Z84j Owners Lounge

Yes, the feature is there. If I press ESC when the Intel logo is on the screen, it will pop up a list of devices that can be booted from. When my eSATA drive is plugged in, it is included in the list. Same with a USB drive.

I have never tried it, however. I can't imagine it being any different than booting from a second SATA drive in a "normal" system.

 

I dont think you can run windows in SATA, cause it's an external device, manypeople thought about this but that's not possible, I think.

HOwever, data transfer or ripping movies from cameras will be fast.

PS: I just pops out the plastic cover on the front of the keyboard to fix my power button, I don't know what happen with the button but when i put it back everything back to normal.

They use a screw at the bottom to attach the plastic piece. pops the plastic cover up is a pain also, i cut my fingers pretty deep because of the sharp edge.

But i'm able to put some cardboard under the keyboard and fix the flex issue.

Overall , i fix most of the issue now. Now i have to verify the HDMI port and fix the wireless light.

Can anyone have a more detail step of how to make the HDMI port recorgnize the system?

 

welcome yodermk to NBR and this Z84J owners lounge.

 

Hello all,

I am joining the discussion as a new owner of the Z84J. Thank you all for posting your reviews and helpful info.

Purchased from powernotebooks, waited about two weeks. 2 GB RAM, 100/7200 RPM disk drive, no OS. My XP Pro installation was quite painless. The driver CD was also nicely automated. After some trepidations, I was able to get HDMI link to work with the use of the drivers that Bobsaw recommended. I can give more details on the setup if needed, but on a large LCD scree, the display via HDMI is crystal clear and fills the whole 1920X1080 screen, as opposed to other connection options.

Heat, Noise: My observation is that although the laptop runs very cool, it not "dead quiet" as I was hoping. My 3 yr old AcerTravelmate hardly ever gets its fan up to am aidoble level, mostly you cannot tell whether it is on or not. The Z84J has a quiet but constant fan sound. So I will just have to get used to it or return within 14 days. (Powernotebook's policy)

The built-in webcam is really nice and crystal sharp on the webcam preview. I use skype video and now I won't have to carry a separate webcam around.

One of my criterias for the new notebook was that the audio should perform well both ways. While the audio output on the Z84J is very nice, my current problem is that the microphone setup and volume are not. The built-in mic (next to the webcam) does not seem to be set up with good sensitivity. Both Win volume Control and the Realtek control line up for "recording" do not allow to adjust the microphone. The only place where mic volume appears is with the OUTPUT devices (???). I can control the volume there, but raising that volume level too high of course causes feedback while my voice is still not heard even at that level.

My Skype contacts are telling me that the voice loudness and clarity are not as good as with my old setup. I hope that this can be resolved and improved, and that the fault is more with the UAA + Realtek drivers vs. hardware quality. Even with the external mic, the volume is not the same as on the old system. If anyone has had similar issues, and has resolved them, I would appreciate the info.

krisk8

 

Hey man, welcome to NBR, can u post some specific instruction to make HDMI work?

Thanks.

The built-in mic is not a good one, use a headphone with a mic instead.

 

I will probably try booting off eSATA sometime after the release of CentOS 5. Will install the 64-bit version of it and see what happens.

Has anyone gotten Intel's Virtualization Technology (VT) to work? It is apparently not available. I would be interested in playing with Xen to get Windows to run natively under Linux. The processor certainly supports it (T7400), but the BIOS must support it also, and I'm pretty sure it does not. Any chance a BIOS update will fix this?

Agreed regarding Skype and microphones. Use an external headset.

 

Hey all,

On Friday I will be getting my Z84JP. Excited about it.

I've been loving this thread and the info in it. Excited to make a post after I get my unit.

 

Finally got around to loading Vista Ultimate into my Z. Bobosaw posted Asus's driver site and that helped. I definitely needed the video driver.

