Z96 Owners Lounge!

Hey i gotta learn somewhere i guess.

 

me neither.

 

OMG! wow.....it seems true.

Mines an original then:

 

Rather interesting. Makes me feel kind of special.

I think what happened is that Asus pre-produced a fair number of Z96J/S96J chasis's, with plans to use the port-bar 3. Then, they cut it at the last minute. Once they cut it, they stopped making notebook with the removeable slot. Just a theory.

 

Hey. I just got a Z96J and have it mostly put together (still waiting on the CPU) and I wanted to ask you folks about the built-in audio. Does it have a surround sound or HD capable sound card? What is the SPDIF port and how does it work?

 

SPDIF is a special high quality connection. You can often use it to connect to a surround sound decoder, or surround sound headphones. The only way to get surround output is through SPDIF on this laptop. Do note that there are two kinds of SPDIF ports. One is optical, and the other electrical. I beleive that the Z96J has the electrical type.

 

Have you used it? How many channels do you think it provides? (5.1, 7.1?)

 

Might we need to use one of these? (converts male RCA to male 1/8)

 

I have not used an SPDIF port. Never had the need. I use normal earphones from my mp3 player with this laptop. My desktop has a surround sound system connected to it. My Uniwill in my sig has an optical SPDIF which I never used. It also outputs in standard 5.1 surround, which is what I used before I built my desktop. My guess is that it is probably 5.1. But I really have no idea. I know you can output stuff to a sound system decoder with this, which would decode the output into different channels, so if you are using one of those then it will output to whatever kind of speaker setup you have connected to the decoder. It probably all depends on your external hardware setup. I'm sure you could get 7.1 out of this if you tried. I'm sorry, but I honestly don't care so I've never looked into it.

MrFuzzmz, what exactly is that and what do you intent to use that for? Looks like something to connect some sort of speaker that uses a large cable into your laptop. Kind of like what is between my speakers for my desktop surround sound system and my subwoofer. Don't know why you'd want to use one of those. The audio out is just like a standard heaphone jack on an ipod. But it will also output in the electrical form of spdif(not optical).

 

I guess I'd really just like to know what options I have with this thing. I may get a surround sound system in the sort of near future and wanted to know what might be compatible. The Z96J has got S-Video out so I could display on a TV and plug digitally into surround sound. Just good to know! Thanks for all of the info!

 

new Z96 owner, how should i setup my video card. Install everything from the driver utility disc and leave it alone or download other drivers? Omega's or Catalyst and download them from where? Should i use Catalyst control center or Ati Tool?

Another question is how do i change my screen brightness.

Still learning my way around this lappy and stuff so any other info on what i should update or change would be appreciated.

 

You should use the graphics drivers provided on the CD. There is no performance benefit whatsoever to switch to Omega's or ATI Catalyst. I've run Asus drivers, Intel drivers, and ATI Catalyst mobility 6.6, 6.7, and 6.8. All of them scored almost exactly the same in 3D mark 05. Normally manufacturer or ATI drivers are more stable than Omega's. For now, Asus drivers are by far the best option.

Catalyst Control Center(CCC) and ATI Tool are two different things. CCC is for controlling your graphics settings and options. ATI Tool is software used to overclock(or underclock) a graphics card. You have no access to graphics settings in ATI Tool, and no access to clock settings in CCC. I would advise using CCC, and staying away from OC'ing. Not worth it in a laptop.

To change screen brightness, hold the FN key, and tap either the F4 or F5 keys. F4 lowers screen brightness, and F5 raises it.

 

Ive seen that the Omegas are pretty stable nowadays(runnin on Omega 6.7's). They dont take up as much space as the ATi drivers, and still perform beautifully and work well. OCing, I agree isnt really needed nowadays as GPU's run great even with out OCing (X1600 is perfect by itself).

