*** Official Clevo P37xSM-A/Sager NP9377 owner's lounge ***

Congrats on your new machine!

Ditch HWMonitor for HWiNFO64. HWMonitor doesn't catch all the sensors that HWiNFO64 does and HWiNFO64 + RTSS gives you a fully configurable OSD for monitoring temps.

As for your current temps, the CPU is on the high side for idle and the 980M shouldn't be hitting 38C doing nothing. My 980Ms idle at a max of 35C and I have the hottest cards on the board thus far. I'd imagine you will have to replace the thermal paste but it's just a guess until you get to test it.

 

My cpu idles at 54c .
My gpus idle at 34c and 35c.
4810mq
980ms
While Computer is downloading steam games.

 

mSATA does not nearly run hot. My hard drives and SSDs are always cool. For some reason my plextor's temp can't be read or something.. it happens sometimes when windows is installed; sometimes it'll read, other times it won't. But here you go:

Idle temps mean little. Mine are hot because I have a hot room. In the daytime I idle closer to ~46 on my GPUs but at night I idle as low as 38, etc. If his room is hot, he can easily get a hotter idle temp. It would explain his CPU more too; especially using auto fans. I have CLU on and I still hit 50+ in idle/light load in the daytime. At night it sits about 40.

This is likely your drives in itself. My mSATA idles cooler than your 2.5" drives, so I'm gonna assume that it's the fault of Crucial. That being said, the temps are not in fact hot for SSDs (unless you're constantly over like 70 degrees it should be fine). You could actually check what the operating temps for your SSDs are, to make sure. Ask Crucial about them.

 

@Ethrem:
RTSS is Rivatuner, correct?

DL'd HWiNFO64. It does have waaaay more sensors, holy crap.

Also, I am using auto-fan. Is there a program that gives me full control? In the ControlCenter the options are just full blast and then automatic.

The upper end of those ranges were just peaks I briefly saw. Most of the time it was hovering smack dab in the middle of those ranges. So 54/55 CPU and 33-35 for GPU's. Can't wait to test this machine tomorrow that's for sure.

 

can't wait to order mine....still just wish there were more options for the display panel but from what everyone says it seems like the display that comes with it might not be that bad....has anyone attempted to overclock the 60hz?

 

Hello, new to the forums.

I'd like to preface this post by saying that this will be my first gaming laptop. I have been saving up, researching, lurking and flip flopping for months now. I have narrowed it down to the NP9377-S offered by Xoticpc. However it will still be another month or two before I can actually put in the order, which gives me just enough time to flip flop some more. Haha.

Here are the specs as I have them configured now:

17.3 FHD Matte Screen
i-7 4710MQ
IC Diamond Thermal Paste
SLI GTX970M 12 GB Total
Copper Cooling Upgrade
16GB Dual Channel Memory
Black Alligator Wrap
2x 256GB Micron M600 mSata SSD
Raid 0 Storage
1 TB 7200RPM SATA II Harddrive
6x Bluray Burner
Intel Dual Band AC 7260
Full size Notebook Cooler
Windows 8.1

I will be using this mostly for gaming. Primarily medium/heavily modded older games and occasionally some new releases. Secondary uses will be movies, general browsing, Photoshop etc. nothing extremely taxing.

I have a few questions for you owners. I've seen that most of you have upgraded the CPU, will the 4710 be enough for my needs? I don't plan on getting into overclocking or benchmarking. Will newer games require a more powerful CPU to play smoothly?

I'm mostly flip flopping on the GPU setup. I've seen elsewhere that the SLI 970M outperforms a single 980M.
I've also seen that SLI can be a pain functioning correctly with some games not optimized for it. Should I go for the single 980 to save a bit of money and possibly upgrade later? How difficult would it be to do this?

Has anyone ordered the Alligator wrap? I can only find one tiny photo of it and it's the brown variant. I understand this is completely and only aesthetic. I am hesitant to purchase this if I can't see what it looks like. Should it just be scrapped and used to upgrade something more pressing or does anyone have it and would be willing to post some photos?

