HTWingNut's Sager NP7330 / Clevo W230ST REVIEW

I was not talking about sager. And everybody knows it's "the way it is", that's actually the problem.
But it's definitely done wrong, there is way too much paste even for the purpose of being secure.
If you're ok with it, then good for you, I don't care either since I would repaste myself even if done right.
But not everybody knows or want to repaste.

Also, saying "it isn't done wrong" and "I'm not saying it's right" sounds weird to me, maybe because I'm not a native speaker

 

The word wrong is not really appropriate, they are wrong only if the machine/components throttle /fried.
And you can do something better don't mean they are wrong, though you can say they are careless or incompetent or whatever.

Their "wrong" method is better than stock and that is enough for people who can't/don't want to get into their machine.

 

It's the right way for system builders to do it, people should not be expected to do a paste job themselves so it needs to be done so it's good enough EVERY time to operate at stock. If you want to start tweaking or to get the lowest temps that are possible then you can do a personal job.

 

It's not good enough to operate at stock since it makes the cpu overheat and throttle.
It has nothing to do with tweaking or getting the lowest possible temps, this is a fallacious argument.

Anyway, time to end that useless discussion for me at least.
If you consider that to put too much paste is fine because they don't have time to put less (I really wonder what's the logic behind this but whatever..), we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

Wing, I just ordered an SSD for this machine. Any special tips I need to know for installation, or is it as simple as plugging the SATA cable in and I'm all set?

 

Pretty simple for SATA or mSATA.

See this video from about 1 minute to 5 minutes:

<iframe width='640' height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Jfsv41gUa0k?start=60" frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Much appreciated.

 

Yeah to the motherboard it's just like any other sata port.

 

Just joined the club boys with a Sager NP7330 equipped with an i7-4700MQ, 128gb msata, and 750gb storage.
Installed Iobit Start Menu, latest Nvidia driver, and had Diablo 3 at max settings and 1920x1080p up pretty quickly.

It is a beautiful screen - but got 2 stuck pixels that won't undead pixel out or massage out only on black.

Seems to idle at max gpu clocks too - a known bios issue.

I'll get to reading all 66 pages of this thread, but:
1) is there any video or pics on how to open the lcd cover to replace the screen if I want in the future (screen ~ $120), and
2) are there any official bios from Clevo or Sager that addresses the idle issue ( I think Prema has some mod bios)

LOL eBay will be seeing my barely used mint Clevo W110ER pretty soon...

 

I am going to install my SSD now. If I want it to be the secondary drive, do I need to do anything special to it after screwing it in?

Is RAID recommended? I don't really know what RAID is for lol.

Thanks

 

Which SSD did you get. This model only has one hard drive bay so you'll have to remove the existing hard drive to install it if its an SSD. If its an mSATA drive you can just plug it in assuming you still have an mSATA slot open. Once you have done that and as long as you have a disk with an OS on it then activate it in disk management and it should be ready to us.

 

Alrighty I'm replacing with an mSATA.

 

Would somebody knows of another laptop which use the same keyboard ?
Or at least have the same keys form-factor... I want to replace mine with an azerty keyboard.

 

It's a pretty unique form factor so you would need to contact your reseller about getting a specific part.

 

I hope to hear about those keys used somewhere else, I think I read something about an asus laptop using the same keyboard on this board already, but can't find it again.
Plus, I can't find any azerty keyboard right now, french resellers don't have them except for one, which costs +130$ which seems a bit exaggerated

 

hi guys,,,

I want to ask, I have 2 msata SSD (still empty) + 1 SSD (windows 8.1 OS System)

can I setup my 2 msata ssd to RAID 0 now without reinstalling windows? or I have to reinstall windows again after setup the RAID 0?

regards,

 

It "looks" the same, but it isn't. I bought a keyboard protector sold for the Asus, and the keyboard is clearly slightly wider as is the key spacing.

S46 or X401 I believe:



It looks quite similar but if you look in upper right the keys are offset slightly from our keyboard, and again, it's slightly wider. Oh well, only set me back $5.

 

Thanks, since I'm only interested by the keys themselves, that may do the trick, I'll look into it.
I tried an asus UL50 UL50A UL50V UL50VF UL50VT keyboard, keys were a bit taller and above all the scissor clips had like 1mm offset
$20 badly spent =D
I really hope I can find one that fits..

