Live from Japan: The FT 8790 Review - Page 16  

2nd HDD
For the time being, I installed a 100gb Seagate last night in the 2nd bay. Formatted and showed up just fine (now that I know to go into Computer Mgmt and gets things rolling there).

Other than that, 8790 doesn't get much use other than surfing w/ Firefox, blabbing w/ Trillian and an occasional venture into Age of Wonders- Shadow Magic before bed. I'm scared of even using the thing for anything more than that for fear that it'll go South again (more South than it already is).

Still waiting to hear back from PCT in regards to the latest problem. Not sure where I'm at w/ anything at the moment.

Totally spaced it last night. I'll try to check tonight when I get home. At work right now w/ the Dell, so I'm not much help at the moment

SCSI & RAID drivers
Microsoft 5.1.2600.2180, dated 07/01/01 per the Driver tab.
Clicking on the Driver Details gives me: Promise Technology file version 1.43 (Build 0603) - no date given

Support Update
So far, still no news from PCT. Been 2 weeks now and not much of anything. I'd always had fast response when dealing with Tom in the past. Can't say that I'm impressed at this point. If they're busy, that's understandable, but a short email saying, "Sorry, been busy" or whatever would be appreciated. Guess I've been too nice and not vocal enough. I suppose if it takes getting grumpy to get any attention, then we're not going to have to wait much longer.

Support Update
Emailed Adam today and received a response from Luke later. Things appear to be moving along- I just hadn't been in the loop at to what the situation was. I'm satisfied to know that things were happening; just a bit grumpified that the communication has been somewhat lacking by my way of looking at it.

Haven't really used the machine much lately other than for basic web-browsing. Burnt a DVD last night, but that's about the extent of it. Did install Morrowind the other day and gave that about a 5 minute whirl, but the controls are so whacked, I gave up on it pretty quickly. And character movement? SLOOOOOW. Glad I only spent $10 on it @ Wally World when I was in the States. Heard it was such a good game, too.

Been itching to install AoE 3, but I've held off. I'd rather not melt the 8790 down again. It's only an RTS, but I still don't know that it'd take it. And since it'll shut down if Turbo Fan mode is activated, I really don't want to push the machine. I don't know what'll happen if Turbo Fan mode is activated internally. Will it shut down? Or is it only when I press the Turbo Fan mode hotkeys? Feels silly treating the 8790 like it's glass.

I don't plan on playing anything as intensive as GW on here now. Too dangerous. It's already proved itself to be unstable, so I'm not going to push it. Like to try Civ 4 on it, but don't know if that'd be smart or not.

Gaming
Installed Space Rangers 2 (thanks to Bill Harris @ Dubious Quality blog for introducing me to that) last week and the little I've played, it seems to work fine. Game doesn't push the system too much, so not a worry.
Guild Wars... tempting to play, especially since I know that Ratmyr's on it, too, but I think I'll uninstall it just because I can't imagine being able to play it w/o causing more problems again.
Age of Wonders- Shadow Magic plays fine. System got up to 58C yesterday; room temperature was 18C.

Support Update
In the middle of negotiating w/ Sager via PC Torque on how to resolve my dissatisfaction with this machine. So far, we haven't found common ground. I was willing to give ground before sending the unit to Sager. However, having paid them to fix it, paying for the UPS NDA back and arriving back in Japan to find out that it is still not fixed, has pretty much removed any room for give from me. Time may change that, but I really doubt it. At this point, I'm waiting for a response from PCT on the latest round.

