HTWingNut's Sager NP6110 / Clevo W110ER First Look & Review

same here

next week will be cool

br

[]'s

 

Mine finally showed up. Going to record benchmark temps for stock paste, and swap in IC diamond tomorrow

 

Great to see more and more people are finally getting them. Congrats!
What CPU did you get it with and what are your specs?

 

Hey guys any posibility for installing/mod a multi touch panel? (for W8)

this is very interesting for my, you think?

 

Try one of these? Touchscreen Panel Kits FOR all 11.6" 16:9 Laptop LCD | eBay

 

hey HTWingNut

if you ever get around to cleaning up the fan mod that you did (no offense intended of course), please post some update pictures. Seeing how you get around 40C idle, im REALLY tempted to do this mod. Out of curiosity, though, how much did the back plate cost you?

 

PM Larry@LPC-Digital on the back plate. He struck me a good deal because I did something for him. Probably about $25 shipped.

I am planning on cleaning it up, just waiting on some parts before I do so. I found a three way toggle (on-off-on) that I should be able to switch between 5v and 3.5V. See my blog here on it: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...0-clevo-w110er-first-look-review.html#cooling

The issue with the mod is sound and vibration. You can clearly hear the fan at 5v. It's better at 3.5v, but clearly audible. While I work on getting everything cleaned up I will be searching for quieter fan with similar performance. 5v fans are hard to find to begin with, so not sure what luck I'll have. Plus my back plate is set up for a 60mm fan so I'm kinda stuck with that size.

 

Hey and this with external usb

11.6" 4wire Plastic Touch Panel Solderless External USB
11.6" 4wire Plastic Touch Panel Solderless External USB | eBay



sounds good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTfA0Zyqnbo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogVEImEZaM0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=008D8X-vVls

 

Seems like you got most of it figured out. Keep us posted

 

My only reservations are soldering the fan cable to the USB port. I haven't done much soldering for the last few years. Plus you have to basically disassemble the entire machine to access the USB ports internally. Everything else is easy access, but USB ports are not easily accessible. So in the interim I am looking at alternatives. Plus, there is no service manual beyond replacing components, so nothing that describes how to access the USB ports. I just don't feel like ripping my system apart and have issues getting it back together again.

 

I bought this one:
GM0504PEV2-8

I'm planning to simply connect it to the other fan, so they work together.
If it sounds horribly wrong, please let me know =)

Won't be able to do it until few weeks, holidays are ON !


edit: Just tested it briefly, works perfectly and no need to handle the voltages manually
I think it's your best bet if you don't want to prop up gamebook.
I'll post screenshots and results in 2 weeks once I'm back, hope it will help the main fan to relax despite its small size


I'm also looking for telescopic push-buttons (not sure for the name thought, and it makes searching harder ^^) to put as feet under the laptop, so that I can prop it up with a slight push on it's top !
Not even sure it actually exists... If you see what I mean, please help !

edit 2:


;-)

 

Those are some pretty good ideas. The fan though, not sure if it will do sufficient cooling. It's about 1/3 the flow of my fan. ~ 5.5 CFM vs 16.1 CFM.

How did you connect it to the other fan? That is a good idea, so it will ramp up with the main fan then? Although that means idle temps will be same, but load temps should be decent.

Also, good idea on the pop-up prop. I just took two faceless dice from my kids stash of random toys and stuck it to my machine with velcro.

 

Hey HT, what is the distance from the top of one of the copper blocks until it touches the bottom plate? In other words how thick may the fan be while using blocks and not cutting the plate?

 

I'll have to figure that out. Are you referring to my stick on blocks or the actual heatsink? Might take some of my kids' Playdoh and put it on top and check for thickness. I wanted to know myself. All I did was take a piece of cardboard 4mm thick, tape it on the bottom panel, and I could install the bottom panel so I know it's minimum 4mm.

 

Hey everyone! Just had my W110ER delivered. Couple of questions for anyone who may know!

1) what's the best available 100-120W that is compatible with this laptop that I can purchase? Smaller is better too.

2). How do I checked the power draw from the laptop? HWMonitor maybe?

Thanks

 

Welcome


@HT, that would be awesome, just going through tons of fans and need to order today, because I am leaving...

On my P170 I measured that space with imitating the bottom plate by putting a ruler across.

 

LOL. I guess that would work too. Guess I'm just used to the detail oriented way considering I do that a lot at work for ballpark figures when I can't get parts to the CMM or laser scanner.

 

Argh a week after I order from LPC-Digital they've replaced the i5-2450m (sandy) with an i5-3210m (ivy). This new chip is the same price as the last one but comes with HD4000 graphics and the new architecture. I'm guessing that sending my laptop back for this upgrade is impossible or expensive.

Edit: Got a fast reply from Larry. Apparently mine was shipped with the new one since the other was discontinued. If it turns out to have the old one then he said he'd fix it himself. Nice guy!

