Review: Hooga's Asus z80k - Page 6

Here's the North American Asus website...

http://usa.asus.com/products/notebook/nbindex.htm

I bring it up because the Canadian A2K, which should be the exact same thing as the Z80K, just in black, has an overclocked 9700 at 450 MHz...

Finishing up my report on the 1GB...

I installed 2 x 512MB PC3200 Corsair XMS:

Installed WinXP Pro just fine...

Once drivers were installed, everything went haywire... (Random BSOD/Memory Dumps)

Re-intalled WinXP, tried updated nForce4 Standalone Driver + CD driver for ATI 9700, and newest BIOS update 207. Everything worked fine, but then somehow started messing up again after installing Norton 2003... Odd. However, before intsalling Norton, I ran Half-Life 2 @ 1400 x 1050 with everything on High Detail, worked fine, but after a few minutes of gameplay, started getting vertical lines and pixel loss on some planes (acting as though the video card was overclocked, and from what I understand it's UNDERclocked...). Has been quite frustrating and time wasting. Will post again... If anyone has any ideas on best driver configs, please let me know.

Until then, Happy Easter.

Agent9

Winxp integrated with sp1 will be better
I tried all the nforce drivers and all kinds of ati drivers(stock,update,microsoft,omega,dna,ati latest 5.3),even without any softwares. it also has the same problem that you mentioned-act like overclocked,it happens only the cpu almost at 100% used,you can hear the cpu fan is hardworking and the heat..sometimes it just kinda of weird,there is no problem with farcry at high resolution, but crashed on air strike2(a small game) This also happens on win2000 too.
ATI tray tools shows the max core speed>480
max memory speed about 180=360(DDR)
when the problem happens, the video card doesn't seems very hot.but the harddisk do. and the cpu.
whatever i overclocked the videocard or not, it just happen after almost the same elapsed time.
I am still looking for the solution....

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!

Figured out what the hell was going on... Turns out the ASUS Wireless Card driver was messing with the system resources and kept drawing 50% of power from the AMD Athlon 64 3700+ on 1 second intervals (1 sec 50% / 1 sec nominal %)... Uninstalled that shite and got everything back to normal.

For everyone that's interested, here's the best configuration I found to work:

ATI Driver: CD
nVidia Drivers: nvidia.com >> nForce United Driver Package (UDP)
WLAN: CD, but uninstall from control panel (fixes problem and driver files remain - only way to accomplish that)
Everything else: CD

DAMN WIRELESS DRIVER!!! I hope they fix this in the future release - not sure if this was a problem for any one else, but it sure drove me nuts.

System specs:

Asus Z80K
AMD Athlon 64 3700+
1GB Corsair XMS DDR400 Low Latency
ATI 9700 Mobility Radeon (Stock ASUS Drivers)
60GB Toshiba Hard Drive
WinXP Pro SP2 with current Updates

Ran Half-Life2 for an hour straight on 1400x1050 and all settings on High... ROCK SOLID!

Thanks for everyone's help, and if you guys need anything in the future:

E-Mail: sasha@c9tech.com
Web: www.c9tech.com

Our store opens soon and we will have complete Asus Notebooks and Shuttle XPC's built and warrantied by us (C9 Tech, Inc.)

Happy Easter!

Sasha

Sounds great...how could you tell that the Asus wifi driver was being such a resource hog? I haven't had any similar problems with mine but would like to check...also I'd recommend using the Omega Drivers, I posted benchmarks with/without them, and with/without overclocking in my review - http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=66384 - and with them you should get some performance gain with HL2 and UT2004, etc...

The stock WLAN driver off the CD included ASUS' wireless system tray software and also added some exe that ran in the background. I believe the name was ASWL2K.exe, but don't quote me on this. My client has already picked up the notebook locally (which btw, is really happy), otherwise i would double check the file name.

I just checked my system resources after noticing the fan spining up at 1 second intervals and turning off in the same fasion (1 sec high / 1 sec low). System resources pointed to the EXE wasting 50% on the same continuous intervals (1 sec 50% / 1 sec nominal 1~3%). I uninstalled the ASUS WLAN driver package in Control Panel and that problem has gone away.

