W3j Owners Lounge

Welcome a new W3J owner to this exclusive club . Wow deciding between the W3J and the Macbook Pro was very difficult. But I opted not to join the Apple cult and instead go with an OS that I already use. Anyways I ordered my W3J from PROportable and now just waiting for the shipping notice. Can't wait.

I have one question though, I saw that this notebook has different "Splendid" modes. Do you guys actually cycle through them? Or just use one all the time?

kstaks

 

I use the normal one at all time. Never really change it, unless I accidetally press it when grabbing the notebook, but then I switch it back to normal.

 

Yeah, none of the splendid modes do anything but screw up the colors. None of them seem to actually make anything look "better" they just make things look "different" which isn't really a good thing.

 

guess who jus joined the club?

2gig ram, 80gig 7200 rpm hd, core duo t2400

i couldn't wait anotehr 2months for the refreshed model hahah

 

Where did you order yours from? I just put in my order today from http://www.geared2play.com and I was able to configure it with a t7400.

This is what I ordered ...

ASUS W3J
Core 2 Duo 2.16
100GB Hitachi 7200RPM SATA
Optical Bay Battery Internal
No RAM installed

gonna order RAM from Newegg

 

lol Welcome! I am in your shoes...I couldn't wait either. It is definitly worth it! By the time I'd feel that I'll be in need of upgrading to a 64bit platform, I will probably be getting a new computer anyways.

 

I also ordered my T2400 from www.btotech.com (geared2play), about 3 weeks ago. (GREAT vendor by the way. 5 Stars!!)

I just priced out a clone of my PC, (with options, etc), only with a T7400 Merom (2.13 GHz, opposed to my 2.0 GHz Yonah). The price difference was $390.

===
EDIT: It appears RAM proces have gone up. The actual CPU price difference is $270
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For $320, I can 'buy it now' a T7200 (2.0 GHz) Merom, and install it myself. Since I bought from Eddie (G2P/btotech), I can simply ask him for permission, and do the swap myself whenever I feel I need to, AND retain my warranty! (Eddie, you kick @$$! )

Frankly, I find the $390 a bit steep for my taste (could buy the whole processor off of Ebay for the difference), and I have been LOVING this laptop ever since I got it. It's mega fast, and mega quiet. Beats down games like a champ. I personally could not be happier with my choice of Lappy and Processor.

If you NEED the 64-bit, the extra speed, and don't know how to swap out a laptop CPU (or dont want to mess with it), you can't go wrong with having Eddie and G2P do it for you. For the premium, you get top-notch quality on the CPU-replacement (since it's dealer-swapped) and testing.

 

How are you all W3J owners? Any of you upgraded your processor lately?

 

One more happy owner!

 

make it 2 !!!!!
mine hsould arrive tomorrow
gonna be my first laptop, so im kinda newb on this laptop thing
anyone can guide me on what should i do first ?
like the bios thing, drivers etc ?

 

Have no idea what this means "Kernel Streaming to work in foobar2k" but the soundcard output is very good, not crystal clean for recording (fine for recording from vinyl) but the output is excellent.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=71320

 

regarding heat, has anyone had any issues when the lid is closed?
whever I close the lid on my notebook and leave it for a half hour or longer I notice the fans spin up much more ofen. when I get back on the laptop i notice the temps at or around 62 degrees. When I leave my notebook alone with the lid open, the temps never rise above 58 degrees. Anyone else notice this issue? Also the fan contantly cycling from low to high to off is very annoying. Anyone know of a way to control the speed of the fans?

 

This is actually common for laptops; the W3J, and my old asus, the Z80k, both "breathed" through the keyboard. With the lid closed, temps are definately going to climb due to reduced airflow.

As for fan control, I'm not sure about that but I'd imagine there's a utility that would allow you to monitor/modify that.

 

wow brooks, thanks for the input. I never knew the keyboard was a source for ventilation. thanks for enlighting me!!!

