~ Asus U6 Owners' Lounge ~

My U6 experience so far...

Apart from the broken card reader , poor battery (2h20 average),juggling touchpad on occassions, and loud forced tray noises coming from the optical drive, the laptop works. I've never used hybernate or sleep due to fear of losing all my data. It is true that I do not have the momentus but the hitachi but one can never know with the U6. For the moment, I managed to do all my slideshows successfully (a few Vista snags I explained in the appropriate section, software not hardware). I did notice something. 2/10 locations had ****ty grounding so the VGA external output started flickering badly. The first model I had, must have been damaged from the start on the video side. The rest of the symptoms have appeared on my replacement too.

Bottom line, it is more of a fashion statement than a mobility champion. Most of my work colleagues with cheap *** Dells, FS, ACERS have better battery life. On the move, my charger is a must, theirs isn't.
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Hey wishmaker, what sound card are using to have a better sound?, a creative x-fi (express slot card) or a creative x-fi (usb external card), what do you think has a better sound?, i have the logitech z-5500 5.1 speakers

 

by the way if you complain much about the battery life get the 9 cell battery, i have it and it's battery life is about 3 and half hours

 

I use this one with the 7.1 adapter. Which btw, it is not included in the package and it costs extra . I was never a big fan of USB sound cards. In my opinion, the expresscard is better.





I am a bit dissapointed because I have been using an Audigy Platinum before. What problems I have? Here you go.

 

Point taken but I bought this because of the weight . If I put a 9 cell in it, I might as well carry my home pc around .

 

I have the 9 cell and the weight isnt a big deal...

On a side not, has anyone had the side of their laptop (by the xpress card slot) break, the chorme portion on my laptop is broken, which really sucks.

I bought it from Best Buy so i dont have the accidential coverage on it.

But it is just the chorme stip the runs up the side is broken, it has fallen off, but it is lose.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Can you post a snap with it?

I whine whenever I put the brick in my backpack . I will surely whine with a 9 cell. What is the weight of the U6 with a 9 cell?

 

BTW i have been using my laptop with the 9 cell battery now for about 1.5 hrs and it still have 64% battery left.

 

I am going to take a picture of it now for you wishmaker, i can only use my iphone since my regular camera is at work

 

Wishmaker, here is the picture of the battery on the back for you to look at, i tried to add more but the forum says i am over my limit, i am going to try and get a pic of the broken chrome piece too.

 

Here is the picture of the chrome piece, if anyone has any idea what to do wtih this, please let me know.

If anyone has had this happen, let me know if this is fixable.

Thanks

 

*auch * It looks bad . How did it happen? Extensive use of the port?

 

It looks fixable mate, just take another complete pic of that side without you finger, you can upload to imageshack and paste the links

 

Wishmaker, so what do you recommend me?, i was thinking the usb x-fi creative card should be better than the express slot, because it's bigger, so the circuit must be better, and i always thought that the express slot creative card could not be that terrific because it's a little card, and you must know that really good audio circuits sometimes need some space to fit in. besides i don't need to carry the sound card everywhere, 'cause the home theater is at home, and that's why i think the usb card should be better, what do you think about this?, do you still recomend me to buy the express slot x-fi card? why should it be better than the usb x-fi card?, just because it uses a better port?, do you know if the usb x-fi have the same issues you have with the express slot x-fi?

 

look, this is what i have in mind, i don't know much about notebook audio cards, but it looks acceptable
http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=208&product=17751
help me out guys

 

That could be the case here but what if you can't use the better circuitry due to the interface? You have to be very careful with Creative products. There are always drawbacks, and sometimes they are big ones .


As I said in the other topic, I chose the expresscard one because my PCMCIA would not fit. On top of that, as far as I know, the expresscard slot has way greater bandwidth than the USB port. It takes up far less space than the USB one and according to the Creative website, it is better.

Notebook EX54:
Playback:
24-Bit/96kHz up to 7.1*
Signal-to-Noise Ratio: > 104dB (20kHz Low-pass filter, A-Weighted)
Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise at 1kHz: <0.01% ( 20kHz Low-pass filter)
Recording: 24-bit/96kHz

Notebook USB:

Playback: Up to 24-Bit/96kHz 5.1
Signal-to-Noise Ratio: > 100dB
Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise at 1kHz: 0.01%
Recording: Up to 24-bit/96kHz

*When using a USB 1.1 connection it may not be possible to play back, record or simultaneously record and play back content at the highest bit rate and/or frequency supported.


Signal-to-noise ratio compares the level of a desired signal (such as music) to the level of background noise. The higher the ratio, the less obtrusive the background noise is.


