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

That'd be great if you can send over your specific model - always great to have feedback from real people! Thanks!

 

27 inch

24 inch prof with amazing reviews

 

500GB Samsung 850 EVO Series SSD for the OS and some games
+ 1tb hdd


Anybody else able to help with the cpu?

Also who's better GentechPC, XoticPC, or PowerNotebooks?

-------------------
I found somebody selling a used one for $1600
They say it has

GTX 980m 8GB

4th Generation Intel Haswell Core 17-10MQ 2.5GHZ-3.5GHZ 6mb Intel Smart Cache

Diamond thermal compound used on CPU+GPU

1TB Hard drive and a 111GB Solid State Drive.

16GB of Memory

Blue ray drive.



Should I go for it?

 

I know two people with Sagers through XoticPC, they had no issues whatsoever. I know nothing of the other two.

Those specifications seem pretty decent. If you go to the Sager or XoticPC or any reseller website you can customize your own PC and see what it would cost. Except does he mean it has 2 GTX980m 8GB GPUs because otherwise I think it's a different machine.

1600 is getting close to the base price of a new one, so I'd suggest deciding what your budget is and playing around on the website with customization and pricing.

 

For the CPU the i7-4810 is usually the best bang for you buck.
If you're going to be doing a lot of video and multi layer photo editing then a higher end CPU may be worth it to you. You'll probably only see the benefit in video rendering times though, and even then it won't be a dramatic amount.

 

About the ram and ssd slots. If I can only afford 16gb ram/1 small ssd will I lose to option to add a 2nd ssd and 16gb more of ram later?


And if I'm not do I have to send it in to xoticpc to get them installed?

I'd like to change the stock 16gb ram/128gb ssd later to 32gb of of crucial ram and add two 256gb Adata ssds

 

If you get the 16gb and 1 SSD, you would still have the option to add it in later. The slots would still be open to add in the other ones later.

If you want, you could have it sent in to have that added for you, but there is no problem if you do it yourself. Just make sure to not damage it while you are doing the upgrades though, but those are pretty easy to add in.

 

In big gaming notebooks most parts can be added later/changed. But some things like CPU often can't because they are soldered directly onto the motherboard.

I wouldn't worry about "only 16gb RAM" although more is always nice.

 

I'm good got a subtotal of $2779.01 just have to save up since I don't qualify for bill me later

 

This model uses a socket based CPU so it can be changed in the future (to one of the same generation).

 

Actually, most of the larger screen size Clevo laptops can have literally everything changed, including the CPU.

 

Any machine with an MQ or desktop processor can.

 

Well mine is going in for its third RMA. My right shift key flew off (I never use it, there was no reason for it to do so) and that was the final straw. I'm fighting for a full machine replacement this time. 3 RMAs due to high heat on two different video cards that just progressively gets worse indicates an electrical issue and the keyboard... That's ridiculous. Sager at least agrees something isn't right and issued the RMA. We will see what they opt to do. It's going to suck if I lose my 120hz display should they opt to replace it though so I'm going to ask they swap the panel. What a mess... I'm so tired of sending this machine back...

I sure am glad I bought the 3 year warranty!

 

That's too bad, that build in your sig is pretty beast.

 

Tell me about it. I forked out a small fortune to get it. It sucks.

 

FINALLY GOD MEOWMIX IT ETHREM I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU TO HAVE SUPREME OVERCLOCKING GLORY

ALWAYS LONG WARRANTY #LongWarrantyMasterRace

(If they're throwing away your GPUs, let them send it to me XD)

 

My machine doesn't get terribly hot. About 60 on the CPU and 65 on the GPUs. Maybe 75 GPU on Witcher 3 with Hairworks and near-maxed-out settings. I use this machine for work 9-10 hours a day, then for a combination of gaming and music software (CPU intensive) for 1-5 hours after that. No heat issues (or really any issues at all) come to mind. This machine is made for top-tier performance, so it would be sad if it couldn't actually stay up for an evening of AAA gaming.

