*** Official X8100 (Sager 8120) Owners Thread ***

I have been looking at doing it, getting a supply of the cards is harder said then done, without selling 3 kidneys anyway

Supply in the EU of the cards on thier own is almost impossible to source

 

Damn, you mean we need our kidneys nowadays?!

 

I think by October or the latest November ATi Mobility HD5870 Crossfirex kits for the upgrade should be available for under $800.00 US. At least that's the way it looks now.

 

Still quite pricey then, although not 480m level. It's cheaper than buying a new laptop, but thats still a fair chunk at about £520 (especially if you consider decent US->UK shipping would be in the region of perhaps £30-50); how worthwhile it is at that price will really depend on how much of a performance jump the crossfire setup yields.
Me and Pete have a very similar setup bar he's probably found a way to clock the nuts off his whilst I haven't had one in my hands, so I guess we'll find out soon!

 

Hi,

i got the X8100 V2 with 5870 Crossfire week ago,

it works but display gets buggy in games/benchs with Crossfire ! Tried with Clevo origin catalyst and 10.8 official. I got 14600 on 3D Mark 2006 ! Compared to 5150Joker M17xR2 5870 CF 23k + points...

Display quakes and frames fall from up. Contacted my reseller, they say their working on it, waiting since few days now. This is my 1st Clevo, verry dissapointed for now, im even hesitating to put the money and get the best, the M17x R2. The fact is that Alienware in Europe country's so f****** expensive.
At least can't find the 8.763 beta to test, the 8.763 on mediafire's locked, and Dell's 8.763 works only on Dell vbios flashed cards. ( Im in Europe, reseller in Germany )

 

Hey people,

I thought I would pass on this info as it was passed to me by my reseller.

They are based in Germany but speak perfect english and above all are top blokes.

They have the X8100 barebones with crossfire setup for 1299 euro. On a sale, 100 euro off.

They also have the ATI Radeon HD 5870 for 399 euro and the Nvidia Geforce 480M GTX for 979 euro.

PCSystems-Evolutionx.de

Thought this info might help. The thing that gets me the most is I still own the m980nu. Bugger.

 

To be fair, my 23k 3dmark06 was with the GPU and CPU overclocked. Stock it does a bit above 19k. What processor do you have? I have a 940xm so you have to keep in mind that 3dmark06 is very CPU dependent so that makes a huge difference. What vantage score did you get? Lastly, what do you mean your display "quakes" and frames "fall from up"? Maybe you could record a short video of this problem and put it on youtube and we can try to help you.

 

Hi,

thanks for reply, see my video of the Crossfire buggy display here YouTube - Clevo X8100 crossfire problem

 

they state that the screen is WUXGA, which according to wikipedia is 1200p (16:10) display, according to clevo the display is 1080p(16:9)
Graphic display resolutions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Well Eurocom has tested (or IT website had eurocom laptops) with HD 5870 CF and it scored about 18.5K in 3DMark2K6 with 940XM. This means there sould be suitable or good drivers available out there right?

 

hehe

I doubt i would spend that much

would wait for a new machine entirely i think

Re clocking, the problem is still the buggy bios, unfortunatley no-one found a fix for that yet

 

Uploaded the video on mediafire VIDEO0557.mp4 - Clevo, X8100, V2, 5870, Crossfire, bad, display

 

Never seen that on a machine before, including other crossfire machines.
Joker - if you see this, is this something you've seen with the 5870's (I know flicker has been mentioned).

Otherwise (if I didnt know better) I'd be inclined to say there was some sort of hardware rather than software fault there. Does it ONLY do it during games/3d?

 

Yep, it appears only in games/benchs

 

You have either a defective crossfire cable and/or one or both of your video cards are defective. I've seen this before with defective 4870s in the M17x and they had to to be replaced to fix the problem.

 

Would make sense, its like the setup is out of sync with the monitor. Well back in the days of bnc pins and vga

 

I had it on two M17X systems with 4870x2. Both R1 and R2.
The only solution is to replace the primary card. In the worst case scenario - the mobo and the cards.
There's an open case about it @ Dell. Will let you know if I get some definite info about the culprit.

 

Correction ! It doesn't appear in every games/benchs,

played Starcraft 2, a bit flickering ( think it's the right word) in the menus, but the games works well in CF.
In 3D Mark and World of Warcraft still same flickering/droping frames ( Vsync ?).

 

I'm nearly certain you have a hardware problem. We've seen it happen with defective 4870s in the M17x. Ask for both 5870m's to be replaced as well as the Crossfire cable. If the reseller you're dealing with can't expedite the parts, send the entire system back.

