Official Sager NP5165 / Clevo W150HR Owner's Lounge

The NP5165 comes with 120W adapter.

Close up pics of it in my review thread here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...579907-np5165-unboxing-first-impressions.html

Model # on the adapter is PA-1131-07

 

Confirmed! This power brick is humongous. On a sadder note, my spacebar's mushy :/

Can someone enlighten me on how to change the RAM speed to 1600 Mhz? It's running at a rather low 667 Mhz. I tried looking at the BIOS but there were very few options to do anything for the matter.

 

I noticed the same thing! Do all 5165's have the mushy spacebar issue? Can other folks please comment on this?

 

Just in case you didn't already know this, if you're using CPU-z or another hardware monitor for that frequency- it's dual channel DDR RAM. That means each stick will be running at 667Mhz, but your overall speed will be 1333Mhz because DDR (dual data rate) allows it to do 2x the work in one clock cycle. Running at 1600Mhz would require each stick to run at 800Mhz, which you can do through software utilities (usually the bios, but that's not an option on limited bios machines)

EDIT: Thanks koflem, used the wrong terminology on that. Good catch.

 

Cool, thanks Malibal! I was scared for a moment there.

 

It's not the fact that the ram is dual channel - that doesn't change it's frequency - but it's because the ram is DDR(3), which stands for Double Data Rate - thus double the actual frequency.

 

Ahh...I see. And it looks like theres no BIOS support to bump the speed up to 800(1600) even though the RAM supports it :/

 

great laptop only problem i have is with card reader. after a period inactivity i assume it enters a power saving state and doesn't get out of it unless you reboot the pc or reinstall the driver. no settings in bios either to disable it.

any ideas? appreciate any input you guys might have.

 

Yes, the 5165 does come with a 120W. We corrected the other post.

 

Uhh...I'm having problems with blu-ray playback. The Cyberlink PowerDVD10 that came with it wants me to upgrade first to its 'Ultimate' edition to use that functionality, but is $60 :/. How did you guys do it?

 

There are different editions of PowerDVD. Make sure you have the Blu-ray Edition. Look on the PowerDVD disc to see if it has the Blu-ray logo on it. If not, you have the regular edition that cannot play Blu-Ray discs. However, you should have received the PowerDVD Blu-ray Edition since you purchased a Blu-ray drive - so contact your reseller if you don't have the correct edition.

 

Yeah, I definitely got the DVD edition. Hope XoticPC responds soon.

 

Hi guys !
Can you test the power consumption of your laptops ? Just to see if a 95W slim like the cooler master one can make it.
I will use batterycare (when my laptop will come back from the retailer) for mesuring the discharging rate (in detailed panel), Furmark for GPU stress and OCCT for CPU burn.
(Be careful when doing those tests with your computer, put books on the four corners to let him breath and don't do it in a warm room.)
I will post my results when done. Mine is a i5 2520.

Let's see how you have measured !!

 

Just ordered one. Can't wait to get it

I was really considering getting the i7 2720QM but elected to save $200 and get the 2630QM.

 

is the i7 2720 worth the extra $200?

 

Hey guys,

What are the temperatures like after a full session of gaming? Will we have to disable Turboboost like is required for the 5160?

 

It depends on what you do with it. If you're using this machine for gaming, the 2630qm will not be your bottleneck (the GPU is significantly less powerful than the CPU). However, if you want to do CPU intensive work (Virtual Machines, video encoding, file compression, or anything that can use the multiple cores effectively) you may consider going with the 2720qm. It also supports some extra virtualization (Vt-d) and hardware level encryption. If those don't mean anything to you, and you don't need the power, then it may not be worth it. It really all depends on your usage.

 

Unless something has changed recently, this functionality is not offered on the W150HR/NP5165 even if you have a proper CPU. It's currently disabled with no way for the user to turn it on. This would require a BIOS update.

 

You are correct. I was speaking of the processor in general, I should have specified that most owners of the W150HR/NP5165 are reporting that virtualization is currently disabled and locked out in this model via Bios, so there is even less of an incentive to need the upgrade. However, if it's able to be fixed with a future bios update, the advice would still stand on it.

Thanks for the reminder on that one though!

 

Would Sager/Clevo cop an ear if resellers such as yourself were to contact them saying that customers are requesting the option be enabled in the BIOS? Or is there something fundamentally askew with the hardware that would make such a thing impossible?

 

@Malibal #2: Chack your private messages please.

 

Hey guys,
I've been debating between this laptop and the NP8130 for college next year.
I like the portability of the 5165 (less than 6 pounds and a long battery life) and it's a little cheaper, but I'm a little concerned with the 555m graphics card.
The most intensive games I'd play it would be starcraft 2 and some of the new FPS out there.

What do you think?

 

Finally broke down and ordered one of these bad boys from xoticpc.

Will the gargantuan (and potentially problematic) heat output of the machine affect its longevity? I'm looking to use this at least for the next 4 - 5 years, though I may be doing some diy maintenance on it as the years go by.