If I have stutter on EX54, I can only imagine how the USB will behave when you pass the port through all that creative stuff and alchemy. I am an audio freak so, I know a thing or two about creative/M-Audio soundcards and sensaura algorithms. One of the reasons I bought the platinum and not some rank audigy bulk card.

My recommendation? Neither because they are light years away from the desktop ones. They are not hardware accelerated, do not support ASIO, they are not gold plated, no THX, no real DTS+AC3 decoding. Everything is done software and I was not aware of this. I was forced to get one because I am constantly on the move,my Audigy 2ZS Notebook would not fit, and it performs flawlessly in Skype. If, however, you want better sound than the on-board, better surround and clear sound in films, audio/video, music, then get the lesser evil: the expresscard 54 version. This is my opinion and it is based on personal experience with all in one devices using USB 2.0 : port replicators, docking stations, older USB audio cards, and USB hubs.

Note: both cards will not have 96KHz in Vista. They will have 24 bit 48 KHz because of the new audio layer. 24bit 96KHz will work only on XP.

P.S: The EX54 will warm up a bit when in use. The left side of the palm rest will be a bit hotter because of that. This heat is proportional to the way you use the card.

 

Funny thing is that i have never used the port before and i think it is because i handle the computer from that end.

I pick up the computer from that side and that is the problem i think.

 

I was wondering if i should send it to Asus, but i have heard some things that they might mess something else up. I bought mine from Best Buy so i do not have the accidential coverage on my unit.

 

Thanks Wishmaker, your opinion were very useful to me, i'll buy the ex54, and i'm thinking in built a desktop pc in a couple of months and equip it with a decent sound card, in the mean time the ex54 will be better than the integrated sound card of the u6.

 

If you're in the US, Asus customer service is one of the best in the industry. I'd definitely give them a try.

 

Glad I could help. Don't forget to get the adapter if you hook it up to a multi speaker set-up.

 

take a look at this wishmaker, what do you think?

http://www.turtlebeach.com/products/audio-advantage-srm/home.aspx

 

Mate,

That card seems pretty interesting. It has tons of features and it seems a good choice. However, I cannot recommend it because I did not try it. Moreover, I need to see some Rightmark results with it. A video review from a guy working at that company is not enough. The card has some fancy software and seems optimized for music. There is a group of people, KX project and youpax, they do the same for creative cards. Their software is 100% music optimised and the cards sound a tad better. Drawbacks? No THX, no eax, no fancy effects (for KX). The same with this Turtlebeach product. I did not see any EAX or THX. It is true, I don't have THX on mine but I have EAX+Alchemy.

The USB link still bothers me. I don't know these people. They might be very good but I am one of those guys who needs to see before he believes. For example, all my mates recommended this for my desktop back in the day. Every review said it is amazing, even better than the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum. The card did not cut it for me. I took it back after one day because I did not like the way the sensaura algorithms processed sound. The interface was a bit bulky. This is not a major drawback because one gets used to it. I went out and bought this one. This was my first choice but I said, guys making reviews know better. This worked for me and my JBL sound system.

The X-Fi Notebook EX54 is not perfect and not the best card out there. The Turtle Beach one might be better. I do not know...try them. Creative sucks when it comes to drivers and software. How are these guys? Are they better or worse than Creative? There are so many unknowns with this product. Cannot make a recommendation.

 

I want to use sleep/hibernate on this laptop but...what does one do to make the U6 sleep/hibernate upon lid closing? I set-up the thing, battery and plugged, in both Vista and Asus Power Schemes and I close the lid and nothing happens. It just stays there for ages. I need to use the power button to put it to sleep/hibernate. I close the lid and screen stays on until Vista sees that the 5 minutes I chose passed. This is not normal. On my XP SP3 Amilo, as soon as I close the lid, it goes to lalala land .

 

Vista seemed to have buried a lot of the sleep/hibernate options a few more levels down in the Power Options menu than XP, and they are specific to each one of Vista's power schemes. I believe that someplace in one of the advanced options for your Vista Power Schemes should be an option in a pulldown menu for lid closing - I don't have mine with me so I can't give you the stepwise path to it. In there ou can also set the system to hibernate/sleep after a very short period of inactivity, which would accomplish the same goal for you after you close the lid.

Asus' power schemes do not impact OS features like sleep/hibernate, which is why you aren't seeing an effect from your efforts there.

 

If there is another place where one needs to configure the lid, please let me know. My screen shots show the current config I have with hybrid sleep on.