 

Yep, im gonna send back the hole box.

 

2nd time lucky then hopefully At least the cards are new which means stock should be available or incoming to repair your machine.

 

Guys ! Im hesitating between the Clevo X8100 V2 and the Alienware M17x R2.
Both are good and have their advantages, but for performance and quality im verry attracted by the M17, despite the INSANE price here in Europe. Some advices ?

Edit : I got my i7 940XM, any problem with warranty when replacing the CPU on Alienwares ?

 

The problem that Grom had is one of my overall concerns in buying any mail order laptop. Yes, I know it can be returned etc, etc., but what about quality control. What is quality control for the resellers? Do they simply turn the pc on to make sure it comes on before shipping it? Some resellers talk about a burn in procedure (I don't know what that means ). Shouldn't Grom's problem have been found before it was shipped to him? Wouldn't good quality control be actually loading a high stress game on the pc and making sure it can actually do what is advertised before it is shipped to the consumer? I mean, how much longer would the wait be to load a game, test it for @ one hour? Either it held up or it did not. Call/email consumer and say its on the way or there was a problem-done.

 

Rgb led and casing is the main difference. Is that worth the multihundred pound difference to you? Alienware still have their own issues here in europe, and they don't always work perfectly either.

Scanner - something that obvious really should have been but he may have been unlucky and it developed during shipping. Some companies will test more than others.
Unfortunately, in the UK you CANNOT get performance laptops easily in a shop.

 

Honestly that depends on what you want. In the USA, Alienware warranty support is excellent and they come to your house to fix the computer the next business day. I have heard their support isn't as good in Europe. I think they still have the same warranty support (they come to your house) but they aren't as accommodating with free upgrades etc.

If you are happy with the X8100, just get it fixed/replaced and you should be okay. Defects happen all the time, the M17x-R2 is no exception, I've had a few M17x's shipped to me that had problems and Alienware sent me new ones.

I don't know how much the price difference is in Europe between the M17x-R2 and the X8100 but in the US it's not much. The main differences are warranty support (check to see that you have next business day service in Europe), build materials (Alienware chasis and lid are metal), RGB LED, backlit keyboard/alien fx lighting. If those things are worth paying whatever the difference may be for you, then get the Alienware but if not and you really are on a specific budget, just keep the Clevo, it doesn't seem like a bad machine.

As for replacing the 940xm, I put the 940xm in my M17x-R2 and Dell doesn't care. The warranty is still fully there but they won't replace your 940xm if it dies obviously.

 

Kobalt have listed the X8100 XFire on their website and what a price difference- less than 500 sterling than the Nvidia SLI setup, still not my cup of tea though with the high exchange rates, but at least is a good news for the future British owners...
People like me, stuck on small islands, can't even get support from the big names- Dell, Asus, etc...
I hope that the lack of feedback on the new Xfire setup is because every new owner is happy...

 

Hello,

I'm French and I'm sorry for my bad spelling.

I just bought a Clevo X8100 V2 equipped I7 720QM, 6GB DDR3 + HD5870 Crossfire and I have 2 problems :


The crossfire :

I have a kind of flickering mostly on the bottom of the screen and I need to disable the crossfire in these games :

-Colin Mac Rae Dirt 2
-Trackmania Nations Forever
-World of Warcraft
-Source based games (HL2, CS-S, DoD...)
-Some synthetic benchmarks (OCCT GPU, 3d mark 06 & Vantage)

But it's running fine (or with a very rare flickering, depending of the situation) in these games :

-Call of duty : modern warfare
-Call of duty : world at war
-Call of duty : modern warfare 2
-Crysis
-Crysis warhead
-Farcry 2
-Assassins Creed 2
-Furmark (GPU stress)

I tried with the official 10.8 and with the Clevo drivers : same problem.

Here's a video to show the problem : YouTube - Clevo X8100 Crossfire ATI HD 5870 problem

Do you think it's a hardware issue ? Or just because the drivers are too young and il will be OK at the next release ? What about other user with crossfire on this platform ?

Other problem, the right hinge :

I have a crack on the right hinge here is a picture :

It' just the cover, or the hinge is damaged like some MSI laptops ? I dont want to deal with after sales service...

sorry, I asked many questions but I'm pretty disappointed with this laptop.

