Opinions on the Velocity Micro C90 Ultra (Asus C90)?

I just pulled the trigger on a Velocity Micro C90 Ultra, standard specs except 2048 RAM and a Hitachi Travelstar 7200 rpm hard drive. Before researching it, I had heard of Asus but didn't know anything about them. Basically, I'm looking for any tips and feedback from users of the VM model or other variants of this Asus design. Thanks for the help.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=158419

 

I'm afraid you made the wrong choice. I've tested 10 laptops in the past 21 days for a work project and this one is the most disappointing. While it comes with very little bundled trial-ware (usually a bonus), I can't figure out what this machine is good at. It's heavy and bulky compared to other laptops I've tested (the fan/battery sticks nearly 3" out the back). Also, the thing runs very hot. My wrists are uncomfortable and the fingerprint reader built-in to the touchpad makes you jump back when touching it after the machine has been up and running for a minute. The strangest thing is there is a WinMark 3D Performance Test pre-installed on the machine with a shortcut right on the desktop. When you run it, the computer fails miserably on graphics performance. I'm talking about 1 fps in several of the tests and never higher than 15 fps in any of the tests. This is not a machine for games. Build quality is questionable, too. The first machine shipped to me from CircuitCity.com was DOA. I waited over an hour on the Velocity Micro Tech Support line, just to get to voicemail. They never returned my call.

One plus is the gorgeous screen.

 

A few things you should do with your velovity micro C90s.
1. Check if the Ram is compatible. Overclock your CPU with turbogear and see if you get any bsod when gaming.
2. Check your cpu and gpu temps and make sure they're ok
3. Install the 801 Bios
4. Update your video card driver from laptopvideo2go.com
5. If you have the 512mb ddr2 GPU, overclock your gpu to 500/500 before you play any games.

To bioncjim, I highly doubt you've fully tested the c90s to its full potential. Graphics are great on the c90s once you installed the latest bios and graphics drivers. With cpu and gpu overclocked, i get a score of almost 3900 in 3dmark06. I admit that the c90s can be quite hot, but keep in mind that it uses the desktop conroe CPU too. This cpu is the reason for low battery life too, but will offer a significant performance boost.

 

The machine is a desktop replacement/gaming machine. Its strongest point to many c90s users is that they have the ability to upgrade to newer MxM type II graphics as they come out.

When you say it is heavy and bulky no doubt you're comparing it to non-gaming (weak GPU) systems. As far as its weight compares to other gaming capable systems it falls on the light side (with the v1s and a few of the HPs coming in at a pound or two less).

The heat is related to frequent access of the hard drive (which is under the palm left rest) due to Windows Vista's Superfetch.

It sound like you're unfamiliar with 3d benchmark tests. They are designed to bring systems to their proverbial knees. In addition you probably didn't optimize the system, and make sure it was in performance mode and plugged into the wall before running the benchmark.

It sounds like your negative experiences may have been related to a bit of inexperience with the c90, and gaming systems in general. Many people who have bought the c90 with the intent to use it as a gaming/multimedia system (and know how to configure it) have been happy with the system.

 

That last sentence includes me Avid Gamer Marcus, if you configure it right, you can get 3d marks as high as 4600 or so. It's a great gaming machine, and I for one don't have any heat problems. In fact, it gets less hot than my old Acer Ferrari 4005 got while gaming, which to me seems like a huge improvement. I'm packing it up in a few to head out for the weekend, in my old 15 inch laptop bag I've had for many years. Follow the C90 threads to catch up on what's going on with drivers, etc.

Congrats.

 

Guess I made the wrong choice too....hell no!! If you get your system running well you'll be quite happy with it. I haven't been using my desktop much since getting my c90 (see sig). Just click on my or zoid's name and check out the many c90 post out there. Plenty of people here that will make bionicjim eat his 1 post words. Welcome to the c90 party.

 

no overheating issues here too. IMHO the C90s is the best bang for the buck.

