Guys,

I spent the majority of last evening reading various forum threads to see if anyone else has been having any of the same issues as I have. Please no flaming: I do realize I'm posting about a non-Sager branded laptop in a Sager forum but as they're all really Clevo D470K's I don't really see much of a difference with the exception of which company offers support.

To set the stage I pre-ordered a D470K from M-Tech Laptops within days of M-Tech opening up sales on this model. I received mine in early August, unboxed it and immediately began having BSOD errors. I returned it through Pro-Star's RMA process and received what they said was a new unit. Additionally the power cable from the transformer to the laptop had separated from the brick exposing about 1/8" of braided steel shielding.

I had the same issues with the wireless as another user who's comments I read: anytime I'd transfer a large file wirelessly the PC would lock up and require a power cycle to regain usefulness. Until the latest version of the Gigabyte wifi drivers I'd mostly solved this by using reference Atheros drivers and switching antenna posts on the wifi card in the laptop. I have had the video playback problems but as I tend to stream video from a computer on the network to the laptop via the wireless network I attribute these to the wifi drivers locking up the PC though I can lock the computer up upon request by queue'ing multiple .avi's and skipping from one to the next. Until discovering this forum last evening I was unaware of a BIOS update but, as you'll learn below, I can't test to see if a combination of BIOS updates, drivermodder'ed catalysts/omega drivers has fixed this issue....

The laptop I ordered is fully loaded and when the new one was returned to me with a new power supply I noticed that after adding the WEP key to the profile for the wireless network I have at home it associated immediately. Strange as in addition to WEP I also have MAC filtering turned on. Sure enough Pro-Star pulled the Wifi card out of the laptop I'd sent to them and put it into the new one. Several calls later they cross shipped a new wifi card to me. In the back of my mind I began questioning just how many of the compnents in the "new" laptop that Pro-Star sent to me were from the laptop I'd RMA'ed but as it seemed to function properly I didn't press the issue.

Over the past few months the new laptop has worked well. I've played many hours of Counterstrike, HL2, Doom 3, etc... I frequently go to LAN parties and this laptop was purchased partially to keep me from having to lug 100 lbs of computer to sites to play. I've burned CD's, DVD's, used the laptop to snag a torrent or two, to develop documents, to take notes at school, etc...

Basically I'm using it like anyone would expect to use a laptop though I've come to the conclusion that I'm doing the equivalent of driving a ferrari to get the groceries...

In the past two weeks I've be experiencing random but increasingly frequent kernel errors. Most commonly they are Stop 0x0000007A or KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR which microsoft indicates is some sort of Hard Drive I/O error. From the rest of the memory dump I've gathered that it's either a hard drive, a hard drive controller, memory or some other hardware error. I've eliminated the hard drive: I ghosted the existing hard drive to a known good drive last evening, swapped drives and had the error repeat itself within minutes after WinXP desktop load. Even worse is that about 1/4th the time that the laptop BSOD's and reboots the BIOS doesn't report a hard drive.

I can't eliminate the other possibilities listed by microsoft and can't guarantee that Tech Support will be able to reproduce the problem: I was at a LAN party last Saturday and gamed for about 10 hours straight without a single lockup. Other than reseating the memory (which I've done) I'm out of ideas.

So, back to Pro-Star it goes. I wouldn't be nearly as upset as I am if they'd pick up the cost of shipping the laptop to them. At this rate I'll be shipping my laptop to Pro-Star 3 more times at about $70.00 per incident during the manufacturer's warantee. While that may not seem like much to some it does to me. What really ticked me off is that if it were in the extended warrantee period (which I did purchase with the laptop) Phillips would pay for the shipping... Sigh...

So, I have a love/hate relationship going on: I love the laptop, all of the features it has and the ability to game to my hearts content but hate that it seems to be poorly designed or designed using inferior components which fail on a regular basis.

Oh, the new power supply? The cord's separated again...

Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing if anyone else has had similar issues with their 4750 or D470K series laptop... It'll give me something to read while I wait for another one to be shipped to me by Pro-Star.

Chris

I've had some of the same issues (freezing, stop errors, bios not booting windows (resetting the bios combined with unplugging notebook fixed this). I've never had internet WIFI transfers cause lockups (I think), but they do cause my mouse and computer to "skip" momentarily when browsing the internet or gaming through it, which sucks to be frank.

After my Sager 4750 and an Alienware A51m (newer model which was FAR worse) I've really lost faith in 3rd party boutique notebooks. I really don't blame the distributors since the fault obviously lies with the case manufacturer which is basically resold to me. The problem is that the companies adopting these case designs don't test them for long enough before putting them out in public, aren't familiar enough with any possible problems (4750 insufficient thermals), and could be getting "screwed" themselves by the case manufacturers.

Previously to the A51m I owned a Compaq Presario 2800T (which I went back to using after it died and I forced a refund on it). That was a VERY solid little machine, 5.5 lbs fully loaded with the up to date components at the time and ZERO issues, not a ONE.

Hate to say it, but I'm going to stick with the big boys from now on since they sell notebooks on such a massive scale that they can't afford to push out poorly designed lines and just take care of the 20-40% that act up. HP, Compaq, Dell, etc. (NOT Gateway and Sony though, they suck ) really have to have reliable PCs since a 4750ish problem would really screw them over in terms of image and monetary costs of returns, repairs, and replacements. I just hope that Compaq, HP, or Dell comes out with a nice PCI-E notebook with the new 533FSB Centrino's and a modular graphics system that doesn't weigh 13 pounds.

