Z96 Owners Lounge!

Yeah I'm sure they have the ZBD policy, I think what you have there qualifies as a bright dot

 

Thanks - I wouldn't have gone over without your suggestion that it does in fact count . They took it right away - I walked in and set up for a few mins and showed him my setup displaying the dot - then he went and changed the desktop to white and moved the menu over to see it (Since it was under where the My Network Places icon was) - and then he tried to wipe it off with his finger but then he took it in the back showed it to another guy, brought it back and told me he'd have it done in about 2.5 hours. So I'll head back there at 5 and get it back .

The system is still in all its original plastic covering except for over the display panel. Wish I could have told him to put on one of the original Z96J lids for it but I don't want to push my luck - as long as it doesn't end up being a low res S96J screen by mistake I'm sure it'll go well.

Thanks,
Cat

 

Hmmrph. This sucks. He said he'd e-mail me if it wasn't ready on time and apparently he did - I just recieved the e-mail 5 minutes after I left already - so I had a 1 hour roundtrip walk for absolutely nothing - excercise yes but this was getting to be a bit too much. All I did was take the hard drive home now, at least I don't have to worry about that getting damaged - though the way they treat our laptops is rather...rough.

Well anyway, they say they don't actually have the replacement LCD on hand. When I asked if since they were waiting for the part I could take the laptop home with me and then drop it off tomorrow again when they do have it (or whenever they actually get it shipped in) I was told no because they already took it apart. I mean, I don't even start making a pizza unless I've checked and found I have all the ingredients first. At least I got the HDD, I'll mount it and get at my files that way for tonight. Back to this old extremely loud machine.

Hoping to be back up and running tomorrow.

Cat

 

---------------------

 

Here is a question for all of you that already have your Z96's up and running (my merom chip is on the way and I'll be set up next week!):

I've asked folks on here before about the spdif digital audio output and people haven't really played with it much. Could someone click on the sound management software and change the signal to digital? After that just take a peak and see if there is any red light flickering when audio is played. I really appreciate it--I've looked around on-line only to find that some 3.5mm headphone jacks are optical and some are RCA-like digital and I'd just like to know.

Thanks again!

 

To: MrFuzz - Sorry - I can't change it to Digital, there is no option.

Back to my past posts - I time delayed this post until I actually got the notebook back - More to come soon:
Well this sucks worse... time for #3 it seems. I went
into the shop today to pickup the laptop with a new
LCD panel that I left yesterday afternoon. It was there and I happily put the HDD back
in and booted it up. The screen flickered a bunch
while starting Windows XP, but it seemed to settle down
and I hoped that was it. Then things started to go
wrong. I looked the monitor over and found a dead
pixel. About two centimeters south-west of the top
right corner of the screen.

They looked it over and decided it was not noticable
enough and gave me a speech about how TFT's aren't
perfect and international standards allow them not to
be 100% etc.... I hadn't looked at the rest of the
screen yet, that was the first place I checked. So I
looked down from that side vertically and came to a
bright one. Really bright - worse than my first dp -
and that was still with only about 1/3 of the screen
checked and only on a white screen. So, ya - they took
it back - again. This time he showed me the one they
plan to replace it with b4 taking it into the back.
Hoping to get it back in about 3 hours.

It came to the point where I asked if the new one is
still bad I can get my originl one back. Hope it
doesn't come to that

Cat

 

This post has also been time delayed.

So. I came in 3 hours later, this time driving since it was too muggy and tiring to make the 1 hour round trip walk again. They showed it to me and it looked good. Put back in my hard drive and it booted fine. When I got to Windows though and instantly that something was wrong. Everything was bigger. Too big. I did a check and found that in fact I could only go to 1280x maximum (See my post Resolution Can't Go Above 1280x (Z96J) . My first thought was...it's an S96J screen - they made a mistake and put in the wrong one. I did a bunch of things to try to fix it hoping I was wrong. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, disabling monitor, re-enabling it, reboooting, etc... The screen had 0 dead pixels. It did have a lot of backlight bleedthrough though at the bottom of the monitor - over about 1/6th of the screen very visible on a black screen. Otherwise a perfect display. I asked them to make sure it was the right panel. They said it was the exact same part # as my original and it was for Z96J.