 

quick question here, i leave the laptop idle for 30 mins, and it goes to power saving hiiberante kind of thing, according to the manuals just push any key except fn buttons to exit this state, but nothing happen.
The only way i can get out is to restart the latop using the power button

 

same issue with my A8J but a bios update fixed it

 

I just got the 2nd battery in the mail and i highly recommend it. it's the coolest idea ever. i so seldom use a disc drive, so all the extra battery life is very welcome =)

 

hey, i dont know if this has been addressed b4 but i have a problem. all of a sudden if i dont have the ac powered plugged in, the lappy would shut off. and if the power is not plugged in, itll keep recycling the asus startup. any idea on how to fix this? thx a lot

 

Hey, you might try calibrating the battery. Go into the bios while the laptop is plugged in, then find the battery calibration area and run through that. Do it when you have a lot of time when you won't need the laptop though, cause it takes quite a while

 

ohhhh, thx a lot, this happened after i updated the bios, so maybe thats the reason. ill go doing it right now

 

if that doesn't work.. and you installed 6.9 catalyst driver... disable powerplay or install stock driver..

mine kept restarting till i did that.

 

I still can't figure out a way to stop the bluetooth thing from defaulting to ON when i boot up, other than disabling it entirely. anyone know a way?

 

It doesnt so much 'breathe'. It acts more like a passive radiator. The backing of your keyboard is metal. This metal is in contact with the metal heat spreaders within your laptop. This distributes the heat generated by components evenly, and then allows it to radiate away from the keyboard, where there is a lot of surface area (and your hands/fingers moving around create a bit of airflow against this surface). You will notice your keyboard get warmer when the lid is closed. This is normal, and in fact tells you that your laptop is dispursing heat like it should. This makes your fans work less to keep the system cool, and the less the fans run, the better your battery time will be. Now, you will feel a bit of warmth usually under the right palm rest....this is normal as many laptops put components there (as well as any cards you have in the PC card slot, so it may seem a bit warmer than other places.

As long as there are no specific spots on your laptop that feel HOT (as in, uncomfortable to rest your hand there for 5-10 seconds), then everything is fine.

These temperatures are perfectly acceptable. Modern processors can handle temperatures in the 80-90 degree celcius range, before you should be worried. If it's running at 62...all is well.

 

now i don't have a W3J but 62c idle sounds pretty hot?

what's your average W3j CPU temp when idle/gaming?

 

it wont let me disable powerplay, after i untick it, itll tick itself again in a few seconds. is there a way for me to download the stock driver, without the cd it came with. ive misplaced it somewhere

 

Phew, 89 pages.....

I'm a new owner, just picked it up a couple days ago, so far I love this beauty! I have read this thread (yes, the whole darn thing!) and done a search on a concern I have with no success. Does anyone have any flex in the keyboard or left palm rest area? The right side palm rest area is solid as a brick, but if I push on the left side a little, under the "ALT" key area, there seems to be a bit of give and I can see some of the keyboard and top left corner of the mouse pad flex. Not a huge problem, but wondering if they are all like this or if I should go exchange for another one?

Thanks for any input

 

By the way, what a great resource this site and thread is, THANK YOU to all that contribute! I'm just a n00b , but if I can ever contribute back, I will.

 

it should be rock solid, the one person I have seen with problems rec his back from service and they forgot to put the screws back in.

So check the screws labelled (K) on the bottom (they go through into the keyboard) and there are other tabs around the keyboard that hold it down, for more info on the keyboard read this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=55987

 

i just ran windows vista product advisor and found many conflicts. first, it said i would have problems with the hd audio card, bluetooth stock problems, ati ccc, need new drivers for the ati video card, and the modem, and the firewire. anyone else ran the windows vista product advisor. did anyone else experiance this issues. i don't want to have my w3j running vista with only partial the power it could be running due to any issues. anyone tried vista rc1, are you guys experiancing any issues thusfar. plz help me.

thanks.

 

try this site, it has all the ATI catalysts.
http://www.driverheavendownloads.net/ati.htm

 

hey I have a question. when you guys carry your w3j around (such as to school and between classes) do you guys put it in sleep mode? would it harm the notebook to carry it around in sleep mode? i am asking this because i dont think the w3j has a sudden shock sensor...

