Asuz Z71v review

My goal is to review the Z71V with some new points not covered in other reviews.

PURCHASE
I purchased a Z71v on Aug 21, 2005 from R&J Technology. I had 0 problems with shipping to a 3rd party address. They shipped the same day. I did however e-mail them several times to request an upgrade to my order before shipping and to this day have not received a response. Their charge is to high for express shipping.

I purchased the hard drive/memory/cpu from Directron.com. Their procedure for shipping to a third party was much more difficult. I had to send them everything short of a DNA sample. Once approved they shipped the same day.

I purchased the barebone with the wireless LAN card and the double layer DVD-RW drive. I could not figure out how to purchase those separately. I read that the DVD was not standard and I could not find any information on the wireless card. If anyone is interested the dual layer DVD is a Toshiba model # TS-L532A. I have not opened the wireless hatch to check the model number.

I purchased a 7200 60gb Hitachi Travelstar E7K60 (not the ZK60). http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/en/menuitem.ec03cadee7c6fb5deb4703e3aac4f0a0/
This drive has special features to protect the heads on power-down. It is designed for 24x7 operations. I do not hear the HD at all. Note: Laptop speed is directly linked to disk speed. Often the reason why many laptops/notebooks are slow is do with the disk speed. Here is the order of importance you should consider when purchasing a notebook when it shopping for speed: Amount of chip memory, disk speed, CPU clock speed. A 7200 rpm EIDE drive is faster than a 5400 rpm SATA drive.

CPU- Intel M750 1.86mhz. It is FAR more important to spend your money on memory than CPU speed. The major slowdown is due to writing memory to the disk based virtual memory. There is no reason to put less than 1gb of memory in your machine. I put 1gb single chip so I could upgrade to 2gb in the short term. After 27 years in the industry without hesitation I would say to purchase an Intel processor.

I paid 583.00 for the cpu, silver cpu paste,HD, single chip 1GB.

I paid $930.00 for the Z71v with wireless and double layer DVD.

SCREEN SIZE
I came across the Z71V while searching for a barebone with a 1680x1050 screen. I was convinced that is what I needed. I read an article about how some people have problems seeing fine resolutions such as WSXGA+ 1680x1050. I was only interested in desktop space. The amount of desktop space is amazing but for my 48 year old eyes the fonts and graphics are much too small. I tried to increase my desktop font size to a large font size and to 12 point on my VS.NET programming language. This would be fine but many programs do not allow you to set the default font sizes. This article http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20050525/ suggests setting the screen resolutions advance setting to 120dpi. After setting to 120dpi 1680x1050 is acceptable and 1440x900 looks real good. I am using the 1440x900.

A problem with wide screen is that the aspect ratio is 8:5 (same as 1.6:1), to keep from having distorted fonts and graphics that ratio must be maintained. Other screen resolutions with this ratio are 1280x800 (WXGA+), 1440x900 (this is the 17” LCD WXGA+ setting). You take the small number multiply by 8 and then divide that by 5 to get the larger number or take the bigger number divide by 8 and multiply the result by 5 or just multiply the small number by 1.6.
http://www.prismo.ch/comparisons/notebook.php

The bottom line is that you should test these resolutions before buying. It is very possible that you can save some money upfront and future repair cost by purchasing a WXGA+ instead of WSXGA+ screen.

CPU – The 1.86 M750 temperature remains at about 58C when in Super performance mode which means it is running at 1.86mhz (with a M750). While playing mp3 music and copying large wave files to a file server my cpu load goes to about 30%. I have not tried any compression.

MEMORY - The Z71v is capable of dual channel 128 bit mode up to 2GB. You must purchase two memory chips of exactly the same size, make, and model. They sell chips in a set but it is not necessary to purchase them in a set unless you want to pay more for certified dual channel chips.

DVD-RW Works great on single sided DVR-RW. I have not tried a dual layer disk.

AUDIO - The audio player buttons are on the front. They are hard to see. I find myself tipping the Z71v back to get a good look at them. The volume is set by pressing Fn key and the F11/F12 key. I think the sound is better than other laptops I have used. They still sound like little speakers with pretty much no bass.

