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

I didnt read about 990m specs yet anywhere,so how many shaders it will have this beast?
Thanks guys

 

Lol I just got this 980m SLI and now people are claiming that the 990m will beat not only 980m SLI but the desktop GTX 980 wtf....computers man. Once you buy something they release something better.

 

I don't see why not, especially with Prema's amazing BIOS mod.

 

I would think you would have to wait until after they are actually launched to find out of there is going to be any kind of support on it. But otherwise, I would think Prema might be able work some magic in that department.

 

@Prema you have all my money...

 

They didn't give me an ETA. If they have to replace the cards, it will most likely not be til at least the 11th since that's when their backordered systems will be getting their cards.

990M should be plug and play. It might need a modded INF but the SM-A machines have proper MXM support. Sager didn't even update the system BIOS to install my 980Ms - the BIOS said unknown and they still worked lol.

 

If people expect that kind of performance they will be utterly disappointed...think more in the 30%-ish region clock for clock over the current flagship.

 

I'm holding out for Pascal GPUs for new desktop. 2 980ms is overkill for everything I play currently and I have doubts that Fallout 4 will be graphically demanding.

Third post in this thread quotes some article I also saw:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/gtx-990m.779879/

"Another interesting detail is that the chip will obviously not be available as a MXM solution, but will instead be soldered directly onto the motherboard. This should be due to the high power consumption and custom cooling solutions."

 

It has already been confirmed that Clevo will have the 990M in MXM.

 

Awesome.

 

Sites like to make assumptions based on what they think details mean.

 

Man... I really miss my computer... I had to dig out the old Inspiron 17R which apparently has a completely toast battery after being stored away for a year (4 orange flashes and a white)...

I don't know how I ever used this thing...

Core i5-2450M (2.5GHz)
8GB DDR3-1600
750GB 7200RPM hard drive
Intel HD 3000 for graphics...

Its soooooooooooooo slow........

 

That's the lack of SSD making it feel slow then - if you're just talking snappiness of the OS and general programs. (Obviously rubbish for gaming or heavy CPU tasks though).

 

Its an ancient 8.1 install making it so slow and quite likely desperately in need of a defrag... So I just used the reset feature of 8.1 to nuke the install. I have no idea where the original disc went off to so I had to do it that way.

 

Anyone running win10 safely on the 9377? Not that I want to run it but am curious if we are having the same issues as AW machines?
The previous owner of my x8 had win10 on it but we reloaded back to win8 that is came with before our trade when I got it.

 

There has been one reported casualty after installing Windows 10. I was running it from preview to RTM without any issues but I have an eDP panel which may not be vulnerable. @Brent R. didn't have the same luck. If you decide to run Windows 10, use O&O Shutup 10 to disable automatic driver installation and don't use a driver branch over 352 for the time being. Just keep in mind it is still a risk.

 

Gotcha and thank you for the info! I do not want to run it and won't for a long time... I have a 120hz screen.. I was just kinda of worried about the bios corruption via win 10 partitioning space for license causing a issue with my machine in the future even if I'm not running 10 and back on 8 and honestly hate 8 and thinking of putting 7 on this machine. Thank you!

 

As far as I'm aware, Clevo machines don't appear to be very vulnerable to Windows 10... Since you have the 120hz display, you have an eDP as well and there haven't been many reports of those displays being blown.

I'm on the fence about putting Windows 10 on my Sager... After seeing what it did for this dinosaur Inspiron 17R I'm using while I wait for my machine to come back from RMA, I'm tempted to run it again.

I didn't have any EFI corruption issues. I was dual-booting 8.1 and 10 for months without a single issue.

 

I installed Windows 10 immediately out of the box and have had no problems except for 1 week recently my WiFi kept disconnecting but this resolved on its own presumably via an update. I've been using it daily for about 1.5 months

 

What do you mean by "casualty?"

 

Brent's LCD died.

 

Because of the operating system?

EDIT: Nevermind I looked it up and saw this which is quite disturbing. https://forums.geforce.com/default/...g-samsung-and-lg-notebook-lcd-display-panels/

DOUBLE EDIT: The guy in the above post was using the same nVidia driver that I am currently running (353.62) and no problems on my end for over one month.

