*** Official Clevo P370EM / Sager NP9370 Owner's Lounge ***

Nah, not necessary. Just doing what we're here to do. Much appreciated though.

 

Alrighty then. I'll just use you as an excuse to take a shot on my own

Anywho, just as a quick update for whomever asked about something to carry the sucker in (or for whoever is interested); I can confirm that the Everki Beacon can indeed house this laptop just fine. Fits like a glove, but it definitely fits. I don't mean in a bad way either, it's quite "easy" to remove it from the bag as far as monsterous laptops go.

Also, the "dead muppet fur" (look it up on Amazon, you'll understand) works wonders for cleaning fingerprints off of the chassis. Speaking of that, I've already figured out the PERFECT tool for cleaning all of the rubberized parts.

If you're as into detailing your vehicle as I am you will have heard of this, but what you need is called a "chamois" towel. I've found that microfiber towels can have some tendency to sort of "stick" to rubberized surfaces when wiping them (not sure if it applies here, as I don't have any spare microfiber towels anymore) which can make it difficult to perform a quick cleaning job. The chamois on the other hand has a smoother texture and doesn't grip the rubber when wiping it down.

As a side note... don't put on lotion before touching this thing unless you've got that chamois handy

 

So I'm thinking about getting the P370EM after lurking for weeks now and doing a lot of research. It's pretty apparent that this laptop is one of the most powerful things ever made portable. For slightly under 5k I can get:

-3D 120hz matte + glasses
I was planning on using it mostly to game/bluray on my 55in Panasonic. I have my desktop for competitive gaming, so this setup will be for more the immersion/mind-blowing games. I was wondering if anybody had experience with using the laptop for bluray movies on a TV? Can I output 3D video simply using the HDMI from the card? What kind/s of 3D does it support?

-Dual GTX680m
I love the EVGA 670 FTW on my desktop, just amazed how cool and quiet it can be while scaling very well with OC. Just one 670 is enough for me to max out Far Cry 3 and Crysis 2 without breaking a sweat, so the 680 SLI will just chew through anything to come in the near future.

-Diamond IC and either the i7-3840 or i7-3740
I notice processor speed is complete overkill, but is there any heat or power draw issues I might be concerned with if I grabbed the 3840 anyway? I noticed there's barely a difference between the 3740 2.7ghz and 3840 2.8ghz, but are there other latent pros and cons to this equation?

-2x512gb 840 Pro
I can't decide whether or not it'd be even noticeable to Raid 0. It seems that the 840 Pro is too fast to begin with. I'll mostly be using the drives for fast boot, steam/humble/gog games, and a handful of bluray iso, so I might just stick with 1 TB of 840 Pro instead. The only argument I see for Raid 0 is to get the boot times even lower for easy turning on/off like a home theater appliance. I was thinking of just hooking up a wireless mouse and keyboard, and changing the BIOS setting to turn on the computer from a keyboard command combo. Is it possible to keep the lid closed for an extended duration while being used? Does it interfere with the ventilation or screen too much?

-mSATA 256gb Crucial M4
Why not? Just extra space for miscellany and leave the firepower to the entertainment media. I'm going to want this laptop to last, so you never know when you need more space.

-16-32gb RAM
It seems like 16gb would last me a very long time, and I could just be safe by grabbing 2x8, allowing me to grab an additional 2x8 in the future if need be. Or, will 4x4 give a noticeably better performance? And should I just assume it'll be a long time before 32gb is a thing anyway? I hear using all 4 slots can put more strain on the computer, so I was curious about the pros and cons of that.

 

Any video card after the nVIDIA Geforce 8K line can output 3D so unless you plan on watching or playing in 3D on your laptop, there is no need to get the NP9370-3D. Also note that nVIDIA 3D vision is going to be different than your 3D TV. nVIDIA uses active shutter glasses that sync with an emitter built into the laptop.

Most powerful mobile card combination available and will outperform your GTX 670. That is, of course, you don't have micro stuttering and your game is compatible with SLI.

