Z71V Revisited

Just purchased a Z71V and put it through it's runs. My intention is not to repeat the information that's already been posted, but to maybe underline issues that I thought important. If you're wondering about this laptop, search for Smilepak's review, it's great and coincidentally was a major factor in my purchasing this laptop. I use it for gaming, 3d modeling, and web development.

Vendor:
Purchased from www.istnc.com. Quick shipment, professional attitude. Unit came without recognizing its IDE devices, but I called up istnc and Rick helped me troubleshoot the problem. The laptop was up in running in 10min. Super friendly and knowledgable about the product. I'll be purchasing my next machine from them.

Display:
I would say it's above average. Wide viewing angle. Good brightness, nothing to write home about. I can't for the life of me find another resolution besides the native 1680x1050 that can display sharp text acceptable to my standards.

Gaming:
Sweet. Half-life 2, no problem. Guild Wars, awesome. All can be run at high resolutions even with the stock drivers. I understand why voodoopc picked up this computer to base their Envy m515 on.

Productivity:
It performs well as a portable graphics workstation. Ideally a Quadro Go video card would be better for this application but the 6600 Go is very stable. It's been my experience that for this application, it's best to go with an nvidia solution and skip the radeon.

Writing code. Good gosh the text is small, I wear glasses and I can say with confidence that I'll be getting a thicker pair after using this laptop. I had to adjust the fonts on my editor, not a big deal, but I use several editors, it was kinda a hassle.

Image editing, couldn't be happier.

Carrying it around:
I'm not big on messenger bags, or bags with computer compartments, plus it's basically just saying, "I have a laptop, bludgeon with me with the weapon of your choice, and proceed to rob me of my posessions." I ended up purchasing a BOOQ Vyper sleeve to slip into my backpack. It's very stiff and good on absorbing shock from the edges but very weak from the top and bottom. I can almost envision my lcd getting cracked from a unlikely mishap. Luckily the BOOQ leaves about 1/2 inch on each side and kinda domes outward, so I just stuck some packaging foam in there. Works like a charm.

Conclusion:
It excels in almost everything, games, image editing, light 3d modeling. If I can find that lower resolution that displays text well, then this laptop will be the silver bullet of all my computing needs.

I would recommend it to everyone, artists, 3d modelers, gamers, etc. but people with poor vision should be a little wary.

*Edit*
Fan Noise:
I forgot I also wanted to comment on fan noise. At least one of the fans is always on. It's not dead silent, but it doesn't bother me too much. It's on full blast when playing games, but the sound from the game is what I'm focusing on, so the fan noise is negligible. I should also note that the fans are mounted on the bottom and because of this, noise is partially muffled by the table. They become noticably louder if a device to elevate the back of laptop is used. The noise they produce is just along the borderline of annoying vs tolerable for me.

Battery life, I think it's been established that it will receive at least 4 hours if you treat it nicely. I was able to get in a good 1 and a half hour gaming session and still have enough juice to write some emails.


*Edit 2
I keep remembering things about the machine I also wanted to add. In regards to hot spots.

Hot spots:
The HD is located under the left palm rest. My hand gets all sweaty because of it while I play first person shooter games. But for the most part, the fans do a good job expelling heat out from the back of the unit.

 

Nice....glad I was able to help make your transition easier

LoL! I think you are like the 20th or more (lost count) in which my review was able to assist in making your determination eheh.

TO ALL YOU Z71V reseller, I should get commission for all of this!!! ahahahahahahaahah

Laptop: Asus Z71V From www.proportable.com
* Intel® Pentium® M 750 - 1.86GHz
* 2GB DDR2-533 Corsair
* Hitachi Travelstar 60GB 7200 RPM w/ 8MB Buffer
FAQ Most asked about laptops: http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=61505

 

Thanks for your thoughts. It's always nice to read more reviews...

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'>Display:
I would say it's above average. Wide viewing angle. Good brightness, nothing to write home about. I can't for the life of me find another resolution besides the native 1680x1050 that can display sharp text acceptable to my standards.<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

This is common. If you do a search on LCD and resolutions. It will talk about this and this is very common among most, if not all LCD. If you get a SXGA, XGA, SXGA+, etc there is a native resolution it will look best at, any other resolution will look a bit blurry or distorted.