They looked at it and tried to fix it themselves and eventually said they would install Windows on another hard drive with my system and see if it would work that way to make sure there was nothing wrong with my install or software. If they couldn't find a way there they said they would replace it with yet another panel, but it has an identical part # to the one with the wrong resolution so they weren't hopeful that it would be different. I'm sure though that the first screen they tried to replace it with was a 1680x model - the only problem was the many dead pixels it had. They said I could take it home if I wanted, but I don't want risk being stuck with a S96J low res screen - thats why I paid the extra $100+ for it - my old laptop was a 1400x I definitely can't go back to a 1280. They say they will replace the screen with #4 and then put back my original one after if its the same resolution and then they would call. I asked them to make sure to call me to let me see with the other screen, it won't be definitive but it would let me know that it was tried and they didn't jump back to my original screen without trying all available options. So it's with them again for another night...on to screen #4.

Cat

 

This post is Now.

I came into work and got a call around 1pm. It said my computer was ready for pickup. He said he'd tried the other screen and found that it had the same resolution issue and so he gave up on it and put my original one back (not what I wanted...but what can I do now?). So I packed up my things for another lunchtime spent going over to the shop...but this time with no gain at all for the 2 days I was without my laptop. I got there and looked it over. It was back to high res and the screen looks great, no backlight bleeding at all just that one dead pixel. In the interm, I'd read the post on dead pixels and was optimistic that I could fix it (see Buying Asus Z96-J with 9cell primary battery? ). I downloaded the DPF file and started it running on my laptop (had to install Quicktime and not just the Alternatives to get it work - booo - but back to the point). I then read up on the whole dead pixel thing and that program itself and found it doesn't actually do anything I wanted. It's for stuck pixels not dead ones. So that's no good.

Back at the shop, I've looked over the monitor, checked my battery for extra wear (its still at 3%) and made sure everything still works as it should. Looks good - still that original dead pixel on the side tho. This is where they tell me I don't actually have a Z96J. They say I have a Z96JS. The JS has a 1680x screen. The J does not. I tried to ask about the S96J but they said that it had nothing to do with it.

They've promised me they're shipping in a new Z96JS LCD from Taiwan to replace this one. It will take a month or more to arrive. They were telling me they didn't want to be quoted as saying October exactly, but I asked him to intial a comment saying the replacement would be ready by the end of October and they would call and e-mail me when it is.

So, no joy. 2 days without my Z96J- and nothing to show for it except a couple of new marks on it.

Cat

 

Dude... what reseller did you buy from? It sounds like they don't have any clue what they are doing, or even talking about for that matter.

There is no S96J. There is no Z96J. There are only Z96Js's. The ones manufactured by and purchased from Asus have Bluetooth, and a higher(WSXGA) res screen. These are sold as Z96J's. They have a 1 year warranty from Asus. The Z96Js's manufactured and sold by Intel have a low res(WXGA) screen and no bluetooth. They come with a 2 year warranty from Intel. These are labeled are sold as S96J's. They are also "officially" part of Intel's VBI program.

I'm almost positive that there was an option for digital output last I checked... and last I checked it was the RCA-type SPDIF, not the optical kind. My Uniwill has the optical(red laser) kind.

Also, for all those Interested, I just heard from Ken(Gentech PC) that Intel has brought the "graininess" matter to the engineers over in Taiwan or something to that extent.

 

I may have misread Fuzzy's question - I only checked in the High Def panel and there seemed to be a button called 'Analog' but no other buttons I could click - that's why I said I couldn't see it as an option.

As to the reseller not knowing what they are talking about. As I said, I took it back to the ASUS Service Center for the entire country of Canada. (9033 Leslie St., Richmond Hill Ontario) I spoke directly to the techs there. If someone in Canada were to send their laptop for servicing by ASUS then that's where it goes.