Also, would I be correct in assuming that the i5 produces less heat than the i7 and allows for longer battery life? Or is the difference between dual and quad cores irrelevant in those cases?

 

How much heat will I get under full load with stock thermal compound? Is it worth upgrading to the IC Diamond?

 

I've heard a lot of great things about the IC Diamond. Plus its only $20

 

Do you have the same problem as me: why is it impossible to have the discharging rate ? The charging rate is displayed when the power brick is plugged but the discharging rate is "unknown" !
Linux acpi can't get the information, nor batterycare on Windows, nor any other software !
(on ubuntu 10.10, I use the command:

Code:

grep rate /proc/acpi/battery/BAT/state

Note that you could have to change the path, BAT0 or BAT)
Is it a BIOS problem that needs an update, or a non-standard way to handle the battery ?

A good hint for 'how to know if I have the discharging rate available" is the remaining time with a battery.
Normally, if the discharging rate is available, windows is able to calculate how many time is remaining before the battery will be empty (Energy in 'Wh' divided by discharging rate in 'W' equal time remaining in 'hours').

Exemple from the web:





But when it is not available, you have what I have:




The same on ubuntu 11.04 (clic on the thumbnail to see original size):




Tested on Debian testing (snapshot of 5 or 6 days), Fedora 15, Ubuntu 11.04 and 10.10, windows 7 64. All screenshots were taken with power brick unplugged (of course).

You can try to see it with batterycare or BatteryBar
I'm using a stock battery C4500BAT-6 11,1V 5600mAh 62,16Wh.

And you, do you have a estimating time ?
Justin@XoticPC tells me that he have never seen a discharge on any laptop.
Hmm...
EDIT: added screenshots

 

I just received mine today with the i7 (lowest) and 8mb ram. I installed America's Army 3 and am very surprised at how bad my FPS is. It goes down to 15fps in some situations and usually stays at 25-30. And according to the lamp on the case the dedicated GPU is running. It also seems as if it makes hardly any difference if I use the highest or lowest graphics settings. Anyone have any ideas what the problem could be?
Thanks,

 

Are you running the newest available Nvidia drivers? Did you create the profile for the game to have it run on the dedicated card? If you're getting abnormally low frame rates, odds are it's running on the IGP not the 555m

 

Yeah, you have to make sure it runs on the 555m (games that look as good as half-life 2 and beyond). Other games like wc3 run fine on IGP which makes me very happy
Do this by going to the 'NVIDIA control panel' (should be an icon on the bottom right) and then 'Manage 3D settings'. You should be able to figure out the rest there.


By the way, the screen is gorgeous, and the colors have a way of popping out and making even old games feel fresh; this is even with the brightness turned down to like 20% (because any more was actually stinging the eyes).

 

In addition to everything above, make sure your battery options, as well as your Power Life power consumption modes are all set to High Performance. This will make a big difference.

Also can anyone explain to me the difference between the two? Ive got he standard Windows battery options that I can set to Energy Saver/UMA mode/etc; then Ive got the little icon on my taskbar that looks like a little laptop. Right clicking on it says "Power Consumption Modes" and I can choose the same Performance/Balance/Energy Saver modes. What does this one control vs the stock Windows one?

 

Well, I had not updated my drivers yet, but I did set the program to run with dedicated graphics in the options menu. I also ran 3dmark06 with "run with nvidia card" option and only got around 5500. I am installing the new drivers today, hopefully that will make a difference.
Do you guys find the little LED to be a reliable indicator which card is working at the time? I don't know of any other way to check it.

 

It has been for me so far. When the orange light is lit on the speedometer looking button then the NVIDIA GPU has been on. Its backwards from what you would initially think as well. The green light on VGA is iGPU only, orange it Optimus enabled.

With the original drivers my 3DMark06 scores were horrible too, but I hadn't figured out the power options either and wasn't running high performance. With 270.61 drivers I've pulled ~10500 on 3dMark06 consistently.

 

Hm, during my 3dmark tests the orange light is on. It lists the integrated graphics in the report, and I'm only getting 5611 points. I installed the drivers from NVidia to 275.33, added 3dmark to the programs to run with dedicated and right clicked on "run with high performance video." Do I need to go back to 270.6 driver?

 

Ok, I got it. I was only setting the battery options to full power, but the little laptop symbol was set to "energy star" make sure you have both fully activated! Now my FPS look more like they should

 

Another question:
Has anyone else bought the drive with 500GB 7200rpm and the 4GB flash memory from seagate? Mine is about to drive me insane. On Idle it will keep spinning faster and slower in about a 4 second rythm, and every time it slows down it makes a slight *tock* noise. I can tolerate noise, but I hate irregular noises, and this *tock* keeps coming at different intervals. Also, the fan speeds some to keep going up and down without much rhyme or reason. Don't get me wrong, I am loving the new lappy, just trying to figure out how to tune it right.
Thanks,

:edit Thanks Mysterious. I did not mean to violate the rules. I'll use the edit function more often.