The real big difference you're paying between the 3840QM and 3740QM is for the additional 2MB of Cache. Pointless for a gamer, but nice if your an audiophile.

Both CPUs are 45W TDP so their temps are going to very similar.

Your buying a Ferrari! Get the IC Diamond!

The 840 Pro is hitting the SATA III 6G/s bottleneck, but if you're in RAID 0 you're using 2 SATA interfaces and therefore you're getting 12G/s. (Not quiet, but for argument's sake) Having 1TB of SSD is a luxury, and wont actually give you much performance wise, if you're just gaming or watching movies. (I have 2x 830 Pros in RAID 0 and I'm bottle-necked by my CPU and memory.) It might be worth considering a single 512 SSD and a 750 HDD or Hybrid storage and back-up.

Did you get your refund check or something?

4x4 as opposed to 2x4 will give almost no performance advantage and occupying all DIMM slots won't strain the system. Get the 2x8 for future upgrade potential, but even 16GB is overkill.

Windows 8 manages memory differently than 7 or XP and it might take advantage of all 16GB, but it's still overkill.

 

I just ordered a 9370 from Powernotebooks on Monday. Now I have to wait to receive it, first beast of a gaming pc I have ever owned. Purchased Battlefield 3, Crysis: Maximum Edition, and Crysis 2 to check this bad boy out. Here are the specs.

1 Sager NP9370 - Gaming Laptops -
17.3� Full HD (1920x1080) Matte LED-Backlit Display
Dual nVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M 256bit w/4.0GB GDDR5 in SLi
Intel Core i7-3630QM (2.4~3.4GHz) w/6M L3 Cache - 4 Cores - 8 Threads
IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
16GB (2x8GB) DDR3/1600 Dual Channel Memory
Crucial 128GB SSD (M4) SATA III Solid-State Drive
750GB SATA II 3GB/s 7,200 RPM Hard Drive
RAID Disabled
6x Blu-Ray Reader/8x Super Multi Combo Drive
9-in-1 Memory Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/MS/MS Pro/MS Duo/SD/Mini‐SD/SDHC/SDXC)

Built-in Bigfoot Networks Killer� Wireless-N 1103 - Ultimate Gaming Card
Smart Lithium-Ion Battery 89.21Wh
Windows 8 - (64-bit installed w/DVD and Drivers disk included)

 

Ok guys. With as little bias as possible I'm thinking about either the p170em and p370em. From my research the design on the p370 is better along with the sound quality. If i get it with one 680 in it it will cost a little under $100 more so later on i can consider getting the second GPU for double power because of course I want something thats gonna last me from 5-10 years (serious). Reason for only getting one card now is that I dont want to spend too high over $2,000 in one jump (wanna actually eat and not have to catch the bus to work for a month). My fear with the P370em is the heating as I own a HP dragon - 8800 gts (flip crisis 1 and 2 among other games and have had for 5-6 years), which I tried to replace with a Asus G73 with a radeon 5870 (got it for $622). Played through farcry3 in window mode (poor driver support of radeon as we know) and guess what, overheats and crashes when ever i play a taxing game.

So I'm wondering get the 170em onetime which definitely will have less heating or the 370em with more power in the future hopefully streching its longevity. In both case I will be getting extra copper heat sink and IC diamond on the GPU and processor. Do ask about my first laptop toshiba of th a series with a 3. processor, powerful but once again shutting off due to heating issue. On I'm in the Bahamas so we have subtropical climate (alway sorta hot), just thought i should mention,

 

Well if you want a PC with headroom to last THAT long you actually don't have a choice, you've got to go P370.

Also, there are no temperature issues with the P370. Read back a page or so to read what I wrote about the temps, or just search for it on these forums. This laptop has 3 fans, and they all do a good job. The heat sinks are honestly unnecessary, but I suppose in your climate they might help a little (though unless you just absolutely hate air conditioning of any kind, I'm still not sure that they're necessary).

