Hi yall!
i have been reading here for quite some time as i shopped around for a new laptop and i found this pretty sweet deal. i ordered a custom (cto) build compaq presario r3000z direct from HP i just and recieved it yesterday, hot off the press from china!
-Specs-
Processor AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3000+ 1.80 GHz (1mb L2 cashe)
Operating System XP Home
Memory 256MB DDR SDRAM (1x256MB)
Hard Drive 60GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive
DVD/CDRW Combo Drive
Networking 54g(TM) Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN
Display 15.4" WXGA Widescreen (1280x800)
Graphics Card 64MB NVIDIA(R) GeForce(TM) 4 440 Go +1394 & 5-in-1
Battery 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
i am planing to upgrade the ram asap, but it saved a few bucks in the short term. so all this was around $1150.00, and it is about the best deal i found for the money, im fairly happy with the value.
so it gets here 5 days ahead of when they said, i was stoked! i pulled it out and everything seemed perfect. i loaded up my basic software, and a couple of games, battlefield vietnam and mechwarrior 4 mercs. i figured these would be a good benchmark because BFV's minimum system requirements are just about maxing the laptop and video card out(64meg video 128 megs ram), and mechwarrior 4 is a intensive game but with lower req's(16meg video, 700mhz 64megs ram) .
i fired them up, and they ran super! i have a desktop that i built thats a little older but with almost the same specs, with a gforce4 440 64 meg pci(yeeuch!) card, but they ran way better on the laptop! ( in fact, during my testing, i tried out UT2003 and freedom fighters and they ran smoothly at DOUBLE SPEED! that blew my mind untill i read around here that you have to set the power in XP to home/office instead of portable or it does this sometimes)
so i was playing for about 2 or 3 hours and having a blast, when the power just drops right out. shuts right down. so i freaked,
of course. i sat here racking my brain for hours, updated everything, driver, bios,firmware ( alot was slightly out of date considering it was built this week!) before i called hp support. so far i have had it for about 30 hours and been on the phone with hp for about 4 of those. most of their people are very friendly if not very tech savy. the first guy i talked to was an ass. he couldnt care less and just wanted me to go away. gave me a bunch of bunk info and a surly attitude. not very encouraging so far but i tried the stuff he sugested, which didnt help.
now, im no NooB , i never call support unless its an emegency, but i had tried everything( different apps/games, resoulutions..)
after it did this power outage thing for an hour or so, ( boots right back like nothing happened) then it stopped. ran fine all night! i tried like heck to get it to go down again but nada. then today, all morning and early afternoon, no problems. then, right around 7 pm, i'm not even playing a game, just checking my email and wham. goes down twice. so i figure it must be overheating somewhere, since it whent down at the same time both days, just when it gets the warmest in the house. but its only like 75 degrees, tops. the unit feels not overly hot at the worst , and it cools well.
1 point though, the retarded monkey who does r & d at compaq decided that it would be groovy to put the intake vents in the middle of the bottom, so i have not even yet placed it in my lap. i have it on a board slung across my chair so the cute little feet can have something to stand on.
whew! this is a long first post,eh? i hope someones reading this!
well i love the design of the thing ( retarded monkey aside..) wide screen rocks, and when it does'nt shut off it runs games more smoothly than my desktop!
i think they must have a big banner in the tech support dept at HP that says....
" ya know, laptops are not designed for playing games on...MOST people just use them for business..."
yeah but if it wont run a game from 2 years ago well under the min sys req's then thats either a malfunction or a lie. they say that they have not had this problem with any other units, so i must be crazy.
well long story long, im shipping it off on wednesday for service. the turn around ( incld. the free shipping both ways) is 7 days. not too shabby. thier phone support people are very nice for the most part, but it seems they have less info than the website does.
so in closeing, the universe really knows how to pull my strings. im a really laid back guy, oldskool. but when it comes to expensive electronic gagets, (i want it and i want it NOW and it had better work, damnit!) i loose my cool. its my worst weakness, my kryptonite. just ask my girlfriend . Or my ex GF.
lol
thanks for yall's time!
danknugz@hummblebee.com
i have been reading here for quite some time as i shopped around for a new laptop and i found this pretty sweet deal. i ordered a custom (cto) build compaq presario r3000z direct from HP i just and recieved it yesterday, hot off the press from china!
