ASUS Zenbook UX303 (Nvidia GT 840M)

OMG I LOVE YOU!!!!!

I just installed it with your files! THE YELLOW IS GOOD NOW! Went to BestBuy.com.. and PERFECT!

THANK YOU!!!!!

 

yeah I noticed that all colors are more vivid.. but at least the Yellow is good now! I went on a bunch of sites with prominent yellow logos or colors and it's better! I think it's worth gaining more vividness overall, as I kept my laptop on Splendid Vivid before anyway.

 

After Yellow Firmware Fix posted above:

Like he said on the original post, overall the other colors are all more vivid also, but it's worth it.

20141207_221643 by deepen03, on Flickr

20141207_221651 by deepen03, on Flickr

 

have not checked on the battery life after the update. will report after i do that.

 

Have not checked on the battery life after the update. will report once i do that

 

I don't have a file with the original settings =\

 

oh great! should we push ASUS more?
how do you think it is comparing to the other screens?

 

:hi2:

 

after updated the yellow fix, it does looks better, but when you check it in 'painter', the problem still exists

 

i would say the yellow folder icon is better, but when you simply take a closer look at the chrome browser icon, the yellow one is still that 'muddy', all in all, the update seems just make the yellow 'brighter' at some of the scenario

 

I agree! And the fact that this update makes the normal mode in splendid utility look like vivid, makes the screen look worse than it was!! At least in my opinion. I wonder if it is possible to get the original settings back again. I guess need a bin file for original settings...does anyone know where it might be saved in the laptop, whether it gets overwritten by the new bin file?

 

I have the QHD model I7 and I've replaced the 1Tb HHD by a EVO 840 500Gb,

I manage to have 10H05 minutes left at 100% of the battery, brightness at lowest, keyboard backlit at first level and wifi off

In normal usage I have between 7h30 and 8H30 depending of the use (wifi on, web browsing)

I have followed the ideas on this forum like : uninstalling the Asus Smart Gesture, (you loose the multitouch function) but you gain almost 2,5Hours of battery, and other bloatwares.

You also have to tweak you startup apps, just deactivate the apps you don't need at windows start.

And last but not least, check the windows services only if you know what you are doing, and choose carefully the loading of the
services, there are a lot of them who start even though you won't need them right away. You can choose to start them manualy instead of automaticaly

That means basicaly that the hardware is truly capable of great battery life, but it's crippled by lots of software stuffs, thus not allowing the processor to remain at a truly economic state/frequency.

Maybe there are more ways to improve the the system further...

 

That's an amazing battery life. Do you have a list of services you disabled and what they do please?

 

Hi fayth, where did you get the info that the 4259 variant will be sold in Indonesia? Is there any info regarding when it will be available in Indonesia?

I can't tell about the price, but I think what is meant by "the glass cover" is the glossy screen (because the 4259 variant uses a touch screen - which is always glossy).

 

So lets then all drop an email to asus and say that the fix hasn't really worked and they should do something with the bios rather than just calibrate the screen brightness.

 

By the way, I have set my resolution to 1080p, which is sharp enough for me on a 13,3

For the services, you will have to go in by yourself, because, a lot of apps you install actualy have services running in background;
like Adobe Reader, Skype, LogmeIn, and so on... but the ones I found wich were really "eating" ressources in background were the Windows 8 "touch" apps; or the Metro apps/ Modern UI, I can't say whyn but even tough they are not launched by the user, they launch themself in background.

So first of all, get rid of all the Modern UI apps you don't use, I for example, use outlook in MS Office, therefore, I uninstalled the outlook App on Modern UI (a big consumer by the way), there are lots of bloatware in that modern UI, working in background.

So go in your process tab first, look for ressources hungry apps; uninstall the one you don't use, the do the same with the services, look for apps who have services running in background, uninstall the one you d'ont use, and deactivate the automatic start on the ones that doesn't need to.

It is kind of annoying to have to do that, I reckon, but it's the only way to use your laptop with it's full capabilities.

poeple wonder why Macbook Pros have better battery life than most windows pc, the answer lies here, in software optimization and ressources utilisation by "garbage" apps

 

i agree, that would be helpful to know.

