*** Official Clevo P177SM-P170SM / Sager NP8290-8270 Owner's Lounge ***

I was gonna go for the 703, until I figured out that the 723 was only a tiny bit more expensive but it takes 2 GPUs. Which means I can add a second one at a later stage. With that in mind it definitely feels like I'm getting more value for my money.

Ha, yeah it's just a disadvantage that the 17 inchers have to deal with. Less portability.


Sent from my baked potato

 

Although clevo/sager have built certain advantages into the 17 inch but most people wont run across the abilities of the copper CPU cooler, extra CPU power phase and larger power brick.

 

After experiencing with Alienware, in my opinion, Clevo is the best 17 inch notebook out-there.

 

All 3 of them have their strong suits.

 

Hey guys, I have a problem. Currently I have a laptop with 8gb of DDRIII 1600 MHz ram, Kingstone KHX, datasheet says they are 1.5V, and I've read that mobile Haswells suport only 1.35. Is it true? Do I have to sell those, and buy DDR3L or can use it? I will be buying Clevo P170SM.

 

Since you already have it you can try it, but you are correct Haswell supports DDR3L.

 

Nahh, I don't have it yet. Will have it in next week, but im ordering P170SM without ram, so i want to be ready when it arrives - thats why i ask if someone did try 1.5V ram in the lap. If people say it won't work, im gona order a set of DDR3L ram now, so i have it already when lap arrives and sell my old ram.

 

I had 1866mhz 1.5v ram and had problems with it. Since you are going to be keeping the laptop for a while I would just buy the correct voltage ram for it.

 

My P170SM should be delivered this thursday, so excited!

 

Ok. Thank you for the info. Gonna sell ram and buy a DDR3L. Funny thing is that RAM is almost twice expensive now, then when I bought my ram... Gonna sell my ram used, for more then new one I did buy last year .

 

Congrats! Be sure to leave us your impressions once you receive it.

 

Depends on the silicon lottery.

The higher the speed rating of the 1.5v ram the less likely it will work. (1600mhz has a chance, 1866mhz is shaky ground and 2133mhz you can forget).

 

Ordered from mySN today!!!

And now the waiting begins...

 

Quick question, all the monitoring software I can find reports my fan to be running at 100% at idle, even though it is 100% silent and using the FN+1 key combination definitely boots them to high gear. Is there any way to actively monitor the fan speed or will it always report 100%?

 

Yeah all notebooks use a custom EC that programs wont read typically.

 

Alright, thanks meaker. On another front, I know I've seen it mentioned in here but I can't seem to get my fingerprint reader working? Windows says I have no biometric devices, I can't seem to get any response out of it in the software provided, but I did find it in the device manager and add a driver for it (egistec es603?)

 

Did you ever configure the fingerprint reader? What happens if you swipe your finger down it? Which software did you try that didn't work?

I just loaded all the drivers from my included drivers dvd disc, in the order listed. It works, but personally I don't use it. My fingerprints are every where I touch. So it is not good security on its own.

 

I can't configure the finger print reader because as I said, windows says I don't have one, even though it was a detected device that I added a driver for. Trying to remove/reinstall the drivers prompts me with "this driver is already installed". No software works (including the actiontec suite)

 

Figured it out. The software on the website under "Fingerprint reader" isn't the correct software for this device, only the one on the disc works (and windows still doesn't recognize it, only this software does). Thanks for the assistance ajnindlo.

 

One more question - When running 3DMark11 my physics score is les than half the score of an equivalently equipped machine? my graphics scores align correctly but they are getting ~9000 physics score where I get 4000...both using stock 4700MQ. And my 4700MQ isn't going above 51C:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/0Tj77CD.png[/img]


3DMark result:

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/2512387


GPU peaked at 55C during the run. Tried rebooting and running again to see if it was a fluke but the results were the same.

 

That's a standard score for a stock clocked 770m in 3dmark. You can use xtu to check load and throttle levels on the cpu.

 

What's the word on getting a laptop cooler? I've been looking at the Cooler Master U3, any good?

 

XTU shows a a flat line @ 3.19Ghz from start to finish in the run, temperatures ranging from 48 to 53C.

 

I've got that one for my P370. Works really well because I can position the 3 fans right under the vents.


Sent from my baked potato

 

What power setting is your system set to?

what's the load of the cpu during the cpu test?

 

Well, that issue seems to be resolved with updating my nvidia drivers (no idea why). But right now I'm having another issue entirely. I'm getting stutter/massive lag spikes in games that work fine on my desktop (right beside my laptop). I've tried using the built in wifi card (AC 7260) and my USB card (WNA3100 Netgear). The USB card works flawlessly in the same location on my desktop, but on my laptop it results in the same odd stutter/lag spiking that I get on the internal Intel card. I've tried using the 5GHz band, I've tried various clean driver installs, I've tried disabling the card completely and using only the usb card. The only thing I haven't been able to try is via Ethernet. Any light anyone could shed on this would be most appreciated.

 

Quick question.

Is the eSata port powered on the P177SM?

 

It's a USB 3.0/eSATA combo port and that USB 3.0 port isn't the powered one so my inclination would be to say that it isn't.

 

But since the USB 2 part IS powered shoudnt it then be powered? (According to wikipedia)

 

I honestly haven't looked into it too in depth, but after some quick reading on it the port you're referring to is technically termed eSATAp.

eSATAp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It appears that it'll likely have a 5v line attached to it but most esata drives will require more power and typically provided with a power adapter for that reason. I haven't gone and taken a meter to it or anything, but it might be a better route to go to ask what device you have that you're wanting to connect to it and look at that specifically.