 

Technically we don't know for sure if his LCD died because of the operating system or not.

I'm running Windows 10 on my P377SM-A with a 120 Hz eDP panel with NVIDIA 355.84 with no issues. From what I have gathered, eDP panels are less susceptible to the LCD death issue than LVDS panels, and Clevos in general don't seem to be too susceptible to the LCD death issue. Hell, I'm even living on the wild side and I am using UEFI. If you wanted to be really safe with Windows 10, you could just install it using legacy instead of UEFI.

 

Mr. Fox was using pure Legacy (he hates UEFI with a passion) and he's fried four panels.

I agree that Clevos don't seem to be susceptible, especially all of us with eDP panels but its still worth mentioning.

I have to say though... Windows 10 with all the privacy invading garbage disabled has breathed new life into this dinosaur Inspiron 17R I'm stuck with until I get my 9377 back from Sager. No other operating system, including Linux, runs as well as 10 is right now.

 

Ouch, there goes my theory of Legacy being safer than UEFI.

Yeah, Windows 10 is definitely a great performing OS and I'm pretty happy with it overall.

 

Well, that's not necessarily true. Alienware uses the InsydeH20 BIOS... its possible that the CSM has a vulnerability that needs to be patched. The vast majority of computers that seem to be affected from browsing online are Alienware, Acer, HP, and Lenovo - all four use InsydeH20. Clevo does not, they use AMI. Its all theory at this point though, there even popped up an AMD Alienware M18x so its not even just nVidia machines now.

 

@Brent R. had his panel fail though. As did @ajc9988 with his P770ZM.

Remember: Optimus on all those other machines means that it's wired to the intel GPU, and with the exception of the one AMD death you came across, non-nVidia drivers on those machines don't do jack. iGPU only? Lasts ages. Optimus (especially without nV drivers)? Lasts ages. dGPU only with nV drivers? Dead within the day.

 

I had already said that Brent killed his 9377, I didn't know about the ZM. The thing is, we don't know what is causing what. Many of us were running 10 without issues so Clevo machines don't seem to be as susceptible. Its definitely worth warning people about it but that's 2 machines from Clevo compared to how many from Alienware?

 

Yeah, I know. I'd say those Clevos were more exceptions to the rule; Mr. Fox' P570WM didn't have its panel killed either.

But it is indeed a whole lot harder to get a panel killed if a user has the iGPU in the way. To that effect; only the SLI and ZM models from Clevo are potentially affected.

 

Oh man, that's really interesting. I had no idea whatsoever that Alienware use Insyde. I knew that Lenovo use Insyde but I had no idea Alienware does, I thought Alienware was AMI just like Clevo. Maybe AMI-based laptops are safe/safer than Insyde ones. That's really good to know and makes me feel a little bit better.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. We have absolutely no way of knowing what caused the deaths of these 2 machines LCDs, it could have been anything - they just so happen to be running Windows 10. If this was a more widespread issue for Clevos, then maybe we could chalk it up to Windows 10/NVIDIA.

 

It could also be exposing something that impacts a small number of vulnerable panels.

 

From how it appears, Dell didn't cut the pin on the cable that would have made the EEPROM read only and something is happening that is forcing a write to the EDID bricking the display. I don't know if Clevo write protects or not.

 

So in theory you could maybe recover the panel by reprogramming the chip manually and then protect it by cutting that pin.

 

Yes, that is what @t456 has suggested. The problem though is that it appears the NVRAM is being modified as well making this a perpetual problem with possibly unforeseen additional consequences.

 

Well I got off the phone with Sager a bit ago. They replaced the motherboard, both GPUs, and both heatsinks. They're testing it but it seems like all this mess will be coming to a close shortly.

Here's some comedic relief... This is the machine I'm forced to use while they have my powerhouse...



I'm actually amazed this thing could run it at all to be honest...

 

It's hard to give up such power, with benchmarks like that. I checked in on your RMA earlier with our service manager, but was waiting to hear back on the testing before messaging you. Looks like you found out anyways But if I hear anything, I'll update you when I do.