BTW....how warm/hot is the AC adapter suppose to get? Mine runs about as hot as a Hot Potato. I can hold it in my hand, but it certainly is warmer than any other adapter I have had.

Chafnan - Welcome to our little lounge........

 

I gotta love this thread. Here I just write a ditty about my Power Adapter getting a bit hot and then right after that my Power Adapter quits getting hot and acts normal.... How good is that? VBG!

Thanks thread! And thanks to Khanhfat for posting procedure for loading video driver. I never did find 'Video Driver Loading for Dummy's', but did not need it. I just did what Khanhfat recommended.

 

i dont' remember of posting video driver installation. Btw, i don't know the "hot " issue with ur adapter.. most of them supposed to be hot.. and if u use a 220V (in other country) it'll be hotter..

 

Well, I got my labtop on Friday. It's great, I really like this labtop. I already bought another 1gb RAM for it yesterday. I have installed XP, PCLinuxOS, and Mac OS X on it. Still working on the drivers for them all though.

 

Has anyone a special way to clean the screen? I have a microfiber cloth which is great for the dust, but what do you use when more than a little dust is on the screen?....

 

Use the Lens tissue for camera if u want to clean finger prints. I just use some clear tape and stick the screen plastic cover that Asus include when you bought the system and It's pretty much protect the screen.

 

Lightshoes: My AC adapter is warm, but certainly not unreasonably hot.

Chafnan: OS X??? Wow. I'd like to see that. I wonder how it compares to a MacBook Pro in terms of feature support.

 

My main choice for this laptop is that it compares really close to the MacBook Pro 17". I just had to go get a gigabyte wireless card, because the intel wireless card isn't compatible with the Mac load. I'm still figuring out the drivers though. I'll give an update when I get it working all the way.

 

Hello all,

as a new owner of a Z84JP I join the discussion from the other site of the Atlantic. From the moment I read the review by CHAZ I wanted to have a Z84JP. But I had to wait until this month before they were available in the Netherlands. Two weeks ago I orderd one and they delivered last friday.

My configuration:
T7400, 2Gb, 160GB 5400rpm, besides that it came standard with an Nvidea 7700 (512MB) and a 9 cells Li-ion battery pack

At first I was a bit annoyed because ASUS delivered the wrong drivers (XP) together with Vista Home premium. After downloading the vista drivers from the ASUS site everything seems to work perfect with the exeception of the TV tuner (Avermedia minicard) which came standard with the notebook from ASUS. The Vista driver I downloaded does not seem to work properly. Does anyone have the same problem?

 

I was told there was no option for an internal tv tuner on the Z84Jp when I purchased it from ISTNC. Hmmm good to know it can be done. What is your model number JJAGP?

Oh yeah the best way I found to clean the screen and case is just to use a damp bathtowel. After you take a shower use your towel to wipe the screen.

 

@JJAGP :: WHAT???? a GF 7700 or 7600? is it a typo? You're lucky one with 9 Cell battery. 6 cell can't hold any longer than 90mins, or even less.


Chaz did a nice job in writting the review. He enjoys it himself too. Reminds me of the 1st day i plan to buy the notebook and Chaz already got a demo unit for review.

My Z84j still goin well and strong except shetty HDD quality I'm using my 2nd 160gb but doesn't seem to perform as fast as it supposed. I'm awaiting my RMA from newegg for new HDD.

I'll be using this Z84J to DJ at a high school prom . The sound card quality is better than the Sigmatel of Dell E1705 for sure.

 

khanhfat: No its no typo, my Z84JP has an GF7700 instead of an GF7600. Here in the Nethrlands the Z84JP is only available at two webshobs since about 3 - 4 weeks. These shops are:

www.laptops4u.nl I bought mine here, and Bobosaw I bought it as an Z84JP-AP050

and

www.btonotebooks.nl they sell the Z84JP under their own BTO label as an BTO 17W24+TV7700

When announcing the Z84JP both shops at first specified a GF 7600. But when they had the notebook available this was changed, ASUS had replaced the GF7600 with an GF7700

Bobosaw: Both shops also deliver the Z84JP with an an internal TV tuner (minicard, NTSC/PAL/SECAM/DVB-T/FM). At BTO you can opt for an 9-cels Li-ion battry pack, at laptop4u it came standerd with it.

