ASUS ZENBOOK UX32VD Problems?

I'm planning to buy a laptop and I love the specs on the UX32VD. If I do decide to purchase it, I will be upgrading the hard drive to a 256gb SSD and to a 10gb ram.

I'm very curious of the problems of the UX32VD, I will be doing light to medium gaming, I'm worried about the temperature problems reported, the backlight bleeding, or the keyboard flexing, etc.

Can someone tell me about their experiences with the UX32VD? The problem I worry about most is the temperature problems.

Should I get the UX32VD ? ( I'm going into college as an Electrical Engineering major and I will be bring this around with me at all times, and I will be gaming)
Are the problems really noticeable?
Overall experience with the UX32VD?

Thank you in advance!

 

I don't have any temp problems once in awhile the FAN will jump and spin very fast. Backlight bleeding very minimal hardly noticeable even when I am watching movies. Keyboard flex is hit or miss, some people have reported to have it really bad while others have it where if you press it really hard you see it. For me I have non when I type but I press the button down REALLY HARD then I notice it, but not an overkill for me.

 

Hello my name is Jeffrey fand I work for ASUS Customer Loyalty Team

Never heard of a problem regarding the temperature problem.

Regarding the back light leakage if you do have a problem then you will have to send the unit in for service.

But before you send it in we will ask you to email us a photo of the back light leakage if any.

If you have any questions you can email me at [email protected].

 

Damn, just accidentally refreshed this page and lost my whole response.

In short: Got the laptop 3 days ago. I upgraded to a 128gb SSD and put Win7 on the 32gb internal. Running pretty well. Running Diablo III @ 1080p and all other settings on low. Definitely playable, probably getting around 30-40fps, but D3's CTRL+R command doesnt work for me anymore.

No excess heat noticeable where my hands rest during use. Bottom of laptop gets a *little* warm, but thats where the CPU and GPU are sinking to, so its understandable. Not *hot* to the touch or anything.

Keyboard flex is unnoticeable under normal use, and people who complain about it are nitpicking. If you push down between the Y, U, and H keys, the metal goes down about 1mm, and you've got to push a lot harder than you normally would when typing.

Backlight bleed (at least on my unit) is only noticeable when the screen is completely pitch black and is on a higher brightness setting. Right now, i cant see it even if i try with highest brightness looking down at the taskbar, which i have colored in windows as a dark transparent grey.

The one thing that is still an issue is the fans having weird spin-up and spin-down behavior. But i'm confident that asus will fix this with a bios update. This laptop has been out less than a month, no? give them some time.

So far i'm very happy with it. I had a macbook pro (argh!) before this, and another asus laptop before that. I'm SO happy that i didnt have to buy Apple again to get a sexy but powerful ultrabook.

 

The ram just make sure u get the corsair vengence DDR3 1600 8gb cl10 one. I tried the kingston 8gb and it wasn't fully compatible. As for SSD upgrades, rem to get 7mm thick SSD. Most of the SSDs come in 9.5mm. Or u'll have to take out the top cover of the 9.5mm like i did with my vertex 4.

 

If you get the CL10 ram, the UX32VD will underclock the ram to 1333 CL9. If you want 1600mhz, you will need a ram stick with a latency that matches the soldered 2GB, which is CL11.

 

Thanks for everyone's response!
It seems the problems of the UX32VD isn't really serious at all.

Now I'm stuck between getting the UX32VD or the Sony Vaio S ...>.<

any suggestions on which one I should get?

 

Don't know, but I'm really happy with this Asus so far.

 

Utilizing the above info, this module should be compatible with UX32VD's

Kingston Technology
8GB Module - DDR3 1600MHz
Part Number: KVR16S11/8

 

Just got my UX32VD yesterday. So far:

1) Backlight bleed. This much reported issue is on my machine too. It seems like you're pretty much guaranteed to have this problem on all of ASUS IPS panels, unfortunately. It's a case where you have to decide for yourself if the pros are worth that one big con. For me, the incredible viewing angles outweigh the con of seeing the bleed on dark screens with the brightness turned up.

I'm considering sending my unit back - rolling the dice for perhaps a unit with less bleed. But I'm not sure it's worth the hassle, considering 90% of them seem to have this problem in varying degrees. I can deal with it and expected it - it's just unfortunate. Right now it seems most places are sold out. If the next batch has the issue fixed, I'll try to get a replacement. But I suppose I'll standby on that for now.

2) Keyboard. It only really flexes if you're purposefully trying to make it flex. It's not a problem for me at all. I've been very, very pleased with the keyboard. Much better than the Macbook Air's and the last Zen's.

3) Touchpad. This thing seems to have a mind of its own, unfortunately. I've had netbooks with better trackpads. Not sure why this is so hard for Asus to get right. It'll take you some time to tweak the settings to make the thing behave a little more rationally.

4) Temperature. It gets warm, but haven't had it get hot on me yet. Fan noise is very minimal for me. Haven't done any intense gaming on it or anything yet though.

 

The most irritating thing about the UX32VD is Asus installing a GT 620M.

Why?

The GT 620M is based on the old Fermi architecture and pairs poor performance with a high TDP of 35 Watt. The main reason why this ultrabook is known to get very hot under load.

