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

Heres some screenshots compared to my old laptop. My old laptops monitor was kind of shiity. You will see in the screenshots. You will notice that the old laptop is kind of dull and not very bright. Thats not the lighting in the room. Thats how big of a difference it is. I did resize the images, but i did not compress them.

 

SC2 is the most intense. But i play LoL, DoD, Killing Floor, Portal 2 as well as whatever i feel like playing. I've got a long list of games. LoL seems like a totally new game. Its incredible with this laptop and screen.

 

ya, I can definitely see a difference between the two screens. The 90% definitely has a cleaner and brighter look than your last laptop. Now, I'm glad to make this purchase.

+1 for taking the time to take the pics and posting them.

 

ahh, mostly new games....do you by any chance play WoW or Rift? I'm curious about how they might run on the 8170-S1.

 

Nah, ive thought about getting rift, but i dont have it or i would try it out. Im pretty sure it could handle it ok though. Now raids on WoW, it may lag some though. I played some custom games in SC2 that are like crazy units coming out every which way and it handled it like an champ.

 

Lets see some screen shots from the stock screen. You guys have me beyond nervous. I shouldnt have to upgrade to get a decent screen on a 2k dollar notebook.

 

Well I'm even more glad I got the 485M now.

 

@Kungfu looking at those screens im a lil disappointed at my screen now lol. My old HP HDX 18t screen has the screen that yours has and now im considering to make some changes :/

 

Gonna post some shots of my screen today.
Just waiting for my Sony Alpha 230 to recharge.

No luck with the HyperX XMP 1600mhz yet, tried it in the slots under the keyboard but no go.
Going to try to reprogram the SPD from 1333 c9 to 1333 c7.
Temp in my "beast" look OK to me i just got the "standard" cooling paste on it.
I refuse to pay 25 bucks for somthing special.
Thermalright Chill Factor 3 is 5 bucks.
Zalman Thermal Grease ZM-STG2 is 6 bucks.
and i can do like 4 laptops with them.

the Crucial c300 128Gb is amazing. get little over 300mb read and 140 write with it.
It is faster when using the marvel sata6 on my REX3 witch did 350Mb write but i am OK with it

 

Guys, how many hertz (screen refresh rate) does these screens support?

 

I want to point out now. With the setup in my signature I just played Crysis 2 flawlessly at 1920x1080 as the Extreme settings. That was a fun 11 hours of playtime. Definitely a good game to kick off testing a new laptop.

 

So how are the stock screens on this laptop? I got the 17.3" FHD 16:9 "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Glossy Screen (1920x1080)

 

Is Sager out of the 460M all together? How could they be out of it for just one model? I read somewhere else that they are out of the 470M. I hope my 8130 isn't delayed!

 

Sometimes it's the heatsink for the model that is out of stock at the moment. For example, the NP8170 heatsink for 460M card is different than the heatsink for the NP8130.
_

 

[tinfoil hat]

Maybe they're depleting stock, in anticipation of GTX 500M

[/tinfoil hat]

 

I have the stock screen, and am very satisfied!
the viewing angle could beter.de black levels are not like on my 24 "screen ISP but this is normal for a laptop.
The color reproduction is very good, better than my previous laptops, photos look very natural and for gaming I do not think it's worth spending more money on a better display.

 

Nice! Thanks for the reassurance!

 

I'm finally ready to order.

If the 6970M isn't available within the next two weeks, I'll have to pass. A cheaper component means little, when you can't get your hands on it.

In that case, I'll just take the GTX 460M, and will upgrade to the 6990M or 500M whenever.

For me, having a screen that displays the full potential of the machines components is very important.

It's like buying a better HDTV, to play your Blu-rays.

 

Must also be for the 470m because from what i was told today on my order it is also not available, only 485's.


np-8170-s1/2820/16g/470m/120g 510m + 750g

 

Why not buy directly to GTX485m, Now you spend money on a GTX 460m seems like a waste of money!

the price of a GTX460m + 570m or 6990 will be equal to that of a GTX 485m are.
Not to mention all the extra effort!
Waiting for the best of the best is simply impossible, there will always be new technology waiting around the corner!


A question for the Clevo p170hm owners out there!
I have my windows put on 5.1 speaker configuration, but this works only during the test when playing music I hear nothing from the surround speakers and subwoofer. " i use the intern laptop speakers"

hdoes anyone know how to solve this problem?

