ASUS Zenbook UX303 (Nvidia GT 840M)

Thanks for the input.
I know about the hinge issue, but I guess I'll have to deal with it.
Battery life still seems stellar to me. I'm currently the owner of a "craptop" with 15 mins of battery life. It's really aging, dating back from 2007. Back then, I spent $500 on it. It really starts to show its age, it's terribly slow, quite a lot of keycaps fell off (and something broke and I can't put them back),has terrible integrated graphics that can barely run 3D games even from 2005,not to mention it runs at 70-80 C at idle and turning off after about 10 minutes of a more intensive load.

One more question : how does the UX303LN/LB handle games? Have you encountered any game that would be unplayable (even at 720p low)?

 

I guess I don't tend to play the most graphics intensive games out there, but from newer games titles like Civilization V, Wasteland 2, The Testament of Sherlock Holmes, Valiant Hearts and The Banner Saga have all worked flawlessly with high settings. I haven't actually yet met a game that would have been a problem for the machine. But then again, I'm currently playing Wing Commander. The first one.

If it helps any, some time ago I ran the Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward benchmark out of curiosity and scored "High" on 720p: http://i.imgur.com/iqKsdmN.jpg . I have never actually played the game, but I hear that the score is quite ok.

 

I had the Broadwell LN model, no the hinge has not been fixed on them. Neither has it been fixed on the new LB - some users on other sites have said they notice the hinge pop sound when they open/close the lid. That sound has been reported to start before the hinge is about to fail.

 

This is worse then what I thought it would be.. that plastic part is not cracked on the bottom so I can only assume that nothing is holding it down on the bottom part which just makes this even more terrible.

 

Yeah it looks as though they put a very thin sticky strip under the plastic to stick it to the metal.

I think all that's going to do is keep it in place though, not add any strength to the mounting.

I've put it all back together now. I had to screw everything back with the screen in the open position so I can continue to use the laptop.

If I try to close it the left hinge will basically just stay in the open position and everything else will crunch and spread around the broken plastic and metal.

As I said before I don't open and close the laptop very often so this has happened through relatively little useage.

I also noticed the screws holding the other hinge in place had become very loose, I assume due to the forces being exerted on them.

I tightened them all up and the screen is completely solid in an open position now, even though only one hinge is supporting the screen.

 

The plastic of the chasis there is just crumbling, it can be so hard to tell with these things (as a manufacturer) if it's a defect or if it was say opened too hard one time which weakened it. Hopefully Asus see with a fair few people with issues it's unlikely to be user based.

The screws being loose on the other side may suggest why the side that was screwed in fully was taking the brunt of the force of opening.

 

That really has no bearing on the hinge failure. That looks normal to me.

Sounds like plastic embrittlement. Thanks for the photo though. Definitely did not reinforce that part of the laptop. Maybe combination of heat blowing on the lid as well as added stress causes it to crack eventually. Seeing that failure though, seems users without the issue yet may be able to reinforce it. Unfortunately users with the issue will have to replace the whole LCD lid. Unless there's wear on the keyboard housing as well?

I may go and epoxy mine all up to help reinforce it, unless I can or someone else can come up with a more elegant solution.

 

Speaking of those added stresses, I think the hinge may be constantly under a lot of tension. I have noticed there's a parabolic warp at the heat vents on every single photo of the UX303 I have seen.
Just drew this on from a random photo of Google but its present on all of them.

 

Plastic wasn't strong enough to withstand that usage, ASUS will usually take care of it if it's under warranty, otherwise they will ask you to pay for the repair.

 

There are three pages of reviews on Amazon all related to hinge failures and this is only for the LN model: http://www.amazon.com/Zenbook-UX303...=all_stars&pageNumber=3&filterByKeyword=hinge

It seems someone attempted the repair themselves by glueing the plastic back and so far their repair has held up.

Only one or two people have been denied warranty repairs by Asus.

I think I'm going to go down the RMA route.

 

I would, it may be worth double checking the screws on the repair.

 

Good luck, let us know how it works out!

 

Hi, I have posted before but so far the suggestions haven't worked. I am still having troubles with yellows. I downloaded the firmware and installed it was told it was a success and saw absolutely zero change. I installed and ran it as admin. I downloaded some of the ICC profiles and changed to them and also saw no change. I uninstalled the intel driver and that made the yellows like 15% better. Does anyone have good yellows and can explain what I should do?