 

Ummm... there is a fair bit to gain with overclocking the X1600, but the problem is just that there is a whole lot to lose when overclocking a laptop in general. The major issues are heat, power, and warranty. You overclock your X1600, and your whole laptop warranty is voided. The cooling system is designed to handle the laptop components at stock speeds, not higher. You can't really mod it, or swap in a better cooling system like on a desktop. Another issue is that your laptop power supply is designed to supply the necessary amount of power to run your laptop at stock. When you overclock, you increase power consumption, which can cause some serious issues.

When I said I would stick away from OC'ing the X1600, it's because laptop OC'ing is just a horrid idea. Don't take it the wrong way- I'm a huge fan of overclocking. But overclocking is a form or art best left to desktops. Desktops that were built with overclocking in mind.

 

Eventhough you OC and get higher 3Dmark scores, it only translates in a bit more performance. By having just the standard speed on the X1600, it runs fine and graphics are great at max settings. I know OCing on a laptop is bad, some think its an awesome idea since desktops can do it, so why not a desktop.

 

You mean laptop?

The problem is, OC'ing sucks on laptops for the reasons I mentioned above. You can't really gain any performance with it. Nothing noticeable atleast. Because your parts run too hot, and your laptop usually doesn't get enough extra power.

You can gain an extra 3-5 fps in games with overclocking a laptop. While causing probable instability, and all that extra heat is transferred to all your components. Which could end up damaging parts other than your graphics card. On a desktop, if one part overheats, usually only that part will go.

Also, since you can do overclocking properly on a desktop, you can gain a lot more like 20 fps in games, which is quite noticeable. On my desktop, OC'ing is the difference between my computer running Doom 3 in 1600x1200 maxed out at 30 fps vs. 60 fps. That kind of jump just doesn't happen in a laptop. And as I said before, OC'ing is stupid in a laptop.

Another thing is, it seems that a lot of people who want to overclock their laptops have never OC'ed before. They just got their new laptop, and have never owned a desktop, so they want to join in on the overclocking. These are usually the people who end up burning out their laptop.

 

You are correct yes I meant laptop(now how I mess that one?). Thanks for the lengthy description that many here will see . I rarely ever OC since I use this alot for CAD and SolidWorks, and the ocassional Halo or CS:S. JPZ, do you BTW get a problem where the screen wont snap out of stand by?(wonderin as some people on the other forums are having that issue too).

 

I actually pretty much never use standby. Standby is evil. But I do believe I have used it once or twice on my Z96J, and never had a problem.

 

i had no problem getting out of stand by, all i did is just press enter and hold it for awhile.
the only problem i have at the moment with z96j is the horrible horrible speakers, it is so bad that i put it on mute most of the time or use my sony earbud. oh yeah, and the annoying function key where it only allows you to launch window media and not other applications.

ahdont

 

Meant to post this hours ago, but posted in the wrong thread. Here it is:

I've only heard of this happening with the W3J. And that was supposedly fixed with a BIOS update quite a while ago.

There was a similar issue that once existed with the Uniwill n258KA before I got it. When you used standby, and you tried to bring the system back, the LCD backlight would not turn on. So it looks like it wouldn't come back on.

Haven't heard of any issues with the Z96J.

 

What function key would that be? I don't have any key that does that.

I suppose you could mean the play/pause FN shortcut. But that opens Asus DVD for me. Probably opens up your default DVD player or default CD player. If that's the case, you can set whatever program you want it to open to be your default program for that type of media which this key opens.

 

So i'm starting to play CoD2 and AOE III and would like to know how to check my performance. To be more specific like theres all those options to adjust and for instance I set them all to max in AOE, but i'm not sure if I can handle it. Should i check my FPS and if so how do i do it while in a game. Should i also check my 3dmark scores? Sorry i'm brand new to computer gaming and have no clue where to start to get the most out of everything. Thanks for all and any advice.