 

​akhirnya ketemy jg org indo
set dah jajaran laptopnya dewa amat

yeah it will arrive soon in our country.. check this catalog from asus indonesia
http://www.asus.com/event/2014/id/productguide/ACID_PG_JAN_2015.pdf
I m already wait this notebook 9 months ago. but asus indonesia is always "telmi" they always sell to us "barang baru stok lama"

i think its touch screen on gloosy one? but i think it would be better with glare panel on this full HD.

 

I will send a print screen of my services asap, but as I said, it will really depend on the apps you are using and the one installed. on your system.

 

Ah... thanks for the catalogue. About the screen, I'm not sure what is the right term, but I think glossy is the same with glare as long as it's not matte.

I just got the 4147 variant from Australia, but if the 4259 variant comes to Indonesia, maybe I will buy one.

 

i mean glare = matte
hey u already got one from ausie ? how is it?

cek PM gan

 

yes but overall colors on the web and certain apps have a much more realistic yellow now. I'm sure they will improve it with an update, but so far it's better than the factory settings. And it's clearly not a hardware issue as a .bin file has improved it.

 

what is the max output resolution for the UX303LA?

 

@seagle7
Thx for the info about setting in order to have a good battery life.
Well, I have read that you have changed your HD with an ssd.
My question is, how u have made a fresh installation??
I have tried to do it but, my laptop don't start from my usb pendrive.
Have you changed some setting in ur bios??
I have read something about uefi usd drive format but I don't know if it's the best way

 

I have done this migration things quite a lot now, and it's never the same between 2 laptops, even from the same series.
With the UX303, I tried something new, I used the samsung migration software and it worked flawlessly, I usualy don't like thoses OEM softwares because,
I tried a bunch of them before and it never worked easily.
I used a Samsung EVO SSD and I just installed and followed the process of the provided migration software : launch the software, plug your Samsung SSD in USB, proceed with the cloning, when the cloning process is finished, replace your old disk by the new, and that's it, Super easy ! In all my previous migrations, the software part was the most complicated, in this one, it was quite the contrary.

But if you don't have a samsung SSD ; I advise you to use HD Clone :
Miray Software - HDClone - Hard disk copy, hard disk backup, hard disk rescue!

It''s the only software who has worked in almost all my previous migrations :
it works a lot like Samsung software, you plug your new disk, the software clones it and your replace your drive.
it's only limit I have found so far, is that it can't clone 2 disks with different cluster sizes.

In that case, I used Acronis True Image home, wich is really great for backup of whole disks but not so much for cloning,
actualy, it always manage to clone, but when you put the new disk in your computer, the Master Boot Record is always shot,
so you need to go to windows recovery mode and rebuild your BCD and stuff, which quite annoying.
It can look complicated if you haven't done it before but it's quite simple with the right tutorials.

Exept in that case, you have to remove the "secure boot" option in the Bios and activate the "launch CSM" option, if I recall correctly
quite a trip if your are novice.

For your particular problem, you have to change the "secure boot" option too in the bios, that will allow you to choose the boot from the usb key.
If it still don't work, maybe you didn't make you usb key bootable.

 

This is my list of services, sorry it's in french,

The 4th column shows the status and "arrêté" means "stopped" and "En cours d'execution" means "Running"
the name of the services are the same in english so just follow the thread.

don't forget to clean up your metro apps, they really are ressources hungry.

 

@seagle7
Thx for reply.
Well, I don't need to do a migration.
I have bought an UX303LN with ssd inside.
What I need to do is make a fresh installation.
I have change the bios parameter but, even if I can see the usd pendrive I can start from it.
To do my usd drive I have used a tool that I have used other time and it have worked fine.
My doubts are about something like how make a UEFI Bootable USB Flash Drive.
Probably this is the solution but I'm not sure.

 

Agree on that. so as i said, lets push ASUS more to work on the bios update (same as Samsung did with their ATIV book 9 series) by bombarding them with complaining emails.

If we don't do that, they might think that the patch has completely fixed the issue.

Ux303ln is a great laptop and i totally love it, but the screen problem sometimes upset me.
Hope asus will not stop its support due to the announce of the ux305...