But until now I have a problem with the vista driver of the TV card. I already downloaded another Vista driver, but with no effect

 

nice, you have a TV turner inside.. but where can the car fit in? I don't see any MiniPCI slots to fit the TV card in there. Only a MiniPCI express slot.

Wow, Asus did some changes with a Geforce 7700, it makes me wanna have one. But i don't have no need for gaming now. Great to have a better card though. I'll check the website out.

Intergrated TV turner is interesting. Does it capable of catching HDTV signals?

Thanks for the info.

 

Hey Chafnan, hows that OS X install coming along? I had a number of people tell me I should buy a Macbook Pro but it was way out of my price range for the specs I wanted. Do you think Leopard would make it easier to install on a windows machine?

 

Regarding booting from eSATA:

It works! I successfully installed CentOS 5.0 X86-64 onto a partition of the drive in my eSATA case. I can press Escape when the Intel logo is showing, then it will ask me where to boot from. I select te external drive, and immediately get the correct GRUB (Linux loader). (The GRUB on my internal drive allows selection between Kubuntu and XP.)

 

First of all, great forum guys, alot of helpful information. Joining you from Norway, just got my Asus Z84Jv yesterday!

INTEL CORE 2 DUO T7200 2GHZ FSB667 4MB CACHE
2048MB 667MHZ DDR2 memory
100GB SATA 5400RPM 2.5"
NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 7700 512MB

Just had one question, the installfolder said that when you connected the battery the locks would click into place, but one of the didnt and I had to push it in position myself... Is this a minor problem, or something I should complain about?? I dont want to send my new computer for repair because of such a small thing

 

Sverren. One clicks over automatically and you have to push the other into place. That is normal for the locking mechanism on the battery.

 

Sounds interesting. Will it work with XP if you install windows on a desktop and then remove it to an enclosure box?

 

Wouldn't that mess Windows up since it detects hardware during install?

 

Just yesterday my friend received his Z84Jp notebook barebone that I helped him to pick out and order. We got the hard drive and memory installed in, then everything started going bad. For some reason, we had a terrible time getting Windows to install, but eventually it did (four hours later!)

Anyways, I have a question for you, since you all may happen to know better than I. The Z84 he purchased has the Geforce Go 7700 instead of the 7600. What all change does this mean, or in what was is the 7700 an upgrade? Second, and the real problem, is that we had a heck of a time with drivers. I couldn't even actually install Windows on the machine because any of the SATA drivers that were on the Asus drivers CD did not work when put on the floppy disk to load during Windows setup. I had to actually use the SATA drivers I had used for my own notebook, but it worked eventually. And several other drivers had issues. Once Windows was up and going, I put the CD in to load the Asus drivers, and many of them would not work, throwing errors that one driver (I believe something like ATK 1000) needed to be installed first. Yet, nothing like this was listed, and after several reboots it still wouldn't load. Each reboot, I got three error messages, one saying that the program couldn't run and a stop error ocurred, and two others about needing to install the ATK 1000 driver and that the ATK 1000 driver could not be installed.

And finally, where exactly do I find the correct video drivers? I searched everywhere on the Asus drivers CD and could not find anything for the video drivers. Right now the screen shows fine, but everything is incredibly sluggish and slow, even scrolling down a page on a google search.

Any help would be so greatly appreciated, and thank you so much for all your time!

 

Where are you from Choucove, The Gefore 7700 is a faster card like about 10 to 15% faster than the 7600.

Getting windows to install is easy. You might have done something wrong with the HDD ( drop) or something similar that takes it a long time to install.