 

Can't speak to the issue of this particular machine, but am a Velocity Micro customer. Because of the quoted statement, just want to express my own opinion here (sorry if I'm going slightly OT): in 3.5 years as a VM customer, I've never had a problem contacting these folks. There are occasional problems with VM machines as there are with computers from all builders, but CS with this company, IMO, is very good. Customers are treated with respect and obvious appreciation of the business they've provided VM.

 

It's true that I was comparing the bulk and heat relative to non-gaming machines so that is definitely not apples-to-apples. The point, then, is this isn't for people looking for a highly-portable laptop.

The 3DMark score I got was 3015 immediately out of the box, plugged-in, having done nothing but turn the machine on. I think this was a valid test since it was one of only 2 icons on the desktop (the other being Adobe Reader). I understand that the test is meant to bring the system to its knees and the online comparison was with desktops, but it scored in the bottom 12%. Maybe that's great for a laptop, but it was not what I was expecting. I would've assumed it left the Velocity Micro factory with the latest drivers. It's good to hear that with some tweaking the score can be significantly improved. However, I guess I expected the tweaking to be done for me. The low score and crappy framerate of the test was appalling for someone that didn't expect that from a system said to have "blazing fast graphics" according to the marketing.

The C90 I tested was the Notemagix x25 from Circuit City and may not be the "Ultra" people here are discussing. If this is some sub-standard version of the C90 foisted on the unsuspecting public, my apologies for being one of the target audience.

My opinion - Velocity needs a better Out-of-Box Experience for their products or the return rate is going to be high.

 

I don't know what Velocity has done, but my Asus C90s which came with a gddr3 card, gets 3657 3dmark06 out of the box standard 3dmark settings. It's extremely portable to me, but I'm not a student either.

 

Don't forget that the C90S is a barebone notebook, thus either put together and tuned by someone who know what they are doing or by yourself, unlike the VM x20 and x25. All three of my prior notebooks sucked out of the box (HP dv1049cl, Toshiba P105-9722 and P105-9337) because of bad drivers and configurations and don't get me started on the Toshiba P105-9337. If you ask me, I've been cursed by bad pre-configured notebooks.

 

When I think of portability I think of weight and battery life. From a weight perspective I would consider it highly portable. From a battery life standpoint it wouldn't be as portable. (Although it isn't too difficult to take the power adapter and plug it in at another location, and many adapters are available that would allow it to run directly off the power outlet of a car/truck/suv).

Like you said it was being compared to desktops. Currently it has the third most powerful graphics card available for a notebook. (The 8700 GDDR3 in 17" notebooks, and the 8600 GDDR3 being the two above it). Any desktop or notebook with a more powerful graphics card or processor (quad core, etc) is going to beat it. That includes any desktop 8600 GT/GTS, 8800 GT/GTS/GTX/Ultra and ATI cards all which are clocked higher than notebooks and almost all have GDDR3 memory. Add in people with SLI setups, and overclocked system, and people who uploaded tests more than once, and it is easy to see why there are a large number of systems ranked ahead of it. If you only compared it to other notebooks it would be toward the top of the pack.

The systems sit on shelves and in storage areas. When the system was configured it probably had the newest drivers, but by the time you get it the drivers may be outdated. Its a simple enough fix to check a website, and then download and update the drivers if there is something newer.

As for the frame rates what you get in 3dmark is in no way related to what you would get in a game. If you still had the system I'd tell you to install and run a game on it. I haven't seen one post by any one saying that there are games that are unplayable on the c90. The c90s can play any game that it on the market today.

What else besides 3dmark did you test on it? Most people aren't going run 3dmark on it, and nothing else. Out of the box most people would probably try it on the web, access an office document, watch a movie, or play a game. Did you try any of those? It should preform admirably in any of those tasks.

In real world performance it is a good system. (An old synthetic benchmark that isn't configured to take advantage of new technology - like multi core processors and unified steam processors isn't a good measurement of an up-to-date system).