 

I have XP on my U6, and i can tell that sleeping mode works pretty well, i can leave the computer sleeping for hours, then i comeback, open it, AND KEEP PLAYING VIDEOGAMES or doing some work, never lost my data, i was not able to do this with my bussiness hp notebook

 

And that is the reason why I don't use Vista, BECAUSE IT FREAKS ME OUT!!, I recommend you come back to XP, U6 works amazing on XP

 

You seem to have covered all the options...

Maybe it's a bug in the ATK drivers. You could try updating them (see support.asus.com, maybe they have a new version) or else simply reinstalling.

Are you running any 3rd party power management applications?

 

Hi, it's my first post here. I registered cause I'm struggling with trying to force my U6 to get together with Windows XP.

First, and the most important thing is the wireless LAN card, which doesn't even seem to detect in the device manager. Trying to install it using drivers found on the intel webpage has an effect only in adding new drivers to the Windows library. When I try to make use of them by adding new hardware in the cotrol panel I get the device with the exclamation mark and a message that it doesn't work properly.

Anybody could tell me how to make this thing working? Thanks in advance

 

if you have a u6s this is the driver you need
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/con...53&DwnldId=16979&strOSs=&OSFullName=&lang=eng

but if you have the u6v then this is your driver
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/con...63&DwnldId=16979&strOSs=&OSFullName=&lang=eng

 

****, looks like it's the same, haha, sorry, just try it, it should work

 

Thanks for support.
I've got U6S. And the link you've pasted is exactly what I've been downloading and trying to install.

The scenario looks like this:

I run dpinst32.exe (the driver package installer). Then I see the nice looking Device Driver Installation Wizard window, which tells me to "wait for the driver to install. This may take several minutes".

After that it says: "The drivers were successfully installed on this computer. You can now connect your device to this computer"
(the drivers' name are Intel (w5x32)net(08/28/2008 12.10.14) and Intel (w29n51)net (12/19/2007 9.0.4.3.9) ).

Cool. But nothing special really happens. No wireless card in the device manager, no extra connection added to network connections.

At this moment I suppose I should use the "add new hardware" wizard (sorry if I'm not precise, I don't have an english Windows).

I choose respectively:
-The hardware has been plugged (or whatever it was translated to)
-Add new hardware device
-Install a device chosen from the list
(Then it performs some search with no effect, so I choose):
-LAN cards
-Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN

The installer copies all the stuff and at the end I see a big, beautiful: "Following device has been aded: Intel Wireless (and so on...)"

After this I go to the device manager to see the Wireless card with a yellow exclamation mark on it and an information that it doesn't work properly.

No wireless network connection appears...
What am I doing wrong???

Sorry for making you read all of this but I tried to be accurate to the maximum.

Oh! And one more thing I forgot to mention. I'm doing everything on a VIRTUAL MACHINE (using Microsoft Virtual PC console). The "mother system" is Vista. I really don't want to format the HDD, cause I'd have really lot of configuration and installation work if I eventually will be forced to go back to the ****ty Vista. Is it possible, that Vista blocks the Wireless card and makes it impossible to work in the virtual system?

 

Apart from the Asus one, I have none. The thing is...i've reinstalled the drivers over and over since I have this replacement, due to Vista issues and it has been like this for ages. My U6, with every driver available (recovery cd +website update) never went to sleep when I closed the lid. I closed the lid and then pushed the button.

This is weird because I recall the good`ole days when my Amilo XP Sp2 was running media source and I would get bored, shut the lid...open it the next day and it would resume the song where it left off .


I got the latest BIOS: 304 something.

 

The thing is, I don't really have time to toy with XP and make it work with the U6. I saw the issues on the board with Xp and...Vista works...****ty but it works...apart from the cannot load user profile and windows explorer has stopped responding .

 

I dont know why windows is pushing this whole "vista is perfect" BS, we all know it sucks...

With that being said, i had XP on my ASUS, and as much as we tried, the drivers just never worked correctly, i toyed with it for 6 months and got fed up with it, and gave up.

But now i am having trouble with my wireless drivers it works in ubuntu, but not on the vista side.

On a side note i will flip flop on my first statement, i have a computer that is an HP Quad Core, with 4 gb ram, etc, and Windows Vista runs 90% better, it still crashes but not as much.

 

So you guys are having problems to make XP work on the u6?, since i got my U6 i installed XP on it, it took me less than one day to make it work, actually i took the drivers someone listed on this thread in the 30's pages, had no problems, everything worked since i installed it for the frst time, even the Asus software and I can tell you that my U6 rocks, i highly recommend to use XP on the u6, the drivers i used from this thread were terrific

 

You have the wireless switch turned on right?, I mean, the wireless led is on, is it correct?