Please look in the Dell forum, there is a guide how to install windows from scratch. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=88032

Asus Driver CD will rung automatically, You may not need any extra programs like P2phone or Power 4 gear.. and other Utilities. If you don't know which, just install all of it.

I guess you're installing windows XP. Just follow the guide above, starts from Step 4 and install windows to your computer. Then tell us what's happening.

 

Are you trying to put XP or Vista on it?

Asus has a download page with drivers that are a lot newer than what is on the Asus CD. Use the link below and in the upper left hand corner search for "z84j". It should bring you to the download page (for some reason when you do it through the drop-down menus its not bringing up z84j in the model list right now).
http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

Where did he get it from?

Congrats on the new purchase and good luck.

 

Can anyone fro Europe open your Asus Z84J equiped with TV turner, i'd like to see where it is. I'm interested in finding a card to put it in. Or it's just an Express TV turner card?

 

Thank you for your speedy help all!

I am indeed installing XP Pro on the notebook for now, waiting for a service pack release before upgrading to Vista. It wasn't that I was having difficulties with the steps installing XP, it was just that the computer was acting very funny, almost like a bad hard drive or memory. It would load up to the screen where it would bring up the License Agreement and just stop, or go just past that and never finish examining the disk drives or anything like that. I took the hard drive out, put it in my clevo notebook, and installed XP on it there and it installed and ran perfectly. I then transfered the hard drive back to the Asus and of course it would not boot fully into Windows, and just where it would bring up the Welcome to XP screen it would flash the Blue Screen of Death and then reboot over and over. So, I tried to install XP one last time on the Asus and lo and behold it worked.

Now we just had issues with the drivers. I put the CD in for the Asus Drivers, and it was going through installing everything, but it popped up those error messages that I described, that you must first install another driver (something like ATK 1000) before installing this other one, and that the driver (something like ATK 1000) could not be installed...etc. And of course, the video on the computer is VERY slow and laggy, not good quality, etc. which I know means there must be some drivers needed.

So far, I THINK what is missing from installing drivers yet are the wireless card (which I may have to find myself since this was a barebones notebook, but the processor and wireless card were installed from where we bought the barebones.) I also need drivers for the eSATA I believe that wasn't working really but couldn't test it, and most obvious was the video drivers.

 

WEll if it happens with your Asus but not with your Levono, you might got a bad motherboard. Like me I just discover that I have a bad 2gb Gskill memory stick. Now i have to RMA them. Luckily it's not because of my HDD.

I don't know if there is ESATA driver I think it's in the windows already. All you do is plug in ur device and it'll work like a USB port. Whenever i have an ESATA enclosure, I can utilize this port for faster transfer rate.

 

Don't know, I'm not a Windows guy. At minimum it would require a lot of care -- Windows is pretty picky about changes to its environment.

You might be able to install it directly to eSATA, as I did with CentOS. I don't know how flexible the Windows installer is.

 

Is there a reference page somewhere that details the various Z84J models? I'm wondering how the Z84JP and Z84JV compare, and are there any others?

 

Choucove,

you can find all the drivers (Graphics, eSATA, Wirreless LAN, ATK0100, ...) at the ASUS download site: http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=Z84J&type=map&mapindex=0

After instaaling the drivers you need form this site yu can always look for better ones.

With the Graphics driver from that site your GF7700 will work, mine does. With Power4Gear at MAX Pefromace and the standard GF7700 setting (so no overclock) I ran 3DMark 06 --> result: 2333

Currently I am loking if there is a more recent and better driver available for the GF7700, have not yet found it. I am going to test (tommorrow??)a driver from http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
Strangley you can find a driver there for the Geforce 7800/7900 laptops but not specificaly for the GF7700. There is howver a driver for Geforce 7 serie.

