*** Official Clevo P150EM / Sager NP9150 Owner's Lounge ***

You can get Audio Technical ATH-M50's on ebay for that, or maybe even a bit less. They are a well known very good for this price range headphone, and I own a pair of these in my collection. I love these headphones and they work very well for gaming or music. You might be surprised. Check up reviews on this model. It will easily blow away the 'gaming' headphones in sound quality.

EDIT: I see someone already plugged them. They are good!

Also, the Shure's recommended earlier are also a very good choice, reasonably similar to the Audio Technicas.

For earbuds I would suggest checking out these $7 monoprice ones. I use them at work and they are REALLY great for ~$7.

 

But do they have surround sound for gaming? I want to be able to hear people coming from different directions in BF3

 

Ahhh...what most people have said about inferior quantity on surround sound gaming headsets is generally true. With that said, I'm pretty picky about my sound, but use a Logitec G930 for surround sound gaming. Don't care to use them for music or movies but love them on BF3.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

 

Aren't we getting a little off-topic here? This is the P150EM owner's lounge, not the "what headphones should I buy?" topic.
Back on topic, my P150EM is finally in transit again, but 24+ hours of downtime on a business day is completely unacceptable. I could have had my laptop a whole day earlier, which is something that I would rather expect considering as I payed for 3-day shipping and they want to get it to me in 4 business days. Thursday is a business day!!!

 

Hi everyone - new poster here. I wanted to check in to say THANK YOU to everyone on this forum (and this thread in particular). The amount of information here is incredible and extremely useful for anyone considering buying a laptop. Since I've already saved myself hundreds of dollars just by reading these forums, I figured I should sign up for an account and see what else I can learn.

Highlights of my order yesterday from xoticpc:
Sager9150
Standard screen
Processor: i7-3610QM
RAM: 8GB 1600MHz
Video Card: AMD 7970m
Hard Drives: 120GB SSD for the primary, 500GB for the optical

I'd be interested to hear if you guys have any advice on maintaining the laptop - ie, any essential programs to have or regular maintenance I should do?. I've never been very good at this in the past but I'm spending more money on this laptop and want to get more out of it.

Also, I'm planning to use the machine with an external monitor and keyboard on my desk (when I'm not travelling with it). Anyone else use this setup? Any monitor or keyboard recommendations?

 

Well, some programs to need are something like HWMonitor in order to monitor the temps. Other than that, it'll be fine

That's all I have at least. I don't use external monitors or keyboards... although if you have cash to burn I would look into das keyboards.

 

Some tips from me:
- Try to keep the SSD as free as possible. The drive wears out faster when there is more stuff in it and there is a slight performance hit (that you may or may not notice). Rule of thumb would be 20% of max capacity.
- It doesn't hurt to have anti-virus software. A modern, popular, and effective combo is MalwareBytes + Microsoft Security Essentials
- Laptop cools the best if its lifted
- Dust out the computer once in a while, especially at the vents. This is probably the biggest cause of overheating.

Hopefully, you shouldn't have to do too much maintenance. A computer should work for you, not the other way around

No monitor recommendations, but I do like that you can connect more than one Logitech device to a Logitech mini-USB stick. So if you want to use an external mouse and keyboard, you only have to deal with one thing to plug in rather than two and since they are so tiny, it's easy to just leave it in and forget about it.

 

Ahaha, the laptop is already lifted by the design, which is awesome. Just be sure you're on a hard, flat surface.

 

I ordered mine about 2 days ago!

Highlights :
i7 3610
8 gigs ram 1600 mhz
GTX 675M
750 gigs hard drive 7200 rpm

This is like a compromise between my parents and I for college, but I'm sure it'll last for over 4 years. Can't wait! By the way, how long did it take for you guys to receive your NP9150s(those who already got it)?

 

You only have 2 ears and can hear people in all directions with them. A good set of heatphones will have a proper sound stage and you will be able to hear where everything is. When I am wearing my M50's for gaming, I have no problems knowing where people are.

Also check out the rosewill mechanical keyboards on Newegg. I have a few of them and they are fantastic. The 'really clicky' ones are the ones with the cherry mx Blue switches.

 

I heard the 675M is on backorder until June 6th. When are you leaving for college?

And for me, because I live far from California and I preordered the 7970M, it took a month for my laptop to come. However, from production, it took only a week to arrive.

 

So is the general consensus that if you are using you laptop in mostly darkened environments that the glossy screen will look better? Also, I will mostly be using it for gaming, web browsing, and general desktop use as well as some movie and tv show watching, is it worth getting the high gamut screen and if I do, should it be a given to get it calibrated right away?

 

just installed my steel series keyboard from mythlogic today. Damn is this thing sweet. Just an fyi. It was not the easiest install. The top of the keyboard had to be shaved down in order for the speaker grill to go back on. Quick trip to the hardware store and 30 minutes later we were in busines. Definately a worthy upgrade. Types like a dream. Still has the ghosting but oh well.

 

Sorry, I don't understand this (this will be my first time ordering/using an SSD) - are you saying you shouldn't store stuff on the SSD? Isn't that the entire purpose of the SSD? I must be missing what you are saying.