 

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows7/calibrate-your-display

You could try manually calibrating it yourself.

 

It never becomes truly good to be honest. I just bought anew Spyder5elite colorimeter and went through a high quality Argyll CMS calibration (dispcalgui) that took 1.5 hours.

ICM profile attached. Settings: 120cdm2 - D6500 - Gamma 2.2
***remove the .TXT extension

 

Is anyone using 1920x1080 as their resolution on the QHD+ screen?

 

Did you have any specific question about running it at 1080p?

 

Haha, I don't know why I asked that question tbh. I'm not sure if I should buy the LN model (i7 (5th)/GT 840/256 GB) as I can't find the LA model with similar specifications here in Sweden.

Skickat från min Nexus 5 via Tapatalk

 

Well that scales to 1600x900 which works rather well with that screen size.

 

Guys,

noob question: If i install an mSata SSD in the free slot, can it be used for storage?

Also, I need more space, so should I buy a new SSD with more storage capacity and replace the original one, or buy an mSata one and plug it in the free slot? Is there any reason not to do the latter?

thx

 

mSATA slot is half-height. The largest SSD you can get for it is 128 GB. It can be used for storage.

 

So RMA has been accepted for the broken hinge, no questions asked.

I used the online form facility to lodge the RMA.

 

Or just replace the 2.5" SSD with a larger one.

Good luck. Let us know how it goes. I'm sure you will!

 

It's crazy how cheap 1TB drives are getting.

 

Found one on ebay with ubuntu pre-installed http://www.ebay.com/itm/271918797233?ssPageName=STRK:MEUNSOLD:IT

 

That's crazy considering it's over $100 cheaper new on Amazon. Is it really that hard to install Ubuntu?

 

Where can I download the most recent drivers for my UX303LN with haswell processor? The drivers on asus's website seems to be outdated. Thank you in advance.

 

Download Intel drivers from Intel website and Nvdia drivers from Nvidia website. Not sure there's a reason for updates to any of the other drivers unless you are having issues.

 

To be honest I would leave the intel drivers alone too, just the display drivers on the nvidia side are best kept up to date.

 

With the full screen scaling issues Intel has, I wouldn't dismiss Intel drivers. They are updated regularly and constantly fixing little issues here and there. Granted Windows updates usually has an Intel driver in there a couple times a year.

 

Both battery and plugged in settings are set to maximum performance. While playing offline video AND youtube video, offline video 1080p runs perfectly smooth, but youtube video lags (even in 720p). CPU utilization while both videos are running hovers around 30%, and RAM at 4GB (out of my 8GB available).

My chrome seems to be lagging as I type this post too.

Anyone experiencing the same problem?

 

Have you tried a different browser?

 

Run this extension in chrome to force youtube to h264 (hardware accelerated). HD videos will be offloaded to GPU.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/h264ify/aleakchihdccplidncghkekgioiakgal

*The problem is Chrome defaults to VP9 codec which isn't hardware accelerated. IE automatically uses the h.264 feed as well hence the low CPU usage. Chrome in general is the biggest resource hog

 

I think I know why. For some reason my Balanced power plan keeps reverting the Intel HD Graphics settings (on battery) to "Maximum battery life", even after repeated adjustments, restarts and saves. I created a custom power plan, and set "Balanced" and "High Performance", and the stutters seem to have stopped.

I'll keep monitoring to see if indeed is the correct solution. Thanks everyone!

 

Hello, I'm new here and desperate for help!

I bought my Asus Zenbook UX303LNB on March 7th this year and everything was working fine until one day in April while I was in class (I'm a college student) the fan went full blast and loud, very much like the sound you hear when the laptop is overheating. However, the laptop at the time was cool and I was in a air-conditioned room.

It never stopped ever since then, the next few times at the moment I turned it on the fan will blow at full speed. It was frustrating but I can't really deal with it at the time due to overloading assignments which will require my laptop. Around 2 weeks later, I heard the 'click of death' coming out of the hard disk and immediately I backup everything and as expected, it died on the very same night.

I took it to the service center and they changed the hard disk when I got it back. Just as I thought the problem is gone the fan is blowing at full blast again after 3 hours of usage! The same thing happened, it died around 2 weeks later, AGAIN. I've e-mailed ASUS and it wasn't any help either as all the suggest is to send it to the service center, but I did anyway. This time, I told them to get the fan checked as well.

