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

I ordered mine without the cover logo. And I took off the HDMI and THX stickers. I think it's a discreet and beautiful machine without any visible advertising/branding.

 

I want folks to know its a Sager, I'm sure they will ask who the heck made that and what it has in it!!

 

Good thing about being able to remove the branding is if anyone wants to add a skin, you won't have to worry about the logo showing ever so slightly behind the skin.

But I also agree with rsdunphy, it is a good way to show off to people

 

How can you add a skin ? You mean like putting a large sticker on the back?

Here is how it works it a logo free laptop:

My laptop is logo free as well. I love it how everyone asks me what it is. I proudly answer: "It's a Clevo".
To this people usually react in two ways: "Clevo, I never heard of them!" to which I say: ""Yes, they make the best laptops in the world.""
OR
"Oh, I thought it was an Alienware". to which I say "That's kinda like insulting my laptop".

 

Great response to the Alienware question

I was referring to the skinning option we offer. Other companies do it too, but I've noticed on some Sagers the logo tends to stick "out" of the skin. We try to remove the logo when we can, but this just makes it a little bit easier.

 

Why don't you upload this PDF to Mediafire and post a link? I am curious on what this is...

Free File Hosting Made Simple - MediaFire

_

 

Hey RS my curiosity was piqued too, I guess the board really needs to experience that PDF? Speaking of the board, I just commented the other day on the speed of our cosa nostra (ok, our little thing) & how fast the pages are flippin'. I see us at . 500 pages by Halloween.

I'm just saying

 

When I was dreaming of my laptop, I COMPILED (that is, I am not the author) a huge PDF on the NP8170. Reviews of the laptop and also of the Intel CPU. I also imbedded video reviews into the doc. It's a great sales tool ..... I'll try media-fire.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/xzz15g07qo0eesm/NP8170.pdf

 

Love that phrase.....

Thanks Dude!

 

I meant "When I was dreaming of my laptop,

 

I'll stipulate that that is what you meant.

But, I still love how that came out. Anybody involved in creative endeavors has occasionally written or otherwise emoted something that came from within & it usually happens mysteriously.

Speaking of mysterious.....have not seen Mr Mysterious around these parts in awhile.

 

Is that the factory skinning that Clevo offers? Or is it just adding those sticker like skins that you put on the of the laptop, like this: White Stallion Horse Protective Laptop Skin LS009 | eBay ?

 

We actually use high quality vinyl prints for our skins and apply them with a heat-activated adhesive. We also remove the border around the monitor so we can fold the skin back into the laptop, so it looks seamless.

 

anyone has an issue with their speakers? I just got mine today, I've noticed that my left speaker is more louder than the right. Is that normal? anyone with the same issue?

 

Use the THX True Studio to balance the front to rear. Also it seems to be a real study in how to adjust the settings. I just found another applet that's in the control panel. Click on sound then click on speakers and then the speaker setup. So many settings to mess with. I don't think anyone has the definitive answer. It's all a matter of taste. Have a loud movie going in a small window and then just have at it with all the applets. Be sure to get the latest sound driver from Sager, it made a big difference and mow it looks like there is more control.

 

Is it normal, that the secondary HDD assembly doesn't come with the screws needed to attach the HDD? I opened it up to finally reinstall my 320GB, but I can't since there were none included.

 

thanks you.. i've tried to install the driver from the CD it comes with and it made both speakers balanced and more bass but i noticed that the jack only showed 1 3.5 mm socket. And when i tried the latest driver from sager, there are 4 3.5mm socket showing and imo i like the quality of the driver from the CD than the latest. Its just me. Maybe if you plug-in external speakers then the latest driver would be much better, i guess.

 

I believe mine just plugged in and the CDROM holds it in place.

 

WOW! the forum is back. Where did it go moderator?

 

Are you talking about the mounting screws for the HDD or the screws that mount the caddy in place? The former should come with your hard drive, unless you ordered OEM. The latter should be included with the caddy or the laptop itself (if something was already installed).

