Z84j Owners Lounge

Is there a Z84J owners lounge on this Asus Forum? I searched, but could not find one. Could it be on another forum? Or still tucked away in someone's keyboard? I ordered a Z84JP today (Asus Z84JP, T7200, 2gb ,100G@7200MB, Geforce 7600). I expect it sometime midweek next...

I looked at the G2 also, but chose the Z for the 2 gigs, the 5 speakers, the 1680x1050 display, the warranty, the review by Chaz, some unknowns. and a flip of a coin. I am not a gamer, but I do like speed. I suspect if the G2 had the WSXGA+. then I would be looking for that lounge.

 

Just let this be it then. Im sure some mod (like cori) will come around and mod up the title for you.

 

there ya go...

 

Finally another owner of Z84J.... seems like I'm the second after Chaz who has a Z84J in hand. When I decide to buy this machine, chaz already got it from Asus. How fast.

 

Yes Khanhfat, an owner with his machine in transient. So...you are the one and only if for only a few more days. What OS do you have? I am assuming XP Pro or ? I will load XP Pro when I get it; and then wait for the drivers for Vista Ultimate to materialize.

What are the things you like about your Z84J; and what do suggest I be aware of while setting up? If I recall I believe there was talk about the lid being sensitive to prints and scratching. If so, what do you do to address it? Thanks........

 

I'm running Xp Pro.

What I like:
- Very nice screen,contrast, brightness are all good. I recommend use stock Asus Driver to get the accurate colors.
- Speakers , this set of speakers produces fine Mid and high sounds. However, if the level is on max, the speaker starts to have some buzzing sound. Speakers at max will prooduce a pretty loud treble sound, you can use Realtek Audio manager to set the EQ for it. I'd prefer the stereo speaker on Toshiba by Harman Kardon. The sound quality of Toshiba is more "tight" than Asus ones. Overall, those 2 type speakers are decent to listen to.

- Clean look and the body is sleek compared to other 17" out there.
- Upgradable GFX card but no one has tried on this yet. Let's wait for a year to see if any one can test this function.

What I don't like ( just minor)
- Easily scratched surface, I accidentally scratch mine pretty bad and that was just 1 day when I put my laptop in my back pack. The Carrying Case included with the system protects it well.

- HDMI port seems not to work. I have to email Asus about this problem. I tried on 2 HDTVs at home with 2 different brands and I receive no signals from these 2 TVs. I'd prefer they put a DVI than HDMI now.

- Function Media Keys only works with WMP. The Dell's Funciton keys works with WMP, itunes, and JetAudio <--- Wat i'm using right now and my favourite. PM if you want to try.

- Not many people know about this Jet audio so here is some features:
- Very detail EQ and audio effects , which enhance the sound quality to my favourite taste.
built in Audio and Video encoder and converter.
- some Dj effects.

Other thoughts:

- When assemble the system, if you see a slot without any screws.. probably it shares the screw with the Plastic cover outside so don't worry about Asus for get 1 screw for the system.
- The main plastic cover is tricky to fully insert in the notebook body. It'll take some min to firgure out,pretty tough to pull out and put it back in for the first time. But becareful anyway.

- I'd recommend to put AS5 on CPU and GPU. I have AS5 on my CPU and it reduces the temp noticeably . THe GPU is kinda hot for me .

 

Hi guys. I'm fairly new here and this is my first post.
I am finally able to get a new computer (hopefully ordering tomorrow or Monday). The short story after many many hours of research is that I plan on ordering a Z84Jp in the next few days. The other one I was considering was the Clevo M570U-A / Sager 5750. Maybe some of you have some input in comparing the two.

I plan an buying it barebones and buying all the other parts from Newegg. What I am really wondering is, is there enough driver support to run Vista on it?

Here is what I plan on putting into it:
-T7200
-2 sticks of G.SKILL 1GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667
-Seagate Momentus 7200.1 ST910021AS 100GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150
-NOVA TECH NV-922W Mini PCI type IIIB Wireless Adapter (would the Intel one be worth getting? I don't have any wireless setup currently).

I am not a gamer so that is not what the main purpose will be, although since it will be much faster than my current computer I will probably end up buying some of the new games to try.

My wife uses Punch! Home Design Architectural Series® 4000 v10 so that will be a must to be able to run on it. I take lots of pictures and want to put all my Mini DV tapes on DVD.

Any input would be appreciated before I take any final steps.
Thanks guys.

 

I haven't test the wireless card you are going to buy. It'll work without a problem with Intel card. I having problem with Atheros Gigabyte card , which causes random disconnect with the Connected Icon ON.

