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Syn's 9860 Review

post #1 of 92
11/20/04 at 2:41am
Thread Starter 
Where to start? Heh I ordered Monday the 15th, with over night shipping for PCTorque.. Wednesday I got a phone call to call Luke back, so I did that and was informed the wireless g turbo was now on back order. And If I wanted to go with the none turbo one. I opted to have it sent to me later and my laptop sent now. Finally I recieved it this morning.. Spec's are as follows

P4 3.4
1 gig Ram (2 sticks)
Nvidia's 6800 Go
80 SATA 5400 RPM (none Raid) HDD

I'll work on better pictures when its day light.. my camera just sucks with lamp light..

Build quality, The unit is made of plastic I believe, but it looks strong and sturdy and doesn't look cheap. My first thoughts seeing it on my desk was, this thing is huge, this thing is a TANK! This isn't a laptop.. its a desktop made to resemble a laptop

Im not sure how Sager got the top casing to look like brushed metal but its not..it feels like some type of plastic.. but it looks really really nice.

Edit: Luke corrected me, its brushed Aluminum... Don't ask why I thought it plastic.. heh I was bloody tired *poor excuse*

The keyboard, of course is Full size Yea! The keyboard has that soft touch I love...after typing with a laptop keyboard I find it painful to use a regular desktop keyboard. The clicking is just annoying... But as you expect, the 9860's seems durable, with no flex in the keys when I push on it..and it does have that soft touch and full size num key pad..




I have yet to try the card reader, cam or dj.. I'll try to come back to those things at a later day.. onward to the good stuff..

The SPEAKERS! These are the BEST laptop speakers I have every heard. These have a strong, deeper tone to them and actually they get pretty loud for a laptop. Don't get me wrong they aren't going to shake the house in bass...or out blast your stereo..I had plans to buy external speakers, but im happy with the sound on this...plenty loud and rich enough for me...And they dont have the crackling raspy sound like alot of laptops do when you raise the sound..

Before I even turned this on.. I took a moment to admire the build quality and the screen... The screen even off is just beautiful.. so glossy.. I turned it on, perparing to install the OS when two light blue pixels were glaring at me.. You probably heard me mention it earlier, and how Luke took it upon himself to call Sager and they agreed to replace the screen for me. Kudos to Luke, Adam and Pctorque for great service.. I am really really pleased over this...



Onwards, Computer Potato gave good instructions on what to do if you didnt buy the OS system. I'll only add that when you copy the drivers off the driver cd to floppy.. You have to do it on your other pc..not the laptop.. I haven't used a floppy in so long I was scratching my head over this part lol And yes you have to install them or windows will not see the hard drive. Even though Bios does..

Ok on to the things that interest gamers heh..

Unit came with stock settings of 250/600
3dMark03 7148
3DMark01 16,230
3DMark05 2527
Aquamark 43,236


Overclocked 344/696
3DMark03 9040
3DMark01 17,898
3DMark05 3337
Aquamark 52,756



I ran benches for nearly 3 hours or more trying to stress the system and since this is a prescott, see how hot I could make it lol
The unit does get warm.. I ran 3dmark05 3 times to really stress it and it topped 65c.. my room is about 68 degrees.. No artifacts.. I probably could have pushed it more but decided not too heh..

The left palm rest gets really warm. Not hot, atleast not to me.. The best I can describe it is about medium settings of my heating pad.. Normal temps, idle surfing range around 55C, EQ2 pushed it to about 62C..

Ok im tired guys, i'll post more later heh..

Edit: Take that back, Idle seems to be around 48C..
LL
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post #2 of 92
11/20/04 at 2:46am
Cool! Looks like a beaut! Nice 3DMark scores too.
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post #3 of 92
11/20/04 at 3:28am
wow sweet scores syn. I want one, but my back can't take the weight w/ all my books =P...might I add...thanks for keeping all of us waiting ahaha have loads of fun w/ that thing
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post #4 of 92
11/20/04 at 3:29am
Glad you finally got yours. I'm pretty impressed with mine and no dead pixels.

I compared our benchmarks and they are pretty similar. 7148 vs 7088 and 43236 vs. 42218. I'm guessing this is due to the difference in CPU. I went cheap and bought the 3.0 with only 512 MB of Ram. Actually seeing your benchmarks makes me feel better knowing that I'm not really losing much performance for low-balling the system. I did this because I plan to upgrade to the 64 bit processor if/when it is released and if/when it is compatible with the 9860 chipset and upgrading the Ram when it becomes cheaper.

The games I have played so far (Doom3, FryCry, Call of Duty) all play perfectly on high details .