Dell 9300 vs. Sager 8790
I'm at work, so I'm typing this out on my Dell 9300. Was just thinking that, even though the 9300 is nice, but I prefer the 8790. The 9300's WUXGA screen is a whole different world than my 8790's WXGA screen. No comparison. Clear win for the 9300 here. The lack of overheating palm rests is also a fantastic thing. Another huge win for Dell. Weight difference goes to Dell; lighter is better. No marks on the case or keys from my wrists yet, either.
However, IMO, everything else is superior in the 8790. I see people talking about how the P-M keeps up with or exceeds the higher end P-4s. Well, my 8790 has a 3.4 Northwood backed up with 1gig o' RAM. 9300 comes in with a P-M 2.13 running 2gigs o' RAM. The P-M is fairly fast, but it's no 8790. Clear difference between the two on startup and shutdown. Shutdown on the 9300 is particularly slow. One point- I did not reinstall XP when I got the Dell. Thought about it, but didn't. Might be some excess Dell garbage somewhere affecting the shutodwn. However, playing Age of Wonders- Shadow Magic, the load time for the 8790 is noticeably shorter than the 9300's. I'm wondering if that might be due to HD seek time. 8790 boots on a 60gig 7200rpm Hitachi. 9300 has a 100gig HD in it. As for the speed, I'm not sure. I don't suppose there's any way of finding that out software-wise; Rather not pull the 9300 apart if there isn't a clear reason to.
In the end, from my way of seeing it, the 8790 is the performance winner. I suppose running off of fresh XP installs, putting 2gigs o' RAM in the 8790 and a 7200rpm HD in the 9300 would be the best comparo, but hey- I'm not a review magazine. Just pointing out what I feel about the machines that I have access to.

Suppose I could throw my Sony FX-120 in for consideration. I guess it's small size and light weight (in comparison, anyway) give it a win in that category. Otherwise, there's not much a PIII 750 w/ 768mb o' RAM and a crap 15" screen can do to keep up with today's meaner models.

I was wondering if, all things being equal, how they would fare. Reformatting the Dell is tempting, but getting it set up for work is such a PITA (making time @ work for doing such is a PITA, too), that I don't give it much thought. But I am aware of the disparities with software/drives. One plus to Sager for not loading up our machines with needless bull#%!.

Modem application
I just got home and booted up the 8790. There was an icon I'd never seen in the taskbar. For some reason, the modem icon was running. Since I first received this 8790, I never once used the modem or opened the modem software. For all I care, they could've pulled the modem out at the factory and I would've never've known the difference (or really cared, for that matter). So why is it alluva sudden popping up now? THAT's odd.

Support Update
Haven't heard from PCT in almost a week (tomorrow morning'll be a week) and it's been fairly regular that my emails are initially going unanswered (until I take the initiative and fire off a grumpy "reminder"). I have to say that I'm not impressed with the level of service at this point. And I almost feel bad having praised their rapid replies in many threads on the board- if anyone's having similar issues, then I've definitely got egg on my face.

For the most part, when I had problems, I dealt with Sager and Clevo directly. Figured I'd save PCT as a last resort. Now that I've "saved the best for last," I'm not so sure it's done me any good.

One more "reminder" email to Adam in the morning and then I'll go from there. Amazing how a simple little thing like communication can be such a big deal. Maybe they need to lure Tom back- he's the PCT that I knew and recommended.

I'm really not a happy camper at the moment and my grumpiness factor has definitely increased Maybe it's the fact that I'm a customer with an unreliable computer (long-term) and feel that I'm being ignored. Not exactly exemplary customer service, in my book

One more thing to the list
I was just typing out a reply in the 8790 Support section and noticed that my S key isn't working correctly If I type normally, the s won't always show up. I'm having to give it a pretty good thump in order to get it to show up.

I'm beginning to wonder if there's anything that will go right with this computer... *sigh*

Support Update
Emailed Adam 3 days ago in reference to the lack of communication. Haven't heard a single peep. Not so much as a Woops, sorry, we'll get right on that or anything. Guess if I don't call in on the phone, then I'm relegated to last place support options. Feel like I've dropped into PCT's Customer Service Black Hole.

