Clevo D900T
|
Description
Edit
The Clevo D900T is the first of Clevo's super-massive desktop-replacement laptop machines equipped with actual desktop processors as their CPU. The D900T uses the Intel 915P Northbridge Chipset with ICH6 Southbridge, employing Prescott-core LGA 775 Pentium 4s with Hyper-Threading. At the time, the processors fitted had extremely high clocks for their day(3.6 GHz, 3.8 GHz) making them exceptionally powerful, especially in a laptop package. The laptop utilized a massive copper heatsink and 2 fans to keep the hot-running Pentium 4 cool. The laptop also used recently adopted DDR2 RAM, and had 4 RAM bays, allowing for 4 512MB sticks to be used for a combined 2GB of RAM. The laptop was fitted with a high variety of panels that were finished in either gloss or matte, and the resolutions varied from 1280x800 to 1920x1200, but were always 17.1" in a 16:10 aspect ratio. The laptop was also one of the first to have a standardized separable video card module. Granted, the D900T and a small amount of later models were the only ones to use the standard, but video cards that met the standard could freely be interchanged and used in the laptop.
The D900T was succeeded by the AMD-based D900K, which used the same chassis as the D900T, and was merely different in that it used AMD processors instead, and had factory support for newer, more powerful video cards.
Upgradeablility/NotesEdit
These machines are quite outdated in terms of modern performance. You should not expect that they will run modern games and applications well. That being said their are a few things that can be done to make them perform their best while running applications and games of the 2004-2006 era.
- Storage: Hard drives can be upgraded to solid state optical drives. This is a pretty substantial upgrade because it allows you to have a reasonable size paging file with very low access times compared to a hard disk drive. This can help overcome the 3gb physical ram limit to a certain extent. You can also run the ssds in raid 0 for maximum performance. Be advised however that TRIM will not function properly in any situation where their is an "intelligent" controller between windows and the drive. The D900T implements first generation 1.5gbps sata. Their is no real benefit to using faster solid state drives, And some people have reported that newer drives are incompatible. Some SSD's have a jumper that can be used to limit speed to 1.5gbps.
- Optical Disk Drive: Recommended is the panasonic / matsushita / matshita uj-845 trayless DVD+/-RW/-RAM slot loading drives. Alternatively a significantly more expensive Panasonic UJ-220 IDE slot loading drive may be used if BD-RE functionality is desired.
- Video cards: Versions 6.1 and higher of the D900T motherboard support the 7800 and 7950 GTX video card modules. These cards are not supported on earlier motherboard revisions as noted by clevo. The VRM's on the motherboard are not up to the task and attempting to run one of these cards on an earlier motherboard will damage the motherboard (and it is possibly the video card too) These modules are pretty hard to come by these days. The Go7800 GTX being much easier to find. (Keep in mind parts for these machines are getting hard to find in general)
- Video card heatsink: Earlier versions of the D900T used a 2 piece heatsink design. The later heatsink employed by the 6800 / 7800 / 7950 is a much better design and can be used with the earlier cards to keep them running cooler and avoid premature video card failure.
- Power adapter: The Li Shin 20v 11a ac adapter runs cool to the touch compared to the 20v 9a version that runs very hot. You will need the more powerful Li Shin 20v 11a ac adapter for the 7800 and 7950 video card modules- Ill effects can happen if you run these cards with the 20v 9a adapter.
- Display: The LCD panel can be swapped in favor of the 17.1" CCFL LCD with 1920x1200 WUXGA resolution panel. Just keep in mind you will also need to change the lcd video cable as the one for the 1920x1200 screen is different. You will get a repeating video output if the wrong cable is used.
- WLAN: The preferred card are the Gigabyte super G M-PCI wireless cards such as the GN-WI01GS / GN-WI01HT / GN-WI01GT because of their extended range. They can often be found in older sager versions of the Clevo D870P.
- CPUs: Socket 775 Pentium 4 prescott processors up to 3.8ghz may be used. (If you are having issues with your fans verify the thermal diode on the cpu heatsink is present, and possibly change it / the heatsink with a spare, They were known to fail)
Motherboard RevisionsEdit
This family of laptops is plauged with some serious design defects, That being said it was still a vast improvement over the D870P that preceded it.
- Motherboard revision 5.2: Has a large VRM chip by the rear power jack under the cpu heatsink. This chip was not up to the task of delivering power to the system (poor engineering implementing it) and is known to fail in an epic display of smoke. Steer clear of this motherboard revision. It is also worth noting that the black heat spreader that helps dissipate vram heat is absent on this version.
- Motherboard revision 5.3: This is a pretty nice revision of the d900t motherboard. Clevo reworked and eliminated the VRM issue that plauged v5.2. They also added a black heat spreader to help dissipate vram heat.
- Motherboard revision 6.1: This revision is far more rare then the previous 2. It introduced support for the nvidia 7800 and 7950 video card modules. It has superior power delivery to the pcie slot and can even be used with older video cards such as the geforce go 6800 without issue. This version seems to be plauged with a faulty io controller that renders the hard drives unreconizable when it fails. You should use the Li Shin 20v 11a adapter with this revision board, In fact I recommend using that adapter regardless of what revision board you have, It runs much cooler.
- Motherboard revision 6.2: This is the last known revision of the D900T motherboard. It is the same as version 6.1 but with the faulty io controller issue rectified. (as with the v6.1 the Li Shin 20v 11a ac adapter must be used)
Basic TroubleshootingEdit
No Video/No boot on power onEdit
- Symptoms: When powering on the machine, the blue power indicator around the power button remains illuminated, and maybe the hard drive indicator stays on. The disk drives make a few noises, but the laptop shows no further activity.
After several attempts, the laptop may turn the fans to maximum to cool the CPU down.
- Problem: A component of the laptop is malfunctioning.
- Solution: Check and reseat the video card module, RAM, and CPU, and interchange with spares if possible. Remove MiniPCI modules too.
Cannot detect Hard DrivesEdit
- Symptoms: Hard Drives are correctly seated in the caddy and correctly installed, but Windows setup, live CD/USB OS or other Operating Systems cannot detect them.
- Problem: Hard Drives are incorrectly configured in the BIOS.
- Solution: Access the BIOS by pressing F2 on startup at the splash screen, then navigate to the Hard Drive settings. If you have only one Hard Drive installed, make sure that the Hard Drive mode is in AHCI, and not RAID.
When installing Windows, you'll usually need a third party driver to assist in the installation, regardless of if the Hard Drives is set to AHCI or RAID in the BIOS.
Artifacting/Disfigured screen text, imagesEdit
- Symptoms: Lines, blocks, and random colors disrupt the screen's normal picture. BIOS shows colored lines and strange, incorrect characters, and BSODs or graphics driver failure occur in Operating System along with discoloration and other anomalies.
- Problem: The graphics card is overheating, or is suffering from severe hardware issues.
- Solution: Shut the computer off and leave it to cool. Ensure the video card's fan (the left side of the laptop, towards the front, closest to you when using the machine) is getting proper airflow and is free of dust. If video card is consistently showing symptoms, try a different video card if available.
ResourcesEdit
A blown version 5.2 voltage regulator: http://i17.tinypic.com/2evfg3a.jpg
Another blown version 5.2 voltage regulator: http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6187/6109513310_63c4bdce6f_b.jpg
Clevo: www.clevo.com.tw
NBR: http://forum.notebookreview.com/forums/sager-and-clevo.1017/
Unofficial voodoopc enthusiasts forum: http://refugees.makingforum.com/
