M50Sv: Review & Owners' Lounge

Disregard my previous post, Asus global server still not stable, I re-update the link using other manufacturer's link.

 

Trying to install XP Pro SP2 on my new M50Sv. Anyone know anything about getting the sata drivers so I can install it?

 

SATA Driver for XP:

http://www.gentechpc.com/Asus/SATA-integration.zip

First you need to slipstream the SATA driver, the easy way is go into the BIOS and set the IDE controller mode from Enhance to Compatible mode.

 

Ken, thanks for the help, but this one is still not working.

 

Sorry if this has been asked before, but this is quite confusing.
I bought this laptop a week ago and was surprised to find the s-video cable (the little s-video to rca adaptor thing) in the box but no s-video out or any s-video port on the laptop itself (olny the HDMI port). I was wondering if this was the case for everyone (since from the pics in the review I saw that the cable was included but there were no s-video ports on that laptop either).

 

Mine did not come with an S-video port either, I was rather disappointed at this fact, as I don't have a Plasma or LCD TV to make use of the HDMI or VGA port for outputting video. I think something like this would work though. (Yet another expense... /sigh).

 

What I don't understan is why they included a s-video to RCA adapter cable in the box if there is no s-video (or RCA) port on the laptop itself. There are only 2 cables in the box if you don't count the power cable, so one would think that they only chose to include necessary cables.

 

To confuse you, of course. I think since there are a few different models of the m50, they just have a "general package" they put with each one, instead of making several different 'packages". Not like that cable cost them much to make, anyways, I'm sure giving away a few extra cables (even if they don't fit certain models) would cost less in the long run than making 5 different ones for each model variation.

 

@ GenTechPC,

Q: Where are you guys located? In CA?

G!

 

I think this is the exact address of Gentech in CA:

1420 E. Cypress St
Covina CA 91724 US

 

Will this notebook provide a 1920x1200 resolution to an external 24 inch monitor using the HDMI?

 

If it has HDMI it should. At worst you can do it with VGA/DVI -> HDMI

 

First of all, thanks to emporiumboutique for answering my last question,
now I would like to know if there is a way to get the mail light to work with yahoo mail, and if not then at least gmail or hotmail...

 

I'm not sure that light works with web-based mail clients. I think you need an offline client like Thunderbird, for instance.

(but I'm not sure about this, there may be ways to do it)

I know TBird has an extension that does it, called ThunderLED.

 

there must be some small program that can check my mail, and light up the LED...

 

AFAIK, there isn't a program that does that. You could however, link your yahoo, gmail and other e-mail accounts to outlook or other offline clients like EBE suggested... that way the light would work.

 

I think you have to get Yahoo mail Plus (20 bucks a year) for POP3 access...

 

Yep that's correct. Don't the other clients supply POP3 by default?

 

You don't need POP3 to link an e-mail to outlook.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA012316341033.aspx?pid=CH100776841033#5

 

I believe so, 7-8 years ago it was also free with yahoo...
I guess I could forward everything to a gmail account and access that w/ POP3...

 

I just tried, and it didn't work for yahoo...

 

THANKS Feris!

G!

 

Gmail is better than Yahoo by far.
It will be the best decision you've made.

Good luck

 

ThunderLED didn't work for me either, it seems that ASUS changed their ACPI calls in the M50. I did get the email LED to work in Linux.

 

ok, got a strange little problem. I'm at work trying to conserve battery life so i turned my brightness way down, well every 5 mins or so it automatically readjusts the brightness back up to a normal level. My ambient light sensors in disabled and i don't really know what else could be causing this...any ideas? thanks

 

I have a problem, my battery stops charging at 99% how can I fix this?

 

Are you in power saving mode?

That's not a problem at all... I have 99% as well on mine. If it really worries you, you can calibrate your battery.

 

Are you using XP with SP3?

 

Yup i had it on battery saver

 

Ken says that this hotfix is needed. Did you install it, or did you find that the audio worked fine without it?

