HTWingNut's Sager NP7330 / Clevo W230ST REVIEW

I use both every day. Win 7 on my desktop and Win 8 on my laptop. I use both identically. When I boot up the laptop it goes to the live tile screen, Hit Win+D to go into the desktop and don't use the live tiles for the rest of the time I'm on the machine. I find Windows 8 a bit more responsive than Win 7 and a little easier on system resources, but I don't have a preference between them since I largely see them as being used the same. To each their own, but I don't see a reason not to go with Windows 8.

 

I think its all down to personal preference mate, i have both running win 7 on my W110 and win 8 on W230 an i have customized my win 8 to almost look an behave like win 7 so it all depends on what tickles your fancy as they say lol.

Thanks Derek never heard of classic shell before will give it a try :thumbsup:

 

Art4ull Dodg4ar!!! -- For Sale: Clevo W110ER - i7 3610qm 2.3 GHz - GT650m - 10gb ram - 256gb ssd - win 7 64bit


wow...that looks like a great laptop, even so the w230ST is your favorite ?

 

lol yeah it is a great little beast, it served me well and still roaring like a lion but sadly it has to go, wife is not happy with my collection of expensive toys plus she says i give them more attention than i do her

 

I think she is right if the picture of the car in your profile is your really car

 

Startisback is my favorite Win 8 Start Menu if you fancy the traditional Win 7 interface. Pretty much identical in every way. I'm using Win 7 currently, but may run Win 8.1 when it gets released. It seems this machine is better tuned with the Win 8 drivers.

 

Haha, basically there are plenty of choices out there to return the normal Windows usage that you're used to. No need to fear the 8.

 

It's more loathing than fear.

 

Like Derek I use 8 on my notebook and have since I got it in Feb, but also use 7 on my desktops at home. I use classicshell so it boots to desktop and gets the start button back. I dont have a preference either way but if i were buying a new OS today i'd go with 8.

 

Hey guys! I´ve been following this thread for about 2 months (since i heard of this Notebook) now and have to say, that this is the best machine i´ve owned so far. My last Laptop was an W860CU with 740qm and an gtx460m which was also great at it´s time, although a little noisy. BTT...

I have tested some games now with overclocking the vram at +600MHz and all games seem to run stable exept Borderlands 2. With Physx turned on it´s only stable to ~+300MHz. If Physx is turned off (low) the game runs as stable at +600 as all other games i have testet yet. (WoW, Crysis 3, BF3, Diablo 3...)
Afaik with Nvidia Inspector one can only overvolt the GPU, i was wondering if there is a way to give a little jolt to the VRAM too, to see if it makes a difference to this problem.

Please excuse my schoolenglish (with some help from dict.cc), i hope i´m able to make myself understandable.

Greetings from Bavaria

..oh, and great job on the review HT. Your review and Videos were my cause to get this little "Kraftzwerg" thanks a lot!

 

Glad you like it! I love mine so far and it's always great to see other people who feel the same.

Also... don't worry about your English! It's great.

 

No unfortunately there is no way that I am aware of to bump the vRAM voltage, and there likely never will be through software at least. But +300 to +600 is a pretty decent bump and should keep gaming at 1080 pretty enjoyable for some time.

 

Thanks for your answers! Ive checked the bios with kepler bios tweaker for an option to slightly increase the vram voltage but there are only options for gpu overvoltage too. Well... i think i'll have to test some other programs after work.

 

There is any problem in putting a 400 GB HDD at 5400 rtp in the clevo w230ST ? (to be a storage HDD, because the main disc will be mSDD 120 gb)

 

There would not be any issues with doing that.
Just make sure its a SATA connection and not IDE.

 

For the start button issue, I recommand Start Menu X !
Doesn't look as classic as others, but is the most usable one I found, and I tested them all =)

 

Hey there

I got today my own w230st and im almost happy. Everything works just fine except I think there are too much bleeding on the screen? I have it both side of screen, down side, down side corners and little in the middle.. It can notice on black screen. Then I noticed one black dead pixel on backround of red, thats is ok But how about you guys have bleeding?

Otherwise this is almost as small as w110er what I had before that. Its good to write with this and integrated mouse works much better than those w110er. Keyboard light is also nice if you have to use laptop in the night example. I tried grid2 what works fine with native resolution +high graphics settings. Battlefield 3 mp 50-64plrs also works with native resolution, ultra +fxaa setups. I run 3dmark11 performance and got 4386pts. Not yet tuned anything, its stock. I must because temperatures went about 100c on processor and gpu 82c :/ Have to also repaste stock paste with MX4

 

I only notice the bleeding on startup, when I'm using it I don't see any bleeding. Not sure if thats just because of the black screen on startup that I see it or for other reasons...

