Clevo 5600

Clevo 5600

Clevo 5600 Series

Alienware Area 51M, Prostar 5600 Series, Sager NP5600 Series

& Eurocom Monte Carlo Series

The Clevo 5600 series (AKA - the Alienware Area 51M 5620™) until recently was the high-end desktop replacement laptop that captured the fancy of many game playing travellers. Besides Alienware, this same series of laptops has been resold by many OEM's under their own labels.

It should be of interest to owners, or potential owners that several revisions to the 5600 laptop motherboard exist, it was updated to keep up with the latest hardware.

There are no switches on any of these motherboards and CPU setup is auto-detected, motherboard bus speeds are all automatic - so don't look for switches.

It is important to replace a defective motherboard with the EXACT same revision and BIOS type motherboard or you may run into problems getting the laptop to work with your old CPU. (And may not work with a newly purchased CPU)

Both motherboards revisions use laptop DDR RAM and a limit of 2GB's of RAM seems to hold true for later revisions, older motherboards may be limited to 1GB. (not tested at present)

The AC adapter seems to follow true to form with other Clevo laptops in that it is has a special output connector and therefore not an easy adapter to replace. I believe that some early 5600's have 90 watt adapter while later laptops all have 120 watt adapters, which that can be used to replace the earlier 90 watt device. This adapter also has a cooling fan inside the adapter case to keep it cool!

Plastic case pieces do seem to have a high number of cracks near the hinges. Replacement plastics are getting harder to find. At present I can only supply plastic case parts in the dark gray case color and I can not supply Alienware painted case colors or Sager silver case plastics, so don't ask. All plastic pieces are often backordered by Clevo - so I will attempt to stock as they become available.

Disassembly Help

(Use at your own Risk!)

Several tricks are necessary to know if you wish to disassemble a 5600. You need to lift the keyboard (lifted up from the back side after pressing two detents) and then grasp the front palmrest cover at the rear edge (exposed after keyboard is removed) to pull the palmrest off of the case. There are two screws hidden on the lower front edge of the plastic case that are exposed only after the palmrest is removed. The BIOS chip and memory modules are located under the metal plate shielding that is under the keyboard. Remove both the AC power and the battery before attempting to remove this shielding (or any other disassembly) because a dropped screw can very likely damage a powered laptop - even if turned off.

Also, the CD, DVD or Combo drive needs to be removed to expose two hidden screws that tie the upper main case to the lower main case. A single screw holds the drive into place and it sometimes takes some work to get this drive assembly retaining screw to fall out after it is unscrewed. Try tapping on the top side of the motherboard with your hand. (Gently!)

The various 5600P Motherboard Versions

The 5600P Motherboards

56P00-D03 (56P or 56N)

(Sager NP5620 & NP5650)

The earliest of the 5600 motherboards and it has the ATI 7500 video chip with 64 MB of video RAM. Most often a "P" motherboard laptop will be labeled on the lower case as being a "5600P" laptop and may or may not have the Clevo name covered by the resellers own name or other label. A quick method to determine if you have this motherboard is to look for the video driver setup information - if you have an ATI 7500 video chip then you have a 5600P and yes the "P" laptops are are OLDER than the "D" laptops.

Note: The main lower case label may have had the Clevo 5600P or Clevo 5600D removed (small tear out section has the Clevo name while model number can be covered with an OEM label) Any OEM sub-model numbering is up to the OEM to come up with on their own and so sub-model numbering from one OEM won't match a second OEM's numbering system. Model numbers are normally just a method to identify the CPU speed, RAM size and/or hard drive size.

This motherboard had been custom configured (at the Clevo plant) to support one of two different CPU types and therefore has two BIOS types. You must use the correct CPU type or the laptop won't boot.

Some 5600P laptops were P4 mobile CPU machines and will have their BIOS chip labeled with "56N". These motherboards only mobile P4 processors. No desktop P4 processors. Other 5600P motherboards support only desktopCPU's.

So if you have a ATI 7500 video chip 5600P then you have to be careful as to just which CPU type that has been installed before trying to update your CPU speed. The two versions do not swap out for each other! Changing the BIOS does NOT change the CPU type. (More below)

BIOS type can be determined by lifting the shielding plate under the keyboard (requires removing four screws) And the type will be 56P or 56N. this BIOS identifies the chip set and CPU type that is used with each sub-type of this motherboard. It is important that you replace a dead 56P00-D03 motherboard with an identical sub-type motherboard configured for the same CPU type.

All CPU's used with this revision motherboard are Intel Socket 478 400MHz FSB P4 or Celeron CPU's.

Memory modules must be DDR266/PC2700 (or slower) and the maximun memory was stated by Clevo as being 1GB (2 x 512MB) and I've not tried to crack the 1GB limit by using two 1GB modules at this time.

Sub-model 56P00-D03/56N

(ProStar 5684)

The 56N must use the 2.0 GHz or 2.2 GHz mobile P4 CPU's and can't be converted to use desktop P4 CPU's.

The only way of converting would be to swap out the motherboard for one of the other 5600 series motherboards. Swapping motherboards will also require using a new desktop CPU since none of the desktop-only motherboards can use a mobile P4 CPU.

Sub-model 56P00-D03/56P

(ProStar 5694)

The desktop CPU version of the 56P00-D03 motherboard. CPU's must be desktop P4 with a 400 MHz FSB.

The 5600D Motherboards

56P00-D05

(Sager NP5660 - ProStar 5654)

One of two 5600D motherboards, this motherboard has the ATI 9000 video chip with 64MB of video RAM and uses desktop P4 (Socket 478) CPU's with 400 MHz or 533 MHz FSB speeds only. I believe that the 3.06GHz (533 MHz FSB) CPU will operate in this motherboard, but that CPU's hyper-threading is not supported. No 800 MHz FSB CPU's!

The Sager support forum suggests that if your 5600 doesn't display video when first booted up that you should power down and then press firmly on the plastic case just to the left of the power pushbutton. Then boot again. I believe that this suggestion is for 5600P's that have the 71-56P00-D05 motherboards, but I'm not sure at this time. I do know that the "D05" motherboard does seem to have a video chip failure mode that turns all video off unless you can maintain pressure on the video chip. This sems to be a failure of the BGA solder connections between the motherboard and the video chip. I'm attempting to find a circuit board repair company that is willing to resolder this chip - I'll be offering an exchange service, if I can supply repaired motherboards.

Note - not all 56D00-D05 motherboard failures are due to the video problem - so do not assume this it the reason for your laptop's failure.

56D00-D06

(Sager NP5660 - ProStar 5654)

The second 5600D motherboard type, and this motherboard also has the ATI 9000 video chip with 64MB of video RAM. This motherboard uses desktop P4 (Socket 478) CPU's with support for 400 MHz or 533 MHz FSB CPU's only. This motherboard is the same as the 56P00-D05 motherboard as far as specifications and the two motherboard types can be swapped with each other without any loss of features. The only differences appears to be in the manufacturing process - it is really the exact same board as far as final laptop specifications.

The 5600DS Motherboard

56DS0-D01

(Sager 5670 - ProStar 5634)

This motherboard has the ATI 9000 video chip with 128MB of video RAM. This motherboard supports desktop P4 (Socket 478) CPU's only. P4 desktop CPU's with 400 or 533MHz FSB speeds - including the 3.06 GHz with Hypertreading. To use the 3.06 MHz CPU may require flashing to an updated BIOS.

After the 5600 models, Clevo introduced the D500 series laptops. (See D500)