C90s satisfaction

Lets just say it, the C90s was a bad product released unfinished and with drivers still in beta. There were countless variants of the notebook so you didn't know if your CPU/RAM combo would work right with C90s. Video cards had a high rate of failure, mine within the first week of the initial shipment. Drivers that didn't work right off the bat for Windows XP, took about a month and there are still issues, drivers that produced constant BSOD in Vista and if it wasn't for swoley2k (bless you!) we still wouldn't have a proper working driver auto install that doesn't produce conflicts. Lets not forget the motherboard revision to correct power issues with the e6700 CPU (and the e63xx/e64xx), the overheating and power issues with the DDR3 cards, the heating and power issues period and the eventual migration to the 120w bricks from the 90w bricks that initially shipped with the C90s.

Now lets talk about the promises of "MXM II (or 2.0, depending on the ad), Upgradeable VGA Card" something that a lot of us waited patiently for over a year. We were teased in early '08 with the C90p and the prospect of a 8700M GT, or over the phone by their techs about possible 9700M GT. Asus was never able to solve the over heating issues and ended up scraping the C90p before it even shipped (released on a limited in stock based).

There are some good people on notebookreview.com that have helped out people with a lot of issues for the C90s, but it feels like its a futile fight. People like nighthawk (cheers mate) have taken it to the next level. The C90s should of been recalled, even car manufactures know when they have a lemon. I don't think its right for anyone, any of the major manufactures to continue releasing unfinished products and expect them to work them selfs out.

I had followed the C90s for slightly over a half a year before it came out. I pre-ordered the C90s twice, the first time it was delayed from the May/June release date and I was refunded. The notebook didn't arrive until about the end of July. I and others like me had very high expectations for the C90s and we feel very let down. The Asus advantage is about quality, reliability and performance; the C90s was only respectable and exceptional in the CPU department, the others were wanting.

EDIT The first week I had it, I was LANing and we were playing LOTRO. We were exploring a part of Bree when I started getting what looked like lightening effects. I turned to my friend and said, "These graphics are sweet, checkout that lightening." I got worried when my friend said, "What lightening?" My display went on the fritz, with snow and flashing screen, I ended up calling it a night because it seemed my notebook was running awfully warm. The next morning the notebook powered on, but there was no display. After sometime with Asus on the phone they had me send it in, mind you at that time no one at Asus technical assistance knew the C90s existed...they would get to know the C90s very personally over the next year. It turned out to be a fried video card.

 

I keep hearing people complain about asus not releasing better gpus. Unfortunately they never promised to do so. The vendors around these parts and other promised better. a month before the c90 came out and a month after it was discontinued i posted dozens or more times in many threads that you will never see better then 8600gt for c90s. Did anyone listen? some people did. most others believed heresay.
The fact is that c90s was a lemon from the factory however there were a handfull of dealers that shipped this thing working 100% with no issues. We are one of them and to date i have had few complaints from people who ordered from us and had us install all the parts. If it was purchased from the right dealer the c90 was a very reliable notebook and still is.

 

lol, in the first 3-4 months of the C90s release we saw the DDR3 cards, no offense but it did look promising with die shrinks and the likes in the work. Not to mention the literature did mention "upgradeable" quite a bit, in almost every flyer and article out there by Asus. Not to mention when the C90p was unveiled it did sport a 8700M and the techs at Asus did make a lot of tall promises. And what about the countless other issues with the notebook?

The killing stroke was that the C90p was released discontinued or in limited/stock quantities with the 8600M, I really should of spoken out then.

Eddie, I am by no means upset at you or any other vendors, this is Asus's responsibility.

 

I am sorry but i disagree. Asus never promised anything but the 8600. they never advertised anything better then the 8600. some of their dealers did. c90p was a dead horse with remnants of a past life. i dont know why anyone bought it.

 

yeah. in ASUS website, i think i remember they managed to carefully state that the GPU's for the c90 has " mxm 2.0 which has high compatibility with certain GPU's on the market. It was marketed to look like it was upgradeable . It was really misleading, but officially, they never directly mentioned the GPU's to be upgradeable.