 

use this program to check your framerates
http://www.fraps.com/download.php

 

my performance button does nothing. I assume there is no driver installed for it. I received my z96j with windows already installed. if there is a certain driver I need, could some one give me the heads up? thanks.

 

Power 4 Gear Sucks.

Install Notebook Hardware Control instead and use that

Also if you are hardly ever mobile and want full power, disable Speedstepping in the BIOS.

 

where can you define the buttons short cut?
cheers,

ahdont

 

If you are talking about the play/pause button,(which you still have not confirmed) there is no way to "set" the buttons function.

But if you claim that on yours, it opens windows media player, then perhaps there is a workaround that will allow you to have it open a different application.

What you have to do is figure out why it opens windows media player on your computer. Perhaps as I suggested above, it is your default DVD player. If so, you could set a different application to be your default DVD playing software, and the play/pause button will open that instead.

 

Are people having problems with S3 with this laptop? I use standby all the time and it is very important to me - in the past and possibly in the future - if I have a lecture on the other side of campus for instance and a lot of the time lectures go overtime and start early so I have 5 minutes or less to run as fast as I can and hope I make it. Waiting for the laptop to boot and shutdown on each end of the trip is not the best way to spend that time (Even though this isn't like my G732 I'm sure which takes 2 mins to fullyload to XP on battery and 4 mins to shutdown).

I have a friend who works at ATI. I'd like to hear what sort of issues you guys are having with these M56s (X1600s) - I'm asking about the grainyness issue, but I hadn't heard of the S3 issue....If you've heard of it in other ASUS laptops let me know, maybe they can look into it on this model or one of the others if they have it and get a fix for the next release.

Cat

P.S.
Does anyone know the sort of comparison in battery life vs. performance and heat creation we can expect from a Duo 2 Core vs. the current models with this laptop?

 

Check out http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=282

You can find a little more too if you search google with "Z96J merom" and stuff like that.

 

Arg. I just tried to open your link and it crashed iExplorer. If that hasn't been updated since I last went to it, they didn't have the right BIOS for the merom which resulted in poor battery life. Last I heard, they both have pretty much equal battery life.

Now to rewrite what I wrote before...

I have not have a problem with standby on this laptop. If you want, I'll repeatedly put the Z96J into standby to see if I can get this issue to occur.

I do not think the standby issue is X1600 or ATI related. But it could be. I think I would have heard of it occuring on other laptops besides Asus if it was an ATI issue.

The graininess... find yourself basically any laptop with an X1600, and a laptop with any other card. Place them side by side. Load up www.comcast.net and look at the blue background on the right. Tell me it looks solid on the X1600 laptop compared to the other laptop. The effect looks rather much like a severe dithering issue. You should be able to notice it fairly easily without a side-by-side comparison, but it makes it looks so much more apparent when a "normal" laptop is placed next to it.

I think the current status is that someone got Ken from Gentech to address intel about the issue, and intel told him they would be bringing it up with ATI. So I doubt your friend has as great influence as intel does. But you never know. Couldn't hurt. We could use some more help getting an official response from ATI on the issue.

Now that I've pretty much hijacked my own thread, how's everyone enjoying their new Z96J's?

 

One other thing to keep in mind is now ATI is part of AMD. It hasn't been fully ratified but if it goes through as of Novemeber it will be under the AMD Banner as part of the combined company and it will probably setup its own sort of Centrino line with all ATI/AMD components built inhouse (like the Intel Centrinos) making it an all AMD laptop. This shouldn't affect this laptop, but it might as time goes on and Intel becomes less and less willing to work with what will be its chief competitor in both notebook and CPUs as soon as the merger happens.

If you don't mind doing the repeated S3 checks, like 10x in a row maybe that'd be great thanks. I know they have programs to do that 500 times or so automatically at ATI but usually the issue happens on the first standby after boot or within the first 10 - if it only happens like once a month max I think I could probably live with it - though of course I'd always take extra time to save and check status of everything I'm doing b4 I do it just incase....

