zv5000z A good buy for me?

I was all set to get the zx5000 untill I ran across this site Now I'm thinking zv5000z Lots of good info here. Got a couple of questions though hopefully I can get some opinions here. First off how come alot of big laptop companies don't use the AMD chip? And how worried should I be about the GPU? Really why would HP use such a dated GPU? Although I really don't plan on gamming on the laptop so I guess this won't be too big of a problem.

Thanks
Graham

 

I bought a Compaq R3000 before, and it has the AMD 64 processor. Its speed varies based upon how many softwares you are running. It supposed to be a nice feature and can manage to save power. The problem I had is that it only gave me 800mHz speed and did not change no matter how many softwares I ran. I call AMD support (you have to pay for the phone call) and she showed me lots of tricks to correct it, but she finally told me it is defective. If you go to the AMD forum at AMD website, there are lots of people have the same problem.

Of course, if you have time for that, go ahead. I returned it and brought a P4 instead.

 

Intel pays out hundreds of $millions in marketing money (notice how most TV ads have the "Intel Inside" marketing jingle?) and threatens to become uncooperative to companies that get too friendly with AMD. The latter threat has become rather hollow as of late, now that AMD has clearly superior chips and Intel keeps stumbling. HP is big enough that they can do whatever they want, though it does appear that someone convinced them to cripple the zv5000z with an obsolete GPU. We can only be thankful that a shared-memory graphics chip wasn't available to them at the time. Now that AMD's new 90nm production lines are ramping up (Acer got the first batch of 90nm chips for their flagship Ferarri 3400 notebook, desktop 90nm CPUs go on sale tomorrow) I'd expect many more AMD notebooks to be released by the end of this year.

Since you don't plan on gaming, the GPU isn't a problem at all. Any dedicated memory GPU will be fine. My zv5000z has worked fine. AMD PowerNOW! power management is far superior to Intel SpeedStep. You will need to get a program like MobileMeter to monitor the CPU speed as WinXP's speed monitor is broken, even in SP2. Installing the current processor driver from amd.com is a good idea too (though HP might be using it already by now). It's possible that HP didn't install the heatsink properly in ati9000's notebook, in which case the CPU would retreat to 800MHz to protect itself. That problem is not unique to any notebook product line.

 

All right I'm gonna run this past you guys and see what you think.I was thinking the zx5000 but i think im going with the zv5000z, little cheaper and longer batt life. If you think this is configured right I'll pull the trigger later tonight.
zv5000z,
xp home,
3200 cpu,
1280x800 brightview (the 1680x1050 is not bright view correct? and I really cant see why I need the extra resolution), geForce 4 440 gpu (stupid HP for this dated card)
single stick 512,
60gb hd (maybe upgrade this later to a 5400 not unless its worth 100 bucks now if so does it shorten battery life?)
just the dvd/cdr,
bluetooth,
and the 12 cell batt.

Any suggestions before I tell hp to send it??

Thanks guys for all of your input

 

I'd go with the 5400RPM drive unless you're planning on swapping in a 7200RPM Hitachi drive on your own (like I did). It makes a BIG difference (4200 to 5400 moreso than 5400 to 7200) and the battery impact is minimal. Otherwise, it looks like you got everything.

 

Thanks again guys. It will be here soon. the onthing I purchased extra was the 2 year warranty, any thoughts on that?

Thanks
Graham

 

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

 

Hey

RE: "The problem I had is that it only gave me 800mHz speed and did not change no matter how many softwares I ran. I call AMD support (you have to pay for the phone call) and she showed me lots of tricks to correct it, but she finally told me it is defective. If you go to the AMD forum at AMD website, there are lots of people have the same problem."

So, how do I check if mine processor will change speed? Any particular programm I can run?

Thanks

zv5000z AMD 64 3000+ 1.8 Ghz 768 DDR SDRAM 15.4" WXGA (1280x800) 30 GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive 64MB NVIDIA(R) GeForce(TM) 4 440 Go

 

My favorite way is to start MobileMeter and fast forward a Quicktime video. Effective and amusing. Any program that maxes out the CPU will do though, and MobileMeter keeps a history graph of CPU speeds.

 

I'll do that.
I have Mobile Meter though.
Thanks

zv5000z AMD 64 3000+ 1.8 Ghz 768 DDR SDRAM 15.4" WXGA (1280x800) 30 GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive 64MB NVIDIA(R) GeForce(TM) 4 440 Go

 

brianstretch wrote: "It makes a BIG difference (4200 to 5400 more so than 5400 to 7200)"

5400 to 7200 is an increase of 1800 rpm (33%, or 1/3 or 5400)

4200 to 5400 is an increase of 1200 rpm, definitely less than 1/3 of 4200 (that would be 1400)

Get the cheapest 4200 rpm drive, and put the savings toward the Hitachi 7K60 and an external USB case for the 4200 you'd otherwise be stuck with.

Stefano
HP zv5200 DP523AV: AMD 64 3400 2.2GHz, 2x512MB RAM, 60GB 7200rpm HDD (Hitachi 7K60), 15.4" WUXGA (1920x1200), XP Pro; Paradox

 

Yes, but the 5400RPM drives use higher-density platters than the 7200RPM drives. Access time is better on 7200's though. I'd still go with the 7200RPM drive but if you're not comfortable with swapping drives and doing a full OS reinstall the 5400RPM HD is a good option. I wish I could find the review of the Seagate 5400RPM notebook drives I read a while back...

Also, 4200RPM drives tend to only have 2MB cache instead of 8MB (or more).

 

I found 60Gig Hitach 7200RPM HD. Can someone give me link to 7200 RPM 40 Gig Hitachi HD, if there is one? Also, what are the prices for the 40 Gig 5400RPM HDs?

Thanks
by the way, QuickTime player did help to verify that my CPU adjusts speed depending on load.


zv5000z AMD 64 3000+ 1.8 Ghz 768 DDR SDRAM 15.4" WXGA (1280x800) 30 GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive 64MB NVIDIA(R) GeForce(TM) 4 440 Go

 

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