KEYBOARD - Some have complained that the entire keyboard bounces. I find no problems with this. The keyboard is spacious and responsive. The delete key is easy to find in the top right hand corner. The backspace is double size. I have no idea why keyboards have double size CapLock keys. I have hit that big annoying key several times.

WIRELESS
This is another area where this machine shines. I worked in a wireless environment and my machine has a stronger signal and can connect from further away than any other machine. Either they are using more than the standard 25mw of power or they have a really good antenna built in. There is a button above the keyboard for turning off the wireless when you plug into an Ethernet jack or you just want to save power by turning the wireless off.

TOUCHPAD – There is a button to turn it off if desired. It works fine. Finally they have moved the touchpad so that is lies directly in the center between your hands. This prevents false movements from the palm. If you plug an USB mouse in then the touchpad is automatically disabled. It returns as soon as you unplug the USB mouse.

AUDIO - The audio/mic jacks are on the back left. I would prefer these in the middle front so I can lean back in my chair with my headset on and the cord would be out of my way instead of dropping over the left arm. The plus is that when you plug into a sound system the cord is not in the way. I suspect though that more users would use headsets than sound systems.

CARRYING CASE: This is a good idea to include with a system. It is very useful to carry your laptop to a store so you can try it in a real laptop bag before purchase.

AMBIENT LIGHT SENSOR: I guess it is working? It is suppose to change the brightness of the screen depending on the ambient light.

USB – Someone actually complained about there being too many USB ports. There are 4 on the back and a quick entry one on the left. THANK YOU Asus! There is no such thing as too many USB ports. I have not tried the firewire port.

OTHER ITEMS:
There is a really bright blue LED circle around the power/standby button. When you put the laptop into standby by closing the top this bright blue circle blinks. It is very annoying if the Z71V is in the bedroom with you. Your room blinks blue. You will get up, take it out of standby, and power down the unit. Even setting a book on it did not work.

Be sure and do this easy heat sink modification while building your Z71V http://www.overclockers.com/tips1210/
I did not care about the overclocking items just the mod for heat. I am still not sure if my Z71V is correct. I am running at about 60C when using a 1.86mhz mode.

The power cord is very hard to plug in and out from the back of the computer. Maybe that is good but care should be taken not to force it out and break a solder connection on the power input plug.

Fan noise is absolutely not an issue. If your ears are so sensitive that the fan noise bugs you then there is a 15 cent fix. A pair of ear plugs. I have to really listen to hear it.

The area where your palms go does warm up slightly. More so on the hard drive side. I don’t like any heat there but most of the time it does not bother me. If I would have listened to my high school typing teacher and learned to type with my palms off the keyboard then there would be no issue.

I deinstalled the Power4Gear utility which controls the speed of the CPU for different AC/Battery conditions. I am using Centrino Control Panel. http://www.pbus-167.com/chc.htm This shows your CPU temperature in the taskbar. I am not sure it is better than Power4Gear but my installation was not working correctly.

I have not used the card reader.

I was asked why I would spend twice the money compared to his Dell laptop. He had his new purchase of an 800 dollar DELL. I asked him if he understood running shoe technology. He said, “yes”. I pointed at his machine and said, “That is like running in deck shoes”.

CONCLUSION:
I am a software developer that has NEVER been able to use a notebook because of the slow speed. This is the first notebook that runs as well as or better than my Pentium 4, 3.0 hyper-threading desktop machine. The programs load just as fast. I have no speed issues with this machine.

The bottom line is that I can upgrade all the major components of this machine. I expect to get 3 years of life out of this machine. Just enough time for all the new technology to become affordable. The question is; will I live long enough to see keyboards become obsolete?


Here is a real review: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2346

 

Nice job m4him.

 

A very good review.

I am a happy user of z71v

cheers m4him

 

D8D-Anyone tried this using thermal epoxy as Joe C (Editor) recommended?

Is anyone running anything higher than a 745 (jacked via SW3) ?

I want to try jacking a 765 (2.1 stock) to ~2.8GHz w/ this mod
Is it safe? TY d8d