Thanks for posting your review. Btw. Have you had any trouble running Aquamark? I could get it to run once, every other time it either locks up or kicks me back to windows?
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post #5 of 92
11/20/04 at 3:41am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yang88She
wow sweet scores syn. I want one, but my back can't take the weight w/ all my books =P...might I add...thanks for keeping all of us waiting ahaha have loads of fun w/ that thing
::Laughs:: So welcome Yang.. Im not done yet..im just dead tired all of a sudden..and I want to give this beast the review it deserves heh..

Flats, Your marks are great..and mine aren't that far off from what Adam posted and he was going 3.6 with 2 gigs.. Im happy.. I just wish I didn't have to send it back.. now that I have it Im ready to start playing with it but know you have to pack it up and ship it off again kind of makes you not want to get comfortable lol

I couldn't find my Doom3 Cd's.. Soon as I pick up HL2 I'll try that. I did do Far cry..


This machine not only plays it..it eats it for lunch.. I was only in briefly, but I went native res highest settings and outside I was getting 90 FPS and up into the 100's..

Seriously, for anyone considering packing this baby up and running around school with it... you are insane heh.
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post #6 of 92
11/20/04 at 3:55am
Thread Starter 


Many on desktop and using a Nvidia 6800 are having major stuttering issues running EQ2.. Both our desktops were having the stuttering jumping issue.. then there were others that ran it just fine. After alot of research it seems it might be an Nvidia issue with old chipsets.. when some people bought a new motherboard they ended up running the game fine... Needless to say with so many complaints about EQ2 and the 6800 I was almost ready to put getting this on hold til the ATI card was released. Anyone considering playing EQ2 with this unit, have no fear.. it runs it fine on high settings.. I went to high performance for some areas like graystone where you get 1fps..but this machine handles it just fine.. CPU usage was about 50% on my desktop P4 2.6 it was 90% to 100% usuage... I know everyone's going on about HL2 but I really believe EQ2 is one of the most demanding games out there...
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post #7 of 92
11/20/04 at 4:53am
Thanks Syn for the great posts. After reading and watching the forums for the past few weeks, I finally ordered a 9860 from PCT. I haven't been disappointed in their service yet. You and the other people lurking these boards are fantastic. And now with the screen shots you're putting up, I can't wait to get this lappy in my hands. Sorry you've got to ship it back Monday. Hope it turns around quick for you!

BTW, what did you use to OC the 6800 and has it been really stable at those settings?
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post #8 of 92
11/20/04 at 5:21am
Thread Starter 
I used Nvidia's forceware to over clock. You can do it but you have to unlock it first.. I ran benches for over three hours..so I'd say it was stable at the highest over clock i did. I didn't push it more but I think it could have did more.. For gaming im playing at stock, for now stock settings is more then enough.. Its really a great unit.. Im very glad I waited for this one..
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post #9 of 92
11/20/04 at 6:35am
I used powerstrip to overclock with no problems. It was very easy to use.

I travel with mine with no problems. Sure it is big but I wouldn't call it cumbersome. If I can travel with it to Africa and use it on an airplane it shouldn't be that big a deal for anyone else. I can also use it as exercise equipment (curls, bench presses, squats) when there is no gym around . So many uses for just one machine.

Syn: Have you had any problems with Aquamark3. I could only get it to run once and the Tom's Hardware review had similar problems. No problems with any other graphical benchmarks or games. Also, I forget how to display the fps in farcry. Can you remind me how to do that. I forgot the console cammand.
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post #10 of 92
11/20/04 at 7:14am
It seems to me that PCT has agreed to replace your machine despite the fact that your dead pixels didn't fall within the centre portion of the screen, as detailed in their dead pixel return policy.

Are they going to be equally understanding with all people who buy a 9860 and find they have a couple dead pixels?
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post #11 of 92
11/20/04 at 7:54am
Nice review synergi. I would like to see some half life 2 screen shots. The route 17 level taxes my system but that takes awhile to get to.
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post #12 of 92
11/20/04 at 8:46am
Woot! congrats on teh 'top..Happy yet sad you have to send this monster back. I utterly feel your pain, dont worry it will be back brand spanking new!!!! I still have to survive a few more months w/o a top.
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post #13 of 92
11/20/04 at 2:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by McGuillicuddy
It seems to me that PCT has agreed to replace your machine despite the fact that your dead pixels didn't fall within the centre portion of the screen, as detailed in their dead pixel return policy.

