ASUS Vivobook U38N

I just wrote you a guide. This is how I did it so if you follow these steps you should be fine.

You will need a Torx 5 and Philips 0x50 screwdriver and an SSD of your choice. The SSD needs to be 7.5mm high, not 9mm high or it won't fit.

1. Remove all the screws from the backplating using your T5 screwdriver.
2. Remove all the screws from around the battery with your Ph 0x50 screwdriver.
3. From each side of the battery you will see 2 small cables with a white connector. You can either unplug these cables or just slighty lift up the battery so you can access the screws that are holding the HDD in place. Just be careful to not break the small cables.
4. The HDD will have brackets on its side. The brackets will be secured by a total of 4 screws; 2 on each side. Remove them.
5. You can now slide the drive out of the connectors by simply sliding it gently away from the connector.
6. On each side of the HDD there will be 2 mounting brackets as mentioned before. Remove the screws holding the brackets to the HDD and attach these brackets to your SSD instead.
7. Now simply reverse the steps from now on. So put the SSD with brackets down in the laptop. Slide it in the conenctor. Screw the drive back in using the 4 screws. Put the battery back in its place. Screw the battery in its place. Attach the 2 small cables in case you unplugged them earlier. Put the backplating back on and secure it with the Torx screws.

Now, in order to be able to actually boot off of USB to install Windows and even boot from your SSD, you need to enter the BIOS/UEFI settings and change a few things.
1. Turn on the laptop and hold down ESC as soon as you turn it on. A menu will now be shown from where you can enter setup.
2. Go to the "Boot" tab and change:
- "Fast Boot" to "Disabled"
- "Launch CSM" to "Enabled"
3. Then go to the "Security" tab and change:
- "Secure Boot Control" to "Disabled"
4. Now go to the "Save & Exit" tab or press F10 and save your settings and exit.
5. When the device is booting you can hold down ESC again. You will show a list of all bootable devices. Select your flash drive or DVD drive depending on your source for the Windows installation media.

Edit: After the installation of Windows you will of course need the latest drivers from Asus' website.

After writing this I found a video showing the process of upgrading to an SSD on the Asus Zenbook UX32VD.
The process is the exact same as on the Asus U38N. The internal layout is the same, and the steps I just wrote is the same you see in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ7jlG3yf_c

 

Thanks Amplificator for your prompt and in deepth answer.

I'll take profit of your indication asap.
For the moment i've only a couple of question:
1- you are considering the installation of an os that is on another drive (so a new one). It's not possible to clone the original hdd content and then upload in the new dirve? It's more safe with your solution?
2- there are no other setting on the bios to do ? I've read somewhere on the need to activate the AHCI function to operate correctly. And perhaps to work on a couple of sytem registers.

In any case thanks again for your availability and courtesy
s

 

1. You can clone the HDD if you want and then restore it on the SSD. You can use software like Acronis True Image and others.
However, if you are confident with doing a complete reinstall this will always be the preffered method. After the installation of Windows you simply go to Asus' website and get the latest drivers and everything is fine.

2. No, my guide includes everything you need to do. ACHI is already default in the BIOS/UEFI.
This whole "enabling ACHI" was something you had to do back in the era Windows XP when SATA drives were new. Then you needed to manually enable ACHI support for your controller (Legacy IDE mode would work with SATA drives but ACHI has advantages such as NCQ etc.) and even install the driver during the setup process of installing Windows XP. However, SATA has been the default for many years now and is always standard in the BIOS unless the manufacturer is brain-damaged

So if you just follow my guide that is all you have to do. If you choose to do a complete reinstallation of Windows you need to get the latest drivers from Asus' website.

 

Are you able to enable the Fast boot option after installing windows from USB? Because I am not, it just won't boot from my SSD then. Pretty strange and annoying since the BIOS time is increased from 2.2 sec to 9 seconds just because of the bios setting.

 

No, that is currently not possible thanks to those features you have to change.. boot time is incredible fast anyway, so I don't mind at all.