 

Ht, what car charger do you recommend for this laptop?

Anybody else feel free to pitch in.
Thanks in advance.

 

I don't know about you guys, but my nvidia updater popped up and told me that 327.23 was available - so I downloaded it, and somehow it installed with no problems at all. No modded .inf file.

 

Light bleed is usually only visible on dark/black backgrounds.

No idea. Haven't had a need for one, and haven't really looked into it. Hopefully someone else can recommend something.

Yep. It's the latest WHQL release that actually works with the 765m without modification. It's actually just 326.80 beta but released as WHQL. From here on out we should see 765m supported with regular nVidia driver updates.

 

hello guys i just received the laptop and in general he is great but is kinda anoying the fact that the fan only got 2 steps, silence and LOUD like hell.
I heard that exists a way to resolve this with a downgrade(?!), can some one tell-me some tutorial or something like that please ?
Tks all!

 

Like i mentioned in the owners thread around the corner i´ve bought this one a few years ago for my w860cu. lets you switch to full voltages only, wich doesn´t bother the w230st anyway. Used it on the way to this years gamescom (~500km) and the laptop worked flawless @ 19V.
I think its not important what caradapter you use, as long as you check amazon customer´s reviews a bit and make sure it can deliver 120W or ~6,4A @ 19V.

revolt Universal Kfz-Notebook-Netzteil bis 120W/6Ampere

 

Thanks reaver. Was looking for something on this side of the pond (usa).

I saw some on amazon. Just wondering if people have gotten any or any recommendations. Also does any adapter that puts out that power have right end connector? Curious on that last part.

 

The clevo has a 2,5x5,5mm power jack, i think wich is a pretty standard jack that should be coming with every useable universal power supply.
Unfortunately i don´t find too much such adapters on amazon.com...

Amazon.com : Afunta 120w 8tips Universal Ac/dc Adapter for Notebook Laptop and Car Adapter : Computers & Accessories

This one looks like it could fit but i dont know it it´s good quality. Also the discription says something like 120w, but only 4 Ampere.

A pic of mine, if it helps:

 

Got mine coming in on Monday from MySN about to prepare my installation media, Windows 7 or Windows 8 guys? I've got free keys from my university so i have a selection xD

 

If you are ok with Windows 8 I'd recommend it. Drivers seem most stable and UEFI is very fast boot times.

Sent from my G2

 

As long as it's 19.5V and don't stress the system you'll be ok.

Sent from my G2

 

I haven't used Windows 8 Yet so i'll be new for me. I'm sure i'll get the hang of it :thumbsup:

 

Has this been tested pretty extensively? Is it at least as stable as the stock drivers (from the Clevo DVD)? I wouldn't mind a performance boost but for me stability is the most important thing!

 

Test it yourself, if it's not stable enough for you, you can always rollback to latest drivers

 

So i got it on Friday.
I had a little trouble with the drivers on windows 7, but everything is ok now. I undervolted the cpu for 60mV and put a coolingpad with a big (23cm) fan. Battlefield was on 82°C (CPU) and the GPU was on 63°C. Those where the maximum temps. In some games the Fan didnt even go on (i mean to the loud stage). I guess the cooling pad helps a lot. The notebook is pretty cold thx to it on bottom.

I have a question though. The speakers are really bad. I would not watch a movie on it. Thats not such a problem though. But the sound and microphone (for other guys on teamspeak) is so much worse than all my other notebooks before. Even when i compare it to the netbook from my mother, the clevo is really bad.
Can it be some software/driver problem? Or do you have that bad sound as well?

If you could help me to fix it, i would be thankfull.

Btw. the new GPU drivers could extend the battery life. At least i hope so, they work fine for me

EDIT: I forgot to mention, that i ordered it with a changed Thermal paste (6,54EUR)

 

Considering purchasing this laptop from HIDevolution as a barebones laptop with the "Bigfoot Networks Killer Wireless-N 1202 (2x2) with Bluetooth 4.0", i7 4700mq and a Red Backlit keyboard, and then installing my own HDD and RAM. Though I can't decide between getting this or the Lenovo Y510p or y410p which has SLI Gt750m 2gb's.
I've heard that the fans on this thing are "extremely loud" and the laptop runs pretty hot, but also i'm not sure if the screen is too small as I need to do a lot of video editing, photoshop and website coding for my school courses, I'm not sure how good Adobe premiere pro will run on it either.. Was wondering if anyone could give me any insight as to which one I should get?

