w3v palmrest problem

I bought my asus w3v back in september 05 and the palmrest is in pretty bad shapre right now. I've noticed that my friends cheaper laptops don't have this problem. So i havet two questions:

1. Will asus cover the palmrest damage in its warranty? It's clearly a manufacturing quality fault.
2. Where can i buy some decent palm rest skins to hide the patchy blocks if asus won't help?

 

If you mean it wearing down like carbon fiber? No thats not under warranty and the only think you can really do is cover it with stickers if you want. All laptops really have that issue you notice it more cause its darker color. ever notice that the touch pads look worn out on laptops after not to long?

 

my laptop has the same thing, as well as a palmrest rattle that i talked about in a previous thread. overall i feel like my asus is pretty solidly built and i really like that it has discrete graphics. but i must say parts of me are wishing i went with a different computer. the dark spots are pretty ugly and the rattle is annoying

 

yeah i'm talking exactly about that. i wish i had bought some sort of plastic shield to cover it when i first got it. anyway, are there any good skins or special notebook stickers u know of? I don't want to just paste any old sticker then end up getting sticky residue all over my notebook.

 

I have seen notebook decals, but i really dont remember where. Do a google search for that stuff u will find something. as for wishing for a different notebook. That really happens to all notebooks But it happens easier to carbon fiber ones. As strong as that material is for the chasis it doesnt hold up to that kinda wear it smooths out. even the new compaqs have more of that. the only laptops that dont seem to are the thinkpads they take years to wear down.

 

The best way to avoid it is to stop sweating directly onto the palmrests...
I always make sure I wear a longsleeve if I rest my palm on there, or I type without resting my wrist on there at all. Apparently, it's better for you, ergonomically, and you don't get any palmrest wear

 

Dark spots? I think aurora has it right on. You're sweating on it and the grease from your palms, can't really help that, except wipe it everytime you see residue. Don't leave it.

A few of my keys have shiny grease spots on 'em, but what yah gonna do about sweat and grease?

Clean it often.

Cheers,
Mike

 

Oh yeah the cheaper models don't have those spots because they're just straight plastic.

The material used on your laptop is different I believe. Better? I don't know.

 

its kind of unrealistic to wear long sleeves just to use my computer. my girlfriends hp (strong plastic) doesnt have this problem. dont get me wrong i like the laptop but wearing long sleeves or remembering to wipe it down after every use are a little unrealistic

 

It's kind of a trade off... the material of the Asus notebook chassis is stronger than the HP's; however, as a result, I guess the paint is easier to wear. It's not so much the quality control of the paint... but more about how the material can sustain the paint in certain conditions.

 

that's true

 

The z71v use to come and still does i think with clear palmrest protectors. Now most people jsut take them off. ANytime you have paint over and abs surface or any other surface it will wear down after heavy use only in a matter of months. For example one hour of typing with your palms on it daily is heavy use and you will see it wear down within a few. My m5n has palmrests that look brand new. I rarely ever use them. What did you expect? Sweat will break down most painted surfaces after a while especially from your palms rubbing on them while sweating. This is not a defect. You cant keep your lappy looking and feeling new if you plan on using it.

 

I have a problem where a friend of mine wore a metal-clasp watch when typing on my w3v, and now there are a few very fine, long scratches you can see from various angles on the one palmrest.

Also, when my lid closes, the part above the screen hits the front area of the palmrest, and there's a line along almost the entire length of the laptop where the paint has been removed from this. The rubber stoppers on the bottom of the screen lid do very little, primarily because the center one is flush with the rest of the lid (at least on my laptop).

 

On my W3A I have the same line across the palm rest caused by the display. Those rubber stoppers are just screw hole fillers. Having said that, the magnetic catch must mean that they can't make the stoppers very big, so this maybe be problem we have to live with.

I also got scratches on the palm rest which I traced to a shirt with too many buttons on the cuffs. The cause got fixed with some scissors.

However, I don't suffer any discoleration of the palm rests.

John

 

True, but my friends cheap $400 dell laptops don't seem to have this problem. Nor are the keys on their keyboards developing a shingy surface. To be honest, the looks of this laptop was one of the things that brought many of us to this laptop. the dark spots are pretty ugly.

 

I have no such problems with my W2V but i guess cause its metal. But i have a Dell D600 and its worn down its all how much you use it and how you type and if you hands are cleaner. But that is a reason why some pc makes use plastic for the palm rest and carbon fiber for the chasis.

 

yeah in hindsight ill probably go with a laptop with plastic rests and a solid chassis next time

 

No discolouration of my palmrests... keyboard wear, yes, but no palmrest wear whatsoever.

 

Ye that makes perfect sence. Not really. A solid chassis. You found many more solid then the w3v or z63a? Plastic palmrests? What difference would it make if they are painted?

 

... you'd be surpised at how thin these chassis parts really are...... when they are all connected and screwed together...... they create a structure that is ridge and yet lightweight..... Some of the thickest chassis' may feel the cheapest........ With regards to the palmrests..... the W1 and W2 are going to be leaps and bounds above anything else on the market because they're made of 1/8" sheets of brushed and anodized aluminum..... It's well over built, but they're in a league of their own.

The W3's palmrest 'should' be as sturdy as you'd expect.... It's been my main laptop over the last year and I have zero complaint about it --- either coming from me or any customer..... check your screws, make sure everything is snapped together properly..... and if all that is taken care of, check the screws in your head -- j/k .... give Asus a call and explain it... there isn't much that can go wrong with them and basically with all the snaps, snapped and all the screws, screwed.... it should be solid as a rock.

 

He wasnt saying it wasnt a sturdy chasis. He was just saying he will get a laptop that has a plastic palm rest that doesnt fade as quickly but that still has a good chassis.