 

I'm going to do that. I have no idea what my monitor model number is, but it's a slightly older dell that I got off Craigslist for $150, it's a 24 inch matte 1920x1200 screen with 4 usb2 ports and a card reader. For inputs it has DVI, VGA, S-video and component. It's really good. For keyboard I currently have some generic logitech that I found at a garage sale along with the matching mouse, but I don't like it's wireless adapter so I might later get a Sidewinder x4 if the WEspace ghosting issue bugs me enough.

Yes, no, and yes.

No, the purpose of the SSD is to make your games and apps load faster, not for storage. You should use a secondary or external drive to store media and stuff. The larger the SSD, and the more space you leave open on it, the faster it gets and the longer it lasts.

 

I am liking the glossy screen right now, I'm in my living room watching TV and its night time and it looks great.

So to all, I just got this bad boy today. I downloaded an antivirus (MSE), installed D3 and changed my keyboard lighting. What else should I be doing right now? I feel like everyone runs cool specs or something? Should I calibrate my monitor somehow? Do I need new drivers for my graphics card (GTX670). Give me stuff to do to make this thing even cooler!!

 

I've ordered a 120gb SSD plus an additional 750gb HDD. First time with an SSD and I'd like to set everything up the proper way. Do you know of a nice guide that I could follow? I do slight gaming and general everyday use. I guess one part I'm confused about is do I need to install Windows on both drives and keep it installed on both drives? I gather that I want the SSD to be the boot drive so I assume that it needs to have Windows. But if I plan to place my media on the HDD, does it need Windows as well in order to access the files? Bit of newb obviously in this regard - I've never even partitioned a drive before so any guidance/resources you recommend I'd greatly appreciate it! Thanks in advance!

 

Sean's Windows 7 Install & Optimization Guide for SSDs & HDDs
The ultimate guide.
You should only have Windows installed on the SSD. As long as it's plugged into the computer, you can still access the 750gb (it's like having a really big usb drive always attached). There's no need to install it on both.

 

So my understanding is that the high gamut is a different panel but it won't make a difference for brightness or clarity, just accurate colors above what most programs will utilize?

Hey ChaseX13, are you using the standard glossy or the high gamut?

cheers,
Kyle

 

Run benchmarks. If you want, you can take off the back panel and look at the components inside, but make sure to take out the battery first and not to drool on the laptop.

The post below you covers it all, basically the 750GB drive will behave like a really big flash drive that is never removed. Don't forget to rep people who help you!

 

Modern, post TRIM SSDs only start to loose performance when they are nearly full. Its true that MLC flash storage memory has a limited amount of write cycles it can do before it loses ability to store data, but most SSDs these days compensate for that via overprovisioning and wear balancing, so your SSD should easily last 5 years, even with high daily usage... and i doubt you will still want to be using the same SSD in 5 years time.

 

True, they are getting even better than mechanical HDD's. But I don't trust them yet with heavy I/O workloads.

 

4-5 years is more than enough for me ; I know my Crucial m4 256GB will last at least 4 years; when i hit 200GB of space [with 40GB left after partition; about 20%; i will install a 256GB mSata to store the rest of my data].

So really for the speed it is worth it to buy Sata III SSD and mSata Sata II to keep all of your data; way faster load times and significantly less battery usage.

Idk though I may opt in for a 500GB hybrid drive for the optical bay instead of mSata as it saves roughly $100; but probably not.

Either way in 4 years I will upgrade as they will likely be half of the price by then and I could just get a 512GB Sata III Crucial/Samsung/Intel SSD for $200-300. When they hit that price I will buy one; may take a few years but I already have a 256GB to last me a while and will get a 128 or 256GB mSata to add on a bit; already have a 750GB External Drive with USB 3.0 for random files that I don't use often.

 

Back order? When I ordered mine, there wasn't any back order for the 675m. The only delay was for the 7970m, but on the other hand, college starts August 21st, but I want plenty of game time on this beast.

 

I think I read it somewhere in the forums but can find it again, is there a free program that lets you move programs around on your HDD?, say like games to the outer edge so the hard drive has an easier time finding it and therefore a quicker load time.

 

Not sure it anyone has said this on here... with ssd its important not to defrag the drive as it shortens the drives life considerably. Check windows to make sure its switched off for any ssd drive. There is no mechanical seek time on this type of drive.

 

This is perfect! Thanks again +1

 

It's usually turned off itself now a days a recent Windows update secured this (as I was told)

 

Does anyone have a service manual for P150EM and P170EM?

 

Seriously the general rule of thumb is. To use 20 percent of the drive ? I've heard of people running them three fourths full for a year plus with no issues at all.
Your saying I should only use 50 GB of my 256gb ? That's an OS and one or two games lol. Don't think I'm going to do that

 

The sager models Np9150 NP9170 manual can be found on here
custom gaming laptops - Welcome to Sager Notebooks

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/649949-p1xxem-user-manuals-posted.html

 

Thx, I asked for a service manual. Not for user manual.