I hear what you're saying on the S96J and Z96J and Z96JS as you said it because that's what I've read here and other places. I'm just telling you what the ASUS Service Center techs told me - and they have no public phone #, the only way to reach them is to go in and talk to them directly - otherwise you just get shunted to some call center somewhere in the US or beyond. This is straight from the people who fix the things and needed to order the LCD for my notebook and looked up the part # on the system and came up with it not being high res unless "it is a Z96JS not a Z96J." (The guy's own words)

Cat

 

Chalk me up as another Z96Js owner!

Intel Core Duo T2500 2.0ghz
2GB OCZ 667mhz DDR2
Seagate 80Gig 7200rpm SATA
Radeon Mobility X1600
+all the other Z96Js specs


I was originally supposed to get the Hitachi 80gig 7200rpm SATA, but they just ran out of them when I ordered mine. So my reseller phoned me up, couldn't get ahold of me for I was out of the house. I leave my cell # on my answering machine just in case for times like these. The caller phones my cell to inform me of the problem, tells me they'll cover the $10 difference of Hard drive AND gave me an extra stick of 1GB RAM for the delayed shipping .

I realize the Hitachi does run a bit faster then the Seagate, but I get very annoyed by HD clicking noises. I multi task a lot so I'd probably get non-stop clicking noises from the Hitachi. I've always been a Seagate fan so I went with the brand I trust instead of waiting for my reseller to back order the Hitachi .

Now for the graininess issue. From what I've read from JPZ's post, hooking the notebook up via VGA port to another display gets rid of it, correct? I don't really mind then, I have a 21"CRT at home and my campus allows students to use the free monitors and projectors if no one/class/professor are using them.

Cheers!

P.S.
First post!

 

Congrats skore - welcome .

I'm a rather annoyed Z96J User. This will probably be my last post on the whole hardware support issue. I brought the thing home, no issues or anything and I was using it when I found that after I launched a multiplayer game no one could connect to me. I checked my router and sure enough, the DMZ was set for a different IP, the one the Z96J I got from the shop had. I thought this was odd so I checked the log and MAC addresses in it. Turns out my ethernet MAC is now different from what it was before. I know there are OS ways to change that, but I had the hard drive. The wifi one is still the same. So I adjusted the DMZ and launched again with no issues. but I found this whole thing to be quite odd. So I decided to check the insides of the machine to see if anything else had changed, I was curious if I still had the same Corsair stick in there. So I opened it up and found that they never put the 3 screws on the heatsink to secure the GPU. How incompetent can you be?

I'm glad I opened it up and saw, it could have voided my warranty if I brought it in another time and they saw that and told me I'd removed the heatsink myself without securing it properly afterwards. So I took it back into the shop today complained and ithey took it behind the curtain and spent 20 minutes with it back there trying to find replacement screws - they told me they couldn't find any and so they managed to fit a different set into the holes, slightly larger and silver instead of black. They assured me that not having the screws on the GPU and just the ones on the CPU wouldn't damage anything and all the GPU screws were for was giving an extra bit of pressure between it and the heatsink. I disagreed but decided not to argue since it wouldn't get me anywhere. They also told me that the reseller had put way too much thermal gel on the CPU and so they'd scraped the extra off. I'm glad I have an agreement to upgrade to Memron when it hits the shop so I'll get a new CPU in there before too long. As to the MAC address changing all they said was that it must have been them reconnecting things that made it different. The only thing I can see is unless they put another person's mobo in there, which I hope they didn't (since if they had some issue with bluetooth for instance I wouldn't know about it till I get a bluetooth device if/when I get one someday). Or there is a daughter board with the ethernet jack attached inside that they switched possibly by accident - since the MACs are supposed to be burned in when the chip is made and the two are similar but not identical. I decided I didn't have anything to lose to show him the grainyness issue as well since I was there so I did - he said he saw it and asked me a few questions and said he'd look into it - no idea if he's serious.

