Official X500 Owner's Lounge!

I will post here when auction goes online.

 

Hi, I just got Qosmio x505 q885, and I'm loving it

One question about the display. Is there a hot key to turn off the display screen? I had a Vaio F with display off key, and I found it very useful before I go do something else or when I go to sleep.

 

Set your power savings to a more aggressive value and don't worry about turning off the screen.

 

I've just closed the lid when I didn't need the screen - this will just turn the screen off as long as you set it not to sleep when lid is closed.

 

Thanks for the display off tip guys, works nicely.

However, another problem occurred when I'm doing gaming today.

I tried games such as bad company 2, dawn of war 2, and Grid... and it seems I will get a flash of thin horizontal lines on screen during intro movies or when I move very fast across the screen in game. (line flashes for less than a second, but still annoying to see when it occurs...) Did any have that kind of problem? I tried the toshiba driver update, then the latest nvidia update for 360m in July, but it doesn't help solve the prolbem.

Anyone have any clue about this?

 

okay, I got it.

Basically just have to turn Vsync to always on in the graphic setting, then no more horizontal lines.

 

It's called tearing. However, turning it on may lower your FPS in games. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 

The auction is online now.

 

Could anyone tell me if the secondary HD bay has connectors on x505-Q885(or any other ones that come with only one HD)? I've read through the thread, but people has different experience. I plan on buying it soon~

 

X505-Q830 does not have the connector in the second bay.
It was same for me with old X200, Toshiba generally does not include second connector on models which do not ship with two HDDs.

The only way to be sure that second connector will be included, is to buy a model with two HDDs. You can than sell one of them and replace with setup you like.

 

so is there any other way to add a SSD? Is the ExpressCard a bootable device in BIOS?

 

You can add ExpressCard SSD, I did it myself and it worked pretty well.

However it will not be bootable.

 

Anyone notice that the x505 power adapter have electrical sound? I can hear buzz noise coming out from it. It is not too loud, but I am wondering if everyone can hear it too... or did I just got a bad adapter O_O||

 

Mine doesn't?!? Tho I'm not THAT close to it. Do you plug it into a filtered surge suppressor?

 

At first I plugged into a surge suppressor, and that's when I noticed the sound, then I directly plugged into a power outlet, that helps reduce the noise down; however, I can still hear it buzzing from about 4-5 feet away...

 

Mine didn't audibly buzz either. Definitely shouldn't be audible from 4-5 feet.

 

Hi
While I was at the HP Envy camp they were having the same problem and used this link below for parts. Page 160 in HP Envy 17 Owners Lounge. If you try this post your results for everyone.

NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

 

What parts? The problem is not the only missing caddy - it will be easy it that would be the case.
The second HDD bay is here but SATA connector is not soldered to the motherboard. Will you solder it yourself? I doubt it

 

Yes I WOULD been doing this for 15yrs!

 

Errm, ok. But
- the website you've posted has no motherboard SATA connectors in stock, they sell caddies
- the website you posted does not even have caddies for Qosmio X505
What was the point of this link again? I don't get it.

 

I put it there for you to see if they had what your looking for not to do the research for you!

 

are there hotkey that controls the volume of the laptop besides the touchpad on the left? I only found hotkey turning on/off sound on esc key...

 

There are no other hotkey controls for the volume (unless you use third-party software I guess).

 

I have a question about this series of lappies, particular the Q880's. I love the look of the machine and the 18.4 inch screen as well as the SSD drives, but I have a few issues:

For this price range (around the 1.5 to 2K mark) it seems like the 360m is a pretty underpowered GPU for a gaming laptop. Does anyone know when Toshiba might put a serious video card in this line, IF they intend to do so?

 

That depends on whether they are going to stick with Nvidia. I prefer Nvidia for their superior driver support, but there's no denying they've fallen behind ATi both in power and DX11 support.

I think if the Qosmio x505 series used HD5870s, they'd sell like hotcakes (particularly since the only laptop in this price range using HD5870, the G73JH, has horrible problems with GSOD, PSOD, vBIOS, etc...it's a real mess and the only reason I haven't sprung for one). As it is, I think we'll have to wait until the end of the year to see what path Toshiba chooses.