 

Yeah I dont mind either but I don't really get it. It seems to not detect the SSD in Fast Boot mode. I am no Computer expert so I don't really understand what the problem there is. Sure the boot time is still very fast with a SSD but still, why not squeeze out another 6 seconds? But I haven't found the motivation to write Asus about this which shows that I don't seem to mind too much

 

Hey,

this is my first post in this Forum, and please forgive me for not reading through all the previous Posts.

I recently got a U38N with an A8-4555M, HDD and 1080p Touchscreen.

I am very favourably impressed by this absolutely-not-an-Ultrabook. Little bit of backlight bleeding on the screen, but absolutely tolerable.

On topic, I was just reading about the SSD Change and Win8 Clean install. I did this with my Intel SSD and Win8 Pro - it works fine, and the Performance is marvelous (boot time about 6 sec). But there is one thing that is bothering me currently: the graphics arrangement.

When downloading the AMD chipset driver provided on the ASUS support page.and installing it, the System crashes and does not reboot. Apparently there are some compatibilty issues - I can install the graphics Driver, and it works. But here is the thing: Vision Control Center will not work unless I install it in compatibility mode "Win7" and admin rights; however, at this setting, I am not given the option to install the driver. I contacted AMD support and they told me that the driver supplied with the pre-installed OS is specialized and cannot the obtained otherwise.

Quote AMD support:
"The AMD Mobility Radeon™ graphics driver supplied by the notebook manufacturer is customized for the built-in display and the features and functions specific to the notebook. It is recommended to use the drivers provided by the notebook manufacturer.

If installing an operating system other than the one currently supported by the notebook, the notebook may not meet all requirements. As such supported graphics drivers may not be available."

Therefore cloning the supplied OS might not be such a bad idea. Currently, my system runs fine with one issue remaining: when the Screen shuts off (for power saving or via hotkey), it does not light up again. You can see the blacklight coming on, but the Picture does not come back. Also, I cannot run the Windows Performance index.

If anyone is encountering the same issue (or has overcome it), please share.

 

Seeing your benchmarks makes me wonder: the A8-4555M is specified with a TurboCore option of up to 2.4 GHz - have you ever seen it do that? Mine also maxes out at 1.8 GHz, and does that only when plugged in.
The other point: where did you get the display driver and did you install all the other Drivers that come with it (HDMI audiodriver etc)?

 

I installed all the drivers just fine. I left out all of the bloatware from Asus that I didn't need. The graphic driver is also working fine, including the control center.. no problems at all.

Here is the complete list of all the drivers I have installed.

1. ATKPackage_Win7_Win8_Z100025.zip
2. Chipset_AMD_Win8_64_VER900300000.zip
3. KBFilter_Win8_64_Z1005.zip
4. SmartGesture_ASUS_Win7_8_VER1036.zip
5. WLAN_Atheros_U38N_Win8_Z6305974.zip
6. WirelessRadioControl_Win8_64_Z1001.zip
7. Bluetooth_Azurewave_Win8_VER12003100.zip
8. CardReader_Realtek_Win8_64_Z61840039030.zip
9. USBChargerPlus_Win8_64_Z215.zip
10. LiveUpdate_Win8_64_Z319.zip

I have listed them in the preffered order, although it really doesn't matter except that the first one, the ATK Package, really should be the first one you install. It's an Asus tool that collects information about your device, and other updates such as Live Update will not install without it. So you might as well install it as the first to avoid potential problems.
The order of the rest of the drivers shouldn't really matter, but I listed them in order of how important they are; ie. chipset before the others and so on.

 

Ok I now seem to have achieved a working state for this device. I have to say, this way a total pain.

There seems to be some major issues between the AMD chipset drivers, Win8 and Google Chrome. I have now managed to get the system to run by installing only the graphics driver from the CCC toolkit, nothing else - otherwise the system is certain to crash at some point. Also, I am staying well away from Chrome, since I had an issue where it would not load anything and cause system crash when open at the same time as the Vision Control Center.

Maybe I will post a more detailed report later.

For now, I would like to repeat a general question: does anyone observe a significant TurboCore function on their A8? My APU runs up to 1.6 GHz on battery, and up to 1.8 GHz on AC power with the right energy plan, as far as I can tell. Clock speeds of 2.4 GHz (as I found them in some announcements, including my vendor - who also advertises the system as a dual-core) are nowhere to be seen.

