Asus W3V first impressions...

FINALLY got it a half hour ago. The driver was a woman, so I couldn't kick her in the nuts, obviously.

First impressions:

Build and appearance: Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. The build quality on this thing makes the Z71V look and feel like a piece of generic tupperwear. It's solid, there is virtually ZERO flex anywhere. Style wise, it's incredible... by far and away the nicest laptop I have personally ever laid eyes on.

Before even turning it on for the first time, I installed the 2 gig sticks I purchased this week. Everything went very smoothly on that front, and the system recognized the amount of memory and the speed upon first boot. I also installed my 100gb Seagate hard drive, which was also recognized. I am currently formatting my OS partition now in order to do a clean install.

I will be back after taking it for a spin once it's done with a full review.

Kai

 

excellent, cant wait to see how it all goes, glad the upgrades went well, although would have been interesting to get your before and after upgrade impressions....but o well I can understand, the long wait and then finally getting a new toy....very dificult to contain one self.
a


ASUS M6Ne 15.4" WSXGA 1.7 PM ATI9700 80Gb HDD 1Gb RAM

 

Nice BBQ

But don't trash my z71v [} ]




Cheers

Asus Z71V
-----------

1.86 Pentium -M Sonoma
2 GB DDR2 PC-4200 RAM
NVidia 6600go 128 meg
60gb/7200 rpm Hitachi HDD
Dual-Layer DVD +RW
BOOQ Vyper 15" Sleeve

 

Cool. Please give as a comprehensive review if possible.

I am definitely going to get one of these. I've just been waiting for a solid review of the US model.

 

excellant news! its always nice to finally get a new toy!

can't wait for the review! [ ]

 

Couple more quick observations.

I updated the bios to the latest version, which enabled ATI's Hypermemory. With 2 gigs of ram installed, I'm showing a total of 576 megs of memory (64 megs dedicated, 512 megs shared). I really hope that Asus updates the bios and gives us the option to choose how much memory we would like to share.

Everything installed quickly and easily, which is always a relief. Haven't tested the bluetooth functionality yet, but will in a little while.

One thing I'm experiencing is that the W3V isn't sitting flush with the desk in front, which is causing some minor creaks here and there. I will uninstall the hard drive and see what that does, since that's really the only thing I can think of that could possibly put the system off keel (there's a large rubber foot on the compartment that covers the drive).

The system does heat up on the right palrest, which is where the hard drive is housed. It's not too bad, but definitely noticible. When the system is running at full load, the air pumping out of the side vent is hot, flat out hot.

More to come...

Kai

 

Well I'm glad you like it [ ] ......

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>I updated the bios to the latest version, which enabled ATI's Hypermemory. With 2 gigs of ram installed, I'm showing a total of 576 megs of memory (64 megs dedicated, 512 megs shared). I really hope that Asus updates the bios and gives us the option to choose how much memory we would like to share.<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

So what does it just take a percentage of your installed RAM and allocate it to the VRAM?

That doesn't make sense.. you should be able to specify the amount you wanna share? [!]

 

Man, sounds like you have a SUPER W3v with all the RAM and the large HDD...
congrats [ ]
I'm sure you love that machine to death already...

ASUS M6800Ne, P-M 715 (Dothan 1.5), 512MB Ram, Toshiba Combo drive, Samsung Spinpoint M 40G HDD with 8M cache, Mobility Radeon 9700

 

Who wants to place bets we never see him post again? That'd be a good thing (not to see him go, but because he'll be enjoying his new toy).

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by PROPortable

 

I'll be sticking around... I was just trying to figure out why in the name of God the hard drive compartment cover doesn't actually fit. Even with the stock hitachi drive installed. The bay isn't deep enough, so the cover is having to bend near the middle in order to close. This is causing the laptop to not sit flat on its rubber feet.

Very annoying, and something I really should've checked. Without any hard drive installed, it's fine. =( There's always something screwed up with whatever I get...

Kai

 

I don't know about you, but my W3V sits flush on any flat surface...

[l]ikwid.[f]uzion

 

You probably snagged something with the cover..... i know what you're talking about and you just have to play with it...... I did that too when I swapped my drive... it fits, but it's tight (like it should be).

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by PROPortable

 

Well, I've had probably half a dozen in there to test life and performance and stuff... personally I'm waiting to make a full change till I can get some final production 120gb/7200rpm sATA drives..... but I put a 60/7200 in there to really impress some asus nay-sayers I demo'd the notebook to the other day.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Well, I don't know what in hell it could be getting caught on, but I've been messing with this thing for over 2 hours now and couldn't get it to fit right. Removing the large rubber pad from the hard drive bay cover got it sitting flush again, so I guess I'm just going to have to go with that.

Still my baby and still love her.