 

Some USB drives (like Cruzer Blade from SanDisk) are seen as hard drive rather than removable USB. They did it so that it can be used for Windows to Go. You cannot boot and install from such a drive. Just an idea.

 

That is incredible battery life! What are you doing when you get 10 hours? And what is the power draw in watts? And what are you doing when you get 8 H30? And again what is the power draw in watts?

Jim

 

This is more like maximum battery life test which isn't real-life scenario though.

 

It is possible. I use to get 8-9 hours with my UX302LG. Main things to do are

1) Do a clean install. Only install the base fundamental drivers that are needed. Nothing unnecessary.
2) Use the low power consumption script for Smart Gesture.
3) Like the other recent poster, stop apps and services that are unnecessary and/or draw large amounts of power.
4) Ensure the ambient light sensor is off and set your screen brightness manually

Optional but will make a significant difference - turn turbo boost off. Do this by adjusting in your power options "maximum processor state" from 100% to 99%. Also you can adjust all other applicable settings to "maximum power savings". However leave WiFi settings to moderate otherwise this will significantly drop the WiFi performance.

Hope this helps.

 

where can i get it and how to run it?

 

10 hours is the extreme mode but still real life scenario :
Airplane Mode on
brightness minimum,
MS Office Word opened
OpenOffice Calc opened
Power Drawing : 4.7 Watts (BatteryCare)

9H30 : Airplane Mode on
MS Office Word
Windows Media player playing music
Brightness at 1st step.
power drawing : 5.2 Watts

8H30 : most used scenario
Wifi On, 2 Chrome tabs opened
Acrobat Reader
Open Office
Brightness Auto / with keyboard backlit on
Power draw : between 5.9 and 6.2 Watts

My battery wear (fatigue) is at 0.12% so it's almost at full capacity, it came with a wear of 7% but that was before calibration.

In all my tests I have a mouse plugged in one of the usb ports (I don't use the trackpad, but since I have uninstalled the the drivers, it's always on)

EVGAFTW says he did a clean install, that's the best way to avoid any useless software and drivers on the system

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...power-consumption-due-asus-smart-gesture.html

 

How exactly did you calibrate your battery to get that 0.12% wear level? I remember when I got mine it had about 5% but it never went down by that much..

 

3 full cycles should do the trick ; you charge your battery until it reaches 100% then you discharge it until it reaches 5% or so, or until windows tells you the battery level is critical (which is around 7% or 5%) ; then you plug the AC and let the battery fully charge. That's one cycle.

Do this 3 times or 4 if needed, it's not hard science though, even after calibration, you can still have a pretty high wear level, but doing a calibration on every device with a battery will ensure you it's working at it's best capacity

 

I get around 9 hours battery left with minimum screen and keyboard brightness, WIFI on, web browsing (2/3 tabs), and the ASUS Smart Gesture set up, because I don't want to get rid of the mutitouch gestures.

Though to ensure a good battery life, even with ASUS Smart Gesture on it's better to use more the touchscreen if you have a touchscreen version.

I have the 1080p touchscreen version, and the original 1 To drive for the moment (in my mind I assume the SSD will consume less, but am I wrong ?).

 

Nope you are right, the SSD consume less than the HDD,

Now that I have good battery runtime, I will try to re-install Smart Gesture drivers/apps, and monitor, if the battery life cost is acceptable i'll keep it

 

Also I completely deactivated the bluetooth and stopped all bluetooth services, as I never use it.
I don't know if it really has a big impact on battery but never knows.

I'm using Avast free as an antivirus after having read that it was not power consuming, but I'm not that sure about that choice.

 

How soon do you think they'll fix this issue?

I've been looking for a 13" light gaming <$1200 for a while now and the ux303ln seems to be the best bet. I especially like the 3600x1800 display as I use some softwares where real estate is really wanted (rhino 3d and catia). However, the color issue does bother me as I do use photoshop every so often and not having the right color accuracy can be a real hinderence. Since this will be my secondary pc (i use a desktop primarily, this will be used for when I'm on business trips, can span up to 3 months at a time), I would like some capability of a workstation but not the price that comes with it, or else i would have hopped to the dell m3800.