If they had installed the much better performing 28nm Kepler version of the GT 640M-LE, the notebook would get less hot and 3D performance would be really good, cause the GT 640M-LE, with its relatively low 500MHz clock speed has a TDP of only 17 Watt!

For the longest time, I couldn't figure out why Asus would make such a poor choice, till I found out how Nvidia's OEM sales program works: The number of Kepler chips they will ship to a manufacturer depends how much of the renamed junk from last year's crappy Fermi architecture they buy. Old Fermi chips apparently clogging Nvidia's warehouses, so they're ramming them down notebook manufacturer's throats with this clever little policy. And so, this old crap has to get installed somewhere, till its used up.

Don't fall for Nvidia's renaming scam: The 620M, 630M, 635M, 670M and 675M are all hot-running, inefficient 40nm 5xx series GPUs from the discontinued Fermi architecture. Even the 640M-LE has a Fermi version floating around, and its hard to tell which one you're getting installed in your system. Don't buy systems with those chips, to avoid heat and general waste of money...


This leads me to my question, in case anybody knows: is the GPU in the UX32VD soldered onto the board or is it socketed?

Cause who would mind a performance upgrade while at the same time lowering the power draw and waste heat??

 

How good is the display scaling?

If you ran the game at 900p or 720p, you should be able to crank up game settings and likely have it look better than at 1080p with all settings low, since its only a 13" screen.

The deciding factor here is the quality of the display scaling on the UX32VD. I've seen some notebooks that don't do display scaling at all, but most notebooks do scale, just some do it much better than others..

Would love it if anyone has tried on this notebook

 

If I were to go to the US (on vacation) and pick one of these up, which store would you guys recommend I go to? And how might the swap/return work if I get a system that has errors etc? I'm actually in Canada, but I think it's cheaper in the US.

Has anyone tested the Battery Life on the VD? How long does it last if you just do word processing, internet, low-mid brightness etc?

 

I wouldn't decide the store ahead of time... use pricegrabber. c om or similar. As far as online stores that are good and ship very quickly, you might check Newegg. c om. You should be able to use a Mailboxes ETC or similar to receive the shipment. Brick and Mortar stores seem to have a sagging selection of outdated stuff, mostly...


More importantly, Intel's CEO Paul Otellini has a message for you:

During an Earnings Conference Call on Tuesday, Intel CEO Pauls Otellini revealed that consumers will have the option to choose from more than 140 ultarbooks in the coming months. All 140 ultrabooks in the pipeline are based on Intel’s Ivy Bridge architecture. Among them, more than 40 will be touch enabled, a dozen of them convertible. The touch enabled models will feature Windows 8, so those will probably launch after October 26, 2012. He further said there will be $699 ultrabooks by this fall.

Source: Intel






This leaves me hopeful that someone will have an ultrabook with the following simple features:

matte, bright display that works outdoors
high quality, back-lit keyboard
multiband 3G WWAN module
at least three USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, SD Card reader
very quiet cooling system


And hoping that no more manufacturers will put any of Nvidia's renamed, hot and power hungry Fermi GPUs into their ultrabooks.

For example: The Asus UX32VD uses the GT 620M GPU (an old rebadged Fermi chip), that has a TDP of 35 Watt.
The much better performing Kepler version of the GT 640M-LE (new chip), has a TDP of 17 Watt.


...So, I couldn't figure out why Asus would choose that crappy chip, they're certainly not saving heat or power with that over the 640M-LE (@ 500MHz clock speed)... Then I figured it out, after looking at a report on Nvidia's current sales policy: Manufacturers will only get shipments of new Kepler GPUs in relation to how many of the rebadged old crap they're willing to buy. So, they are forced to buy the old inefficient junk and they have to install it somewhere, of course! So, until Nvidia and the manufacturers use up all the old inventory, you'll find that junk in notebooks, even though far better choices are available at lower TDP.

The upshot of that is: the lower the TDP, the less fan noise you have, the cooler your ultrabook runs and the longer your battery will last.

 

Umm no... The GT620M in the UX32VD is based off the optimized GF117 Fermi architecture and is 28 nm. Sure, it's not Kepler and that is regrettable, but... It even has "Kepler boost". It's about as close to Kepler as you can get (28nm and boost) without being Kepler XD

 

I'm in the same situation, my opinion is that if you are planning to do a fair amount of gaming go for the Vaio. With the BIOS-mod you can get GPU performance roughly equal to an 650M GT, also the CPU is more powerful. If you are going to use it mostly for browsing, school and/or watching movies/series, go for the UX32VD. The screen and audio is better, and it will allow you to do some light gaming.

Now I'm just trying to be honest to myself about what my needs really are ^^

 

Wasn't there two versions. The GF117 ( die shrink GF108 ) and the GF108.

 

may ask if how much are all the cost in upgrading the memory and SSD.. need ur reply guys

 

Also any guides on installing the SDD and re installing the OS?

I tried searching and got a bazillion bad results.

 

Hi!

My UX32VD was fine and fabulously silent until this afternoon. Then the fan got really, really loud. I'm not sure what's wrong. I didn't drop it or anything... Anyone else had the same problem?

 

Stay out of the headache and go for an other brand!

UX32VD has issues with the SSD and plenty of computer has hardware crash down that requires to send the computer back for fixing.

Then you will have to deal with the terrible Asus support.

Refer to this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/679687-ux32vd-issd-not-detected.html