Live from Japan: The FT 8790 Review - Page 17  

I have a Dell 9300 here at work now and yes, the lack of a full-sized keyboard is a PITA. Definitely a plus for Clevo there. And I know what you mean- the selection just can't be beat for Clevo's machines. The stability and support are problematic; that's the frustrating part.

As for AW, I actually almost bought one right before the 8790 came out and I went for that (I'd been waiting for the 8790, but was ready to give up, so was looking at Sager 8890's and AW Area-51's).

Your entire 2nd paragraph is exactly how I feel. Judging by the other comments in the 8790 Support section, I highly doubt we're the only ones that feel this way.

I briefly looked at one of their models quite some time ago, but at this point, I don't have the money to buy a new laptop. I spent $3000+ on the 8790, so I shouldn't need to be looking for another laptop.


And Boogie, while I am frustrated (to say the least), I don't feel that I'm badmouthing companies indiscriminately. I'm posting the FACTS about how I'm being treated. My attitude is a result of poor repair service (both Clevo & Sager have failed to fix RMA issues) and poor communication (PCT is, for the most part, taking at least a week in order to reply to my emails).

Now, perhaps others might be a little more forgiving, but I feel that I've been pretty darn lenient, when it all comes down to the bottom line. In my mails to Clevo, Sager and PCT, I've not been rude or obnoxious. I did send one to Adam at PCT recently that was pretty stern, however (but that's what happens when you ignore a customers requests for communication several times). While I may be very grumpy over not having a functional machine, I've not taken it out on any employees from Clevo, Sager or PCT. The worst they've received is actually in this thread. And I believe that they deserve anything that they've received here; why? Because it's A) Ridiculous to ignore a customer (several times) who has issues with a product bought from your place of business and B) Ridiculous to send a machine in for repairs and not receive proper repairs.

The offer that you mention has been superceded by another. I actually received it from Luke while I was typing up my update about my DC-in port going bad again. I told Luke that since my machine had just broken again, I needed a few days to cool down and think about it. I emailed Luke 3 days ago in response (no answer yet, but it was Friday when I sent it, so the lack of response so far is understandable). Hopefully I'll hear something back soon.

Support Update
Case in point. Emailed Luke @ PCT exactly 7 days ago. Have not received a response. THIS is support? I've got 3 problems with the 8790 now and I feel like I'm riding a glacier on the way to getting this resolved. I don't feel that I should be penalized support-wise just because I'm not calling in to have a friendly chat. Even if I were in the States, I'd still prefer email- proof of what's been said and what hasn't been said.

Regardless, I think it's ridiculous to wait for a week or more for a reply.

Sager Support
Just tried calling Sager a bit ago from here at work. No answer. It was before 5pm, so I would've imagined that they would've been in on a Friday (it's Saturday here). Guess I'll just have to keep trying


Edit: Emailed Allen Zhang @ Sager, so let's see how long it takes Sager to respond. Would actually be surprised if he didn't respond fairly promptly (but seeing as it's the weekend in the States now, I know not to expect an immediate response).

Sager Support
Just tried calling Sager at the number that I thought I'd reached them at when I was in Washington last year (626-964-4849), but all I keep getting is an answering machine It's before 4pm on Tuesday in California, so I know they're not closed.

Guess I'll just have to wait on email since the phone contact isn't working. Can't deliver the promised Complaining Via Phone if they don't answer the phone

Edit: Just tried 800-741-2219 and left a message. Left both my work number and cell number, but don't expect a call back. Dell's called me here at work, but if Sager did the same, I'd be amazed.

Tempted to call Sales and see if I can get ahold of someone that way. Just a matter of having enough time here at work to do it.

A couple months ago, when Sager had my unit in, they replaced the video RAM instead of the motherboard (which Clevo had already replaced- at least they paid half the shipping!).

As for Alaska, don't be too sure that's a sure fix. I do believe there was a recent post in the 8790 Support section in the artifacting thread from someone w/ a bad machine in AK.

Sager Support
Called Sager Sales @ 626-964-8682 which was answered by a young gal that transferred me to Mr. David Liu. I spoke to him for 20 minutes regarding the issues that I was having.