So in the final estimation I guess I wish I never took the thing in. There's a theory that there is a new universe created for every different possiblity of a change that any molecule makes - well if that were true then any universes where I decided not to take it back probably have me as a much happier person. It's taken me through resolution issues, dead pixels, paranoia and doubt. As I left I said, "Well see you in October then" and he said "We hope."

Cat

 

Wow man, I'm sorry I told you about the ZBD policy at all now... I didn't know that they would do such a poor job since everyone in this forum have been clamouring about how good the service at MilestonePc is.

Now that I think about it, the first time I walked into their store the guy there was persuading me to buy the A8Jm when I wanted to buy the Z96J and he told me "Oh, it won't be in for another month or so, you might as well buy a A8J" (this was in early August) so I thought, well if school started and I didn't have a laptop that would be a problem. So the next time I was prepared to place the order for the A8J but I tried my luck and I asked the same person if the Z96J was in stock, he said no. Luckily, his boss was there and he told me that he did have Z96J in stock and that there was about 50 units, only 25 units were sold. Looking back, I think that they were just trying to get rid of the A8J stock so that was why the guy persuaded me to buy the A8J. If that's the truth then it was pretty sad that they would do that given their reputation. It also didn't hurt that my dad knows the boss

Anyways, in the end I got the laptop that I wanted and I've sort of got over that unpleasantness. As a fellow Z96J owner I can understand your standpoint but sadly there's nothing much you can do.

 

Sorry about the confusion. I never went to MileStonePC for service. I didn't talk to them at all about this issue. They're great for service though, I've never had problems, and best of all they don't take your laptop behind a curtain, you can see what they're doing, which makes me more confident.

I took it to the ASUS Service Center, the only one in Canada. I spoke directly to the people who work there for ASUS itself. If you're in Canada and you ship it to ASUS for service (or your reseller does), that's where it ends up.

Cat

 

Hmmm, I don't know if you want to try now but MilestonePc supposedly has good service themselves but I suppose that they might just end up sending the laptop to Asus anyways so the same problem you experienced should be the same even if you had sent it to MilestonePc.

 

Yes probably - they advised me to send it over to them. This sort of LCD replacement I think they can't do. If I'd seen it in the store then they'd probably just have given my the other Z96J they had in stock - except for the thermal paste the other, the one I got would have been the same. After market though they would need to install a new LCD panel and probably would have had to send it to ASUS anyway. Since they are practically down the street from each other (about a 5-10 minute drive depending on the traffic) they recommended I go straight to ASUS for anything hardware related (aside from the DVD/RW, wireless card, HDD and CPU which they installed themselves). I don't think they carry spare screens of this type in stock - actually I'm 99.9% sure they don't so back to ASUS it would have gone and probably instead of just telling them forget it when I got that first faulty screen with 2+ dead pixels I would have had to say forget it and then have waited for it to ship back and forth for a day or 2 inbetween.

It's not your fault though, I don't blame you. Who knows, maybe when I get the new one in a month it'll be much better and I'll be much happier . Or maybe I would have dropped it, or not realized I forgot my CDs at MileStonePC (where they kept it aside for me), or some other bad thing so I'm not complaning on that. Anything can happen.

Cat

 

Huh, I just noticed you're located in Toronto there Cat. I got my Z96Js from ETC Computer over there. I know they can't do anything for you since you bought it from a different reseller, but I'd thought you'd like to know of another Asus notebook reseller.

 

Thanks, but I've dealt with MileStonePC for about 7+ years now. I remember them being CanadaSys and even DyTech Computers. I've never had anything but excellent service from them and their prices always beat everyone else's that I've seen, especially locally, and usually by a ton. Their support is also excellent, I remember taking in my G732 for small issues like the lid not locking in place and even cleanings past the 1 year warranty and they never asked me for a receipt and they were always fast and polite. No it's not the reseller that's the problem - just the ASUS techs who are incompetent : (.

Thanks though,
Cat

 

Np, just thought I'd toss that in there.