Is a notebook cooler worth it? As I said I won't be overclocking or anything like that. However I also don't want a 3000$ paperweight if something were to go wrong. It can't possibly hurt, right? What tools are used to measure temps? What would be considered ideal temps for this setup under load and idle? How often should paste be applied, and how difficult is it to do?


And finally, I will certainly be using a wireless connection and the stock on this model is the Bigfoot Networks Killer. I have seen posts advising to stay away from that however they have not gone into detail as to why or what problems they have with it. The Xoticpc site considers it an upgrade over the Intel card on other models but doesn't reduce the price if you opt for it on the 9377-S. What problems have occurred with the Bigfoot card and do you think Xoticpc would knock off a few bucks if I asked and opted for the Intel?

I would greatly appreciate any feedback.

 

I think that, for that setup the cpu should be fine if I were you I would buy the mSATA ssd's on Amazon or ebay install them yourself and save a lil money, I personally don't see the advantages of the Bigfoot card vs the Intel and I have like you said seen posts where people have had problems with it and I think the intel is pretty much the same thing probably with less software (that most likely isn't really needed anyways) Also I highly recommend that you do not get the copper upgrade I have been told that is can actually cause problems and disrupt the proper air flow and doesn't really make any difference in temps its more of like a gimmicky thing that is not really needed. I would ask xotic if they have a better picture for you to see if alligator wrap I am sure they would have no problem showing you a better picture it seems they have pretty good customer service! Also I highly recommend upgrading the warranty to 3 years I mean you are saving and investing quite a bit of money so its a good idea to make sure you have yourself covered you never know when you might need it, and I think it is definitely worth the extra cash. In the next 2 weeks I am going to be buying this system to but I am going to be getting the 4810mq with 980 SLI and probably 16gb of ram but everything else I am not changing I already bought a mSATA drive from HTwingnut for it so I am just saving up my last bit of cash and I will be ready to go, I really can't wait please keep us updated with how your order goes and tell us how everything goes once you receive I really like to hear other peoples experiences. Good luck and Congrats on getting a beastly machine!

 

RTSS is the RivaTuner Statistics Server, yes.

When you're gaming or doing something CPU intensive you'll want max fans - FN+1 forces those. There is a hotkey version that has supposed fan curve control but it doesn't work reliably at all so max fans and auto fans are it.

As D2 said, idle temps are hard to gauge. I can tell you that it is pretty much universally recommended to repaste your machine though, factory paste job is almost always a mess. 4910mq will probably be similar to my 4940MX in heat output when it is in full turbo but I am not positive on that.

I run HWiNFO64 on my laptop and my desktop - it rarely glitches unlike hwmonitor as well. Great software.

@JCuda Brent has you pretty much covered. I would definitely suggest a laptop cooling pad, I'm thinking about getting one myself. As for the GPU... If you are running an SLI game that scales well, dual 970M are by far the best bargain. If you want SLI, you're going to want to purchase SLI from the start. Upgrading later means the second card won't be covered in the system warranty which is a hassle to say the least, it would also cost you more in the end than it would have getting it up front. Neither card is a slouch so you'll be happy either way you choose to go I think.

 

I overclocked mine to 80hz without issue. Works great . Havent tried to go higher . Used it there for about a weak and then went back to 60hz. I'm content with 60hz and the gpus don't have to work as hard to maintain 60hz . But it works fine either way. Some guys have luck getting 90hz-100hz .

 

Is the Eurocom offering that much more expensive to not consider? A glossy 120hz panel was one of my prime deliverables for a top class gaming laptop. Even when games cannot match the frame rate it still looks way better and smother than 60hz's I tried with matte finish.

 

I agree with you 100% mickey. It's just that Brent R was asking if anyone has overclocked the 60hz screen and I was just letting him know it's possible .

 

, I quoted the wrong post! It was intended for BrentR....

 

Ok so this is strange. My external xb207hu monitor arrived today. However as soon as I connect it everything on the screen goes black on both screens and I can't do anything. All I did was connect it. Any ideas

As an add to this I plug the monitor into another laptop via the exact same cable and it comes right to life. Plug it into my sager and everything goes black. What could it be?

So basically:

Connect Sager to Different display using DisplayPort - works.
Connect Acer 1440p Monitor to different computer using DisplayPort - works.

