A6JA FAN & Games

Hello folks!

I hope i have more success in the ASUS subforum

I would like to know if it's really true that the fan is rarely running, only if you run at least 2 programs which need alot of cpu power and gpu power.

Then i would like to know if this awesome NB (X1600) can handle Half Life 2 on full details without AA. To be more specific the only Game i would like to play is CS:Source which does need a little less GPU Power than HL2.

many greetings

 

I am 100% sure that you can play CS:Source and HL2 smooth and fast!!!
There are two version of A6J, one is X1600 128MB with HyperMemory to 256MB which is original modle A6J, second one is X1600 256MB with HyperMemory to 512MB which is what you talked about-- A6JA!! So go rock this game with ASUS A6JA!!:asus:

 

I'm guessing this model is not available in the US?

 

Maybe?! I guess it won't be available in the US. Because I only saw modle A6Jc which is with Geforce Go 7300 and Intel Core Duo T2300 Yonah Processor (1.66Ghz; 677mhz w/ 2mb Cache). It is a little disappointment. Because that is not very good combination, its GPU isn't fast enough to handle lastest game...

 

Oh, now that sounds TOO good that i could believe it. Did you play it on your mashine with X1600 on full details wihtout AA?

i talk about this: http://www.notebooksbilliger.de/product_info.php/notebooks/asus/a6_ja_serie/asus_a6jaq001h

GPU ATI Mobility Radeon X1600
256 MB

It's the ASUS A6JA-Q001H
The ASUS A6JA-Q00 2H is shipped with 2 GB RAM.

So, HyperMemory, heard abotu that, is that model ASUS A6JA-Q001H ok for me, is it with that HyperMemory, i guess the GPU graps up to 256 MB from the 1 GB SYSTEM RAM if it needs more than its own GPU RAM; right?

What about the FAN, is it loud?
I'm unsure

 

My info. is from ASUS official website in Taiwan, those two modle should be the same. Because ASUS won't easily change components, it should be all the same. it they do that, it will confuse people. see this following link (Sorry is in Chinese!!):
http://tw.asus.com/products1.aspx?l1=0&l2=0&l3=0&modelmenu=0&share=txt/233
(See following word "HyperMemory")

About the fan, I saw that modle review on the net. I've carefully do some reseach on it, it run pretty quiet on normally use. If you're gaming, the fan's noises won't get too loud.

Yes, you're right. GPU graps up to 256 MB from the 1 GB SYSTEM RAM if it needs more than its own GPU RAM. So I recommend 2GB ram, because it will run more faster, and also be ready for the next-generation operating system-- Windows Vista.

 

Ok, thanks for your fast response


But why do they write: " Intel Core™ Duo T2300
Dothan"
As you can see here http://www.notebooksbilliger.de/product_info.php/notebooks/asus/a6_ja_serie/asus_a6jaq001h
Shouldn't it be YONAH? Anyway, i sent them an email, but answer on that if you know // OK, you NEED to answer, today's Sunday

How fast is the X1600 compared to the Desktop GPU Radeon9800Pro?

 

First, I have to apologize that I said component should be the same, the processor you said is lower one level which what I saw Core Duo T2400 in Taiwan, but don't worry, this processor will be fine for CS:Source. It still fast enough, because most important part is GPU. X1600 is good Performance Graphics card, you can play the latest games with no problems, at close to or maximum settings and a balanced resolution. See PART 4 in this following link:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=39568

And X1600 definite better and faster than Radeon9800Pro, and remember, Radeon9800Pro is a desktop graphics card. I don't know exacity how fast but, it just few times faster than Radeon9800Pro.

 

a. Yeah, i know that link but how can you say that Mobile X1600 is -few times- faster than Radeon9800Pro?

b. Im very much screwed up because i see they mark the processor as a DOTHAN where it should be marked as a YOHAN... their fault?

 

Ha! That website really screwed up pretty bad... If I remembered, DOTHAN is for Pentium M 750 Processor, not Core Duo... They should not confuse customer like that... And sorry that I didn't mention it, because my German is not good at all (as you know, I am a Chinese.).. for my advise, go for another online shopping center.
I will send you some info. about benchmarks of X1600 and 9600.