And this really sucks.

 

my c90s is doing great i even got a few new keyboards from the pople i purchased the laptop from (lil messy i am at times) but maybe ill upgrade after the 2 yar mark for an 18.4 incher or maybe sooner than that; but i havent seen any 18.4 that have mxm graphics. but i dont have many issues with my c90s it stays on the desk next to a monitr as a desktop replacement; i would like more harddrive space as my unit came with 160gb hard drive but i cant complain in any regard its a lil over a year old and i can handle most games fine although i game on my ps3 other than wow; but i canceled my account cause the paladin nerfs. but if theres like a real reason why i would need a better graphics card in the future other than a largr screen i might look ito getting a newer model; but to be honest this laptop is the first to stick around longer than a year, not that thats much cause before it i had a hp desktop that i enhanced with extra internal stuff; but i had a 17 dell that got stolen before this one. and the only thing i can think of different of better or not so in comparison between my c90s and my dell would be me not having the time to break it in like i have the c90s. but hopefully i wont have any complaints over the graphics card going out.that would be a real bummer, i keep mine hooked up hdmi and havent had problems with it in any regard heat or otherwise. i mean if i take it from the desk and try to late night wow on the bed it gets hot but thats cause of the sheets and ventilation and stuff.i know diablo 3 comes out like next year so maybe ill think about upgrading then i know if i wait like a few more months the 18.4 true hd screen laptops will be much cheaper but since i have it hooked up to an external moniter i doubt i need act in haste. the only reason why i can see myself upgrading to a newer laptop in the future is like a nice quadcore 18.4 with a cool mxm graphics bay but i dont see that happening anytime soon. sorry about your ills. hope i scape those and keep this laptop for quit more time.

 

Sageo1, I'm am very happy that your C90s (Velocity Micro, don't see many of those) worked out for you, but I also believe that those who still have held onto their C90s have had the least trouble with it.

 

I remember I was one of the first to pre-order the C90S and I never had any regrets - thanks to Ken at gentech. Everything worked worked flawlessly (no battery, ram or wifi issues). Performance and build quality were excellent and the screen was one of the best I've ever used. I would probably rate my C90S 9 out of 10 - 1 point taken off because of battery life (but that's kinda expected with a desktop CPU)

 

Lets see, I had the wifi problem. My gpu fried, as well as the motherboard. I believe the part where you plug the power adapter in no longer works. It was a great laptop when it worked. So sad, just out warranty now too.

 

As a previous C90S owner, I'm with you RangerXML. I was never fully content with the system. It never seemed fully polished product out the door, and there seemed to be a lot of room for improvement when it came to software, hardware design as well as the entire concept. It's a pity, as there were a lot of potential with this line.

Ita's hard not to blame Asus for misleading the consumer, it stated "upgradable" graphics from the beginning, but all we had were the 8600m GT DDR2 that was completely stable, I don't understand why they were having so much trouble with DDR3 version, and why they couldn't just create a faster card for the C90. There's plenty of space under the hood compared to many other notebook designs, I think the bottom line was that it wasn't "profitable" to release a new card for the small number of C90 users out there.

 

As a previous owner myself, I can attest to this. I had higher expectations than it was able to deliver on. They need to further develop their base level technologies.

 

that's really great

 

Not like the DDR3 cards would of been an 'upgrade' over the DDR2 cards, it almost felt like a "Here is your upgrade so you can't b**** about it in the future." A 8600M GT is still a 8600M GT. I love how some of the vendors couldn't figure out if you were getting a GS, a GT or a GTS though and I don't know anyone who bought this notebook with either the Go 7700 or the 8500M. Its the same now with the core upgrade from the GTX260 and the two versions of the 8800GTS.

I wanna get some more input from current and former C90 owners.

 

well i took my c90 on a plane a couple months back and let me tell ya it is attracting alot of ladies lol