**D900F (Sager 9280) Owners Lounge**

The fans won't die anytime soon unless you don't clean the fan blades or dust out the motor. You should only consider using max speed when you're doing intensive stuff. A difference from 50-60*C to 40*C isn't going to yield any benefit for components the fans are cooling.

 

ah okays. Another question then, about the power going to the components. Even when it's not being used very much, the power going to the processor fluctuates between about 35W to 130W, and usually it only makes specific increases (35.62, 45.43, 66.86, 121.21, 130.00 and 144.98). It usually stays at around 35 or 45, but it quite often jumps from 35 to 130. The 35, 130 and 144 numbers are exact, the 45, 66 and 121 are from memory so may not be 100% accurate, but it's close enough.

 

And your question is?

 

oh i forgot to ask. This happens when one is tired. Is that fluctuation of power normal when I'm not really doing anything?

 

Yes, that's normal.

 

do you people hunt this forum 24/7 and find posts you can reply to? Not that I'm complaining, just most posts I make are replied to within about 5 minutes lol

 

It is the Core i7's SpeedStep technology - the processor throttles it's multiplier up or down as it needs it. This, along with background services running and cores in action, changes the power requirements of the cpu. For my 920, I have a min. 43,76 watts and a max. of 147,34 watts. I only see these numbers or 130 watts in my CPUID.
You can watch the cpu making changes to the clock multiplier all the time with e.g. CPU-Z software.
And it is very normal behaviour.

 

I refresh a lot, and see what is being posted in the threads I care about.
That's all

 

Aww you care about my lil ole problems! I'm so touched!
And I'm using the 950 and the min is 35.62 and the max is 144.98. It's Hardware Monitor I'm using. I keep it running to check and see if the laptop is getting too hot. I'm too accustomed to my old HP machine being so hot I could make Eggs, Bacon *AND* Toast on the parts where you rest your wrists to type. And that's with a laptop cooler in use...

This machine gets seemingly hot if I don't use it for a while at those points, so I considered the fan max option but I guess it just might be my country's heat. We're normally at around 34 deg celcius ambient temperature and something like 50-60% average humidity year round. Plus my roof is pure concrete, so it's like a human oven here.

 

No, just the posts of those I stalk.

 

I turn my fans to the max right after I power on. The noise doesn't bother me - if I play games, the game is louder than the fans, and if I'm doing other stuff, I usually have net radio or the stereo or TV on in the background anyway.

 

okay cool... I just like never turn off my computer lol.
I only use my laptop nothing else, and I hate desktops for their lack of me being able to put them anywhere. I'm a constant torrent person too so it's usually on, downloading something hehe. Oh well thanks for the advice guys, but sadly time for sleepy for me lol

 

Just buy a cooler and U will be secure.
like u I hate desktops but I do not resort to torrent coze it is too slow.
In one of your posts U claimed it waz impossible to play Streetfighter 4 with AA implemented.
That's wrong.with win7 installed no trouble at all

Btw if someone could upload the 1.03 Sagerbios and pm me the link ,i would greatly appreciate.
I can compensate for that ,no trouble

 

birndof,

Thanks for ur reply. I'm presently debating whether to go 12GB. Yes, it's expensive, but for video work, thru-put is the key as I'm sure you already know being a gamer. I have an NP-9262 now, but not enough mem to run four RAM-hungry Adobe programs simultaneously, which is often necessary using dynamic-link. Simultaneous rendering and encoding alone can use up to 6-8GB; not enough RAM & too many hard-faults with page-files take too long and would likely suspend i7-975 proc time.

My problem is that Vista64 & Win7 detects 16-128GB depending on edition -- but the Sager people inform me that the NP-9280 with 12GB mem only sees (useable) 6.8GB of mem. A waste of money for me too, as u aptly pointed out, since it would be a premium price for only .8GB extra mem.