Even if temps got high, thermal throttling should kick in. I flashed the Prema BIOS and VBIOS, which cranked the throttling threshold up to 90 or 91 (I forget) for the GPU. That said, I obviously haven't gotten anywhere near that. On the CPU, I have been able to hit 80, at which point the CPU clocks down to about 1.8 and temps go down to about 60. I am only able to get this kind of CPU punishment out of Mixed In Key, which is not the most efficient program.

I have both a pair of 10mm rubber feet and an X-Pal cooling pad, and to be honest, there seems to be no difference between the two. The cooling pad's effectiveness is merely in its lifting the laptop off of the desk, thereby increasing airflow.

I've been carrying mine to and from work every day, and occasionally on trips, since February. No issues. I use a Swiss Gear backpack with a healthy amount of padding. I don't get the "lid flex". I wouldn't set anything on the lid, but it doesn't seem that much more flexible than any other laptop lid. If my bag is set down back-first (which happens now and then), everything in the bag is on top of the lid. Hasn't caused any issues so far.

This thing is a beast. I looked at the MSI Titan 80 at first, but I have had a poor experience or two with MSI in the past. The Sager also ended up being same/better hardware for the cost. It also looks slightly more professional and subdued, aside from the tail lights.

I just got mine from Sager. Their price was the lowest. Can't say I've had any real issues. They put the 2TB HDD in the internal bay, when I really wanted it in the HDD caddy as ordered (I planned on putting my old SSD in that internal bay), but they thought they were just doing me a favor, and it's so minor I can't fault them one bit. They've answered all my emails within 24 hours, and have been diligent about calling me back and so on (I've just asked a few questions, and ordered a part that wasn't on the web site).

 

Anyone out there using the 2x330w power option? I OCed the GPUs by 10%, getting about a 10% FPS increase that took me from "better than 93%" to "better than 96%" in 3DMark. However, trying to OC a bit more caused the machine to power off in the middle of Fire Strike. Fairly certain this is due to the power draw of OCed 2x980M.

I based my clocks on the data gleaned from this article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9087/clevo-p750zm-gtx-980m-overclocking-investigated

 

I gave it a try to see if it was the cause of my crashes during overclocking (got it as a freebie!). I found that the power draw rarely went over 300w when I watched it but after a marathon session of benchmarking I checked the peak and saw 331w so I connected the second PSU and went through the same overclocking and benching (CPU at 4.3 and GPU at +135mhz core/+200 mem). It still crashed out in Firestrike and skydiver but on the prema vbios the machine completely shut down. The original vbios simply goes to a blank screen and then back to desktop. Adding the second PSU did not appear to help but the peak was 379W!

I think that right now the NV drivers are so bad that any attempts to speed things up is a waste of time.

 

It's probably due to the 980M VRMs getting too hot, actually. Ethrem has two 330W adapters but I don't think he's tried heavy OCing with them yet.

 

Usually power off requires fairly high clocks to be the VRMs unless they are not quite cooled properly at the moment. Best way to check is to turn off SLI and try just a single card.

 

Yeah I know it has been a long time coming... Unfortunately my roommate tried to commit suicide tonight so I can't really bug him to take me to UPS at the moment...

Anyway, I'm almost certain that the motherboard is the problem... Even my CPU runs hotter than it should. Now the fight starts but Xotic has been amazing and has said they will do anything they can to help me... After all, I didn't get a free upgrade to 980Ms to begin with... I've sunk 5200 dollars into this machine... That's not including thermal pastes, dual adapters, or anything else I've done to try to get it to work right......

 

*pats on back and offers condolences for multiple reasons*

 

That adds up since the Prema Vbios jumps the voltage from 1.05v to 1.2v and it was on this that mine shut down. I have repasted but maybe I should have looked closer at the padding?

