I'll let this go for a day or two and then post before and after results. I have a Sager 2GHz laptop with a Radeon 7500 vid card that came stock with 256MB ddr ram. I 3dmarked at 4571 at the default settings 1024x768/32. I was getting beat by a few hundred 3dmarks by the guys with their Area51's and since the laptops look the same I was wondering if the memort was the difference as they had 512MB DDR. So I bought a 512MB stick and added it to my 256MB so now I'm running 766MB. Anybody want to guess what I 3dmark at now?

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

let's see... i'll guess 5250

5445

<b><font color=blue>~ BIOS SETTINGS: Fast, Hot, Unstable...That ought to work. ~</font color=blue></b>

I'd say around 5k

Ok that is long enough. This has been an expensive experment.

Before: 256MB DDR SODIM 4571 (highest)3d marks at 1024by768by32 (defaults).

After: 766MB DDR on 2 SODIMs...........

















4562 3d marks.

Basically no change.

I'm thinking about loading xp to see if that helps/make a difference. I'm running 98se now. I'm also looking at getting new drivers. New drivers are available for xp but not 98 from Sager. Clevo has new drivers for 98/me but I'm too chicken to use them because they require a bios upgrade.

So far you area51 guys are kicking my butt. Time will tell.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

...I did expect some imporvement, although you probably did get more signficant benefit in 2D performance....

I'm very good
at licking my wood

I did think to ask about what OS you were running, but assumed you knew you would get nothing out of any more than 512MB.

<b><font color=blue>~ BIOS SETTINGS: Fast, Hot, Unstable...That ought to work. ~</font color=blue></b>

I would suggest getting the latest mobile drivers from either Alienware or Compaq. Both of em use the ATI 7500 mobility RADEON in Laptops. I did suggest getting the new catalyst drivers before but someone mentioned a problem installing them. I guess there is a difference between the mobility and desktop chips other than the clockspeed that I wasn't aware of. I'm getting the Alienware drivers right now.

Yeah, I'm undecided between swiching to xp and loading new drivers. Got the system 96% backed up, oops 97. The trouble with xp is: I hate xp. The trouble with the drivers is that they also require a bios upgrade and one is not specifically available for Sager allthough Clevo has one for their 5600p. My Sager 5620 says 5600p on the bottom so I think it is the same thing but I'm not 100% sure.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

Update

I hate xp so I decided to take a rather huge chance on the Clevo win98 radeon 7500 drivers and system BIOS. Good News! The systems are in fact the same enough that the bios is the same. My system now runs:

4886 3dmarks

with the new clevo bios/drivers and does not lock up on Wolfenstein anymore (so far).

Color me happy!!

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

Further update!!

My laptop died so I sent it in for repair. It benched around 4500 when I first bought it. Adding 512MB extra ram did not change the score much at all. Updating drivers got me into the 4800s. I did not send them my hard drive so the software is the same. They did something to it and now it plays wolfenstein a lot smoother and I'm getting 5047 3dmarks. Any opinions about what they did or has my system been hosed the whole time??

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

I just got back my Prostar 5684 laptop. With a 1.8 P4 and Radeon 7500 I got a 3DMark Score of 4888! Using the new 7.79 drivers and Rage3D tweak I turned on SSE and SSE2 plus I increased the Z compression to High. It's sweet for a laptop but I tried the Doom 3 leak and I'm only able to get 3 FPS no matter what settings I change.

Now I hate myself for not waiting for the Mobility R9000 chip.

Bill jsut got a 2.8Ghz with the 9000 and it 3dmarks at 7135!

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

The Area 51's use 5400rpm HD's which may have been the difference.

I just got a 1.7GHz and a M9000 and im pushin 7000 3dm's.

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

Update!

I just got my Sager back from service (again). Last time it was serviced it came back faster. The system is the same except I upgraded to a 5400rpm drive and now I get a lousy 4247 3dMarks. WTF??!!

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

try new Drivers. Look on Sager and Alienware to see who has the latest ones since they are both physically the same.

Ok MB#3 is just not as fast for some reason. I've got the latest drivers and a 5400 rpm drive and I'm getting 4700 3d marks which ain't too bad but the stupid thing stops dead on all the high quality tests while accessing the hd. I get 1fps for a second and then it takes off again.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

Update.

The Sager, a home system, some extra parts and 5 seperate copies of my taxes (the only 5)were stolen out of my car. After the shock wore off and after a complete nightmare getting taxes done, the insurance check came. Life was good again. The new laptop is a Dell 8600 with a 1.5 GHz "M" cpu, 512MB ram, a 60G 7200rpm hd, and a 9600 pro turbo.

The thing totally rocks!

You don't gotta wait for the results.

The new laptop with a 33% slower cpu and 33% less ram scores a fantasic and very smooth 9733! I couldn't be more happy. Not only is the score around twice what the old system got, the new system is really smooth and runs for hours on batts.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

2mb of l2 cache really makes a difference
My 1.8ghz pentium m w/ 9600pro and 1gb of ram gets around 9800-9900.

<A HREF="http://www.folken.net/myrig.htm" target="_new">My precious...</A>

Hehe well if we're gonna compare:

1.6GHz Banias
640MB PC2700
GeForce 4 Go 4200

11300 3DMarks

RaPTuRe

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?