***Un-Official*** Things to do when the 8790 arrives (A Step-By-Step Guide)

I have been browsing these forums as I wait for my 8790 to arrive. I have read helpful little tips here and there to avoid problems and to make the "notebook computing" experience a happy and/or fun experience. However, my mind can't remember where I read every little but important thing. So I decided to start a thread on what a person might want to do when his/her 8790 arrives. Note: this guide assumes you now how to do average computer tasks. I.e. installing software/drivers, accessing bios...etc

I will try to recall everything I have read and include it in this NON-OFFICIAL Step-by-Step guide. But remember, I don't even have my 8790 yet, the following steps/tips are only from what I've read on these forums. I know for a fact that I will be missing MANY steps; this is where 8790 owners can help. If you (8790 owner) notice a crucial step, or tip that may help a lot or a little please post a reply and I will edit the guide and include your step or tip. (Please let me know what step on the guide your tip should be placed at) Please correct any of my mistakes if you find one. As of right now this is a very basic and incomplete guide. I did not put this guide up with the intentions fully helping a new 8790 user with ONLY the information I have. This guide was put up so that we can have a growing archive of tips and steps. Hopefully as time passes we will have a nice guide for 8790 "newbs"

I, along with other step/tip poster, are not responsible for anything (good or bad) that may happen to your laptop by following this guide.



And now... onto the Un-Official Step-By-Step guide:

The Guide

If you ordered an 8790 without an Operating System please start at Section A; if you ordered an 8790 with an OS preinstalled please skip this section and go on to Section B


Section A:

1. Disable RAID switches before you install your Operating System IF you don't want to run a RAID configuration on your notebook or you only have one hard drive.
Why? - You cannot run RAID with only one hard drive.
How? - G-Omaha mentioned that the RAID switches are between the two hard drive spaces. See pictures below. Notice there are two switches, one for the first drive and the two for the second drive. You need to push BOTH of those switches down or else it will not work.



2. Insure that the USB Device 29 is turned off.
Why? - "Windows will try to install the O/S to one of the 7-in-1 Internal devices regardless of your intent" - G-Omaha
How? - Go to your BIOS settings by hitting "F2" on startup. Then go to the "Advanced" Tab of the BIOS settings. Go down to "USB Device 29, 1 & 2 & 3" and type "+" to change it to "DISABLED" See picture Below (I know it says "enabled" on the picture, but that's just because I have installed the OS already.)



3. Install your choice of Operating System
- If you ordered a notebook without an OS most likely you know how to do this. I can explain it here, but it would be a long drawn explanation that may bring up additional questions that will cause a tangent away from this step-by-step guide.

3a. "Check out" your 8790
- While waiting for the OS to be completely installed now is a good time to check your 8790 for any defects:
i. Dead/Stuck Pixels: http://www.gdargaud.net/Hack/DeadPixels.html
ii. Crack(s) on the casing
iii. Missing parts from what you originally ordered (i.e. no extra 12-cell batt that you ordered)



Section B:

4. Install the latest drivers
- Where? You can download them from www.sagernotebook.com --> click "support" --> click "software & drivers" --> read the TOS and click "I agree" (if you agree) --> click the "NP8790" link --> download all necessary drivers --> install all necessary drivers
- Important Note: "Make sure you read the manual and install the drivers IN THE STATED ORDER. Installing drivers in an order other than stated in the manual has apparently caused problems for folks with different models, so I assume the same to be true on the 8790" - Geostyce

5. Install all of your applications and give it a "test drive".
- See if your applications run well without any hiccups. Afterall, you didn't pay for a notebook that can't do some of your major applications.