Anyway though - thanks for the quick responses - and out of curiousity, how long does an average XPSP2 boot and shutdown take on these things with and without battery?

Thanks,
Cat

 

The standby issue was caused by the drivers(Ken can vouch for this) for either the Mobility Cats or the Intel Drivers. Oddly enough, the Omegas seem not to have this issue(ive gone to lunch during work, and 1.5hrs later I press the enter key, and it turns right back on). As stated already, ATi and Intel have been notified about it, and sooner or later, something might show up.

 

Hmmm.... Well I'm running Catalyst 6.8's. Will do the standby tests as soon as I get a chance; I just woke up.

I'm not exactly sure how long it takes to boot on battery for me, but on AC it takes about 35 seconds from pressing the power button to get the login screen, and it powers off about 10 seconds after telling it to turn off.

Of course, it is going to depend on what hard disk you put in your S/Z96J. I've got a 7200 rpm Hitachi. I'll do some timed tests and get back to you.

 

45 Seconds on battery to go from full off to Windows XP Home login.

Doing standby cycling right now.

 

Just finished. Cycled through standby a good dozen times. Each time I had an E-mail client and one instance of iExplorer open. The final time I opened up a half dozen instances of Dev-CPP and let it sit for 5 minutes. Still no trouble. Started up pretty much instantly with no issues whatsoever.

 

Yeah. The battery endurance tests show maybe 5-10 minutes less battery life after the BIOS update. So about the same. It is also important to consider that there is a performance boost with Merom--what looks like 5-10%--so you'll be able to get things done theoretically faster.

As for how I am enjoying my Z96? Well I'm still waiting for merom. As it stands now it looks beautiful and it's frustrating knowing what it is capable of doing if it had a CPU in it. Formally released Monday, it had better be out soon!

 

But how about a long term wait of over an hr or so? Ive seen it done(mine for example), I want to just see it work on another notebook.

 

Leaving a notebook in standby for longer than 15 minutes defeats the purpose of standby. Either use hibernate, or full power off. I'll try it if I get a chance, but not promises.

 

Thanks man very much for doing the tests - I really appreciated it : ). I heard a bit more info, that possibly this issue occurs between 15-40 cycles and that it is possibly BIOS issue if it happens at all, not a driver one (I won't say for sure it isn't but that's what I've heard). It's intermittent though so it may not happen until a long number of cycles are done, too many to ask anyone to do manually. Also, if there is an option like 'Write Combining' in the BIOS you may want to try disabling it and then seeing if the problem occurs - on other systems thats solved it completely.

Not decided on Memron myself yet - it could be available in as little as 2 weeks at my local MileStonePC store - losing battery life and trading that for a bit of performance that I probably won't really notice...but the 64bit compatibility of the chips could be very useful for futureproofing. And the chips by 1000s sell for less than the Yonahs. Not decided yet. I kind of wish I could get just the 9 cell when I buy it and pay $40 more or something rather than the whole $125 more for a spare. I'm planning on going down to the store on Saturday to see one of these things in person if they have one on hand - definitely if I buy it I'll go in person and install the CPU and other stuff in the store and do a dead pixel/dead laptop check and MemTest cycle b4 taking it home.

Thanks for replying,
Cat

 

Hey all,
Has anyone used the bluetooth much? Even more, does any one know about the internal bluetooth--is it a seperate (possibly swapable) card or is it integrated into the motherboard? Just asking with Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR in mind.
Thanks

 

Cats 6.8's seem to be unstable.

 

Ok i'm trying to save some memory usage, what process can I end and what should i keep going if i want to surf the internet and play games. What is infineon and am I even using it if i'm just surfing the internet from a gateway connection?

Also where should i get 3dmark05 and 06 and where can I find power4gear on my lappy?

Thanks

 

2 more questions, how do i get into the BIOS and what should i update when i'm there.

And how do you turn off bluetooth besides just exiting the bluetooth manager.

