Sager NP5170 Owners' Lounge

[DSuds]

Admittedly this is currently the pre-owners' lounge but I was excited to see my order had proceeded and is underway. I may have slipped a bit to get an Intel 510 but that was a no brainer for me.

My goal - A kick ass machine that I take on the road (I fly a few hundred to thousand miles a week). Sometimes to my horror planes don't have power outlets and I at least need the ability to take my machine into a meeting and show a presentation for an hour without plugging in.... Along came the NP5170. Originally I was certainly going to go with a 15" but given the difference in weight was pretty slim and I would like the extra screen and cooling space I jumped.

Now that the default wireless card seems to be a dual antenna unit I might not have bothered.

As of yet the sager web site does not have any drivers up for the NP5170 or NP5160 so presumably they haven't quite left the doors yet.
Drivers on Clevo's site are all dated 1/21 so no changes there. Clevo doesn't seem to have a BigFoot wireless driver however.

[erisalit]

"New status: Phase 2 (Sent for Custom Building / Testing / Burn In & Final QA)"

They sent me this info in red lettering no less, so this is red hot news for me :)

[DSuds]

"New status: Phase 2 (Sent for Custom Building / Testing / Burn In & Final QA)"

They sent me this info in red lettering no less, so this is red hot news for me :)


Me too! When had you placed your order?

[erisalit]

Me too! When had you placed your order?

mine was Jan. 25

[erisalit]

wohoo I got the shipping notice and mine should be in my hands on Thursday! pics and impressions soon

[SmogHog]

Now that the default wireless card seems to be a dual antenna unit I might not have bothered.

Do you know which wireless card is the stock card in this model?

Stock cards are usually 2 antenna these days but 150mb/s and single band 2.4ghz

[Catan]

I believe the stock card is an Atheros

[erisalit]

Got mine yesterday. Will post some photos and more impressions soon.

Initial impressions are that it is lightweight for its size and quiet. This is my first lappy with the chicklet style keys. They will take some getting used to. As everyone knows, there is wasted space on both sides of the keyboard, because this is the same keyboard for the 15 inch model (5160). There is an actual VGA button for manually switching off the GPU to use the IGP. I think green means it is on and yellow means it is off. I will have to figure that out.

Whatever the initial drivers for the video were that XoticPC installed, flash player was not working right (crashing on fullscreen). For now I turned off hardware acceleration in the flash player settings and that lets me play flash movies fullscreen without crashing the thing. I am going to try updating the video drivers. I noticed the first boot out of the box it said windows did not shut down normally the previous time, but that is not too concerning.

I loaded SC2 and played a few games on high setting. I did not actually check the FPS (I will do so next time I play it), but it seemed to play quite smoothly. I turned the settings up to Ultra just to see how it would look. Things just looked more glowy and textured. I presume I would get very bad FPS on Ultra in a multiplayer game, but I only tried it out single player vs. AI. I played multiplayer 2v2 on high settings and it was fine. Fan noise was not noticeable during SC2, but then again a herd of elephants marching through the room could easily escape my attention when I am engrossed in a game.

The glossy screen was pretty typical. If you let it bother you, yes you can see your reflection in it. The glare/reflections were not at all an issue or distraction for SC2 play or web browsing. The full HD large screen in general is excellent for viewing videos and pictures and playing games. As good as any laptop screen I have ever seen.

[powerpack]

erisalit I look forward to some games, what settings and fps.

[erisalit]

erisalit I look forward to some games, what settings and fps.

only game I really play is starcraft 2

at fhd resolution on high, minimum fps in a 4v4 (me and 7 AI) game was 31 fps. max temps were 90 C on the CPU and 89 C on the GPU. I will test it on a stand and see if I get lower temps. I played on a flat hard surface.

by the way, what GPU and CPU temps are considered good, bad, etc. for typical laptops?

[powerpack]

Minimum 31fps is very nice did you use fraps? What was avg about 50fps?

On temps both those are just fine, but telling absolute max can be deceptive I mean is it always on max? But still good regardless. The 89F on GPU is more impressive than the CPU. People seem to want CPU closer 80F or less. That said 90F on CPU is fine and even more so if your using more CPU in those scenes with 7AI.

[erisalit]

Minimum 31fps is very nice did you use fraps? What was avg about 50fps?

On temps both those are just fine, but telling absolute max can be deceptive I mean is it always on max? But still good regardless. The 89F on GPU is more impressive than the CPU. People seem to want CPU closer 80F or less. That said 90F on CPU is fine and even more so if your using more CPU in those scenes with 7AI.

you mean at what setting could I get 50 fps? I think medium will get me that, but I will check.

temps hovered maybe 5 degrees below that max from what I can recall, during gameplay. You meant Celsius not Fahrenheit right?