Anybody use a laptop cooler for their Z96Js? My local reseller store has a few and I've had my eye on this one. I won't be using it when I'm at my lectures, just at home when I'm playing a game or something that'll heat it up to some extent.

Any suggestions or recommendations?

http://www.cbit.ca/mb/retail_productdetail.asp?Cat=22&SubCat=632&offset=10&ProdNo=LAB-V05-045#

P.S.
What kind of payments does MileStonePC take?

 

I have the antec cooler for the Z96J but it doesn't really fit the bottom of the laptop 100% and also I use everest to check my temps and it shows low 50 degree celcius temperatures after I just exit from a game like Oblivion after playing it for like 3 hours (I don't know if that's a good temperature) but I get the feeling my laptop still gets hot.

I wouldn't consider spending $50+ on a notebook cooler, in the end they are all pretty similar so theres no point in spending so much money

 

Why do you need a cooler? The temps on this notebook are pretty cool. For having a powerful GPU and a CD, it runs at a pretty avg temp.

 

If anything, I live in a somewhat erratic weather climate. Once it gets hot, it boils in my computer room. A/C on full blast, but having several computers running in a small 7square foot room nulls the cool air being blown in . I suppose I'll wait and see how it goes without a cooler first, but I'll most likely pick one up to use it like a docking station.

 

Hey guys, I got a problem with my Z96J, I used Memtest 86+ to test out my system and it gave an error... is that normal? That means there's "something" wrong with my memory. I'm trying to see if updating the bios will help but I don't know how to update the bios, the utilities cd that came with the laptop has something called Aflash but when I try opening it, it doesn't work. Is there a direct link to download the Asus Winflash utility or is it found somewhere in the cd?

 

I've run my Z96J(S) through a couple of MemTest passes to make sure its good - if it fails that probably means there is an issue with the memory. If you have Kingston or Corsair RAM I think they have warranties and the reseller should help. I don't think flashing the BIOS will help.

Depending on where the error is in the RAM you may not have any issues because of it, at least not major ones. I've had a couple of bad sticks and I realized they were bad because of random crashes/bluescreens/lockups occuring or getting various memory errors which led me to do a Memtest and find the problem. Once the Memtest comes up with a problem that's when I know with 99.9% certainty that the RAM has a problem (and the 4 times this has happened to me on the 8 systems I have directly worked with in the past couple of years, including the G732, changing the RAM has fixed any stability issues).

Not sure about the BIOS update though, there is a Z96JS manual on the ASUS website that might help - I'm not planning on doing it until just before I upgrade to Memron.

Cat

 

I'm puzzled by the error too because I don't have any major problems with my laptop, no sudden crashes or lockups but I guess when something like that does happen I'll go straight to MilestonePc... for now I'll stick with my ram because I don't notice, at least for now, any instability and I don't want to go through the hassle if no major errors occur.

 

Ya, I agree definitely. If you start seeing issues you can try reseating the RAM, if its not against your warranty, and also taking out the battery and power to make sure all the current is cleared out and reset button. But if you start having unexplained crashes and stuff that's definitely the first thing to test and if you still get the MemTest error - straight on to MileStone

Gl,
Cat

 

Just got my Z96Js this morning...this thing is a **** fine piece of work for its price. Haven't noticed any grainy issues playing PoP:SoT on it yet...but I don't have the best eyes in the world . This screen is a piece of beauty, so much clearer then my desktop LCD . I am going to be grinning all day ....

 

welcome to the club skoreanime,
after having a month with the z96j, i have no problem with it whatsoever, the performance from this machince is amazing. i can get so much work done with it. sometimes i spend way too much with the laptop. having most of my experience with desktop for simulation. i find that the dual core is extremely fast for running cpu intensive softwares. so fari am please having the z96j. hm... except the speakers. i hate them.
cheers,

ahdont

 

