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another new 8886 review

post #1 of 30
12/11/02 at 10:03am
Thread Starter 
My 8886 showed up yesterday, right on schedule

Initial impressions:

1) Adam @ PC Torque Ltd. is the best! I had numerous hiccups with my bank wiring the cash to PC Torque, but it was no sweat for Adam 100% professional all the way. Thanks a bunch!

2) I was pleasantly surprised to find all the drivers, utilities, etc. all preloaded with Windows 2000 Pro. No unknown devices, and everything is working like its supposed to (no strange driver conflicts). Just fill in your username, password, NIC address, and you're in business!

3) I knew this going in, but the 8886 is enormous! Which is just fine with me, it is a desktop replacement.

4) The 15.7" SXGA screen is fabulous! Excellent clarity and brightness. My only gripe is one stuck pixel (bright green/white) and one dead pixel. (Not horrible, but its kinda like in Austin Powers:Goldmember where Austin just can't get over the mole...)
No amount of poking and prodding would change them.

5) The case is very well vented. This leads to more fan noise than my previous laptop, but its certainly not offensive or bothersome. It doesn't run very often anyway, and for relatively short amounts of time when it does.

6) No drive noise from either the HD or the DVD. Nice and smooth!

Specs for those that care:
P4 Northwood 2.8 GHz w/ 533 MHz FSB
1GB PC2100/266 MHz DDR RAM
40GB 5400rpm HD
Toshiba DVD/CDRW combo

Summary:
A+ for service from PC Torque
A+ for Midern for install quality
A for Sager for product build quality
(would be A+ except for the dead pixels)

-iNJ
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post #2 of 30
12/11/02 at 10:58am
as i have stated many times before, i believe adam a pctorque RULES the SAGER WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!
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post #3 of 30
12/11/02 at 12:48pm

re

if u just received it and it has one stuck pixel and one dead one i would be going crazy i mean its brand spankin new somethin ya pay over 2k for there shouldnt be anyththing wrong with it period especially the screen on day one id suggest asking adam or emailing sager cause thats just not right
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post #4 of 30
12/11/02 at 12:52pm

Re: re

Quote:
Originally posted by Radeonm9
if u just received it and it has one stuck pixel and one dead one i would be going crazy i mean its brand spankin new somethin ya pay over 2k for there shouldnt be anyththing wrong with it period especially the screen on day one id suggest asking adam or emailing sager cause thats just not right
Sager's policy is 5 or more dead pixels. To compare, Dell's is 6 or more dead pixels before they will replace it whether it's brand new, or a year old. In most cases of dead pixels, they are dead on arrival rather than over time. It doesn't happen often, but it's the poilcy of most places to require a certain amount of them before they will replace it, even with most desktop LCDs.

That's why I included it in THIS post to make sure everyone is aware of the policy.
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post #5 of 30
12/11/02 at 3:35pm
I think Sager's policy is excellent. Most of my friends that have dells or any other lappies got them with at least one dead pixel... and most of the computers we bought through school came with some dead pixels, it's just bound to happen, I mean there are 1280x1024 of them, lol. What are the chances in ANY situation with ANY company that all of them will be perfect?
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post #6 of 30
12/12/02 at 11:52pm
dead pix are an unfortinate thing with lcd's, i have a canon powershot s40 digital cam, and the screen on it has one dead pix, and its clearly explained in the manual that this is a normal occurance for lcd's to have dead pixels.....good news though, is that my digal cam is the only lcd ive ever seen a dead pix on (or noticed it anyway), so i think its much less common these days.
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post #7 of 30
12/13/02 at 1:43am
Yeah, I'm glad there aren't any dead pixels on this 8886 screen :-) I'm sorry to hear about your camera... as long as the dead pixel doesn't show up in your actual pictures then I suppose it's ok :-) Viewfinder better than picture....
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post #8 of 30
12/13/02 at 10:40am
Thread Starter 
Move observations:

1) The Direct X (8.1) Diagnostics in Win2K Pro absolutely FLY on the Radeon Mobility 9000 card! Holy smokes!

2) The vid card introduces a lot of audible interference into the sound system. I can hear crackling/electric arcing sounds issue from the laptop speakers any time anything on the screen has to redraw (like moving a window, extending a menu, etc.). This turns into an audible 'whine' when running the Direct X 3D tests. I hope this does not extend into the S/PDIF after I hook up my Z-680 speakers
I'd have to return the 8886 if that was the case.

Otherwise, I love it. The thing is blazingly fast!

-iNJ
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post #9 of 30
12/26/02 at 4:35am
Let us know how the spdif works out... I have yet to try this successfully, lol, I'm working on it though. Good luck!
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post #10 of 30
12/26/02 at 6:37am
Okay, that makes some sense. I too have noticed a sound when I move an active window. Heck, pretty much every time I move the mouse it makes this *barely audible* rapid-clicking sound, sorta like how it would sound if you could move your scrolling wheel on your mouse at an extremely high speed.

