ASUS U500vz/UX51vz Owners' Lounge!

That was it, thanks!

 

Hi,

Anyone else not being able to see the HD4000 on the Device Manager?

Br,
André

 

Both the HD 4000 and GT650M show up under Display Adapters for me.

I still have the issue that when I unplug the charger with the lid open the computer turns on. I guess this is normal behavior but I find it odd that someone would want the computer to turn on if you unplug the charger.

 

HD 4000 shows for me. Have you upgraded to some other display drivers than the default ones?
I have upgraded both the HD 4000 and the GT 650M drivers without problem but that could just be luck of the draw...

 

Hi,

I do not see it under the devices manager, only nvidia shows.
Attaching the only place where I can find the IntelHD400.

Wonder if the HD4000 is disabled because it probably is unable to drive the 2880x1620 pixels of the screen resolution!!!

Can not find any option on BIOS to enable or disable it.

BR,
André

 

Tried finding the HD 4000 specifications but (as usual sadly) Intels site made that very hard. However most display interfaces on the HD 4000 seems limited in resolution so you are most probably right :/

 

Hi guys new user here, I've watched this thread for months now awaiting a proper UK release for this model and now I think it's finally here! However there seems to be some confusion here in the UK about the specs for out version (the U500VZ-CM051H).

Some websites are reporting the screen resolution as "FULL HD, 1920x1080 IPS", however others are reporting the 1378x768 screen.

E.g.
PCWORLD: ASUS Zenbook U500VZ-CM051H 15.6" Touchscreen Laptop - Silver Deals | Pcworld

or

Asuslaptop.co.uk: Asus Notebooks - Superior Mobility - Asus U500VZ-CM051H - Asus Laptop - UK Best Deal Sale Laptops Buy Notebook Computer Discount UK - Buy On-Line Laptops and Accessories for Business and Home

I've emailed various e-shops asking them to confirm the screen res but keep getting conflicting reports! What IS the actual screen res for this model?

Thanks for the help guys!

 

As far as I know there is no version of this laptop with 1366x768 resolution. Various retailers have been screwing up the specs on their sites ever since it started selling online, so I wouldn't be too worried.

 

Hello,
i am a new owner of the 128+128 model

Do you know how can I backup the whole raid0 thing before playing with it?
Is there anyone that has tried to break and redo the raid0, or deleting that strange 16GB partition?

Please I has searched the topic, finding out that one did it, but I want to backup for sure the raid0 thing because I would like to redo it but wiping the recovery and 16GB partitions

Furthermore, do you know if breaking the raid0 makes you lose the warranty?

thanks in advance

 

Hi there,

I'm currently thinking about buying this notebook as well.
The only thing that still makes me cringe is the fact that it uses a proprietary SSD interface.

Since the lifespan of such a drive is determined by it's write cycles, it might die after a few years.
I know that it's possible to replace them, but how do i get my hands on a replacement unit?

Skimming through a few pages of this thread, i found a link to asusparts.eu.
They seem to offer replacement SSD units, but they charge 265€ for the 128GB version and 450€ for the 256GB version.
That's like 3 times the price compared to a regular 2.5" SSD drive.

Are there any other shops around that offer those drives at a lower price point?

Thanks in advance!

 

Hi!
I have some questions regarding the 500GB HDD+ 128GB SSD - version.
Is windows 8 installed on the ssd drive?
Is it possible to replace the 500gb 5400rpm drive to Crucial M500 960GB 2.5-inch ( CT960M500SSD1 - 960GB, 2.5-inch Solid State Drive , from Crucial.com)
//calle

 

How do I replace the HD 4000 driver from ASUS (dated from last year) with the current one? Every time I try that Windows 8 tells me I have the recent one already installed.There must be a trick to circumvent ASUS' policy on that. The Nvidia one is no poblem. I could install the latest one 320.49 WHQL. But the Intel one is not possible with a standard method.