 

Im planning to get a eSata to powered sata cable for 2.5" drives, and I wanted to know if its powered before I buy it. But I may end up just buying the cable and cross my fingers and report back if it works.

 

In that case I'd look at the drive you're connecting and see how much voltage it needs. If it's less than 5v you should be fine in my opinion, but yeah probably going to be one of those things where you try and see if it works.

 

Yes it should supply enough power to a 2.5" drive so long as it's an enclose designed to handle powered esata.

 

Thanks guys.

I went and ordered this cable and if I remember Ill report back with the results when it arrives.

Edit 03/03/2014: Cable arrived and it IS a powered power. It will power 2.5" drives without issue.

 

That will only really work with 2.5" drives, but should be fine with those.

 

Anyone that might know why I can output via HDMI to my pc monitors, but not my TV? (42" LG TV). It never shows up as an input for the TV.

 

I have ordered but do not yet have my Sager NP8275-S yet, but I have had similar issues with other computers, so will comment. Sometimes the external monitor or TV needs to be already connected when you boot up the laptop (I don't know why), and sometimes it helps if it is already connected when the TV is powered up and/or when you hit the button to switch to the HDMI input. So try messing around with rebooting while connected, initially with the TV on while rebooting, and then try cycling the TV off and on while connected. I will experiment with mine in a couple of weeks when I have it and report back if I have similar problems or learn anything useful. Good luck

 

already tried both of those

 

A couple of questions.

Windows update shows the following update as optional. Anyone knows what it is and is it safe to instal?

-Intel Corporation - Graphics Adapter WDDM1.1, Graphics Adapter WDDM1.2, Graphics Adapter WDDM1.3 - Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600

And what about the new GeForce 334.89 WHQL drivers?

My GPU is a GTX 780M.

Thanks

 

The Intel Corporation one is for the Intel GPU which is the one built on the CPU. You can probably pass on it as you wont see much performance increase. When you need the GPU performance it relies on the the GeForce card so you could update those drivers.

 

The intel ones typically want to be updated if you have a specific issue while the nvidia drivers will want to be kept up to date to help with the latest titles.

 

I just connect my tv, turn the tv on and set to the proper hdmi input, then power on the computer. I don't have to tell the computer to extend to the tv, it is already extended. Maybe it remembers the last setting with hdmi.

Are you you using hdmi 1.3 cable, that is short? Maybe your resolution or refresh settings aren't supported by the tv. Try googling your tv model and see if others have the same issue.

 

Make sure you are selecting the right input on the TV basically.

 

So I ordered mine Feb. 12. I am told they are making some changes to this model at the manufacturer, which for all I know may result in a model number change, and my order was just a bit too late to get produced before the changes. So mine is being badly delayed to maybe late March. But hopefully the plus side is that I will benefit from whatever improvements they make to the model, without paying an increased price. Anyone have any idea what improvements they are making?

 

No official information has been leaked yet, all resellers and builders will be under an NDA embargo at the moment. If you look around the forums and posts you'll have a pretty good idea of what to expect though.

 

Thanks Derek. I did buy from XoticPC incidentally.

 

Good deal! As soon as we can feed you some more info we'll definitely do so. Otherwise I'm sure somebody not so bound by legal mumbo jumbo will be able to chime in.

 

I am going to hazard a guess that the major upgrade will be the graphics card to the 800 series. For mine that would mean an upgrade from the NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 770M (3.0GB) GDDR5 PCI-Express DX11 to the NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 870M (3.0GB) GDDR5 PCI-Express DX12! That would be amazing!! The advantages are significant:

Significantly higher clock speed -- 941 MHz vs 706 MHz -- Around 35% higher clock speed
Significantly better floating-point performance -- 2,529 GFLOPS vs 1,356 GFLOPS -- More than 85% better floating-point performance
Significantly higher pixel rate -- 26.3 GPixel/s vs 14.1 GPixel/s -- More than 85% higher pixel rate
Higher effective memory clock speed -- 5,000 MHz vs 4,008 MHz -- Around 25% higher effective memory clock speed
Higher texture rate -- 80.5 GTexel/s vs 56.5 GTexel/s -- More than 40% higher texture rate
Significantly higher turbo clock speed -- 967 MHz vs 797 MHz -- More than 20% higher turbo clock speed
More texture mapping units -- 112 vs 80 -- 32 more texture mapping units
More shading units -- 1,344 vs 960 -- 384 more shading units
Higher memory clock speed -- 1,250 MHz vs 1,002 MHz -- Around 25% higher memory clock speed

One possible disadvantage is that the 770M has lower thermal design power, 75W vs 100W (25% lower TDP). But, if I understand correctly, TDP is a worst case thing, representing how much heat the GPU may generate under full load. The absolute maximum difference would be 25W under load, with more likely smaller difference. When idle, the GPUs may be about the same power, or may be far apart. Then there's the question of whether the faster GPU spends less time working hard than the slower one, because it finishes the task sooner. I would rather have the higher graphics capability and risk producing more heat and using more power when I actually utilize its full power. Who wouldn’t? 

 

Where were you getting those specs from?

 

The specs are mostly from here. I think I jumped to a wrong conclusion on DX12 though. Pretty sure it is actually DX11.