This is a very important factor when buying a laptop. Some people want WUXGA screen on 14" LCD. In my opinion, that is instane as the resolution is soo high it will make thing a bit small. People often time get confused between the resolution support vs the size of the LCD it is on. Yes it is nice to say I have WSXGA+ monitor. But the important factor is what is the LCD size you will be viewing it. On a 15.4", it is bareable, smaller it is insane. I think on 17" it is perfect.



Laptop: Asus Z71V From www.proportable.com
* Intel® Pentium® M 750 - 1.86GHz
* 2GB DDR2-533 Corsair
* Hitachi Travelstar 60GB 7200 RPM w/ 8MB Buffer
FAQ Most asked about laptops: http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=61505

 

Yeah totally Smilepak, that was my only concern when buying this machine. Instead of fidgeting with the resolutions, I just went into every application/editor that I use and fiddled with the view and adjusted the fonts to something more legible, it was a hassle, but now the only time I have problems with font legibility is while surfing certain webpages where increasing the font size throws the layout out of whack.

All in all, this is 99% of what I wanted out of a laptop.

 

Do you have any noticible dark spots anywhere on the right side of the screen when looking at it dead on at the optimum viewing angle? White backgrounds are the easiest to see them on if they are there.

That is THE major problem both myself and others had with the display on what is otherwise a great machine, and it would be really great to hear that they may be on the road to redemption.

Kai

 

Good info flaxx. Also, didn't smilepak find a resolution or two that made things larger but was not distorted?

 

hey for all of you that have too high or resolutions, there's great way to keep your native resolution but make everything bigger. It's built into windows. Just go to your display options where you set the resolution and click advance then change your DPI (dot per inch) setting from 96dpi to 120dpi (or more if you desire, but with a UXGA screen, increasing the dpi to 120 makes it the equivelent of SXGA at 96dpi). This way you don't have to adjust the font and stuff of anything in your applications but images that require high resolution still display witht eh native resolution (since they're independant of dpi). So it's essentially the best of both worlds without all the fiddling.

Asus M3NP 1.5GHz Centrino (Dothan /w 2mb L2)
1GB PC2700 DDR
100gb 5400rpm 8mb Cache Seagate Hard Drive /w 5 Year Warranty
Intel 2200BG 802.11g Wireless

 

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

 

Xpyre - I'd love to hear more about what kind of battery life you're experiencing. What if you're not gaming, just word processing, surfing the web, etc.? Do you have a good idea of your battery life when doing that type of thing?

 

I ve seen some with the "dark spots". Cant say we found the solution for it but i do notice they are only there on a white/light background. As soon as 3d or 2d pics are on they are gone. Not all of them have this "quality" but ive seen a few that did. I ve seen the same issue on a number of different brands and models. Its another commonly accepted manufacturer defect like a dead pixel. It dont bother me becuase i generally use the laptops in a color background or for playing a game. If i am typing in word or excel you can see them. Go figure.

Eddie B.
www.Geared2Play.com
4422 Ave. N
Brooklyn, NY, 11234

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>

 

You could download the Centrino Hardware Control or follow the undervoltage method. It will allow your CPU to run cooler.

Hitachi 7200RPM runs fine as well.



Laptop: Asus Z71V
* Intel® Pentium® M 750 - 1.86GHz
* 2GB DDR2-533 Corsair
* Hitachi Travelstar 60GB 7200 RPM w/ 8MB Buffer
FAQ Most asked about laptops: http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=61505
Asus Z71V Unofficial Support Thread: http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=72349

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Xpyre
wow, thanks for the tip flaxx. It helps a great deal. And with that info, it just made my computing experience practically perfect. Very exciting indeed.<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

You're most welcome. As for heat, as smilepak mentioned, you could use "Centrino Hardware Control" (to underclock your CPU) or since you have an nVidia GPU, you could simply use the "RightMark CPU Clock Utility" (another utility to underclock your CPU) and omega drivers to underclock your GPU. Make sure you prime95 it for 24 hours (and ensure sufficient cooling) and use the machine and make sure it doesn't behave erratically or crash during this testing.