Are they going to be equally understanding with all people who buy a 9860 and find they have a couple dead pixels?
The policies are a guarantee. The 30 day return policy is something that can be used if it doesn't fall within the policy. Outside of that, each case is looked at and in Synergi's case there were a couple of things I think had an impact:

1) They weren't dead pixels, they were stuck blue. While dead pixels are often not even seen, stuck blue ones usually are with more backgrounds. It wasn't just one stuck blue one, it was multiple ones.

2) She didn't flame the forums, us, or Sager.

Keep in mind most cases we hear about having dead pixels are posted right here on the forums and every case with the 9860 we've first heard about here (3 now so far it appears). We try to educate the users so they know no matter what they buy, Dell, Alienware, Toshiba... if it has an LCD, it has a chance of arriving with one or more defective pixels. Many companies have policies of 5 or more defective pixels or they will refuse to replace it.

In the end it's up to Sager to make the call while all we can do as a reseller is make the case and request. Repeat customers are a very big deal to Sager so they took that into account and made an exception here.

As I have said before, there's no such thing as an LCD brand or model in the world that doesn't have bad pixels. All brands and models go out with a % of them having bad pixels. Even a no dead pixel guarantee doesn't stop you from getting some. All a no dead pixel policy does is guarantee it will be replaced and there's no way the one it's replaced with can be guaranteed to be perfect when you get it, all that can be done is promised it will be replaced. With today's technology and over 2 million pixels on a screen there's no such thing as 100%, the only good thing is with so many pixles it's like a spec of dust on the LCD when you have a dead pixel.
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post #14 of 92
11/20/04 at 3:20pm
Looks like the wait was worth it for you Syn. Glad to hear that you like it.
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post #15 of 92
11/20/04 at 3:30pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flats
I used powerstrip to overclock with no problems. It was very easy to use.

I travel with mine with no problems. Sure it is big but I wouldn't call it cumbersome. If I can travel with it to Africa and use it on an airplane it shouldn't be that big a deal for anyone else. I can also use it as exercise equipment (curls, bench presses, squats) when there is no gym around . So many uses for just one machine.

Syn: Have you had any problems with Aquamark3. I could only get it to run once and the Tom's Hardware review had similar problems. No problems with any other graphical benchmarks or games. Also, I forget how to display the fps in farcry. Can you remind me how to do that. I forgot the console cammand.
I ran Aquamark 2 times with no problems. I did have a couple issues running 3dmark.. but it had something to do with the res.. once I changed from native down to whatever res it is 3dmark uses, the benches went fine.. I should have mentioned I used 1024x768 to run the benches.. pretty much just ran them at default settings of the program.

Many asked about the screen res. I'll try to get some more pictures up later, but for those that wonder, yes you can place to word documents side by side. To me there is a big different between SXGA and WSXGA, you really gain alot more real estate.. After seeing this screen there is no way im going WUXGA.. I dont think my eyes could handle it.. But you guys just have to see for yourself.. This is a beautiful screen, and i've seen the Sony's and this is just as good..

Edit: Flats almost forgot, Im using a program called Fraps to get the FPS in the game screen shots you see. Do a google search for it.. I also used it to take the screen shots.. Handy program..
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post #16 of 92
11/20/04 at 3:31pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by G-Omaha
Looks like the wait was worth it for you Syn. Glad to hear that you like it.
I love it! Thanks G
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post #17 of 92
11/20/04 at 8:07pm
Right on, Syn. *High five* Good to see that your patience paid off. Bummer that you're having to send it back so quickly, but it's great to know that you're being taken care of so well.
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post #18 of 92
11/20/04 at 9:20pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by FriedToast
Right on, Syn. *High five* Good to see that your patience paid off. Bummer that you're having to send it back so quickly, but it's great to know that you're being taken care of so well.
I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am with this machine. I played EQ2, surfed and IM chat all at the same time with no slow down going from one to the other. My desktop can't touch that performance its awesome..
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post #19 of 92
11/20/04 at 10:26pm

too bad about the stuck pixels... mine is dead...

I have a dead 9860 now... Dammit... I remember feeling bad for your stuck pixels syn and being glad mine didnt have any... then today... I shut it down for a few hours, came back and only the power light came on then the fan worked.... but no boot and no display.... GRRRRRR! I cant seem to get it to work. Totally Dead. Doesnt even output a display. Maybe SATA drives arent good after all... or maybe the 9860 need more R&D.

What suggestions do you guys have ??

Thanks lots in advance,
MXdirt
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post #20 of 92
11/20/04 at 10:56pm
Thread Starter 
Ok alot of people wanted to see two windows side by side... they aren't the best pic's but should give you an idea..

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