 

30 day money back guarantee (from ship date) but you pay return shipping, or perhaps they will strike you a deal, or send you the replacement chip if you can show competence in replacing one! Or maybe Larry will swap it himself.

 

Am thinking about getting one of these since there is no M11xR4 in the future with a better screen.

Has anyone ordered one from exotic pc with the I5 3210m and a 128gb ssd?

Or should I just order a M14xr2?

 

Was the 7970m out when you ordered this?

 

Completely your choice

 

Your choice.

Comparison:
NP6110 vs M14xR2
Size: 11.6" x 14.0" form factor
Weight: 4lbs vs 6.5 lbs
Screen: 1366x768 glossy vs 1600x900 glossy
CPU: i5 dual core or i7 quad core for both
GPU: GT 650m w/DDR3 vRAM vs GT 650m w/GDDR5 vRAM
Cost: $900 vs $1300 for i7-3610QM, 8GB DDR3 1600, 500GB hard drive

Although I just noticed the M11x R3 is back up for sale. That's even more insane, $1300 for the i7 with 8GB.

 

So i'll be ordering the Clevo W110ER next week which comes with the Quad i7.

I might sound 'dumb' or 'stupid', I have tried researching but couldn't find much information for my question.

Is it actually possible to shut down the cores in i7 so it can act like a dual core than a quad core? Is this possible or not? I found information such as 'Core Parking' and the MSConfig way but do they work?

I'm asking because I can get the Quad i7 for the same price as the i5, or I would have just stuck with the i5 !

 

There is something called core parking and you can set the number of cores windows uses using msconfig, but even when I did that it didn't seem to lower power consumption.

 

It doesn't lower idle power consumption, it increases because minimum speed is increased for some reason. Peak power consumption is less however.

 

Kind of like putting a small engine in a big car, you wont get better gas mileage because it has to work harder. If you find a good balance between a minimum number of cores and what your idle usage is it can help a great deal on both ends the spectrum (meaning full load and idle power)

I have my 2720QM set to downclock to 300-500MHZ with 2 cores parked. Since I have a lot of stuff running in the background it can tend to jump around but if I set it to downclock to 180MHZ (lowest I can go without it being unstable) then the CPU will always jump from 180MHZ-1.2GHZ which, in all cases, increases power consumption. These settings are totally user based and can differ depending on how clean/how you use your laptop..

 

Hi guys, I just received my sager np6110 last friday and when I tried to boot it up it says "no bootable media." In the BIOS is shows "SATA 1 port not present" Is this happening to anyone else as well? And any idea how I can fix it? Much appreciated!

 

@HTWingNut: great review + mod
Is the battery wear level accurate?
I thought 2% in a bit more than a month is excessive though.

 

If you wear your battery down to 5% and then recharge, it should recalibrate and likely be less than 1% wear if not 0%. Although it's not unusual for batteries to come with 2-3% wear.

 

And such a difficult choice!. Still banging head aginst wall to decide...

Thinking of giving M11x to wife if getting Sager NP6110. If I get the M14x she will never suspect that I have bought another computer and I can ship my old one to my brother. Huummmm.......

 

Bahahahaha. I like that if I ever feel judged for my purchasing habits, I can tell people my Sager is just "some cheap computer" without them ever questioning it. Nice and discrete machines we have here

 

Great concept!, a stealth laptop . It's not like you can price one at your local Best Buy. Now I know why it took so long to get my M11x from the TSA screeners in Japan .

 

It seems the European market is indeed getting a matte display option. Here is what I got as a reply from Schenker: "We are also working on a matte screen option for the XMG A102 (W110ER) – real matte option, not only the glossy screen with a matte layer – and hopefully we can provide new informations in the next two weeks."

Can't wait to see what they come up with, maybe it's just the same option the American resellers are offering, but it would be great if it was something even better!

 

Finally. I was bugging mySN about it two/three times over the course of the past several weeks.

 

Can someone confirm or deny that the i5-3360M is able to Turbo boost to the advertised 3.5 GHz with the GT650M active?

Thanks

 

Woot! Got my fan mod done! I ended up just going with a single speed, but took two diodes so fan runs ~ 3.5V, great combination of noise, vibration, and cooling. A main reason for a single speed was the limited package space to put any kind of switch or dial for voltage regulator. Very tight inside.

In the end all I have is a power switch exposed and the fan at the bottom.

Prime95 is about 83C and idle is about 50-52C. Although I will probably primarily use it at load, and of course off when on battery.

Opened up before mod:


After mod:


Wires organized and ready to close:


Buttoned up:

 

Not to detract from HT's sweet pics, but I swapped a sandy bridge dual core in my W110er to see what temps were like. I re-pasted in the process with Arctic Cooling MX-2. Currently Idles at 46-50C with word processing, web browsing and steam downloading games in the back ground.

