~ Asus U6 Owners' Lounge ~

The GPU is not soldered. I posted the U6 disassemble guide on the forum and it can be found on the Asus info booth (direct link)

 

thanks David, unfortunately, the GPU is glued in and it is very hard to remove, I dont want to damage it so I guess I am stucked with the 8400M G chip, oh well. I wish Asus U6V refresh version use ATI video card instead of NVIDIA since the video card is low-end anyway so folks who buy this kind of laptop dont game much and ATI is much better for HD encoding and better picture quality even the NVIDIA 9 series is enhanced for HD playback, still the color is not as sharp as ATI video card. I would be super happy if Asus release a new U6XX version with the lowest end of ATI dedicated graphic card

 

Perhaps you should take a look at the F6 series, like this one.

I'm super happy that my U6V uses the 9300M GS (G98) chip, since it's currently the only nVidia chip that supports VC-1 decoding on Linux using their newly released VDPAU API (hardware accelerated MPEG2/4, h264 and VC-1 decoding).

 

12 euros, CoreAVC and HD Playback is a whistle . I tried EVR on mine with HMC and it takes more ressources than AVC+MPC.

 

CoreAVC is windows only, it costs money and it uses the CPU.

VDPAU* is free and uses the decoding capabilities in the GPU. Many modern CPUs aren't fast enough to decode high bitrate 1080p (such as uncompressed Blu-Rays). CPUs are very generic in nature, but many modern GPUs has dedicated video decoding functions. Thus higher quality content can be decoded without a fast CPU and without generating much heat, thus less fan noise is generated.

*) VDPAU support is included in the latest nVidia Linux driver and various open source players such as MPlayer, Xine, VLC and MythTV.

 

Okay. Each to his own.

 

Can someone be kind enough to show more pics of the mocha brown lid? I want to see the extent of the brown color (as I heard it is a very very dark brown close to black). I'd rather have a black one than a brown one!

 

It is very dark, classy marble brown color matching with the leather palm rest. It is almost black. Trust me, I was a bit hesitant to buy this laptop too because of the brown color, but after seeing how nice it is, I bought it. I have the U6S-A1 version and just bought the newer montevina U6V-A1 from Ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&item=220337754754

Now I am looking for P9500 processor to upgrade it then I am all set with this laptop for a long time.

 

wow you got a great deal there. wish i could find one priced like that

 

Ebay also gave me 10% off coupon, $100 max, so I used the coupon, -$100 off $1175, so I got the laptop for $1075 shipped

 

and if it was still 35% live cashback, it would be another $200

 

I'm hesitant to buy electronics through ebay now, seeing how the last camera I got BROKE right after warranty hope you don't have the same sort of luck as I did.

 

Hmmm... isn't the seller a bit optimistic about the speakers in this laptop?

 

hahaha, if I dont like it, I can use that excuse "inaccurate description" of the item.

Dont know how much I can get my U6S for since I got the montevina platform. I upgraded the ram to 4gb, not just 4gb of any type of RAM, I bought the Patriot signature original series, made in USA. I also upgraded the processor to T8100, much faster for multimedia encoding comparing to the old T7XXX series since the T8100 has SSE4 instruction built in. And I also upgraded the HDD to Hitachi 200gb 7200RPM. Still have box and everything.

 

mmm, Does anyone know any utility to get the fan rpm?
I'm finding my u6sg way too noisy idle.
(temperatures are pretty low though, 43°C on each core, and 58°C for the gpu)

 

The U6 is noisy by nature.

 

Ah , I thought it was just mine... I've even downclocked the gpu quite a bit but it's not helping much... cpu is already at minimum downclock speed idle too... Bad fans I guess.

I assume no one has made any progress towards finding if there's any way to actually control the fan?

 

What BIOS are you using? It seems that versions lower than 209 are more silent.
Mine is near silent on BIOS 213 though, but that just might be because I don't use windows.