Congrats with your new purchse

 

Khanhfat

alas, I can't give you a complete answer yet about the TV tuner because there was no information included about it when I received my Z84Jp

But here the info I have until now:
- according to the info from the webshop I bought my Z84 from the TV tuner is an: Hybrid analog TV / digitil DVB-T / FM tuner
- it came supplied with an exeternal antenna and a connection piece for a standard cabel TV/radio connection
- the TV tuner is not placed in the "ExpressCard Slot", wich is at the left site of the laptop
- the connection point for the external antenna and/or your TV/FM cabel is situated inbetween the E-SATA port and the two USB ports at the left side of the notebook (beneeth the Expresssion card slot)
- when you open the big compartment at the back of the notebook you can see the connection point, but not the TV tuner itself. The TV tuner is situated somewhere else (not dirrecty viewable) in the notebook. I did not disassemble my notebook any further to go looking for it
- the ASUS TV tuner driver is named "TV Tuner_Avermedia_Vista_07308" and during installing I got information that it was an "Avermedia A301 minicard (NTSC/PAL/SECAM/DVB-T/FM). The information at the Avermedia site is however not conclusive, see: http://www.avermedia.com/cgi-bin/products2.asp
- during installing the driver I got a conflict with Vista and I got the impression that the driver did not install correctly
- however after I connected my laptop through the TV tuner connection with my cable TV connection I got all the TV and radio channels I normally have. And everything seemed to work normally with the help of the Vista media center
- however I still have a problem when installing the driver and when I look at my hardware, Vista gives me the message: unknown device, driver not propperly installed. This device is situated at the folowing location:
Intel(R)82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface. I assume that this is the TV tuner, but I don't know it for sure

I have just sent an e-mail to the suplier of my notebook with a request for information about the inbuild TV tuner. Maybee I will also send the same request directly to the Dutch ASUS site?

As soon as I got the requested information I will post it

 

Wow, really helpful answer. So the little block hole that says TV is for the antenna.. This makes me wanna disassemble the lappy to find out more. I'm afraid mine is equiped with different motherboard so I won't be able to upgrade the hidden slot.

Thanks again. You don't need to open the laptop anymore that solves the problem already.

PS, if you can, please take a picture of the equipment for the TV and the slot to hook in the antenna. I'd like to see it. Thanks.

 

some pictures of the components:
- TV tuner connection socket at the left site of the notebook inbetween the E-SATA and the USB port
- short connection cable to attach to the notebook connection socket
- a connection jack to attach the connection cable to a standard (75 Ohm) coaxial cable from the erial antenna or the cable TV signal
- a mobile TV/FM antenna, you can connect this mobile antenna directly to the connection cable

So you have two connection options:
- hand/mobile antenna, directly attached to the short conection cable
- connecting an aerial antenna or cable signal to the connection cable with help of the little connection jack

 

Hiya...

I am in the midst of shopping for a new laptop.
Until this afternoon, I was dead set to get a Z84JP.

Just thought you'd wanna know that I have CONFIRMED that at least two vendors in the US have the 7700 (instead of the 7600). GenTech (1toppc.com) and rkcomputer.net


Now... as to where I am putting my money. Just today, I got word that the new HP dv9500t (with the new Santa Rosa CPU) is actually CHEAPER than the Asus barebones method... unreal.

I'll prolly do my purchase this week... but I'm about 90% sure of heading toward the HP. The last 10% is the eSATA post on the Asus. :::sigh::: decisions decisions


Great forum here....
Thanks for all the great info.

Mark

 

Does the dv9500t come with a dedicated gpu now?

 

Not yet... but it's coming soon

 

Is any one interested in upgrading to a 7900GS 512Mb ????

If so you should have a peek at the article in the following link

http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/z84.html


So although the Z84JP has MXM it is no plug and play

 

I've looked at it, It's not easy to do that upgrade, as well as the heat issue. THe screws is not in place either.