Thank you for your help

 

Make sure you let your reseller know, they can help you (presumably) more than any forum. Also all the german resellers list some law on their websites that states that you have the right to return the product within 30 days when you buy online- I am pretty sure that it is a EU thing, so you can also do that.
I am not any kind of specialist, but your problem sounds like a poor CF cable.

 

Open your system and check that the Crossfire cable is properly seated in both cards. If the cable is seated properly, then you have a defect somewhere else in the system and will need to contact your reseller for an RMA.

 

if it's not the cable...its going to be a card..
looks like i have to cross this one off the list...

you can enable the crossfire bars in games...then see how well it attempts to scale. see if it's all one sided or just very low.

 

OK, this is a thread at pcspecialist forum, started by "ninja":
The problem:
"5870 Crossfire problems (Clevo X8100)

Hi, i recently ordered a laptop which i recieved on friday, but have been unable to get the two graphics cards (AMD 5870 mobility) to work in crossfire when playing games such as Company of heroes and Supreme commander and other games also.

Company of Heroes fickers and will crash if i attempt to start a game, in supreme commander i can start a game but the graphics will vibrate a lot and is not playable. Other games do not seem to work, however when i disable crossfire mode, every game works fine, which to me suggest either the crossfire drivers have issues or one of the cards is faulty.

I think it is fair to say that i should not have to disable crossfire mode in order for games to work, otherwise that is a waste of a very expensive graphics card! . I have tried updating the graphics drivers / going back to older versions etc in a attempt to get them to work with no luck.

Apprechiate any help on the matter, spec and order reference are below:
Order No - 345948
Clevo X8100
i7-920XM (2.00GHz)
2 x 1Gb AMD 5870 Mobility Graphics
160GB Intel® X25-M 2.5" SSD
500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5"
Blu Ray Drive

One thing to note the graphic cards were a last minute change on my order as the 285m 1Gb Nvidia was out of stock so PCSpecialist offered this as an alternative.

Thanks! "
The solution:
"spoke to a techy, he asked me to disable the catalyst AI under the 3D settings, problem seems to be solved Thanks!"

Might not be the same problem like the one Seb34 is having, but it's worth checking...

 

The other problem is of course we don't know what drivers this guy was using. As the Dell guys found out; using older drivers [and custom VBIOS] can cause issues with a dual card setup; especially as the last few ATI released revisions had crossfire issues for some people (10.8 supposedly being much better in this regards).

Unfortunately ocassional issues, driver/profile related aren't uncommon with SLI or Crossfire.

I have specifically requested Kobalt keep any eye out for any flickering or other intermittant graphical issues before despatching my machine to me. Was going to be this weekend but they're testing a new BIOS (which may or may not have a nice benefit...fingers crossed) they recieved so I will be getting mine next week. It's all but finished testing now and it's just testing out this BIOS. THIS CLOSE haha

Catalyst AI controls the way the cards try to split the work in crossfire related titles, and other game based optimisations as per the profiles in use, if it helps anyone disabled will deactivate said optimisations, standard uses the profile settings, and setting it to advanced at least USED to FORCE AFR mode.

 

Got the same notebook and the same problem, Battlefield Bad Company 2 is worst on my system in crossfire mode.
Constant flickering and a large white block on the top left side of the screen, when switch to single 5870 gpu the game runs like a charm.
I think it's bios relelated, this revision x8100 is the first who supports 2 5870's so something must be wrong.

 

you know what...give me a few minutes to take a few pictures...i want you guys to try these different settings...i want to see if it can help.

 

Which drivers are you using, also what BIOS? Reason I ask is the reason my machine DIDN'T go out today is because they were testing a new BIOS they got sent. Not sure what revision unfortunately, but if they are happy with it come Monday, I should find out Tues/Weds.

As I mentioned, I have specifically asked them to watch for any wierdness or flickering during testing as per a couple of you in this thread. I have few of the above games (and obv stuff like 3dmark), so if they don't find anything during testing, I'll test a few of the games myself and feed back as to whether I'm also suffering.

After my karma with machines...I'm HOPING for a bug free one, or I think I'll be heading back to desktop land! I'm kinda hoping there's just some dodgy cards and cables (or a bad BIOS) out there causing the issues, as obviously its usually those with problems who report back, and not those with none!

 

thank you for your answers.

I checked my crossfire cable, it's well connected.

Disabling catalyst I.A. solve the problem, but this is not the solution because there's a big loss of performance and the slave GPU temperature does not rise => it's like to disable the crossfire.

some informations :

Grafics cards bios : 012.019.000.015.037180
bios : 1.00.11
KBC : 1.00.07
Driver used : Clevo 10.8

 

yep. thats what it does..disables a card.

was going to suggest another program, but it doesn't seem to be working right now....

