*** Official Sager NP8170/Clevo P170HM Owners Lounge ***

So is the problem only isolated for those who plan on using the SATA ports?

Damn... well I'll be canceling my order for NP8170 now..

 

Canceling only takes you out of line.

I would recommend patience, not panic, at this point until we have better information on the timing of the resolution.

 

From the sound of it. Although I'm not sure how much you're going to accomplish without being able to use SATA; Can you boot from USB3.0 or FireWire?

 

No, the only ports at harm are the SATA II ports. ( ODD, eSATA )

the two HDD bays in the 8170 are SATA III, and they are not affected by this issue.

 

Yeah, I agree with Donald...patience is probably the best solution here, and I got my 8170 just recently, only to find out that I have to send it back because of this recall. It really sucks, I know. -.-

I'm interested to see how this affects development of future Sager models, because of the inevitable delay.

 

I ordered mine from xoticpc. Justin, will you guys be halting orders as well?

 

Clevo gave the ordered for everyone to halt the orders, sager will oblige, and I am sure the rest will aswell.

 

Hello,

of course right now everyone is talking about the SB problems, but have a little break and take a look at another review of the P170HM at notebookcheck.de (with GTX 470m / 2630qm):
Test Deviltech Fragbook DTX (Clevo P170HM) Notebook - Notebookcheck.com Tests

 

I saw your response in the other post but just to state it here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...-recall-sandy-bridge-cpus-10.html#post7115160

Apparently eSata does not use the on chip sata ports. Not sure what it uses then, but I'll take it with a grain of salt at the moment. I hope Sager/Clevo clears this up with a concise response in detail.

 

Got the P170HM today! Was able to squeeze two 1 TB HDD and one SSD into it
Now installing the OS... I will post some benchs within the next hours...

 

Hope you didn't put the SSD in the optical slot...

 

The only silver-lining I can take from this, is that I won't be pinching pennies in April or May, so I'll be able to spring for an SSD boot drive. Plus choosing the 6970M is potentially freeing up an extra $300+, so that's very tempting.

Now, the worst thing that could happen, would be Nvidia or AMD announcing release dates for the next generation of GPUs. Any mention of Q3 would be torture.

 

Nah, I don't think Intel will give up that easy on SB.

Due to recall, most likely the IB will get pushed back to Q1 2012 or later..

As Intel hasn't actually "maximized" profit from the SB quite yet..

and transition to IB will only eat away that desired profit until the SB market is saturated..

 

I was referring to news of the AMD 7000M or Nvidia 500M, not IB.

I expect this recall to push IB back to Q2 2012, which matters little to GPU focused consumers like myself.

 

Ah, my bad then.

Yup, certainly gives us some time to contemplate the upcoming GPU's.

But for clevo's you know that it is easily upgradeable...

And I don't think this MXM 3.0B is going anywhere....

 

Sager and Clevo have consulted together and have decided that both Sager and Clevo will halt all pending shipments of Intel 6 series chipset systems. Models include Sager NP5160, NP5170, NP8130, NP8150, NP8170. (Clevo: W150HNQ, W170HN, P150HM, P151HM1, P170HM).

2. The current schedule is that starting in the middle of Feb 2011, Intel will start supplying qualification samples of the new revision of Intel 6 series chipset to Clevo. Clevo RD and QC will make it their first priority to test and qualify this new chip revision and prepare for mass production.

3. Currently the mass production version of the revised 6 series is scheduled to begin delivery from Intel to Clevo in limited quantities at the end of Feb 2011. We estimate that we will resume limited quantity shipment of Sager models NP8130, NP8150, and NP8170 in the middle of March 2011 and limited quantity of NP5160, NP5170 models at the end of March to the beginning of April 2011. Stabilization of shipment for all models should occur by the end of April 2011.


Q&A:

Q: What if I have already received my system or a system is on the way?
A: The chip flaw at issue should not happen immediately. Please continue to use your system as is. Once the stabilization of shipment occurs, Sager will start a recall program for all affected models that have already been shipped.

We will offer 3 day air both ways shipping to replace the affected systems with a brand new motherboard as well as resetting your warranty period to restart from the date the recall service is completed.

We estimate to start the recalling process between May-June’11.

Q: Should I cancel my pre-order?
A: As the 2nd generation Core processors have shown potential in performance gain in many areas, supply was already on a very tight inventory control. This recall will further restrict supply through the first half of 2011. Our suggestion is that if you do not have any urgent need of a new system, you should keep your pre-order as your credit card will not be charged until we have a unit ready for your order and your consent to go forward. We believe that it would be best to keep your pre-order open as you will not have to restart at the end of the pre-order list.