Connect Sager to Acer 1440p. Doesn't work. More specifically - the monitor isn't getting any signal but only when connected to my Sager

Also - now I'm reading something about updating the video bios for the card manufacturer. Any thoughts on how this would apply to 980ms

 

just order the AUO 90% NTSC COLOR GAMYT GLARE TYPE from HIDEVOLUTION.
I hope I made the right choice ....

 

Just ran Firestrike and I ran into some issues...

1: Throughout the benchmark my screen was partially flickering blue. It sort of just discolored parts of my screen during the benchmark with a blue hue, it didn't blot anything out.

2: Firestrike crashed... =( I have video and these screen-caps of the errors as well. I'm assuming the flickering and the crash are directly connected to each other.

Spoiler

3: Max temps during Firestrike were the following.
CPU - 93C Core Max
GPU 0 - 83C
GPU 1 - 83C

Any ideas? D=

EDIT:
Just ran The Witcher 2 and Skyrim... Both had blue flickering as well. Going to try turning off SLI to see if that has anything to do with it.

EDIT 2:
Turned off SLI re-ran firestrike and the flickering is gone. Got to Firestrike processing results and it crashed with the same errors. (I think. I stepped away while it was running, but it didn't seem to have any issues during the tests. Will re-run when I can sit through it all.)

CPU - 86C Core Max.
GPU 0 - 83C Max.

EDIT 3:
Re-installed drivers. No change. =/

EDIT 4:
Re-ran Firestrike single GPU and it crashed during the combined test. Same error as the ones in the attached photos. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

 

Is that the new IPS 144Hz 2560x monitor?

I am just seeing if Google can help. But can I ask you to post your FPS with this monitor?

 

Yes it is the new Acer IPS - XB207hu. I will post FPS but that can't happen until I can figure out how to get my Sager to use it.

 

Yes. Screen overclocking. The benefit of no Optimus.

 

Where did you get it from?

And yes, good luck getting it to work

 

Yikes!

Okay first thing, your CPU is way too hot. I'd open the machine and check to make sure they screwed the heatsink down properly (press on the pipes and gently try to turn each screw on the heatsink - too much force will strip the screws). If it is on correctly your first priority needs to be a repaste of the CPU. Since your GPUs are hot as well, I'd say they did a bad job all the way around. Your cards hit higher than mine even do in 3dmark and the cards will start to throttle around the upper 80s.

Second issue, the crash. It looks like a systeminfo error. Did you get it through steam or did you do a direct download? The steam version has an older systeminfo version although it's never puked an error like that for me.

Third, the flicker. Sounds like your slave card is possibly damaged. Try leaving SLI enabled and editing the 3dmark application profile to run single GPU instead of SLI and see if the flicker is still there or if it goes away as well.

 

@Ethrem:
Thought my temps were a bit high. I was comparing them to HTWingnuts 980m SLI review. If it turns out I have to send my machine in and it's not a simple fix (Looking very likely. ) perhaps I can request a re-paste and temperature check.

I downloaded 3Dmark direct from the website.

Spoiler

http://community.futuremark.com/for...-results-since-installing-third-graphics-card

I was reading this thread on the 3DMark forums and his issue sounded similar to mine. At the bottom of that post a Futuremark Staff Member said it was a hardware problem on his end. Possibly same case with me?

Went to the NVIDIA Control Panel > Manage 3D Settings > 3DMark > SLI Rendering Mode and switched it to Single GPU. With SLI still enabled in the SLI config I ran 3DMark again briefly and no flicker occured.

 

@Kainez Well are you getting the BSOD? They said the BSOD was a hardware issue (which isn't true, IRQL can be a driver issue - I went through that hell with my last ATi card).

Have you tried 3DMark11? It's more indicative of overall system performance anyway but it uses the same sysinfo so it is a useful diagnostic anyway.

As for sending it in, to be perfectly honest the factory paste job is almost always crap. The good thing is that it's incredibly easy to service these machines, only needing to remove a few screws to get access to the GPUs and CPU. Either way, redoing the paste job will almost always drop temps.