If you have any questions, or are interested in this or any laptop (or desktop), please feel free to e-mail us.

Thanks.

sasha@c9tech.com

where is your store located agent9??? Canada? US?

And your site says that the site would be coming in March hahaha

Ha... Well it's definitely hard to keep up with my Electrical Engineering curriculum / being a CEO while doing a full scale launch of our products to our online store at the same time. However - don't get me wrong, we always, and I mean always have time for current and new customers, just has been a little slow on the site tweaking. On break now, so the store should be up shortly (week or two). You can still place orders directly via phone (after contacting us via e-mail, you may purchase by calling). We started in Kansas City, MO (USA) and I have been in business personally for 5 years. I have had a great experience with ASUS and Shuttle and still do till this day.

I'm an enthusiast personally, and started C9 Tech, Inc. about a year back with a great friend of mine (Jeff) who shared the same passion in technology. We both attend UMR (Missouri's Engineering University), and I am going for my Electrical Engineering degree, and Jeff is perusing Mechanical Engineering.

Our clients are mainly in the Midwest right now, but we are working on reaching all of North America (including Canada!) via our online store.

If you would like more information about us and our company, you may contact me personally at sasha@c9tech.com, and I will respond to your e-mails ASAP!

We appreciate your interest and look forward to serving you!

agent9,congratulations!
but the problem happens even no installation for the wireless.
and i know that when you install the driver for the wireless, you should choose the ASUS configuration instead of from microsoft,--less conflict (from ASUS forum)
I might try to install it,and them disable it ,see what happen.

lonekey,

I should mention that I also had problems after installing 3rd party software such as Norton Anti-Virus and BlackICE... weird.

It's not the driver itself, but the applications that ASUS puts on there along with the WLAN drivers... They're forced on there, kinda of anoying, but as I said you will have to do the CD WLAN installation, then remove them thru control panel >> add/remove programs. Do a restart and the WLAN gets reinstalled by WinXP with the original ASUS drivers, and without the anoying and buggy background App.

Your problem does sound very similar to mine, so you may want to CTRL+ALT+DLT in WinXP and see what your CPU resources look like, if they're below 5%, you should be good on that side, if not - then check and see which apps are hogging the CPU and backtrace it that way and shut them down.

If everything else fails, do a fresh install of WinXP with the driver config as mention in my earlier post:

ATI Driver: CD
nVidia Drivers: nvidia.com >> nForce United Driver Package (UDP)
WLAN: CD, but uninstall from control panel (fixes problem and driver files remain - only way to accomplish that)
Everything else: CD


Hope that helps, and good luck!

It's very nice idea to hold the driver and kick the App

I try every option. clean install,disable wifi in bios....eveything.and follow your way. unfortunately, the problem keep seeing me.
I wonder if it is the problem with the sp2+amd64.but i don't have a winxp+sp1
so, i try it on win2003. with/without sp1rc2,the problem not gone yet,but withou the sp1rc2,the game has a longer life.
so, i got 2 questions?
1.AMD64 conflict with ATI9700?
2.or just the problem of that game,just like a software that had a crash problem.

CPU resorce is low enough
I will try more to get a stable one ...
Thanks a lot !

I found something interesting after the w2003 sp1rc2.

Are you installing other software that might be incompatible? Or are you only installing the software required (as recommended in my other posts)?

If you do WinXP with SP2 already on CD, you should have no problems - unless you're installing some other software that might not be on the list I put out.

Do you have any confilicts in Device Manager? There's no need to disable the WLAN card itself in BIOS, just get rid of that app, which it seems you have done already.

To be a little more specific, here are the ONLY drivers I installed to get a working/stable Z80K:

ATI Driver: CD
nVidia Drivers: nvidia.com >> nForce United Driver Package (UDP)
WLAN: CD, but uninstall from control panel (fixes problem and driver files remain - only way to accomplish that)
ATK0100 ACPI Utility: CD
56K Modem: CD
LAN: CD

What is your installed CPU and Memory? If this does not help you at all, you may consider purchasing a single stick (a 512MB PC3200 should be fine) of completely different memory (Kingston, Corsair, etc).