By the way, what's your OS language?

 

I could make it work and fiddle around with it. I will use VMWARE and install it virtually on my U6. I developed some bad habits and I get mad when I use my XP SP3 desktop. The XP start menu is becoming annoying, the search function too,outlook 2007 has issues with windows search 4.0, the network side is not as complex, etc. . The curses and nerves I had with Vista until I finally made it work the way I wanted . Don't get me wrong, I still love XP, overall it is better than Vista, but being on the move with this U6, apart from hiccups, you also got tons of goodies. Goodies, XP, had, but not to this extent. Next stop on my network at home? Vienna and not Vista. My U6 will use Vista because I doubt Vienna will work .



P.S: It could be that I hate my XP machines because they are slower than my U6 .

 

Where is the TPM option in BIOS 304? I wanted to test something, went into BIOS and...cannot find it.


BIOS 301 had it...and I thought the U6Sg came with this option.

L.E. I looked everywhere in my BIOS, used reset the thing to default and the option is not there.

Bottom line? 2 things...

1. The TPM chip is damaged in my laptop and BIOS does not see it.
2. BIOS 304 has been modified by Asus and this option is not there anymore.

If problem 1 is the cause then I will send a fruit basket to Asus Holland.

 

With my U6V running under XP, I observe that the Asus utility Hcontrol.exe (part of ATK Hotkey) has memory and handle leak, after few days it uses 128 MB+ memory and 21,000+ handles !

To fix this, I simply deactivate its autorun (using hijackthis or editing the registry). I do not miss much of its functionality since I seldomly use the Fn-key combinations. The only important thing is Wi-Fi/Bluetooth switch but it can be done with WirelessConsole2 in tray.

 

Isn't an update available on the support.asus.com website? Maybe they fixed the bug in later versions...

 

Can anyone confirm if BIOS 304 takes out TPM from BIOS?

 

1. Yea, the wireless LED is on.
BTW today something happened to this thing. I cannot turn the wireless on. When I press Fn+F2 nothing happens (the rest of the hotkeys works properly). To switch te wireless on I've got to go the whole way with identyfyin problems with network connection etc. and Vista eventually enables it. Anybody had a similar problem?

My OS language is Polish.

 

The only time fn+f2 does not work..on my u6 is when wifi is switched off from the button.

 

Holy ****! You're right! I didn't know about this switch. I'm a dumbass. Thanks for the help anyway

 

Unfortunately the ATK Hot key utility is still at 2008-07-22 version.

 

Don't worry . I've been there myself a few times until I saw what the cause was .

 

Does anyone have on their U6Sg newer drivers than the ones from the Asus website? If yes, a link would be appreciated.

 

Has anyone tried the newer BIOSes (209 and 212) for U6V in Linux? It has been mentioned (in this thread) that these versions screw up the CPU fan causing it to run at full speed at all times, even when the system is idle and the CPU nice and cool.
Has anyone found out if this is also the case in Linux?

I've tried updating the BIOS through the built-in BIOS flash tool (Easy Flash or whatever it's called). So far I haven't messed much with it, but it refuses to find files on an usbstick or certain folders on the NTFS partition. The Easy Flash tool in my Asus P5B Deluxe and P5B-E motherboards have always read files on usbsticks without problems.

The reason I would like to update the BIOS is to fix an error in the DSDT (ACPI) table causing some of the Fn-function keys not to work (e.g. not sending ACPI hotkey events) in Linux.
I managed to fix it by de-compiling the DSDT table, fix the error, compile a new DSDT table and compile it into the kernel. This has to be done on every kernel upgrade. I would thus like it fixed in the BIOS itself.

Furthermore I have hopes that they've fixed the "Play POST sound" option in the BIOS, so it can be disabled without disabling sound completely.

I guess these are the only problems I have with the BIOS, so if the newer versions bring more problems then they solve, I'd rather live with these minor glitches.

A funny thing to mention: my U6V came with BIOS 208, which isn't even available at ASUS' download site.

I never use Vista as I find it severely bloated and generally broken. I find it very odd, that when I (by mistake) boot into Vista, there's constant disk activity even though there are no programs open or anything. I bet there are tools to figure out which process is thrashing the disk, but since I never use Vista, I haven't bothered to try and find out.

Everything* (WiFi, Fn-keys, card reader, touchpad) works flawlessly in Linux, so I can't understand why people bothers with windows and vista in particular.

*) The only nuissance I've found so far, is that the webcam is upside-down, but that's fixable. Furthermore from what I've read, it appears to be a problem in XP too.