 

magikkell, just a friendly suggestion: There is an edit button for you to update your posts....Multi-posting is considered against the rules.

Mr. Mysterious

 

my ram is running at 1600. i didn't need to change any BIOS settings. i have kingston hyperx

 

Hey guys, if anyone could do the following that would be awesome:

Shut down any demanding software
Turn off wifi/bluetooth, etc
Turn down the screen to the lowest setting (is it still readable/useable?)
Fire up some random pic, word/excel-file etc

How much battery life does the battery manager report, and is it usually accurate(95%-ish+)

Thanks alot!

 

What is your RAM serial number?

 

How do I update the BIOS on this machine?

Oops, sorry for the double post.

 

i have no idea

but its this:

Newegg.com - Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 HyperX Plug n Play Laptop Memory Model KHX1600C9S3P1K2/8G

 

I'm worried I'll download the wrong drivers and screw something up. Can someone link me to the best performing drivers? I was on the nvidia site and got the most up to date driver...it cut my FPS in BFBC2 in half so i rolled back to the ones on sager's site.
Actually, if anyone could just provide a check list of things to do to maximize performance for games I'd be much appreciative. Thanks!
EDIT: I'm getting 5749 on 3dbenchmark and I would sure love to be at around 10500 heh. Thanks!

 

Here is the link to the 275.33 drivers:

NVIDIA DRIVERS 275.33 WHQL

They were released yesterday from NVIDIA as the newest official signed drivers. I had installed the beta drivers a week or so ago and they also caused issues with my machine.

As far as maximizing your laptop, check the Clevo Drivers Thread for the newest drivers for your machine. Careful as not all of the drivers will pertain to your exact setup (I.e. Bigfoot wireless drivers if you have an Intel wireless card). Update all of your drivers first then go to tweaking Windows.

 

Pelotudo -
I was just running that driver, initially clean installed it today - it brought my FPS in BFBC2 down to 12 from about 35 with the older driver on Sager's site. I'm making sure to be running on optimus and all that, any ideas?
EDIT - That's the desktop link, I'm referring to the laptop version.

 

Make sure you've got BFBC2 set up in the NVIDIA control panel to run on the 555M GPU only, if that doesn't work shoot me a PM and we'll try a couple other things without clogging up the thread.

 

So i'm running nicely with the new drivers, had to set a few programs to dedicated, but I'm still only getting 5800 on the benchmark. Heh...how exactly do I PM ya?

 

Click on his name. In his profile, there is an option on the right.

Mr. Mysterious

 

if anyone cares, i can confirm that the USNA95 works great with our laptops. it even charges the battery. i kept the laptop in "green light mode" the whole time though. it does get kinda hot, but overall i love it.

USNA 95 - Cooler Master - Leading Provider of Computer Case | Cooler | Power Supply

http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=66162&stc=1&d=1307424565

 

After more than 2 months of dealing with laptops that were 1) defective, 2) delayed, 3) badly supported, and/or 4) just not to my taste, my Clevo-based MYTHLOGIC Pollux 1455 finally arrived.

I haven't played with it too much, but so far it's a winner. The 95% color gamut matte screen is phenomenally gorgeous. I had to move the computer desk elsewhere in my house, and the new spot gets a fair amount of sun. The matte screen makes a huge difference for legibility. I don't see myself reflected in the screen the way I do with my wife's glossy screen Toshiba notebook. MYTHLOGIC includes a screen calibration with every notebook order, and they did a bang-up job. I only had to make one very minor tweak to the color saturation to get it where I want.

I'm really loving the simple design. MYTHLOGIC didn't tart it up with any unnecessary decals or stickers. The plastic cover has a carbon-fiber design that I think looks sleek and professional. The chassis doesn't feel as solid as a ThinkPad or MacBook Pro, but comparably equipped, this MYTHLOGIC cost a heck of a lot less.

I'm still in the process of installing all my games (downloading from Steam mostly). So far, everything has been pretty smooth. The internal speakers suck, but I knew that going in. It sounds just fine with headphones, though, which is how I'll be using it 95% of the time. I only have one minor issue relating to Optimus, and that is the original Half-Life and its expansions will not run on the NVIDIA GPU. Since it plays fluently on the Intel GPU at native resolution and max details, it's not really a problem.

I'm extremely pleased so far. MYTHLOGIC was wonderful to work with. They were very patient with my many questions, always being prompt and professional with their answers. Starting prices for their machines might seem a bit high, but comparably equipped versus other Sager/Clevo resellers, they're right in the ballpark. The free screen calibration, IC Diamond thermal compound, and 4-year labor warranty are awesome value-adds that really give you peace of mind.

Provided nothing goes horribly wrong in the next couple weeks, I think I've found myself a system that will comfortably last several years.

 

Just ordered my NP5165 from AET Solutions in Canada ( https://www.reflexnotebook.ca/) after being advised to do so on this forum, and reading the positive reviews in this thread. Opted to go with the i7 2630QM and 8 gigs of ram. Excited!