NP5175 First Impressions

Well, I finally got my NP5175 and have already messed around with it. I decided to post a quick first impression which I will update as I use it.

Stock Display
I decided to go with the stock display because I figured the extra money for an upgraded screen would not be worth it. I am not disappointed at all. THERE IS NO BLUE TINT! The screen is vibrant and crystal clear.

Build and Comfort
The build seems to be fairly sturdy. I'm not noticing any flex save the slight bending of the plastic around the screen. The hinges are nice and tight. The keyboard is going to take some getting used to. Anyone who is used to a standard non -chiclet style keyboard will be surprised with this. Keys are spaced further apart. The overall feel of the keyboard is nice however. The keys press down smoothly except for the space key. It feels a little odd when hitting it. The trackpad is VERY hard to use. For people with larger fingers, they tend to "stick" when dragging. From first use, it seems to run somewhat hot. I can feel the left side heating up slightly while typing. I will be posting actual temps later. EDIT- The temps are actually normal, it just feels warm.

My temps are MUCH higher after running 3dmark06. I'll post a pic later but I am about to check out the thermal paste. I am playing on a hard flat surface. These temps seem to be pretty outrageous. NOTE THE MAX. EDIT--My thermal paste was fine. When i posted these pics, I was not elevating the back of the laptop. Average CPU temps are 86 and GPU is 82 when just raising the rear. HOWEVER, I now have my laptop sitting on an aluminum Zalman 2000 cooler. Temps are (Cooler off-Max fans function on) CPU 80 GPU 72 (Cooler on-Max fans on) CPU 76 GPU 70 As you can see, the max fans setting makes all the difference.






















Performance
The laptop is lightning fast. Average startup time to the desktop is 25 seconds and windows pop up in the blink of an eye. Installations take minimal time. 3dmark06 was done installing in 20 seconds. I will be running 3dmark soon with some starcraft 2 benchmarks.

The sound quality is about what was expected. High treble with no bass. Speakers are fairly loud though. I will be using surround sound headphones to take advantage of the HD audio port.

BENCHMARK SCORES
3DMARK06 10572 http://3dmark.com/3dm06/15712582. On par with the 192bit 555m.
3DMARK VANTAGE OVERALL 5831
3DMARK VANTAGE GPU 4845.9
http://3dmark.com/3dmv/3162761 (Vantage)

So far it seems this version of the 555m is about the same as the 192bit.
SC2 runs beautifully. I had it set at 1920x1080 with the preset settings on extreme and shaders to ultra and still managed to pull 35fps. If I bump down the presets to ultra, it goes up to around 45fps.

Any more questions, I will try to answer

UPDATE 6/26/11
Posted new Temps. Laptop is still zippy and the only problem I have encountered is the Intel Display Driver crashes rarely. I have my 555m oc'ed to 685 core, 1370 shader, and 1050 memory. If I increase them to 715/1430/1090 I get stability issues and experience intermittent freezes with occassional permanent freezes requiring a hard shutdown.

 

Thanks for the thoughts! Continue to post as you go.

 

How is the sound/speakers?

edit

opps nvm just read what you said

 

Just added the 3dmark scores. Also, my temps are about 6 degrees cooler now under heavy load. I just proppe the back up on a book for more airflow.

 

Hi nikryj,
could you tell me something about the NP5175 battery life? Can you squeeze at least 3 real hrs of wireless web browsing, office and some graphic software work out of this machine? Can you watch a 2hrs DVD / blue-ray with one charge?
Could you run GPU-Z to check if this GT 555M runs with a 192 or a 128bit bus?
Is the NP5175 power supply big? What is its size?
Could you be more precise regarding the difficult trackpad?
Thanks for any reply

 

1. I'll get back to you on the battery life, I have yet to use it unplugged.

2. The GT555M is definitely the 128bit bus. I will post a screenshot later.

3. It isn't too large If I had to guestimate, take an xbox360 psu and cut in in half. I will post a pic later.

4. The trackpad is extremely high friction. It has a rough surface that resists finger movement.

I am heading off to sleep. It is 6:17 am. Stayed up all night fidgeting with the laptop.