 

I had to wait a month for my 675m to arrive at Mythlogic. Don't try and tell me that's not a backorder.

I'm going to hope he meant within 20% of max capacity...

He wants service manuals, not user manuals or upgrade lists. The service manuals have not yet been released to the public.



Well, this is disconcerting... My P150EM left from chicago at 9:30 yesterday, local time, and has yet to arrive anywhere. That's strange because a) this is not a business day, and b) I ordered ground shipping, which would mean the driver's been driving for around 25 hours now. I hope my package isn't lost. On the other hand, maybe they're trying to make up for Thursday, when it sat in a depot all day. Well, it should be on my side of the Rockies now...

 

They won't update it until the next business day. This happened to me as well, as my package left last Thursday morning and it kept saying it had just left CA over the weekend. On Tuesday morning, it said it arrived in my state.

 

Yeah I think I'll only use about 200GB of my 256GB drive which is about 240 when formatted. Gotta leave some room for trim and don't want to slow down the drive . Only using twenty percent would be retarded though lol

 

The issue with SSD's being full has to do with "Write Amplification" as well as how they are architected and operate. SSDs cannot write unless a cell is empty. They write in blocks and erase in pages. many blocks in a page. SO, when you need to re-write over deleted blocks, they must first be erased. BUT, they can only be erased with the other blocks in the page (please forgive me, the nomenclature of the terms may be off here). So, if a page has 90% used blocks and 10% deleted (but not erased) blocks, to erase that whole page, you need to read and re-write the 90% of "used" blocks into another page first, then ERASE that page, then you have a fresh page to write to. Check out this wikipedia:
Write amplification - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anyhow, there is also the fact that SSDs "fail" differently than spinning drives. They have individual cells go bad, and have the ability to mark them as dead and stop using them, but that is a very different type of failure as a head crash on a spinning drive.

The net(net) of this is that when an SSD get (close to) full, then you are constantly moving used blocks to make room for an erase of a page, and if there is no room to move those blocks over to do that, the whole process gets into a black hole of performance.

SSD manufactures know this. they actually provide a significant amount MORE capacity than they are rated for and so dead cells and room to read-write-erase-write when a new page is needed can be accommodated.

Since this is the Sager forum, I will leave it at that.

 

Finally placed my order, kept going back and forth between the NP9150 and NP9130, i was afraid that i wont like the feel of the 9130 so i didn't want to risk it.

played a bit with the customization of the 9150 backed the ram to 8gb 1333MHz and removed Windows 7 which pushed the system back into my budget.
hopefully i made the right decision and hey at least i get a back-lit keyboard and a carrying case.

A quick question will i be able to use my current w7 that i got for my desktop on my laptop as well ?

 

So we can use 75 percent and it's fine I figure ? I am going to have to get a 256GB msata once those prices drop ha.

 

Wow!! thanks I really appreciate the time you've put into writing all of this!! +100000 REP if I could, oh man
- never did find out why SSD failed at speed when being full.. great stuff, once again, thanks a million!

 

What do you mean by "feel"?
No, you cannot use one copy of windows on two machines at once. Do you have any idea how many rich pirates that would make?

 

If your desktop has a retail license it can officially be moved(that means no longer used on the old computer), if it's OEM its locked to the original system.

Technically that's the rules.

 

Actually, you can move an OEM copy of windows if you call MS and explain the situation to them. And I was unaware that you can take the copy of windows off of pre-built Failtops and stick it wherever you want, it seems like you would be able to rip some manufacturer off if you bought a bunch of cheap, wimpy computers with Celeron CPU's and integrated graphics, then took the HDD, ram, and OS, and used them separately.

 

For people who worry about graphic performance

Here is the game play

Sager Np9150 gameplay and screen - YouTube

Any question please post it in comment section, I will try to gather answers and post as a video response

 

A little off topic, but FYI:

The 512gb Crucial M4 is only $400 on amazon and tiger direct right now. Much cheaper than any of the resellers... ridiculous price for a huge SSD.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=365477&CatId=5300

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-I...JL3Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338683282&sr=8-1

 

No need to explain just do a search for it:
How exactly does Windows 7 Retail vs OEM - Microsoft Answers

 

Just so there's no confusion (not sure we're talking about the same thing) this is a retail version and this is the OEM version. Are you trying to tell me that pre-built computers use retail versions and not OEM ones? That would seem like a colossal waste of money.

Oh craziness *shakes head in disbelief* Those things are now less $/GB than the 256GB ones...

 

no I'm saying it's not as simple as calling MS to move an OEM to an entirely different machine.

edit: bah sounds like we are talking about the same thing. Was just referencing a source or the topic that has been discussed for a while now.

 

Has anyone tried folding with their Ivybridge? Is 90c normal for folding? My 3720qm can crunch through work units but dont really feel like 90c is safe. I have tried replacing the TIM with shin etsu and still get the same temps. Even when playing diablo 3 things can really heat up, close to 80c on the cores.

Are these normal temps or do I have a problem?

 

Clean your fans and see if that helps. Try not to use a vaccuum as those generate static electricity that could fry your mobo and warranty.