Finally received my merom chip!!! Updated the BIOS without swapping a Yonah using a boot cd. This is an amazing machine!!! I am typing from it now while installing Ubuntu. I have a huge problem though--for some reason when I try to install Windows XP Pro SP2 the boot cd, after saying "setup is inspecting your system..." the screen goes black and that's all she wrote. The optical drive also seems to stop being active after a few seconds. Anyone have any ideas? Windows VIsta Beta was able to install, Ubuntu.etc.. XP no. I have used this XP disc to install on other systems so I doubt it is the disc. Thanks so much in advance!
-Matthias

 

Nevermind. I was able to update the bios using AFLASH2 and the Ultimate Boot CD. I was also able to get my XP disc to boot by editing the partition table with a linux boot cd. The screen on the this is Amazing! Extremely smooth running machine.

I have some new issues, though. Has any put Ubuntu on the Z96Js? It boots great with the Install/LiveCD and Installed very quickly, but is unable to Mount root filesystem on reboot.

 

Ok this might sound really stupid but i've had my z96 for about 3 weeks and still havn't used my camera yet or even know how to. Any advice on where i go to setup my camera or test it out would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

It's not stupid. I don't know very many people who use a laptop webcam on a regular basis. I actually don't know any who use an onboard laptop webcam regularly.

It's also quite common for people to have trouble setting up the camera.

Anyway, browse the Asus driver CD(explore it rather than running the auto-run app) and look for the camera driver folder. In there you should find a camera install utility. Don't remember if it is a batch file or an EXE.

To use the webcam, you can either:

1. Go to my computer and click the camera icon. This will load a box that displays the webcam input, and allows you to take pictures.

2. Use the "videoview" application on the driver cd. You can find it in the camera folder. This will allow you to take videos.

3. Use third party software.

 

That's not even a 3ft by 3ft room. Dude, stop living in the closet. Literally. And how did you manage to fit yourself, "several" computers, and an A/C unit in such a small room?

Anyway, you shouldn't have much of a problem. The fans are temperature controlled. Your temps won't be much higher than anyone else's(definately not high enough to worry about anything) but your fans might rev up a bit. But I'm sure you won't mind it being in a room with several other computers. You probably won't notice it.

 

Heh, that was a typo. Meant 7 foot length and width wise, so 49square feet. My house is on a central A/C unit and the thermo that the A/C gets its temp off of is downstairs, not this room...so when it says 22degrees Celsius down there, it's like 29-32ish up here .

Anyways, back on topic... I did get the cooler and IMO, it was worth the extra cash. I really do use it like a docking station. Just put the laptop on it, plug in 2 USB's in the back and my printer, scanner, cordless mouse and PDA mount is all connected. The tilt on it is nice too, easier on the wrists .

Not too many people like using webcams because it has that lag to it. I'm one of those people who frequently use it however, every single one of my MSN friends use video chat so I'm loving this cam. Not to mention I use Ventrilo for gaming, and the mic being right there in front of you is also great.

 

i also use it with msn and i finds it work so much better then my "logitech webcam for notebook". all i did was install the driver from the cd and goto msn tools and configure it. had no problem with it. i am also one of those who uses it in a regularly basis.
cheers,

ahdont

 

I'm just browsing the market from some decent, ultra portable speakers now. I think we can all agree the Z96J speakers are quite pathetic. I do use headphones when I'm in places where others might not want to be disturbed, but most of the time I'm in a lounge or something where it's fine to have something pretty loud. Trying to find a pair that can clip on to the top corners of the screen...that would be awesome.

 

most portable speakers are just as bad though and let alone clip on ones.

 

True that...I don't like wearing headphones much because they give me a headache after awhile and the Z96Js speakers aren't nearly loud enough for my taste. Found these ones on MileStonePC and they seem decent.

http://www.milestonepc.com/canada/product_info.php?products_id=1381

I've got a pretty big bag so carrying these around should be no problem.

 

will this inverter work with my z96j?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812120304

 

Yes. As long as the description is correct. Some inverters like that will list a maximum power output, but will only output that much when connected directly to your battery. I have an inverter my dad gave me for Christmas that claims 300W power output. It will only do 150W when connected through a cigarette lighter. Wouldn't power my 165W Uniwill.