 

Well so far pretty good. I decided against the unboxing video and all that. No reason for pictures as they are the same as everyone else's.
My first thoughts, really nice machine. It is very unassuming in the since it look all business, no kiddy crazy colors, weird angle designs that makes it stand out like a toy.

So far performance is good. Havent really put it through its paces yet. Was doing some simple benchmarks. Im kind of disappointed in the msata performance and maybe I should have checked that out before hand. The Crucial m4 256gb msata is averaging 330mbs sec read and 260'ish write. The two 750gb raid 0 drives i got as an option is benchmarking about the same. Not sure what I am going to with that yet.

The fit and finish is nice. My one complaint is the metal around the keyboard has quite a few scratches on it in the bottom right hand corner and along the bottom. a little way by the space bar. Not what I was expecting for a $3600 laptop.

I downloaded origin and started my BF3 download. It took 6 hours with several disconnects from my wireless router making the game pause downloading. So i finally got it to finish after reconnecting several time. But when I launch BF3 it says connecting to the server i play on all time and then BF3 just goes away. So I uninstalled it. I will bring a 75ft cat5 cable home from work today and hook it up that way and see if i get better speeds and a constant download and see of BF3 will launch.

The next question is why is my Bigfoot Killer 1202 constantly disconnecting from my router. I have three Macbook Pro's, two iPads, and two other windows laptops the kids use with 0 issues on wireless.

I will work on this for a couple days before i decide what to do with the machine. I am sorta unhappy with the scratches on the metal around the keyboard, almost enough to RMA it just for that. But IO performance is subpar for me at this point and the wireless issue. Im happy but not happy..

 

Hey, I just asked Josh to get a hold of you to help you out.

 

Ok Derek, thank you. I am a little busy atm about to head to a clients office. If he calls I will call him back asap.

 

The only proper solution is to do a clean uninstall of the driver, use driver sweeper etc. and install these drivers manually by directing DEVICE MANAGER driver update to the exact folder you extract the files to. Trust me it's the only way I got that crappy card to work. Driver Details | Dell United States

 

I have to say, cooling is a definite concern on the np9370, at least for the 7970m xfire users.

View attachment 90892

That is after 1 hour of metro 2033 :/

Is there any way to force the fans to stay on maximum indefinitely or is this just another case of "lol amd sucks, nvidia pwns"?

Honestly speaking, if the fans would just spin up and stay at max, I wouldn't have anything bad to say about the laptop, but between the finicky fans and ill fitting heat sinks i'm honestly wondering why I didn't go with alienware (Or a pair of 680's )

 

Fn+1 keys should throttle ur fans to max speed ,
Are u having stock thermal paste ?
Is the laptop well ventillated ?
My pc arrives next tuesday and am having the crossfire 7970m's,
Hope i wnt regret getting those .
Any1 else facing these high temp with the red cards?

 

Factory applied IC diamond 7 afaik.

Will be picking up some thermal paste soon and redoing it myself. fn+1 does NOT set fans to max on the p370em from what I can see. I honestly wish it did

Have a pretty good laptop cooler with plenty of air flow.

 

I have the 7970m xfire and I had high temps also. I got a laptop cooler with built in fan (notepal x-slim) and it lowered my secondary gpu temps like 10c. The second one is always higher because I believe it shares the heatsink with the cpu.

 

The problem with factory pasting is rarely the paste used... it's moreso how they paste. Generally speaking, factory pasting means that the stuff is literally caked onto the CPU and GPU. Caking it on "works," but it's rarely optimal or good in the long term. Which for the sake of time is more or less impossible to do. Definitely check your temps after self-pasting. A mediocre pasting job alone could account for a good 6 or 7C alone, and perhaps more.

Also... are those CPU mins for you at idle? If so, you might want to re-paste that as well (unless you happen to have the XM chip). And I didn't even know the chip could reach 85+ C =/

 

Interesting that card 2 states its at a higher voltage than card 1.