Man... I dont' think the HP is any cheaper, if they released the GF 8600 it'll cost you another 200$ more i guess. So the price is very similar to each other. ALthough the HP is using the new CHipset and supports faster CPU. The HP can do DUal HDD... man I want that in my Z84J.

I'd wait for the upgrade version Z84J if Asus can keep up with the Santa ROsa.

 

Hey there everyone!

I just received my z84jp and I'm very exited, after waiting for several weeks. It had to be sent directly from asus.
To my surprise aparently the second shipment came with the GO 7700(something I didn't expect) and it was really nice to know, kinda made it all worth waiting for.
I'll be posting any problems/questions I encounter while putting this baby together and also installing vista ultimate.

My question I think it would be. Now that the z84jp comes with such gpu could it be considered a gaming labtop without being overclocked?, how about when overclocked?

Also, the TV tuner that came built in in some of the z84j models, could it be added to my model of z84jp in the future??

I pretty much wrote this to introduce myself to you all who helped me to make my choice and get this really nice rig.

Kind regards

 

Thanks again everyone for your help sorting out my driver problems. Unfortunately, I am still having difficulties with one driver: ATK0100.

I downloaded this driver from the Asus support page, but I don't even know what this driver is really for! When I try to run Setup2, the only real .exe file in the bunch to try and install the driver, it says "Install Failed! ATK0100 ACPI UTILITY" and other messages I get are "Can't open ACPI ATK0100 kernel Mode Driver"

Now, in the files downloaded it did have an Install.txt file that says when windows begins and notices an "unknown device" and asks for drivers, you should specify a specific location (the folder with the ATK0100 drivers) and let that run then restart and everything should be fine. The problem is I never get the prompt for a new "unknown hardware" to install drivers, only an error message at startup that says "Can't open ACPI ATK0100 kernel Mode Driver"

Does anyone have ideas? Has someone had similar issues with their notebook? I'm really at a loss here, as this is about the only thing not working.

The only other issue I noticed is that the Function F7 and F8 (the volume function keys) don't work! All the other functions, such as screen brightness, seem to work, but I can't control the volume at all with the function keys, and can't seem to find what driver update there would be for this.

 

The ATK0100 ACPI is the on-screen display of the volume

(Asus program)

So since that is hosed, that would explain why your F7/F8 keys don't work either.

My guess is that you have installed the wrong audio drivers.


Just a hunch.


Mark

 

I'd trade ur 7700 with 50$ + my 7600. About the performance of 7700, it's great for mid-range gaming. You can pretty much turn on all the effects and gaming nicely at 1024x768 resolution. Except those new games requires tremendous graphic power. Other wise, gaming at mid high settings is pleasant with both 7600 7700. Overclock is not recommend, i did with my 7600, it causes the screen display unstable. Just leave that 7700 alone unless your games uses more power , then you can slightly overclock to get better FPS. I often overclock mine to get smoother FPS while playing BF2142.


ATK0100 is a program control those FN keys. If you disable them from MSconfig, you wont' be able to use ur FN keys except the brightness setttings.

If it does not function correctly, try to run the update driver of windows manually by clicking on Rightclick Mycomputer/ Properties/ hardware/ Device manager/ System Devices . Then from that drop down menu U'll see ATK100 double click on it and click Driver / update driver then use that wizard to browse manually to your ATK files that you download from ASUS.

If you can't fix it.. the worst thing is reinstall the system hahahah D:

 

Where did you get yours from ?

 

I got mine from rjtech, and i really waited for a long time. maybe 4 to 5 weeks, and when asus itself shipped the labtop. they didnt notice me via email while i was out of town, wich caused my baby to sit on my front porch for three days. :S
I'm lucky to have it with me.
still working with the installation of windows vista and the wireless crd wich is giving me a really hard time, should I have to update my BIOS??

who's got vista ultimate on their precious??

 

I installed Vista Home Premium on mine. Did not have to update my bios.