-Specs-
Processor AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3000+ 1.80 GHz (1mb L2 cashe)
Operating System XP Home
Memory 256MB DDR SDRAM (1x256MB)
Hard Drive 60GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive
DVD/CDRW Combo Drive
Networking 54g(TM) Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN
Display 15.4" WXGA Widescreen (1280x800)
Graphics Card 64MB NVIDIA(R) GeForce(TM) 4 440 Go +1394 & 5-in-1
Battery 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
i am planing to upgrade the ram asap, but it saved a few bucks in the short term. so all this was around $1150.00, and it is about the best deal i found for the money, im fairly happy with the value.
so it gets here 5 days ahead of when they said, i was stoked! i pulled it out and everything seemed perfect. i loaded up my basic software, and a couple of games, battlefield vietnam and mechwarrior 4 mercs. i figured these would be a good benchmark because BFV's minimum system requirements are just about maxing the laptop and video card out(64meg video 128 megs ram), and mechwarrior 4 is a intensive game but with lower req's(16meg video, 700mhz 64megs ram) .
i fired them up, and they ran super! i have a desktop that i built thats a little older but with almost the same specs, with a gforce4 440 64 meg pci(yeeuch!) card, but they ran way better on the laptop! ( in fact, during my testing, i tried out UT2003 and freedom fighters and they ran smoothly at DOUBLE SPEED! that blew my mind untill i read around here that you have to set the power in XP to home/office instead of portable or it does this sometimes)
so i was playing for about 2 or 3 hours and having a blast, when the power just drops right out. shuts right down. so i freaked,
of course. i sat here racking my brain for hours, updated everything, driver, bios,firmware ( alot was slightly out of date considering it was built this week!) before i called hp support. so far i have had it for about 30 hours and been on the phone with hp for about 4 of those. most of their people are very friendly if not very tech savy. the first guy i talked to was an ass. he couldnt care less and just wanted me to go away. gave me a bunch of bunk info and a surly attitude. not very encouraging so far but i tried the stuff he sugested, which didnt help.now, im no NooB , i never call support unless its an emegency, but i had tried everything( different apps/games, resoulutions..)
after it did this power outage thing for an hour or so, ( boots right back like nothing happened) then it stopped. ran fine all night! i tried like heck to get it to go down again but nada. then today, all morning and early afternoon, no problems. then, right around 7 pm, i'm not even playing a game, just checking my email and wham. goes down twice. so i figure it must be overheating somewhere, since it whent down at the same time both days, just when it gets the warmest in the house. but its only like 75 degrees, tops. the unit feels not overly hot at the worst , and it cools well.
1 point though, the retarded monkey who does r & d at compaq decided that it would be groovy to put the intake vents in the middle of the bottom, so i have not even yet placed it in my lap. i have it on a board slung across my chair so the cute little feet can have something to stand on.
whew! this is a long first post,eh? i hope someones reading this!
well i love the design of the thing ( retarded monkey aside..) wide screen rocks, and when it does'nt shut off it runs games more smoothly than my desktop!
i think they must have a big banner in the tech support dept at HP that says....
" ya know, laptops are not designed for playing games on...MOST people just use them for business..."
yeah but if it wont run a game from 2 years ago well under the min sys req's then thats either a malfunction or a lie. they say that they have not had this problem with any other units, so i must be crazy.
well long story long, im shipping it off on wednesday for service. the turn around ( incld. the free shipping both ways) is 7 days. not too shabby. thier phone support people are very nice for the most part, but it seems they have less info than the website does.
so in closeing, the universe really knows how to pull my strings. im a really laid back guy, oldskool. but when it comes to expensive electronic gagets, (i want it and i want it NOW and it had better work, damnit!) i loose my cool. its my worst weakness, my kryptonite. just ask my girlfriend . Or my ex GF.
lolthanks for yall's time!
danknugz@hummblebee.com
