Well folks,
I took the plunge and got the Sager 4750 (NP4750) last week. At my very first bootup, I noticed it had recovered from a serious error, meaning the prior session must have crashed right before they shipped it out. Why nothing was done about this beats me, but I didn't think much of it at the time.
The screen is, what can I say: it practically spoils you. People think I'm being snotty now when I mention in passing how my laptop screen looks much better than their ugly ass TVs or monitors.
I noticed initially that the 4750 could get really hot in some spots. The touchpad itelf had once gotten really hot for no apparent reason, even though the notebook was idling. At this point, I was trying out CrystalCPUID and RMClock from cpu.rightmark.org for adjusting voltage and clock settings. Both utilities had its annoying quirks, but when they worked, the heat was practically a non-issue. With CrystalCUID, when you want to keep the CPU at a constant clock rate (for example adjusting it to the minimal 800Mhz speed when on battery power), for some reason CrystalCPUID couldn't keep it constant. Sooner or later it would bump right back up to the maximum 2205Mhz, making it impossible for me to test battery life. The CPU would not stay throttled under CrystalCPUID. The multiple managment feature though seemed to work fine.
With RMClock, the clock speeds would stick to whatever speed setting you set it at (minimal, maximum, etc), so I used this to throttle the CPU when on battery power. However, the automatic management feature didn't seem to work too well, specifically when I tried the built in TV tuner. When watching TV, the frame rates became too choppy, so I had to disable RMClock and run it under the OS's native power management.
Through all this, the 4750 would randomly suddenly flash the blue screen of death and then reset itself. These crashes seemed to have no common factor, as they happened across various different applications. When I checked the Events log in Administrative Tools, I noticed some of the dump errors were identical to the one I saw when I first booted up the machine, so I'm pretty sure this was an issue before they even shipped it out. I thought it might have been me because I had lowered the voltage settings, but the crashes continued to happen even after I removed all the CPU utilities and reset everything to their stock power and voltage settings.
When trying out the TV tuner, iI would have to say that it was adequate, but nothing to write home about. The recording is subpar unless you use the absolute best quality settings, and it has no closed captioning at all, which really teed me off. The remote was fun to use though, and capable of controlling every part of your laptop using third party software.
Ultimately I had to send it back, as I couldn't take the chance that the crashes were something I could fix before the 30 day money back guarantee expired.
I was wondering whether these crashes were a result of AMD just being more unstable on average than Intel CPUs. Generally, my experience has been that Intel CPUS were rock solid stable, while AMDs were an iffy proposition. This is no slight to AMD though, as I think part of the fault lies with the chipset they rest on, namely VIA, and my view is purely anecdotal, as I seem to have generally bad luck with AMD powered machines.
I was thinking of going the safer route and springing for a more expensive 8790, but the Cool N Quiet feature of the Athlon 64 has convinced me enough to give it a second chance. It was indeed quiet, the heat very much fixable to the extent that it can become a true "laptop" and you can squeeze enough battery life to watch a DVD flick in one setting, all benefits I don't think you can obtain with the more power hungry 8790, even if you opt for the 12 cell battery.
So I'm giving the 4750 another chance, hoping the first one was just a lemon. This time I'm dropping the TV tuner in favor of getting a USB tuner instead. I think the built in tuner may have been a factor in depleting battery life as well, explaining why I couldn't break two hours even with the most miminal power settings I tried.
I should get my replacement sometime next week. Hopefully, I'll have better luck this time around.
I took the plunge and got the Sager 4750 (NP4750) last week. At my very first bootup, I noticed it had recovered from a serious error, meaning the prior session must have crashed right before they shipped it out. Why nothing was done about this beats me, but I didn't think much of it at the time.
The screen is, what can I say: it practically spoils you. People think I'm being snotty now when I mention in passing how my laptop screen looks much better than their ugly ass TVs or monitors.
I noticed initially that the 4750 could get really hot in some spots. The touchpad itelf had once gotten really hot for no apparent reason, even though the notebook was idling. At this point, I was trying out CrystalCPUID and RMClock from cpu.rightmark.org for adjusting voltage and clock settings. Both utilities had its annoying quirks, but when they worked, the heat was practically a non-issue. With CrystalCUID, when you want to keep the CPU at a constant clock rate (for example adjusting it to the minimal 800Mhz speed when on battery power), for some reason CrystalCPUID couldn't keep it constant. Sooner or later it would bump right back up to the maximum 2205Mhz, making it impossible for me to test battery life. The CPU would not stay throttled under CrystalCPUID. The multiple managment feature though seemed to work fine.
With RMClock, the clock speeds would stick to whatever speed setting you set it at (minimal, maximum, etc), so I used this to throttle the CPU when on battery power. However, the automatic management feature didn't seem to work too well, specifically when I tried the built in TV tuner. When watching TV, the frame rates became too choppy, so I had to disable RMClock and run it under the OS's native power management.
Through all this, the 4750 would randomly suddenly flash the blue screen of death and then reset itself. These crashes seemed to have no common factor, as they happened across various different applications. When I checked the Events log in Administrative Tools, I noticed some of the dump errors were identical to the one I saw when I first booted up the machine, so I'm pretty sure this was an issue before they even shipped it out. I thought it might have been me because I had lowered the voltage settings, but the crashes continued to happen even after I removed all the CPU utilities and reset everything to their stock power and voltage settings.
When trying out the TV tuner, iI would have to say that it was adequate, but nothing to write home about. The recording is subpar unless you use the absolute best quality settings, and it has no closed captioning at all, which really teed me off. The remote was fun to use though, and capable of controlling every part of your laptop using third party software.
Ultimately I had to send it back, as I couldn't take the chance that the crashes were something I could fix before the 30 day money back guarantee expired.
I was wondering whether these crashes were a result of AMD just being more unstable on average than Intel CPUs. Generally, my experience has been that Intel CPUS were rock solid stable, while AMDs were an iffy proposition. This is no slight to AMD though, as I think part of the fault lies with the chipset they rest on, namely VIA, and my view is purely anecdotal, as I seem to have generally bad luck with AMD powered machines.
I was thinking of going the safer route and springing for a more expensive 8790, but the Cool N Quiet feature of the Athlon 64 has convinced me enough to give it a second chance. It was indeed quiet, the heat very much fixable to the extent that it can become a true "laptop" and you can squeeze enough battery life to watch a DVD flick in one setting, all benefits I don't think you can obtain with the more power hungry 8790, even if you opt for the 12 cell battery.
So I'm giving the 4750 another chance, hoping the first one was just a lemon. This time I'm dropping the TV tuner in favor of getting a USB tuner instead. I think the built in tuner may have been a factor in depleting battery life as well, explaining why I couldn't break two hours even with the most miminal power settings I tried.
I should get my replacement sometime next week. Hopefully, I'll have better luck this time around.
)
I think some crumbs got in the speakers too, or I have been playing it too loud and blew out the speakers. The sound can't get as loud as it used to, but its most likely my fault, and not the design fault. If you care for it it should keep you well. Mine is rock stable, better than my desktop which has been having gpu driver hangups frequently.
