**Official Sager NP6370 / Clevo W370ET Owner's Lounge**

Hi all, just wanted to say hello as I received my unit yesterday, with the i7 3630 and 660M.

First impressions so far are not very fair, because I chucked windows 8 on here and it's my first time using it - so I'm still getting my head around things.

I'll list a few of my concerns/findings anyway, incase anyone wants to discuss them:
As discussed above, the switching between dGPU and iGPU can be controlled by the VGA button apparently. But it doesn't seem to just switch it. The main controller for what graphics processor is used seems to be however the nvidia control panel. By default, steam will be added as "use dedicated GPU", so the moment you launch steam - whether you're running a game or not, it'll switch to dGPU (orange light on center of keyboard). As long as steam is running, you can't just press the VGA button to switch out of it. You can press the button, and the power profile will switch (brightness etc), but the CENTER light will remain orange until you exit steam. In the same way, if I'm not running steam and I'm just on my desktop, if the CENTER light is green (indicating iGPU), when I press the VGA button to switch to dedicated, it stays green. I believe the VGA orange button is switching to optimus (where your laptop decides which is needed), so you still can't just force on your dGPU if you're just on the desktop. The way to activate your dGPU is either adding applications to the nvidia control panel, or when you go to run an application, you can right click and Run with graphics processor... - then select dedicated.

In summary, if you want to be conscious of power consumption or use of the dGPU, keep your laptops VGA button on green. If it's green BEFORE you launch steam, it won't switch to dGPU. But once steam is running, you can't just press the VGA button for it to switch to internal. You'd need to exit steam, press the VGA button, then enter steam again. I'm still not too confident about being in control of what GPU is used mind.

My second issues is the difference in index score I got on windows 7 and windows 8. Is it right they should differ? I noticed windows 8 goes up to 9.9 instead of the 7.9 windows 7 went up to. But in windows 7 (preinstalled with no key onto the device when I receieved it) I got:
7.3, 7.8, 7.2, 7.2 and 5.9.

However, when running it on windows 8 (and I've updated graphics drivers and installed all relevant drivers off the provided disk) I've got:
7.4, 8.1, 5.2, 6.8 and 5.9.

Thanks in advance for any replies,

Dan

 

Prema Bios Mod for this model updated to v2.1

 

Hello, everyone. I have a question about the design of the W370ET. One of my friends recently bought a Gigabyte P2742, which is a notebook that's based on (in fact is the exact same as) the Clevo W370ET. Now I also looked up pictures of the interior of the W370ET, cause I found something rather odd about this.

This picture I found of the Sager NP6370

can be used to explain my issue with this design.

The Gigabyte P2742 came wih e a 7200RPM HDD in this bay labelled "HDD 0", and the other bay empty. Now the issue is, The "HDD 0" bay seems to have the HM77 PCH exposed in it. And when it's being used a lot, for example, when we're doing heavy downloads across the network via a 1 Gbps ethernet connection, or copying big files from a USB III HDD, both the PCH and the HDD heat up brutally.

In an air conditioned room, the HDD heated upto 58 degrees Celsius, and outside, to 71 degrees Celsius. The PCH diode temp was indicated (checked with AIDA64) as 69 and 79 in these cases.

I'm not very experienced with laptops, but when this thing started becoming too hot to hold (the bottom of the laptop where the HDD 0 is was pretty much burning), I quickly pulled it out to see. And from what I can see, the HM77 PCH seems to be touching the the HDD, as there is nothing blocking that. Both the devices heat up, and it becomes a mess.

Now no one could intentionally come up with such a design if it was flawed, so I think I must be looking at this wrong somehow. Maybe the overheating is unrelated? I don't know. Can someone please help me here? I'm very confused. Thanks a lot.

 

Exactly the same issue, I have 2 SSDs and the one in the HDD 0 bay runs super Hot!! am running scared to use it... But hey I payed to use 3 HDD bays... and the laptops DVD adapter only runs at Sata 2 speeds... So is no one else had this issue?

 

You know, it really surprises me that no one else here seems to have had this issue. My friend returned it, and they gave him a new one, thinking it was a defect with that particular unit, but the new one also turned out to have it. Not surprising, considering the design itself has the HM77 PCH touching whatever's in the HDD0 bay. Are people just not caring about HDD/SSD temps or PCH temp?