 

Can't answer that.

Should depend on the height of the drive. Download specifications for both drives and compare.

 

Hi,

I also would like to backup my Raid0 256+256 Discs.
After searching a bit around I have found that clonezilla will not be an option since no fake raid is supported.
So the other solution is to startup a Live Fedora Image, and dd each of the partitions to an external HDD, and also save the Partition Table.

Regarding the Rebuild of the Raid0 I have searched Intel documentation, and all point to the Crtl+I to enter the Raid setup. I have tried it, but without any success. All have asked Asus tech support via chat, and they said they had no instructions on how to rebuild the Raid.
Regarding the strange 16GB partition, I reckon it is used by asus/intel Instant On, but I may be mistaken.

BR,
André

 

Hi,

I also tried to find the specifications and the datasheets, but could not find any clear reference. The guess of the HD4000 not being able to drive all the pixels came from here:

13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display review | The Verge

BR,
André

 

Any hint at HasWell refresh? Perfect notebook..... Just plop in a i7 4xxxx and
Maybe nvidia 750 and call it (touch screen model of course )

 

Found the solution myself. Installed the Windows 8.1 Developer's Preview drivers from this post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...soft-windows-8-8-1-who-can-mod-inf-seven.html

Worked for me.

 

Suddenly, the FN+ENTER (numpad) shortcut to start the calculator stopped working - all the other ones seem to work. Does anyone have an idea?

 

Hi guys and girls,

With great joy I bought my magnificent u500vz touch last week.

5 days in, everything is perfect except a bit of a detail:

The intel graphics card seems to be active all the time...the nvidia card is never active, I have updated the drivers, I have the control center thing installed...I tried inside the control panel to set nvidia as prefered. Nothing.

Any ideas?

Fx: every time I run the Windows experience index I get the intel 4000 's score. It's a bit annoying.

Thx!

 

Hi, just purchased the U500VZ 128+128 SSDs in the UK from laptopsdirect.

I had a look at the sizes of the SSDs and Windows 8 is reporting the C: drive as being 88.7GB and the D: drive 111GB. The D: seems right as this is over 120 million bytes, but why is the C: drive missing around 23GB?

I wondered if it was taken up by a recovery partition but I have the option to show hidden drives, folders and file checked and only the C: and D: drive are listed.

Does anyone know why I'm missing 23GB?

Thanks

 

Jason,
It's being used as a recovery partition. You will not see it in file manager even if you show hidden files. You can see it in partition manager. The partition has windows plus all of the added in Asus stuff.

I broke my RAID and reinstalled a clean copy of OEM windows 8 on one drive and Mint Linux on the other, so I regained all of that back. I have the 256 x 2 drive setup.

 

Hi Guilden what guide did you use for doing this?

I have the UK 256GB ssd version and I want a clean w8 install (I too have lost 23gb to a recovery partition). Firstly I can't seem to find a w8 64-bit iso to download in order for a clean install. I understand the w8 product keys are now linked to the motherboard so as long as you install the right w8 version you won't get asked for one?

Ideally I'd like to have a 1 drive system using the whole 256GB, and a clean install of w8 on this. Any advice how to go about it?

Thanks!

 

@Guilden_NL Many thanks for the info

 

@gooner_4ever You can get the key that was used to register your windows by installing and using Belarc Advisor, but I'm not sure whether you have to install an OEM version of Windows for it to worlk.

 

Thanks Jason I found that software last night after reading all 90+ pages of this post! I believe if you install a new w8 it doesn't have to be an OEM version, just use the correct iso file (i.e. type of windows 8 and 32 or 64 bit). However the iso's are only avaliable to technet subscribers at the moment and it doesn't look like they will have a general public release like the w7 isos had. This is the biggest issue right now (apart from using a dodgy w8 iso which isn't ideal seeing as we already have perfectly legal w8 activation keys).