 

Yes that was one of the longest times that I have seen the forum down.

_

 

Power outage apparently.

 

Still my right speaker is having a problem it is weak as so when you listen to music, it would seem like the left speaker is the one only working. but both right and left is working , its just the left is more prominent & clear while the right is barely their and harsh and distorted. I tried Headphones but everything is doing fine. It really is a Physical problem. : other 4 speaker is clearly fine except the right.

 

Check with your retailer- it could very well be a faulty or blown speaker. It's unusual, but not impossible.

 

Yes this is quite unusual. Your dealer or reseller may have some options for you to get this fixed. Keep us posted!
-

 

here is a record for me. My upstairs room is 80F and while runnign Civ 5, my fan popped on, the GPU was running at 169F

 

80F is a little warmer room than most we have seen here. But 76C is not bad for the GPU. Looks good.
_

 

Thanks man, that makes me feel better

 

This ended up working for me too, no screws needed.

It's nice to finally offload a bulk GB of data to a bigger drive.

 

You and me both, I had about 500gb in old TV shows and movies converted to .avi for when I travel and it's nice to the 3rd drive in place of the CDROM which I rarely if ever used.

 

Okay did ANYBODY do the nVidia driver update to 280.26 today or recently, and lose ALL OF THE SOUND?

I tried a system restore, no joy. Attempting a driver rollback now.

Weirdness is, I can see the volume bars going up and down in the volume indicator in the taskbar, also in the sound when testing in control panel. But NOTHING out my speakers....

Suggestions? (I didn't see anything that would allow me to modify sound in the BIOS)

 

I am NOT doing any driver update as my laptop is running perfect!. It's down to business now and just use it and abuse it!

 

If I could, I would kick my own ar$e right now. WHY are there updates put out that cause conflicts like this? I have searched online for several hours now, and finding no solution - ANYONE WHO CAN HELP me get my sound back PLEASE weigh in!

 

The Nvidia driver shouldn't have any impact on sound- that's the realtek driver. Did you reinstall the realtek driver to see if that helps? Is the audio device even installed? (Check under Computer > advanced > device manager). Also check under Control panel > sound to make sure that it's enabled.

For what it's worth, I'm running 285.38 and haven't seen any issues like that.

If worst comes to worst, you can do a system restore in Windows or a fresh install.

 

Here is something I just noticed, and wondering if this was the issue before hand all along - there is a broken end piece of an spdif cord in the spdif jack, I can see the red light and the piece is almost flush with the jack. Before of course, the red light was recessed in the hole.

I can get sound out of my headphones (though I don't get a message they are plugged in/removed anymore) but not speakers.

Is that piece of the spdf cable end telling the computer to not put sound out through the speakers?


@ Malibal - the only reason I suspected the nVidia was because of nVidia tech support, where she advised me that nVidia also installs an audio codec that can over-ride the system one. She then told me to go into BIOS and enable sound - to which I replied, 'no such option in this BIOS'.... OH, and also did the sys restore which did not remove the driver, I had to physically roll it back in device manager, but that didn't resolve the issue.

 

Are you connecting your system to a TV or another external source. I've run into an issue which is forcing me to use old drivers with my desktop computer. If I use my dvi to hdmi with a stereo cable to my tv I get no sound at all. I unplug the cable sound comes out of my computer speakers fine. IF I use older drivers I get sound out of my tv.

 

I see one solution workflow already posted, let us know if that solves your problem with the sound.

And I'm with RS on this update thing, and as I have previously stated: "Don't Nobody Touch Nothin' " will be my position until we can have a unified set of proven drivers.

How we get there is still not clear is it?

 

You referring to reinstalling my OS as a workflow that I should try before receiving any other help?

At this point I personally disagree. I have too many documents and software installs right now to see an OS reinstall as an option this early in the diagnosis.