 

I have the W350ETQ (15" version) and my secondary HDD is running a bit hot. Its a 750GB WD black 7200 rpm, and it hits 54-55°C. Its max operating threshold is 60°C so that doesnt leave me much wiggle room for the warmer temps in the summer. I am not sure how concerned I should be about this. Every other component (CPU, GPU, primary SSD, etc) all run at excellent temps under load. It appears that the secondary HD bay is not ventilated adequately.

I have seen instances where laptop owners drill small holes in the bottom case to allow heat to dissipate. Im not sure that would work because (as others have pointed out) the HD is squished up against the case, leaving no room for airflow at the bottom. I am going to keep and eye on that temp and backup that drive periodically in the mean time.

 

Wow! I have been noticing high temps from my one hdd. I wondered what it could be. I ended with the conclusion, that it might just be the hdd getting old.

That is kind of a big flaw in the design of this laptop. I have the Vision S-Series S3768 (Danish brand) version of the W370ET. How could Clevo (manufacturer of the case, right?) not have noticed this?

 

HI!

just decided to register after getting my own w370 a couple of months ago! love it so far... but has anyone noticed some weird behavior with their multiplier when gaming? I was just playing ps2, monitoring with throttle stop... started out with 24x multiplier (2.4ghz) and after about an hour of gaming (temps stable at about 70-75, max 77C) it suddenly switches to 12x, ie just 1.2ghs. naturally the fps tanks, games unplayable. It's happened a few times now, NO idea why, and wont switch back to 24x at all, throttlestop does nothing if switched 'on', restarting game, nothing... Im out of my depth here, so can anyone shine some light as to why im suddenly running a 1.2ghz system, when nothing, including temps, were having an issue??

cheers

update, dont know why I didn't think of this...
unplugging my power supply imidiately fixed the multiplier issue - strait back to 24x. plugged it back in, no problem, stayed at 24. the power supply I was using is from an older ASUS computer since the power point is really hard to get too where my computer sits (same 19v output, but only 4.5A output) so hopefully it was just the power supply struggling/overheating (though it didn't feel that hot). So at a guess, a safety feature when the pc senses the power supply struggling? it doesn't appear to be related to the computer at this stage, since it was happy to run at 24x on battery, and once unplugged and plugged back in. I'll run on the proper power supply for a while and see if it happens again, though if anyone can confirm this that'd be great.

 

I would definitely NOT advice you to use a smaller powersupply, than what is meant for the laptop. It can damage both supply and laptop. Use the one that came with the laptop, or any other with -the same- voltage and same, or higher, ampere. I'm using my old MSI-powersupply, since I didn't like the size of the one that came with the W370ET. It has the exact same specs as the original psu.

 

Hey Guys,

I recently was given a Clevo W370et (i7 3840qm+GT660M) that I split milk on, and I was just wondering whether any of you guys new a cheap place in the U.K. to replace the motherboard? I've opened it and I've put some pictures here which highlight the damaged parts.


Regards,

 

PCSpecialist may be able to help you out.

 

Is there an option to disable iGPU just to use nVidia GPU only? Clevo W370ET btw.

 

There is no way to completely disable the iGPU as that's not the way the systems were designed. In the Nvidia control panel you can specify to prefer using the dedicated card (Max Performance) in addition to the auto select and prefer the iGPU should the need arise.

 

I'm genuinely afraid to use my second hdd bay with how hot it gets, like I put a drive into it just to copy a few things from an old hard drive and after transferring about 5gbs from it I shut down my computer and went to remove it. I couldn't touch the drive because of how hot it was.

I can't imagine using that hdd bay at all without it causing some sort of damage.

 

Yeah this is because the hdd is sitting underneath a chipset that gets super hot, I use a SSD on it, so it doesn't get too bad, if I use a hdd, last time I checked it got to 45c... the bay should of been covered or moved... to me this is a clear design fault... apart from that, am happy with it.. gonna change the thermal paste...

 

Are you putting thermal paste on the PCH or what is going on here?