Intel cards works great without any disconnect.

 

I got my tax money in today and ordered it all today after work. I decided to go with a barebones Z84Jp from excaliberpc.com and the rest from newegg.
I decided to just get the Intel wireless card instead of the other one.
I can hardly wait!!
Any other tips for when I go to put it together?

 

Hi Jagged...I checked out excaliberpc.com. This is the only Z84JP I could find on their site. Is it the one?: http://tinyurl.com/3x42r4

And if so - I notice it has a DVI port. Hmmmmmmmm where is mine (grin)? The one I ordered did not indicate a DVI. I was hoping it would come with one. I will see when it shows up...

And Congratulations!!!

 

Yes, actually that is the one. I wonder if it is just a typo.

 

Wouldn't it be nice if mine is the 'typo' and yours is as is! I am getting mine from powernotebooks.com

http://www.powernotebooks.com/specs/PowerPro/a2-38.php

 

Khankfat or anyone else with a Z84J or concerned with lid scratches.... Since I understand the lid/cover is suseptible to scratching, I was wondering if anyone has a suggestion for some sort of sticky paperplastic protection for it?

17" Z84JP on its way....

 

Yeah.. u can buy some clear stickers in large pieces that often used on Car's glass or body to protect the lid. IF you don't want to scratch it, just leave it on your desk as a desktop.

It also comes with a 17" notebook bag so it'll be safe in there.

Excaliberpc did not provides the right specs but their price is the lowest I could find and they don't require you to buy CPU from them.

About the right specs again is : it does not have an DVI port. There's only 4 USB instead of 5.

If anyone got the system, please help me to firgure out how to work the HDMI port on it cause it seems like non functioning.

I 'm kinda busy so I don't have time to talk to Asus yet.


Other online shop like powernotebooks or xoticpc offers a 3 year warranty , which is nice.

EDIT AGAIN: OMG price drops on parts which is about 50$ differences when I bought back on the end of January. OMG OMG lucky for ones who waits

 

I looked at getting it through XoticPC but it would have been about $90 more for the barebones to get it through them. I live in the same town.
As for protecting it I found a site that has cool skins
http://designerskins.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?page=D/CTGY/laptop-skins

and one that has lots of protective stuff
http://www.protectcovers.com/

I told my wife that since I got to pick what went on the inside she could pick what goes on the outside (at least she has good taste ).

 

Yep - to the price Khanhfat. Mine at powernotebooks dropped in price since I ordered it a few days ago. I got a message into Ron there to see what he can do. Also I noticed they are coming loaded with Ultimate. I included that as a question for Ron.

I will check out my HDMI when it reaches me...Hope yours is something simple. Thanks for the 'skins' heads ups Jagged. I will need to protect it right away. It will be both a desktop and a move-it-around-a-lot laptop. More than likely will go with the clear sticky stuff.

 

Nice... I'll take a look at it.

 

The Z84JP came in an hour ago. I am, as we speak, loading XP Pro. The computer came with this software:

Intel ProSet/Wireless vs 10.1.0.2
ASUS Media@Show SE 2.0 (bundle version)
ASUS DVD power director/media show vs: 1.0
Z84J series User Manual
Z84J NI874 Driver Utility Ver 1.0 (run setup.exe to start installations for other OS)
Nero OEM Suite v7.5.13.0 N2053

Are there any of these you suggest I stay away from?.....

 

I have not been able to get my hdmi to work with my tv either. I think it is because the z84jp uses the hdcp format and my tv doesn't. There are two hdmi formats. I still need to do some more checking on that.

Unfortunately, there is nothing in the owners manual about using the hdmi port. Hopefully somebody who has been able to use the hdmi port on the Z84Jp will post something.

 

Stay away from media show. DVD, .

U can use the Driver utility disc but disable some software that u don't need.

U lucky got a nero 7.5 .... i only have 6.6

I don't know man... Asus put fake ports in their laptops? I have no clue about HDCP thing. I checked insde the motherboard i saw the connection of HDMI is there not fake one.

I have 2 HDTVs one is PIoneer 60" pro , and other one is Samsung 40"... both doesn't seem to work.

I already emailed asus, i think they're finding the model and trying to firgure out how to work that thing. In my opinion, we might need a special software than Nvidia video card driver to control HDMI.

If HDMI doesn't work, it's time to claim for replacement from retailer.... cause i want to trade my scratched one

 

I finally got it!!!! Got all my components yesterday and the laptop came in today.

