ASUS U500vz/UX51vz Owners' Lounge!

Thank you. Can some owner try to run some speedtests while walking away from the router? Just to check if there is some antenna gate like in XPS 15 L521x.
Thank you

 

Hi,
I also plan to make a fresh install. Did you use your Win8 key which came with the machine and retail win8 (not pro)? Did it work to activate it like that?

 

Hmm.. This has been covered in a previous post in this thread (or the other one).

Just go into advanced power settings, display, brightness, disable adaptive brightness (something like that, im not at the pc atm so i cannot check). This will disable the automatic brightness that uses the ambient light sensor to measure ambient light. I disabled this the first thing I did when I got mine and I have not had the problem since.

 

Yeah, ok. But that's a different approach to what I describe. In my opinion what the Intel driver does and what the light sensor does is actually screwing with each other. In my opinion the Intel driver does horrible things to the color and all kinds of bad stuff.

So I disabled that and let my light sensor determine what my maximum brightness/backlight should be, the way it's designed to work. So I guess it's good to have both methods. I absolutely could not stand what the Intel driver did with my screen. :S And with it off, the automatic brightness/backlight works as it does on my smartphone for instance.

 

Yes, I posted about this a while back. Please look at that up. It also lists which ISO file worked for me.

 

Quindor

thnx, I'll have a good look, hopefully that will work. should also calibrate it with my xrite but having trouble installing it for windows 8

 

Can any ux51vz owners confirm whether the SD card slot accepts the full card or if it only holds part of the card and the rest sticks out? I have a desktop that does that, which is okay, but I can't imagine why they'd do that on a laptop. Hard to expand storage or use Windows ReadyBoost.

Also does it support SDXC cards? I want to get a 128gb SDXC card to expand storage. The specs I've seen don't say SDXC. (I think I asked this before, so just bumping this up.)

 

Hopefully this answers your question. Having this stick out of your laptop the whole time is NOT a good idea.

On the size question. The biggest card I have is a class 10 32GB card. It works fine, didn't check speeds. Sadly have nothing bigger.

 

Ugh. This was *almost* the perfect laptop. Sad that something so simple got overlooked. It's not a showstopper for me, but this is a strange choice for sure.

 

I just did some sequential performance benchmarks on the SD card reader of the ux500. This was using an Transcend 32GB Class 10 SDHC card. Speeds are what I'm used to with other card readers. Don't have any faster cards.

 

Hello...where can I buy the ASUS ZENBOOK Touch U500VZ? If not available yet, do you know when it will be?
Thanks in advance

 

Yes I noticed it darkens a little.

 

Where do you live? Eventually, would you accept to import it from another country?
On a side note: did you try at least a basic Google search?

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

Double, sorry

 

No Antenna gate on the UX51. The Wifi works way better than my XPS. Rock solid so far. Very sensitive antennas also - I find all kinds of networks I have never seen before.

As for the SD card slot - I have not tested it more. Can others confirm the fact that it does NOT lock like a normal SD card reader and to remove there is no push-in with spring-out. My card just lays in the slot, with 2/3 outside of slot and can fall out from a simple touch.

Ethernet connection:


Next to wireless router:


Other side of house:


HD Speed Test results
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2 x64 (C) 2007-2012 hiyohiyo
Sequential Read : 876.736 MB/s
Sequential Write : 603.237 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 677.906 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 565.007 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 25.722 MB/s [ 6279.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 46.718 MB/s [ 11405.7 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 242.612 MB/s [ 59231.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 203.864 MB/s [ 49771.4 IOPS]
Test : 1000 MB [C: 5.6% (24.4/439.0 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/12/07 20:11:13
OS : Windows 8 Professional [6.2 Build 9200] (x64)

 

So just a curious question for the owners...

A couple reviews have pegged the ux51vz as being .99 inch thick. But official specs say 19mm, which would be about .75 inch.

At first I thought the reviewers were mixed up, or that they must be including the feet in their measurements. But then the same .99 inch (oddly specific) was called out in another review.

Then I noticed that the reviews were comparing to the MBPr, and my impression was that they were similar. But when I looked up their MBPr, they reported that it was just less than .75 inch.