 

Heh, i wonder because in some forums they talk about DOTHAN in combination with core duo too, -maybe- they are wrong informed too.

Chinese? Ain't Taiwan independet from china?
the shopping center is ok i think, they are selling it as the most inexpensive, also someone bought a NB from them, must ask him again if their support is good

//just enabled email option

 

God! I begin to confuse, too. But I really think that dothan is for Pentium M. If I bring some wrong info., I am sorry!
And basically Taiwanese is Chinese, Taiwanese is people who moved from China to Taiwan after the Kuomintang defeat by Communist Party, they speak the same language, but different government. Taiwan is democracy, and China is Marxism. But some Taiwanese (included me) still insist to believe that Taiwan is not part of China. I am not there to teach History!!! OK?! LOL!!

 

Well, i am waiting for the repsponse of the shop and will search for some other online shops with good ratings which sell the book for 1400 Euro max.

 

Good luck on that!! Hope you can get it for a very cheap price!! (P.S. I will ask some qusetion to my friends to find out the benchmarks of X1600 and 9600Pro

 

I have a Asus A6Ja (A6JA-Q011P) which is shipped with Core Duo T2300, 1x512MB DDR, 80GB HDD, Bluetooth, WXGA and X1600 256MB (512MB HyperMemory) and it plays all games just fine at the native LCD resolution (1280x800).

When i read this topic i thought it was about the A6Ja's fans? Anyway, this laptop is dead silent in normal usage (especially on the "Quiet Office" profile). In games however, the fan starts rotating rather fast.. And some times it just goes in turbo mode and the laptop sounds like a jet (i guess this is when things get really hot) it does this rarely though, not all the time.

I also tried to overclock the X1600 in my A6Ja, and i achieved a little bit of overclock: 510mhz on the gpu (455mhz is default) and 760mhz on the memory (default is 710, ddr). This is 100% stable clocks too. The highest i reached was 523mhz on the core, then i started getting visual errors, and 774 on the memory (also started getting visual errors).

In 3dmark05 i got about 300 points more after this overclock.. Not worth it in my honest opinion, since it apparently generates alot more heat causing the fan to go in turbo-mode very often.

I am gonna upgrade my A6Ja with 2x1GB DDR2-667 SO-DIMM's after a while, aswell as upgrading the drive to either a Hitachi Travelstar 100GB 7K100 7200rpm drive or a Seagate Momentus 5400.3 160GB 5400rpm drive, since the drive that shipped with this A6Ja is a very slow Fujitsu 4200rpm drive.

In 6-12 months i also reckon i will upgrade the cpu to what is most bang for the bucks then, probably a Core Duo T2500 or T2600. Upgrading the A6Ja is extremely easy, as there is a slot under the laptop for everything (memory, harddrive, wireless network card, cpu, bluetooth)

 

Wow that sounds great! I'm awaiting the A6J to arrive in Canada. I asked someone else in another thread the same questions but.... could you tell me how you're liking your A6J, how the weight is, how you like the looks of it, and anything else? Thanks!!

 

I really like my A6Ja. I haven't had many notebooks to compare with though, only a Dell Inspiron 6000. The build quality of this Asus machine is top-notch compared to other machines in its price class (that i have looked at in stores), the lcd is wonderful (1280x800 is the perfect resolution for me on a 15.4" screen, WSXGA+ makes everything too small for my taste), the keyboard is very nice and silent, although the keys are a little bit "hard". The touchpad works perfectly, and the touchpad buttons are very silent too compared to other notebooks in this price range.

The weight for me is not bad at all. I did not buy this notebook to travel with or bring with me everywhere i go, i use it mostly at home, at my girlfriends place and when i'm visiting my parents and stuff like that, i don't need it for work or school or anything. Still, it's no problem to bring it where i want to, i'm a big boy now, so i can handle about 3 kilos with fair ease

The notebook looks alot better in real-life than it does on pictures. Before i decided on this notebook i looked everywhere for images of this notebook, and on those images (reviews, pictures taken by owners, etc) the notebook looked rather dull and very "plastic fantastic". This is NOT the case in real life, i think this notebook has great looks.

