V1J/P Owner's Lounge

thanks mselley for your info... how did you open the plastic cover on the hinges?

Mine crack on the left side... not the right side. left side means the nearer to the ESC key.

I have tried to put in super glue to mend the crack.. but it didn't work.

You really had a bad experience with this model....

 

ok easyest way is to close the screen. get a small flat head screw driver and just put it under the plastic cover on the back of the laptop and gently pull towards you it sould then just come off really easily it will most likely just pop off as u put the screw driver behind. (it doesnt take any force at all so if it is taking any force then its not right).
lemme know if u manage to get it off
if not ill post a picture up but im sure u can figure it out.

 

Disasssembly manual here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=364556
in case you need it.

 

Thanks for the guide.....

I managed to open the hinge cover and in the midst of looking for the right size spanner to do the job.... i tried to clamp and turn with a pair of pliers but the screws are simply too tight, so no luck there.....

I suspect the spanner is a size 4 or 5 but i couldn't find it in the hardware shop yet... got to try another shop...

The guide is really too advanced for me...hopefully i don't have to go to that stage.

 

yer guessing ure having stiff hinges if you cant even move it! its also good cause u can fine tune how stiff you want ure hinges. i make them fairly soft and smooth but not soft enough to move wen using it... im installing a new wireless N card into mine so i have to go through most of the steps in that guide should be fun

 

i finally managed to loosen the hinge, it wasn't as easy as taking the hinge cover off and loosening it.... i got to take most of the screen off and after much struggle with spanner and pliers after countless hours... finally manage to get some control on the hinge.... now it is soft and smooth....

after it is done... i was really glad the machine manage to power up..... you couldn't believe what went thru.....

 

i just installed my new Wireless N card in the V1Jp wired in the 3rd antenna aswell!! working great would reccomend to anyone wanting wireless N and is not scared to completely dismantle there laptop. Had to dismantle absoltely everything lol fun fun!! glad your hinges are nice again good to see my method is not just for mine! Random question you know the light that comes on when web cam is active? if anyones is working can you please tell me the driver version you are using? as mine does not come on since reinstalling windows xp pro. Thanks

 

Like you have seen, disassembly is not actually that difficult when you get down to it -- although it may seem a bit daunting at first sight.

 

Hi guys, i just changed my hdd to a larger one and the recovery disc doesnt work. Can anyone help?

 

Could you give more details / in what way doesn't it work?

Have you formatted the HDD, and set one (e.g., the first) partition to be active (i.e., bootable)?

 

Was just passing through and was surprised to see people still talking about V1J.

So, I figured I'd do a nice 2.5yr followup review (yay ).

In general, everything is still working. Not really looking to upgrade yet, since it works just fine and I'm somewhat disappointed that they aren't seeming to be continuing the V1 line.

Still kinda annoyed at Intel how they changed the socket on us for the laptops, destroying any possibility of upgrading my T7200 to anything else. That would've been like twice they say "no, we won't" but then did it anyway (not quite as bad compared to desktops, but still bad).

So, the current state of things:

Optical drive:
Still working fine, though it really only sees light use. Should be easily replaceable if you find the right drive that fits the bezel.

GPU:
Still working just fine, however the most I ever pushed the card was for MPC-HC and dual monitor.

Battery:
Still working. After getting that replacement battery about a year and a half ago, haven't had any battery problems. The old one used to drop from 40% to 10% in an instant and would always lose 4% capacity each time that happened (I minimized this by using the modular battery until I got the new one). It's more like the newer one would routinely reset itself or something.

Unfortunately, the modular battery is finally showing signs of age and it's not always charging 100%.

Docking station:
Still working just fine. Sometimes needs to be properly (re)seated, but that always happens.

Modular HDD bay:
Still works, but never really saw much use considering that the modular battery tended to be a lot more useful and I got an eSATA Expresscard that works just as well (with the exception that being near the CPU HS/fan that the card gets heated a fair bit).