 

That's unusual to say the least. Look at the temp on your other GPU. I would recommend swapping the PCB positions, but you can't on this machine. Each card is assigned to a specific port on the motherboard and your system wont boot if you exchange places.

First, I recommend contacting your reseller to trouble shoot.

If you're comfortable testing the system on your own, try disabling crossfire and test the system again. Try checking the contact points on the heat-sink. Make sure they have good contact with the on board memory, voltage regulator and the GPU itself.

Check the heat fins and make sure there are no gaps between the fan and the fins.

 

Even your cpu temps are amazingly high. Mine never go above 58c under load. a repaste is probly what your going to have to do.

A question i have is im looking at getting a new hard drive. Im considering a 256gb msata that has 500mb/s read 260mb/s write. But since the msata port on the laptop is only sata2 would i notice a decrease in speed than if i was to get the same spec ssd and put it in the sata3 portion? Its going to be for OS, programs, and certain games with long load times and lots of load screens (witcher). would the ssd even use a full 500mb/s for these day to day task or only if i was import and exporting large files. Also there are 2 im looking at the mushkin and the crucial. Not sure which one to get. Nushkin has much higher specs but i hear alot of the speed and lifespan is about the controller. so i dont know which ones better there either

 

yeah I noticed that.

How should I go about trying to reduce the voltage on the 2nd card? It always runs a few volts higher than the main GPU.

The problem atm is that the heat build up and just doesn't dissipate.

Hopefully after a repaste it'll get better but if the differing voltages are also a problem I'm going to have to look into that...

 

At the moment you need to get SVl7 to hand modify it or find someone who has one that's been done already (has to be for your system though, you should not use vbioses from the 170em or 150em either).

 

What did you do to get it fixed i am having the same issues on my end here.

 

Hey bro,

I see your having some temp problems and my advice is that you don't mod your cards BIOS' just for temperatures. Start with re-pasting everything with IC Diamond, even if you paid for the factory paste upgrade. I had the same temp problems and I'm super happy with the results of re-pasting my NP9370. So GPU's and CPU, all three. This was my first time with thermal pasting so I had to do it 3-4 times to get it right and now everything is quite fine, JUST BE CAREFUL NOT TO OVER-TIGHTEN YOUR HEATSINK SCREWS THEY WILL BREAK OFF!

Good luck man.

 

Does anyone have a new BIOS for this laptop, those running Windows 8?

I upgraded and am have some temperature issues but a friend said just update the BIOS. Sent Sager an email but if someone can help me sooner that would be just gravy.

Thanks,
-A

 

I got it fixed actually.

Beyond that small issue with the finger printer reader, I am a very happy 7970m xfire owner. Cant believe i have seen so many people report issues with their 7970m's.

 

My fedex tracking info states improper or missing
International paperwork @ france , seems i wnt
Be getting it on tuesday,4th day in france now :S
Wondering what could have caused this.
I sent the guys back at powernotebooks so
Hoping they sort this out.

 

Hey Guys,

Received my p370em3 on friday (3840QM, SLI 680m, 8GB RAM) & having what i believe to be, a graphics card issue. Just want to get your thoughts before i contact the company.

I have clean installed W8 on a SSD, installed all the drivers from the supplied clevo driver disk, minus the VGA driver, to which i manually installed myself (310.90WHQL) then enabled SLI successfully.

Then, Installed battlefield 3, played, can get a couple of games out of it, or sometimes none (can happen within 5 mins or 30 mins, and the issue is, the screen will go black, hard drive light still seems to show activity (blinking at random) however control alt delete does nothing, have to hard power off the machine.