6. Install utilities
- You may want to install some utilities that will help you monitor your notebook such as temperature, battery life, fps...etc. Also you may want to run some utilities that will put your notebook under stress to see if everything works the way it should.
- Here is a list that ActuaryTM posted in another thread. I find this to be usefull since he has everything well organized in different categories:

Diagnostics :

• AIDA32
• SiSoftware Sandra 2004
• CPU-Z
• Belarc Advisor

Burn-in Testing :

• PassMark BurnIn v 4.0
• Memtest86
• Prime95

Benchmarking :

• SiSoftware Sandra 2004 SP1
• PCMark04
• CrystalMark08
• PassMark PerformanceTest v 5.0
• 3DMark®2001 SE Pro Build 330
• 3DMark®03
• SynthMark XP Edition v 1.0
• VeriTest Business Winstone 2004
• VeriTest WinBench99 v 2.0
• VeriTest Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004
• Veritest Business Winstone 2004 BatteryMark
• PassMark BatteryMon v 1.3

...Or you can visit the following link for a list of recommended utilities:

http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=19651



Miscellaneous (but important) Section:

1. Some notes about the TV Tuner:
- "In another thread it was pointed out that the the T.V. Tuner utitilty on the Sagar site is not the complete one - the full version can be found on the Eurocom site:
http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=19656
Eurocom Site:
http://www.eurocom.ca/" - Captain Vegas

2. Some hints about the Sound/Speakers:
- "Toshiba has the best speakers hands down, but this 8790 is not too far behind. You'll have to play around with the speaker settings under Control Panel. I chosed the 5.1 surround sound and voila! the speakers suddenly came alive." - Fungo

3. If you would like to play games without the "stretching" but with black bars on the side:
- "a) Right click desktop, select 'properties'.
b) Click 'settings', then 'advanced'.
c) Click tab 'display' then 'panel'
d) Unclick the 'scale image to panel size' checkbox." - Dark Prophet

4. Don't you just hate when you're typing and you accidentally touch the touchpad and it screws you up? Well here's a way to disable it while you're typing:
- "Go into Control Panel ==> Mouse ==> Tapping ==> Select Tap off when typing and reset the Short - Long slider to the length of time desired." - G-Omaha

5. If upon booting the "G-EzLink Utility" and it produces the following error, "The supplicant support has not been installed correctly. You need to run setup again to fix this problem. If instead you continue, 802.1x and WPA will be disabled." - usrbingeek
- Then download these drivers: http://www.sagernotebook.com/ftp/misc/gn-wiag.exe - Adam@PCTorque

6. "Though I own an 8890, I would suggest anyone who has an external HDD should make a 'recovery image' of the way _you_ want to start at, not at what your recovery CD will create. I would use Ghost since I own Systemworks, but I'm sure any other similar software that can boot from floppy should suffice. I suppose the various external HDD drives with 'one touch' backup could be OK too, but don't own any (and probably won't)." - T S Kimball

7. Tips on installing RAID:
I used a Toshiba PA3109U-FDD

"1) I set both switches to on
2) I copied everything below the FASTTRAK folder to the root of the floppy (not the DEVICE folder referenced in the manual (using PDF version))
3) I disbaled the USB Device 29 setting.
4) Made sure I had floppy plugged in a back lower USB port before booting.
5) Pressed Ctrl-F to go into array setup and chose auto then stripe
6) Put in winxppro cd and booted it then pressed F6 so I could use drivers from my floppy" - HoofHearted





Well that's all I have for now. Again this is a very basic and incomplete guide as of right now. HOPEFULLY, as more and more 8790 owners read this thread, they will help out to make this a complete guide that new 8790 owners can use.

i thought about putting it in the tech forum, but i noticed in parenthesis it said "problems only" and well...this is not really a problem. So i don't want it being deleted over there

So far this is looking great. Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far! It is all much appreciated. I have updated the guide with the new step/tip(s). Anymore steps/tips are welcome! I will add more detail and more steps of my own as soon as my 8790 gets here.

My 8790 will be here on thursday, I'll definitely have more once its in (unless there are absolutely no issues or problems with the 8790 when it comes in.