 

my bios is a 305... there's newer ones for the U6SG?

 

No, I believe that's the latest, but the noise problem has shown up in newer BIOS versions (at least for the U6V), so downgrading might be worth a shot.

 

Unfortunately my Asus U6s has a fan speed / temperature problem too.
I am running Windows XP using the drivers posted on page 5 of this thread.

Asus NB Probe says:
CPU temperature: Normal
CPU fan: Fully on
CPU speed: 100%

Addiotionally I installed a tool Speedfan and it gives me the following numbers:
Video: 76C
HDD: 38C
Temp1: 79C
Core0: 78C
Core1: 77C
Core: 76C

This happens both with the old bios (204) and the new bios (305) versions.

Is anyone experiencing the same problem?
And more importantly are there any suggestions to fix it or successfully applied solutions?

Thanks in advance!

 

Yeah, I am using firmware version 305 too, hates it, the fan turns on less than a minute after the laptop is on, dam, wish they replace the laptop with better GPU with no heat problem instead of this solution. We got screwed over by NVIDIA defective chip

 

i was going to wait for a price drop and btotech just raised its price by $30...

 

Newegg has the U6Vc version, with the faster processor: P8600 for $1599.99, lower than any other stores I see out there.

 

Gentechpc has them for the same price I believe all resellers will have prices the same or better than neweggs
http://1toppc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=U6Vc-A1

 

Hi guys, I have a problem with my u6sg-a1, when i'm using xp or ubuntu and the notebook plugged to ac i turn it off, and 5 seconds after it's been shuted down "apparently", it turns on again by itself, what i have to do is unplug it, and turn it off only using the battery energy, has anyone experienced this?,
note: since this started happening the manufacturers bios settings default are not the same anymore in the boot section, now the first boot device is the network card when i set the manufacturers default settings, it's weird, i don't know if this could have any relation, i will appreciate any help

 

How do you downgrade the firmware?
Winflash refuses to downgrade and just gives me the option to exit...

 

The supplier of the laptop had a very good suggestion, clean it!
Ik unscrewed the cover and have cleaned the fan by blowing on it while holding it still. Quite a large amount of dust came out.

Now the fan noise has reduced significantly.

 

Mine has started to be very noisy too . I clean the fan every two weeks but the noise does not go down . I reckon the paste needs to be changed soon .

 

I completely dismantled the heat pipe and cleaned the fan, but still too noisy, I guess need WD40 for the fan. Hate 305 firmware but dont have a choice because we got screwed over by NVIDIA and the firmware is just a temporary solution. Wish they have a major recall and slap ATI video card on this laptop, I love the color produced by ATI video card, much better than any Geforce even with PureVideo HD software installed and PowerDVD player blu-ray version deluxe ultra. I use this laptop and HDMI output to my HP 24" screen S-IPS panel, the color is not as nice as my desktop with ATI video card.

 

If they would actually do something like that, they would not be called Asus .

 

After less than a year of owning this laptop, the left mouse button is completely worn out. It doesn't have any spring-back force, so it's just kinda permanently down and I can't un-click the left button. For anyone curious, my computer is used about 3-5 hours a day and I almost never use an external mouse. I'm going to send it into Asus, hopefully they won't make me pay for shipping like they did to my brother (even though it's advertised that they pay for overnight shipping both ways)...

 

what is the exact problem with the nvidia chipset?(I clearly recall them announcing all G84/G86 were broken, but I do not recall exactly what was the issue).
Also what do the newer firmwares do about it?

 

I've been using the fingerprint reader 24/7 and the leather under it, it looks worn out . Also my touchpad is wobblier every day .

Toenail, weren't you the one with one of the most positive reviews about this laptop?

 

Hehe, I am still very positive about this laptop, I like everything about it except for the touchpad. It's always been a little stiff, I guess it was just waiting to happen. After I get it fixed, maybe I'll use an external mouse from now on when I'm not mobile.