Kai

 

No... those pads help protect the drive against shock! You know what... there is a little clip towards the front of the cover and you've got to make sure that clips down... it's almost impossible for there to be some sort of defect in the chassis.... because it's fairly straight forward..... I just took my drive out and put it back in and you just have to make sure all the clips are clipping in and the drive is sitting flush inside.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

It is clipped down as best as it's going to be... I don't really know what else to do with it.

I noticed that one of the spaces where the tabs on the cover are supposed to fit in looks like it's chipped off a little bit, but it still clips down when I close the cover, so I don't think it's causing it.

Kai

 

That doesn't sound good...is it possible that something broke off? [:0]

ASUS M6800Ne, P-M 715 (Dothan 1.5), 512MB Ram, Toshiba Combo drive, Samsung Spinpoint M 40G HDD with 8M cache, Mobility Radeon 9700

 

Who the hell knows... at least my track record of receiving mildly defective products from Asus hasn't been interrupted. 9_9

Seriously though, it's ok. I don't move my notebooks around too much, so I highly doubt there's going to be much chance the hard drive will be shocked badly enough to damage it.

Kai

 

Well, take a picture of it....

Before you think you got something defective, remember you opened up the cover and replaced the hard drive... Just knowing that the first time I popped off the cover on the W3's hard drive.. and the wireless card...... it was so tight that I felt like I was going to break something..... and those clips on the side make it so that you can't just lift up, but pull up in the center to get those clips to release from the sides.... so if it's not there, you probably broke it. But if it's an issue, like $2 will buy another hard drive cover.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Dude, like I said, the clip on the hard drive cover seems to be fine... it's the little space that it clips into on the bottom of the chassis that appears to have been chipped.

But, just for the sake of knowing, how would one go about getting a replacement hard drive cover, or other spare parts, for this thing?

Kai

 

Sorry..... it's late and I think I start reading every other word.

We have spare parts for basically everything.... stuff for the W3 really hasn't started coming in because there's no need for it... Stuff for the W5 and V6 just started coming in, so give it a few more weeks and we can get them.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Do you know if they sell replacement chassis (just the bottom half), or just the compartment doors?

I like the carbon fiber material... it's light and rigid, but still maintains a needed amount of flexibility. But I must say, it's a bit on the brittle side around the edges.

Kai

 

i opened up every nook and cranny on my w3v and i had some trouble with the HDD compartment. it just wouldn't fit and i thought i was screwed. i messed around with it for about 5 minutes and angrily stared at it thinking WTF and the i went to gently push it it and it just dropped right in.

it's an odd cover and you have to play with it a little. you can't just lay it down and screw it back in. it just needs that special touch haha.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by AuroraS

 

Sounds like female genitalia [8)]

ASUS M6800Ne, P-M 715 (Dothan 1.5), 512MB Ram, Toshiba Combo drive, Samsung Spinpoint M 40G HDD with 8M cache, Mobility Radeon 9700

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by BBQmyNUTZ

 

BBQ

you first screwed the z71v

NOW, you are screwing the w3v

Do you have fetish for lappies [ ][ ][ ]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by eightone

 

I'm not "screwing" anything... I'm testing the quality of my system.

@John,

Where in Sandra will it tell me if I have dual-channel... and where does it show the temperatures. I have mobile meter installed, but would like a second opinion. Once it gets to the 50's, it seems to stay there, so I would say that hard disk cooling is definitely a problem with the W3 series. I honestly don't know how John is going to pull off having a 7200 rpm drive in there for too long...

And yes, the W3V's palmrest is carbon fiber. I noticed that there is a plastic sheet, similar to the one that was glued to the bottom of the stock Hitachi drive, lining the top of the hard drive bay. Perhaps this could be removed to give it a little more breathing room?

Kai

 

Just out of curiousity, what do you do with your stock 512MB RAM? I would't mind buying from you as long as its still in excellent condition [ ]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by BBQmyNUTZ

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by eightone

 

Don't know how much more careful I could've possibly been... but whatever.

I'll take that as an affirmative response to my questions about replacement parts, and will continue to bother you about it in the future.

Kai

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by John Ratsey

 

BBQ

why don't you BBQ your lappy after screwing it inside out [ ]

Cheers

Asus Z71V
-----------

1.86 Pentium -M Sonoma
2 GB DDR2 PC-4200 RAM
NVidia 6600go 128 meg
60gb/7200 rpm Hitachi HDD
Dual-Layer DVD +RW
BOOQ Vyper 15" Sleeve

 

It's doing a good enough job of BBQing itself on it's own, or at least my hard drive

 

Does it have a hole big enough to put your dongle in ?[ ][ ][ ]

Cheers

Asus Z71V
-----------

1.86 Pentium -M Sonoma
2 GB DDR2 PC-4200 RAM
NVidia 6600go 128 meg
60gb/7200 rpm Hitachi HDD
Dual-Layer DVD +RW
BOOQ Vyper 15" Sleeve

 

My dongle can barely fit in a full-tower.

Kai

 

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