*** Official Clevo W230ST/Sager NP7330 Owner's Lounge ***

Been having some serious issues..

My hotkey driver stopped working, even though it's installed. .Net framework is crashing during installation.

When I launch BF3, it runs at about 3fps and leads to a BSOD. I got a second BSOD upon startup with "nvlddmkm.sy" being the issue.

I'm in safe mode right now. Don't really know what's going on.

 

That BSOD is referencing the Nvidia graphics driver. You might want to try uninstalling and reinstalling the driver. Are you overclocking or undervolting?

 

Tried both. No OC'ing.

 

I don't have enough experience to help any further. Hopefully someone else will.


OK guys, I told you that I'd let you know what the replacement fan from Sager sounded like. I had been having sounds from my fan that sound like a mechanical hard drive reading or writing data. Kind of an intermittent clicking sound. Anyways, I got the new one and put it in today, turned it on, and it sounds WORSE than before. Ended up putting the old fan back in because i'ts quieter. One strange thing is that if I Fn + 1 for a few seconds to put the fan at full speed and then turn it off the clicking goes away for a minute or two but always comes back.

Also, as HTWingnut said before, the plastic clips on the bottom of the laptop are fragile and WILL break. I had two snap off closing my laptop up to replace the fan. Be very careful with them.

 

It's a crying shame that the most powerful 13" laptop you can buy has such shoddy manufacturing quality. Rattling fan, breaking plastic clips, screen defects, poor paste quality.

I wonder---do you think if I go with Origin or Mythlogic they will make sure the build quality will be higher? Or do you think they will have the same problems.

Meanwhile Sony is making beautiful 13" carbon fiber web browsers (the Pro Series)---might as well make them Chromebook, 'cause they can't do much else.

 

Okay, Schenker/mySN do now have also a website for the Clevo W230ST.
Its not yet listed on their start site, but the webpage exists:
mySN.co.uk | XMG | Schenker Technologies - XMG P303 13.3" Notebook
mySN.de | SCHENKER XMG | Schenker Technologies - XMG P303 PRO Gaming Notebook 33,78cm (13.3")

 

Seriously....mine is coming in tomorrow and all this news is making me a nervous wreck. I ordered from Mythlogic so hopefully they did some decent QA. I will let you know tomorrow with my thoughts, though I'm not too familiar with benchmarking and temperature testing. But man, if the laptop turns out to be no good, I don't know what will be even able to match the specs at this price point.

 

Forget even about the price point. I was ready to pay much, much more for a decently engineered laptop that was 13", good IPS screen with fast discrete graphics, and full voltage CPU. No-one else is even making such a thing. It is the beginning of the end of enthusiast computing.

I'm going with the W230ST because it's the only thing in the market that fits those specs.

 

That's definitely true as well. I need something to get my gaming fix when I go off to college and I certainly didn't want to build a desktop or lug around those much thicker and heavier Sagers. Here's hoping Mythlogic pulls through.

On a side note, I saw this on XMG's website:
They are either full of it, or did some heavy optimizations with the battery and noise levels.

 

Re the hokey drivers, I've never been able to install them in win7. Every time I do I get a .net framework crash and, while the installation appears to proceed, no new functionality has been added - I then also get a driver error message every time I boot up unless and until I uninstall the (failed) hot key installation. Maybe it's just not compatible with win7.

Re bf3, are you using the stock clevo drivers?

Petrov.

 

^Yes, I am using the stock Clevo drivers.

 

Hi.

I see that hidevolution offers custom backlit LED colours and I have a question for those who dismantled theirs laptops (or at least keyboard) Is it hard to replace those LEDs ?

Best regards.

 

Stupid question with hopefully a stupidly simple answer.

Fresh out of the box w230st, but win8 installation can't see the msata drive. Bios can see it. No drivers installed yet.

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

Don't freak out! I got mine from Hawkforce, and I'm really happy with it. The build quality is top notch, the keyboard is great to type on, the screen is gorgeous, the speakers are fine, and in quiet mode it barely makes a peep. Some people have lemons -- bruised screens, clicky fans, etc -- but it sounds like they're very much in the minority.

The only issue I've had with mine is flaky wifi, but I'm sure at least half the problem is my junk router that can't handle a hot day. Once I get the wifi sorted out, I think this is going to be the perfect machine.

 

True, people are quicker to state their qualms in an attempt to find a resolution than they are to post a compliment or 3 page review.