In reading ur post, you sounded knowledgeable and you own a 9280, so I thought it worth checking to see if u have heard rumors of 6.8GB being the max limit for D900F mobos. Clevo's Taiwan site specs up to only 6GB. But why then do re-sellers offer the 12GB option if only 6GB are useable? Mystery to me.

Thanx

 

As far as I know memory is not limited by a processor ,chipset etc.Windows seven will of course take full advantage of 12 Gb.I do not use adobe or alike hungry softs but I think U can do the job with 6gb.The point is if U want more than 6Gb then U have to resort to 4gb ramunits that cost a max

 

Memory quantity depends on support of the chipset .

But since D900F use X58 i don't see why it wouldn't accept 12GB.

 

You should ask them why. Intel shows that the i7 has a maximum addressable range of 24gb of RAM. Which means that in a 3 channel system you could use 3 - 8gb RAM modules. With the CPU/chipset combination, (being all Intel), I would assume the HW would support the max available addressable RAM for the CPU. In terms of OS, once you move to 64 bit, Vista supports a maximum of 128gb of RAM, and Windows 7 supports a maximum of 192gb. So there's has to be another reason why Sager would suggest an upper limit of 6.8gb.

Good Luck..

 

As for the cooler part, only way I'd get a cooler is to order it online, I can't find any for 17" machines in my country's stores. The international shipping would make it useless, as it's at the very least $20 US for the international shipping ($132 TTD to me average) and then $114 TTD when it arrives at the post office, not to mention the money i have to pay for the cooler itself. Not the best bet for me you see.

And I could run it before with the 179.49 drivers, but now I can't with the 186.03 version. It just crashes, though I haven't tried the C-version AA settings yet. I'm using Windows Vista Ultimate x64, maybe that + driver 186.03 is the problem.

I don't want to switch to Windows 7, because it still has a nice amount of problems which I've seen that are yet to be fixed. Maybe by SP1 it'd be ready, but even so Vista is fine for me and it's also a great OS (unless you're using Business or Home Basic... those just make me want to cry).

 

I did ask them why and sent them even more documentation about addressability in X58 chipsets and 128GB in Vista and win7, etc. They are checking as to why. What's mysterious is that Sager and the resellers offer the 12GB as an option with 9280, but still contend only 6.8 are addressable. I await their reply, ready to sent $ on already ordered 9280.

In the mean time a check of the Clevo Taiwan site revealed that Clevo specs reflect that D9F has expandable memory up to 6GB - 3 x 2GB. So I wondered, is that an old spec because maybe only 2gig sticks were available at the time publishing? Or is there a mobo or chipset restriction, even tho it's a X58 platform.

Not to belabor the point that 12G may seem excessive, but there is an unwritten rule of thumb that claims each Core should have at least 2GB mem in order to run full speed under load; likely especially true for i7 because of its speed. Else it waits around over paging hard-faults. Don't know if that's true, but sounds plausible.

The O/S, and the Abode applications at idle take up around 1.5-2GB RAM I'm told, not counting resident progs, procs, virus-prot, etc. And when they run renders and encoding, numbers go way up fast. Running one appl in render or encoding alone pegs all 4 at 100% on my Q66; and 4 RAM isn't enough, lots of paging occurs. My 9262's 4G RAM continuously sits at 50-75% with 4 appls running at idle. Enough war stories. Thanx to all for contibutions.

 

@garuda

There have been pictures of the NP9280 with 12GB RAM in it, taken from the system information given by windows vista (the same place you get when you right click computer and select properties). The 9850 shows that it only can stand 6.8 GB, but the 9280 shouldn't have that problem. I think it's a mistake that some people make, because up till recently either Sager or Clevo themselves said that the D900F could handle 280Ms in SLI... which is of course, wrong. But information is not updated that often. If you really want to know, ask people who have the 12GB config here. I'm sure there are at least a few, I mean look at the number of pages of this freaking thread.