 

.... I'm sorry, did I miss something? Was this entire thread's "problem" about the painted palmrest? If it was..... painted or unpainted --- the friction and sweat of your palms are going to discolor it over time regardless...... aluminum would hold up a LOT better.

 

People have had this complaint time and time again. I think if you want the problem to go away just paint it and be done with it. It may void your warranty though, but remember it is a piece of equipment, it suffers from wear and tear like any other thing. I kinda realized it would have this problem when I bought it, but all notebooks will have the same problem at some point. On my old Thinkpad 600, the paint was chipping off, granted it was ancient and went through a few people before it got to me.

 

okay, i googled for this but didn't find anything. U know hwere to buy some touch-up paint.

 

.... for $35-40 you could just buy a new palmrest.

 

Out of curiosity.. how would one buy and install a new palmrest? I am mildly curious because I have a bit of wear on mine as well.

 

my Fujitsu uses some type of satin black plastic that is holding up really well, but i can see how carbon fiber would wear out, that seems wierd that they would build it with that kind of CF though, i'm guessing it is a composite instead of the regular weaved CF.

 

what he said

 

I have had my w3v since July. I use it at least a couple hours every day. The palm rest area began to show signs of wear within a couple of months. (No, I do not have particularly sweaty or corrosive hands.)

It never got to the point that it looked really bad, just used. Well, I decided to use this as an excuse to give my lappy a facelift. Since I'm attending law school, I decided to go with a lady justice theme.

Anyway, I purchased an extra lid, bezel and palm rest sub-assembly and took them to a local airbrush artist. Here are the results:



John from Star Tech hooked me up with the parts. And yes, it got pretty expensive, pretty quick. But what the hell it's only money. I love my w3v even more now (if that's possible.):asus:

 

Pretty sweet

 

Holy crap Ray that's beautiful. The artwork is amazing. What area are you in and who is the artist?

I'm interested in doing something like this as well, since I scratched the hell out of my lid from carrying my lappy in my knapsack ONCE.

Man that looks so sweet.

Cheers,
Mike

 

I'm in Northern California. The artist's name is Daneen and she is located in San Jose. Her website is www.customairbrush.com.

She's very talented and pretty hot! I think my wife is getting a little suspicious because I keep looking for other things to have painted.

Rey

 

How durable is that though. I mean painted on smooth metal how well can that stick? Looks great though.

 

okay i have a brilliant idea which may not seem so brilliant to others. I'm thinking of just rubbing the whole palmrest area with something to get a uniform look and texture instead of having ugly patches. If i were to do this, how should i go about doing this?

 

hmmm.... how much would it cost to replace the palm rest with a black version....

 

Find a person with big, sweaty palms and make him rub their hands all over your...

j/k If you're going to do this, you'll have to probably disassemble your w3v in that you isolate the palmrest from other components so that you won't get whatever it is you'll use rub out the paint onto other components (leaky leaky)

 

it makes sense though right? how many people would recommend doing this? i just don't want to end up with something nasty afterwards..hehe.

 

I don't think that I would try this. Assuming that you could rub off or somehow remove the paint from the whole palm rest area in a consistent manner, I'm not sure that the color/texture of the plastic material underneath is consistent.

From my experience with other plastic items that are painted by the manufacturer, the plastic underneath is not always uniform in color. If it is going to be painted the manufacturer is not worried about the color of the plastic base.

Not sure if this is the case with these parts but just something to verify before taking the plunge. Unless of course your backup plan is just to repaint the whole thing if the results are not as you plan.

 

Do you mean purchasing a stock piece and painting it black or do you think there is a model out there that is already black? I don't believe that there is a black model.

 

Wear happens...

It all depends on how careful you are, I guess. My old laptop was a hand me down from my mom. She used it as a desktop for two years and it was absolutly shot... She actually wants it back now that I have a new one, even though it's pretty much useless now... I spent hours trying to clean it up to where it would look halfway decent and finally gave up completely. Dust and crud in the keyboard, dust build-up in every little crevace on the chassis, hot CPU, short battery life, screen dim with age...

Since my Z33Ae isn't my primary machine, hopefully it will hold up well. I'm usually pretty good with electronics though, where as the female members of my family tend to destory them faster then I can repair them. I'm the kind of person who keeps old electronics around in boxes because they 'still work fine' long after they have been upgraded from...

I was over at a friends who has a Thinkpad the other night, and his keys were shiny and worn as well. It's just the reality of using something.

Best advice would probably be to keep your hands clean and free of oil as much as possible (keep away colds in the winter, too!) and wipe things down every once in a while to keep anything that is there from working on the surface in the long term.

Don't even get me started on the 'pre-worn' styling of some clothes these days, though. Why would I pay extra for pants with the holes already in them... I put in years worth of use to get a good comfortable pair of work pants broken in...

 

Well here's a suggestion to keep the palmrest area nice (that I did myself)...

Put a couple pieces of Palm Pilot screen protectors on the paint, around the touch pad. Granted they tend to be expensive, but I found the Fellowes "Write Rights" can be found for dirt cheap at local dollar stores (because they're left over from discontinued Palm models).

They're tacky enough to adhere to the paint, but the adhesive is weak enough to be easily removable without damaging the finish (or having to remove any goo).

You just have to decide whether seeing the plastic on your plamrest area bothers you or not.

 

Great idea mrmike! Those things are pretty versatile.

I think I lucked out with my MS-1022. Granted, I've had it only a short amount of time, it is holding up well. The plastic is high quality on the palmrest. I'm a realist though, I understand that eventually it'll fade. I just hope it's not quick or painful.