So they must be measuring inconsistently, reporting inconsistently, or the ux51vz is actually 25% thicker than the MBr. Naturally, none of the reviews have shown a picture of the two next to each other or stacked on top of each other so there's no visual indication either.

So for the owners - which is it? Is the ux51vz about the same as MBPr at .75 inch/19mm as in the specs? or .99 inch like in the reviews?

Thx!

 

Thank you very much for the tests!

 

I suspect it's .99 when measured from bottom of the feet..?

 

hey guys,

does anyone of you have experience with an asus guarantee extension ?
im thinking about paying 79€ for a guarantee extension from 2 to 3 years..
thx in advance for any advice!

 

I think there isn't much to say about the Asus warranty specifically. It's more an overall matter of personal taste whether you would consider it worthwhile to pay extra for the added insurance. On average, companies profit from these warranty extension sales, so on average the consumer loses money on the deal. However, individual results will vary.

 

I'm torn between the Asus Zenbook 15" [lighter but fan always on and also no optical drive - although there should be one in the box] and the Asus N56VZ [heavier and cheaper price]... help please

 

Me too. Performance is almost the same and very good. You just have to decide if you believe that the price premium of the UX51 is worth (for you) the much better build quality and the much better form factor. For me, it highly depends on how much this premium will be: in Italy it isn't available yet, but if I can get the 128+128 or (better) the 128+500 (HDD) configuration for <=1700€ it will be worth it to pay the premium

About fans: some people feel them as a problem, some other don't. In case you fall in the "bothered side", I believe that it won't be a problem for a long time: it's not a "design issue" (like throttling in XPS 15), it should be just a matter of software tweaking. Thus, I think that a solution will be available soon.

 

To the fellow who was asking a few pages ago, it'll quite happily take SDXC cards. I'm using one to store media atm.

 

awesome. thx for the info. i'm still bummed that the card sticks out though. it would have been nice to use it as additional permanent storage. it's a strange choice for a laptop to have that type of card slot.....

 

Maybe there wasn't enough space for keeping the whole card inside the laptop

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

I highly doubt that. Even my 10 year old Toshiba laptop has a proper SD card slot where the card goes in completely and gets locked in with a reassuring click.
Never came across a laptop with such a bad implementation of the port.

Maybe some 'clever' guy at ASUS thought that it might not be a good idea to provide an easy and comfortable way to increase the storage of the laptop.

 

Perhaps. But I think this would be a questionable SD card implementation on *any* mobile device -- let alone an otherwise non-expandable $2000+ machine.

Usually this port is referred to as SD "expansion" storage. But in this implementation it couldn't be considered expansion in my view, but only a temporary mechanism to get files on/off an SD card, such as importing photos/videos from a camera, or just having it there to watch a movie or transfer other files. In particular, if the card doesn't lock in place you would have to be especially careful because otherwise you could easily lose SD cards.

Compared to the fan as an issue, I expect the fan will ultimately be fixable with a software update at some point. But an SD card slot like this isn't fixable at all. Ever.

I'm just glad I didn't complete purchase of a 128gb sdxc card, because this simply wouldn't work as I had expected.

 

On a slightly different note, what driver are you guys using for the WiFi? I'm starting to get desperate, my connection keeps dropping no matter what combo of drivers i try.
I think the original preloaded drivers gave the best performance but still had dropping issues - it is very much visible when downloading a torrent, the speed goes up and down like a rollercoaster, at the bottom point the connection is lost and then reconnected and the speed starts rising.

Using the wifi suite on the ASUS support site for the UX51VZ is even worse... Then i tried installing ONLY the drivers from that suite (without the Intel ProSET software, whatever that is), but still no visible improvement.

Can you share which version of the intel drivers are you using and where did you get them from?

 

Have you ever worked on notebook computers? I have and have worked on lot of machines from the '90ies forwards and one thing that is clear is that the newer the machine is the less space they have internally. The one exception is a Toshiba Portege that was pretty packed however the thin machines now have less space.