If they say only 6.8 then okay. But I doubt it is limited. If I ever get the cash I'm upgrading to 12GB myself. ($1490 USD x 6.35 = price in TTD... ain't happening any time soon)

 

Some additional benches newly performed



3dmark 06 en 1920x1200 without AA ,Not a terrific result





3Dvantage 1920x1200 options high AA8



I can't get the total result displayed .Windows 7 seems to be the reason for that.


GPU-Z


Indice windows (win7 x64 ultimate build 7600)


temperature



Info processor



Info motherboard



Moto GP2008 1920x1200 each option to the max + AA





Eurotrucks 1920x1200 each option to the max +AA




Bejin 2008 1920x1200 each option to the max



Night at the museum 2 1920x1200 each option to the max + AA

 

^
bench 3dmark06 using the default resolution then report back, i think the score you have is fine

 

Does anybody else have trouble getting Call of Dutys 4 and 5 to run on their systems?

 

CoD5 runs fine for me

 

The limitation of 6.8GB was with the old (current) Intel chipsets that are used in NP9262, NP8662, etc. If you are using a Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad then it is most likely that you have this limitation. However, somebody said that Asus W90 could address as much as 10GB or even 12GB.
NP9280 should not have this problem with 6.8GB.

 

Anybody bought a dedicated surge protector for their D900F/NP9280?
I know what they say about the battery life in D901C and D900F, that it is practically a UPS. However, do these batteries do their job such as a surge protector would protect the system from electricity spikes?

 

I ran it at first, but then one time it would always crash after running it. After that it wouldn't run again, even after a reinstall

 

Does 9280's chipset not support sli?

And maybe this means future model might support it in the future?

http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/10/nvidia-inks-deal-for-sli-support-on-intel-core-i5-i7-systems/

 

No. 2 gfx cards + i7 takes far too much power. Technically, the chipset does support sli, but there is no hardware support.

9280 = workstation
9850 = gaming

 

if they did 2 GPUs and i7, but allowed for switching to on-board video like with some other machines for when on battery, (because I heard reviews of machines that could switch between onboard and discrete within a couple of seconds) then that'd be the perfect machine

 

It doesn't matter if the system has switchable GPU's like the M17x. The i7 still gobbles power up the ying yang. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Let's say in an ideal hypothetical world, Clevo produces the D900F that sports two GTX 280M's and the i7. Imagine how much power and cooling it would need. The power brick would be just that, a goddamn brick. Clevo will even release a red brick colored skin for the power supply to remind you that it can be used for constructing buildings.

 

lol... well the brick this size now, the question is could this produce enough power for SLI too? The battery life on this is nothing special, about 45 mins to an hour watching movies and net browsing... but I think there should be a way. There usually always is, because I'm sure later on it'd pop out. The i7 is already 45nm I believe, who knows... the upgrades might be 40 or 35 nm, and we could replace them. Less power consumption ^^. But I didn't mean the D900F exactly, I meant a later model that could have the ability to do both...

Then again if 55 or 45 nm GPUs come out for the MXM 3 board, then we have less power consumption ^^

So let's all be hopeful lol

And you stalked my posts again! XD

 

You should see my list of users I stalk, it's pretty damn long. Surprisingly, you're not on that list yet. I'm taking an IR class this semester, so in inspiration of the class, I'm going to make a little poster of all the manufacturers and companies on NBR, http://forum.notebookreview.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1002, that I love and hate. It will probably be done after I swap a brand new screen into my M570TU and replace my backpanel with my customized modded version to ultimately complete my cooling overhaul.

 

o.o sounds sweet... but i would like if you said the sager name of the model you're using, I only know D900F and D901C (if that's the NP 9262) as of late... I only started reading this forum about a month and a half ago when I was seriously considering purchasing the D900, so I haven't memorized the Clevo names for the sagers yet hehe

 

Forgive me, but I'm a touch buzzed on booze and bull again, so I'm sorry if I say offensive things within the next few hours.

You'll get used to it. Once you start hanging out with owners of other Clevo systems, you'll catch onto the lingo in no time. It's the same way you got used to calling the D900F and D901C. You had a lot of interest in those machines and you followed the threads that revolved around them, hence you got to know the names by heart.

