Desktop CPU in Laptops

3dluvr says in his review that: "The new p4s are smaller and thus draw less heat. Most of the p3s are cheaper, but I recommend opting for the p4s." That is very true. If you look at this:

http://www.powernotebooks.com/P4_Truth.php3

It shows the reasoning behind the northwood processor in a laptop. It makes a ton of sense. As long as you don't cover all of the vents on the laptop, it will be fine. My current laptop with the mobile P4 gets hot from time to time if I have it sitting on carpet, lol, bad idea, so I made a little thing to set it on out of a cardboard box, lol, has lots of vents under the laptop's vents. It works wonders. Just use common sense and you shouldn't have a problem. The old P3s are a problem, but not the P4s. Anyone else have some input? Consider also that a lot of people have gotten these and most have no problem with heat (not even DW who has put the 3.06 Ghz in his, albeit without HT).

Habib

Heat issues are non-existant as far as I'm concerned...I 'standby'd' mine and tossed it in my vanguard case (tons of tight padding, no ventalation and nearly, if not completely airtight, all aluminum). Problem is it didn't standby due to a wifi card driver hangin on me and i didn't notice 'cause i was in a hurry. It was in there cookin away for a half hour before I opened it back up and felt the toasty air comin out. Unfortunatly I had no way of telling if it was throttling or what not but it didn't shut down, didn't have an issue...took it out, ran the fans, and the air comming out was back down to the normal slightly-warm in a matter of 5 minutes...fans shut off after about 10. Northwood seems pretty damn safe in a laptop to me...at least a sager.

It woulda been sweet if you had run a benchmark at that point just to see... but gosh I'm glad your comp is ok, lol. I'd like to know if it does downclock at all... Anyone know if heat causes the sagers to downclock? I thought the controls were only in the bios and nothing else was automated? PCTorque?

Habib

Well I'm under the impression that a northwood basically cant overheat..it throttles itself to prevent that. As per that tom's hardware video, I pulled my hsf in my desktop system (1.6a running 2.64@1.75v) and it did the same thing...got REALLY slow and sped right back up when I plopped it back on.

Ok, so there is no way to manually control that throttling in windows? It just does it according to temperature?

Habib

I like BadluckBoy, am very surprised that is doesn't get hotter than it does, yes it does sometimes, but not anything to prevent me from ever purchasing another.....the only drawback is the battery, but I have a fujitsu P series lifebook for on the road, I use this as a great way to now have to maintain files and settings on 2 different PC's from home and work, and its very powerful, I went with the 2.8 Ghz , 1GB RAM option and am very happy !

Heat is really not an issue. I am now typing on my Toshiba satellite (1.7GHz P4 Mobile) which gets hotter under normal conditions than my Sager 5660 (2.8GHz P4 Desktop).

The perceived notion that Sagers get abnormally hot is just that, a perceived notion. A fallacy. Incorrect. Not true. I ran my 5660 under extreme conditions and yes, I was able to raise the temperature leaving the ventilation slots to a toasty level. But that actually means that the engineers that designed this laptop are brilliant and Toshiba laptop engineers can learn a thing or two from them - Why? because it means THE COOLING SYSTEM IS WORKING!!! Who cares if hot air is exiting the 5660, as long as the laptop itself remains cooler than others. The Sager only gets warm under the most strenuous conditions as it is pumping out the hot air. And when your use reverts to normal Word/Excel/Powerpoint/Access/Internet use, the laptop's exhaust temperature goes down very very quickly and then the fans turn off.

Under most normal conditions (excluding game playing) the Sager 5660 is either silent or very close to silent. It is the QUIETEST notebook I have ever used. Also by far the most powerful. And so many people have complimented its looks, which wasn't something I expected when ordering it.

The battery life is not very good, only just over an hour for me (under strenuous use). This is NOT a road warrior. It is a desktop replacement laptop/notebook.

badluckboy

I agree 100%. It's not a road warrior, but it is one heck of a warrior :-) When I get one it will have the ac/dc inverter for road trips. It's basically an all in one everything system, lol. As far as the heat though, keep in mind that the desktop processor is made to run efficiently at up to 40 or so degrees C while the mobile is made to run efficiently up to 80 or so degrees C... that is why the cooling system has to be so good, and why it is probably the most silent notebook. It is thicker an more open than any notebook I've ever seen, and one whole side is all vents (lol, I'm talking about both the 8886 and the 5660). That's going to keep it from getting anywhere near as hot as mobile based laptops.

Habib

Half the time my laptop doesnt have any fans on at all, so it cant be that hot, lol.

NS

Yeah, the people who report that their laptop is hot prolly have it in a closed space or are under the impression that fans are evil, lol. Fans are supposed to be there and they are supposed to come on... if they come on it is NOT a bad sign, lol, that's a sign that they're doing their job. And the fact that they aren't on half the time just indicates that the laptops from Sager are well-designed.

Habib