Now i originally thought this to be a BF3 issue, but i had then tried the nVidia "new dawn" and to surely enough, after about 30 mins or so when I came back in the room, the screen was blank & i had to force shutdown the laptop. (interesting enough, when the screen does go black/bank you can hear the typical windows 8 unplug device sound through the speakers? (EG when you unplug a USB)

My temperatures are, around 65c/70c for GPU1 and 75c/80c GPU2

I am currently in the process of disabling SLI and re running BF3/New Dawn to see if this occurs. If it does not, am i to suspect a faulty 2nd 680m or SLI cable? Or should i downgrade the drivers to say 310.70 as i have only tried 310.90WHQL?

Also, if this helps, here is some firmware versions of my laptop.

680m GPU1 & 2: 80.04.67.00.01 (P2051-b002)
ME FW Version: 8.1.0.1248
BIOS Revision: 1.02.05bNS1
KBC/EC firmware Revision: 1.02.08SA2

With SLI Disabled, all is OK with no crashes.

Any comments will be appreciated

- Grechie

YouTube links:

Standard 680m SLI
http://youtu.be/UVtl2mkvFJQ

Under clocked 680m SLI
http://youtu.be/Qi8pHnhyVk4

EDIT: Machine has been sent back, I tried everything under the sun, including drivers, different HDD's, different OS's. She's stuffed.

 

There's actually a service under Windows Services dubbed "Windows Biometric Service" that was disabled for me. Although in my case I made my own Windows 7 install and may have very well disabled it when I intended to actually enable it.

That service needs to be set to Automatic. There are two others that need to be running as well I believe... I think one is "Secondary Logon" and the other I've forgotten. The software itself will install it's own service as well, but it should automatically enable itself.

If those are enabled, you're probably having driver issues if it's not working. Remove the drivers & software, reboot, and download the ones from Sager's website. And whatever you do, DON'T download the windows update for it. Apparently there have been issues with it (probably something to do with the company selling out to Apple and trying to sabotage our devices lol)

Edit: Ahhh... see you fixed it. Well I'll leave this here in case anyone else has issues.

 

If i were to buy one of these with a single 7970M can i buy ANY 7970M to upgrade it to crossfire at a later date? Or do i have to buy one specific for this laptop?

And if i do order with a single 7970M I assume the second heatsink and fan will come with the laptop for whenever i want to upgrade to xfire? Do i need a crossfire cable, and will the laptop come with one?

 

Actually i was able to find most of what i was looking for. No heatsink for second card, xfire/sli cable is included, and it looks like i would need at the very least a card that supports xfire so i can't use just any old 7970M

That poses another problem for me though. If i can't find a 7970M on ebay, i assume i can buy from my reseller? How long do they normally stock things like this? Will they have a 7970M upgrade kit a year from now when i'm looking to upgrade?

 

7970M cards will be around, there were quite a few and any clevo board will work if flashed with the right bios.

 

I've been reading around and the Clevo P370EM looks like it's exactly what I've been looking for: a powerful computer by any (desktop) standard that will last for many years which is compact and easily transportable (not necessarily what I'd call portable). I do have a couple of questions for owners and/or resellers:

1) How compatible is the P370EM with linux (Ubuntu)? Is most or all of the hardware working out of the box with linux installations? Has the 7970M been shown to play nice with linux or is it still better to stick with nVidia?

2) How quiet is the P370EM at idle? Is it possible to adjust the fan/temp profile to have the fans off or inaudible at idle or under very light use? If paired with an SSD to avoid the sound of the spinning platters of hard disks, is it possible to have it dead silent? I keep my computer on 24/7 in my bedroom and I don't like noise. For comparison, I currently have an Asus G1 (the original) and the CPU fan can be fairly quiet at idle, but not silent. At idle, the sound of the platters spinning is louder to my ears. I'd like something quieter than what I currently have.

 

It will be tough to get them after they have been replaced. Some will keep some on hand for warranty claims but will mainly stock the new models.

 

So when ati releases a new card I should start thinking seriously about upgrading.

Am I right in assuming that not all 7970m support crossfire because of the additional cable? Are the clevo 7970m different from the alienware cards besides the vbios?