 

Rattling fan - I give you that is a bummer, but easily rectified with a replacement (hopefully doesn't rattle)

breaking plastic clips - ??? I haven't heard that one

screen defects - I agree, but as much as I hate to say it, it's a compromise for having the IPS. Backlight bleed is my biggest gripe but only noticeable on a solid black screen (or letterboxed movies) with brightness up pretty high. And if there is a defect you should be able to get it replaced without charge (and buy the screen guarantee).

poor paste quality - No OEM has ever done a good job with pasting. None. As long as it doesn't void warranty I always repaste my machines as well as those of my family and they are appreciative for the cooler running laptop

Probably be about the same unless you ask them to cherry pick an LCD for you (and probably charge more too) and may do a better job of pasting. Otherwise it's the same machine.

 

I am very happy with mine. I mainly use Linux I do have Windows 8 ready to go but waiting for the Final Fantasy a Realm Reborn to get released. Ill probably will be in Windows 8 if I cant get it to run on Wine.

 

Run disk management, it should see the unallocated drive. Format it and assign it a drive letter and it will show up in explorer.

For everyone else, I really love the machine. It's not as thick as I thought it was going to be, and it's not as loud either (it's certainly no ultrabook, but what do you expect?). The screen is killer, and I like the keyboard. The only thing I don't really like is the touchpad - you have to put some pressure on it to make it register. Maybe I'm a wimp, but it's a little too insensitive for my taste. My solution is a BT mouse

I'm still in the "tuning the CPU" stage, but coming from the 25w P9500 in my M860TU, the 4800MQ makes me feel kinda funny, like when I used to climb the rope in gym class.

 

No laptop is ever perfect. This is coming from someone who's been buying laptops over a decade. I've purchased both thin & light laptops and DTR laptops.
You need to consider both positives and negatives and eventually make a decision for yourself and be prepared to ignore few negatives.

And you need to filter out rare occurrences. The worst thing you can do for yourself is thinking that rare occurrences are common and start to torture yourself. That happens often here

 

Agree with this. A laptop is a laptop. I got mine and am completely happy with it. There are some little eeks (like backlight bleed) but whatever.

 

I

Thanks for the reply, I will see if I can get to the disk manager. But I am afraid that I was also a little unclear in the original post as my toddler was trying to help...

I have a hdd and a msata crucial m4 ssd. Win 8 is not installed on either drive. Win 8 DVD in a usb DVD player, when asking where to install, the msata drive is not seen, hdd is not formatted yet. I was hoping to install direct to ssd, instead of first to the hdd. I am not sure if that changes things or not.

 

I'd like to say that even with the clicky fan and broken plastic clips I don't regret buying this laptop. I really like it. It's fast, the parts you touch stay cool, great screen, etc. I'm sure my replacement will have the fan fixed - was wary about sending it in, but they said I could keep my hard drives so that makes it a lot less of a head ache.

 

Mine's pretty good OOB. Screen looks good, although I admit to NOT zealously checking for dead/stuck pixels, but in "normal" usage I've noticed none.

Bought an xslim xooler ahead of time(use it unpowered for now).

The only drawback is that yes, it can run bit warm, but I had mine undervolted for a while, but now need to find out what's up with XTU no longer giving me the dynamic core voltage option any longer...

Also have a new SSD on the way(should be in sometime today), but probably won't get around to installing it for a few days. Debating whether it's worth buying an external DVD reader/writer or building a bootable flash stick... I suspect that I'll eventualy want a DVD drive of some sort, so....

 

Thanks for all the responses, I'm definitely a lot more calm now and am looking forward to when I finally get this thing later this evening. This is going to be the longest workday of my life though...

 

Hi,

Some vendors offer different types of keyboards: is there any difference between US International and UK English ?

Best regards

 

Just got mine from Mythlogic just wondering how do I install the latest Nvidia drivers instead of the cruddy outdated ones that Clevo is offering.

 

Which of you guys are running Windows 7? (With mainly no real issues)

 

I've just ordered a w230st with a UK English keyboard from Hawkforce.de (not on their website, just email them before you put your order in). I haven't seen the US international one, but usually the US ones have a long enter key, whilst the UK ones have the inverted L enter key. Hope that helps.

 

Hmm.. google + wikipedia to the rescue If this is standard then I always need US International

 

A few days ago, I ordered the W230st from Hawkforce.de. If you send them an email beforehand, there is the option to ask for a specific keyboard (which is not an option on their website). There is also a 50Eur discount for notebookreview forum members if you email them beforehand.
I ordered:
CPU: i7-4800
RAM: 8gb ram (2x4gb) (ram prices in globally are through the roof at the moment compared to 3 months ago... :-( )
No msata: will fit my own Plextor m5m 256gb
No Hdd: will fit my own HGST travelstar 7k1000 (7200rpm 1TB)
WLAN: INTEL 6235 (although I have ordered Intel AC 7260 from external source)
Keyboard: UK English
Total cost of order from Hawkforce (inc free delivery to Austria): 988EUR

I think that is a great price for the system. Coupled with Plextor m5m 256gb msata (200EUR) + HGST 7200rpm 1TB HDD (75EUR) + Intel AC 7260 (25EUR) = super specs + portability for 1288EUR.