Good Luck!

Ciao,

I've NEVER seen any of the described problem with the wireless lan or the MR11. Never! I'm using WinXP home + SP2, defaul Wlan drivers + asus wlan utility, all defaul driver except for:
1. nVidia latest Nforce4 unified drivers (they're ok even on a NF3)
2. Athlon 64 drivers (a more recently release can be collected on amd web site)
3. Mobility Radeon drivers
But I've a A2K not a Z80K (=62W mobile athlon 64).
About the 3rd point. Actually I'm using the LATEST catalyst; not so satiefied, they are slower than the latest Omega.

Anyway once I've seen such sort of video problems (artefacts etc...): I tried to install omega driver DISABLING the fastwrite option. During the installation Omega driver ask wheather to enable or disable it. On a Radeon 9600 and on any ATI with an Athlon 64 it's important to ENABLE this feature... in all other cases to DISABLE.

What I see it's there's a sort of interference between ATI and audio board: when I move a window, when there's an animation, etc, I can hear a sort of "noise" coming out of the speaker... very low volume, but audible when not playing any other real sound.

Interesting... not sure why I was having that problem, but I found that using just the drivers, and not the WLAN utility made for a better experience (no BSODs and restarts). Hope this helps everyone.

clean installation with only necessary drivers
AGP:stock,asus update,nforce5.1,6.37
SMB:stock,asus update,nforce5.1,6.37,6.39,6.53
video:stock,asus update,microsoft,omega2605a,dna3752,ati5.3
wifi:with or without
system:w2000+sp3orsp4,winxp+sp2(even set DEP exception),w2003 or sp1rc2(get all WHQL drivers)
Bios:dis/enable cpu power save,amd power now,wifi
ALL the different combinations
The problem still happens,seems like the videocard overclocked,--z80k
maybe i should try to lower the frequency with disabled A.I.
I have done enough for it, i try to ignore this problem,thanks evryone.
I got w2003 now, and it's great,like w2000(my favorite-work for my desktop for 3 years without one crash)
Good luck to everyone!

by the way,i just set up a new mediaplayer based on mediaplayer classic 6484.
including lots of filters, no installation will be needed,it's green media player.
supports realmedia,quicktime,divx,xvid,mp4,mpeg2,h264,bvop,vobsub,hdtv,tv tuner
if anyone like it
go to lonekeyfreeman@yahoo.ca
password:123456789
in the new mediaplayer folder:10 parts,put them together and just run the part01
for better playback,use overlay mixer output and check mp4v in the xvid filter-fourCC support

anyone try this?
The Modded NVIDIA NvMixer Utility unlocks hidden features such as:
• Enable/Disable nVidia’s CineSurround.
• Enable/Disable output Limiter.
• Enable/Disable Dolby Surround Encoder.
• Enable/Disable Analog and Digital ports.
• Advanced Surround encoding options.
• Advanced Center/LFE Settings.
• NvSwap settings.
• Audio Firewall.
• Acceleration mode.
• Application profiles system.
• More effects.
http://www.ngohq.com/files/M-NvMixer.exe
high cpu resource -20%

COOOOOL

This tweaker it's simply great!!!! It allows to use mic in plug and line in plug as rear out and central/subwoofer out! This way you gain a full 5.1 audio station!
!!
Absolutly recomanded!!!

clean WHQL driver (6.14.10.6483)with ati tray tools1.0.1.528 (not the 538 and all values default) solve the video problem....sigh...finally...finish the tough game..i will keep this game for ATI videocard testing.

Graphic issue -new update (2005/04/19)-(wireless disabled)
video card driver: ASUS 4.10 VGA_040909a(6.4.8.3) with control panel
ATI tray tools: 1.0.2.600
settings for tray tools:
check: (besides the default settings)
Direct3D: TRUFORM(tm)--Application Preference
OpenGL: TRUFORM(tm)--Application Preference
Additional options--triple buffering
Tweaks: Pixel shader version =2.0
Optimize PS code
Geometry instancing
Vertex shader version =2.0
Advanced Direct3D Tweaks--enable all

Great to hear! Enjoy your Z80K...