 

This is false. You need to readjust your expectations.
62c for ANY computer, including laptops, is NOT Hot. Period.

As I stated before, if you are running at 80c or higher, that is a bit hot.

The ONLY people that run cooler systems, are top-end air or water cooled desktop rigs, for enthusiasts. I know, because I have/am one. This is the only system that will run cooler.

As far as Laptops go, I have found the W3J to run VERY cool, especially when you take into account the -considerable- amount of horsepower under the hood. That's one of the many reasons I bought it. Asus knows what they are doing.

 

Laptop is cool - the air coming out of it is not...and that's how it should be.

 

I agree 100% considering the components in the W3J, I think it deals with the heat really well, I mean yeah..... there is hot air that comes out of the vent, but that is a good thing.

hot air out = cool system

Couldn't be happier.

 

That site only has Catalysts for the desktop version. For Mobility ones, try this http://www.3dnews.ru/download/drivers/ati/

 

Not sure what happened between yesterday and today, but none of my quick start buttons (except for blue tooth) are working. Also, the touch scroll on the touch pad isn't working either...

Any advice? I can get to the stuff I need like wireless through programs but this is just a worrisome problem in general.

 

Oh...don't know if how likely this is...but it may or may not involve Office 2007

 

you may have closed hcontrol.exe by accident (i've done it before) run it again and it should work fine

 

its because you installed catalyst 6.9 AND running some sort of power management. try the older omega drivers. or reformat and dont install any power management programs (power4gear, NHC, etc)

 

I ran a search and came up with two HControl things, one is an Hcontrol application and the other is hcontrol.exe-27d377e4.pf and I can't get either to run....?

 

all fixed, thank you jterp7!

 

I just got my W3J last week and I'm so happy with it but I got some issues i don't know if this is on the lapptop or the system. I was watching youtube and I tried to open several windows to watch videos but once I opened 2 or more windows it stopped and got frozen, so i have to close youtube and reload it again, I got 2 Gb of memory with T2500 Core Duo, I found this weird coz my 1.5Ghz with 512 MB desktop can handle multiple videos in desktop youtube playing at the same time, any suggestions that could help me, thanks

 

Hey man...has nothing to do with the computer not being able to handle the load - like you said, you're old comp. that was much less powerful was able to.

Just a few guesses, but it could be your browser...try downloading whatever you're not using between FireFox and IE...my guess is that it will work in the other.

At that point - maybe download the newest Media Player...

Let me know how any/all of those work - I can tell you though that it's not because of a lack of horsepower.

 

BTW - I officially broke my laptop :[...I cracked something in my monitor. The actual screen is fine, but behind it, you can see what looks like the glass is cracked - ie...like your car windshield when a truck kicks up a pebble.

I'm actually using it now - it's not that noticeable unless it's a black screen (I haven't tried playing games yet though...) Goes out next week for repair.

 

I got it, I know the problem its my internet browser, I got Internet Explorer 6 and I tried to download IE7 to fix it but sadly it's still the same I can't load multiple streaming videos in youtube playing all at the same time. When I installed Firefox it all worked and got no problem with it, hmmmm I'm used to IE, need to fix this, btw thanks for your suggestion, but I'm still thinking how am I going to fix internet explorer

 

Try Firefox for a couple days... I never looked back, great browser, easy to get use too and very customizable... IMHO

 

Do they have the option (YouTube) to play the videos from different programs (ie...Media Player, Quick Time...etc)? If so, try one of the others.

 

How did you break the screen?

 

This is kinda a moot point until Asus releases a BIOS update to fix the bug with Vistas TCG BIOS call. Posted about this a while back:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=1563077#post1563077

That said, I have tried booting from a Vista DVD after upgrading to the beta BIOS 209a, and still have the same problem.

 

I plead the 5th...

Amazingly it still works and is not REAL bad save for the crack lines 1/2 way across the screen (and a small spiderweb). You see it most noticeably in black or single color displays or if I move the laptop. I'm just relieved that it's not completely dead or that it doesn't have some dead regions...