Anyone Using the z9000?

http://usa.asus.com/products/notebook/z9series/Z9000/z9000_overview.htm

i've been looking for a good, non-gaming notebook for some light web development and general office work, and the z9000 looks pretty good. Asus is supposedly pretty good quality which is what is attracting me to the notebook (though otherwise it is pretty ugly [ ]) but i can't find much information on it anywhere. i guess it's still too new, or not available much in the US. does anyone know anything about that notebook, especially concerning keyboard, display, and build quality/durability?

appreciate

 

how come everyone who talks about the Z9000 says its a great machine and so on and how they liked it when they tried it out but no one seems to own it in this forum ~.~ kinda seems a little weird that no one's givin a review for it in this forum and the only review i've seen throughout the net is the one by Tom's hardware.. it seems like everyone always says they were considering it but ends up getting soemthing else.. ~.~ just a little weird

~.~ In need of a notebook

 

I have a small computer business and have sold ASUS notebooks over the past and no problems with them.
This new product Z9000 is great and because of the ATI chipset can be flashed for the new Intel 1.8 - 2.0 CPU's not like most notebooks.
Everything is easy to change from the little trap doors under the notebook.
Hope this helps

 

It's very hard to own one right now with people want to purchase them as soon as I can put one together
I had the pleasure of using one for a few weeks but someone wanted it
that weekend so I had to sell it so not to lose a sale.
I just got 3 more in today and will build them up over the weekend and see how long they will last

 

Yeah, I just ordered an Asus Z9000 series notebook. It has the 1.7ghz Dothan 2mb L2 cache, 512 mb, and a 5400rpm 40gb HD. I ordered it from Etccomputer.ca, and only paid $1977 with shipping, taxes and an optical mouse. From what i can see, it looks to have awesome credentials, I'll come back in a week and tell ya how good it is!

 

Yeah, I just ordered an Asus Z9000 series notebook. It has the 1.7ghz Dothan 2mb L2 cache, 512 mb, and a 5400rpm 40gb HD. I ordered it from Etccomputer.ca, and only paid $1977 with shipping, taxes and an optical mouse. From what i can see, it looks to have awesome credentials, I'll come back in a week and tell ya how good it is!

 

Has anyone tried to play graphics-intensive games on a Z9000? I wonder how it would perform with games like Call of Duty or America's Army, etc. What worries me is the fact that the R9100 built-in takes away a whopping 128MB from the system memory.

 

yeah, that worries me a bit too, however most games run fine with 256 mb, ive been running games on my 1.6 P4 regular 256mb of SDRAM on a radeon 7500 (64). I think itll be able to handle call of duty, americas army and bf1942 no problem.

 

I just got the notebook today. Amazing machine, I already praised it on another topic, I recommend it alot. very cheap, fast and quiet. heavier than i expected at about 6.5 pounds, but hey comes with a really good case.

 

I have had one for 3 months now and i would say its the best laptop i have ever owned so far. Its quiet, has a crisp screen, runs my games decently (et, moh, dungeon siege, etc), performs like a champ, and is rock solid. I mean TUFF!

If you press on the back of the lcd on most notebooks you will notice your imprint on the screen(used to do that to my dell c640 when i was bored). Not so with the z9000. The lid is so tuff you can knock on it. The only other notebook i have ever used that can do that is a panasonic toughbook. Also the hinge on the screen is very stiff and secure. It does not move unless you make it.

It runs pretty cool; this means you can actually have it on your lap and not char your flesh.

There are 2 firewire and 4 usb ports (conveniently located 3 on the left side and 1 on the right). This may seem minor but if you can have a printer, mouse, keyboard, webcam all plugged in at one time without the need for a hub that is pretty cool. Not to mention the video out, great for presentation or watching movies on a bigger screen.

The keyboard has just the right amount of "springyness" for comfortable typing and the mouse buttons are nice and large.
2 other neat features worth mentioning are the scroll wheel/3rd mouse button (beneficial to those who are annoyed by gestures) and the cd/mp3 player controls on the front of the laptop. Often while the laptop is off and in my bag i play cds and use the controls on the front. A discman is one less thing to carry around.

Combine all of this with its very attactive styling and excellent price and you have one hell of a machine for the money.

I give it 5 out of 5. It so good I want to send the designers a christmas card.

 

Finally a review from someone who actually owns a Z9! Glad to hear you like it Silvercubic. I have a question in my mind before I go out and order my own Z9.

Assuming you assembled the unit together, did the unit come with 256MB pre-installed or do you have to open the unit to install the RAM? This is important because I don't want to void my warrenty my popping the keyboard the wrong way or wrecking something inside.

It's good to know that the Z9 isn't a lap scorcher![ ]

 

im pretty sure when you assemble yourself it does not come with ram

The oem shop must put a stick of ram in when assembling. This i know cause a friend of mine also purchased a z9000 and had 1 stick of 512 instead of 2 sticks of 256 for a 512 option.