Having it hanging out saves approximately 16x3x30 mm in a pure SD card reader and I imagine more in a combo card reader. And space is at a premium as seen here ( http://www.notebookcheck.com/typo3temp/pics/e7c3a018ba.jpg ) as we don't see the underside of the PCB it's hard to say if there's more ICs and/or passive components on the underside but even ignoring that the screw placement would almost certainly interfere with a deeper placed card reader. I'd wouldn't be surprised if a deeper reader would interfere with the keyboard too.

Most people use the card reader for transferring photos and not as extra storage and for that use this design is IMHO better (I had a recent machine with a marginal as designed push-push mechanism and even with a lot of care I scratched the chassis when trying to eject the card).

With that said I'm planning to see if there's a micro SD converter that is small enough not to hang out.

 

Hmmmmm... Interesting idea... Let us know if you find one!

and btw. for me, I don't question whether space is at a premium in ultrabooks. They obviously have to make compromises. So for the SD card sticking out, I'm sure they had a lot of discussion about what to include. They might have even considered doing microSD instead of SD.

At this point it doesn't matter, since this is what the ux51/u500 has. I was simply surprised by it, taken off-guard. For my own purposes of wanting to add storage to such a nice machine, my compromise would have been a centered keyboard with no numpad, and include full-size lockable SD card expansion. Aside from surprise, my perspective remains: the SD card sticking out is a bit of a disappointment, but it's not a showstopper for me.

 

I am so confused because I am having terrible trouble with the touchpad on both of the ones I've received, but it sounds like not many other people are... maybe mrmumbles is experiencing what I am too? In fact, it was so borderline unusable that I RMA'd my first one after receiving it when I couldn't fix it through software. I figured it had to be a hardware issue as the problem was still present even after killing the Asus Smart Gesture software, and even revert back to a default Microsoft driver. (Both of which I did in the process of updating the touchpad software from 1.0.32 to 1.0.35)

The mouse can go from an accurate input device with no trouble at all, to a jagged response intermittently. When the mouse is working for example, it is no trouble to move the mouse ONLY in a horizontal direction or ONLY in a vertical direction. When the mouse stops works right, it jumps sparratically in the general direction of where you are trying to move taking a path of a jagged lightning bolt. In this state it is impossible to make fine movements, or ONLY move straight in either the horizontal or vertical direction. Even with just your finger on the touchpad, the mouse is bouncing around uncontrollably. The problem comes and goes, without any reaction by the user. That said, it sometimes seems if I toggle my touchpad on/off, (Fn + f9) that the responsiveness comes back. mrmumbles, maybe this works for you as well?

This really feels like a huge issue, I can't be the only person experiencing this, right? I must have missed the fix when I was reading through dozens of pages on here... I would greatly appreciate anyone's suggestions or advice, thanks!

 

I was thinking of this for added storage:

Newegg.com - PQI U822V 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Model 6822-032GR3XXX

I also have a mSATA 120 gb drive from my old laptop. With a 1.8" USB 3.0 enclosure, that's a really compact way of adding more flash space.

So I have a new problem! The internal webcam seems to not function all the time. It's very finicky.



EDIT/UPDATE:

Holy crap! So when I insert an SD card, my webcam disappears and becomes "disconnected". Can anyone else replicate this issue? Just have your Device Manager open, then insert an SD card. Then go to "View" and click "Show hidden devices". You'll then find your webcam, but it will be non-functional.

 

Update:

I have almost confirmed that it is a hardware issue, unless any off you can shed some light on this. The problem is the worst when the laptop is plugged into the AC adapter and sitting isolated on a table. If you are only touching the laptop by your finger on the touchpad, what does your mouse on the screen do? Is it steady? Mine is unusable. If I unplug the AC adapter, everything works fine. Alternatively, if the laptop is in my lap, (with pants, no skin contact) the mouse behaves rock solid. Lastly, if it is on the table and jumpy, if I place the hand I am not using with the touchpad on the frame of the laptop, the mouse responds much more accurately.