Doesn't really irritate me, but I am curious about what exactly that sound is... I initially wrote it off to something that a lappy does (never owned one before), but I'm not sure now.

Btw, I don't think you'll have to worry about it coming through the speakers... It doesn't come through my headphones.
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post #11 of 30
12/26/02 at 4:34pm
Yeah, it's not through the speakers, it's actually something electronic coming from the lappy itself. I don't think it's a problem though as the lappy has performed perfectly.
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post #12 of 30
12/27/02 at 12:46am
i get the same sound.. when moving the mouse or when moving a scrollbar or window around. it's something to do with the graphics being updated and it sounds like it is being generated close to the fan. it is generated by both external pointer control or the touchpad. it is the sound of the M9 elves repainting.

actually i used to have a sound similar to this when a mouse and soundcard or mouse and video card were on the same irq.. it just sort of makes that sound... what moving parts are in the m9 though ?
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post #13 of 30
12/27/02 at 4:06am
interesting.

How do I get rid of that sound...
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post #14 of 30
12/27/02 at 4:25pm
there is a round button right above the End key on your keyboard. press it and hold for a few seconds and the sound goes away. i've noticed it also reduces fan noise.

unfortunately that is the only solution found so far :/
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post #15 of 30
12/27/02 at 11:16pm
Great review. Adam seems great. I will be ordering a 5660 soon, and I feel confident that everything will be great.
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post #16 of 30
12/28/02 at 1:10am
You should feel that confident :-) Glad to hear you're getting a 5660!

As far as the sound, it is barely audible, and it doesn't interfere with the speakers at all, so when ANY sound is being made from the speakers (music, games, movies, etc), it doesn't get effected. Just keep in mind that electricity creates magnetic fields and those fields effect other... In the tight spaces of a lappy, I would have expected far worse problems, lol, but apparently the engineering and design is great and does not show anything worse than that. It's the same as when you have multiple phone lines... if you don't use twisted pair cable, the magnetic fields from voltage changes (that's how voice is transfered over phone lines, analogue ones at least) interfere with those on the other line and you get major crosstalk... It just has to be designed as best as possible to make that the lowest possible.
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post #17 of 30
1/2/03 at 1:41pm
Thread Starter 
The crackling sound is not noticable during games, etc., just when its quiet in the room and I'm working with something simple with no sound, like a web page, Acrobat document, office apps, etc.

Annoying? YES.
Does it have an impact on the use of the 8886? NO.

I think its mostly interference from the video card. When running the Direct X diagnostic video tests, it really whines intensly.
Another place its really noticable is in the Aurora toolkit used for building Neverwinter Nights modules... changing the (3D) camera angle or inspecting 3D object properties causes a noticable increase in 'noise'.

I won't be able to test the S/PDIF for another couple weeks.
I'll let you all know what happens then...

-iNJ
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post #18 of 30
1/2/03 at 1:50pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Specs for those that care:
P4 Northwood 2.8 GHz w/ 533 MHz FSB
1GB PC2100/266 MHz DDR RAM
40GB 5400rpm HD
Toshiba DVD/CDRW combo

Summary:
A+ for service from PC Torque
A+ for Midern for install quality
A for Sager for product build quality
(would be A+ except for the dead pixels)
I'm going to modify my grades:

A++ for PC Torque: (Adam continues to shine far above the rest)

B+ for Midern install: (the included recovery CD for Win 2K doesn't read NTFS, so it insists you must format the whole drive to FAT before reinstalling Win2K... that's lame! Also, something is hokey with recovering from 'standby' mode with the initial build/install... I can't recreate the problem since I reinstalled.)

A- for Sager build quality/engineering: (the dead pixels and audible 'static' noise)

-iNJ
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post #19 of 30
1/2/03 at 11:54pm
Standby causes problems on almost every computer you could use it on, both with win2k and winxp... EVERY computer I've ever used it on or seen it used on has encountered some trouble with it. It's not a Sager thing, it's windows. What's up with the Midern install though? I'm confused as to why it would do that. What do you mean by the recovery cd? You mean the copy of Win2k they sent with the lappy?
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post #20 of 30
1/3/03 at 11:06am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
What's up with the Midern install though? I'm confused as to why it would do that. What do you mean by the recovery cd? You mean the copy of Win2k they sent with the lappy?
yeah, Midern calls it a recovery CD. It has more than just Win2K on it. When you boot off of that CD, there's a 'recovery' program that starts up to return your system to factory specs (ie 1 partition with Win2K, no other choices).
That's kinda irritating... I should have opted for the no OS option and just got a retail version of Win2K. Oh well.

Regarding standby: I don't think I'll ever use it, because I agree in general it is more trouble than its worth. Still, I can't get it to 'break' since I reinstalled. Wierd.

-iNJ
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