This might seem like a stupid question but I can't seem to figure out how the heatsink goes on the processor I am stuck right now so any help would be greatly appreciated ASAP

I've never had a laptop before so this is a first and I can say I'm pretty excited about it so far!!

 

Try to put them like they did with the GPU, look and learn. Try to put it on without a CPu first. You have to take out the fan of the CPU, insert the heatsink in there. Then put the fans back to the original place along with the CPU on the motherboard. Besure to use a screw driver to lock the CPU on the right place on the Motherboard. This instruction you can look at CPU 's manual that comes with it. Assemble is fairly easy, so take your time.

 

Thanks, I finally got that part but there are a few other things that are causing me some problems. It seems that the bios doesn't support the T7200 and now I have to find somebody with any proc that is lower than it so I can boot up, flash to the latest bios and then I can put my T7200 back in. I found that out by calling up where I got it from and they said they had just helped a guy this morning do the same thing. They said that if I call Asus they will be able to tell me exactly how to flash it.
Another thing though, I bought this wireless card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833106221
but I don't see where to put it. I see an open slot that is kinda between the hard drive and the processor. Where in the manual does it show the internals and how to install. I feel like a real retard here so please bear with me

 

Ok, called Asus and found out that in the earliest of the models that the bios could be a problem but in my case it was just inexperience. Turns out the screw that was mentioned I had failed to turn to lock in the proc. So everything is up and running now Vista install has started!!! I created a separate 20gig partition so I could maybe put XP to run games. We'll see

 

I did some more checking on the hdmi thing. Apparently my Sony KDS-50A2000 tv should work with any hdmi connection. This leads me to believe that something more is needed to get the Z84Jp to output the hdmi signal. Perhaps some software or a driver. When I look in device manager the hdmi port doesn't even show up.

Unfortunately, the Asus driver page doesn't have anything for the hdmi port and there is nothing in the user manual or on the internet on how to use it. I have emailed Asus on the matter as well. No response yet.

 

What are you guys using for video drivers? I am only getting a rating of 1 for video and gaming and I can't even watch a movie. I have tried a few different drivers including manually installing from the Asus driver disc but maybe I'm not installing them right. Do I need to uninstall the old drivers first?

 

Dude, you bought the wrong card. It's a MIni PCI , new Dual Core only use MINI PCI EXPRESS which the slot is smaller. This is how it looks like and the type i recommend. http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-Pro-Wirel...ryZ45003QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

You can look for other places for cheaper price, i'm too lazy to look up now.


About the video driver, you can read the thread for dummy about video driver upgrading.

- Uninstall driver
- Restart
- Reinstall new driver

- Nvidia driver from laptopvideo2go.com should work. However, i prefer the original one, since I'm using it with out overclock, my screen went back to normal. I notice no slightly flickering like LCD calibration.

Stock driver always stable ... i tried the llatest driver on lv2go on the P105 i'm selling , it can't render the games 's graphic until i put original driver from Toshiba to it. It works flawlessly.

I dont know if there's any virus or spy in the Asus's driver CD but when i install it, the firewall detect worms spyware blah blah. I remember I haven't load any programs to it yet. So I reinstall it with new downloaded driver from Asus.


@ Bobosaw , does it work on ur Sony Tv or not? Seems like Asus put HDMI to attract people to buy than thinking of people starts to take advantage of that HDMI to play their HD vids on the TV. I'm still waiting for Asus's email also. Thanks for helping out testing the port anyway . I'm trying to show mariposaHD on the TV ... and some Apple trailers @ 1080p. There's a trick in javascript that lets u see the download links of trailers on Apple, Apple's server is fast!!.

 

No its not working with my sony right now.

I got a reply from Asus about the hdmi port. He told me to try to use the port before windows boots up, like from the bios. This will show if the hdmi is being fouled up by windows or some software.

I'm going to try anything they say but I really want to figure out how to get it to work in windows. I just don't see how that will be possible without some type of driver for hdmi. Anyway, I'll let you know what I discover.

 

Just got a reply to my email... the technician explain the same thing.

Does he mean that I have to enable Nview on Nvidia driver setttings? I'm using original Driver from Asus.

-------------------------------------
We may need to check into this more on our side, but have you tried going into the display properties/settings/advanced box to access the nVidia settings and enable the external/HDMI output?

If possible, you may also want to try the s-video/rca tv out since I expect the steps would be similar.

Be sure to turn on the TV and attach the tv cable before you turn on the notebook, so that the notebook can detect the external device and be sure to choose the video input channel on your TV if necessary.