 

Tanner actually emailed me asking me if I had heard anything and I said no and offered to just call so he didn't have to stress about it since I had already talked to them twice previously. I really appreciate how awesome all of you have been with this even when I wasn't so nice (seeing that benchmark should probably shed some light on why I got impatient though lol).

Sager said they'll email me the testing results when they're done and I told Tanner I'd forward them to him so you guys have your records as well.

 

I got an Asus k50AB I had to use while my Clevo was away on Clevo in Taiwan.. And i got way more fps's then you loool

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Well you had a dedicated GPU, even if it was a low end Radeon 4570. The HD 3000 is one horrible iGPU... The jump from 3000 to 4000 was 50+% faster lol.

This machine actually did okay for the 420 bucks I paid for it when my M17xR1 went on the fritz... It would help if it was DDR3-800 instead of 667 but this was what I had to deal with when my computer broke and I didn't have money. I made a quantum leap getting my 9377 though haha.

 

Hahaha

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Somehow I feel like DDR3-800 vs 667 would make no difference when you consider the rest of your components.

 

It helps the IGP limp on a bit more with some more bandwidth I had an FX2700M in my P570WM when waiting on the 980M cards, 48 shaders of power ^-^

 

People, please. When my P370SM3 was getting its motherboard replacement I had to use a 2005 HP laptop with an AMD Turion X2 CPU and I still have no idea what the GPU is. And it had 2GB of DDR2 667MHz RAM.

Opening Teamspeak required 30% of my CPU.

 

Well I guess I won't find out until next week. Sager never got back to me.

 

It's friday, and it's Sager. I actually would expect you to get no reply until monday (if one comes). Hopefully everything will be fine this time, and you'll go into hyper overclock and sit there with your two smexy power bricks and a 4.3GHz daily CPU clock with with +400MHz OCs on your GPU using DSR at 4K getting 75c in Witcher 3.

I just spewed a lot of crap that's probably impossible but hey gotta dream big and I'm living vicariously through you XD

 

Oh I'll get a response Monday because I'll call them early in the morning about it.

As for the machine, I'm going to tweak my CPU and leave everything else alone. There's not really any need for overclocking the GPUs. I just want a cool running moderately quiet machine again. It's pretty humbling being forced to use my Inspiron 17R. Reminds me how much of an upgrade I really got with that machine at stock. What annoys me though is that I didn't push daily overclocks or anything on any of my video cards yet that machine took out 3 pairs. Two pairs of 880s and now the pair of 980s yet other people with my machine are pushing 1300MHz+ along with memory overclock and running cooler than I did at stock with max fans... I really hope the motherboard replacement is a permanent fix!

 

Yeah, I know what you mean. I never take this laptop for granted, but I'll be damned if I ever believe that games that look about as good as stuff 3-4 years ago require a 980 or 980Ti to struggle for 60fps at max 1080p. Just poor optimization T_T.

But yes I know your feeling. It kind of bothers me about my CPU the most though. Literally +300MHz and +80mV from 3.5GHz at 0.9976v (yes, under 1v) is +10-15 degrees or more on this machine in many cases. My GPUs are (mostly) stable with the 1006/6000 clocks I have (I think). The only crash I ever got with them was a TDR after two hours of driving around in GTA V and I think that was because I only used +32.5mV on my primary card for that clock. Somehow my temps are usually fine these days with those OCs too which I'm never going to complain about XD.

 

That CPU of yours is odd... Why haven't you just replaced it with another one? I sure would have. My 4940MX makes me mad too though... 3.4~3.5GHz load at stock is atrocious for a thousand dollar chip...

 

I don't have any money to replace right now. It's not the first thing I'd replace either, unless I find a 4930MX for about $400 USD and I have the money. Hopefully early next year I will get the replacements coming. Will not lie though; if the Skylake desktop-CPU SLI machines come with a 120Hz panel and I have the money for upgrades, I might as well buy one and sell this. It'd be the first time selling a relevant machine.

 

I needed to tweak my GPUs but then again I was pushing beyond 60fps (120-144fps being ideal) at 1440p