Having said that though, I don't think the GTS 360m is that inferior in reality. In benchmarks, it's only about 15% less FPS than the 5870. So it can't play Crisis on Ultra...guess what, neither can the 5870. It will handle any games you throw at it except DX11. And let's be honest here, I highly doubt the 5870 will handle DX11 once developers really start using it.

 

Are you certain about that statistical difference between the 360m and the 5870? Because what I was about to say is that if Toshiba was going to stick with NVidia, I would totally be on board with it, IF AND ONLY IF, they put the GTX 285 in their lappy! Other than the 480m, which is now NVidia's flagship, I believe that card is a lot closer to the 5870 than is the 360m. I could be wrong, but I am pretty certain that the 360m is a lot more than 15% less powerful, overall and for gaming, than the 5870.

I would be interested in reading some benchmark comparisons between them. Because the truth is that the Toshiba is a gorgeous machine, to be quite honest. I love the aesthetic beauty of it, not that that is the end-all-be-all for me, but what I really love is the 18.4 inch screen AND the reviews of the sound quality. I also think that the SSD drive might take up a little of the slack left by not having either a 285 or a 5870, but I could be wrong about that.

Anyway, I hear you on the Asus. That company really dropped the ball on the G53JH line. I am considering that laptop as well, but honestly, it just looks like too many people are having too many issues with it. Then there's the X505's 18" inch screen. Did I mention that? lol

 

I can only go by other people's benchmarks, having never used either of the GPUs.

Notebookcheck: NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360M

Notebookcheck: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870

 

Thanks! I will look at the benchmarks for both tomorrow. A few other issues I had, but there are based on reviews not personal knowledge so I may be off, are that some of the reviewers complained that the keyboard is a little too small, which is odd because it is such a large unit. They also complained of a problem with their left hand bumping into the function buttons on the left side of the keys as well as "spongy" or soft feeling keyboards slowing down typing. You may say, "Big deal, who cares on a gaming rig?" but I travel a lot and I am an aspiring novelist. I need a lappy for both gaming and writing in equal measures.

One other issue I have with this, but truth be told, I have this issue with ALL laptop manufacturers, is full HD. I mean, not for nothin', but come on with the stripped down econo-high-def for Christsakes! Toshiba, and just about everyone else for that matter, charges a premium for 1900 X 1080, making most gaming machines top out at around 900 or 940, and I think that is almost criminal! When 1080 was new, I could understand it, but you know what? You can get friggin' full 1080p resolutions in machines 1/3 of the price of these gaming rigs, AND worst of all, I have an OLD dinosaur of a lappy, an XPS Gen2 from...wait for it...ALMOST SIX YEARS AGO! You know what the native resolution on my screen is? 1920 X 1200!! Now, you mean to tell me, five and a half years later, that this magical 1080p resolution is still only available in the Cadillac of gaming rigs on hugely expensive upgraded machines when my huge tyrranosaurus Lappy from over a half a decade ago manages it with ease? Doesn't advances in tech make this resolution CHEAP to produce at this point?

Anyway, sorry about the rant. I have still yet to make up my mind on which laptop I want.

 

How will the GT360M go with games @ 1920x1080? Mainly BFBC2?

This is the config I'm looking at - Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q880 Quad i7-720QM 1.6GHz 6GB 18.4" - eBay (item 370413851067 end time Aug-27-10 14:42:50 PDT)

Any issues with it? I know there is a benchmark on this site with the GPU but I'm not sure what resolution they run the game @.

 

That actually looks like a pretty good deal. I honestly believe that the Q880 is the top of the line, though I think some of the people who name the recent individual laptops in the X550 line have no idea what they are doing. Because from where I'm sitting, as a rule, the higher the numbers, the better the product. This consistency was maintained with the Q550, Q560, Q570, and Q880. Meaning, as the numbers get higher, the same core laptop got more features such as Blu-ray drive, 1080p, more memory, larger drives, and better core processors. Yet mysteriously, the Q885, Q887, and Q890, at least in my opinion, are all inferior machines to the Q580, yet they are endowed with higher model numbers, which I believe can be very misleading to people buying the Qosmios. One of them looks more like a Q875, for instance. One looks a helluva lot like a Q855 even. Also, Toshiba seems to have removed the SSD in the newer models, effectively cheapening the quality of the entire line, to be quite honest. Anyway, yeah, that looks like a very good deal, but beware as you may be saving a couple-of-four-hundred dollars and getting a warranty voided lappy.