 

Thanks babyhemi for that clarification!

Good news that it sounds like the issue isn't that critical that they recommend returning the laptops for return ASAP. Hopefully I can find a few week gap by June to be able to send in my machine for update.

Any chance this could be swapped out with a Z68 motherboard by then?

 

No matter how much you wish, your not getting that Z68 motherboard They don't even have a Z(M)68 on their roadmap (Intel). You're going to have to hope for the x7200 replacement running on desktop parts for that.

 

So we are probably looking at mid-March then- then at least the 6970m will also be out and hopefully a sli/SB-Clevo capable lappy also comes out! Dual 6970m! the way to go!

 

Ok good to know. What little I've read of Z68 mentioned desktop but wasn't sure if there was a mobile counterpart in the works. We can dream can't we?

You'll probably have to get one of the laptops with desktop CPU to get SLI. Based on Sager's announcement mid-March for limited quantity. I'm sure if you were already on the waiting list (pre-order) then you may be fortunate enough to receive one of the first run ones.

 

have you ordered a laptop yet? if so, when did you order yours?

 

I honestly didn't think this would happen. I ordered early thinking I'd have it in time to play Planetside Next in March. I tried to see if Malibal would ship my laptop since I only have a single SSD and an optical drive, but that was a no go and was told I'd have to wait. Hardest part still...

 

Upon searching for laptops with the coveted GTX 485M, I came upon this forum in mid-Jan (excellent), and was only one day or so from ordering a NP8170 when the bottom fell out of SB. Had already even purchased A/M SSD, RAM and HDD for the rig - fortunately able to cancel them. Probably works out though because all of these items might be a few dollars cheaper in a month or two. Question is: should I submit an order now (if I still can), get on a pre-order list and hope to get a unit in March at the earliest it would seem, or wait to order with the potential risk of not getting one till April or later? Shame having to wait 30+ days either way!

 

Well, like you said, you will probably have to wait 30+ days either way, so it probably comes down to whether you want to commit now or later (this is especially so if you are considering cash payment vs cc).

I believe it was mentioned earlier that sb should go back to stable production sometime in April, so if you want a quicker turnaround, you can always wait till then. Not to mention that machines with the 6970m could be available then if you want to go that route.

 

Thank you for the information. When you said you got yours already and started talking about it, I kind of started drooling at the mouth.

Can you please answer some questions? Thank you very much in advance.

1. Does all 5 speakers work right away? I have heard that there needs to be upgrades or updates to get them all to work?

2. What is the battery life like?

3. How is the screen?

4. How is the build? Is the top or top of the cover aluminum?

Thank you again.

 

I will answer #1. It depends on the content your playing. an example is if your just playing an MP3 from media player you will get sound out of the front two speakers, if you play a DVD movie that has 5.1 you will get sound out of all the speakers. You will probably have some tweaking to do to ensure all the speakers are firing (at least in my rig that was true). This is assuming of course you have all the proper drivers and software installed.

 

I will be doing a full review once I receive my machine, hopefully tomorrow.

 

Thank you, I appreciate it. Your machine isn't delayed at all?

 

UPS is still showing delivery tomorrow (2/3). I can't guarantee a full review in a day, but I'll give my initial impressions and pictures as soon as I can and follow up with a review with a multitude of benchmarks in a couple days.

 

Hey guys, my million dollar question to you guys is this...

Are the gains between the GTX470M and the 485M enough to warrant an upgrade? I want to know what 485M owners and 470M owners think, so I can make an informed choice. Thanks!

 

imo, I don't think it is for the price it cost. thats me though.

 

You'd see a 30 to 40 percent advantage, across every game. It's that simple, really.

That's worth $295 to many. It would be, for me.

The truer statement, is that the 470M is not worth $200 over the 460M.

 

Hopefully we can answer that question in the next couple of days. Only problem is I don't have very many games to benchmark.

 

Yeah Mr. Marvin here and I are going to try to do some benchmark comparisons. He has GTX 470m, I'm getting GTX 485m hopefully tomorrow.