Guess my next step's to get ahold of Sager and inform them of my troubles and then see where we go from there. I already promised Mr. Zhang a nasty phone call if my machine wasn't running correctly when I got it back. Guess I'm going to have to get up @ 3am in the morning and get grumpy with them. Seeing as it's Saturday here (Friday in the US), that'll have to wait until next week. Hopefully Adam'll have answered me by then. If I haven't heard anything by next week, I'll know that working through PCT's a futile effort and just deal with it on my own. Like to be proven wrong on this, but all indications lately point in the wrong direction

Support Update
It's the 29th (here in Japan) and so it's been 15 days without a return mail from Luke and 8 days without a return email from Adam (well, actually he's never returned one, so I guess that's a misnomer). If I were ranting and raving madly, I could understand being ignored. As it stands, I feel that I've been very polite and civil in my emails. I forwarded copies of both the last emails to both from a different account to make sure that they got through. Not much more I can do in regards to them, though.

Will try Sager soon. Just haven't had any time lately.

The End (or pretty darn close to it)
Got Civ IV the other day, so I've been playing that a bit lately (one of Japan's biggest holidays was last week, so I had some time to check the game out). Was playing it tonight and just a few minutes ago, it started beeping at me. WTF? First I thought it might've been overheating, but it's actually been running *fairly* cool (on the palm rest area, anyway) since I last got it back. Closed up Civ IV and it's telling me that it's on Low Battery. Well, that's not right. The cord must've came loose or something. So I check that. Didn't help. Yellow light is on the power brick, so it's powered up (but no fan noise). Oy. Pulled out my secondary brick. Plug it in. Same thing. Yellow light goes on, but no power to the machine.

I shut it down, but it looks like I'm with a dead machine again. The machine has had relatively little use since I've gotten it back. And the only travelling it's done was been the US and Japan via NW and JAL. All the rest of the time it's been sitting here at home on a desk. WTF? I don't get it.

I've been waiting on Luke as he is supposed to be contacted Sager for me in regards to my issues before this one. However, it doesn't seem like Luke or Adam really want to deal with my situation. It's basically like pulling teeth to get a reply out of Luke. And Adam just refuses to answer at all. I can honestly say that I'm offended by the lack of support that I've been receiving from PCT since I've asked them for their help. They'll not be receiving any more of my money, nor will they be getting any more referrals from me. Going into this 8790 purchase, I thought that I'd chosen a quality company to work with. Definitely have egg on my face for that one

I'm ticked that the machine's broken again. But I'm not so mad as I was when I found out before that it would shutdown immediately if I activated the Turbo Fan mode. Guess I'm getting a callous on my Give-a-Care button. Or I've just realized that it doesn't do me any good to get rip-roaring screaming mad.

Just about out of options here.


Edit Talk about timing. Luke just emailed me w/ Sager's latest offer in regards to the problems I've had. Apparently he's been on vacation. Doesn't excuse the lack of communication, however; especially from Adam. Luke seems to honestly trying to help. When I can get ahold of him. Now that my machine's gone off the deep end, though, I'm not sure what to think about Sager's latest offer. They need to hear about what it's doing now before I decide on anything else. I still owe someone a butt-chewing of a phone call there at City of Industry. Promised Allen Zhang that whoever answered the phone was going to get an earful. Just got to make the time to do it. Being across the world a few time zones away is a PITA, to be sure.

I've been wondering the same thing, actually. I never really poked my nose around the AMD version's forum, so I don't know. Be interesting to know if there's a noticeable difference in quality between the two. However, I would imagine the engineering would be fairly similar, so I can't imagine the AMD units being much better (if any at all).

The 9750 looks like a strong offering based off of the 98xx series chassis. Size really puts me off, but after having used this Dell 9300 2.13ghz machine at work for a couple months has convinced me that the P-Ms aren't all their made out to be. Battery life is good, but it just doesn't have the muscle.

Not sure if I want to risk another Sager/Clevo model due to the unsatisfactory (IMO) support that I've received (mainly lack of communication from PCT and not being thorough on their repair from Sager). Just can't find anything else with the options, though. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. And after having paid out $3000+ for the 8790, it's not like I've got anything left to throw at another computer. Be nice if I were made out of money, but it just isn't so.

Guess it's time to start reading reviews on the other machines for us, SEMC.