Upgrades:
RAM: 2x2GB Kingston DDR2-667 (of which it only sees 2944MB)
HDD: 320GB Hitachi 7200rpm (had a 200GB 7200rpm before that)

Not really much else you can upgrade unless you want to tear out the 3945ABG card.

Casualties:
- Laptop bag: The armstrap on the bag that came with it snapped, causing the bag to smack the ground (hard).
- Laptop cover: Because of the above, the bottom left corner behind the screen got dinged/cracked (not the hinge). Fortunately, no damage to the screen or anything else. Laptop still works fine. Using an ASUS/Targus backpack now...
- Expresscard insert: Since it's not a solid card, one of the thin parts snapped, so now the card goes in but sometimes slides out.
- Stickers: Some of them had to be relocated since they were peeling.
- Fingerprint reader: Seems to have more and more difficulty reading (says "Bad quality" a lot more often than it used to). How do you clean this damned thing?

Post-Use Comments:
- damned uDVI isn't HDMI w/ audio. (blame ATI, I guess)
- thermal dissipation capacity isn't what it should be for that type PC.
- speakers aren't terribly powerful (would've been nice to have some Altecs)
- why only three USB slots? And two of them on the same root hub as some other integrated devices?!
- why only 2944MB of RAM instead 4GB? (I know, Intel chipset limitation, memory mapping, etc, but still. )
- annoying lack of ATI driver updates (having to find them elsewhere when they're not as readily available)
- damned battery ordeal, even though I didn't get as badly affected as some other people.
- damned Intel for making a new socket.

Otherwise, still more or less happy with it. Though not sure where they're heading with their future models, though...

Uhh, post-review gripe: (10/18/09)
- Can't seem to use X1700 at full power without causing it to crap out. Needs to always be on battery-optimized. Full-performance mode on the ATI control panel will cause it to overheat after a while and VPU Recovery will have to unlock the system (using Mobility Catalyst 8.6, don't think it really made a diff, though)

 

Not sure if it had a glitch, but I vaguely remember the recovery process using the on-disk partition for some parts for some odd reason, then it would copy stuff from the CD.

Plus the fact that the image utility they use for the recovery disk isn't terrific. It took a really long time to reinstall, moreso than if they had done unattended install scripts. I ended up reinstalling it onto my original disk and activating everything, then ghosting the entire disk to another disk. I keep the original disk on the side just in case (as much of a waste that is).

 

Nice.

So is this a V1S battery or just a V1J battery from a later batch?

I never did solve the battery issue on my V6J.

That's bad My M6 and V6 bags are still working solid. The V6 bag has been carrying the laptop to and from work every day for 3.5 years now (!!). Nowadays it's carrying the F6. Never used the 13.3" bags (W7, F6)

So do you have darker patches on the case where the stickers used to be?
Cleaning the FP reader, I don't know... sanitary alcohol? That's usually safe but who knows.

 

It was a V1J one from a later batch (this is the replacement I got, not the original one), though I suspect it's mostly a hit or miss sort of thing from what I've been told. One thing I did notice is that it was made in a different location compared to the old one, and the part number seemed to be a lower value (but the serial number was a newer value).

One of my friends with a V6V apparently went through three batteries. He's at the point that he just plugs it in as much as possible to minimize the wear.

Probably partly my fault for overstuffing it with all the extra modules I had for it.

Uhh, never removed them. They're in the perfect place to protect the palmrests. But my Z63A doesn't have a bit of patching. I suspect it varies from person to person.

Have to dig up the manual, it probably says how to clean it up.

 

It's been 4 years now since i bought my V1J. I still use it at work and like it.

Sure it's a bit noisy but runs at 60-80c depending on the workload and keeps pretty cool on the outside.

The design wasn't cool even at 2006, but today the elevated webcam on top of the screen sticks out like a sore thumb. 1.3 megapixels, oh lawd.

It's ugly too. You can tell there's been some palms on that rest for sure. The screen hinge has cracked.