 

No, the fan is not extremely loud, its only problem is that it will regularly go on a louder stage than it should, and I hope it will be fixed in a bios release. Not so inconvenient either. Other than that, this laptop is REALLY quiet. You won't hear it most of the time. Due to that, it runs quite hot, but not that much. That is expected for any laptop with that kind of power in a small chassis. I don't think a SLI could make any better actually =)

I assume Adobe premiere will do as fine as any other haswell laptop. As for the screen size, just go in any store and try a 13,3", you'll see by yourself if that suits you. The full HD chi mei screen (if this is what you'll get) is pretty nice color wise, but is not matte enough if that's what you aim for. Not that bright either, but nothing wrong here.
It's a really good machine with few issues, highly recommanded !

 

You'll certainly struggle to find something for the price that packs such a punch for its size.

 

Need some input on this too. I don't care for the speakers, but the headphone out has non-existent bass, any idea whats up with that? I've already uninstalled sound blaster cinema, should I try to re-install the audio drivers?

Edit: Just re-installed the drivers and it worked, the bass is back! I guess the Sound Blaster really messed something up. Here's what I did:

1. Go to Device Manager
2. Uninstall the audio driver (mine said Via HD Audio driver under Sound, video and game controllers). I also selected delete all driver files.
3. Download the audio driver from Clevo.com.tw (make sure you select w230st as your model).
4. Install and restart.

Now the audio driver just says "High Definition Audio Device". Not sure what went wrong, but these steps fixed my sound issue. Amazing how a wrong driver can make things partially work, giving you the illusion it works.

 

If you set in the soundblaster settings (hitting the arrow in the top left corner inside the soundblaster software) your output type to "headphones" the headphones have a lot more bass and sound better in general than if you set it to "internal speaker".

I installed the latest synaptics driver from their website. Now there is the option to turn off the "Edge Swipes" which often caused me to open the Windows 8 Charm bar by chance which was very annoying. In addition I turned off the "Edge Motion" feature. Don't like that either. Now I'm way more comfortable with the touchpad

Btw. the notebook is really quiet in Silent Mode! I don't have any fan-bursting at all. Absolutely no problem working in the library with this little beast!

 

I've unstalled soundblaster altogether, not my cup of tea, the speakers are crap anyways.

+1 on the synaptics driver update, disabling the edge swipe is a must if you are a power user, and you only use Win 8 in desktop mode.

 

does anyone know where to get a cheap yet good 1x8gb 1600mhz RAM stick for my W230st? The model that I'm about to buy charges $150 for 2x8gb RAM, so I'll have to upgrade it myself later on since I want 16gb.. If theres a place where I can buy cheap but good RAM and SSD's please let me know, I'm kinda new to purchasing laptop/PC parts so I don't know the best places to buy them, Preferably from Aus, or with free (or cheap) international shipping.. Thx in Advance if anyone helps me :3

 

usually, it's better to purchase from your country of origin, as it's easier and cheaper to RMA in the case of any defects.
But really, where you come from plays a huge part in determining where to buy stuff from.

 

Just another quick question, theres the i7 4700mq and the i7 4702mq, I notice that the 4702mq is slightly underclocked? or something? Don't know the terms, but yea, Is it worth it? I read a review on gaminglaptopsjunky.com of the W230st and he said he undervolted his processor to reduce heat and increase battery performance a bit, his results showed that the heat decreased by about 10 degrees.. But is it really worth it to get? 4702mq? or should I just undervolt it with the IntelXTU thingie?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo-reviews-owners-lounges/732353-mythlogic-chaos-1313-clevo-w230st-4702mq-mini-review-comparison-full-voltage.html
Here Do read through at least the original post
4702 has a lower TDP, and the OP of the above post says undervolting doesn't affect the 4702's temperatures much (it's dissipating 10W less heat, so duh)
Undervolting can easily get you 200MHz more and slightly lower temps on Prime95.
I'm not entirely sure about the battery life thing since I haven't measured the battery life on mine, as of yet.

 

Battery life should be identical but the 4702mq is just a 4700MQ with a lower TDP and lower clocks so that peak power is not has high.