Although it may not help, you may want to tap 'F2' when you enter the bios and use the 'Fn' +'F3' key to see if you can get any external display in the bios too.
-------------------------------------


UPdate: I finally find out what causes 4 -5 seconds , freezes on my laptop: it's my hdd from newegg. After the freezes, the HDD flashing right away.. which means there's something wrong with the reading needle of the disc. And sometiems I lauch light programs like Firefox or Music player , it may take a while like 1 or 3 seconds to see the HDD lights starts to blink and load up the program.

Now i have to back up 100GB of data back to my 320gb now...

 

I got the hdmi to work.

Plug in your hdmi directly to your tv. Give a few seconds. Then go to nView desktop manager/nView properties. If your hdmi is plugged in to your tv you will see two options at the bottom of the 'Desktop Management' tab.

Click on the TV setup box and configure accordingly. It will work for other connections too, like s video.

I just watched King Kong on my tv playing from the Z84Jp through hdmi. Pretty cool. You may need to make a few adjustments to the display, like output resolution or hd output i.e. 720p 1080i 1080p. Whatever your tv uses.

This was all done using the driver Asus has on this driver page. It is the default asus driver.

It took some time to tune everything in just right but it can be done.

 

Oh ok. thanks man.I'll give this trick a try this weekend.

I found another problem that my Power Button doesn't work properly, I have to press many times or push it hard to make it turn on. Does this happen to you guys?

 

Khanhfat...I have not experienced the power button glitche. Of course, my unit is fairly new and I have turned it on less than 20 times. Do you have a warranty on you Z? I hope so because a malfunctioning power button is a pain; and certainly not something one would expect for the price of these babies.

I am loading Vista Ultimate Retail on my Z. Everything seems to be fine except (as Chaz indicated in his Z84 review) I am trying to figure out how to successfully load the Vista driver for nVIDIA GeForce 7600....

 

You're not experiencing the same?
Wow.. this power button sounds like a defective parts on this laptop now even though i can stand it.... i don't feel like RMA my laptop ...so I'll wait til summer so I can get an exchange for a new one .

You can look up on laptopvideo2go or nvidia site for drivers for VIsta. VIsta looks cool but i'm not ready to switch to new version yet. I'll wait about a year or so...

 

No...I am not experiencing a 'soft' power button. But...like I said I have only had mine a few days. How long was it before your power button went funky?...

 

liek after 3 days of purchasing. At first i thought it's because of the plastic cover , after i remove it, it's still the same. Probably something breaks or a fault in manufacturing the laptop, cause mine was like the 1st wave of shipment to US when it first released after CES 07.

Gotta ask for an exchange hope they don't mind. Btw, before send back to exchange, how do i remove all the stickers ? and how do i completely clean AS5 on the heatsink and CPU?

 

No my power button works like it should. Yours must be defective.

The only Vista drivers Asus has are for the sound card and one utility. You will have to go to nVidia to get the drivers for video unless microsoft has one at windows update. Hopefully Asus will come up with the vista video driver for the z84jp soon.

I'm going to be trying vista home premium within the next month. Should have more info after installation.

 

One more thing... can anyone make the wireless led to work?

 

Well, I got everything working pretty well since I ended up putting XP on it. I'll let driver mature for awhile before putting Vista back on. I did notice that Asus had 17 drivers for Vista Sat night. Maybe I'll set it up for dual boot. khanhfat, what are you using to overclock your video card? I've gotten 3Dmark of around 3500 so far.
One thing I was just wondering, does anybody know what the little button to the right of the HDMI port that says TV is for? I looked in the manual but it doesn't even show it.

 

I'm not overclocking now cause i don't game any more... You can search some tutorial here to unlock Coolbits in the registry then run an automatic overclock , It'll come up with numbers similar to the one i have on the sig.


So you got the wireless lights to work? wonderful... Do you use the Wireless Utilities of Asus or just the basic drivers of wireless card? I remember When i First load the winXP , the wireless led light up once and thats it... I have no clue what happens to that led.

I noticed that button, seems like it's just there for no reason. May be it was built on the on other Z84 frame so the ports is block by a piece of rubber. I think it's an AV out port like some of the Sony laptop has. ( I prefer this port over S-Video).

 

If you have your wireless on the led should be on as well. There is no configuring. Make sure you have the Asus utilities installed from the original disk that came with your computer.

I have been able to get Vista home premium to run on the Z84Jp. The drivers you need are at Asus now. I think the sound and video drivers are the only ones that needed to be redone..... There is an issue with the bluetooth stack driver. I'm not sure exactly what it does because there are several bluetooth drivers still working.