When i got it, i had to update the BIOS to get the correct LCD color depth (there was a BIOS fault in one of the earliest BIOS'es that made the LCD run in 16-bit mode, so the color gradients got very visible). After installing this BIOS i also got about 30 minutes more battery-time in my battery tests, on battery saving mode, about 3:30 in battery saving mode with backlight on almost the lowest.

All in all, i'm extremely satisfied with this notebook, it's just perfect for my needs. It's small and light enough for me, it's comfortable to use, it performs very well and can play the latest games without any problems, it's very easy to upgrade, it's got decent battery time, a good screen and it is dead-silent in normal usage. Well.. You get the picture, i'm very satisfied

The webcam/mic also works surprisinlgy well, it's not something that made me buy this notebook, but it's definitely a good thing to have.


The only negative things i have to say about this notebook is the following:

1. Since this is a very quiet notebook, it does get a little bit hot, especially around the area where the harddrive is mounted. It's not uncomfortable though, but it is alot hot'er than what i was used to (inspiron 6000) and what i expected.

2. The media keys in the front is a brilliant idea. I loved this on my Inspiron 6000. The A6Ja however is missing the most important keys to have there in my opinion: Volume up/down and Mute control. This just sucks to be honest, i would gladly drop the skip forward/back buttons for volume buttons instead!
Messing with Fn+F10/F11/F12 instead of having the hotkeys in front is just retarded when they in the first place have put the media keys in place. Play/Pause, Stop, Volume up, Volume down would be a much better thing, or rather, just place more buttons there (like on my inspiron 6000, which has all of them)

3. The LED's on this notebook does not look attractive in my opinion. They look cheap and they just light up too much for my taste. I prefer small and anonymous LED's, like on the Inspiron 6000 for example.

4. I have the "S/PDIF Surrounded" marking on my A6Ja, and the spec i looked at when i bought it said it had S/PDIF output via the headphone minijack output. I cannot get S/PDIF working whatever i do (i have enabled it in the drivers and so on), the cable i am using was earlier used on a Audigy 2 ZS and it worked perfectly (the audigy also uses a headphone out minijack for S/PDIF).


All these things are just very very minor things though, i am completely satisfied with the A6Ja, but fixing those 3 things would have made it perfect for me. And getting number 4 to work would be a big plus.

 

Neonix thanks so much for that quick (and detailed) reply!

I can't wait until this laptop comes to Canada, but I'm confused about how many versions there are and what the exact differences are!

I only know of the A6Ja (yours) and the A6Jc (the one on PROPortable's website here: http://www.proportable.com/detail.aspx?ID=177 ). The only difference I know is the video card (GF 7300 vs. X1600) and I think I would prefer a less powerful card than the X1600 because of price (btw how much was yours Neonix?). My ideal card would be a GF 7400 or so.

So... could someone tell me what models there are and what are their exact specs/differences? Also which ones are coming to Canada/USA? Thanks so much!

 

No problem

Well, over here (Norway) there are 2 versions of the A6Ja also. The one i have (A6JA-Q011P) and a upgraded version (A6JA-Q028P). The difference between them is that the A6JA-Q028P is shipped with a Core Duo T2400 (1.83ghz) cpu, 1x1024MB DDR2-533 memory and a 100GB 4200rpm harddrive and Windows XP Professional. Mine (A6JA-Q011P) is shipped with a Core Duo T2300 (1.66ghz) cpu, 1x512MB DDR2-533 memory and a 80GB 4200rpm harddrive and Windows XP Professional.

There seem to be very many configurations available of the A6Ja, depending on where you buy it. Some ship with 5400rpm drives, some 4200, etc.

Mine cost $1,811 USD. The upgraded version costs about $250 more. I guess that is alot compared to the prices in US/Canada? Compared to a Acer Travelmate 8204WLMi atleast, this computer is a bargain (the Acer Travelmate 8204WLMi costs $3,340 USD here compared).

 

Actually it was But then we had a confusion about DOTHAN/YONAH.
I have read a test where they tried to get the fan start rotating and after 2 full benchmarks in 3dMark05 it did not. They had to encode and do some things

at the same time to get the fan start rotating for some seconds, how long does it act like a Jet when playing like cs:source?

I have read asus underlcocked the X1600, at least a Acer NB has the same GPU with more mhz.