You should be able to power 4-6 Z96J's with that. Depending on the system load of each one. 4 Z96J's will draw a max of 360W, that inverter outputs 375W so you're good. But I wouldn't ever try anything like that.

You could probably get something at Best Buy for $20 that will give you enough power, but this option is better if you were planning on trying to power something else at the same time.

 

Hi guys well there are a couple of things I need to know from the Z96J , I know there are some news between Intel working on a BIOS VGA FIX dealing with the grainnness issue. Being not that a big deal for lot's of you .. it might be for me. Anyways.

- What's the real battery life with the 9 Cell battery , ( I understand the 9 cell battery fits on the primary battery slot right? )

- What about gaming on non native resolution , like 1024 or 1280 , I didn't have quite clear what some ppl said about lowering frame rate if you don't run the game at the machines LCD native resolution..

- And something quite odd what about the AC adapter about getting super dupy HOT , my sagers 5680 adapter gets real hot.. maybe this is common science over AC adapters.. maybe not .

- I wanted a well built , designed lap in terms of airflow engineering , being able to game, do intensive processing, been all the round through SAGER I got an old 5680 quite bulky, and noisy. I choose Asus cause I know their facilities build laps for many manufacturers where names like Apple, Sony fit .. but I also came to my mind a sony VAIO what do you guys think I'm in between 1600-1700 U$s.

- And last We all know ATI now its part of AMD , so would it be better to get hold of a lap Asus for instance with a Geforce 7600 512MB , there's an F3JM hear your advices. The only problem with this lap I haven't found it with a merom processor and I really do need it , as well as a 9 cell battery.

 

For that much money you could max out a Z96J. Althought... probably not if you are going for a 9 cell, and those meroms are quite expensive.

The AC adapter is nothing to worry about. It gets hotter than some AC adapters, runs cooler than others.

Gaming performance depends on the game. Half Life 2 will run at native at 60-70fps.(constant 60 with vsync on, around 70-80 with it off- all settings maxed out) while Oblivion can get frame rates of 15 in 800x600 with settings maxed out. I play Oblivion on mine at 1024x768 with medium settings, getting around 25 fps outdoors and 60 indoors.

Battery life depends on what you are doing and what hardware you put in your system. Also on what is attached externally.

The 9 cell fits in the standard bay....

...I answered all these questions in my 10 page review of the Z96J back in July. Search for it, I don't know if it is still here. It got locked a while ago because someone started making personal attacks. Check www.asusforum.com for my review, I know it is still over there.

Still waiting for the BIOS for graininess, not sure what is going on with that.

 

The resolution settings are different for every game, some games (particularly the new ones) are more graphic demanding. As you know, the Z96js has a native resolution of 1680x1050, a very nice high resolution screen but if you're going to play games using this resolution you will have a very poor fps. That's why to play games in a playable resolution you should adjust the resolution down a notch to I would say, at least 1440x1050(or something like that).

For games like Oblivion though, I turn it down to 1280x780 and turn off hdr lighting and aa. I get a playable fps, around 20 but when I'm outside I would get graphic lag sometimes.

For the graininess issue, I don't even notice it sometimes, not even in those dark grey areas in Oblivion, only when I press my face to the screen do I realize the graininess. In my opinion, it's a small imperfection but not a huge deal.

 

Kay well actually for gaming I would be playing in 1024x768 is that resolution possible on Z96J ? cause higher than that .. I don't think I will have a smooth fps numbering.
Now I need to know what's the battery life using the 9 cell battery ?
what do you guys think about the F3JM which has a geforce 7600 512MB dedicated memory

 

Yes that resolution is possible but don't forget the Z96J has a widescreen so 1024x768 would look awkward.