 

Disabling Catalyst AI is a bad suggestion since all it does is disable Crossfire mode. It seems like there's a bigger issue with the Clevo system bios and/or vbios since almost everyone seems to be having problems with this setup.

Getting 5870m Crossfire stable is a huge headache, just ask Dell. It took us 4 months to get where we are now--a beta vbios + beta drivers that finally make the M17x-R2 work properly. Hopefully Clevo can sort you guys out, guess we'll see what Alex's new bios does.

Keep in mind that the GTX 470m SLi is due out very soon and that may be a better choice to get.

 

Whats going on guys. I'm new to notebooks in general and after nearly a month of research, I am pretty much set on getting this beast(SagerNp8120). The only thing though is should I wait for a possible 470m sli solution or pull the trigger on the 5870 crossfire variant?

Any advise on this situation?

 

It sure might be a better choice, but considering that the old SLI setup was more expencive than the current CF, I am afraid to even imagine what a NEW SLI might cost.

 

Wait on 470m SLI, it will be faster than 5870m Crossfire and cost less than 480m SLI.

We don't know the cost on the 470m SLI yet. It probably will cost more than the 5870 xfire but definitely not as much as the 480M since it's built on a newer architecture.

Dell just released a new system bios for us and with it comes a long awaited touchpad fix but what do they also slip in there? A limit on extreme CPU's that pushes their mutlipliers down from 24-25x across the board to something like 17-17-24-24. Last dellienware for me and if you guys get tempted, don't go the Alienware route. Dell is always "enhancing" things to it's customers detriment.

 

Not only that but if you remember, the old Core2(quad,duo) setup was more expensive than the newer I7.

 

I don't really see a 470M SLI coming in the next 3-4 months- even the 460M is not out yet on a laptop (latest on Asus G53 and G73 is late September, which I am sure will be October) There is always gonna be some new technology around the corner which at the end turn out to be just a revision of the old one.
My personal decision to buy is mainly because it is now or never to sell my current HP for a good price and also upcoming games like Fallout Las Vegas, Medal of Honor, etc. Even if the CF setup is buggy I can always sell one of the cards and buy it again next year when the BIOS is fixed and the prices are way down.

 

I had exactly the same problem as Kalawera ( display vibrating ) + dropping frames, my reseller told me it's hardware problem and that they can fix it, so i sended back the hole crap and asked refund, im gonna wait a good fix and cost drop before buying again.

 

The GTX 470M comes out along with the GTX 460M which is this month, so no waiting involved. Not will is a single GTX 470M be faster than a single MR HD 5870 but because SLI scales better than Crossfire GTX 470M SLI will be much better than MR HD 5870 Crossfire. Its worth the wait, I expect resellers to offer the cards in just a few weeks.

I also wouldnt make the decision depending on selling your machine. You can sell the Blue-Ray player, the Q9000, ram and the HDDs, but anybody with knowledge will not buy the whole laptop, I don't get it how HP could but such a craptastic GPU in that laptop...

 

Do you guys think some of these Fermi Dx 11 cards are going to be MXM back compatible with the original x8100 line. Meaning I can yank the 285m's out of my Sager NP8120 and put in the (insert card name, eg. 460m's) in the same slots?

 

It actually was not my problem, I just copied a thread from another forum with a possible solution...which wasn't a solution at all

 

Hey, take it easy on my beloved HDX It has the most important thing a laptop should have- gorgeous screen which is the same as the X8100 CCFL. And the processor does what it's supposed to do- processing . I actually have buyer and after year and a half and long gone warranty will get about 35% of the price I bought it.

 

Eurocom lists nVidia 460M and 470M as GPU options for the X8100.
Based on that a single 5870M costs 390USD, single 460M-440USD and 470m-540USD. So for a X8100 model with a SLI 470M we should add around 300USD or 233EURO or 194GBP on top of what CF setup already costs. If the 480M is better 5 to 20% to 5870M depending on benchmark, we are probably looking at 0 to 10% with the 470M.
Is it worth my hard earned 233EUROS- not really (unless we are looking at software POV where crappy or perfect BIOS could make the whole difference in the world)
Again this is based on Eurocom X8100 configurator and thing could change anytime.

 

Hmm, it seems that Nvidia has better driver support for their cards so if it means that and a single digit percentage gain is the difference between the 470m Sli and the 5870 crossfire, then it looks like its worth it to me.