And they wrote the Acer had like 300 points more

The A6Ja-Q001H has a Hitachi 80 GB 5400RPM

do you know what the fastest cpu is you can buy for the NB?

do you hear a "click" if you press it?

I had a nice picture and it does look really better on that than on all press pictures, never saw it in real life tho.

1. Is it right that you just dl the newest BIOS from asus.com, then copy it to c:\
Then you go in BIOS using F2 on boot. Using easyFlash or something in the BIOS, locate the BIOS on c:\ and start.
2. Is it true that the BIOS is shipped with 3 Partitions, all in FAT32 and that easyFlash can only read BIOS which are on FAT32 Partitions so i need to flash

the BIOS BEFORE formatting to NTFS and merging the partitions to one partition?

Which games did you play on it?

 

We do have 2 models here to buy:

1. A6JA-Q001H
2. A6JA-Q001H2

Intel Core Duo Prozessor T2300 1.66 GHz / 1024 MB DDR2 RAM ( 2 GB RAM for the second model)/ 80 GB Festplatte / 15,4" TFT Color WXGA Color Shine Glare Type / 8x DVD-Dual DoubeLayer Brenner / 256 MB VRAM ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 Grafik / WLAN 802.11a/b/g / Bluetooth / 1.3 Megapixel Web- /Videokamera / MS Works / XP Home

Also we have got the nearly equivalent Z model which is for some resellers only. It does not have the webcam thought, it has the slower HDD, it does have a better CPU (1,8GHz) and it's silver, not antrazit

 

how fast is the Intel Core Duo 1.6Ghz compared to a 3 GHz Pentium 4?

 

Well here atleast the fan starts right away, it does not make that much noise though. But after, lets say, an hour of gaming (World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion or The Godfather - The Game, in my case) it apparently gets a bit hot and the fan usually starts to rev up to get rid of the heat, then slows down again after 1min approximately.

Ah ok, that makes sense then. Asus probably underclocked it a bit to keep the heat and noise a bit down

Ok. That is not available here though, we onlyhave A6JA-Q011P/NOR and A6JA-Q028P/NOR available here, both with 4200rpm harddrives

Currently it is the Core Duo T2600 (2.16GHz) but i guess Intel will release a faster version soon. I'm really hoping for Merom support trough a BIOS upgrade aswell.

Yes. But it's a "soft click" compared to my old Inspiron 6000.

It does look alot better in real life than on the press pictures. I've also ripped off all the stickers on it (designed for winxp, intel, ati and the webcam/spec stickers) for a cleaner look.

Just download the BIOS from asus.com, place it wherever you like, then use the "Winflash" utility that is in the "ASUS Utility" folder on your start menu. Press "flash" then reboot, all is done.

The computer is shipped with 3 partitions, correct. one 2GB recovery partition, and the rest of the harddrive split in two 50% partitions (atleast on my notebook). They are all in FAT32.

I used Partition Magic 8.05 to delete the recovery partition (since it ships with a recovery dvd with the exact same thing on it) and to re-size the partitions, so that my C: is 20GB for system/application files and my D: is 60GB for downloads/movies/music and such. Then i converted them to NTFS.

I've played World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls Oblivion, The Godfather The Game, Half-Life 2 / CSS, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Battlefield 2 and Battlefield Vietnam on it, and they all play with good performance on high settings, except Oblivion which i had to lower the settings to get decent performance (Oblivion is an insanely high-spec requiring game though) - but it still looks amazing.

 

Thanks you very much for your input

Could you please please tell me what your Frames Per Minute (FPS) are on CSS, say on de_dust2 with settings: All best (all high), but without AA and AAAF?
I would really appreciate it.

you can see the FPS ingame or use fraps ( http://www.fraps.com/ )

 

Well, i have uninstalled HL2/CSS now, and can't be bothered to reinstall it just to check the CSS FPS, sorry. I never play CSS/HL2 any more anyway, so might aswell free up the 3-4 gigs of space it took =)

I just took some 3dmark05 tests, both overclocked and at stock speeds, with updated Catalyst 6.3 based drivers (the ones that ship with the A6Ja are rather old and not optimized):

Overclocked 520MHz on core and 780MHz on memory (100% stable clock):




Default clock 452MHz on core and 702MHz on memory:




The fan spins up more often with the overclocked speed, but it works 100% stable (stress-tested for several hours without any graphical artifacts).