 

I'm pretty sure 1 is pre-installed. Now, if i decide to install more ram, (i have 512) would it void my warranty? I dont think it would... thats dumb. anyways, yeah awesome notebook! When I got mine, the onboard video was set to 32mb, make sure u put it up to 128 in the bios! otherwise it sucks it up. I used ATI's drivers by unpacking the file then reinstalling the driver manually (ATI's installer does not recognize the chip, you're supposed to use asus's 'driver). The book runs americas army AMAZING i have it on normal settings, runs beautifully. however, call of duty runs aweful on the lowest graphics... anyone else experiencing this? It has to be a setting, driver... whatever. Americas army is a more advanced game enginer, this just doesnt make sense to me. anyways, I'm gonna try a few more games see how they go. GET THIS LAPTOP IF YOU'RE GOING TO SCHOOL, OR WANT SOMETHING AMAZING FOR CHEAP!

 

Can you please verify that
1. It has 2 memory sockets for expansion to 1024mb? If so, where are
they located?
2. Does its Bios support booting from Removable drives such as Usb
stick,Usb Floppy or Usb handy drives?
3. Is the wl-8011b+g dual band triple mode?
Any info from you guys using this laptop would be appreciated.

 

Yes, It has 2 SODIMM slots (it originally came with 256mb, I upgraded to 512.... I still have more room, so I'm assuming It has 2 expansion slots. And yes, It supports removeable drives, I have a USB pen drive myself, 64mb. VERY useful. I dont know about the wireless capabilities much myself... All I know is that it is b/g, it supports both modes, but you probably already knew that.

 

Thanks so much for all your postings on the Z9000. You helped so much in making my decision. I have been looking for the past month and I finally ordered my Z9000 last week. It is due in two days. I am really excited and after reading Cubicsilver's review tonight I can't wait to tell you all about my first impressions during the week.
[ ] Cheers guys

 

Well I have got my Z9000 and am typing a little mini review on it right now. I am first of all impressed with the looks. I unpacked it and my first impressions were 'wow, this is fantastic'. But then again, this is my first notebook and something that I have been wanting for a while.
I knew ASUS was a good brand after my brother, who has a computer business and works with schools in their computer departments, told me that they are solid and sturdy and you shouldn't have any problems with them. So, with tht trust and all your reviews/questions I decided to put my 1200 dollars into this Z9000.
I cannot be more happier. The keyboard is great and the keys havea great feel to them. The layout of the machine, with the 4 USB ports, buttons and other ports help with convienence and comfortability.
The CD drive can be a little loud, and sometimes the HDD can kick up, but, in my books, that comes with the territory of using a notebook and using the high speed drives.
The z9000 is one solid machine. it feels strong and the screen is crisp and solid to open. Something that I feel is good in a notebook, that non-flimsy feeling that I see with DELL and some smaller laptops. The 15in screen is fabulous. i would't think of getting anything smaller.
The battery seems to last a qhile and with the different power setings that you can choose manually or automatically, it is another great feature.
All and all this machine is great and exactly what I am looking for. I am looking forward to pushing the 735 1.7 M processor, 512MB, and 128MB ATI graphic card.
I purchased the notebook from www.1toppc.com they provided a great price, well under anything i had seen on the net, and quick reliable delivery. A perfect combination.
Thanks for helping me get this great asset.
Cheers
[ ]

 

hmm.. i have a z9000... but i still dont' know how to get into the setup thing.. where most computers you just press delete from teh start
how do you do it for the asus z9?

~.~ In need of a notebook

 

Give F2 a go, that gets me into the bios on my M6Ne, I assume its the same on other ASUS notebooks.
Must agree that its weird that it aint the Del key but I guess they just like to keep us on our toes.
a


ASUS M6Ne 15.4" WSXGA 1.7 PM ATI9700 80Gb HDD 512Mb RAM

 

I've had the z9 for about 4 months now and it runs fairly well. 1 thing though, do laptops have trouble booting in lower temps, say if the laptop itself was at 10 celcius? Cuz right now with the cool weather i'm in, i have to give it a couple tries before the laptop would boot. I know that the computers arent supposed to run in low ambient temperatures, but even if the air is in room temp, the machine is gonna be a lot colder.

also, what are the best drivers for the rs300mb? The drivers from asus gives really bad performance an is glitchy. For example in hl2, the menu where there are ppl walking around or if something's moving, it would look very slow and choppy. I also see some issues in nfsu2. I'm now experimenting with the omegas and it's a great improvement in hl2, it's totally playable. In nfsu2, it's a lot smoother too, but the textures look a lot worse than with the original driver. And have anyone tried the catalyst mobile mod on their z9? thx

 

BNG
no this is an rma issue. If you boot up your laptop and it freezez or it does anything else out of the ordinary that is a bad laptop. Got nothing to do with cold or weather. Call asus and ask to speak to their support Notebook Support:
Email: [email protected]
Notebook ONLY Hotline: 510-739-3777 ext. 5110
Also call your vendor they are supposed to provide testing utility to test the various components if they have any type of knowledgeble support.

