First of here are the specs:
Sager - 9860
3.6 Ghz Intel Pentium 4
256MB Geforce 6800 Go (I'm an ATI man since my desktop has an X800 XT, but at the time the Geforce was the best notebook GPU)
60 GB Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
1024 MB DDR SDRAM
Internal 8X DVD±R/RW
TV-Tuner
Targus Sport Deluxe Backpack
1. When my Sager boots up, it boots up a little bit longer than my old Dell 8200 (which I gave to my mom) and my self built desktop. The Sager seems to be a little bit behind. Have others experienced this too?
2. Sometimes the Windows "Welcome" screen only flashes for like 1 to 2 seconds and brings up the Windows screen. In those cases, if I click on any folder or try to start IE....my hard drive starts thrashing like crazy and it takes up to 10 to 15 seconds to load anything. After that it loads instantly.
If I just leave my Sager alone for about 5 seconds, IE and opening folders happen instantly without the hard drive thrashing. This isn't a fragmentation problem, my hard drive is not fragmented.
Other times, the welcome screen stays on for 7 to 9 seconds before showing the Windows screen. In those cases.....when the start menu is accessable I can access stuff instantly without delay.
The "Short welcome" and "Long welcome" screens seem to alternate between each other. So for example if I had a "Short welcome", a "Long welcome" would be next and so on.
Other than the somewhat slow bootup and the weird welcome screen problem, my Sager is fast and responsive.
3. WinDVD 5 plays DVDs extremely jerky as full screen. I have to *disable* hardware acceleration in order for full screen playback to be smooth. Why is this the case? Why can't my Geforce 6800 Go to proper hardware acceleration?
My driver version is 6.14.10.6750 according to my display properties. Where can I download a newer driver? This driver was released on 10/27/2004.
Can I simply install over my existing driver?
I've also used Media Player Classic for DVD playback and sometimes the video would "jerk" for a split second and continue to playback fine. This problems appears to have gone away after I reduced my refresh rate from 60hz to 59hz it seems though.
Also no matter what I do, on top of the computer screen the video always "tears"......almost like the tearing you see when you have vsync disabled. This tearing only happens on the top of the screen.......not on the entire screen like the vsync tearing you get in games. Anyone know how to fix that? It's annoying and it appears when I output the video to my TV too!
4. This seems to be the worst problem of them all. I seem to be having some heat problems in games.
When I launch Half Life 2 for example......after a few hours the machine will simply shut off. I assume it did this because it was overheating. If I leave my notebook on overnight just in Windows and then try to play a game in the morining......the system will overheat and shutdown in 20 min! This is simply not acceptable. What can I do to fix this problem? It's not hot at all in the room.
Any advice that can address one or all of these problems is appreciated. Thanks guys!
Sager - 9860
3.6 Ghz Intel Pentium 4
256MB Geforce 6800 Go (I'm an ATI man since my desktop has an X800 XT, but at the time the Geforce was the best notebook GPU)
60 GB Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
1024 MB DDR SDRAM
Internal 8X DVD±R/RW
TV-Tuner
Targus Sport Deluxe Backpack
1. When my Sager boots up, it boots up a little bit longer than my old Dell 8200 (which I gave to my mom) and my self built desktop. The Sager seems to be a little bit behind. Have others experienced this too?
2. Sometimes the Windows "Welcome" screen only flashes for like 1 to 2 seconds and brings up the Windows screen. In those cases, if I click on any folder or try to start IE....my hard drive starts thrashing like crazy and it takes up to 10 to 15 seconds to load anything. After that it loads instantly.
If I just leave my Sager alone for about 5 seconds, IE and opening folders happen instantly without the hard drive thrashing. This isn't a fragmentation problem, my hard drive is not fragmented.
Other times, the welcome screen stays on for 7 to 9 seconds before showing the Windows screen. In those cases.....when the start menu is accessable I can access stuff instantly without delay.
The "Short welcome" and "Long welcome" screens seem to alternate between each other. So for example if I had a "Short welcome", a "Long welcome" would be next and so on.
Other than the somewhat slow bootup and the weird welcome screen problem, my Sager is fast and responsive.
3. WinDVD 5 plays DVDs extremely jerky as full screen. I have to *disable* hardware acceleration in order for full screen playback to be smooth. Why is this the case? Why can't my Geforce 6800 Go to proper hardware acceleration?
My driver version is 6.14.10.6750 according to my display properties. Where can I download a newer driver? This driver was released on 10/27/2004.
Can I simply install over my existing driver?
I've also used Media Player Classic for DVD playback and sometimes the video would "jerk" for a split second and continue to playback fine. This problems appears to have gone away after I reduced my refresh rate from 60hz to 59hz it seems though.
Also no matter what I do, on top of the computer screen the video always "tears"......almost like the tearing you see when you have vsync disabled. This tearing only happens on the top of the screen.......not on the entire screen like the vsync tearing you get in games. Anyone know how to fix that? It's annoying and it appears when I output the video to my TV too!
4. This seems to be the worst problem of them all. I seem to be having some heat problems in games.
When I launch Half Life 2 for example......after a few hours the machine will simply shut off. I assume it did this because it was overheating. If I leave my notebook on overnight just in Windows and then try to play a game in the morining......the system will overheat and shutdown in 20 min! This is simply not acceptable. What can I do to fix this problem? It's not hot at all in the room.
Any advice that can address one or all of these problems is appreciated. Thanks guys!