 

They can be in subtle ways, cards tend to not like bios files from other makes. If you want an idea of availability then look how easy/hard finding a 580m (675m) or 6990m is.

 

Second what meaker posted.

From past Clevo models, I'm pretty sure you would have to buy one specifically designed for the Clevo models. May even need to be one for the P370em. I believe the Clevo video cards run a VBIOS and core voltages specifically designed for the Clevo models, and getting one from a different manuf. may mean a card that doesn't work or is not recognized by the entire system.

 

How long is the overall wait time for this beast? Thanks!

 

Do you mean just to get the NP9370? Sager has been taking 6-10 business days lately.

 

So I put my order in on Monday 1/21/13. I ordered and recieved Crysis: Maximum Edition and Crysis 2 as well as Far Cry 3 which will arrive in a few days and Battlefield 3: Limited edition which may take a few weeks. The wait is killing me, I would love to get it by the end of the week but will probably get it mid next week. Wanted to get some games that will make good use of graphics cards, being my first high end graphics card(s).

 

I have had my system since October 31st and it has been amazing. The one thing I don't understand is I see the XoticPC reps on here saying anytime you get a system with the 680M it will be a killer system. While that may have been the case back in late Oct 2012, the AMD drivers have turned a speed deficit to either be equal or better. When I got my system the 7970M was showing a 15-20% deficit whereas now they are neck and neck or even the AMD showing a 5% positive over the 680M. Not bad for a card that is 6 months older. So with the boost, the big question is why pay for a single 680M when you can get 2 7970M's and get a rocket of a system that has drivers that are still getting better, plus if you are into ADOBE at all, the 7970M's should be your FIRST choice... why you ask?? Simple, the Kepler (GK104) killed its GPGPU (OpenCL) performance. This doesn't mean much for gamers but those who use the system for games and for Adobe work will get a large boost from the 7970's as Adobe and other software start to fully support the OpenCL standard and are not updating CUDA support (as reported by many hardware sources).

My last Team Green Card was a GTX480 and I was happy with that card and had wondered if I had made a mistake with the 7970M and the driver issues... but once that 12.11 beta 8 drivers released, it was night and day... Also being a 9370 and not having to worry about the Enduro issue, its now a no brainer to choose the 7970M

If I had to make a statement I would say either a 680M or a 7970M would make a rocket ship of a system. The only big difference was in 3dmark03 (2003) and the AMD drivers are no longer optimized for them... I'm not a big fan of the 3DMark benchmarks... This is why I say either card is makes for a monster system, but with the results, I believe that for the money, the 7970M is the best for the dollar.. even when it was down 10 percentages points it still had a dollar per performance advantage... now that its as fast or faster than the 680M for much less, and that you can nearly get 2 7970M's for 1 680M is something that you can't pass up.... then the OpenCL advantage which is 6x or more faster... I haven't supported one or the other in the past... Team Green or Team Red, I have been loyal only to the almighty performance for the dollar, and the 7970M with their new GCN architecture is golden, as been shown by the amazing speed gains.

Review Update: Radeon HD 7970M vs. GeForce GTX 680M - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

1920x1080 - 17.3" 72% matte
CORE i7 3740QM 2.7-3.7GHz
AMD RADEON HD 7970M x2 CROSSFIRE
16GB DDR3 1600 (4 DIMMS)
2.5" SATA 750GB(7200rpm) HDD
80GB mSATA IRST
802.11 B/G/N + BLUETOOTH COMBO
Sager 2 Year Extended Warranty.

Large part of this is my opinion and I did not mean to offend anyone. I'm sorry if I irked anyone with my opinion but with the 9370 there really is no bad choice for Graphics Cards....

 

I know that the Sager model has a handy (fn+1) key combo that can force the fans to run up at full speed or back down to normal. The system to me seems very quiet at idle. It does get louder with the fans spooling up but in my opinion the system doesn't sound much louder than other laptops that I have used, unless pushed hard.