On that note, is there any releases coming soon (4 months) that boast similar specs as the ux303ln? I know the nx500 is coming out but I really prefer 13" as I'm coming from an asus 1015pem (10")

 

i hope it will be done some time soon. however i believe we should really make the customer support aware of the fact, that the fix didn't completely solve the problem. to do so, again, i insist on emailing them as much as possible.

as for Photoshop... i wanted to use it on this machine as well, but due to the high resolution 3800 by 1800 the menu with the tools is super tiny and not usable at all (you can search web for screenshots of Photoshop run on a QHD panel). I have tried several versions of Photoshop and i think none of them is using DPI method for displaying user interface. It might still be Windows 8.1 problem.. not quite sure.

overall, i agree with you. ux303ln is a great laptop, with powerful hardware, however ASUS has to spend more time setting and calibrating it for outstanding performance (screen, battery life..). if they really try that hard, it will be way much better than any of its competitors in the segment.

the only thing i am afraid of, is that they will gave up on the 303 series due to the announce of 305s...
keep my fingers crossed.

 

Hi, pls can u explain to me or give me a link thx explain what u have said.
Thx

 

i thought the 305 isn't a direct successor to the 303 since it uses a slower processor (core m)

Maybe I should do some more research into the core m before I misassume. I figured since it's advertised to not need active cooling that it is weaker, but maybe that's not the case.

 

Thanks for the information! Very interesting. I usually get 7H30 with my use profile which would be 6.67 watts power draw. I run the Balanced Power Plan with a few modifications. I am going to look at some of your suggestions. I would love to get 8H30.

Thnks again, Jim

 

Just try a different USB flash drive if you have one. Also, sometimes multiple reboots help (keep flash drive plugged between reboots).

 

Thx for reply.
Surfing on other forums, seems I need to make a UEFI usb drive and properly make bios setup.

 

[no quote due to length]

Thank you SO much for posting the BIN file!. I was ready to sell my QHD version to buy the FHD (SSD/RAM upgradability, build and keyboard quality) make me love this laptop. Now that "yellows" are 80% fixed (close to 90% fixed at full brightness), I can make use of this laptop for my primary purpose; on the road Lightroom work!

 

This is one of the main reasons I want to install that update. I'm hesitant though since there's no .bin for the original settings. I've been trying to find a way to take a backup of the eeprom before applying the .bin, but if it's possible I can't find it.

What is your opinion on how the patch affects the other colors? A couple of the guys that installed it when it was posted said that it made everything resemble the vivid mode in the Splendid Utility. To me that mode is way too oversaturated to be any use in photo editing, so I don't want to get stuck that way

 

As I see it, the rendering of yellow was unacceptable before the patch. Therefore my reasoning to go ahead is much more simple. To say it became "Vivid" (splendid utility) is a bit too strong, but I do feel the patch brightened AND saturated the entire color curve to accommodate for the additional "magenta/reds" needed to negate the murky greenish yellow. The brightening affects shadow areas and clipping in the yellow/orange range. Due to this whole curve shift, all colors are slightly more saturated BUT yellows now don't clip into the murky green. It is not completely fixed, but feel the additional red/orange into yellows helps the screen overall, definitelya positive change.

To be honest, I don't see the same beautiful warm yellow in the Best Buy logo (I have no before photo) but definitely a remarkable improvement. I have yet to apply my i1 colorimeter post patch, but I hope it will desaturate the colors on the screen as a whole with the new ICC profile (happy to share later tonight). Prior to the patch, the deltaE for color accuracy check was 8.40-9.40 range, AFTER calibration. I will post results tonight post-patch.

From a purely Lightroom editing perspective, I couldn't predict where the color temperature (warm of yellow skin-tone in portraits) clipped into murky green, where as post-patch, the lack of clipping means the whole curve is more balanced and I feel I can better predict the color temperature and warmth on skin tones in a SRGB color space. To me, night and day difference, so the new saturation is definitely not a deal breaker.

In a one liner - "over-saturated" on the whole color curve is easier to compensate for, then a flawed yellow "fall off".