Whats This I hear About the 8790 Battery?

Well I doubt the people reporting the problem are lying about it. What the ratio of good/bad are I don't know. Start a poll.

So far I have only heard of G-Omaha's machine having battery issues, but he sent his machine in for a return/exchange for a variety of problems (most likely a dud unit).

Now, I wouldn't want to game on a battery anyways, but if I did I would use the 12 cell. However, even the 12 cell only lasts me about 1 1/2 hours on battery playing dvd movies, and the 8 cell only lasts a little over an hour.

If I'm not mistaken it was either Adam or Tom that stated that he only considers the battery to be a UPS (uninterruptable power supply) rather than a true power source. I believe that G-Omaha and GS-Ferrari are also of that opinion (could be wrong - correct me if so).

As for shorting out... I doubt it. If it is sparking or melting or exploding, that is a sign of an electrical problem that needs to be fixed immediately. I would guess that there is either a short in the system or the battery is being overcharged beyond its maximum capacity (limiter not kicking in, votage not regulated properly, or power spikes).

SEMC is somewhat correct.

Nothing actually "burned", "melted", "sparked", etc.

The "problem" was not isolated to me (search the forum). Don't know if this was one or two other's that reported the problem - or more. Now GS-Ferrari was "gutsy" enough to try burning his 12-Cell battery and that battery did not "fail".

IMHO, the battery should be able to support the "full load", and it simply does not (8-Cell Battery). I believe that if I had 100 Batteries, all of them would fail or "become dumb" (because of overheating caused by the "drain") if ran them under "full load" for an extended period of time.

Now if Sager/Clevos warned of this, then I would be OK. Just use it as an UPS, because it can not sustain "full use" for a period over xx minutes.

Having said all of that - (with my opinion), maybe the unit that I purchased simply had a bad battery. I just don't know as I returned the unit without testing a replacement battery.

Just my 2 Cents Worth of Opinion.

Gary

I just posted on this. I was playing pain killer with 60% battery left and the machine shut down for no reason. I now have a 100% dead battery that will not hold any kind of a charge.

HP requires that all 800fsb machines have a 12-cell battery, I think Sager/CLEVO should enforce this as well. I have not decided if I am going to keep my machine or not, but if I do, I am def. upgrading to the 12-cell.

see this thread:

http://notebookforums.com/showthread...1&page=2&pp=15

So the 5690 is at 49/297 while the 8790 is at 418/276 factory spec. However, since the 8790 is underclocked, it "overclocks" to the design capacity of up to 500/300 very easily without problems.

Personally, I run my 8790 at factory specs with no problems and then load up my Gaming profile of 460/290 for gaming when I need the extra power. Ahh, selective overclocking without really overclocking the card since it was designed to run higher than it was set to.

I am debating on returning my 8790 for a 5690 as well until the new screens come out (june?) but don't count on it.

If the screen res doesnt bother you go for the 8790. I think the 17" lcd is too good to pass up, esp if you don't care about the screen res. Performance is almost identical once you oc the 8790 to the levels of the 5690. Adam hasn't oc'd the 5690 yet so I can't comment on how much faster it is, if any, oc'd.

OK, I ran my 8790 under heavy load on batteries alone (both 8-cell and again with the 12-cell) and the system shut down gracefully each time when it hit the low-power threshold.

This is a 3.4ghz Northwood, and my CPU temps range from 40 (at idle) to 58 (full load with fan on low-auto).

I think there are some definite bad batches 8790 components out there, but here's just another datapoint that shows that the 8-cell can handle full load till auto-shutdown correctly.

Just because yours shut down ok ONCE or TWICE, doesn't mean it won't fault (although who is to say it will?) I took mine down on the battery to the point of the system shutting off, and around 3% everytime and did this about 5 times I would say. Put it under full load about 4 more times and then post back.

same here I had 6% and it stayed at that they replaced it and now when I game I have it plugged in

Well, mad, if that's the only thing that you're looking for out of a notebook, I think you'll be happy for a short while after picking whatever it is that you're going to buy. But that happiness isn't going to last long. There's always something big, badder and faster right around the corner.

If I were you, I'd step back and think about the other things that you need in a computer. Once you figure out what you really need, then go down the list of options w/ the 5690 & 8790 and decide which one fits your wants & needs best. If you wait, there'll be something faster than the 5690 out. If you wait a little past that, there'll be something else faster. And so on.

I'm one of the people that doesn't understand the fixation for all these little tests that spit out numbers for comparison. My way of comparing is if I feel a noticeable difference in something. If I can't tell the difference, then I could care less about the speed. *shrugs* That being said, maybe my advice doesn't pertain to you. Just hate to see you get stuck in a rut of wanting the best video card NOW. In a desktop, you can do that~ just replace the card and you're at the top of the pile again. W/ the notebooks, you buy and you're pretty much done. Sure, there's the upgrade option, but that seems a little extreme for replacing *just* the video card.

Just my 1/2 cent worth.

Good luck in choosing!

Gravity,

You might consider a "basic" lappy for notes, etc.... and a Powerful DeskTop for the gaming. That is unless you need a transportable gaming machine, in which case - get the Sager.

... ... ... get a shuttle (mini pc w/ LCD) for the dorm/gaming, and a cheapass/old/outdated craptastic laptop for notes/crap. ... prolly end up costing you bout the same...