Also, I'd like to try a dvorak-like layout, so I ordered some stickers.
I assume it will make the backlighting useless though.

 

You will have to reinstall Windows once you set up the RAID configuration.

 

No, if you keep windows on the sata ssd you don't need to reinstall anything of course.
If you want it on the RAID array you can simply clone it once it's set up.

 

the OS system is in the SSD not the msata.
so if i want to make the RAID 0 of the 2msata, i dont have to reinstall windows? because the OS System is in the SSD right?

 

OK sorry I just assumed you would use the mSATA's are the primary drive. So you plan on adding 2 mSATA drives, put them in RAID 0 but not put the OS onto it. You dont need to reinstall Windows. But why do that if its not going to used as the primary drive? You would be very hard pressed to see any difference vs independent drives and you're introducing a higher chance of losing data since if one fails you lose all your info.

 

so RAID 0 have higher chance of losing data? hm,,, it is not safe then,, i just want to combine them, because there is too many drive letter in explorer...

your suggestion that i should leave them as be? without RAID?

 

RAID 0 will split up the data half on one drive the other half on the other drive and write/read from each drive at the same time effectively cutting read/write times in half. You usually want this for the OS drive for that speed increase. But since the data is split over two drives if one fails you lose all your data since it will be corrupt with only half the bits of info.

It would be best to leave them separate without RAID if you'd rather have the backup then the speed.

 

Mine would just be that, leave them as they are, no RAID.
Unless you have special needs for very high sequential transfer rates, it's not worth the disadvantages.
Actually it's not even really faster as an OS drive, let alone twice as fast.
Learn to live with another letter in explorer, it isn't that bad

 

thank you to both of you.... so i will leave them as be...

hehe regards,,

 

Older versions of Windows had Drive Extender, which would treat two or more physical disks as one big logical volume. With the default configuration, I *think* physical failure would only impact the files that happened to be stored on that physical drive -- it happened to me, and about half my files were recoverable. The other half just wouldn't load.

Win8 changed Drive Extender to Storage Pools. It looks like a more complicated arrangement but *maybe* in "simple" mode you might get the same benefits. Or, you could make a Storage Pool in mirror / parity configuration and get full failover protection (though if it were me, I'd do regular backups to a cheaper cost-per-GB rust drive instead).

 

Actually, if you have Windows 8, you can mount the drive as a folder like what is done on Linux. Then you would have only one drive letter, You would just have to remember that everything in C:/Data, if you mount it that way, is a different drive. If you move files form that folder structure to another area, it will actually take longer as the data has to be physically copied form drive to drive instead of a journal being updated. With SSD's you won't notice till you get in to moving gigs of data.

 

Drive Extender was only present on the original WHS. Win 8 provides storage spaces which is somewhat similar. But you can use Windows RAID if needed. The beauty of drive extender was that you could daisy chain a virtually unlimited number of drives and data would be spread among the drives automatically, including option for duplication of data. Storage spaces works similar except it's more like a RAID partition than anything else.

 

HTWingNut

I was refereed to your for help, but I'll take any I can get.

I have the WD 750GB HDD that came with the system, it has the OS. I have just purchased two mSATA drives.

I removed the HDD, enabled RAID, restarted, set up RAID 0, enabled Intel RST. Inserted the HDD, rebooted from the HDD. Windows now always fails to load, it continually fails to boot. I have now removed the mSATA drives, disabled RAID and tried to put everything back to how it was. Still Windows fails to load.

My goal is to have the two mSATA drives in RAID as my boot drive. I simply wanted to boot from the HDD for the time being to get some data I still have there. But as of right now, I'm unable to boot up.


EDIT: herp derp I had RAID mode still enabled

 

Nevermind....

 

I've installed the OS on my RAID array.

Unfortunately I'm not sure Windows is recognizing the mSatas as SSDs. When I go to the defrag tool and optimize, it then starts to defrag. I cancel that of course.

In addition, the RAID ROM version is 12.5 and the driver's version is 12.8.


Lastly, I never deleted the previous OS on the HDD so I now have a dual boot Win 8.1 system. When I remove the HDD, the system fails to boot from my RAID. So how do I get rid of this drive (I'd like to reformat it for storage) but maintain my boot into the RAID drive?