 

It goes to 1.2v if you max the voltage... Trust me, nVidia neutered the 980M... It absolutely can not handle 1.2v with the missing VRMs. Your system will shut off.

That voltage shouldn't be necessary. Most 980Ms can do 1200 with stock voltage. Since I mod gaming as well, I've seen that passing 1350 is rare. But if you push the voltage to 1.2v, you will overload the VRMs and shut the system down from what I've seen.

 

Maybe I had an issue then. I could not drop the voltage as this was now the base (but boost appeared to be disabled). The Slv7 vbios has the base voltage at 1.0v

 

Prema has the voltage set at 1.062v, must have been a bad flash or you had Precision or Inspector overriding it.

1v is not enough for most cards... I would give that a bump to 1.062 minimum because svl7 didn't only drop the voltage, he overclocked too.

 

Yup, I saw that the default clock on slv7 was higher, IIRC it was the stock max boost of around 1137mhz? Boost was listed as the same as the base (in inspector) so it appeared to be disabled. In use it did not boost.

Basically, after a few shutdowns without inspector settings or precisionX (only loaded for monitoring and the default button selected) I decided to stop messing with my pride and joy and went back to stock. So I didn't try a lot of things that might have fixed it. The slv7 vbios crashed out H4 at the end on default settings .

I also have zero confidence in the latest NV driver but don't want to mess with versions of that as well - I'm waiting on a working one so I can try out win 10. I put it on an old laptop and actually like it!

 

Yeah, svl7 made one version and then fell off the planet for supporting it. Prema actually takes the time to ensure support for all Clevo machines and he sets the voltage at the average ASIC for Clevo which is 1.062v.

Honestly though? Keep them stock. Even stock you can generally add 100MHz to the boost without crashes. It will still have power limits to contend with but 1226MHz should be possible a good 85+% of the time.

As for Win 10? Other than the usual TouchPad issues, it works flawlessly with our machines.

 

Those temps are quite enviable to say the least. I'm playing Witcher 3 on High because Ultra w/ Hairworks pushed one of the GPUs to 89 degrees before I stopped playing. The other GPU was in low 70s though. GTA V completely maxed keeps both in low 70s. I have read that Witcher 3 does make even some desktop GPUs reach 90 though and that is in keeping with CD Projekt Red's previous Witcher game (is highly graphically demanding) so I'm hoping it's confined to that game.

 

Thanks, that's exactly what I found. Some games and bench's can cope with +100mhz and others TDR. Since all games work fine at stock the only thing I would like to be able to fix is the boost. Some games it hits max and sits there, others it rolls up and down to base continually. As long as I max the fans I never hit the 85c that causes the boost clock to drop completely.

For win 10 I'm seeing that NV have not yet fully implemented Sli and their current driver has a memory leak that causes BF4 and GTA5 to run out of memory in Sli and crash after a while of playing. They claim to have a hotfix 'almost' ready to fix this.

 

I wonder if I just lucked out on the thermal paste job or something. I never see a significant difference between my two GPUs' temps. There's usually a couple degrees difference, but nothing like 10+. I have the second GPU set as the PhysX processor, if that factors in.

I can definitely believe Witcher 3 heating up any card out there. It's the only game I have that really punishes this rig. I had to turn off Hairworks after about 30 minutes of drooling at how cool it looked, due to the huge FPS drop.

 

What program should I get if I want to OC my 980m sli a bit? Is there any real advantage stock?

 

MSI Afterburner is good. It also includes a temp monitor which you'll want to keep an eye on.

 

I personally think Precision X is more stable than Afterburner but it doesn't really matter. I use Precision on my desktop 780 Ti and its fantastic.

 

For my cards it required 1.2v and 1400 mhz plus core clocks to shut off.

 

Aren't your cards modified with the VRMs nVidia removed though?

 

After I did the mod they never shut off, that was before but the extra electrical interference makes clocking the memory harder.