This seems to be a problem with AMD hardware anyway. For example, my Task Manager tells me that my APU has 8 MB of Level 2 Cache (instead of 4), that my RAM runs at 1334 MHz (instead of 1600 MHz), and also Win8 tells me that the HD 7600G has 512 MB dedicated memory plus the shared memory.

Can anyone owning a system with an A8-4555M please check and verify these stats?

 

Thanks for this guide, and the video, it worked perfectly.

Only thing stopping me is getting Windows 8 on there. I made a usb stick with the Windows 8 tool that moves the recovery image, and even tells me it is safe to delete the recovery partition aftwerwards.

The usb boots up, but tells me 'the required partition is missing', when I try to load the image onto the SSD.

I called Microsoft, who refused to help because there is not support on OEM installations (nice one, even Microsoft don't care for Windows it seems), and ASUS support had no idea but to point back at Microsoft because they had no solution, and no alternative installation media to offer.

So have you guys gone out a bought a whole new Windows 8, ripped it to an iso, and then installed fresh - or how do you go about it?

Installing and upgrading the hardware was easy, but Windows 8 is simply the silliest usability nightmare I have ever experienced when it comes to the simple action of re-installing it.

 

Did you use a tool to make your USB stick a windows booting stick? Because it did not work for me without it either. For example, I used this one: Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool - Download - CHIP Online

 

I'm still waiting for returning the machine to the shop or Asus. After a week i don't have any feedback from both of them, a lot of photos of the scratches and the light bleeding was sent to the shop and Asus Italy. I think that the after-sale support of Asus must be improved.

 

Thanks, I plan to try that when I get time off from work and kids. Now I only miss the Windows 8 ISO. Plan to borrow an OEM disk from a colleague, and iso it with my daughters linux'ed laptop, the only pc with an optical drive I have access to.

If just Adobe would get their act together and release their software for a proper OS (Linux) it would be bye-bye Windows forever from me. As much as I like the metro interface, I just can't help feeling that Steve Balmer deeply hates human kind.

 

Any news about this commimg to the USA ... I really badly need it before summer

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2

 

Asus refused my request for the deliver of a new unit since the corner display has a scratch (it comes from factory in this status). The backlight bleeding is a little bit noisy (like a punch in the eyes). The italian store takes time and as I have understood they want that Asus directly changes the unit (but the italian law says that the store has the role to guarantee the service to the customer).

I have only a question for you: do you have some kind of bleeding on your ips screen? If it is so can you describe how this affect your display (and so your life ) ?

 

I have to say that this will surely be the last ASUS product I ever bought.....
At sunday it will a month that I sent the thing to service because of the broken touchscreen.
And like I said earlier, it was only hours after I started using the laptop that it broke.

Why would they not just give a new device like most DOA cases? This is terrible at the best.
And best part is that on wednesday the repair status was already: "product was repaired ok and is now packed ready for shipping or pick up" but on thursday it went back to "Product repair is in progress."
Ridiculous!

Why didn't I just return it like I could have....

 

Any info on this would be great

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2

 

Hey guys,

There's something I'm not quite sure of. Been looking at this laptop, but I havent been able to find a definite answer on the internet:
Does this laptop have an expansion DIMM-slot? I understood that there's 2/4gb RAM soldered on the board, but do I understand correctly that this means there's also an expansion DIMM slot (copypaste from Asus site):
DDR3 1600 MHz SDRAM, OnBoard Memory 2 GB / 4 GB, 1x DIMM socket, DIMM Up to 4 G

Thanks in advance,
Nightgloom

 

In a nutshell, if you're waiting for a US release, don't get your hopes up. Been tracking it since November, I've even called Asus more than once... nothing's happened.

Your best bet would be something I wrote in a post way back. Order it from Amazon Japan, use a Japanese shipping company to ship it here. Due to the weak yen, it's probably cheaper than buying it here, and it comes with a global warranty.

