ASUS VivoBook S400

I have an ASUS VivoBook S400CA .
The wireless seems to have trouble connecting to many routers. Range is horrible. I can send it in and have ASUS change the card, which they are more than willing to do, but I want to find out if it will be a futile effort. If yes I will just use an external usb wireless adapter. Does anyone else with the series computer find it has "weak" wireless connectivity issues?
The wireless adapter is the .. Qualcomm Atheros AR9485WB-EG Wireless Network Adapter . Running the latest driver from asus which is
10.0.0.221 .
Thanks for any thoughts on the issue..

 

Can you be a little more specific on how bad the range is? How many walls/objects are obstructing the signal? Is the router low to the ground or placed on a raised surface?

The tricky thing with wireless N is that it [supposedly] gives you a better signal the further you are from the access point - to a point, anyway (assuming I remember correctly). But even if you're within 5-10 feet of the router, you should get excellent signal strength, which brings me back to: can you be a little more specific? Thanks!

 

Hi, I have same pc and same problem, I cannot get signals even from 10 meters, it is same with other routers as well , I don't understand what problem s , I m thinking to change the system to vindows 7

 

If it's not software related (driver), then you might need to replace the card itself - or the antennae(s) that are routed. It's unlikely a different OS will help your signal strength - although if it is driver related, then anything is possible, I suppose.

 

I added a cheap usb wireless adapter and connection is now good. Prostar thanks for reply, I should have been more specific, when I said the range seemed poor, I was comparing to all the other devices on my network I was not looking for general advice on wifi. The Asus is the only device with connection issues unless it is located in the same room as the router. I tested using an Asus router and a Xyzel. Ozzy13 sounds like you have same problem, if it improves using the windows 7 driver let me know! I disabled the onboard wifi for now.

 

Yes, I have been having the same issues. I have sent the laptop back for service twice. They replaced the network card the first time, and the second time they replaced the MAIN_BD, and it seems to work a bit better now, but still does not play videos without freezing if it's more than 15-20 feet from a router, and doesn't access some public networks at all. Thank you for the info you provided on one fix.

 

You might want to look into the antennae then.

 

Yeah most likely this is the problem. Although the fact that you saw a small improvement after a board and card replacement also makes me curious...

 

I have a brand new S400 and it shows very serious stability issues concerning the wifi connection:
Although it connects to the 3 different routers i tested the internet access drops randomly on a minute timescale. Windows still shows a succesfull connection with full bars but neither am i able to open a website nor ping the router. Additionally, the ping times to the router spike up to 2000 ms shortly before such internet access drops.

I tried a lot of different Atheros driver versions up to the newest 10.0.0.239 and updated all relevant other drivers for the notebook.

My conclusion after a weekend of frustration is that the Qualcomm Atheros AR9485WB-EG is not working well at all. There are tons of people on the internet complaining about it for other brands and notebooks as well.

I now think about replacing the card with an Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 :-(

 

I had the exact same problems... very frustrating. Do you know if its sufficient with a micro usb wireless adapter? (Would be the far most convenient solution)
Thx

 

Yes, they're universal. Chances are, the better ones aren't micro USB is all.

 

Hi,

I am having the same issue. Did you end up replacing the wifi card? If so, was it a "simple" procedure compared to installing ram?

Thanks

 

Hi,
I bought this notebook from Amazon UK. I installed Ubuntu 13.04 on it and I am quite satisfied with the performance.

Anyway, I noticed that the US version of this machine includes a 500GB HDD plus a 24GB SSD cache (see official US specs), whereas the UK version includes only the 500GB HDD ( official UK specs).

I would like to mod my UK version by installing an SSD drive by myself, in addition to the HDD, to obtain performance gains similar to the US model. Is it possible? How hard is it? Any guidance would be helpful. Thanks.

 

Asus machines usually involve taking apart most of it to get to the slot, but it should be possible.

 

If the board specifications are identical to the US model, then you should be able to. You'll just have to search for a "gumstick" SSD; it's a fairly proprietary form factor that ultrabooks use.

 

Same problem here. Just setup a new S400 today, and it would not connect to any WiFi router, even with a good signal. Went to the router to do a direct Ethernet connection, at which point it connected wirelessly. Walked away - lost connection. While a micro USB WiFi adapter may be the answer, this is unacceptable for a brand new ultrabook that isn't cheap. I could purchase 2 cheapie laptops for the same money, and they would work. Planning on returning it for another brand.

 

Try taking it back as that sounds like the antennae are not just bad but malfunctioning.

 

I was seriously looking into changing to Windows 7 as well, but read online (sorry, can't remember where) that the S400C is not designed to run with Windows 7 - I believe they said drivers won't work. I think this was from someone affiliated with Asus, but I'd be very interested to hear if people have had good results switching this machine to Windows 7. Not convinced it would solve the wireless problem, but I've had other bizarre problems that might be solved that way (i.e. suddenly not being able to type in fields like the Google search bar or a field in Picasa, which resolve when I restart, and other issues that make me not trust the thing) along with the general frustrations of Windows 8.

 

The driver structure is fairly similar for both OS, it's unlikely to magically fix problems unfortunately. But for generic devices you should be able to source files.

 

I too have seen the same issues with the Atheros card and would like to try another one.

Any luck with the Intel Centrino card you mentioned above ?

 

I'm having touchpad problems on a new Asus S400CA which I just bought after returning another one of the same model due to that one having a manufacturing defect on the touchpad (it was visibly broken). This one looks fine but the touchpad keeps getting jittery and the mouse stops working especially when the laptop is on certain surfaces like the sofa. It won't move where I want it to move and I'm not sure why that is since I literally just purchased it. At other times, it works fine.

Is there something I can do or should I just return the product?

 

Hi! I know, no one has replied in this thread for awhile, but thought I'd post my problem here as well to see what you guys think I should do.

1) Yes I am having wireless problems. I read online beforehand that was a possibility. Did anyone send it to Asus, and was it fixed? The download speeds I was getting via speedtest were around 0.41 MBps, compared to my old laptop at 16 MBps. They were sitting right next to each other. I was like what the heck.

2) More importantly, is my battery is defective? The battery will not charge all the way. It charges to: 96% (not 100%). I was hoping it would reach 100, I waited about 10 hours. When I took it off the plug, after a few minutes, it dropped to 91% and said 1 hour and 54 minutes remaining. So I think the battery might be faulty. Is there something I can do, to get the battery to work properly? Should I have let it charge longer?

I emailed Asus, and am going wait back for their reply, should I send it into them (which means I would not be able to return it because it will be outside the return time window) or should I just return it (because the place I bought it from it's out of stock, wish I could have exchanged it)? How are people's experiences with sending laptops to Asus? How long is the turn-around?

Thanks, any advice would be great.

 

Do not buy this laptop.

Upgrading from Windows 8.0 to 8.1 was a big pain.

Now Windows has an update that caused the screen to be black with a cursor after you log in.

Doing the restore puts you back to Windows 8.0, but if you let Windows update run it crashes during the update.

Asus told me they have 200 people in their help desks and they are getting at least 20 calls per day per person regarding these issues.

Their solution is to disable Windows Auto Update and only update 10 updates at a time. I tried to do the 51 Security updates at once and now I am locked up again. I have to start from scratch!!

I know Microsoft is to blame not Asus, but man this is frustrating.

 

dont upgrade your bios ...