 

It seems to me from treading the posts on this forum that a lot of people have problems with this machine.. sadly including me.. on monday it will be three weeks since i turned my in for a repair service.. the 3d mode worked just sporadically, most of the time it didn't... but if it did... pure amazement

 

Hi All!

First off....I am not a diehard gamer. I have had laptops since they weighed about 35 pounds with a 9 inch green screen.

I received a Velocity Micro C90s as a Christmas present this year. The person that bought if for me consulted with one of my friends who has also been an IT professional for 15+ years.

My first impression is that this machine is TOO Hot. To have to move your hand away from the touch pad because the heat is making you uncomfortable, or even being on the edge of burning.

My son received Guitar Hero III for the PC for Christmas also. I updated the drivers as soon as I got it, and performed all of the overclocking available. Guitar Hero III ran pretty slow. Freezing frames...skipping. It was a pretty aweful experience. We ended up purchasing an XBOX 360 for him since he couldn't even get through a song on the C90s.

Vista crashed multiple times per day on the machine (I thought 'Blue Screens of Death were a thing of the past). I went to reload Vista to fix the problems I was having. The disc was scratched and wouldn't load. I contacted Velocity's Customer Service. They answered pretty quickly, but the tech support was pretty weak.

It took over 2 weeks until they were able to send me a new disc. I had to call and email multiple times to get them to finally get approval to send the disc.

Overall, I would say that for the price, if you are not a serious gamer or intend to play Guitar Hero III, you should probably choose something else.

I do alot of DB managment and web design. The machine is fine for Web Graphics, but leaves much to be desired in processing data.

Just my two cents. I am sure some of the Velocity Heads would disagree with me. But it is my professional opinion.

 

To start off with, I don't think very many people around here would suggest anyone buy a C90S from Velocity Micro. This machine is EXTREMELY picky when it comes to ram. This was probably the reason you had so many BSOD. It's vary common with the C90S to BSOD with incompatible ram and it has been covered on these forums over and over again. There is another thread listing the exact kind of ram that will work 100% with this machine.

With that said, nobody should buy a C90S unless they plan to buy it from a very reputable reseller. GentechPC, as well as a few others, will make sure your C90S ships with the correct ram and there support is top notch. Asus support isn't bad either and RMA's through them take a week or less most the time.

The C90S is a very picky machine, but most of it's quirks have been worked out by now and it's still a decent deal. As for not being able to run Guitar Hero, more then likely you are using crappy video card drivers and they are causing the issues. Download a decent driver from www.laptopvideo2go.com and try again.

Lastly, as for the processing data poorly comment, I really don't know what to say about that. My C90S has an E6700 clocked at 2.9Ghz and a 7200 RPM hard drive. It will process anything I throw at it with extremely impressive results. Vista seems to have a "break in" period more or less before it runs smoothly. Maybe this was the issue, or maybe you just got a really crappy unit from Velocity.

I think you might have been slightly more pleased with your C90S if it came from a reseller that knows the C90S' quirks better. It's a decent machine, far from perfect, but I still like it. I can play COD4 on mostly high settings without issues and encode plenty of videos in no time.

Sounds like you got unlucky, but don't feel bad, many of us were burned by the C90S until Asus fixed most of it's problems.

 

Thread was 10 months old darnn near. Agree with NighWalker though.

 

Fixed that sentence ...

 

LOL... Yeah that's basically what I meant.. Asus more or less left it up to us to figure out the problems.

 

I guess I got lucky....never had any problems...even with upgrading the ram

 

lol. **** right....

 

Hey! So I have the above mentioned Veloctiy micro notemagix..x20 or C90 laptop, and also have issues with the heating system. Regretably, I was fairly unfamiliar with the seriousness of the hitting system, and did not upgrade, so now I am afraid I have overheated my C1CIZ5 512Mb 8600 GT GPU. Regretably, I have searched and called all over, and was informed that Asus does not make these cards anymore. Does anyone know where I can find a replacement card or a suitable substitute, even a lesser quality card is fine with me! Thanks!