 

I contacted Asus several times and several times their response was the same "product does no exist"
Until now
They stated that the u38n was now avalible at the local Microsoft store. Of course they did not have it. I asked Asus again this time they insisted that they have got it at a local Microsoft store

Anyone around a Microsoft store;can you please confirm this

Sent from my Thunderbolt using Tapatalk 2

 

@Bruce, How long did it take before the laptop arrived from Amazon to the forwarder and then onto your house? I have an opptortunity to sell my current laptop now, but I wouldn't want to wait several weeks. Thanks!

 

U38n now in the usa
ASUS U38N-DS81T Laptop Computer - AMD Quad-Core A8-4555M 1.6GHz, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD + 24GB SSD Cache, 13.3 Full HD Touchscreen Display, Windows 8 64-bit (U38N-DS81T) at TigerDirect.com

 

That is so weird. They don't roll out the A10 versions across the globe, wait ages for an US release and then release it (different to EU) with a 24 GB SSD Cache like most of the Zenbooks?

 

As far as I can tell, it's the same as the 4010 in Europe. The 4011 has the SSD and seems to be a less common offering.

 

if only they could offer it in A10
BTW is there any major difference in the A10 vs the A8

 

Just scored one with an SSD on Ebay for 750 euro. Is there a WIKI for this laptop anywhere? Is the W8 key stored in the BIOS so that an MSDN ISO can be used to re-install Windows? I assume the disk is formatted as a GPT disk?

 

A little bit higher clock-speed on the a10.

(You could make the point that it's technically possible to make either of the processors behave identically to the other by changing the used clock-speed states. And that neither of them go as low or as high by default as the system actually supports, very easily..)

 

TDPs are different, 19W for the A8 and 25W for the A10.

Sent from my SPH-M580 using Tapatalk 2

 

is the performance difference great enough to not buy the laptop as a whole

 

At U38N A8-4555M users :

Can you please kindly test League Of Legends with Fraps at 1366x768?

 

Sorry, I did not have good enough internet to download it for a while. It should be done soon, I will let you know. I use MSI Afterburner though but should be no difference from fraps

I will also use FullHD additionally because I think it looks pretty ugly if you use the screen at lower resolutions.

edit:

okay got to it. I did FullHD mid settings with no shadows, was at about 30 fps, sometimes going up to 40 (even in battles although I think with a lot of champions it might go lower but I am not really into LoL so I don't know how to get in those situations ). With 720p (the requested resolution was not available) and low settings it was higher, at 40 fps minimum going up to 50-60. I include 4 screenies that I did with the LoL screenshot function, I saw the game had an FPS display.

http://imgur.com/a/X6FMq#0

So I guess it is pretty playable, don't know if it is enough for serious gaming (as the laptop doesn't fit my needs in SC2, it goes below 20 fps sometimes) though. Maybe I will get more into this game if I am traveling with my laptop.

 

Mmm...don't bother with LOL if you don't have 2 or 3 friends to play with streadly. Anyway...I found in latest BIOS ( V208 ) references to the AMD Richland platform...maybe a refresh coming soon?

 

Coming from other laptop with their Synaptics drivers complete with tap zones, this mouse driver is relatively bare. Specifically, I'm looking for a way to assign a "back browser" or "navigate back" function to the mouse. Previously I had used a tap zone to do this. However, I'd be just as happy to assign this function to either of mouse click buttons if tap zones cannot be added.

With a touchscreen I find all the added W8 swipe functionality of the mouse a bit unnecessary, as I just swipe directly on the screen. Thanks for any suggestions...

 

I guys, i'm new here! I just bought the asus u38n and I'm pretty happy with it. However I've been trying to get into bios by pressing the F2 key, but no luck! Can someone tell me if there is a different key I need to press? Thanks!

 

Welcome! You aren't by chance hitting the Fn key, are you? You could also try the Esc key while booting, as that will present you with an option to enter the setup/BIOS.

 

Thanks Flopei, I tried any possible combination of Keys but with no luck. I managed to get into the bios set up page only after installing the latest bios from asus.

 

Guys, does any of you noticed that when the pc boots up, with the black background and the Asus logo, if you move the screen, or slightly twist it, you see uneven light in the screen, like screen beeding? I just noticed it and I don't know if it's normal.

 

You will get some backlight bleed depending on angle to the display. If you are trying to get the bios on windows 8, make sure you are restarting it in the right mode.