 

Ughhh i hope Xotic PC starts building mine on Monday, my check has been cleared for over 2 weeks, and nothing. I even emailed them asking whats up but it's been 3 days with no response.

How long should i give them before taking action?

 

Yeah I know. Truth be told, I've had some unforeseen financial expenditures, so the $500 actually means something to me now. I'm in a bit of a tight spot. My current machine is dying, so I don't have time to wait another month for savings, or the 6970M.

I think I can manage the 485M if I stick to the default screen, and drop the Blu-ray player and Intel 6300. I can more easily upgrade those later.

 

Yea i figured it would be easier to upgrade the optical drive or ram than having to repaste and install a gpu, so i skimped on ram and optic drive in favor of the 485m

 

Yeah, I'm gonna give the 6970m two weeks as well before I pull the trigger on a 485M.

 

I can confirm that at least as of last Wednesday, XoticPC got hold of me to tell me that the 470m was out of stock until at least the 2nd week of April and that if I wanted it to ship before that I should either downgrade to the 460m or upgrade to the 485m. I chose the 485m simply because I can't see going all out on a machine and then putting a bottom end video card in it. Granted it was a bit out of my budget, but I know I can make it happen now. Who knows what my financial condition will be in a few months when some of the newer cards come out. If I decide I want to upgrade at that time, I can always put the 485m on Ebay or something and try and make some of what I spent back.

As far as the standard screen goes, I have nothing else to compare it to, other than my fiance's G73. To me it looks incredible. I have no bleed. the colors are bright and clear, the detail is crisp. Black seems to be very black, not washed out grey.

 

I happen to be in that unlucky few who got a screen with a bad pixel.

It's the upgraded 90% gamut screen and it's a stuck blue pixel in the center area of the screen.

I get to contact XoticPC tomorrow to see if they can help in the matter. Maybe I should've dropped $100 on the 30 day screen warranty.

I'll post a picture up if it doesn't go away tomorrow (running JScreenFix on it). Figure I'd mention it in case other people are on the fence about getting that warranty with the upgraded screens.

 

I have also have stuck pixel in center of my screen. I was replacing by myself from stock glare screen to matte display. For me JScreenFix doesn't helped

 

The other methods for stuck pixel repair sound pretty scary, definitely not something I want to try on a brand new piece of hardware.

 

Yup but I tried those methods like this pixel massage, pushing etc.. nothing helped but screen is still working of course. It me cause it's on center of the screen.
Mine is green and it's visible always on dark background.

I'm running second day on Ubuntu 10.10 and i haven't any freezes. So one of the driver for Windows 7 is causing those unexpected freezes. I thought previously maybe I have damaged hardware or something.

 

That isn't good news. I was under the assumption stuck pixels had a higher chance of being fixed with those methods.

 

Well the guy who suggested the fix kept massaging his pixels for a week until they all disappeared...so I'd suggest you keep trying.

Mr. Mysterious

 

You guys got shipped stuck pixels on upgraded screens? That's is absolutely unacceptable.

You paid $220, then they installed the screen, turned it on and saw that there were bad pixels, yet shipped it anyway. bad business. Paying extra should guarantee you a perfect screen.

Also leads me to believe, that premium screens with faults will just be passed on to the next guy, if someone else buys the stuck pixels warranty.

In that case, I'll just buy and install the screen myself, so at least it will come with its own warranty.

 

Yea whenever i get any sort of portable device i dread getting dead pixels, i remember i had to buy and return like 7 psps cause they all had dead or stuck pixels....i'm crossin my fingers that my Sager doesn't have the same problem, i don't wanna have to deal with returns.

 

If you're getting it with the standard screen I'd recommend you bail out while you still can. Dead pixels or not. Unless you want to buy another 150 dollar/euro screen.

 

The threads here make it seem like that is the case (it gave me that impression, too), I just wanted to state that those who are buying upgraded screens are also bound to luck of the draw. There really aren't any others who posted about having problems with their screens when bought from their resellers so I think I'm just special. I apparently have a knack for getting laptops with bad pixels as this happened with other brands which was a factor in me going for a Sager system (Bad pixels on a luxury laptop?! Blasphemy!).

See here. Unless their policy has changed within the last 6 years, the faulty screens get sold off elsewhere at a discounted price. Although that is what Sager does with their screens, I'd assume the resellers do the same.

