Questions before getting the HP/Compaq r3000z

[ramificatio]

I am concidering the Compaq r3000z notebook but I have some questions first.

1. Is it possible to change the CPU to the LV mobile Athlon 64 2800+ (35W max) instead?

2. After recieving the notebook, what kind of battery conditioning shoud I do? Is there an option for this in the bios?

3. What memmory should I get? I was planing on ordering it with the 256MB stick and then myself get either two 512MB sticks for a total of 1024MB or one 1GB stick for a total of 1.25GB. What brands will work and is it possible to mix diffrent sized memmory sticks like 256MB and 1GB? Is the 256MB stick under the keyboard and the user accessible memmory slot empty if ordered with 256MB? What brands will work?

4. Also I'm leaning towards the WVA WUXGA (1920x1200) screen. Is it sharp? This resolution is OK with me aslong as the screen is sharp enough. The price seams so low for this option so I feel have to ask first. Anyone else has this screen and can confirm if it is a good or bad chocie?

5. Will older games (DirectX8.0 and less) like Age Of Mythology, Warcraft III, Rise Of Nations, Neverwinter nights, Black & White etc play ok on this notebook in UXGA resolution? I read someone played DOOM III successfully at 800x600 with this notebook. I don't really care about new FPS games though, I have the XBOX for that, but I miss strategy games pretty bad since I got rid of my desktop and hoping this notebook could take care of that.

6. What program are best to use for testing the stabillity/memmory?

7. Also what rebates are available with HP? I can only find the $30 cash back.

Anything else I should think about before ordering or any other helpfull tips and thought regarding the r3000z is appriciated.

Thanks.

 

[fbrdphreak]

I work at Best Buy so I get these questions all day long pal. Here's the low-down

(1) If there is an option, you will see it on HP's website. I've never seen that available, but if you want to be 100% sure: e-mail HP sales support. They're pretty quick and knowledgable.

(2) There's no "battery conditioning" BIOS option, but here's the general rule of thumb for Li-Ons: Charge it fully and then completely discharge about four times in a row before using normally. After that, make sure you do a FULL discharge of the battery every couple weeks or so to improve the life of the battery. Other than that, I haven't heard of anything else.

(3) Your memory plan sounds like a good idea. Brand wise, the only way to be 100% sure of compatibility is to order Crucial from my experience. Realistically, getting some quality RAM (Crucial or not) should work fine. The laptop WILL take 1GB sticks, so you can just get a 1GB. Doing that will pretty much max that laptop out for whatever you might use it for, but getting 512MB now would be more cost effective and you can always dump the other 256MB for another 512MB or even 1Gb stick. Its up to you. Personally, I would use something like Corsair if you didn't want to go with Crucial.

(4) From what I've seen, the UXGA screens are beautiful. I've not seen a UXGA 15.4" screen, but the new Sony laptops with 17" come UXGA and OMFG it is nice. Now, the Sony's do have the X-Brite screen which gives you a brighter picture at the cost of more glare; but in my opinion the UXGA is worth it. At least get SXGA, but if you're going all out; do it right

(5) Older games should work fine. The only concern would be that some games won't adjust to the wide-screen res (i.e. 1920x1200), they might only do a standard screen res like 1600x1200. That is game-dependent. For the most part, I wouldn't worry.

(6) You can't beat Prime95 to test system stability, or MemTest86 for memory specifically. Also downloading the free version of SiSoft Sandra has lots of benchmarking and burn-in utilities. Pick one

(7) Ordering directly through HP generally only gets you $30-$50 MIR. If you want bigger discounts, go into a retail store; like BEST BUY. Depending on the sales week, we offer up to $250 in MIR on any Configure To Order System (i.e. what you are looking to do). Sometimes our CTO prices are higher than the website, so depending on who you talk to you can probably get your store to match HP's site. A word of advice: the extended warranty that HP gives you is nice because they have accidental coverage and all that. Read the fine print: they will replace each major component only ONCE. This refers to screen, mobo, batt, etc. Also, HP does not cover the performance of the battery. Depending on your needs and uses, the BBY service plan covers everything except abuse & software and they give you a new battery each year for free (and you keep your old one). That is your call on it, but BBY's service plan's are some of the most comprehensive in the industry.

Good luck and PM me if you have any more questions

 

[vegetation]

I've had the R300Z for two weeks now. Fantastic laptop in my opinion, for the price I paid.

1) Nobody I know of has attempted to change the CPU themselves. This would surely void your warranty. I suggest you buy the A64-3400+ if you want ultimate power savings as apparently HP ships this configuration with the latest stepping; the other cpu's offered come with the older, slightly more power hungry, c0 stepping.


3) I bought Kingston memory online for $85 shipped on a 512 stick a week ago. Works great. My memory unit was not matched up with Kingston's configurator, but rather I just searched for regular PC2700 sodimm. I now have 768mb and that seems to be decent enough for my sessions under winxp.

4) My screen is the WUXGA 1920x1200 resolution. The resolution is almost like looking at paper, very sharp. Yes, HP charges very little for the upgraded screen but I read an article somewhere that the UXGA panels actually only cost about $100 more over an XGA when bought in bulk, but usually the laptop builders will charge you a lot more. Looks like HP is not trying to take advantage here. Big thumbs up for HP/Compaq.

5) One crappy thing is the Geforce4MX chip in this unit. Some old games just don't display properly, like midtown madness, bummer. Basically, any compatibility issues with the GF4MX will show itself here.