 

Hi all,

I'm really torn between the Clevo and the Gigabyte P34G

My main concern is the fan noise, it seems that the Clevo is far noiser than the P34G??

I found a video here http://david-lam.net/p34g.mp4


The main attraction about the Clevo is that I can customise it for much cheaper and high spec than the Gigabyte. I'm worried that the Gigabyte will be a lower spec and drive the games into not quite playable by quite a few frames here and there?


Gigabyte Pros:
300g lighter
Alot thinner
14" screen
Seems to be quieter??
Slicker looking


Clevo Pros
Faster GPU: 765m vs 760m
Faster CPU: i7-4800MQ vs i7-4700MQ
Shopping Cart


What do you all think, I'd obviously prefer a higher spec but just not sure about the fan noise as I will be using this with other people around...

 

To be honest, since I do use my W230ST in a classroom situation I know what you mean. But to be honest, it's not much of a bother for others even if you're playing games since as long as the computer is reasonably far (i.e. you're not sticking your ear into the vent of the laptop) from a person's ear it's not really that loud. Arguably, as of now when it's on my lap with the fan maxxed with Fn+1, it's only slightly distinguishable from the ambient noise in my area.

For a laptop like this, I'd rather go for the peace of mind with a louder, stronger fan to cool the laptop. Thermal damage isn't very... well... desirable.
But seriously, 300g? You won't really feel it IMO (depends on your finger/arm strength, naturally). Like my macbookair, I can hold my W230ST one handed on the side with the screen opened and use it, no problems there at all.
P.S. with the HDD, it's 1.76kg. So it's more like what, 200g?

Anyway, some points to add into your comparison

P34G
Speakers (probably better than the W230ST)

W230ST
Webcam (1.9Mpxl / 1200p recording)
Dat screen. Yeah, like seriously, dat screen. IPS. Almost full sRGB coverage. 'nuff said. (P34G's an IPS screen too, but the coverage? Probably not as good as the Chi Mei Innolux <-- what a beast)
Availability of 802.11ac (if you upgrade to the 7260-AC)
Replaceable battery, much larger capacity (62.16WHr (Model W230BAT-6) vs P34G (47.73Whr). Currently, after gaming quite a bit on like, Civ 5, or after doing some compute heavy applications, I can easily swap in my battery by temporarily hibernating the computer. I don't think the battery of the P34G is replaceable, though.


If the thermals of the W230ST are better, which they probably are (louder fans, as long as you put good TIM on the heatsink and there's no air leaks, tend to be better, esp if fan is same or larger diameter)
OC'ing headroom (Max turbo: up to +200MHz for 4700MQ, +400MHz for 4800MQ, 765m: +100MHz core, +400MHz memory) My 4700mq is undervolted and can be increased in max turbo to 3.59GHz/1C or 3.39GHz/4C. Which works very well, I'll say. I can go Prime95 on 2.79GHz-2.99GHz with a -75mV undervolt at 83 degrees with ambient, well, Singapore temperature. Go figure.

P.S. Where're you buying your laptop from?

 

mmmmh.. I for one find from that video that it's noiser than w230st..when he's gaming it sounds like hell, and one can hear it when he's not gaming, unlike clevo's.
noiser fan does not mean cooler temps, depends on the cooling profile. A 2 fan cooling solution can be more quiet AND more cool than a 1 fan profile.
The heatpipe design is important too, and clevo's pretty good at that.

I would exchange my chi mei screen against the gigabyte one without question, seems much more matte.
I don't care sRGB coverage if I see reflections. As long as it looks good, who cares about numbers... well, except for photo editors.

Nop, it's more like 300g, since the w230st is 2.05kg. And of course you can feel it, it has nothing to do with strenght :-/
Anyone can lift 2kg with one arm, but if you can't feel a 300g difference then you should be questionning. I can feel a 30g difference on a phone..

Intel 7260 AC - you know you can put it in any laptop right ? You don't need the builder to do this for you.... and pay like 60$ for it, when it only costs 30$ and is a 30s job.

As for the larger battery, that doesn't even mean the clevo will last longer, considering how poor Clevo is at power management.

Dunno how gigabyte stands in all those areas though, just saying.

 

I was deciding between MSI GE40, Clevo W230ST and the gigabyte P34G. There are others with simillar specs, but after seeing the reviews, i did not like them.
The MSI GE 40 had also heating issues (but battery life over 7hours) and throttling.