 

EDIT: the below opinion is that of someone who lacks experience and knowledge and is only valid as my impression of overclocking laptop computers. The others on this form will know much better than I do.
I'm not an expert by any means so make of this what you will, but I would personally not recommend tampering with a laptop GPU/CPU by overclocking in any way. Temperatures are hot enough in notebook computers at stock settings. Not to mention stock 980m runs all current games on ultra as is.

In my very humble and only slightly educated opinion, overclocking is best left to desktop components.

But if you are intent on risking such a thing:
I have EVGA Precision X on my desktop EVGA GTX 770 card but I only use that for monitoring temperatures and usage. MSI Afterburner is also popular for monitoring and other purposes.

 

That kind of opinion is not going to be very popular around here, certainly with most Acer etc trash type machines this is true.

However many clevo and similar brand machines are built with deliberate headroom.

This is not to say it is easy but it is possible and in the hands of an advanced user real gains can be had.

As for the 980M overclocking advice, it really needs a custom bios on the card to be worth it as the TDP limits kick in pretty quickly on the stock vbios.

 

With this attitude, you won't last long around here before people attack you. The 980M (usually anyway) runs so cool that a +100 core and +50 mem would still not even come close to the set thermal throttle... The TDP can be an issue but other than that? A modest overclock wouldn't hurt anything as long as your cards aren't throttling stock like mine.........

 

With Maxwell cards running a little bit cooler than Kepler before it, modest overclocks are easier to do within reasonable temps. It' going to obviously depend on the system you have, how good it's cooling is, and if you got good chips in the silicon lottery. Obviously desktops are a different ballgame, but you can still get sizable and safe boosts on notebooks. I'd agree a 980m can run games well as it is now, but maybe a couple years out it might be an option to explore to get some more fps, as long as your system is still running well and temps aren't too high.

 

Thank you for correcting me on this. I do admit the cooling of Sager's is one of the best if not the best, I am simply one to err on the side of caution. In fact, that is the reason I bought Sager. I have some experience with performance notebooks and I can tell you ALWAYS go for function over form and Sager is the epitome of that (not to say the computer looks bad, it's just not flashy for the sake of money). Especially considering the machine runs everything 60 FPS ULTRA at stock settings.

Again, I did not mean to speak as though I am very knowledgeable on this subject. That has just been my overall impression. But definitely your advice is much more reliable than mine and I always appreciate the help I have found here.

On subject, I found EVGA Precision X easier to learn than MSI Afterburner but both are probably the most popular programs for both monitoring and adjusting clocks. There are video tutorials for both.

 

quick question? can i run a QNIX QX2710 Evolution II at 2k 60hz thru the Np9377 hdmi port (1.4a?) ? Or do I need to run from the thunderbolt port a displayport to hdmi cable (or adapter). and does the qnix hdmi port even support 2k @60hz or is it just there to accommodate consoles (ps4, xbox)?

 

1600p 60hz is the max supported resolution of HDMI 1.4a so you should be ok.

 

I thought the 9377 was 1.2? Man it gets confusing...

 

DP 1.1a (via thunderbold 1.1) and HDMI 1.4a.

HDMI 2.0 and DP 1.3 are the new, hard to find standards, and DP 1.2 is the current DP standard for non-thunderbolt ports.

Or something like that.

 

I don't' think HDMI 2.0 or DP 1.3 have really been out in any new notebooks yet? At least I haven' seen anything advertised with them yet that I have looked at. Newer Sagers are all pretty much HDMI 1.4a though, and mostly all DP 1.2 if I remember correct.

 

Someone kill ImmortenJoe quickly before his ideas spread

 

Hey guys, I am trying to install the new Sager Windows 10 Audio drivers and Software, so I downloaded them from the sager website once I extracted them it gives me 2 folders one is for the p370 and the other is for the p375 which one should I use for my laptop the p377sm-a? Thanks