In addition, one thing I would caution everyone about, yourself included, is that the Toshiba notebooks only come with a one year warranty anyway! You want the honest truth? By the time you factor in the price of a two or three year bumper to bumber extended warranty on a Qosmio, you're over 2 grand for a new top of the line model. At that point, one could make a very good case for the Sager NP8120, which ALSO has an 18.4 inch screen, and packs an i7, 5870, and is just a better laptop overall.

 

not "overall" maybe. Its almost twice as thick, almost a kilo heavier and very noisy.

 

Umm...that was a very confusing post.

I thought the x505s all used the same chassis? I couldn't find any mention of the Q580, so I assume you meant Q880? The Q890 still has the SSD, and seems to be identical to the Q880 except for the upgraded i7. Also, I can't find any non-0 ending models with an SSD. The model numbers make sense to me...the newer the model, the higher the number.

And personally, I don't waste any time with warranties. You know what they say about the insurance business. The only warranty worth mentioning IMO is ASUS's accident warranty, and after messing up so badly with their G series, you can see why they have it.

 

Edit: I can't find the delete button and my browser froze and somehow this post got sent twice. Can a mod please delete this post?

 

Sorry. I meant the Q880. That was a typo. Yes, they are all the same chasis and the same basic machine. I was talking about options and other things that some models have. Oh, and you're absolutely right about the Q890. I thought that it was stripped of its SSD. I think it was the Q895 I was thinking about, which offers 1TB of standard HD space and no SSD. I disagree with you about warranties, by the way, particularly in sensitive and overly powerful gaming rigs like these! I have always owned a gaming laptop for the last ten years, and the warranties have been very helpful. Dell, in particular, has been awesome with my XPS Gen2, sending me whatever I needed within the three year warranty that the PC came with. They even offered to send a tech to my house to replace DVD drives that broke down twice, but I told them I could do it myself. Within the three year warranty life, I also needed 2 keyboards, two replacement power-bricks, and a screen. Adding all of those up, I have no idea what the 3 year warranty saved me, but it has been my experience that gaming laptops tend to break down more than other lappys, maybe due to so many high heat generating parts crammed into such a comparitively small space? Either way, I have come to always factor in the warranty when buying a gaming laptop.

Desktops I don't care quite so much about, not that it matters anyway, as I always build them and never buy a pre-built model.

lol YOu know what? I am going to go out on a limb here and say that anyone looking for an 18.4 inch GAMING laptop with the most power is not going to be overly concerned with thickness and weight. As for noise, well I'm sure it is only noisy when the fan is going hard, which I bet only happens when you are gaming and using at least enough sound in your game not to really notice it, much less care.

I have an OLD Dell XPS Gen2 laptop and it can get noisy as hell, but the only time it gets noisy is when I can't hear it over the gun fire, exlosions, car engines, or RPGs.

 

Yes, however for example I've got X505 not because I wanted just most powerful laptop, but I also wanted as transportable as possible. X505 maybe not most powerful around, but it's pretty good compromise - not sacrificing too much of one aspect for another.

I watched both X505 and Sager in action. Sager's fans are spinning very audibly even on idle, X505 is almost silent in same mode. If you don't beleive me, you can easely find noise measurements on notebookcheck.

 

Besides, while 18.4 is large, the notebook still has be somewhat portable...otherwise, why get a notebook?!? Build a desktop instead.

And noise is a big problem, especially since people are not just playing games all day long...I don't like hearing a jet engine when I'm reading a blog.

 

Ingvarr, I see what you mean, and for YOUR uses, and probably many others, that is a compromise you are willing to accept. it may, in fact, end up being one I accept as well, but I am not sure. At the moment, price to power value is the larger factor for me.

a500435, I disagree with your premise. Some people, like myself, see HUGE cinderblock gaming laptops as portable desktop replacements. Like I said, I am leaning toward the Sager or G73, but I am still considering the Toshiba, hence why I am in this forum. The truth is that there are things I love about the new Qosmios, but I am not sure I am willing to settle for the 360m at the stated price range, to be honest. I see some advantages to it, Ingvarrr laid them out nicely, but I am still deciding.