 

Ok people here is the scoop on your z9 (z9000). It is an end of life machine for sure. It has been replaced by the z91n. You will see the asus website take it off as soon as all their stock is sold out in the usa. Buy the z91n. Why? Its cheaper. its centrino. It supports dothan without bios update. It has a build in camera. Other then that the z9 was a pretty good notebook. Good solid quality as expected from asus. www.geared2play.com

 

thx for the info geared2play, cuz it gets annoying sometimes when it takes me 3 mins to try to get the thing to boot.

Since u work as an asus dealer, i was just wondering, on the asus notebooks they are supposed to have the asus sticker. But i've seen 2 versions of them, one of them is "Built On ASUS" that I see on the US website http://usa.asus.com/products/notebook/nbindex.htm. But I've also seen one that says "Powered by ASUS" here in canada. Do you know if the latter is actually from asus or could it be fake?

 

Interesting... I have a "Powered by ASUS" case badge on the front of my ASUS M6Ne
(it's not a sticker...)

ASUS M6800Ne, P-M 1.5 Dothan, 512MB Ram, ASUS Combo drive, Samsung Spinpoint M 40G HDD with 8M cache, Mobility Radeon 9700

 

hmm aurora, I see ur in vancouver, maybe it's a thing to distinguish the notebooks that are distributed in ca. I hope...

and badge, sticker, same thing. they're still just stuck on with glue.

 

hmm.. i was just wondering
does my laptop have a problem too?
cuz whne i use it for a day.. and it gets pretty hot..
and then i restart the computer
occaisonally the computer will freeze in the windows logo page
where it loads.
it freezes just before the the windows xp logo can be seen but you can slightly make it out
but then when i go into safe mode and go try to boot
it will always work
never freezes in safe mode

~.~ In need of a notebook

 

Pepsi
Odds are Your notebook is bad. It has one or more hardware issues that need to be repaired. You first need to contact your dealer and send it to them. If you built it yourself you can contact asus directly. Odds are it will cost you money to fix with asus if its not a whitebook failure. The disadvantage of building yourself is the lack of dealer support. Asus whitebooks are 99.99% of the time perfect. The problem you run into is bad ram, bad hdd, inproper install of cpu, bad wifi card. An array of issues. Without a dealer asus can only do so much.

 

BNG, the case badge was revised sometime around august. You cannot have a fake asus notebook. Theya re all real, just look and compare to the pics. Now for all you guys that have notebooks that freeze, THIS IS NOT NORMAL. This is a hardware failure. Freezing can be caused by all or one of the following.
1. Bad memory. its rare for a laptop to freeze due to bad ram. Bad ram will usually cause random errors like blue screens, exceptions, restarts, and an array of other issues. You need to downlaod a relaible tester.
2. Bad mobo. Causes issues like freezing. if you only experience freezing during cold boot odds are its a bad mobo. There is usually no solid way to test this. Only by the "process of elimination" you can figure out that the mobo is bad.
3. Bad harddrive. Can cause your pc or laptops to freeze. This is not that uncommon if you have a faulty hdd. You should go to the manufacturer site and download the tester
4. Last but not least is overheating. If your notebook fan is running and nothing is obstructing airflow then this is NOT the issue.

 

I wasn't asking if the notebook was fake, just asking about the dealer. So the two types of stickers are both real from asus right? Since i know notebook sellers can get the whitebooks from but sell it under the store's name and therefore does not have warranty with asus. And thus they dont come with an asus badge.

 

Anything that was made or partially assembled by asus carries an asus warranty. Granted if you are out of the states but bought it from the states it becomes a cumbersome process but they do warranty everything one way or another

 

CPU and RAM failure is the hardest to detect. I got this M3NP bareboned (Whitebook) and it was crashing a lot at first. Turns out I had some wierd incompatible Pentium-M chip (it was a 1.3GHz) that was causing all the problems because as soon as I put in a new 1.5GHz Pentium-M processor, the notebook started to work perfectly. To this day, I've never had a single crash (and it reports a total power-on time of 729 hours!)

You'd be surprised how many hardware failures a computer will endure and keep "running".

 

HI all,
Just telling all that is interested that I am still happy with my Z9. I had the choice to get the 'upgraded' z91n instead but at an extra cost. I didn't see the need for a camera on top of the screen, I mean yeah it is good, but for my use of the laptop I dont need it. I enjoy the clean cut design of the z9 and dont care if it is going out, because sometimes 'updating a design' can take away so many positives.
Take care and hope you guys find a way around the hardware problems you are having.
Cheers [ ]

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ASUS Z9100
Dothan 1.7/ 512Mb RAM/ 40gig/ ATI 9100IGP
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