 

Nooo, OK, so if you look carefully, underneath the HDD 0 bay you will see the a chipset, (PCH) silver looking chip, that if you touch it will be burning hot. This is what makes having a hard drive in this bay really hot. So, my solution was to use a SSD, because SSD are much smaller in parts, no moving parts, and has a very think shell. it does not get as hot. Basically this Hard drive bay should of been cover like the other HDD bay, or at least not have the chip there.

 

Aww ok I was just completely lost as to why you were using thermal paste there, I got you now though, I've been thinking about picking up a solid state I may do that sometime soon. Thanks for the info.

 

Not sure if you would want to put thermal paste on the PCH if its touching the HDD. In theory that would make more heat get transferred to the HDD.

 

What the hell? I only mention that I was changing the thermal paste, on the CPU/GPU lol, not the PCH, I was just mentioning it... Anyway try putting something in-between the HDD and PCH please. what ever you do do NOT use thermal paste. Thank you.

 

Sorry edited starting a new thread

 

Hello,

who else is having this annoying keyboard issue where every now and then, the cursor jumps to a random place while typing? It is actually as if the mouse was left clicking somewhere. But I have the touchpad deactivated! (with the option to deactivate it when a USB mouse is connected - and it is, always).

Anyone?

Help would be much appreciated.

Felix

 

Good evening,

In the last 3 weeks I have been encountering a stuttering issue while enjoying media (listening to music, playind videos). The stuttering is maybe 5 seconds and is accompanied by a grinding sound with each stutter. It it similar to this - Computer stuttering while watching videos - YouTube. I've done some of the basic thing I can think of, but am stuck as they haven't changed anything (nor do they suggest anything out of the ordinary). My graphics drivers are up to date, I've used Resource Monitor to watch for any CPU/memory spikes and HWInfo to track hardware temps. All seem normal.

My system is a ibuypower Battalion 101 (also known as a W370 ET). Specs:

Intel i7-3630QM
nVidia 2GB 660M
OCZ Agility 120GB SSD
Seagate 750 GB HD

Let me know if there is anything else I can provide to help with this issue. It doesn't seem to be hurting my computer in any real way, but it is exceedingly annoying and I don't want to just suffer with it. I am hoping to not have to do a refresh of Windows, but that might be my next step. Really hoping it's not something memory related.

Thanks!

 

Go through each non system critical background process and see if killing any of them solves your issue.

 

Hello, I have the same problem and it occurs only when the touchpad is activated. Now, after each boot, I deactivate the touchpad by pressing Fn+F1 and I use my mouse. It never occurred with the touchpad previously deactivated.
Anyway, I would really like to know what could be the cause of this annoying problem...

 

Well its finally happened, after leaving my computer on for a few hours to transfer files to a network drive it now blue screens anytime it does anything that requires anything even remotely strenuous network or hdd wise.

Event viewer shows a failing disk controller so I had to RMA it, I really hope they actually solve the problem here and not just send it back with a replacement motherboard.

 

Hello,
i am looking for a vbios dump of a Geforce GTX 660M working in a Clevo machine.
If someone has 10 minutes, could you send me a PM and i'll give an email adress do receive the bios dump.

Thank you

 

Whenever I tilt the screen just past 90 degrees or further the lcd screen goes black, is there a simple fix for this ?

 

May be the cable connection to the motherboard. I'd open up the bottom of the computer if thats allowed by your reseller and make sure its not kinked up.

 

I reseated the cable connection for the lcd on the motherboard, it made the viewing angle slightly worse.

 

Did you notice any kink in the line when you did so which would have caused the issue seen when going beyond 90 degrees. If the viewing angle got worse maybe try reseating it again, if its worse then before it could be the cable since that is the only thing that changed.

 

It seems alright to me, could it possibly be the other end of the cable, that connects to the lcd screen itself ?

 

Well I ordered a replacement cable from Sager. $25 + $30 s/h plus it's going to take them 5 business days just to mail out. Will definitely be my last sager ever.

 

Hello ,For the last month i have the annoying audio stuttering issue, Did anyone came up with a solution?
Thanks

 

Hi not sure if this is the right place to post this but I have had a clevo w370et (sager np6370) for a year which has recently started having really loud fan noise. The fan ramps way up after logging into the os even if i dont have anything launched. I have checked app startup and there is not to much starting with the machine.

It then seems to run high for awhile then rev down and then rev back up again. If i activate the turbo fan using fn+ 1 it gets louder but if i quickly turn it off then Turn the turbo fan on again the noise goes back to what seems normal for the fan.