Any suggestions?

 

Mine is having this odd issue as well. Only defrag as an option

 

You cant boot from just one drive when its in a RAID array because the one drive will only have half the information it needs. You will have to do a clean install of Windows onto the drive in an independent configuration, then once you have that all done install the second drive you want to use for storage.

 

I actually did this this morning. Thanks for confirming my suspicion witch of course, worked. Will update and see if it recognizes the SSDs later when I get home from work.

BTW, Win8 and SSDs in RAID 0 makes the boot time stupid fast!

Edit: Forgot to mention, in my opening and closing the lappy all the time, I found the SIM slot in the battery compartment. I was not aware I had this and I was wondering if it's all set up to go so long as I insert a SIM? I never saw this mentioned anywhere ever before.

 

one more question. Does PREMA bios lower temperatures?

 

I don't think it does. Undervolting lowers temperatures, which can be used in conjunction with Prema Bios.

 

Exactly it gives you the tools to tweak things rather than changing anything massively.

 

Hi guys. finally sold my other laptop which now gives me a chance to finally use this laptop properly rather than to fire the odd game up and use with a pad. Im finding that the mouse buttons to be intermittent. so sometimes I have to click it sometimes more than 5 times for it to register. or press it unnaturally hard. and a lot of the time I find when I have to hold left click and drag. it loses grab. I know click and auto hold is possible. but Id rather manually hold it. and if you play football manager from you will know that there is a lot dragging and clicking to do. just want to know if others get this or is this a fault with my machine. The only flaw with the machine leaving a little bit of a sour taste in my mouth. I have I have the latest drivers for the mouse aswell I may add.

 

By mouse I'm assuming you mean touchpad? Sounds like a faulty touchpad, I would see about getting it replaced under warranty.

 

It seems to me the build quality of that touchpad is particularly poor.
I'm also getting the kinda burnt effect on its surface, and it sometimes become too sensitive or stops working.. and this issue is hardware.
I'll start looking for a replacement soon I think, if anyone can point me to the compatible models, maybe the one posted earlier this year...

 

On my model I'm getting strange lock-ups under both Linux and Windows. But the behaviors observed are different and I'm not sure if it's a hardware issue or a firmware/driver one.

Under Linux the touchpad sometimes get stuck in scrolling and refuse to move cursor. The only way to get it working again is to reload the driver.
Under Windows it may stop working all together but will recover after a few seconds.

 

Does anyone know the model number of the Ethernet card? I'm trying to find a driver for Windows Server 2012 but no joy.
Why did they use realtek instead of intel

 

Pretty sure it's the RTL8168.

 

Yep

This is mine:

 

Thanks. It's working now.

The only item left besides the hotkey (which just doesn't work) , is the bluetooth 7260AC

Also, does anyone seem to know how to control the fan speed, since CCC doesn't work. Tried speedfan and a couple of 3rd party apps no joy.

 

The fan speeds are not accessible.

 

Wonder, Is there a way to change the function keys? rearrange the keys so i can have them in a better posistion that makes more sense...
The sleep key is WAY to close to the volume keys and pisses me off when i press it while watching a movie or gaming

(i dont want to loose functionality of the key, rather put it some where else)
Have already gone through power options and advanced settings...(set it up to my liking) though right now i have press sleep button as do nothing...id really like to just move it down to the end Key fn+end= sleep


HT thanks for all the help with this review and so forth.
I am still using the included wd black 5400rpm 500gb drive that shipped with it from xotic
im just waiting till some samsung 840 mSata com out (like to do my own samsung only drives build on this (have the funds for it )

oh and BTW Prema Bios IS AWESOME
unlocks this laptop ohhh so much

 

The keyboard ec which contains the main ec too is locked down.

 

Thats what i figured, read software mods for clevo systems and hardware mods also on tech inferno, shows that the EC is ridiculously locked up. Which is interesting considering that they want users to have the best experience possible with the laptops, would also love to remove the popup window but that is not going to happen anytime soon...

HEY SAGER AND CLEVO (and keyboard manufacturer whomever you are)
Release an update for the software so we as power users and enthusiast's can really take advantage of fully customizing your machines....

Danke Meaker, now time to stand in 50+mph wind (its pretty dang windy up in here in ND,USA)