Review: Hooga's Asus z80k - Page 4

Antonio:
all the pictures were done on my laptop.except "inside the laptop"
overclock--ATI tray tools will be helpful,and it also shows the temperature of hard driver (with HDD plugin)
http://www.radeon2.ru/atitray
plugins: http://www.radeon2.ru/atitray/plugins.html
"I've asked ASUS if (and eventually when) they plan to release a Win X64 compliant BIOS (=with APIC enabled)..."
That's a great news, thanks a lot

tubpete :
yes.i did update the new bios 0207a
I also had a ram problem even though it pass all the memory tests.--but always crash in windows..i got a new one from the store,then everything is fine now
I notice one software has a buffer problem with sp2+amd64, i try the exception on Data Execution Prevention,doesn't work, fortunately,i got an update from the software company,it works
I tried a lot on win2k,,sp1,sp2,3,4 all patches,,it just .not perfect .maybe,there is a problem on the ATK ACPI Control

video card,1394,cardbus, wireless are sharing the same IRQ9, i made a mistake--i try to disable the 1394,cardbus, wireless (they are no use for me) in bios or in windows...stupid thought of saving "resource"(but it always work on desktop)....

there is a driver update for touchpad and funny utilities: (works well)
http://www.synaptics.com/support/drive.cfm
http://www.synaptics.com/support/utili.cfm

now, i am using the SMBUS,audio from nforce 6.37 whql driver,GART driver from nforce 5.1,they are all WHQL..works well

Lonekey: the ram problem I have only occurs when both 512 sticks are in use. Therefore, it is probably a compatibility problem. I will check Kingston and see if they have ram that's been tested for this computer. Right now, I'm using only 1 x 512.

cwkaufmann: you say in post #28 that you're using 2x512 DDR 400. Have you performed a ram test to see if you have a similar problem to mine? If you download the x86 minimal from the Gentoo site you can boot from a cd-rom (if you burn an image copy of the .iso) and then run memtest86.

http://torrents.gentoo.org/

Please give it a try for me to see if we are talking about a BIOS problem or a ram problem, or something else.

[edit] I'm happy to say my old version of win2k pro installs properly when I use only 1 x 512 ram. No BSOD.

Ciao lonekey,

Unfortunatly this utility does not report GPU temperature. I think this feature is not supported my our MR11.
Anyway, I'm actually using Omega drivers with their "radlinker" utility, that does almost everything that ATI tray does... I'm also using the latest NVIDIA drivers (nForce 4 standalone kit) http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
They work great even on a nForce 3.
About ASUS... I can't see ant great news: I've asked for apples and they answered bananas...

Ciao,

... about the photo: I was interested in the "internal" snapshots; where did you collect them? From these low resolution images it's not clear whether the GPU chip has a heatsink or not; from what I see, I think it hasn't... besides, the second fan (the one placed below the notebook) seems not to be used to cool the GPU down, but to help the main fan for the CPU cooling.
This would explain why ASUS chosed to underclock the MR11: the heat dissipation is not optimal for the vdeo board; and that suggests not to overclock it...

For those who have been following the pc3200 saga, I've got more information. I talked to Corsair tech support today. He told me the z80k, due to the design of having both ram modules enter the same slot (despite there being two slots to put them) and the 754 interface, will recognize only 1GB in total from that arrangement. [edit: if anyone knows what he's referring to, please enlighten me). He further said the use of the two slots as one 1GB slot made my DDR400 incompatible with each other. He did entertain the possibility of putting 1 x 1024MB DDR400 ram in there. He advised against it because Corsair can't advise this type of thing. However, when asked for hypothetical possibilities of that arrangement, he said one of three things could happen:

1) memory errors (as I had with the 2 x 512 DDR400);
2) no memory errors, but the system only uses 512MB (every other block?);
3) no memory errors and the system recognizes the complete 1024MB properly.

I am going to wait for my new CPU to arrive (see signature), test both modules under than cpu, test a few other things (like trying to find a voltage program so I can raise the voltage slightly) and then if all else fails, I'll buy a stick of 1024MB pc3200 and try it.

Antonio,
you are right,it seems there is no way to get the GPU Temp,and there is no heatsink for it. The central fan for IN,the corner fan for OUT. I forgot where the pitures are from ,sorry about that.
bananas is still better than nothing,
I did try all the other video drivers,but there is always one problem remained:
Full screen 3D configuration doesn't really work .
do you have such problem?
Did you try the IDE driver?

tubpete,
Is the 2 rams almost identical? something like Dual Channel kits?