He wanted me to try taking out the battery and running the unit on AC-only to verify that the DC-in was, indeed, broken again.

In regards to my Turbo Fan on/immediate shutdown issue, he wanted to know my keyboard BIOS version. He thought that when the machine was in last time, perhaps the BIOS was upgraded, causing the problem. Well, when I had artifacting the first time, they wanted me to upgrade the BIOS and I did and it started the Turbo Fan shutdown problem. Imagine that.

I expressed, at length, my unhappiness with the current situation. Mentioned Sager's offer of a replacement machine, but he didn't know who had made the offer, even though I'd asked from the outset of the conversation for him to find out who Luke @ PCT had been talking to regarding that. No answer. Mr. Zhang was on the phone, so he couldn't be a part of the conversation.

Mr. Liu did take down my email address and said that they would look into it and send me a reply. He said that there are four techs that get the email and that they have a lot of emails (hmmm... wonder why). I do believe I've written something similar to the previous message back in about November after I got off the phone, having spoken w/ Mr. Allen Zhang. And like I've postulated previously, it really seems like they're in over their heads w/ support.

I brought up the fact that here on the forums, there is quite a list of people with recurring problems that are not being fixed despite being sent in for repairs. He stated that it's less than 1% of the machines that have been sold. I asked if that 1% shouldn't have their machines fixed, but he started getting into semantics about machines being repaired and machines that weren't fixable. We went around a bit about that, but it being long distance (and didn't see that I'd gain much ground by arguing the point), I let it go for the time being. I'd rather have it in an email instead of just my word on what was said.

Another problem I had was one point where I stressed that I was very unhappy about having had to pay shipping to and from to have my machine repaired by Clevo and then Sager and then to have the SAME problem(s) recur and he mentioned something about repairs not under warranty not being guaranteed... Uh, hello?

In all, it wasn't a bad conversation, really. He was pleasant to speak with and I didn't feel that I was unreasonable in stating my feelings regarding the situation. I didn't raise my voice or shout any obscenities, so other than disagreeing on how things should proceed, it was a fairly pleasant conversation. I'm not too pleased with it overall in regards to effectiveness, but I'll wait to see how the response to my previous email goes before making a final judgement on this support issue.


I don't understand how badly this dead horse has to be beat before something's done about it. And I don't mean just my situation. I mean everyone that's having the same issues over in the 8790 support section. Less than 1% of the units sold? How many have no clues about this forum? I would guess that more than just a few have no idea that they're not alone in this. But then again, maybe I'm/we're wrong. Kind of hard to believe, though. I don't see lines of people like this in the other support sections.

Thanks for the crossed fingers, chief. Truly appreciate it as sometimes this business is downright depressing.

PCT Support
Received an email from Luke and since I had a little time, decided to call him up and iron out any wrinkles. He'd told me previously that he isn't an email-type o' guy; I'm the reverse- I'd rather email than talk on the phone.

We spoke for about 15 minutes and covered a few different topics. The one that sticks out in my mind is his comment about how they believe the video RAM is not compatible with the core speed (and something else, I think, but I didn't get it written down), so some machines are having problems since the incompatibility, which is initially a memory problem, spreads to the motherboard. That's a pretty crappy summary by me, but that's why I prefer email- easier to get the facts straight, IMO.

Sager Support
Having spoken w/ Mr. Liu, he had me pull the battery and try the AC only. Works. Reinsert battery, it works. Color me *clueless*. Only thing I can think is that something's loose inside? I don't know. But now it's running. But if it went down last time, what's stopping it from happening again? PITA to diagnose something that stops happening Luke's going to try to send a few BIOS updates in order to get the Turbo Fan mode and keyboard problems solved (keyboard *might* be bad- hard to tell since now it seems to be working fine. Intermittent problem). Another email from Mr. Liu this morning asking if the Turbo Fan problem had gone away after pulling the battery, but no- no change there.

So at least, the ball's rolling and things are happening. That makes this camper a bit more happy.

Yeah, frustrating to have a problem that isn't constant or reproduceable At least the Turbo Fan mode is reproduceable. I've left the 8790 on constantly the last few days to see if it'd do anything, but nada. *shrugs* Frustrating, but at least it's working for the time being.