To avoid a double post, is it unusual that my USB 3.0, Card Reader, Integrated Ethernet, and Wireless are not detected at all? The driver disc does not detect those. Are the 6230 drivers included on the CD or do I have to download the 400 meg file just to see if my system is broken?

 

I also think that if you pay for the upgraded screen especially at these prices, it should include the 30 day screen guarantee at no extra cost. As much as it sucks, if they don't fix it for free including shipping, then I would just return it and order a new one.

 

My 6300 wireless quit working after I applied the ridiculous amount of updates Microsoft felt the machine needed out of the box. I did not check the cd, but the download from Intel was not huge. It was just shy of 37 MB. Strangely the Intel utility is convinced no Intel adapter is installed, but Windows sees it and now it works just fine.

 

In this case, the pixel was in the center area of the screen so normal warranty should cover any associated fees regarding shipping and repair. Even without that, there appears to be other problems that may require returning and ordering a new one or otherwise doing some form of exchange.

Unless someone here happens to know what's going on with the other components, I'll have to wait until tomorrow to contact XoticPC to confirm the issue isn't due to ignorance on my end.

This happened on a fresh Windows 7 64-bit install. I also tried the download from Intel, all that it'd do is show a square with a wireless logo and it'd spin for 10-15 seconds, then program closes. I installed all the drivers on the CD that it'd let me and windows isn't seeing any unrecognized devices. Pressing FN-11 just gives me a wireless icon with "Off" next to it no matter how many times I press it.

 

I may be totally off base, but is there a bios setting that disables the on-board wireless and allows the add-on wireless card to operate? Might check that.

 

Nope. I checked it before and checked it again just now. There really aren't many options in my bios screen. The closest thing to what you describe is a setting to remember the last state of bluetooth power.

 

I may be totally off-base too, but just for sh*ts&giggles, try disabling/uninstalling the USB3.0 drivers. This issue isn't unique to Sager laptops, and in another laptop that was experiencing these problems, it turned out to be USB3.0 wreaking havoc.

I've asked before here, but didn't get a reply: do you know what USB3.0 controller the Sager uses? The driver name should tell you...(NEC, Fresco, etc.)

 

How do you uninstall what isn't there? I can't install the drivers since it isn't detected.

USB 3.0, integrated lan, wireless lan, and card reader apparently do not exist on my system according to Windows.

 

The difference here is, Sager's factory is not installing these screens and shipping them straight to customers.

Sager ships to reseller -> Reseller removes default and installs premium screen -> Reseller powers on machine to test install. -> Reseller sees dead pixels -> Reseller ships it anyway.

The 30 day Sager pixel warranty doesn't even apply here, which is kinda scary.

 

I asked them about that since I made the same assumption. They will honor the 30 day warranty with the upgraded screens.

I don't think they would've purposely shipped it like that knowing there was a stuck pixel. As I said before, the pixel falls within the center area so it is something covered by normal warranty. Why ship it out fully aware it's coming right back at them?

I don't believe there is anything shady going on. Everyone else here seem to be happy with their systems.

 

You might want to try reflashing your bios. Other people who were having troubles with usb/lan/wlan/card reader did this and resolved their problems.

 

I bought new screen and replaced myself stock screen. When i was in shop i tested new matte lcd panel and it was 100% ok, no pixels defected. After installing it in my Clevo and working 2 days stuck pixel arrived I wrote to my shop for return they sad that screens are class 2 and I can't return it with one stuck pixel. Bad luck for me. Maybe I'll keep trying massaging this display .

wraptor -> where do you have newest bios for Clevo P170HM ? becouse I don't think so it is available right now.

 

If i upgraded the screen i wouldn't have been able to afford the gtx 485m.

I'm sure it'll be good enough for browsing and games...if its bad for games i was planning on plugging it into my hdtv anyways....besides...i was used to using a crappy 2004 gateway laptop's screen before it burnt out, so i'll bet this lowest tier screen will still seem like an improvement to me....as long as there's no dead pixels that is.

 

Is there a place to download that? Does warranty cover it if something goes wrong?

 

What carrying case or backpack does everyone use for the NP8170's? I see on the reseller sites they list the Targus XL. Is that what everyone gets or something else? Just curious.

 

Isn't the stock screen the same one as the NP8690? That screen was amazing