 

Mine is freaking loud!!!!! What can i do? I am using it on a stand, window open...the fan is spinning!!!!

 

my fan was roaring for the longest time and i finally took the cover off to blow it out the other day. it has made a big difference and is now much, much quieter and the bottom of the laptop is significantly cooler.

as far as the touchpad is concerned, i absolutely hate the buttons. i've configured the touchpad lower right hot corner as my right click and never have to use the buttons.

vista is running alright after a clean install, but it still has annoying little bugs. i'm trying windows 7 on my vaio TZ and so far am loving it. everything is so much easier and more convenient and just seems to work.

the thing that kills me most about this laptop is the terrible battery life. with the 6-cell (i think) battery i only manage about 1hr30m battery life watching a movie from the hard drive with wifi off and screen brightness lowest in battery saving mode. high performance mode only laste about 45 minutes!

oh, and last but not least, my DVD drive, Mat$...ita UJ-852S, is really acting strange. I can burn cds/dvds successfully and use them on other computers, but the drive won't read burned discs, not even those burned on different machines. it will read purchased software and movies fine, but not burned discs. very annoying.

 

Hmmmm, my laptop seems to be very quiet (Though I'm not very sensitive to sound and my hearing isn't too good) but I've never heard it make a noticeable amount of noise. I would try making sure there's no dust or anything clogging up the fan. As far as battery life is concerned wuduhel, I agree, it's not the best, but you should be getting more than an hour thirty out of it. When configured for the best battery life (even with wifi on) I can usually get atleast two hours and thirty.

 

I clean mine every 3 weeks and it gets louder and louder...so it is not a dust issue.

 

Can't you just set the touchpad option to double tap to act as left click? I do that on my current Asus and I rarely use the buttons, except for copy/paste and right clicking.

 

i see many people complains about the fan noise of the u6, in my case it's differente, it's quieter than when i bought the lappy, it just suddenly became quieter, don't know why, but i'm happy, and the temps are low, when i first bought it it really used to turn very hot, so hot that sometimes it shutted down suddenly because of high temps

very weird,

in the other hand i have another problem, it turns on by itself when it's plugged to the ac,

 

Hello,

I am running XP SP3, and the Realtek NIC RTL8168 appears under the tray icon "Safely remove hardware". Is it normal?

I inadvertently clicked on the Realtek NIC remove entry (bad habit of removing USB2 external disk), and I had to reboot in order to get my Ethernet card back :-(.

How can I "replug" the NIC if it is removed, or how can I mask the Safely remove NIC entry?

 

Any1 know if the U6V-A1 has the SATA optical drive or IDE drive. I bought this laptop and it is still brand new, never had a chance to open the box yet, thinking of upgrading the hdd to 7200rpm and get a blu-ray player. So I need to know if it has the SATA optical drive or IDE drive so I can buy the blu-ray drive.

 

As the hard drive as the optical drive, both uses the Sata interface

 

Does this look like a dirty fan???




Last night, on msn, no hardcore apps, 55 degree temps, 60 on GPU, it started spinning like an F22 turbine. It gets louder, and louder. I opened the thing and it is not dirty at all!!! Or I am blind!!!! Even now, I type this message the bloody fan spins like crazy .

 

It sounds almost certainly like a bios issue. 55 isn't that hot, especially for the fan to be spinning at full speed. Have you tried different bios versions?

 

No because the latest BIOS version fixed an issue I had. So if I rollback I might have that issue back .

 

Maybe someone could comment on this. At least, is it the same thing at your side? Why does the NIC appear as pluggable/unpluggable?

 

Same issue here, all clean yet it gets all noisy... I am going to get a dos boot cd and try to see if the bios tools let one downgrade... maybe one of the older bios' does not go full whizz for no reason...

 

Download any version you want. Save it someplace and remember the path. Reboot, f2, bios-->start easy flash and use the ROM you desire. I flashed back and forth from BIOS with no worries.