Ideally I just want to get rid of the wasted partitions which currently account for about 30Gb of unavaliable space, deleating the recovery partition will get 20GB back (I'm going to make a recovery usb today). However it still looks like there's extra space missing, as all the partitions that appear in the w8 partition manger (OS, data, recovery and a couple of 300-600MB ones) don't appear to add up to 256GB. Maybe there is another hidden one which isn't appearing?

 

Ok so in w8 partition manager I have the following:

300MB Healthy (EFI System Partition)
900MB Healthy (Recovery Partition)
88.80 GB NTFS ("OS" Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)
111.89 GB NTFS ("Data" Primary Partition)
20.01 GB (Recovery Partition)

In total this is 221.88 GB, so the question is, where is the rest of it!? (I.e. to make it up to 256GB)

I can make a recovery USB in w8 and free up the 20GB recovery partition, but where is the 'missing' 35GB or so? Am I mistaken somehow?

 

If you need to backup, you can try Acronis True Image. It allows to backup entire disk with all partitions and settings. But I am not sure if Acronis will work for this kind of disk. Can someone check this?

 

Windows 8 has it's own option for creating a USB of the recovery partition and it works fine (I used it earlier), it also has a partition manager which I used successfully to delete the (now empty) recovery partition and make it part of the "data" drive. However the real mystery is where is the missing 30GB partition!?

 

Acronis has a possibility to backup not only one partition, but entire drive as well as optional possibilities for backup all free space or even byte by byte backup. Gooner, did you accounted difference between bytes and bits in your calculations?

 

I'm not worried about doing any more backup than the recovery USB (which I've now done via w8). So I'm not worried about needing Acronis. The only issue is the meaning of the small 300 & 900MB partitions on the disk, and the missing ~30GB which isn't appearing (i.e. w8 says there is a total of 221.88GB, yet the SSD should be 256GB).

 

You will never have 256gb of available storage. Missing about 20-30gb actually sounds about right. That's the way drives work, all manufacturers state that in descriptions.

 

Thanks mate that probably cleared it up! I had a feeling it would be something similar.

 

Gooner, I think this could be the answer for your issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte . Scroll down to section "Unit multiplies" and you will see that difference between bytes and bits at about 250 GB is exactly very close to 20 GB. This is the same for all disks (and not only for this one), as you will see the difference between what you purchased and what you see displayed in Windows.

 

By the way, you should be carefully when deciding to delete these hidden partitions as this non standard case could have specific information written into these partitions and after deletion you could be unable to use your SSD. I think you shouldn't delete them unless you know very well what you are deleting.

 

xismo said: "You will never have 256gb of available storage. Missing about 20-30gb actually sounds about right. That's the way drives work, all manufacturers state that in descriptions."

EDIT: AHA! I just read his post that I missed earlier today and I am in agreement with you about this. I deleted my "see my follow up post for more."

 

Huh?!?!?

No idea what you are trying to say here.

As I posted earlier, this is exactly what you get with OEM bloated Windows 8 - it's the OEM Windows loaded with ASUS specific stuff. I'll be kind here, because ASUS is a heck of a lot better than HP, Lenovo or Dell when it comes to loading bloatware. But the reality is that I blew it away, never have missed it and it was the best decision I made about this laptop since I received it.

See my post to gooner_4ever for more details.

 

gooner_4ever,
I didn't use a guide. Frankly, I don't remember the steps that I took but know that they are posted here under my userID and there are some references to others' posts that got me close to what I needed for making a dual boot Linux/Windows 8 set up.

It sounds like you want to break the RAID0 which you have to do in the BIOS. You will then have two 128GB drives in Windows, which I prefer because the performance increase created by RAID0 is not measurable across multiple disk performance programs I used on a before and after. Again, I have two 256GB drives which are partitioned to have Windows in part of a 256GB drive and data in another partition on the same drive. Fragmentation on the Windows side will be much less if you break the system files from the data files. Also, I set the temp directory to that data drive on all of my systems. With SSD, you don't want, nor need to be defragging all of the time, but when you do, this way you limit defrag to the Data drive.