It seems a lot of people are complaining about the hot palm rests on these asus notebooks. Hopefully asus will correct this design flaw they've created in this new line of notebooks (my m3 for instance has the hard drive at the bottom-right-rear (which also provides better ventilation).

Asus M3NP 1.5GHz Centrino (Dothan /w 2mb L2)
1GB PC2700 DDR
100gb 5400rpm 8mb Cache Seagate Hard Drive /w 5 Year Warranty
Intel 2200BG 802.11g Wireless

 

Not sure about other Asus model, but the Z71V doesn't have palm rest heat problem. The IBM Thinkpad I am using now, does have tremendous amount of palm heat problem . So does my Toshiba Satellite series.

But Z71V does not, at least not in mine. Not sure is it because i am using 7200RPM drive or I got 2GB of ram.

Usually the palm heat contributed from the hard drive being directly below it. More access to HD = more heat.

Laptop: Asus Z71V
* Intel® Pentium® M 750 - 1.86GHz
* 2GB DDR2-533 Corsair
* Hitachi Travelstar 60GB 7200 RPM w/ 8MB Buffer
FAQ Most asked about laptops: http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=61505
Asus Z71V Unofficial Support Thread: http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=72349

 

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

 

My z71v does not have heating problems.The palmrest remains at room tempreture even after 2 hrs of continous use



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

 

mine doesn't have heat issues, either.

drum while you work

 

I'm starting to like this Z71v since it has a great GPU and high res screen (I prefer the high res cuz I need a lot of screen real-estate) and comes as a barebone. I just wish it came in other colors. I prefer black way over white/silver. I wouldn't upgrade, but my major reason to upgrade is the screen on my m3 is XGA which is just way to low for me. I like the w3v, but it's only in ensemble (the barebone version, i can't remember the model doesn't come with a dedicated GPU) and the screen is only WXGA (and i'd prefer at least WSXGA). I guess I'll just wait until september for all of the barbone lines to come in then i can pick which one is best for my needs (but so far the z71v looks great excepet its white and it's a little thick). Thanks for the reviews guys.

Asus M3NP 1.5GHz Centrino (Dothan /w 2mb L2)
1GB PC2700 DDR
100gb 5400rpm 8mb Cache Seagate Hard Drive /w 5 Year Warranty
Intel 2200BG 802.11g Wireless

 

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

 

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

 

You could try omega drivers
http://www.omegadrivers.net/

I know that ATI doesn't support laptops, but nvidia is supposed to. Perhaps try a cleaning out all of the old drivers, and re-installing the latest ones from nvidia.
http://www.drivercleaner.net/

The only other thing I can think is that perhaps asus have implemented the gpu in such away that stock nvidia drivers wont run??? Is there a reason why you dont want to use the Asus ones...after trying numerous ati ones and omega's on my laptop...I ended up sticking with asus's ones...they were actually the most stable and fastest out of all of em'.

a



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

 

When I try to install the latest nVidia driver (71.89) I get the error, setup has not detected any drivers compatable with your current hardware. I can get the Asus drivers to work with it though. Any ideas?

I am having another strange problem. When I change the background it goes to the background color only, no picture. It is really stange, cause it shows the correct background on the little monitor but nothing on the real desktop.

Also what drivers is everyone using? Links to the actual file please.

Thanks

 

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

 

Follow the instruction above or use one on www.laptopvideo2go.com and start with step #7

Technically, the mobile drivers from nvidia are not supported by nvidia. They have to be supported by the notebook manufacture. Other people, such as Omega and laptopvideo2go.com have alter the INF file to add additional support to the notebook chipset.



Laptop: Asus Z71V
* Intel® Pentium® M 750 - 1.86GHz
* 2GB DDR2-533 Corsair
* Hitachi Travelstar 60GB 7200 RPM w/ 8MB Buffer
FAQ Most asked about laptops: http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=61505
Asus Z71V Unofficial Support Thread: http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=72349