ASUS Z63A Whitebook Laptop Review

[Apoptosis]

Today we bring you a special treat. We hooked one of our forum members with all the latest hardware and told him to find a notebook chassis that he wanted to build. He got the parts, ordered the notebook, and wrote up an article on his experience. Read on to find out how a first timer built his first notebook.



Article Link: ASUS Z63A Whitebook Laptop Review
Pricing: Current Price

[bubba]

The Future bitch-slapped me as if the Dell Dude wandered into the Bunny Ranch on ‘2-for-1 Abuse Night’.

LOL good read, full of good info as normal

[killswitch83]

Kudos to the guy who wrote that article, lol. The guy definitely made me want to take a look at the Z63A as a possible Whitebook build in the future....and this:

Actually, The Future bitch-slapped me as if the Dell Dude wandered into the Bunny Ranch on �2-for-1 Abuse Night�.

is priceless, roflmao. Cheers on an awesome review and a good build

[gvblake22]

Yeah, I also enjoyed the underlying 007 theme and priceless "comments"! It made for a very captivating and interesting article. The whole review was full of awesome comparisons and some astounding results indeed! Those Dothan processors continue to impress me. That 2Ghz P-M can match the cpu performance of a desktop P4 at 3.2Ghz!

Very nicely done review, it was a pleasure to read through. Glad you like the new lappy!
Thanks for sharing your experiences with us!

[jodiuh]

Excellent! Lol at all the funny comments. I'm trying like hard to keep my bro from making a mistake with the Dell Lamitude X1 and it's BALL bustin heat issues. This arty should help.

[allenpan]

curious what happen if u put a P-M 1.6 1MB 400fsb cpu in there, will it auto detect as 1.6G or "accident;y" OC to 2.13G? since i don't see jumper for cpu anywhere

[infinitevalence]

It does just that, it OC's to 2.16 if you force the chipset to see it as a 533. Thats how i got mine up to 2.27, with a little peice of wire.

[sbohdan]

It does just that, it OC's to 2.16 if you force the chipset to see it as a 533. Thats how i got mine up to 2.27, with a little peice of wire.

can you share it with us how you did it?

[infinitevalence]

NO! trade secret.... sure i will dig up the info later, must clean up, make dinner, write a 3 page paper, finish my computer organizations homework by 12pm and study for a test tomarrow. but after all that.... no really i will post it, as soon as i feel the need for a distraction.

[gvblake22]

NO! trade secret.... sure i will dig up the info later, must clean up, make dinner, write a 3 page paper, finish my computer organizations homework by 12pm and study for a test tomarrow. but after all that.... no really i will post it, as soon as i feel the need for a distraction.

LOL, sounds about like my schedule lately
I'm like 5 labs behind in my Dreamweaver/PhotoshopCS2 class, a half a lab behind in VB.net, and I have two papers and a test next week!

[killswitch83]

I already have an idea of what he did, but I'm not sure exactly how......it's a trick called the Wire Trick, and it involves jumping either the pins on the processor or the circuits beneath the corresponding holes in the socket with a highly conductive piece of thin gold wire. He can tell you the specifics, as I forgot

[-mogwai]

great article as always, guys diy notebooks are a legitreviews forte.

[shug33]

This is a really good article. I would like to build one of these, and I have a couple of questions:

1. Does the DVD+/_RW require a frame, and does the ASUS DVD unit come with the required frame? I've had problems with incompatible frames with my IBM X31.

2. How do you get Bluetooth? ASUS shows it as an option, but I've not been able to find out what you have to do to implement it.

3. Did you look at the Hitachi 5K100 100GB HDD v/v the Seagate you used?

Thanks - and keep up the good work.

[DMB2000uk]

There is a good 'Pin modding' photo guide on notebookforums.com
If you dont mind visiting what could classed as a rival forum

http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=80879

Its about a third of the way down the first page. And is really clear how to do it. I know its centred around the 'Dell XPS 2' *cough cough* but the pin layout should be the same for all P-M's (provided they are dothan)


Sorry if im stealing your thunder infinitevalence

[killswitch83]

ahh, don't worry about it, it's all good. I think everyone would agree when I say that any form of good, accurate information is welcome here

[soki]

Where we can find this asus whitebook in europe? I can't find it until now in uk and germany!

[smartadze]

Thank you, I had a lot of fun with it. Your questions:

1. The Asus dvd's come ready to click right in, no frame required. They appear on the task bar as a removable USB device, and you can hot-swap with a second hard drive or a secondary battery.
2. I'm not sure the Z63a Bluetooth really exists. It's shown in only one place in the specs ("Fax / Modem / LAN/ WLAN / Bluetooth") as a 'category' rather than a spec pertaining to the Z63a. In any case, I don't think it is an add-on ortion, as I haven't ever come across it anywhere during my research.
3. I like the Hitachi specs but I've never used one. The Seagate Momentus is everything you'd ever want in a notebook drive, however. I'm very impressed.

[kenc51]

Where we can find this asus whitebook in europe? I can't find it until now in uk and germany!

Good question!

[smartadze]

Here are some notes from the review I did:

1.When you install XP, specify two equal partitions on the drive. This allows the use of Casper XP

http://www.fssdev.com/products/casperxp/

Casper performs full disk-clone backups that include the FAT table and serial number, so that the clones are completely bootable (just write a new line in your boot.ini file). Better yet, Casper will run in the background at startup to incrementally update your clone (only the things that have changed) so that you have a continuous, bootable backup of your drive at all times. For a desktop, run a second (cheap) drive for a bullet-proof backup scenario, and it also works with USB drives for a 30-second periodic external backup. Clones are great to boot to for game configurations, for kids or guests, and to benchmark or test out new software.[code][/code]

[smartadze]

2. If you’re going to build your own notebook, personalize it. An old trick is to substitute a unique sound file for start-up or any other Windows event. Any *.wav file will work: download it, go to ‘Control Panel-Sounds-Sounds tab’, select any Windows event in the lower box and do ‘Browse’. Hint: Use ‘Windows Log Off’, not ‘Exit Windows’.

Here’s the 007 Theme and "Bond - James Bond" http://www.moviewavs.com/Movies/James_Bond.shtml

and “Pay attention, 007”. http://www.moviesoundclips.net/sound.php?id=26

Or maybe your hot new laptop gets you so many geek-grrl dates that your rig announces "My name is Pussy Galore". http://www.wavsource.com/movies/bond.htm

Of course, you can also use 2001-Space Odyssey http://www.palantir.net/2001/sounds.html

or Smoke on the Water. http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/pocketinfo/s ... ounds.html