 

Thanks, I guess the problem with the bios depended on the version that was istalled in the laptop. As soon as I updated the bios from windows it all worked. Still i find this problem with the screen. It is not about the angle, it is the pressure way i move the screen that creates different backlight bleeding. As soon as i release the sides of the screen it stops, but when I move the screen I can see these changes in brightness.

 

Richland update spotted in June.. when will we see it on the shelves?

 

Where?

Sent from my XT557 using Tapatalk 2

 

NEW VERSION of the U38N Incomming To the USA

U38N-RHA10T27

Alum. Silver Hairline/ C: Silver Hairline 13.3" FHD UX Touch AMD A10 4655M 4GB SODIMM DDR3 UMA 128GB SSD Slim N/A Windows 8 802.11n + BT HD Webcam Slim Yes Chiclet HDMI

Source:- Asus live chat

 

Google = nada.

The 4655 is Trinity, so I doubt Asus would drop a new product with an old chip. I hope I'm right.

 

Hi!

I've noticed that the A10 models (quite rare, only available in some countries) seem to be having DDR3-1333 listed in the specifications instead of DDR3-1600 (as with A8). Since graphics performance for Trinity very much depends on DDR clock speed, I wonder how this affects gaming performance. We have some A8 benchmarks posted here on this forum, could someone with A10 post their 3dmark scores and perhaps check DDR clock. I know there are some 'official' reviews with A10, but I'd rather hear it from someone with an actual off the shelf product.

Also, A8 or A10, is anyone playing Dota 2, what is your experience, yay or nay?

Cheers,
Marko

 

Well, there seem to be Richland models out there:

http://item.51buy.com/item-689614.html

http://www.asus.com.cn/News/aDGcQarQ05RhER2j/

I can't speak Chinese, so not sure sure if these are actually on stock and available to buy.

If the specs are correct, the RAM configuration is 1x4096MB (@1600), offering a possible upgrade to 8GB dual channel.

 

Is this notebook throttling ? I have now Samsung 535u3c and it throttles to 900Mhz with CPU and every game becomes unplayable, so I am worrying about this notebook. I dont need it to be on turbo, I just need when I play something to dont fall on 900Mhz :/

 

New windows 8.1 wireless drivers have shown up on Asus's site. According to the device manager, both wifi adapter and bluetooth modules are Broadcom. I can't make heads or tails of which driver to use. It's a virtual cornucopia of various drivers from 3 manufacturers when in reality, both hardware components are from Broadcom. Is it common to be running an Atheros driver on Broadcom hardware for instance?


The Asus website shows various combinations of driver versions from Atheros or Broadcom or Azurewave to be used for the Broadcom wireless modules.


Here is what Asus shows for our model:


Windows 8


Wifi Adapter- Atheros (Version V6.30.59.74) and another Atheros (Version V10.0.0.216)


Bluetooth - Azurewave (Version V12.0.0.3100) and Atheros (Version V8.0.0.214).


Windows 8.1


Wifi Adapter- Only Atheros present (Version V10.0.0.263)


Bluetooth - Broadcom (Version V12.0.0.7900) and Atheros (Version V8.0.1.306)

 

Hi Guys. Is it possible to install windows 7 ultimate 64 on it ? I tried 3 different versions and during the installation process it can not find my hard drive also give me an option to browse for the driver for it but no idea what driver is it? please help

 

does the keyboard bends in the middle? i have read on notebookcheck that its bends,but thats the only place that i have found that info,i have option to buy u38n with A10,6gb ram,full hd display and 128gb ssd for 798euros and only thing stops me is the info of keyboard bending so please can someone tell me hows the keyboard in real time is it similiar like in macs

and how can amd a10 quad core cpu can be in the range of intel i3? i found that infor here

Asus VivoBook U38N: Review

Based on the tests we ran, in terms of performance the AMD A10-4655M processor falls somewhere between the Intel Core i3-2367M (which we reviewed in the Sony Vaio T13) and the Core i3-3210U (used in the Windows 8 version of the HP Envy 4). That means it offers a comfortable amount of processing power, but the AMD A10-4655M is still much slower than a Core i5 or i7.