I have tried cleaning the fan and heatsink ( they were not very dirty) but this didnt help. I ran a temp monitor and it seems to be in the 50 c to 70 c range which makes me think its not overheating. Does this sound like the fan is dying or is this a known issue?

 

Hi everyone,

Well here we are and I have a nice new W370ET custom build by pcspecialists. It's been bought as a replacement for my HP EliteBook 8740w. I am a developer, gamer and IT specialist (but my boss wouldn't let me build my own LOL) and it's a shame to see the back of my EliteBook, it really is the bst laptop I've ever had, however it's being retired as it's started thermal tripping on games play. Although it seems to have come back to life since I blasted halfa can of compressed air through the heatsinks!

So, my questions all revolve around high end user experiance and performance. Do we have any intensive users out there, perhaps running one of these for a while that could suggest optimisations and/or pitfalls to look out for?

For those fan noise people, I'm pleased to report that my fans are quite quiet, except under stress. But really, my controller has like 2 speeds, super silent running, and extreme hovercraft mode! Is this for real? I havrn't seen a 2 step fan controller since like 1990!

For those temperature monitorers, what software do you use? I have CPUID Hardware monitor up at the moment. Temps seem good, peaked at 80C processor and 75C GPU for a stress test.

Also happy to report that the HDD and PCH issues seem to have 'gone away' on my rig. Standard 500GB HDD and there seems to be no vibration, heat transfer or overheat, however I have yet to use it intensively just yet (my idea of intensive is 30+ browser tabs,Photoshop 64x, PHPStorm, Java, Office, and a miriad of downstream apps and a game all running at the same time). Guess I'll have to pop the back off and see what it loo like in there.

One thing that concerns me though, I am disappointed by the benchmarks I got running 3DMark 11. I got a score of P4123 however I am running :

NVIDIA Geforce GTX 765M
Intel Core i7-4600M CPU (quad-core)

I thought my benchmark would be better than that?? I had it plugged in, full battery, opened up the power management and all. vI see posts earlier in this thread with people getting much higher marks (with 3Dmark Vantage) running a GTX 660?? Anyone have any advise/thoughts?

Anyway, nice to meet you all fellow W370ET'ers (and varients)! Let me know what you think...

 

Just on the compressed air thing, you should be doing that around twice a year.

 

Ha! At least!! My works laptop comes home with me (home enviroment is a dust filled, non AC, smokers mess of a dust bowl!!!) so needs it more often than not...

Personally I prefer to take the case off and clean properly, I once had a Dell Gaming laptop (well, it was called a desktop replacement because it was so freaki large it wouldn't fit on a normal lap!!), it had 2 radiators and heat pipes and behind the fins of the radiators I once pulled out a complete pad of dust and hair (serious it was like a hair/dust carpet) that was like 12mm thick, surfice to say its performance ramped up substantually!

In fact thats what I want to do with this current Elite Book as in my opinion it is the superior build (the new Clevo's more powerful but the keyboard and case accessories are no where in comparion with the Eliteook), and perhaps redo the thermal paste with some proper Arctic Silver (it is like 3 years old with daily intensive use and daily put in bag and move's), but I'd need to break the HP seal so work won't want me to do that. I'll have to find my heat gun so I can detach those seals and reapply when I'm done!

Back on topic, can this i7 GTX 765 rig be overclocked at all? GPU or CPU, anyone with any 1st hand experiance? I'd liketo step up the GPU a bit if possible...

 

Your thermal paste may be drying out.

 

Hi,
I've had my Clevo W370ET for nearly two years now, and I'm experiencing some issues with the fan. (Same as Skippyjojo.) I don't have the turbo fan option on my model. The fan will go to maximum for 10 seconds, then reduces rpm for 10 seconds, then back up to max. This is when the laptop is under heavy load.
I've going to try and add some new thermal paste to the cpu, but was wondering at the same time, is it possible to upgrade the cpu to the i7-4xxxx models? or am I limited to the i7-3xxxx models? (I have an i7-3520M installed currently).
And just quickly, I understand that the gpu is next to the cpu(?). Should I put paste on that as well, or just leave it well alone?
Cheers,
Skimmer333