I have done the sys restore, a driver rollback and a driver removal and reinstall. 'Speakers' appears in sound manager, it is enabled and is the default. The levels move when media is played. No sound through speakers but headphones give sound. It appears as realtek audio in device manager under sounds video and game controllers, along with probably 4 nVidia audio devices directly above it.

I have made no mention of connecting my laptop to an external source. It is just as it is, nothing connected to it before I noticed my speakers had no sound. Now, there are headphones. There is also that pesky piece of the spdif cable that I wrote about a couple of posts back and did not notice there before my very first post on the topic.

Sound comes through headphones, I can also see the level indicator bars go up and down in volume when I'm not using the headphones, but only sound is through the headphones.

So, could that broken piece of jack in the spdif output be causing external speakers to not work? I'd like to know that before getting more active, drastic or intensive.

 

Can you get the broken part out?

If you are going to perform an extraction:
1. Don't use propofol....miss ya MJ !!
2. Turn off the beast- "shutdown"
3. Remove the battery and wait ~30 seconds
4. Fashion a hook from a paper clip or other small diameter wire
5. Don't probe any deeper than the end of the broken piece
6. Remove the offending piece

I have not been inside that jack to see if something cuts off when a jack is inserted. Be careful Animatrix!!

 

Actually no, I was referring to everything before that. Whew. Reinstall is always the last resort. Luckily, IF you have to go that route, your laptop is in otherwise perfect condition so saving/moving files for safe keeping is do-able.
Sure hope it does not come to that though.....

 

Snicker! So we don't know if going through trying to jimmy that l'il sucker out will restore onboard speaker functionality?

It is plastic, so my hubby is suggesting seal picks (automotive) but I may try to find a teeny screw and get it turned in just enough to pull it out. Luck luck luck, leave well enough alone, all that. Sager tech is telling me to uninstall all the nvidia and realtek drivers from add/remove, and reboot for them to reinstall. I just had to write back to them to ask if the spdif jack is related to the issue before I go off to market uninstalling some more.

Gonna try to get that piece out first, seems like the easiest thing to cross off the list at this point even if nobody knows for sure.

 

ISSUE RESOLVED - had to do what the Sager guy told me in email support, which was to uninstall all nVidia items from Add/Remove programs and features in control panel, AND uninstall the Realtek from there as well.

Two restarts and auto-reinstalls done by windows update, sound is up and running again on speakers and headphones. Spdif didn't have anything to do with it, it was some sort of driver conflict. Thank goodness cause I can't get the damn piece of jack out!

 

BRAVA. & in just over an hour you got it up & running

As Nana Rosanna Dana says:"it's always something....."

 

YuuuuuuuuuuuUUP. It is.

I also downloaded 64bit_Vista_Win7_R265.exe

I did this to restore realtek sound manager application. That file also included some codecs that took three separate 'speaker' icons in my Sounds panel, and united them into one icon. Before this final download/ install, when I clicked 'test' on those speaker icons, two of them played only the back speakers and one played the front ones -- Fn+5 didn't do anything.

They are working normally again, no more schism.

I'll post later if my HDMI icon doesn't reappear next time I plug in a cable to the hdmi port.

 

I tend to disagree, my sound system is very much nVidia affected and this is stock with the exception of the new realtek driver from sager. This is one of the reasons I don't update nVidia driver.

 

Don't forget to check the settings for sound devices and make sure that speakers are set to default and not digital output.

 

Hmm I reinstalled Team Fortress 2 and played a bit last night. For some reason, the fans were kicking up like crazy; I ran CPUID while playing another match and it was recording a high of 92 degrees Celsius- even on all high settings, TF2 shouldn't push this laptop that hard. In the past, I don't remember ever hitting that high of a temp.

 

whats yur room temp?

 

I think it's more relevant here but any new Clevo P170Hm users I advise you read my post here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/416916-clevo-bios-thread-187.html#post7993138

It is in regards to unbearable and intolerbale fan noise at idle.
Hope this helps other new users

Ps- these forums and clevo rOx!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

50 degrees Celsius