F3JM doesn't have as good a screen (resolution) as Z96J but I hear the build quality is supposedly better. Also you get to choose your parts for the Z96J

 

you say it won't look fine under 1024x768? eeks, well I like F3JM but I don't find the config with a Merom processor that's why I'm going with the z96j. Can you tell me whats the battery life you get with 9 cell battery.
By the way can you take a picture of the screen with a game under 1024x768 if it doesn't bother thanks keiki

 

Umm... I don't mind gaming on a full screen resolution scaled to widescreen. The aspect ration might be a tad off, but I can't notice it unless you have two images side by side.

What you can do is set the aspect ratios on your games properly, so even though it is a fullscreen resolution being scaled, the scaled aspect will be correct.

Another option is to keep the aspect ration when scaling. You'll get nice black bars on the sides of your monitor if you config it that way.

And of course, things won't look as nice running an LCD at non-native. But the screen is absolutely beautiful.

I am running the BETA BIOS that FIXES THE GRAININESS ISSUE. I thought the screen was pretty nice before, but now I just can't believe it.

Now then... what games are you wanting to play? Older games will run great at native 1680x1050, such as Half-Life 2 and Halo. Games like Doom 3 and Quake 4 run well at 1280x1024, and look just as good as 1680x1050. Of course, games like Oblivion will struggle to run at 1024x768 with settings on high.

I PLAY OBLIVION AT 1024x768 ON MY Z96J. IT LOOKS FINE. NOT AS NICE AS MY DESKTOP WHICH RUNS IT A BIT SMOOTHER AT 1280x1024, BUT STILL VERY NICE.

Now on to battery life. This is going to depend on a multitude of things. Such as:

1. What processor you get.
2. Processor stepping settings, and whether or not you undervolt.
3. Powerplay settings
4. Wifi on or off
5. Bluetooth on or off.
6. Screen brightness.
7. Volume level, and whether you use headphones or the speakers.
8. External devices, and how much power they consume(mice, keyboard, etc.)

With all of this into consideration, a 9 cell will last you for anywhere between about 1 and 3 hours of gaming.

 

Hi All

I was just wondering if anyone out there with a 7200rpm HDD in their Z96J finds it particularly noisy?

Specifically i have a HITACHI TRAVELSTAR 7K100 (HTS721080G9SA00) and find it much noisier than my other notebook also with a Travelstar, albeit 5400rpm. I believe that Hitachi 7200rpm drives are supposed to be no louder than their 5400rpm which is why i'm asking for other ppls experience.

Also, I was shocked when I put in a CD into the DVD-RAM ODD - my whole notebook vibrated furiously (to no exaggeration) and was so noisy it woke someone in the room adjacent. I haven't struck a problem like this since I bought my very first ODD in 1995..

I haven't had my notebook for a week and find these aspects quite a nuisance.

Any comments/suggestions are welcome

Thanks

Hari

 

Hitachi's supposedly tend to be the "louder and hotter" hard disks. I have a 7200 rpm PATA disk in my Uniwill. And the same hard disk you have in my Z96J. The 7k100 is much louder than the previous PATA line of hard disks. I suspect that the 5400 rpm drive in the same model series as what you have is approximately just as loud.

I do not find the hard disk to be annoying whatsoever, but I actually do hear it whereas I cannot hear the one in my Uniwill. What you can do is mess with the acoustic settings. This will hurt performance a tad, but not noticeably. It should make your drive just about silent, though.

Not that I an suggesting you use this, but NHC has acoustic mode setting access.

For your optical disk drive... I haven't used a DVD-RAM disk. DVD's spin at low speeds compared to CD's and aren't very loud at all. Certain high-speed cd's can however make a bit of noise.

You can use Nero software to limit the speed of your disk drive, which will kill performance but make it significantly more quiet.

 

Thanks for your response JPZ,

I was comparing the sound of the HDD on my Z96J to the 5400rpm Hitachi in my LG. The LG is barely audible even under load and I guess this is what i had grown accustom to. I was just wondering if my experiences were out of the ordinary.

Have you had any experience with changing the acoustic settings using Notebook Hardware Control? I'm not overly confident is messing around with it.

As for the ODD, i never expected even for a high-speed CD for it to behave like that, I will keep note of it.

Thanks again

Hari