Ciao,

No heatsink = better not to modify GPU freq...
Bananas may be better than nothing... but if I ask "How are you today?" and your answer is "It's ten o'clock!" I can change my mind on you!
Actually I've mailed ASUS specifing that the problem occures with the latest bios and they told me to try to update my bios!!! They simply did not have any ideas of what I was speaking about...
What do you mean when you say "Full screen 3D configuration doesn't really work"? I'm using the lates omega drivers and they work great, both for 2D and 3D. Each Radlinker option does what it should do (antialiasing, anisotropic filtering, mip mapping.... ).
About Nforce driver: sure! Nvidia drivers cover Audio, IDE, SMBUS and (not for this notebook) Ethernet. I've never had problem with the IDE subsystem: everything always worked fine. But I had very very bad problems with the audio drivers: the stock driver used t crash quite often... and with crash I mean ring 0 system trap, with blue screen and all system stopped!
Things got better with Nvidia driver 5.1... but only with the latest audio driver (shipped as stand alone) I corrected all my system traps. The latest nforce4 drivers (which are both for audio and ide) seems to work fine... no trap by now...

"Full screen 3D configuration doesn't really work"?
using omega driver-- even I set maximum contrast in "settings-advanced--color-full screen 3D",no change in games. do you ?
I got this laptop for 3 weeks, sent email twice for the brand stick,finally,they promise it will be mailed by this week. keep waiting...
The latest ATI driver 5.3 is out,when is the omega or dna driver based on it will be released.......
THe stock audio driver works well here, i also tried the driver fom realtek.nothing special.so,back to nforce5.1.
[add]
for sound card:
asio latency can be lowered by editing registry.
for midi- it's week..need SoftSynthesizer
Roland Virtual Sound Canvas 3.2 and Yamaha S-YXG50 both work well here,but i prefer the latter.

Ciao,

I've tried to change Color Gamma, brightness and contrast for Full Screen games. These options seems to work correcty, at least as far as I've seen.
About the audio: as I said in my previous message, I get a planty of crash with the stock driver, crashes solved only by the LATEST driver from NVIDIA. About ASIO: what is it? I've those keys in my registry and I've corrected them as you suggest, but I've no idea of what are they for. Could you explain me please?
About the software synthesizer: I've been looking for a good one for a long time but I've only found timidity (pretty old and stand alone, meaning not a "driver"). I've looked for these you suggest, but I wasn't able to find out where to get them. Any ideas?

Thanks for your tests on video,i will give it a try again.

ASIo= Audio Stream Input Output
it's hard to explain all,and i am not an expert on it. I choose it just for better sound playback
if you have time,try the forum:
http://www.steinberg.net/Steinberg/F...sp?Langue_ID=7

my combined stuffs:
foobar200 + asio output
Cubase VST32 Demo
YAMAHA XG SoftSynthesizer S-YXG50

actually,yamaha softsynthesizer is not support winxp officially
but still work

train version:
http://www.yamaha.co.uk/xg/download/.../S-YXG50V4.zip
crack:
http://free1.56321.com/snowman/software/crack50.zip


first.close all the running program in windows--really important!
run setup of the train version
copy t he sxgmasys.tbl from crack to system32

I just talked to Asus tech support about two things:

1) My power adapter wouldn't work for more than a few seconds (regardless where I plugged it in around the university or the house) before shutting off. It produced a spark when I plugged it in to the powerbar last night, and now works again. However, Asus tech says to return it, as they are concerned about my adapter.

2) I asked about when and whether this notebook would support 64 bit processing. He said, "I've heard about this problem." I pressed him for more information. He said they encountered some difficulties providing 64 bit processing and may never provide for it. I told him it was the reason I choose this model notebook over the MBNE and he said, "well this model was spec'd for Windows XP, a 32 bit operating system." He didn't come right out and say it, but it sounded like he was saying, "well, you should have known better when you bought this notebook." However, he did say he was both disappointed and a bit surprised that it doesn't and probably won't ever support 64 bit processing when it uses an amd64.

What do you people think of this latter answer from tech support. Should I return this notebook now, while I still can for credit or something? I'm very bummed about it... I have been under the impression that a BIOS fix would solve the APIC problem, but it seems deeper than that.

That does not sound good at all...I like my Z80K, but between this and the memory (speed and not capable of going over a gig, not that I need that much now anyway) I am a little frustrated...