 

Here some 3dMark Vantage/11 benches:


Stock (GTX 485M@575/1150/1500)

3DMark Vantage Performance-Preset: GPU-Score 12232



3DMark 11 Performance-Preset: GPU-Score 2690




3DMark 11 Extreme-Preset: GPU-Score 866




OC GTX 485M@720/1440/1800

3DMark Vantage Performance-Preset: GPU-Score 15191


3DMark 11 Performance-Preset: GPU-Score 3292


3DMark 11 Extreme-Preset: GPU-Score 1079



~ 22% (3DMark 11) - 24% (3DMark Vantage) performance gain.

We need an update for nibitor to change the core-voltage of the GPU.

And we need Clevo to release an BIOS update to have use of the unlocked multiplier of those very expensive XM-CPU!!!!

 

That's a pretty significant overclock, nice. Assuming stable and cool?

 

if it has that much of an advantage, then I'll change my mind

 

I think it's safe to assume that you're dead on. Hopefully I'll be upgrading soon!

 

@mcbane thats insane oc for stock volts i dont think you can oc more even with more volts i seriously thought 700 was the limit

with more volts if you reach 850 thats awesome man

btw is it running stable for games? what settings you ran furmark for stability?

 

i'm pretty sure, overvolt at 0.9V or even 1V will push the limit further.
nibitor 6.0 isn't able to read the bios, need to wait for an update.

gaming isn't a problem. played crysis 1h, everything fine.

but u're right, that is the limit (for me know). every mhz further will result a driver-reset (but it isn't a big problem here, just restart the app with lower clocks, no restart or disable-enable necessary).

any1 able to oc the XM? maybe i missed something or did we realy need a bios from clevo?

 

My goodness!

For the sake of the recent 470M discussion, the stock GTX 470M scores ~8.5k in Vantage GPU. Overclocked to it's limit, it reaches about 10,800.

Comparing these numbers to his results shows you that, even overclocked, the GTX 470M can not reach even the full stock GTX 485M's 12k.

Truly a leap in every sense of the word.

With that said, preliminary reports have the 6970M within 10% of this level (stock Vantage GPU of over 11k), and it may be as much as $400 cheaper than the GTX 485M.

 

Last I heard, offical CPU overclocking is on the way. They're hammering out bugs with the XTU, last I heard.

Have you tried ThrottleStop yet? That should have full support for the extreme CPUs.

 

Man, that really makes it hard to decide to upgrade to a 6970 or a 485M...but you're right, the results don't lie!

 

Thx for the hint!
maybe i need more time to figure out how to use it... i set the ratio limits to 34 (above the stock 32), but they didn't raise the maximum-frequence at all (3.2 GHz).

i guess we can't oc until the necessary biosmod is available.

 

Yeah, I just wish they'd release pricing and availability already. That way I'll know whether to return my NP8170 or not. I know I have 30 days, but I won't want to tinker much with it if I don't know if I'm going to return it. If it's only a $200 savings, well, I guess it's worth that 10%, but $400 savings would be phenomenal and I'll take advantage of that.

 

Yeah, if it's only $200 cheaper, I'll still go Nvidia for the peace of mind. Any more than that, and I'll have to go AMD. This mystical $400 figure might be too good to be true. This is Eurocom, so temper your expectations.

Well, we have plenty of time to think on it. /cry

We don't even have the official price yet. All we know is that it will cost something to upgrade from 460M -> 6970M. I personally don't expect it to be less than +$150. This $75 CAD amount that's getting tossed around is quite far from confirmed, when the source is considered.

Check out this guide, which was made by the creator of the program.

 

Hmm, so the P170HM still doesn't have the XTU implemented?

I thought Sager was working on XTU and that's why it was being delayed compared to the other models like the P151HM1 and P150HM.

 

I ordered an NP8170 with the GTX 485M yesterday just so that I could get on the list. I emailed the reseller today to make sure I can change my order to the 6970 if it becomes available between now and April.I was told that it would put me back at the end of the line..lol I will already be waiting until the end of April, whats a few more weeks.

Anyone know what type of Matte Screen Sager is now offering as an option on the 8170? I purchased the upgrade since I have been using a Matte screen for the past few years. I wonder if the picture quality will be on par with the Glossy screen? Plus the Matte screen was a 200 dollar option. OUCH

 

Who did you buy it from?

Changing the configuration should not push you back to the end of the line.

I bought mine from babyhemi, and he kept me on the same position regardless of my config.

 

I ordered mine through Xotic.. It would be nice to keep my spot in line if I do decide to change my order. However, If the 6970 ends up 200+ cheaper than the 485 then I will be changing my order even if it does cause a longer delay.