 

I think we may be looking at different models. You want top of the line, Q890 or Q895S. For that price, I agree, the Qosmio has some stiff competition, and it's only going to get stiffer if Toshiba doesn't update the GPU soon.

I'm looking at the Q885, the cheapest model, and for ~$1000, there's nothing that can touch it, except for a working G73JH, and those are a rarity. The Q887 which adds Blu-ray and i7 is starting to push it for me, and anything Q888 and above I think is a bit overpriced for the market.

Has Toshiba used ATi in their flagship models before? Because, like I said before, if they added HD5870s to the Qosmio line, we'd all be like, Asu-whooo??

 

And that's my only point. I want to reiterate what I said above about the whole "Full HD" issue, in other words 1080p. I think that it is unconscionable that laptop manufacturers, including Toshiba, are only putting that resolution in their feature packed, high-end rigs, particularly since they are using that resolution in some seriously low end laptops and monitors these days. In addition, as I said above, my 5+ year old Dell XPS laptop has a gorgeous screen with 1920 X 1200 resolution. I cannot help but feel a little like even though everything else about the lower end Qosmios (and G73s, and EVERY other gaming laptop for that matter) is still a lot better than my laptop, that in the resolution department, I am taking a pretty nice hit and my old dinosaur is over a half decade obsolete!

Edit: I realize my point above may be unclear, so let me clarify. I am talking about a given gaming line like, say, the Quosmio X505 or the G73JH. You want to skimp on and charge a premium for the Blu-ray? Fine. YOu want to add more memory as the price goes up? Cool. You want to even give lower end processors for the lower end machines, gradually increasing the price as you increase the CPU? No problem. But it is ridiculous, and almost a feckless insult to gamers to EVEN FRIGGIN' THINK ABOUT pairing a GeForce 360m or 285m or Radeon 5870 with a lower resolution monitor! I mean, what are these morons thinking? And no, I am not singling out Toshiba, because they are all doing it.

Also, I have another problem with the lower end Qosmios (but this is more my taste not something they are doing wrong) and that is that they are using the i5 instead of the i7, and that, in my honest opinion, makes the so called "thousand dollar gaming rig" at least a question mark, especially since it is more like $1,100 and up for it. Hell, for that price, why not take your chances with the Best Buy G73JH, right? It is also around $1,300.00 (though I have seen them put on sale for $1,100.00!) and it still has the i7, and the 5870. My point is that you can get stripped down versions of several gaming rigs, including Toshiba, for around that price.

And you know what? If the "thousand dollar" Qosmio had 1080p, I would lean heavily toward buying it...well maybe not with the i5.

 

I don't think 5870 will fit in particular chassis, it has only about half MXM sized video card area, that's why 250M and 360M.

ChiroVette, what exactly are you doing in the X505 owner's thread?

 

i7 will not benefit gaming as much as you'd think. Yes, quad-core games will become more common in the future, but even then the i7 will have a low clock speed and can only Turbo Boost 1 core. I've played BFBC2, COD4/5/6, TDU, Crisis on i7 and i5 rigs with the same GPU, and not once did I feel the i7 gave me increased performance. Where the i7 shines is during video or 3d rendering, and maybe virtualization. Besides, with HT you effectively have 4 cores with the i5 anyway.

And as I've said before, the only notebook I can see competing with the Qosmios at the low end is the G73JH. Why haven't I gotten one?



Oh yeah, that's why. I'm pretty computer savvy, but I'm not going to deal with GSOD, PSOD, vBIOS, and opening up my laptop and applying thermal paste to the motherboard!!! Taking a $1300 bet on that is ridiculous.

 

lol Can't argue with that! Luckily (or perhaps not) I am not quite ready to buy a new lappy yet, so I can afford to wait and see if either Toshiba offers a better GPU with the X505 series or Asus resolves the problem.

The thing about the PSOD, though, is I have not been hearing as much about it of late, leading me to believe (or hope) that the issue has been resolved with the newer laptops coming out of Asus. Asus has always been a top notch company with excellent support. I simply can't believe that they have not or will not come up with a fix for this, at least with the newer production models. They are definitely a good company with a stellar reputation for products and support, the issues with the current G73 not withstanding.