If i rmember correnctly i have seen a memory dump like that before. It was after I installed SP2 on my friends dell desktop. The only thin ki can figure is it replaced some drivers for the memory controllers or hard drive. I had a hard time even getting into safe mode but eventually fixed it by uninstalling sp2 and reistalling all mobo, memory controllers, and hard drive drivers from the respective companies websites. Just to note, I have sp2 on my 4750 with no issues, but I installed it immediatly upon installing windows. Hope this helps.

Memory dump BSODs can be driver related, usually due to some DLL compatibility issue. The hard freeze issues and stuff are all hardware related, however, since its independant of on the OS and running software.

Thanks for the advise guys but BSOD's and memory dumps where the hard drive isn't detected by the BIOS upon reboot smells like hardware issues to me...

...I did get the lappy up and running long enough to play CS:Source for about 2.5 hours yesterday at a LAN party. MobilMonitor showed the CPU temp up around 80 C when I'd bounce out of the game and check... That's WITH the new BIOS and a laptop cooler fan under the laptop...

*sigh* off to Pro-Star it goes monday

Mine's getting serviced at Sager right now. 80 C is entering the "fry" zone, I'd suggest sending it back rather than messing with the thermal pad and replacing it with Arctic Silver which may void your warranty. Hopefully the unit I receive back won't have the same occasional lockup issues...if it does I'm going to request credit toward a different notebook model since these forums tend to suggest it's a relatively common complaint.

Off my lappy goes to pro-star. With any luck the USPS service will mistake it for a chock, park a truck on it and I'll be able to collect the insurance

Just kidding! My only fear is that Pro-Star won't be able to reproduce the problem. I guess I'll email them and ask them to run 3DMark repeatedly to raise the system temperature... or try and defrag the hard drive which seems to also cause BSOD's.

I'll post back here when I hear from them or get it or a replacement lappy back.

ronin

i fear i have made a mistake in buildling one of these barebones (WHY OH WHY DID I DECIDE TO DO THIS??)
I have all the issues mentioned above and more
video freezes randomly, disk read errors, no working wifi...
but my temperatures are FINE. I don't think i've seen the CPU rise above 45 celsius. Hard Disk not above 37. I am curious to know what my video temps are, as it seems to cause most of my woes. I would like to believe the right combination of drivers and OS install will be the answer but I'm wondering how much time and patience I'm willing to give a machine that is supposed to be making work EASIER.
I've read that the wifi card (intel) is not functional whatsoever and that I should try to get it replaced with the gigabyte, but if it has troubles as stated above then I think i'll fork over $30 for a PCMCIA card

GOOD LUCK TO ALL WHO OWN THE DK470/4750

I had no idea that the 4750 chassis was being sold as a barebones case. Thanks for sharing the experience DSound: With PC's I have no fear of spec'ing and building whatever suits my needs and budget but I don't think I'd ever want to build one... They need more R&D and testing to ensure that they run properly and within design ranges for voltage and heat.

Ronin

Spoke with Pro-Star this morning: They say they've identified my problem as a bad hard drive and will be shipping the machine back to me today. I'm not entirely confident that this will resolve the issue I'm having as I was able to replicate the issue on a second Hard Drive but don't feel that I can do much except for wait for the laptop and see if the issue is indeed resolved.

I do hope that if I experience the same issue after receiving the laptop with new drive and need to return it again that Pro-Star will at least pay for shipping this time around...

Chris

I think the HD thing is bull. You should try to get a replacement, it's probably a motherboard issue...it's not fair for them to take up your time and money with "fake" repairs. Let me know if that solved it though, I'd find that interesting.

Also, tell them you had the same issues using a different hard drive (as the primary I assume, not a USB drive). That'll force them to re-evaluate.

I did inform them that I could replicate the issue with another hard drive... I guess it just shows me how much they listen to detailed explanations including memory error codes from BSOD's.

I may call the contact I have at Pro-Star today and ask him to check on things. If I DO have a reoccurance of the problem and I have to ship it back at my own expense again I will be fuming... But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Chris

Sigh... my Pro-Star contact is on vacation so I wasn't able to bypass Pro-Star's tech support folks and speak with someone who listens and actually seems to act on information given to him by someone who knows a thing or two about PC's....

So, Pro-Star's shipped the lappy back to me... ground. Sigh... Not even the courtesy of returning it via the same method of shipping that was used to send it to them (I shipped 3 day air).

I think I'll keep it for a few weeks, verify that the problem is gone or return it again if it isn't and ebay it. I've really had it with the kind of support I'm getting from Pro-Star and if I were still in the first 30 days after purchase I'd have returned it. Three RMA's in 5 months is excessive in my book.

Chris

Do they have a lemon policy? Also, some states have "lemon law" policies (not sure if those extend beyond cars or not though). Also, you should have asked for a new unit given the other RMAs and if they refused you should have challenged it with your credit card company.

I looked briefly and Missouri, the state I live in, does have a Lemon Law for cars. I will probably have to consult with a lawyer to see if it has been successfully applied to other products such as high end electronics, etc...

I'm on my second D470K unit: the first one BSOD'ed twice during inital boot out of the box, kinda worked for about a week then simply refused to boot.

Who knows: perhaps a new hard drive will solve the issue. It may also have been the ribbon cable used to connect the drive to the motherboard and they may have replaced that as well.

I'll keep updating this post with my findings.