The Clevo has a better GPU and i think it is noticeably better. But i would not take this as a such big breaking point.

What i have read is, that the gigabyte has 2 fans. So if this is true, it will definitely be OK with its temperatures.
The Clevo is loud. On normal use it hits the fan sometimes loud, sometimes quiet. But you can try to handle this via Power management and make the fan into passive (you should create a new power management like quite office - in windows there are balanced, battery life, max performance).

The CPU... 4700MQ vs 4800HQ is not such a diference in real use. If you undervolt it helps a lot. With a cooling pad i have no trouble to have it on 3,0GHz/4c with 85 °C with full load. I undervolted only 60mV.
But i changed it to 2,8GHz and it does go to 85°C while gaming Battlefield 3 (the GPU 63°C). With the 4800 you will produce at same clocks simillar heat, so why to pay for this CPU, if you can make it easily on your own?
Btw., I did not OC the GPU.

The battery life of the gigabyte version will be better (my guess). Clevo battery life is bad for its specs (others like the MSI have mor than 2 hours longer battery life - samsung on the 770z5e has 9 hours with Ivy bridge...)

The screen on the clevo is nice, but if there is an IPS panel on the P34G, i dont think that you will notice a big difference (in real life - not in syntetic tests).

I think that the P34G has also Metal Chasis.

I did not want to wait for the P34G and it is a lot mor expensive (i bought my Clevo for 1100 EUR with 4700MQ, 1TB 7200 RPM, 120GB mSata SSD, 16GB RAM, new paste, 3years Warranty, intel 6235 wifi (they did not have the 7260 :-( and ofc GTX765M and the ussual stuff in it.
I see the P34G for 1400 EUR with these specs - CPU the same, HDD 750GB, mSata 128GB, 8GB RAM and 2 year warranty - lower GPU.

The weight of the clevo is great. But the P34G is a lot better. 300g are really a huge difference on these "same" notebooks.
The screen is subjektive (i wanted 14", but i took the 13,3").
CPU for me (if you dont do really really heave CPU stuff) is the same.
GPU, well you must reconsider, if you can live without few FPS = lower graphic settings, than it is OK
The chasis from the clevo is nice, but it is still plastic. Its tough though and i dont have the feeling it could "fall a part" - The P34G is probably with metal chasis = much better
Battery life with those specs and this battery (62Wh) should be over 7 hours on the clevo and not 4-5 hours. This is the bad part of this notebook. You need to reconsider, how you will use this.
Throtling - not an issue on the clevo. Even the GPU is mostly on BOOST so it is maxed out or nearly maxed out.
Heat is not an issue while heavy gaming (BF3) with a cooling pad or at least you need to lift it up a little - The same will be probably with the P34G
Clevo speakers... my phone has better sound = the clevo speakers are really bad (but i knew it when i bought it and i use external speakers/headphones).
The soundcard of the Clevo is also not the best. And I had trouble with the drivers. The sound is clean though (also the micro). It is enough and you get used to it after a while. I uninstalled the Soundblaster Cinema software, it messed it up somehow. Maybe i will try this later again.


Big pro for the clevo is the price. I had a limit of 1000 EUR - for my notebook. Becouse of the mSata SSD i decided to give the other 100 EUR for it - it is really worth it.

If you can wait for the review of the P34G, then wait for it.

The Clevo W230ST is far from perfect. But none is (at this price definitely). I would buy this notebook again. The fan noise and the bad speaker sound is worth it (i repeat - i had no fan noise while battery balanced with only web browsing).

EDIT: When you have STEAM on background - change the option in the nvidia pannel to integrated GPU - it has automaticly the Nvidia GPU set.

 

First, because you can reach higher clocks, second, if you use virtual machines I guess you'll see much better performance with 4800mq.

It looks much more matte on the P34G, and that makes a big big difference in real life =)

The chassis is very fragile, actually it is the most fragile I ever had. Breaks very easily, also the screen has a lot a flex, you must be very careful (my lcd broke already and is currently back to warranty :-/)

 

How did it happen? It feels solid for me.

 

My mistake, but you have to be very careful when doing this.
I tried to open the screen frame, you must pull it to unclip, and my finger(s) pushed a little on the lcd while doing so, which broke in return.
Was really light push ! but the corner of the lcd broke immediatly. Since the lid also has some flex, I advise everyone to open it by holding it in the center, not by the corners =)