Since the flicker is gone with SLI still enabled but single GPU rendering enabled, I think that kind of rules out the SLI cable as the culprit which leaves hardware. Short of taking the system apart and looking for obvious issues (your temps are really high so they messed something up somewhere unless your ambient temperature is really high) like thermal pad placement on the slave video card (the one that's on the left side of the machine when you're using it - it has long heatpipes that run straight to the back), I'd say you're looking at an RMA unfortunately.

 

Try using Prema's vBIOS or svl7's vBIOS for your 980Ms and see if SLI flickers.

 

Why would that fix it? It's a new machine, it shouldn't need mods to work.

 

It shouldn't, you're correct, but I want to make sure. His crashing is likely some other reason, but I'm curious to see if that fixes his flickering.

 

I suppose it's worth a shot. Honestly I would send the machine back though before trying any mods. What if the card fails while it's flashed? Bye bye warranty, bye bye more cash to fix it, and bye bye return period.

 

@Ethrem:
Nope, I have not gotten a single BSOD.

I'll try 3DMark 11 tomorrow to see if I get an error there as well.

Yeah, I'm going to see if Xotic can re-paste since it looks like I'll probably need to RMA it. If there isn't any thermal improvement when it's back in my hands I'll re-paste then.

I'm inclined to agree with you. That 3DMark forum post lines up with my issue pretty well if the SLI cable has been eliminated. Aside from the BSOD anyway.
I'll probably pop it open tomorrow and see if anything obvious is sticking out, and to check the heatsinks + screws. I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for though otherwise. Afterwards, or before I'm going to call XoticPC to see what can be done. (And how long it will take. Lol I just got it! Don't wanna send it back. =/ )

@D2 Ultima:
Would that help if it's the suspected hardware issue? Just went to Prema's website and TechInferno to look at their stuff. They have extremely well laid out guides.

Flashing isn't something I'm too keen on doing at the moment. Lol Especially if I need to RMA.

 

I just had a hunch @Kainez that's all. If that fixes it, I'm going to laugh till the goats graze the same field as the cows.

That is utterly random and is not meant to mean anything other than "it probably isn't happening". I think. Meow.

 

Xotic is a Sager reseller - you'd send the laptop back to Sager and they'd repair it but they're also the ones who built it in the first place. I had those horrible 880M cards initially in my machine and Sager has had it twice since I bought it (one replacement of the 880Ms with another pair, next was replacement with 980Ms) and all three paste jobs were bad. They really coated my chips in paste - it took me a few hours to clean up all the paste on both GPUs because they used so much this last time. I got a 5/7 degree load temp drop even though I switched from the stock IC Diamond to an inferior ShinEtsu paste for the time being.

 

Over the past week or so, I've experienced something a bit strange a few times. I hear a loud beep, though I can't tell whether it's coming from the hard drives (is this possible?) or the speakers, followed by a click, which sounds to me like the head on one of my hard drives parking. This has happened while defragmenting, while copying large files, and while scanning with my antivirus scanner (ESET Smart Security), all tasks I would guess place pretty high load on the hard drives. It appears that all of my hard drives run pretty hot (at least I think so, though I'm not uncertain these temperatures are unacceptable)... the area to the left of the touchpad is very warm and my two physical drives (2 x 2TB ST2000LM003 in RAID 0) and my mSATA (1TB 840 EVO) are all hovering around 47-53 degrees Celcius, though I've seen them all reach around 54-55 at times. CrystalDiskInfo seems to play a sound as well when my hard drives get to above 50 degrees Celcius, though this isn't the sound I originally heard. Is this too hot, and is that what might be causing the beep and click? If so, what should I do about it? My laptop already sits on a cooling pad almost 24/7. If not, what else might be causing this? Do hard drives generate more heat when highly fragmented? I downloaded my preferred defragmenter and it showed that my physical hard drives were more than 60% fragmented, despite the fact that I previously had Windows 8.1's built in defragmenter set to run weekly.

Finally, on another topic also related to heat, it seems almost impossible to keep my i7-4910MQ running above 3.8GHz for any extended period of time. My processor always shoots up above 95 degrees Celcius and throttles. Do I have any options besides repasting? I've never done this before and really don't want to risk damaging my processor, though I do have an unopened 3.5g tube of Arctic Silver 5 sitting around I originally intended to use on my NP9370 before it was stolen.