...also, according to a thread in the general section - http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=68651 - you'll be able to exchange your legit copy of XP for the 64 version for free, but if I can't run it then that just sucks.

Hi there,

Well, first of all, I've downloaded the software and I'll try it ASAP, thx!
About 64 bit processing: this computer actually can run linux 64 bit without any problem. The problem is not related to 64 bit computing, but to the APIC. What is this APIC? APIC stands for Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller. It's a new PIC integrated inside the CPU. Now I don't know if it is possible to enable it flowlessly or it's required some extra hardware features. Win64 will run only if the apic is enabled. Don't ask me why... personally I think that a solution will be found in some way. Maybe a software hack to the win64 code to make it work even with apic disabled...

Antonio: that's good news. I don't know enough about APIC, though mentioned it to the notebook support guy, citing our forum. The support guy said he didn't know enough about it to make an informed comment. So, maybe you know the most and could keep us informed of the potential of this beast (which a beautiful machine in a many ways, despite it's drawbacks; but then I upgraded from an IBM Thinkpad 380D:S).

Here's an update to the DDR400 1GB difficulty:

"Dear Sir/Madam,

Sorry I was not more clear. A limitation on the AMD64 processors is the memory controller itself. This limitaiton is that when more than 2 double-sided modules are used on a system with this processor the modules are reverted to DDR333 speeds. I would not suggest using over two double-sided modules for your system. I hope this clears it up a bit.

Best regards,
Ram Guy"

Does anyone know why this answer would deny the possibility of using a single 1GB double-sided ram module? Is it that the controller will read the one double-sided module as two double-sided modules? I've been scouting around for someone with such a module to test it in this lappie. fingers-crossed.

Ciao,

more info about local apic can be found here:
http://osdev.berlios.de/pic.html
near the end of the document it's said that local apic must be enabled by the bios at system startup. It's not completely clear if this apic requires some ad hoc hardware implementation, but I thinks it doesn't. So it's just required a bios that disables the main PIC and anable apic with these instructions:
# ask priority (FEE00080) = 0x20 to inhibit softint delivery
# timer interrupt vector (FEE00320) = 0x10000 to disable timer interrupts
# performance counter interrupt (FEE00340) = 0x10000 to disable performance counter interrupts
# local interrupt 0 (FEE00350) = 0x08700 to enable normal external interrupts
# local interrupt 1 (FEE00360) = 0x00400 to enable normal NMI processing
# error interrupt (FEE00370) = 0x10000 to disable error interrupts
# spurious interrupt (FEE000F0) = 0x0010F to enable the APIC and set spurious vector to 15

I think it should be quite easy for ASUS to implement it... moreover I've heard that the "brother" of this computer, the A4K (very similar, same bios, same motherboard, same CPU, but wide screen) can already run Win64... that's why I'm quite confident that a solution will be found

Antonio: what about flashing the bios with the BIOS of the A4K and try loading Win64? What kind of risk would this present?

Ciao,

I wont suggest this practice: the pc can refuse to boot up again...

Do you know of anyone who has flashed the bios and found it didn't boot up again?

RE: Update to the power adapter problem. Through trial and error, I've determined that the power adapter will work properly if I first plug in the adapter, then plug it into the machine when it is turned off, then boot up the machine. I haven't tested every variable (such as plugging in the adapter, then powering up, then unplugging it, then plugging it in again; unplugging either the wall or the adapter at the computer connection first, etc.). I am happy I have found something that works. I'll experiment more when I have more time. Does this sound like an adapter problem, or a problem with power management within the computer?

A2K ≈ Z80K
A4K ≈ Z81K
http://www.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=...eries&langs=01
http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=...eries&langs=09

i wonder if anyone owns Z81k and get win64 worka.

I would not use the A4K bios for the Z81K, while they are based on the same board, they each have a slightly different bios...

A4K BIOS v.0204A - 382.68 (KBytes) - 2004/11/03
http://www.asus.com.tw/support/downl...e=A4K&Type=All

Z81K Bios v0204 - 380.26 (KBytes) - 2004/11/24
http://www.asus.com/support/download...1K&Type=Latest

If you do update your computers bios, even with one specifically designed for it, make sure you save the original bios image to a disk and that you know the process for restoring it...

Also, if you use the Asus utility to flash your bios, it will make sure that the motherboard is compatible with the new version, if it is not it will not let you flash the bios.