 

Thanks, I am really curious to know how many hrs this machine can work unplugged. I hope it can give at least 3hrs.
I saw the temperatures are quite high. Did you get the IC Diamond Thermal Compound when you ordered the NP5175? Is the laptop feeling extremelly hot after running 3dmark06?
How is the screen quality? On par with the dell xps 17 FHD?

 

Temps are a bit lower now that I have elevated the rear. 5-6 degrees lower in fact.

 

Looks good, thanks for uploading pics.

 

Thanks for the pics. Do you feel the computer too bulky to be portable?

 

I understand that under heavy load (like gaming) these machines can become quite loud, which is normal, but do they stay quiet when just watching movies and surfing the web?

 

that numpad is ridiculous. cheers for the pics though, is that the 120w adapter?

 

After emailing Sager, they said the temps I was experiencing are normal. 85-90 depending on the game. Anything over 95 is when I should start to worry. Overall, the gaming aspect is amazing. I can run several somewhat GPU intensive games in FHD Ultra settings while averaging 40-50fps.

 

Any battery life test?
Is this model the one with standard 1080p screen or with the upgraded 90% NTSC Color Gamut?
How are the internal speakers? Usually they are not very good on laptops.

 

Standard 1080p screen. The Speakers are pretty horrible. They have high treble and no bass.

 

plz post some 3d mark vantage oc results also 3 d mark 11

 

Edit: sorry, posted this in the wrong thread.

 

Well, i've got 10300 in 3dmark06 when overclock my 540m to 810/1000 and my i5 2410 might perform a little lower so basically i'm pretty close to 555m which can't be bad)
how much can u run on battery? it has optimus as i do in my Dell L502x, so around 4 hours should be great!

 

I'd also be interested in finding out more about the battery life!

Also, beware of Sager/Clevo telling you that temperatures are no big deal. I'm a 6 year owner of one of those $3k Sager behemoths from 2004. It would run games pretty well, but if that's your main gaming rig (which I imagine it would be when you pay that much) you needed to send it back to the shop once every 8-12 months as the GPU would start artifacting non-stop after months of continuous overheating. It requires a total mobo replacement and takes about 2-3 weeks.

 

So what would you define as overheating on a GPU? My CPU temps reach around 90 then the fans kick on max and they drop to 85ish. The GPU reaches usually 82 then drops to 78.

 

If you're still updating this thread, can you take a picture of the optical drive? I want a picture of the side of the computer.

Thanks in advance.

Anyway, I ordered my 5175 on the 3rd, and it's still on Phase 2 after 10 full business days. Really disappointed with Sager right now. But let's hope that disappointment subsides after I receive my lappy.

 

I ordered mine directly from Sager, a big no-no apparently but I am fairly pleased. And I will upload a picture of the optical drive tomorrow.

Also, I added a little bit to the original post about temperatures.

 

Well I actually canceled my 5175 order in favor for a 8130. That, plus the 5175 hadn't shipped for 14 business days (curse you Sager), and in that time period, I managed to get $200 so yeah. No need for optical drive pictures , thanks anyway.

 

I accidentally posted in the 5170 thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...levo-w170hn-owners-lounge-24.html#post7651990

 

My 5175, purchased through xoticpc, arrived with a bad stick of memory and a bad hard drive. Memory failed the memtest86 program with so many errors I couldn't believe it. The drive failed both smartctl and seatools. Sadly I had wasted a week before discovering the memory issue, although I had to reinstall windows 7 multiple times due to BSODs. Then after pulling the bad stick and sending it back to Sager I kept having issues. Finally tracked it down after a few days of reinstalls and BSODs to the bad drive.

Sager will not extend the 30 trial even though I have yet to have the computer in a working format. So I wouldn't even be able to get the drive replaced before my time was over to test the rest of the system.

Anyway, I'm going to be sending it back asap. Hopefully I won't have to wait for the memory stick to be returned.

For me the 5175 has been a stinker. Sager has lost a customer with their poor customer support.

Mark A.

 

Thanks for the pics