 

First of all I have heard of someone else on this forum having this same problems and he did fix it although I am sorry to say I forget how but it was something with the heads of his harddrives parking themselves every so many minutes and he found a way to fix it, as for the temps to me those seem fine I have heard of lots of other people having temps quite a bit higher than yours for your hard drive as for your CPU yes that seems rather high I would deff look into repasting I suggest watching some vids on youtube about it, its actually quite simple on these machines but if you search around maybe you will be able to find the post about the person who was having the same problem as you are.....good luck maybe contact your seller if you can't find it and I am sure they will be more than willing to help....keep me updated please so if I or someone else have this problem maybe you will save us some trouble again good luck thanks take care

 

@Ethrem:
Yep, I understand that. Isn't Xotix the middle man between me and Sager though?

I already e-mailed and phoned XoticPC tech support and left a message. Waiting for a follow up. It's technically a holiday (Good Friday) though so I'm not sure if I will be able to get any responses until after the weekend.

@D2 Ultima:
Ah, I see. Lol

 

Yes we are the middle man so we would set up any service/warranty if it does need to be sent in. As Ethrem mentioned it would go to Sager to get checked out though.

We are in the office today. You should get a reply to your email within 1 business day, which would be Monday if they can not get to it today. But if you left a voice mail as well those are usually returned same day since there is a shorter queue of those to reply to. If you have not heard back by either method by this time on Monday feel free to contact me directly or send me a PM here.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/choosing-a-hdd-for-clevo-p650se.770595/page-3#post-9970822

This was with the HSGT 7K1000 but fix should be the same..

 

I did in-fact get a call back today. Thank you for following up on the forums!

 

hey guys now here is a noob question
does my laptop have other colors on the keyboard except blue??
if yes how can I change it?

 

Hold down the function key and press the key above 8 on the number pad and then you can change it however you want.

 

function key?

 

It's the FN key between the alt key and ctrl key at bottom of keyboard to the right of the spacebar.

 

oh ok but it doesn't do anything...do I have to install anything from the drivers cd?

 

What model laptop do you have?.
The key above the 8 key on the number pad should have a picture of a headlamp on a car.
Mine came with os installed. The lighting software was installed from factory. If you installed your own os you might still have to install the software to change your keyboard lights.

 

I can see the head lamp at the number pad but it doesn't work....
if I press the FN+ 1-f2-3-f4-f5-f6-f7-f8 works...
I bought it as a barebore from rjteh and its the p377sm-a
are there more than one version of this model??
if yes then probably I don't have the right version....

 

I'm sure it's a simple fix .I'm sorry I can't help you more bud.
But that's the extent of my knowledge on the lighting . I'm sure the others with this laptop will post here shortly and be able to help you out.
I have same model as you so it will work. I'm sure it's just a matter of installing it.

 

I'm not sure but mine works on the fn key as well. Have you installed the hotkey utility: http://www.sagernotebook.com/drivers.php?cat=596

 

thank you guys for the reply.
I have the win8 64bit and not 8.1, is it a problem?
I have to install the hotkey Utility on Miscellanies?
the link you gave me is SAGER.
I found also that : http://www.clevo.com.tw/EN/E-SERVICES/download/ftpOut.asp?Lmodel=P37xSM-A&ltype=9&submit= GO+
I don't know if my laptop can install drivers from SAGER site(brick)??

 

No problem with a minor version number difference. The win 7 version is a later one so I'd go with that one first, most drivers for win 64bit are interchangeable in every instance I've come across.

 

You can use either Clevo or Sager drivers, machine is the same but I would use the Hotkey that says it's for 8.1 to avoid any issues since Hotkey directly interfaces with the EC on the motherboard.

 

thank you guys very much!!!
I install the 8.1 version and its working perfect!!!
I did it!!!!
now its more beautiful....lol
thanks again!!!

 

Just pulled the trigger on a fairly decently spec'd Eurocom X8. I was split between the XoticPC and Eurocom models. The 120Hz swayed it for me.

 

What was your final spec? Hopefully you enjoy the high refresh rate it's certainly something I like.