 

helmeryan, thanks for that info. The 7970m does seem like the best value out of the available graphics cards for the P370EM and your point about OpenCL cause me to start leaning towards AMD/ATI for the first time in a long while. The main gripe is (and has been for a long time) the driver support. If that is less of an issue now, it should make the choice easy, at least for me.

The other reason I was previously leaning towards Nvidia was because of CUDA and the parallel processing possibilities. You make it sound like the ATI may actually be the better choice for this purpose.

 

I don't mind if it gets a bit louder under heavy use, but it would be great if it's possible to get it totally silent at idle, or nearly so. Is the cooling good enough not to need the fans when there is no load? At the slowest fan speed, is the noise audible from across a room in a quiet environment?

 

In Idle-Mode the Fans of the P370EM are nearly not hearable.
The only thing i hear then, are the Fans of my Notpal U3 on slowest speed.
(I use the Alu Tape-Mod, so i got more cooling efficence, even with slower Fan-Speed!)

 

Wow. This laptop is famous! Thanks Hutsady!

 

Welcome to NBR, Forsaked!

So, it looks like the P370EM can be pretty quiet at idle.

Can the fan speed profile be user edited?

 

Windows versions of Adobe CS6 doesn´t yet support OpenCL at all for GPU acceleration by ATI/AMD cards. It works only on Mac versions...

 

You're very welcome, and yes it is one of the most popular notebooks out right now. There really isnt a more powerful notebook computer available.

 

fizikz,

I can say that with the latest driver and the way that AMD has over the lst 3 months really started to drive hard with their drivers is a good thing. Of course I wish that AMD had been doing this all along, but I think they may have released the GCN architecture too early and didn't code for it properly, and when they sat down to do it correctly, they found it took months... But now, it seems as if they caught up. Lately I have seem updated quite often and improvements each set... If you are looking for GPGPU performance, there really is no card to look at except the 7970M... The GK104 is very very weak when it comes to GPGPU... you will get better GPGPU from the NVIDIA mobile cards that are not based off Kepler... 670 maybe better than 680M.

How here is an older link that shows the OpenCL advantage... KEEP IN MIND THAT THE TOP PART OF THIS IS THE OLD 3D tests with the bad driver... The other link (which I will pull forward from my other posts, shows the new benchmarks with the 13.1 drivers... it will also show the 680 with its new drivers, but you will see how much the 680M WAS beating the 7970M in pure 3d and how the AMD closed the gap and passed the 680M... I just want to remind everyone that this is a test from 7/12/2012 and I'm showing these to pull the OpenCL benchmarks... Just ignore the top ones as again those are very out of date and to see the updated 3d scores see the follow link...

07/01/2012 --- Older Review --- Review GeForce GTX 680M vs. Radeon HD 7970M - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

Follow up: to the above review... same site but updated drivers for both cards:
01/28/2013 ****Updated!!!***** Review GeForce GTX 680M vs. Radeon HD 7970M - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

Amazing what they finally did with the GCN architecture.... Now if AMD keeps coming with the driver updates...

 

So I've managed to now occasionally give my laptop a reason to spin the fans up every now and then, and I'm noticing something rather odd.

Whenever the fans are at max speed, and ONLY when they are at max speed, the fans will sort of "stutter" every few seconds. I take it that's not normal? Happens every 7 seconds or so like clockwork. Occasionally with less noticeable stutters in-between.

Knowledge tells me to check the connectors, which I'm about to do, but when that doesn't work I'm guessing we might be looking at needing to flash the BIOS. Unfortunately Sager doesn't offer any help in that area on the website, so anybody know where to procure a proper BIOS flash for the NP-9370 3D?

Edit: Just to parrot off some info from some BIOS scanner apparently linked to HWiNFO in some way, apparently my BIOS is actually out of date. AMI version 4.6.5 is my current one. It's from November 9th, 2012 allegedly. Though, I know sometimes these kinds of software are just trying to sell you stuff, so I'll take it with a grain of salt.