Sager NP2096 Owners Lounge

so, 64 bit then?

I just dont wanto find that all my drivers are s***ty and have to reformat at college

 

You shouldn't have any difficulty with 64bit.

 

It's a little annoying to see some programs that are incompatible with 64 bit but I haven't had any major troubles/annoyances with using 64 bit Vista yet

 

I ordered mine on monday...I'm getting a bit impatient. <= )
I have a hard time waiting.
Anything bad on the NP2096? The only bad things I've heard so far is the small flex on the left side of the keyboard.
I wish the laptop had some media buttons on the outside or a media remote thing.

 

what u talking about dude? i have the sager NP2096 and it plays half life 2 perfectly with the settings on high. in counterstrike source i get well over 100fps, but u have to keep the power settings to balanced or high proformance (even when its plugged in) to get those fps.

 

I never said it doesn't run HL2 -.-; I said my GPU temp went up to 92 C while playing it. Read before you post please.
I already know what the power settings do, thanks.

 

Now.. w/ 64 bit windows... do i have to worry about getting 64-bit versions of all my software.... IE: Crysis has a 64 bit exe.... do i HAVE to use that? or can i still run things in 32bit?

 

A Vista 64bit OS will run virtually any 32bit application.

 

lots of people are saying that crysis runs better on 32 bit than on 64 bit

I hope i can get 22+FPS with crysis on high when my NP2096 comes

 

Can u run it in 32bit on 64bit windows? I'd assume you could... just making sure..

 

Is anyone getting relatively high idle temps? (50/45C for Core #0/1)

 

Those are not relatively high temps for idle. They are quite normal.

Your room temperature will contribute to your idle temps, so you can see them in the low 40's to mid to high 50's depending on how cool or warm your ambient temperature is, and in those ranges they are totally normal.

 

Really? My laptop feels really warm ;;
My last Dell laptop was idling at high 30s for both cores so I thought there was something wrong with my laptop x_X Plus, someone posted his idle temps and they're high 30s as well. So confused right now :s

Donald, do you know why my Sager NP2096's 3rd LED light (the one for cpu or hd?) keeps blinking although I'm just idling? It's really bugging me

 

does the 2096 have external volume controls?

 

@jesung

it matters what the temperature is in your room so for example if the room temp is 30C then 40-50C is normal(matters on cooling) and if your room temp is 20C 30-40C is normal so it changes and thats why they say always keep your laptop in a cool area

 

i dont think ive seen a 15.4" laptop that doesnt run warm... i have a couple of friends (who are not gamers or computer people) who are thinking of switching to desktops because of this. i wouldnt be worried unless i got burned myself

 

I ordered my NP2096 from XoticPC with the 2GB DDR2 800 memory (1 SODIMM).
I was wondering if for whatever reason i wanted to upgrade my RAM, could I buy another 2GB from XoticPC and get it installed at a place like Bestbuy?
It's my first laptop so please excuse if the answer is obvious

 

You can buy your memory anywhere, but I would suggest installing it yourself because it is just too easy to do. The instructions are in the manual that is on your drivers CD. If you need help, just take advantage of the Sager tech support and they can walk you through it.

No need to pay someone else to do this.

 

Thanks for your help! And i take your advice and try it myself once i get the laptop. I also just wanted to make sure if i was going to be able to upgrade the laptop's memory.

 

Hi. I was wondering about the vents on the bottom of the np2096. Im making a laptop cooler and was wondering if i wanted to blow air into the vents or try to remove air from the vents... Any of you current owners know if there is a fan trying to blow air out of the vents? Because I wouldn't want to make a laptop cooler that is competing with my internal fan. Thanks.

 

most laptops have exhaust on the side, and the bottom vents are intakes as in the case of np2096. so you want a cooler to blow cool air from the bottom

 

My room temp is probably low 20s. I'll live with it but I was confused because the other guy who posted his temps was getting high 30s whereas I'm getting high 40s. So unless his room temp is in the low 10s, I figured there's something worth investigating.

Putting the laptop in power saver mode seems to undervolt it to 0.9 V and subsequently lower the temp by 2-3 degrees.

In any case, I'll keep looking into it and post if I find anything. In the mean time, it'd be great if other NP2096 owners posted their temps so I get an idea of what the average temp is.

 

hey now that more people have the laptop... can you guys comment on the battery life?

 

well from sphinx's video he says he can get about 4 hours+ which is awesome and i think you can for sure get 3 hours worth of battery because both sager and xoticpc have said that so hopefully it will be more than 3 hours

 

Yeah I'm pretty confident that I can sqeeze out 4+ hours of battery life with light use

 

The NP2090, NP2092 and now the NP2096 have all been able to get about 4 hours out of the 9 cell battery.