On Linux, I have it set up slightly different, but since you're not running Linux, I won't bore you with the details on that drive. For any potential Linux users out there, there is a slick SSD capability in Linux that enables TRIM just like Windows. Just search for SSD Linux and Trim, you'll find some good info.

As for the OEM license versus using another Windows version - I installed a clean OEM 64bit version of Pro, so I can't confirm this, but it's my understanding that you need a new license above the OEM license key you already have. I get Windows free from MSFT through their developers program, so I haven't tried doing what you plan to do. Your mileage may vary.

 

Thanks for the help everyone it's been most useful! Apart from that, I can't recommend this machine enough. Fantastic design and performance, and exceptional for some light gaming (Warframe at 1900x1080 at high settings runs silky smooth, although the notebook gets a bit hot).

 

I was interested if the new ux51vz 2880x1620 resolution model is available to purchase in UK ?

 

There is not only the difference between 1000 and 1024 bits in a kilobyte but also the file system.

 

Any news on Haswell? This is killing me. I really want the USA "Touch" version but haswell would help the battery life alot.

 

I also waiting for Haswell update, but thinking that last year this model appeared in late autumn, when Ivy Bridge line came out at summer 2012, this might be similar this year to. In that case Haswell update would come in autumn.

 

Damn. Yeah, that was my fear. The 4002Q combined with the 650 or 750 would be a big boon to battery life and heat (not perfromace).

Would be great to get 6-7 hours like some other higher end well build 15.6" laptops with Haswell/740/750 Nvidia.

 

all my understanding of Haswell is that battery life should be better, but performance is similar to gen3 processors and that the built in graphics performance still won't be on par with nvidia 650m unless you get the top tier processor which is too power hungry to put into a laptop.

so what are you all waiting for? doesn't the current setup give you 5.5 hours of normal use? waiting for 30min - 1hour more battery life?

 

I am not sure about Haswell, but I guess that together with energy saving should come the fact that laptops with Haswell processors should be more silent. As there are less energy used, less heat should be produced and that would lead to smaller cooling rates needed. Can somebody confirm, that Haswell laptops are more silent with the same performance compared to Ivy Bridge ones?

 

The data show, at best, performace is only 10% faster on avergage same clock speed.

But the energy use, espeicially when switching to built in GFX (not gaming) is really low.

So even the "cheap" Haswell laptops are gettgin 6-7 hours easy (look at the new HP Envy 15 wiht the 4002Q+640M)

Of course if the 650M (or I would assume 750M) kicks in that will suck the battery However, with the lower heat, less throttling of the GFX which is a good thing.

 

[deleted, new anwser]

 

Well I said nothing about that, think you meant to quote the next guy that responded

As for noise and heat, I'm not sure about anyone else but for me the fans (therefore the noise & heat) only kick in as soon as the nvidia gpu starts being used, and haswell certainly won't change that. When only the cpu + igpu are in use it's silent enough that I can't hear it.

 

The AUSPCMarket page for this product in Australia has the following in their description:

Battery Life: Up to 10hrs (new type 8-cell)

Any ideas on this, as I haven't seen information on it anywhere else......

 

I just swapped the 4GB RAM of my UX51VZ-CN036H with a Crucial 8GB DDR3L 1600 SODIMM (CT8G3S160BMCEU), but the system won't detect it, only the soldered 4GB show up in system settings. In CPU-Z application the shown 4GB are marked as single channel. The 8GB SODIMM is Mac compatible, but has the same specs (latency etc.) as needed.

Did you made any changes to BIOS or system settings? I also flashed my BIOS to 204 before upgrading the RAM.

Or could it be that the SODIMM has to be dual channel compatible, because there is an 'S' in the product code, which could mean 'single channel'.


THX in advance!