The facebook page for Hawkforce also shows that their w230st's seem to have Chi Mei IPS LCD screens

ETA is 1-2 weeks for the laptop, whilst the other components will arrive this week.

I must say I am very impressed with Hawkforce's service so far - it took about 10 mins to get an email reply from them late on friday evening (11pm). They also let me add on the ram, as I originally ordered without ram and was going to buy 2x8gb sticks elsewhere until I saw ram prices...).

Will let you guys know how it is when I receive it - can't wait!

 

I got mine yesterday. I have a dead pixel on the screen near the bottom right corner.
In the attached pics, it can be seen above the network icon, and to the left of the word "Build" in the first pic......

Should I do anything about it?

EDIT - Pics are not getting attached from my phone. Don't know why. Tried both Tapatalk app and two Android browsers.

 

Forget it unless you took a dead-pixel warranty

 

Hi everyone, I'm now configuring my new W230ST and am wondering between a combo of SSD+HDD or an all SSD system on this laptop. I have some questions before deciding:

1/ Is there any difference between a 5400rpm HDD and a 7200rpm one in real life utilisation ?

2/ At the moment I have an SSD and a 750GB 7200rpm HDD, and I have always have this "issue" of delaying (for about 1s) when I open a file/folder located on the HDD, as if it needed time to wakeup. Is this a problem of just my HDD or is this normal for every system with SSD+HDD ?

Thank you in advance for your responses and please forgive my bad English.

 

1) There is a big difference if you're using the HDD for your OS or lots of programs. Your computer will take longer to turn on and programs will take longer to open if you're using a 5400 RPM drive as your main one. If you are mainly using the 5400 rpm drive for storage and an SSD for your main programs and OS then it won't make much of a difference.

2) The reason you are having the delay is because when you are just using your SSD your HDD will go into a power saving "sleep" mode. The delay is the HDD waking up and finding the file that you need. This is normal.


For everyone else: I'm RMAing my laptop for the rattling fan and the broken plastic clips on the bottom panel. In the note I'm including I urged them to check the screen of any new ones they send me for defects... I can only hope it'll be a good one like this one I'm typing on right now. I'll let you know how it turns out. Back to my desktop for now.

 

1- 7200rpm will be a bit faster at opening files (the delay you talk about in 2/), a bit more power hungry and it will make more noises.
2- It's an issue with HDD that goes to sleep. I think you can prevent them from sleeping but it will last less on battery then.
And there will still be a delay when opening files, a bit less but not *that* much.

 

7200RPM and 5400RPM consume same power, just 7200RPM causes more heat and likely a slight hum vibration.

 

Hello, i got my w230st today and have the same problem, i fixed this by downloading a iso of windows 8 with some lastest updates and then it recognize my msata disk.
Just download from MS or TR iso with higher build.

 

I've never repasted anything before and I don't want to screw this up. Do you have any pictures on repasting the w230st? Do I put the paste right on the gpu and cpu or what?

 

How do you activate Windows?

 

Press Windows key, type "activate Windows" and click on the activate windows icon...

 

Thanks, I will try that next week when I get back home from work.

 

Got it. Thanks.

 

Can you forward me a link to the ms download, I can only find one that needs subscription or is not for oem key.

 

You guys think if I add some vRAM (from my 8gb system RAM) it will improve gaming performance? (BF3)

 

You can't add vRAM and 8GB is more than sufficient. What are your issues with BF3? High settings I'm getting 60FPS+. Make sure BF3 is set to use the dedicated video card (765m) and power profile is set to performance.

 

Do you have v-sync off and FPS limiter at 60?

 

Ok so I just got mine yesterday and installed Windows 8 and Windows Updates yesterday. Today just now I switched it on after coming back from work and just as soon as Windows loads, the monitor has been flickering, and quite a lot.
I have uploaded a video here ----> VIDEO0046 - YouTube .
I shutdown and restarted again and it's fine right now. But what could be going on? Is this a defect and can happen again?

 

So I got my laptop and I'm trying to get the 840 Pro that I bought seperately installed, but the cover doesn't want to come back on cleanly after I put it in. The corner where the SSD is installed is raised slightly. I tried to snap it in, but it seems like the cover doesn't want to go on cleanly. Any ideas?

 

should cpu temps reach max 70 while watching videos online? I underclocked the dynamic cpu voltage my 75mv

 

^yeah you're fine.

Just repasted the GPU/CPU with some coolermaster paste and the temps went up about 5. :/