 

No not that, I saw a naming scheme thread for them a while ago, and the D900F was the 9280 and the 901C was the 9262. I only remembered the Ds, the others had more heavily differentiated numbering and letters, so I'm still working on those, but without a cross reference with XoticPC's seller's list nobody actually translates the clevo naming to the Sager naming lol.

Oh well in time it'll work I guess

 

Oh, and also, nobody I've ever come across in my whole country has even heard of Sager or my laptop, not even the teachers of my A+ classes... They're all impressed though, so I've no complaints. But I doubt I'd find any clevo owners here lol

 

I think that Clevo didn't want to change too much of the design when transitioning from D901C to D900F.
D901C had a cap of 95W for the cpu's while i7's in D900F are 130W. Both 9800M GTX and 280M GTX have a TDP of 75W. Therefore, if they will be able to produce Nehalem cpu's (i5/i7 mobile/desktop) under 95W they should be able to offer SLI in the successor of D900F. However, there is still the need to accommodate the third stick for the RAM in D900F.
Although it is more likely that the next NP9850 will have mobile Nehalem + SLI.

 

You have to keep in mind that they advertise sometimes that a laptop supports a maximum of 4GB (which is true for most of the laptops with cheaper motherboards) but you know that it actually supports up to 8GB from the barebone's specifications.

It is most likely that the 6.8GB memory limit is due to the memory controller being on the NB rather than on the CPU as in i7.
AMD systems do not have the 6.8GB limitation probably because they have already moved the memory controller on the CPU for some time. Same thing may be true for D900F with i7.

 

Look at this page on the sager website, it has their names, and the SKUs" (clevos/ODMs names)

 

Time to play after da Sowiet sunrise's booze and those serious questions.


Mount and blade 1920x1200 AA and each option to the max





Bungee fall 1900x1200 AA+ options to the max





Condemned 1900x1200 AA and option to the max






Virtua tennis 2009 1900x1200 AA+ options to the max





Prototype 1920x1200 AA+ options to the max







Death to spies, mements of truth 1920x1200 AA+ options to the max





Fuel 1920x1200 AA+ options to the max





stay tuned

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/Core-i7-920-GTX-280-4GB-RAM-250GB-HDD-GAMING-LAPTOP_W0QQitemZ110415072164QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_comp_laptop?hash=item19b5404ba4&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14#ht_7061wt_1166

Can someone confirm that i7 920 can be Overclocked on 9280? According to this auction Keen Machine is selling Overclocked 920 by default.

 

It can't be yet overclocked thru the bios .Can only be done with software.

 

On the back of the 9280 there is a rubber thing that fits into a "video in" port, but the port is just a hole. Is this a leftover from an older D90x series, or is there an upgrade that uses this port?

 

Nothing like that mentionned in the manual.Maybe it is just there for having people asking questions

 

How much can you overclock 920 by in 9280 via software?

 

I was made aware that there is a BIOS limitation that prevents Windows XP from being installed. Is this correct and whats the solution? There's gotta be a way...

Since when does a BIOS hamper the ability of installing WindowsXP and for what reason?

 

It's not a BIOS limitation that prevents Windows XP from being installed on a D900F. It's apparently a problem with the BIOS ACPI support that causes a problem when trying to install XP on a D900F, which subsequently fails the installation.

This issue was covered in this thread, and Gophn pointed out in this post, that Clevo has a beta BIOS that they're testing which aims to fix this ACPI/XP problem, and therefore allow installing XP on a D900F.

Good Luck..

 

I asked the seller, and here's the response:

 

actually they do not want to take the risk to offer a bios that enables OC.I can understand that coze they put a desktop processor into a laptop.The powerconsumption and the created heat could put the configuration at risk if u don't resort to specific coolers.
keep in mind that a non Oced I7 can consume up to 145 watts.the Ac adaptater only provide 220 to 240 watt max.