 

Nice!
Love the custom made laptop prop the most, simply brilliant
Well done man!
You sould sell those things.

 

Lol, prop. Just some faceless dice that had stickers on them I removed and took a sharpie to make them black. Still looking for something better.

I was thinking that I would like to make a prop that contained a blower fan with a duct right to the CPU, that way I could use a larger fan, it could be completely external, and be a lot more clean. But I'd need to "borrow" our SLA machine from work.

 

If they hadn't discontinued the m11x-line, I would have gotten the R4. I love the backlit keyboard and displayport... which the 6110 is sorely lacking.

 

I just got my Alienware M11xR3 last December for $1180. It was the i7 with Nvidia 540M 2GB. I found a buyer for my laptop for $1100.

The configuration I'm looking at of the Sager Np6110 is the i7 processor with the Nvidia 650M 2GB. It was also have the Matte Screen opposed to the Glare Type Screen that came with my AW.

Everything else will be the same from my AW such as the 500GB Hard Drive and 8GB of ram.

Even though I'm only loosing $200, is it worth the upgrade? Will I see a difference between the two graphic cards? I'm feeling guilty about buying a new laptop already! HELP!

 

It all depends on what you play. 540m is decently powerful for 1366x768, but also newer games have to be run at much lower detail, not to mention the AW CPU can limit performance as well.

Games like BF3 can easily run high detail, ultra even at 1366x768 at more than 50 fps, as can Skyrim, and heck anything else out there. Neither are the best for 1080p though, both are bandwidth limited, so it's really designed to be used with the built-in 1366x768 screen unless you're willing to run at low detail.

 

Check it out on Notebookcheck.com's graphics benchmarks list.

W110er=Np6110

In a nutshell, for GPUs this low powered quantity of RAM doesn't matter beyond 1gb because the computing power will choke long before the RAM runs out. However, the bandwidth of the VRAM makes a lot of difference but that discussion is moot here due to the fact both GPUs have the same config.

GT 650m:
the model in the W110er is 384 Kepler CUDA cores at 950mhz with 2bg of memory at 1800mhz over a 128bit bus

GT 540m:
96 Fermi CUDA cores at 1344mhz with the same GDDR3 VRAM configuration,

now to compare, 96 Fermi CUDA cores is equivalent to 192 Kepler cores at 672mhz

so basically, the 650m has just over twice the shader rendering power as the 540m. In games this will equate to roughly twice the FPS in most cases give or take 10%.

The alienware also has a ULV CPU which is a relatively slow dualcore, I think it was something like 1.7ghz and boost to 2.3ghz. The W110er has a quadcore in most cases running at 2.3ghz and boosting to 3.1ghz.
At 2.3ghz the W110er has twice the Compute power of the M11xr3. The major drawback is that the W110er is the battery but we have members of this forum diligently studying the matter, I think the suspicion is that the GPU is not properly idling when Optimus is active.

 

Really jealous of this. Nice!

 

Don't be jealous! Just do it!

 

HTWingNut: Funny that you mentioned BF3 and Skyrim, those are two games I've been playing lately. Thanks for the info!

Markman30k: Thanks for the detailed info!

I took the plunge this morning, here are the specs:

Display 11.6" HD "Glare Type" Super Clear Bright Glossy Screen (1366x768)
Processor Sager - 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3610QM (2.3GHz - 3.3GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache, 45W Max TDP)
Thermal Compound IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU (Cools better than all Compounds)
Graphics Video Card nVidia GT 650M 2048MB PCI-Express GDDR3 DX11 with Optimus™ Technology
Primary Hard Drive 500gb (w/ 4GB SSD Memory) Seagate XT 7200RPM NCQ Hybrid (Serial-ATA II 300 - 32MB Cache)
Ram 8GB - DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory (2 SODIMMS)
Branding Remove All Branding

It came out to $1187.01. Keep in mind shipping cost $64 for me because of my FPO AP address. Since it'll be traveling halfway across the world I opt for the Premium Packaging. I should also be receiving the cash rebate discount with the returning customer discount.

Anyways, thanks for the info! I can't wait to get this thing!

 

My NP6110 come with a 130W power brick.

the temperature is lower than yours.

Can the power brick made it work cool?



BR

 

This is the best time to upgrade as you get all the goodies like new technology. Also something unrelated do you think apple retina display will come into laptops more regularly like 11.6 screen.

I know asus zenbook has an ips 1080p screen which is something like 13.3" and I remember when the sony z series came out with a 13.1" 1080p and was amazed.

 

What? I can't believe that you ran the same cooling mod in the single day since you got the laptop. Those are your stock temps? If so, that simply doesn't seem believable--with ICD repasting, I'm sitting at 59C/56C (CPU/GPU) idle temps, which is in line with what HTWingNut had. What's your GPU idle temp?