 

You're limited to 2xxx and 3xxx series processors. When I first bought the machine (as a barebones) I put an i3 2xxx processor in it (I got it for $20 to get the system off the ground while I saved up for my i7 3720 I have in it now). The i7 4xxx processors have a different interface though and are not compatible with our motherboards. The GPU and CPU are indeed near each other and (on my model at least) are connected to the same heatpipes/heatsink, so if you take off the heatpipes/heatsink to replace the thermal paste on one you really should clean off and replace the paste on both.
My fan will sometimes do the alternating fan speed thing as well, I've taken it as an indication that the fan is actually doing its job- the processor gets hot, then the fan runs at full, but it's effective enough to cool the system down such that the fan RPM drops. It seems like if there were an intermediate fan speed then we wouldn't see the alternating fan speeds as much, though replacing the thermal paste might get you performance such that the lower fan speed can keep up with the heat better.

 

Hey guys, I just got one of these laptops for £200, and it's an excellent little machine. Only bad things is the lackluster cooling heatsink and noisy fan.
I have a problem though. I can't get my wifi to connect at anything faster than 54mbps. My download speeds never seem to exceed 800kbp/s - 1.2mbp/s. My desktop downloads at my max speed which is around 7mbp/s

I've got the wifi drivers from Clevo's website installed. Anyone have any ideas what going on?

 

What wireless card is it you're using? What Router is being connected to?

 

Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 connected to a TPLINK TL-WR2543 running DDWRT

 

Wow, really that slow? my internet connection is 76Mb/s, I guess I was just expecting too much from it. I assumed it was common place for laptops from the last 5 years or so to be at least 144Mbp/s

Oh well, guess I should just upgrade to a better wireless card. Can you recommend one?

Edit/ Wait, I just checked the product page on Intel's website and it says the 6235 is capable of 300Mbp/s ??

 

76Mb/s is pretty fast, not much places have that type of speed available. To double check you can go to Speedtest.net by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test. Check your speed while directly plugged into ethernet, then again just wireless off your router. You can also check your router settings.

 

Hey guys, I have a w350et, purchased from Eurocom Computers in Ottawa. Had this thing since Jan 2013, lately it seems to have been running warm - I recall when I got it that it would idle in the mid-30's (celsius), and while gaming go to no more than 46 C. However, last few months it's been running hot (idle is unstable, between 36 and 46 C fluctuating), and the gaming temps (for Eve online, not a very demanding piece of software) are in the mid 60's. Problem first manifested as thermal throttling while playing Dirt3 (game getting choppy during longer races, alt-tabbing to core-temp showed a clock speed of 1.3ghz instead of the 2.4-3.4 it should have been).

Repasted the CPU, cleaned the chassis with compressed air, and all should be good mechanically... However, running HWinfo64 shows my fan is going to a dead stop when it hits 36, and only spinning into low mode (1160 rpm) once it hits ~55 C. Is this at all similar to behaviour you guys are getting from your laptops? If not, does anyone know of a solution? I looked around for some sort of fan controller to manually set fan speeds based on temperature, but no luck as of yet :/ Other than this it's been a fantastic little thing, amazing for gaming, would be great if I could fix it (dont want to buy GTAV and have my laptop combust haha).

*edit* Just a heads up, I have been managing the gaming with a Premamod bio, using the keyboard shortcut to manually cycle the fans, thought I'd mention... But it's a band-aid solution, and I'd prefer to get to the root of the issue

 

You are not remembering correctly, it won't have been gaming at 46c before. Temperature throttling usually occurs decently beyond 80c. I would monitor using intel xtu and gpu-z over gameplay to confirm any throttle reasons.

 

Have a midterm later today, I'll grab gaming logs tonight when I have some spare time to verify the throttling. I do have logs from basic browsing, reading pdf files, etc (studying activities this morning), shows fan kicking in erratically - cycles in the mid 40's first time, then disengages, reengages in the 50's at the low setting, then disengages once it hits 40-42, then the next time it kicks back on is in the 60's. Logged with HWinfo64, as it's the only software I'm aware of with actual fan monitoring for the w350et - D,E,F,G are the individual core temperature readings, S is the fan RPM.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cauvtwi7tzl8k31/logging thermal fans.CSV?dl=0