X-Fi software freeze and then my entire system except the active window would freeze. The only way to get out of the freeze was to restart the system. I then decided it would probably be best to reinstall the OS (Windows 8.1).

After reinstalling Windows 8.1, I allowed the system to fully update and downloaded a few games. However, now when I tried to run a game one or a combination of the following would happen: the computer would freeze and become unresponsive, the NVIDIA display driver kernel would crash, or the system would BSOD with error code VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE or NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM. This is not even during gaming where the card could be overheating. It is happening when the game or benchmark first starts with its introduction video.

After this I tried reinstalling the OS again with no success, I tried different graphic card drivers with no success, and I tried installing the OS on my HDD instead of my SSD with no success.

At this point, I have to believe that it is a hardware related issue. I have contacted Xotic PC support for assistance.

As for my old laptop I have not receive any status on my RMA. I assume it is being processed.

Tl;dr: New laptop arrived. Coil whine is present in both 980m and 970m GPUs. New laptop has stability issues and normal trouble shooting hasn't fixed. No status update on RMA for old laptop.

Photo of Valley Benchmark showing graphic artifacts:

 

I'm going through an XoticPC RMA for my laptop right now too and my experience has been similar, although your process seems to have been more grueling than mine having gone to Sager for repair and now XoticPC for a return. XoticPC's stance is that since the laptop I received was defective through no fault of their own, that the shipping cost then falls to me since I want an exchange instead of a repair, which I suppose is fair although not exactly the best way to win the hearts and minds of your consumers. I decided to opt for an exchange as I don't want a laptop that was faulty to begin with and would rather have a brand new one. We should start a support group.

Wish you the best of luck.

 

It sounds like we have been through pretty much the same thing. I chose not to do the exchange because I wanted to get my system faster and I was ok with waiting on the other return to process in its own time. I do hope that your new one has all of your issues resolved and no further problems like my new one has.

 

Ironically I decided to go with an exchange because I heard Gigabyte's service can be pretty awful and I thought the turnaround time would be quicker because it's literally receive laptop -> ship new laptop as opposed to receive laptop -> repair laptop -> send back laptop.

Now it's receive laptop -> wait for new stock to come in -> send new laptop. Then I found out after I sent my laptop back that Gigabyte's repair center is in California near me as opposed to XoticPC in Nebraska where the shipments take 4-5 days in transit.

I remember when I got the rear end of my car fixed after an accident, a $1200 repair, the company would contact me literally every day to update me even if that update was, "we're still waiting on parts." I actually got annoyed with them. Kinda wishing I got that service now.

Anyway, hope everything works out and you get a functional laptop as soon as humanly possible.

 

Thanks for your understanding guys.

@colin06 we're still waiting on stock from Gigabyte, hopefully any day now.

@ShadowedIce - We did hear from Sager that they have finished your RMA on the initial computer and the refund should be processed in a couple days.

 

Thanks for the update Hutsady.

 

Small update:

I received an email from Xotic saying that they had processed the RMA (email was for the wrong order number) and that it was processed as a RMA for exchange. I chose to do a RMA for refund and I made it expressly clear in previous emails that this was my choice. I also noticed that the amount has no compensation for the shipping charges.

I put in a RMA request for the 8652 laptop because at this point I have to believe it is hardware failure.

 

Hello,
I do see an email was sent on the 22nd saying a refund was issued to your card. It looks like they sent the wrong email but have updated it correctly now.

 

Another update. I received my laptop back from Sager RMA today. There was no indication of what had been done to the laptop. When I opened it up the first thing I noticed was that the frame was misaligned in the back and popping out. I put it back correctly but now the laptop does not sit squarely on a flat surface because a back foot does not touch.

The laptop no longer BSOD when running any programs that make use of the dGPU so far. It does, however, still have a significant amount of what I presume is coil whine. Either I have gotten unlucky twice (maybe three times if they replaced the board for repair this time) or there is a manufacturing issue with Sager and the Clevo P65xSA/SE/SG series.

 

When you say the frame was misaligned is that the bottom half of the chassis? Just trying to picture in my head how that is keeping it from sitting squarely on a flat surface once it has been put back in place. Can you also provide a pic, we can pass that along to Sager.

 

Once I took the bottom panel off and realigned it, the laptop would sit better. It is still not able to have all four corner feet on a flat surface though. The little plastic foot in the back seems a little too tall to allow both of the back feet to rest.


The part circled in red was popped out when it came back.

 

Final Update:

It took a little bit to get a response from Xotic but I sent an email saying I still had coil whine. Between them and Sager they suggested trying with only battery power and re-seating the fans. The noise was still present on battery power. I did not re-seat the fans because when an application was using the dGPU and I alt-tabbed to a non dGPU program, the noise would immediately stop. This does not seem like it would be a noise produced by the fan. Xotic agreed and they generated a RMA label.

I took the weekend to decide what I wanted to do with the laptop. This would be fourth time for me to send one of the laptops back to Sager. I ultimately decided to send it back to hopefully get resolution and because Xotic said that they have not had any other complaints from this model. They also said it would be a system swap, which would hopefully not take as long as troubleshooting the issue.

After not hearing anything after Sager received the laptop for a week, I contacted Xotic. Apparently the technician didn't realize the system was supposed to be swapped. They instead tried to troubleshoot the issue by replacing the motherboard. Unfortunately the noise was still present so they contacted Clevo. Clevo responded and told them that the noise was still normal. A few days later Xotic contacted me to follow up with how I wanted to proceed. I was a little surprised because I thought it had already been sent back because they couldn't fix the issue. I told Xotic I will take the machine back (I was already outside of the 30 day return window), but if they could fix the front speaker cover because it bubbled on the right side I would appreciate it.

I finally got my laptop back three weeks from when I had originally sent it in. I must admit I am upset it took this long for what I thought was going to be a simple swap and that the noise issue was not resolved. The system does seem stable and does not have the BSOD issues I sent it in for originally.

Final Thoughts:

Looking back at the entire process, I wish I had gone through Xotic for the first RMA of the NP8651. It might have pushed Sager to investigate with Clevo to see if this was an issue and I would have avoided everything after. The only reason I went directly though Sager for the original RMA was that the phone line for Xotic support was busy. So if you do call Xotic support make sure to leave a message because they will eventually call you back.

I am glad that I decided to change to the NP8652-S because I think it will give me a longer life for the graphics. I just wished that Sager didn't charge me shipping for returning the NP8651 because they didn't fix the original issue of coil whine. It would have also been nice to have had some sort of compensation for going through all these RMAs.

Final Verdict:

Xotic PC 8/10

Xotic has been very helpful in trying to resolve my issues. When I ordered my systems, they were quick and provided multiple updates. The issues I had were a few lagged responses, difficulty calling their support, and the billing mistake.

Sager 5/10

Sager has been quite willing to try and troubleshoot their machines if an issue arises. They were also very quick in building and delivering their machines. However, their communication was very lacking when doing an RMA because they didn't replace the motherboard for the first laptop and didn't do a system swap for the last RMA.

 

Thanks for posting the follow-up on everything. If there is anything else we can help with, feel free to reach out to us and we will see what we can do.