[ssnseawolf]

[M]ax temps were 90 C on the CPU and 89 C on the GPU.

by the way, what GPU and CPU temps are considered good, bad, etc. for typical laptops?

The temperature at which the CPU will shut down for your part (Tjunctionmax) is 100c, I believe. So you're fine. Although at around your max temps it may start throttling.

[erisalit]

after both furmark and prime95 running at the same time for 10 minutes (but with the damn GPU mistakenly disabled because, counterintuitively, green means off and yellow means on for the VGA button on this thing):
furmark was telling me a gpu max of 54 degrees C (but with the GPU disabled I am not sure where furmark was getting this temp?)
cpu maxed out at 94 degrees C (glad it didn't go all the way to 100 C)

the fan was cranking for sure. still not super loud but probably too loud to use in a classroom or library when it is working that hard, which should be nearly never. cpu temps hover around 40 degrees C when just browsing the web.

the left side of the keyboard got slightly warm during the test. this thing seems very cool compared to other gaming laptops I have used. I don't think anyone will be complaining about feeling the heat through the chassis.

by the way, it was not straightforward to shutdown furmark and prime95. I had to use task manager to fully shut them down, finding the processes that were still running even after I thought I had closed them fully.

[erisalit]

to avoid double posting everything, please see this thread over at notebook review forums for more of my impressions and photos and temps. http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo-reviews-owners-lounges/548627-official-sager-np5170-clevo-w170hn-owners-lounge-17.html

the guys here at XoticPC post often at that forum as well. It is a more traffic forum than here, but this is pretty impressive traffic for a reseller forum.

[Sandra89065]

Thanks for posting such a nice post.

[epete]

Installed Win7 Ultimate SP1 followed by Drivers & Optional Drivers in approximately 2 hours. No issues.:)


1 x Sager NP5170 / Clevo W170HN () = $1,024.00
Ram ~ 8,192MB DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel Memory (2 SODIMMS)- Special
External Display Video Adapters No Video Adapter
Graphics Video Card nVidia GT 540M 1024MB PCI-Express GDDR3 DX11 with Optimus™ Technology
Thermal Compound IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU (Cools better than all Compounds)
Processor - 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM, 2.0-2.8GHz, (32nm, 6MB L3 cache)
Dead Pixel Warranty Standard Dead Pixel Policy
Display 17.3" FHD 16:9 "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Glossy Screen (1920x1080)-
Exterior Finish Standard Finish
Optical Drive ~Combo 8x8x6x4x Dual Layer DVD +/-R/RW 5x DVD-RAM 24x CD-R/RW Drive w/Software
Primary Hard Drive ~ 500GB 7200RPM (Serial-ATA II 300 - 16MB Cache)
Additional Hard Drive in Optical Drive Bay No Additional Hard Drive in ODD Bay - When Selecting, Optical Drive is NOT Included
External Hard Drive (Back Up) No Back Up Hard Drive
External USB Optical Drive NO External USB Optical Drive
Back Up Software No Back Up Software
Floppy Drive No Floppy Drive
Memory Card Reader Internal 3-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS)
Bluetooth None Standard--
Wireless Network Built-in 802.11 Wireless B/G/N - Stock Wireless Card + Bluetooth
Wireless Network Accessories No Network Accessory
Camera Built in 2.0 Megapixel Camera
TV Tuner No TV Tuner
Sound Card Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
Case Basic Black Business Case - Included
Battery NO Spare Battery
Car Adapter No Car Adapter
Spare AC Adapter None Standard*
Port Replicator / Dock / Adapters No Dock/Hub/Adapter
Fingerprint Reader No Fingerprint Reader
Mouse / Keyboard Accessories No External Keyboard or Mouse
Notebook Cooler No Notebook Cooler
Operating System No Operating System Standard - Drivers & Utility Software Only
Microsoft Office Software No Office Software
Software Bundle (Not Installed) No Software Bundle
Warranty 3 Year Labor 1 Year Parts, Lifetime Sager Toll Free Tech Support
Xotic Gear No Xotic PC Gear

[erisalit]

one question for anyone who owns one. how the hell do I disable the touchpad? It drives me nuts that it activates while I am typing. I just lost a carefully drafted paragraph and can't get it back through undo, so I am really frustrated with it at the moment.

edit:
nevermind I found where to disable it by right clicking the touchpad icon in the system tray

this system could really use a simple button to disable the touchpad so I don't have to go into the touchpad properties to disable and reenable it. maybe even an indicator light like some systems have would be nice.