 

Yes, I'll installed it. You'll need the hotfix if you installed SP3.

 

OK, thanks!

 

How do I do that on this laptop?

 

yah 'm having the same problem :/

do you turn it down to 2 or 3 above the lowest setting at it keeps adjusting to middle/high brightness?

 

Go to the BIOS by holding F2 key when first turn on the computer.

Also I've read somewhere on the internet that the Li-Ion batteries take sometimes of full charge to reach 100% capacity.

 

In general I wouldn't worry about a few percent (say at most 4%) variance in the charge readout of an (ASUS) battery. They just seem to vary like that, lately.

If it is consistently at (lower than) 95% for instance, then you can start worrying, calibrating, etc.

 

Check to see if your "LCD Power Saving" is enabled in your BIOS.
It's in your BIOS and under "Power"

 

In my experience that setting has little effect (although I never had the brightness reset problem so I can't say whether it'll affect that or not).

Wasn't that brightness-reset problem solvable by removing some LCD power-saving feature in the Vista power-profile, instead? I remember only vaguely but I think it was something like that. Or maybe in Power4Gear...

 

Hmm.. you're right. The Bios setting doesn't have any affect on the LCD brightness nor does it affect the ability for the user to set the brightness.

 

Yeah, it's a mystery to the human kind what that option does. I think it is intended to remove the auto-LCD-dimming when running on battery, if Disabled, except that is hardwired behavior. So it does nothing, really.

 

I've had the strangest problem for the last couple of days, After the computer comes out of sleep (not every time, just sometimes, usually after the computer has been on or in sleep for at least 6 hours or so) the following things happen:

1) Smart logon won't work, it shows the frame at the top but the camera won't turn on, and the cursor is in circle (hourglass) mode when over the frame.
2) After logging in, all messenger programs won't work and if they are off and I try to start them they freeze while starting and even "end process" in the task manager doesn't exit them
3) If I try to start LifeFrame it freezes at the splash screen, and ending process doesn't help either
4) I also tried disabling the camera driver during an episode like this and that froze too...

So basically the webcam is causing the computer to freeze, although I did "stress test" it by filming for 20 minutes straight and it worked fine so I don't think it's related to the "stops working after 3 minutes complaint that I saw a few pages back.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

Where are these drivers sourced from? I'd like to no FFR.

And what about the software for security managment, such as fingerprint authentication and face recognition for log on?

Thanks!

 

I got these drivers mostly from Ken at GenTechPC and some from the manufacturer. Face recognition doesn't work on XP.

 

So are they all actual XP drivers, or are the just the Vista drivers from Asus that just happen to work in XP?

Did you get them here?
http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

Are there any other drivers that I may need, or should have?

What about using the fingerprint reader to log on to XP?

I would like to have as much functionality as I did in Vista as possible.

 

Most drivers are for both Vista and XP not just happen to work on XP, for example the ATK drivers even has the setup file name "2KSetup.exe", that's for Windows 2000.

And in the touchpad driver inf:

; Installs Synaptics Pointing Device driver files on Windows 2000, XP and Vista.
; Copyright (c) 1996-2007, Synaptics, Inc.

[Version]
Signature="$ Windows NT$"

Yes, Windows NT>Win2K>XP>Vista.

The Fingerprint driver is in your Drivers DVD:\ASPM\SETUPIAM.EXE. so you don't need to download it.

 

OK, how do I install the 835221 hotfix? I downloaded the file, and when I extracted it I want to the filder marked "us", which I assume means United States? So in that folder there are two more folders, one marked x86chk, and the other marked x86fre. What do I do with them? Each one has two files in them marked kb835221.

 

So all of the drivers for the M50Sv on the Asus site that are marked for Vista will work for XP then?

 

No exe file? try download it from here:

http://files.filefront.com/kb835221exe/;9494950;/fileinfo.html

 

No not all drivers work on XP and you'll need to download it separately, the XP drivers you'll need to download is listed on page one of this thread.

 

Thanks so much Ken, the one from MS did not have the exe.