Battery Life run time is very dependent on your hardware configuration, applications, and OS power settings. To maximize your battery life your screen brightness should be turned down as low as you can make it while still being able to read it comfortably, any unnecessary programs running in the background should be exited, your wireless and Bluetooth cards should be off if you are not using them, and your Power Management setting should be set for maximum battery life.

 

I'm curious if anyone else has had issues getting the webcam on the 2096 to record at a reasonable framerate. I've tried both Debut and the included Meeting Secretary settings, and even though I set the recording options to 30 FPS, the thing refuses to record faster than 5 FPS. I can't find updated drivers for it, either.

I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong, or if I got a bum webcam.

 

There are no actual physical volume buttons. The volume is controlled via a combination of the fn button and function keys.

fn+F7 = Volume Down
fn+F8 = Volume Up

I hope this helps you.

 

does anyone know if the ram in the 9600M GT is ddr2? i feel dumb asking this but here it says:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-9600M-GT.9449.0.html

and if it is ddr2, im wondering will it have a significant performance boost over a ati 3650hd with ddr2 ram as well?

 

I ordered by laptop last friday (15th) on the Sager website and its status is still "Pending".. am I suppose to be doing anything?

about how long do I have to wait for my laptop to arrive?

 

Sadly, the NP2096 has a DDR2 version of the 9600M GT. I hope DDR2 is faster than GDDR2. It will, however, be better than an ATI 3650. It's even better than the one with GDDR3 ram.

 

Every time someone writes DDR2 or DDR3 in relation to a video card, they mean (or should mean) GDDR2 and GDDR3. DDR memory is used as system RAM, GDDR memory is used as video RAM. While their purpose may seem similar, they are very different.

 

the above is correct. the "G" in front of the ddr indicates graphics, so GDDR2 is Graphics Double Data Rate 2.

 

thanks sxu and someguy. i'm a little bit computer illiterate, but i'm getting better. i appreciate the clarification.

 

Note I said GDDR3 not DDR3. And video cards actually use the term DDR2 more than they use the term GDDR2 to refer to their type of memory (for example, xoticpc, which calls the gfx card used in the NP2096 DDR2 and not GDDR2.) You should know that DDR2 on a graphics card does not mean DDR2 speeds.

 

how is the sound quality on the 2096? and is the screen LED?

 

Who knows how to disable the touchpad when a usb mouse is plugged in? I know sphinx did this somehow because the touchpad always interferes with my typing.

 

Fn + f7 in my keyboard.im not sure in 2096. or look for the touchpad image in f1-f12 keys then press Fn + what ever it is..

 

Hey guys, quick question. Does the touch pad have the scrolling thing on the right side?

 

If its Synaptics then you can set a custom scrolling area yourself.

 

It does not have scrolling thing on right side. I uninstalled the synaptics drivers for the touchpad and installed the ALPS touchpad driver. It was the only driver that allowed me to disable the tap to click function that was causing issues while typing. I have no problems now.

 

@his_dudeness
well im guessing the 2096 comes with synaptics touchpad drivers... to disable the touchpad when you have a external mouse attached you have two ways to do this... 1) being the way quatrei stated which is somewhat of a manual way and 2) being if you right click on the Synaptics icon in the tray and choose "Pointing Device Properties" then go to the "Device Settings" Tab and in the middle of the table there will be a check box next to "Disable internal pointing device when external USB pointing device is attached" you check that and your good to go this is the automatic way... as soon as you put your mouse in you will get a notification saying that the Touch pad has been disabled

@Sphinx454
The synaptics drivers allow me to disable tap to click when i right click the tray icon it gives me the choice to turn tap to click on or off.

 

Ok, but with that synaptics driver it IS possible to set it to have the scroll right? as well as the side horizontal scroll?

 

Hmm, seems like Notebookreviews likes to erase my username

Anyway, I'm excited to be receiving a 2096 tomorrow. Shipped early this morning from PCTorque. My old laptop is pretty much at the end of its life. Dell Inspiron 9300 running XPS2 bios with a 6800GT Ultra. I needed a smaller notebook since I'll be using it a lot for work. I also hate the idea of getting a computer I can't play games on. (Why my wife's desktop has an ATI HD 4870) The 2096 seemed to fit the best for price/performance.

Config:
WSXGA+ screen
p8600 2.4 CPU
4GB DDR2
200GB 7200 HD
I'll be putting my copy of Vista Ultimate 64 bit on it when it arrives.

 

The NP2096 has a very stripped down version of the touchpad that does not scroll, and cannot disable tapping using the Synaptics drivers.

Search through this thread and you will find other users that have found alternate drivers that will enable some of the touchpad features.

 

sphinx is your gaming video up yet?

 

This is correct. you cannot disable point to click with synaptics. USE ALPS touchpad driver.

And no i do not have gaming video and probably wont be able to make one. I am getting ready for college and have been very busy.

 

hey sphinx, did ALPS driver allow you to set and use the scroll function?

 

Please read above reply.

 

ok.... i read it... doesnt answer his question...