I can not imagine how this could be a software/drivers issue. However, what troubles me is receiving two identical units, both with the same hardware issue. Do you guys just typically work with your laptops from your lap? Or do many of you just use a mouse? Thanks again in advance

 

I traded mine in for a new one. I booted into a USB version of winxp and still had issues. I noticed that my trackpad was slightly lower on the left side towards the front. I just figured the trackpad was defective. If the next one is messed up its going right back. This will be my 4th new laptop in 2 months. What is up with dell and asus QC?

I never use a mouse. It's always on my lap.
I didn't have any luck with it unplugged or not touching the frame.

 

Hi sockfish,

I bought the U500VZ-CN046H laptop in Bruxelles (Belgium) and got the same issue.
When I play music having bass turned on and NO external subwoofer, the right speaker has distorded sound.
If I balance the sound on the left speaker only, the sound is fine.
If I balance the sound on the right speaker only, the distorded sound comes back.
If I plug in the external subwoofer, the right speaker is fine.

I returned the laptop to the shop and will get a new one soon.
I hope that I will not get a new defect laptop, like you with the BSOD due to graphic card :-/

Anthony.

 

Have you found any store in the world that actually has the 128 GB SSD + 500 GB HDD configuration? Because it's included in the official U500VZ page, but I can't find any evidence of its existence

 

Anthony, sorry to hear that you had a similar problem. My replacement laptop (number 3!) still has some distortion on max volume and bass, but it's non-disruptive and both speakers are consistent. By "disruptive" I mean that even if you play music at half volume or watch a movie, the sound comes out so muddled that you can barely hear it.

As for the webcam, mine seems to be extremely fickle, and not entirely related to the SD card. At this point I'm not entirely sure if it's worth returning and buying a new one again. I'm glad others are aware that there are some serious QC issues here, and as a sore point to anyone else considering buying this is to make sure your retailer has a return/exchange policy that doesn't involve any out-of-pocket costs (like shipping). It's bad enough that your new $2000 laptop doesn't work like it should, but having to pay $50 each time is not cool.

And don't even consider ASUS repairs unless it is something major. With shipping and repair time, you could be looking at at least one month of downtime and even then, the possibility of not having the problem fixed.

 

My ¤#")="! dog chewed on my charger... still works but looks awful. God damit.

Anyone knows a place to buy a replacement charger, if I decide to get an extra? On asusparts.eu there is no ux51vz, and looking at the other zenbooks they only have 45/65W chargers.

For your viewing pleasure.. not mine. FAWKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

 

Yikes!

It doesn't look the same but the part number is the same

90w ASUS EXA1202YH charger ac adapter

When I contact ASUS about a second power supply, they told me that it isn't available as an accessory and that I should contact my local ASUS technical support folks.

 

Quindor: Thank you! It took a few seconds to work but you've saved my day!!!! Can't believe the difference.

 

Does anyone know if its possible to get the touch screen version in the US? I've tried googling it and haven't found anything. :/

 

Sorry to repost this, but please can somebody who are content with their wifi performance tell me the version number of the wifi drivers and where did they install it from (e.g. asus drivers site, preloaded install, ..)

 

Absolutely no issues whatsoever, brilliant speed and performance with signal drop off only starting to occurr at around 15m from my router. The drivers I'm using are the preloaded ones on the laptop.

 

Same here. Preinstalled WiFi Drivers working flawless!

Version 15.5.4.45

 

Sometimes the speakers of my u500 doesn't work. But when I restart the laptop, the speakers work again...
Are here people who experience the same problem?

 

Asus Wireless Radio, Driver Date: 06-01-2012, Version: 1.0.0.1
Intel Centrino Advanced N 6235, Date: 09-12-2012, Version: 15.5.4.45

Both drivers came preloaded and as I said previously my WiFi works great. No drops at all, good distance, excellent sensitivity and speed.

HTH.

 

gimme, where does Asus Wireless Radio stand in Device Manager?

thanks all for the answers!

 

hello. can i add hdd to u500 model with 2 x 256 ssd? is there place for hdd?

 

Same here, wirelss works great. Clean Install of Windows 8 with newest Intel drivers.

I did some tests with both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, all works as I would expect it. I can easily get 10MB/sec close to my AP's and a bit further away I still get around 6MB/sec, same as my previous laptop.

 

6th item under System devices.