There's an ever-so-subtle flicker on the screen, and switching to win7 marked the return of the weird screen bug causing an effect I can only call 'screen noise'. It's pretty subtle though too, and apparently not worth fixing permanently by the good people at ASUS. Which reminds me, the battery bug was never fixed either as far as I know, and the poor b_astard has been permanently plugged in for a long time because. But this wasn't a road warriors weapon of choice anyhow, mind you.

All in all, it works. The screen is still vibrant and has zero dead pixels, the keyboard is a bit shiny but otherwise as good as new, and it's reasonably fast with win7 installed. These things are pretty much all that matters. The quality rocks.

Hooray for Asus.

 

Posting just for kicks.

Until about two months, I was still using my V1Jp. Aside from its minor quirks, I haven't seen a better laptop out there. However, software isn't what it used to be and it's been showing its age a LOT lately, so it's been replaced with a Dell Latitude E6420. Had been looking at a B43/B53 for a while, but I was sorely disappointed. I guess someone was sleeping at the switch on this, because:

- whoever was spec-ing these forgot that buying an ASUS was always about the value-added bits that you CAN'T get from other companies. They made it a generic business laptop with no merits whatsoever. So if you drop in, say, a 1366x768 matte screen, that doesn't set you apart from Dell and Lenovo which provide this standard. People buy ASUS because they want/need/expect things that other big companies can't provide or don't have yet (ex: eGPU, mSATA SSDs, multiple HDD bays, FHD IPS panels, extra displays or status indicators like how they were demonstrating SideShow, upgrade kits, etc.). After the whole eeePC thing, ASUS is trying to compete head-on with Apple, Dell and Lenovo and that's simply not the ASUS I remember.
- whoever decided to ditch support for the old accessories in favor of a new one really needs to take marketing lessons, since it would've been a good tactic to keep old customers through retaining parts (you know, like a 200$ dock, a 100$ modular battery, modular HDD bay, etc.),

Anyway, I would've been still using it if it weren't for:
- the fact that Intel dead-ended the processor socket M, making upgrades impossible (a T9400 even at 667FSB would've kept it running for a few more years... TDPmax is practically same give or take a watt, though there's that electrical compatibility thing...). Now MSE and Chrome totally floor the CPU and spin up the CPU fan *very* often and it floors my T7200... (a tested CPU upgrade kit or workaround would've been nice),
- the fact that no BIOS updates were released to fix the memory remapping bit that would allow use of 4GB and more (not even a beta BIOS),
- the fact that no BIOS updates were released to allow use of AHCI for SSDs,
- the fact that they ditched eStore's extended parts inventory in favor of a more basic version that has little more than replacement keyboards. I actually got a replacement cover before they closed the old one, since the corner was cracked (and the hinge issue makes it worse, though you can tape it up to prevent it from doing more damage).

What I like about my E6420 over my V1Jp:
- it's a new 2nd gen i7-2720QM, so it's fast,
- idle CPU fan exhaust doesn't burn you if you leave your hand there long enough (worse as of late since "idle" generates more work than it used to),
- MUCH better battery life (though that's new tech for you),
- flooring the GPU doesn't make your GPU crash (heatsink on V1J was too small, though it was still usable if you limited it),
- Expresscard doesn't get burning hot (CPU placement in V1J),
- built-in eSATA (that was in the V1S),
- Optimus (Intel integrated saves a lot on the batteries),
- more battery options (6 or 9-cell main, modular bay battery, battery slice),
- trackpad buttons aren't stiff,
- it's not using a crappy mobile ATI chipset that doesn't let you download drivers without modding them.

What I miss about my V1J:
- has a nicer feel (and no rubber palmrests),
- glossy 16:10 screen is a lot more vibrant and bigger than the 1600x900 matte one on the E6420,
- V1J had better media button arrangements and separate keys for disabling and enabling WiFi/Bluetooth,
- Synaptics touchpad flakes less than the Alps one on this unit,
- physical 3.5mm mic connection (E6420 has it only on the dock),
- Firewire (omitted from E6420, but E6520 does have it),
- XP (well, that's a Microsoft thing and new laptops work better on Win7 anyway).

If they only made a newer V1-series as a Core i5 or i7...