 

Okay, thanks!

Did you play WoW over the WLAN? Had any disconnects?

How good is the WLAN Antenna, works through walls?


Can you be bothered to shot some more photos? Different places and angles

 

Yes i'm playing over WLAN. I have not had a WLAN disconnect at all. I'm using a Asus WL-500G Deluxe wireless 54mbps router.

I've never had a bad WLAN signal, but my appartment is not the biggest either. I've tried through 2 walls, that's it However, i do find more WLAN networks where i live with the A6Ja than i do with the Inspiron 6000, so it has to have better coverage.


EDIT: I don't have a camera to use at the moment, except the camera on my Sony Ericsson K700i, which is a rather bad 640x480 camera, but i'll try to take some pictures later and post them.

 

cool, i have a k750i still a Worse camera even if i can 1632*1224 px, only good at Wide or very close ranges

 

For those of you who think your A6Ja runs too hot in gaming, have you thought of undervolting your cpu? That's what I've done anyway, my cpu stays at 66c and the fan only spins in the lowest rpm most of the time, when I play games. My 10x multiplier runs stable with a 0.975V voltage, can't say this for 100% certainty yet tho, have to do a few more tests first, but nothing has crashed so far or shown instability. The sad thing is that intel has locked the lowest voltage level to 0.950, so you won't be able to undervolt the 6x multiplier. Even if the battery life can't be improved, I think the lower noise and heat levels are already quite the improvement...

I use RMClock for the undervolting. The app can be a bit hard to get into at first, but when u get the hang of it its really a great tool for power management also, better than Asus own PowerGear imo. Thought, there's one draw back with the tool, you can't set the level of brightness for the different states, which you can do with PowerGear, but to me its no biggy changing it manually with the Fn button.

Edit: ey, almost forgot, what are you guys using to overclock the x1600? I can't seem to find any program that supports this card :/ ... I'd also imagine a better overclocking result on the gpu if you undervolt the cpu.

 

I will check that out, since i hate when the fan really starts rev'ing up at 4000+ rpm for a short while.

I use ATITool for overclocking the graphics chip. It can auto-detect your chip and memory's highest clock for you also, and scan for visual errors, to achieve a maximum safe overclock.

EDIT: I've tried the Rightmark CPU program now, and got my CPU down to 0.975v 100% stable in Prime95/SuperPI. Under load, this makes the CPU fan much more silent - BUT here's the thing: The same fan is also responsible for cooling/exhausting hot air from the Mobility Radeon X1600 chip. With ATITool you can stress-test the graphics card to generate max heat like in a game, and when i monitor the temperatures in Everest, my fan goes at about 2200-2500 all the time (very very silent) until the X1600 reaches a temperature of 83 celsius (the X1600 is listed as "Aux" in Everest), then the fan kicks in and speeds up to about 4800rpm (very loud) and then drops down to about 2200rpm when the X1600 temperature is down to 78 celsius.

This is incredibly annoying, the rev'ing up and down all the time. This actually got worse after undervolting the cpu since the cpu fan runs alot slower all the time, so the X1600 gets very hot much faster, which kicks the fan in turbomode once every 30-40 seconds now. I wish there was a way to undervolt the X1600 chip!

I also figured that if i get the fan to run at about 3000rpm constant, the cpu AND the X1600 would keep decent temperatures and it would not have to rev up once in a while to get rid of excessive heat. But i cannot get Speedfan to work with this computer, so i can adjust the fan speeds myself.. It's all automatic, whatever i do, it seems

 

Neonix: Yes, therev'ing up and down of the fan does happen for me too in the ATITool artifact tester, thought it never has happened while running a real game. Well, perhaps the newer games could push the X1600 enough for this to occur, but in games like Counter-strike 1.6, Quake 3 or NFS most wanted, which i've played on my A6Ja, the fan keeps its low rpm all the time. If i start overclocking, the rev'ing starts happening in games also, but it doesn't bother me at all when i have my headphones on. Perhaps i should also mention that we are using the same VID.

If the problem occurs for you in games also, you could always try investing in one of those notebook coolers, which you place beneath the notebook. Or, you might as well just increase the VID until you think you have a "stable" enough fan speed.