Know what you mean on the HD bit. I did install an extra 100gig Seagate in the 8790, so I'm tapped out on the internals unless I bought two 120gigs and swapped them out (saw there's 160's coming soon?) But a 500gig external would definitely be nice.

Dell vs. Sager

As for the Dell, it runs fine. It can't hold a candle to the 8790 for multitasking. Just can't keep up. 8790's muscle is definitely appreciated since I like to have a million things going on at once. The screen on the Dell is pretty nice. It's a WUXGA glossy, so a lot different than my 8790's WXGA non-glossy. While I like the WUXGA, I'm wondering if WSXGA might not be a better resolution for me; but that's a personal thing- we all have our different wants/needs. Oddly enough, when starting up, there's a bright spot in the top, upper left-hand corner. Very noticeable. Tried taking pics of it, but none turned out to where you could actually see the spot. Noticed the other day that my AMD desktop does the same thing. Weird. There's a bit of light-leakage, too, but only really noticeable to me when the screensaver's on (XP logo + black bkgd). While normal running, it looks fantastic. No real complaints on the screen. Just as long as the light leakage bit doesn't turn into something else further on down the line.

The Dell is much lighter than the 8790. Totally different worlds in the weight department. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the 9300; it's a very nice computer. Can't keep up with the top of the line Sagers in regards to options, but it's pretty close. I don't think hubby'd be making a mistake if he tried a Dell through the Employee Discount program.

Judging by the Dell forums, it seems to game fine if you've got a decent vidcard in it. I ordered a 64mb for the one I'm using. It's a work machine, so there was no reason to get anything bigger.

Only beastly game I've played on the 9300 is Civilization 4. And the 64mb definitely can't take it. I have to take the graphic settings down a bit whereas the 8790 has no problem chewing Civ4 up and spitting it out with everything on high quality. Granted, it's not as intensive as a lot of the FPS games out, but I don't like FPS games, so never play them.

As for full specs, other than what's in my sig, it's got a 100gig HD (not sure on speed- seems slow, so might be a 4200rpm), 64mb video and DVD burner. Although I've never saw or used a 5720, judging by what I've read and what I see in the specs, I'd imagine the 9300 is very similar to the 5720.

Well, the beast is actually working for the time being. WHY, I have no idea. But if I can keep it limping along, then I'm more of a happy camper. Also, the last few days, I've been in contact with both PCT and Sager. I get grumpy when my computer's down, yes. But when communication isn't happening, THAT's when things roll downhill. Now that we seem to've passed that bend in the road, I'm a little more optimistic on things.

Also, doesn't hurt that the Seahawks are going to the Superbowl. Last time I cheered them on in a Championship game was when I was barely a teenager. Now they're going to the Big Game and they're playing the Steelers, a team that I liked when I was younger, but am still partial to. I've already taken the day off and am planning a Super Bowl party for all those foreigners here that happen to get *sick* on that particular day Not even having my Toyota Surf (4-Runner) slammed into the other night could keep me down for too long. Not w/ Seattle in the SB

Now, if I can get a resolution on the computer issue(s), Seahawks win the SuperBowl and insurance gets on the ball and fixes my truck, then life should be pretty darn good.

Max Fan Fix
David Liu mailed me and told me that one of his techs had come up with a possible solution for the Max Fan/Shutdown problem. Apparently if one of the fans stops working, the machine will initiate a shutdown sequence. I checked the bottom fans when I started Fn+F10 and sure enough, the fan over the memory (L-shaped cover) wasn't spinning. I blew on it and it started spinning, thus ending the shutdown sequence that was underway. Currently working on getting a replacement fan sent just in case. Don't know if a bearing's bad or if it had dust in the bearings or what, but I'd rather have a backup for when it goes bad, not if. Fairly simple fix. Too bad it took so long to get it figured out. But, it's figured out, so that's definitely


DC-in port
Don't know what the deal is with this. Works fine now. Definitely did not work fine when the problem reappeared. Tried both power adapters at the time and neither one was getting any power to the machine. So this is also a problem that I think will reappear. Unless it's some other problem that seems similar to the problem I had which I RMA'd it for a few months ago.