 

Ok fiigured out the power4gear on my own.

 

Wow... wonder why I wasn't getting E-maisl for all these replices.

BIOS... you don't need to do anything there. Press F2 when you first power on the computer.

Inifion is the special secured digital driver chip in this laptop designed to encryt and secure information.

Run a google for 3D mark. It's made by FutureMark.

No problems with CAT 6.8. I've run HL2, D3, Q4, WC3 TFT, ad Oblivion without any trouble.

 

Well - I've joined the Club .

I just got my Z96J last night - I went into MileStonePC and looked it over installed XP, ran a MemTest and brought it home. While I was there I also showed the 2 people working at the time the grainyness issue on my monitor. Or at least tried to. I showed it a bunch of times with different settings and they just didn't see it - they thought I was complaining about the glossy surface (I was a matte user - but now I've been converted ). Finally I searched on the site while it was finishing the XP install and found the screenshots posted - by JPZ I think - and showed that to them then the screen and they understood. I told them it would be nice if they could tell Asus about it and that they had seen it - and that it existed on their other X1600 display models. I'm not sure if they will really do anything though or if they were just humouring me by saying they would look into it.

Anyway though - I'm happy : ). I weighed this thing in at 9.5 pounds with case and adapter and it is definitely much much lighter than my old G732. Speaking about the adapter - it doesn't get that hot - not anything that risks to burn the carpet anyway . The palmrests and touchpad though get to be pretty hot though (not quite as much as the adapter but close) when transfering the 50 gb of my stuff from my old laptop to this new one.

The only thing I don't like is the one dead pixel I have . It's right about the middle of the screen vertically and about 2 cm out from the left side of the screen. Sucks - but I guess there's nothing that can be done right?

Other things I've noticed is that the vid driver on my CD is newer than the one on the ASUS site - not sure how old it is compared to the ATI one since it seems to be numbered differently. Haven't checked the BIOS yet, or tried any other vid drivers (or installed the camera since I've heard horror stories about having to reinstall XP if you do something wrong with that...)

Here are my 3DMark scores with the cd vid driver and no overclocking:
3DMark2003: 6651
3DMark2005: 3821
3DMark2006: 1732

I've got a T2500 with a 100 GB Seagate 7200.1 drive, 1 GB 667 Corsair DDR2 RAM, the Intel WifiCard and a standard DVD Burner (that fit in perfectly with screws and mounting included).

Out of curiousity - why is this an underclocked version of the card - under for instance the TravelMate 8204 specs. Can we safely up the core to that level do you think to get similar results? Or was it capped beacuse the cooling system, very nice and quiet as it is, might limit the life of the chip if it was left at that level?

The laptop in general is about 10x quieter than my old G732 - it make almost no noise you can hear at all unless under heavy load or you're sitting right in front of it. The HDD does make a fair bit of clicking sounds when copying files and doing things though that I've seen and the DVD Burner drive I got is fairly loud.

Well I guess thats about it - I definitely like it

Cat

 

No, MilestonePC has a Zero bright dot (dead pixel) policy. Even if you have 1 dead pixel they will exchange, no questions asked

 

It's not Bright though - I think...I wish it were. It's really just a small black dot. It's not always noticable - but on this page for instance it's easy to spot while on this forum page in that lightblue bar down the left side of the page. Would that be covered?

 

welcome to the club. the adapter doesn't get hot at all. the palm rest gets warm only. had it for 3 weeks now, and i am loving it. but i have given up on the speakers though. i put it on mute most of the time, if i play game or doing work (i listen to music when i work), i just plug in my ear phones. speakers are horrible horrible.

ahdont
p.s i still couldn't reassign the function keys yet.

 

Ok well if you think I can use the warranty against bright pixels then I'll take it into the service center tomorow and ask them about it. It's about a 15 minute walk from my work. Hopefully they can do something about it, if not I guess at least I get the exercise...

Cat