Another factor weighing into my decision is the warranty. I know some people don't care about warranties, and on PC's I build myself, either do I. But gaming laptops tend to have problems come up because of a ton of issues arising from cramming so many high end parts into one relatively small chasis. Toshiba offers only a one year warranty, unless, of course, you want to buy an extended. The thing I like about the $1,100.00 Toshiba is that I can always buy it with the intent of replacing it two years down the line. For that price, I could probably recoup a decent chunk of my money back on eBay if I keep it in perfect condition as I do all my laptops.

 

Do you guys think the keyboard is confortable? i dont use the numpad but the only thing thats keeping me from buying this laptop is the cramped keyboard....stupid multimedia buttons!

what do you guys think about this?

 

Cramped? Sorry, have you actually seen it yourself? It's normal full-size keyboard. They have plenty of space for multimedia buttons because it's 18.4 16:9 machine, remember. It's very wide. So, no, the keyboard is big and not "cramped" at all.

I didn't like it much though. Not because of the size (size is ok), but keys are flat, don't have much travel, and lack feedback. And they also glossy. I mean come on, who makes keys in mirror-gloss finish? Surely they look cool in showroom pictures, but when you use them, they instantly become smudgefest, and also feel very slippery.

The position of multimedia keys is also very bad. When I moved from X205 I had endless gripes with accidentally touching them (they are sensory, so respond to lightest touch, and you don't feel them at all before you touched them and it's too late already then). You can disable them in the BIOS - but then you just lose this functionality for nothing.

On a whole I felt like new keyboard design was a clear setback from X200/X205.

 

Yeah I agree with you 100%, Ingvarr. By the way, the G73 has the same type of keyboard. I went into Best Buy to take a look at the Asus G73JH and found the keyboard to be quite annoying! I am a writer and do a ton of typing on my laptop. Maybe I could get used to slippery keys without a lot of travel, but I would hate like hell to buy this laptop or the G73 and having buyer's remorse because it cramps my writing. The G73's flat keyboard was a little uncomfortable. Keep in mind, though, that I only played with it for about 5 minutes and I was standing up while typing on the display model.

This is definitely something to think about, though. Makes me wonder if there is a replacement aftermarket keyboard available fot the Toshibas and G73s?

 

I definitely wouldn't recommend X505 keyboard if you are a writer, it's just not ergonomic. It's ok only for occasional use.

Sadly I am not aware of any replacement for X505, the chassis is very different from anything that was before. X300 series seem to use similar keyboard (not sure if its compatible), but I think it's just the same glossy and flat, so no point anyway.

 

That is pretty sad, to be honest, because other than that I love the design and look of the Qosmios, even more than the G73's, which are no slouch in the sleek aesthetics department. I may have to fork up the extra bread for the Sager, which is going to be a tough nut to swallow.

lol Or is that pill to swallow and nut to crack?

 

That the problem with recent Toshibas. They go great length for aesthetics (they even has this "aesthetics design by (some guy)" label in booklets), but the function suffers.
That's why I finally took the plunge and switched to Thinkpad W701. It looks totally utilitarian, but it performs spectacularly in every respect I care about (well reflected in price though ).

 

I just looked at the specs of that laptop. I have never heard anything abhout the NVidia Quadro FX2800M 1Gb card. How does it compare to the 360m or the 285? I might ave to take a look at that notebook, though I have never tried to build a laptop. What is the total price of that build after you are all said and done?

 

You don't have to build it yourself, even in shop configurations it's very powerful.
I am customizing it mainly because it's a little hobby of mine (and particular platform/chassis is very good for it).
The price I've got the base config for (25003BU) was about 2700 USD. Also I had to wait for about 4 weeks for it to be actually delivered (that's downside of factory-ordered laptops). But it was totally worth it.

FX2800M is about as powerful as 9800 GTX (see rough ranking here). It's not cream of the crop, but it's a full size MXM and faster than half sizes they use for X505.
I had no problems with performance in games yet. When I will feel it slow, I intend to go the arduous road of grafting in the new graphics card (MXM 3.0, yay) Whatever the model will be the best then.

But, to stop off-topic there, please feel free to continue with W701-relates inquiries here