Anyway, the rest of them are working with the old xp drivers installed. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

You will have to get an updated firewall and virus program too. Right now Mcafee, Norton, PC Tools, AVG are pretty much the only options for Vista.

Make sure to do a backup on your windows xp system before you try to upgrade to vista incase you decide to go back to xp.

 

I'm still sticking with XP. I dont' have money to buy Vista and Vista does not compatible with some of the software i use. Hmm... that's really weird. my system has defective power button now led lights for wireless card I have to give excaliberpc a call again.

PS: My windows is installed with latest drivers and such. Thanks for the info bobosaw.

 

Does the IR port work on anybodies Z84j? Mine seams to have a plastic cover over it of the same material as the case.

 

No, IR is from the other version of Z84 series.

 

Another thing. What kind of light leaking are you guys seeing from yours, is it very bad?

 

NOt so bad.. i just see some purple lightning if i put the wallpaper to black. I think it's pretty good,because I can't see any "light lamp" in any edges of the screen.. and the light leak is not "white bright" it's purple... I consider this screen is decent build. Although the color quality and brightness is not the best out there i'll grade it around 8.5 -9/10

 

Figured this might be a good place to spam this.

Upgrade with 7900GS 512

 

heck yeah Ice-tea but does the upgrader be able to boot up with the 7900GS?

We need some expert in DYI heatsink for that card man.

 

Cool, glad to see this thread. I bought a Z84JP from Powernotebooks. Ordered on Feb 14, received March 1 -- I think mine was in the first batch.

So far it has been great. Best laptop I have ever used, with the debatable exception of a MacBook Pro.

I primarily run Kubuntu Linux on it, but I also have an XP Home partition. I'm a hardcore Linux guy. This is actually the first computer I have purchased with Windows since Windows 3.1. Yep that's right! It pained me to buy XP even though I didn't have to, but I opted to sell my soul for these reasons:

1. Ability to run GPS navigation software. By far the biggest reason. The only program along those lines for Linux, GPSdrive, is very primitive.
2. I'm in a long distance relationship and I wanted to use the camera with Skype and see my fiancee. No video in Skype for Linux.
3. It's good for a reference platform, so I can see if something actually works or not.
4. And maybe the odd piece of over the counter commercial software or game.

But I'm in Linux the vast majority of the time. And I heartily recommend this laptop as the "ultimate Linux power laptop" that I had been looking for. Virtually everything works very easily with Kubuntu Feisty Fawn beta.

* Graphics: 3D acceleration easy after installing the nVidia drivers. I hate proprietary kernel modules, but currently that's the price I have to pay to get decent 3D.
* eSATA: This was a big selling point for me. Is anyone else using it? I bought a 500GB Samsung SATA-II drive and an Icy Dock enclosure from Newegg and hooked it up to the eSATA port. Beautiful! It's twice the speed of the internal drive. Latest Ubuntu beta kernel broke it, I'm working with them to get it resolved.
* Intel Wireless: recognized automatically with Kubuntu
* Bluetooth: Use it with an Itrek M5 GPS in XP. Is recognized in Linux but haven't used it.
* SD card reader worked, to my great surprise as most don't. Just stuck in an SD card and KDE asked what it should do with it.
* Camera does NOT work in Linux. The Syntek driver apparently only supports tha 1.3MP model. Hopefully someday.
* Haven't tried the modem.
* Ethernet: no problem.
* Firewire: No problem, I've used it to grab DV video.
* Haven't tried the HDMI port as I have no other HDMI devices.
* Haven't tried the modem. Why exactly do they still include those things?

Mine runs cool and quiet and I've had no trouble with the power button or anything else. Fantastic laptop, and Powernotebooks is a great place to buy!

 

Yes, no problem. The way he sees it, it should be possible to pad up the distance between the heatsink and the cover and press down the heatsink on the card by simply bolting down the cover.

Downside: fan control. I'm looking for a non-intrusive solution. Maybe a cable splice for the fan with tapping USB power or something. I probably won't put too much time in it unless I have a direct costumer for it.

 

I have a few questions about the Z84JP and wonder if you can answer them.
1) Is there an option in the bios to boot from the e-sata?
2) Have you tried to boot from e-sata?

The reason why e-sata is such a breakthrough because it doesn't have the performance hit of usb or firewire. I'm looking to get this laptop and boot it off
of a WD 150gb Raptor (e-sata) to minimize hard drive lag (I hate waiting for booting and opening programs). If I'm not mistaken the Z84JP is the only laptop available with e-sata. Please let me know.