SO right now, I just got it back from the service center for the SECOND time and guess what? The fan is blowing at full blast after only 1 hour of usage! I am getting real tired of this, I can already tell it is going to die on me again around 2 weeks later. I really don't wish to make a huge fuss at ASUS as I understand they have a lot of servicing to do. But the feeling of paying up a huge load of money for a faulty product which broke after 1 month of purchase, not only it inconveniences me but also wastes my time sending it to the service center back and forth is not pleasant.

I'm really really sorry for the rant but I seriously don't know what to do anymore...
here are some of the specs:
- Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5500U CPU @ 2.40GHz
- RAM 12.0GB
- OS - Windows 8.1 64bit
- Nvidia GeForce 840M
- BIOS: UX303LNB.202

Here the screenshot from HWMonitor, as you can see the fan is running at 25500RPM???



Greatly appreciates help whether it works or not ><

 

The IGP should be able to handle the video acceleration ok.

As for the fan, it could be a weak connection on the sense pin of the fan.

 

But what causes the hard disk to die though, even after changing into a new one? It always happened two weeks after the fan abnormalities.

 

Faulty power regulation on the slot could do it. That would be a motherboard issue.

 

I am new this forum, I have a few questions to ask about this laptop.

1) How is the battery life of this laptop? Reviews said 4-8 hours, but I am only getting at most 3 hours of light usage. Went to exchange for a new set but still same. Drain rate is about 20+W/h.
Installed Yosemite on it and battery life was slightly better, drain rate was about 15W/h.

2) What is the typical battery wear for this laptop? I got this laptop for almost 3 months and the battery wear is 7.2% of 50,103mWh as of now.

3) Is it possible to change the Wifi card for UX303LN to broadcom?


My system specs:
i7-5500U
8GB RAM
Nvidia 840M
750GB HDD + 24GB SSD Cache

 

Are you setting your power settings to power saver or even balanced? Are you running full LCD brightness or turning it down? Are you turning off the keyboard backlight? My system only runs about 6W while on power saver, 30% brightness, and keyboard backlight turned off with basic browsing and stuff. I can get about 5-6hrs. Then again I have the 1080p LCD which can also make a difference.

 

Installed Windows 10 Build 10062 today on my UX303LN 12GB, QHD i7.

Running great so far! minor Start Menu crashing bug, other than that this is the most refined build yet!

 

It depends on the shipping wear too.

 

Any improvement on Battery life?
What about hardware? any issues with the drivers?
Also, what about scaling?

 

battery life, not sure.
Drivers carried over, no issues
Scaling mostly same as 8.1, still some blurry legacy settings like Device Manager, Management Console etc

 

My right hinge is making quiet clicking sound, s i decided to opened my back lid today (and cut my finger with the sharp edge =) )
Yet i don't know how to remove the round plastic panel which goes around the hinge (bottom of the screen). As for what i have seen under the lid, everything is fine. tighten up the screws on the hinge a little bit.

How to remove the round panel? I want to check the condition of my hinges in order to decide if i should prolong my warranty (expires in October). What do you guys think it will cost to fix the hinges without warranty?

 

So if you unscrew the sides of the hinges which are attached to the laptop and remove the screen/wifi connectors.

Then you will be able to pop off the metal surround. They have very small clips on both edges all the way along.

It's a bit tricky to pull off but it will come eventually with some wiggling.

As I mentioned previously someone on Amazon fixed their hinges with glue.

The other option is to buy a whole new screen and lid section but I guess that would be rather expensive.

My hinges are currently being repaired under warranty.

 

Did you press along the surrounding panel or used a plastic card or knife? I was about to do that today, yet was a bit afraid to brake everything =)

 

Can you prolong your warranty months after the purchase of the computer ? Can you tell me how to do so?

 

Hey i'm having the same issue, did you manage to resolve the issue? what have you done to fix it?

 

according to this ASUS page you can extend you warranty within a year from the purchase date. Has anyone done that? we still need to confirm if the warranty covers N.A and if the broken hinge can be replaced with this extended warranty.

UPDATE:
Have just chatted with ASUS customer support. Unfortunately, this warranty extension doesn't not apply to N.A. It has to be purchased at the same place where you bought your laptop.

Also, according to the ASUS rep. fixing broken hinges after warranty expiry date will cost around 85USD.

You can see full chat log in the file attached.