Asus U35JC/U45JC

Thanks.

I think I am gonna go with U35F then. It's about 100 dollars cheaper and widely available.

BTW, Acer 3820t has about the same config as u35F, but it's another 100 dollars cheaper...

 

Can you explain how to do this to me? I'm computer illiterate and have been dying to get the discrete GPU to work on my U45JC to work for 3 weeks now. I've experienced that damn login freeze all too much

 

Just wondering how people are finding the U35JC? Is it powerful enough? Toss up for me between this and the Samsung Q330 / Q430, leaning toward the Asus due to the better GPU but would love to know how people are finding it.

 

Yes.

................

 

I spoke to Daniel Portelance at DirectDial and he says the U35JC only ships to Canada with a US keyboard.

 

The GPU should be the same between them, since the Q430 uses a 310m as well. However, Asus has been using slower RAM with the new U series laptops, which would make the 310m on the Q430 slightly more powerful. In addition, the Q430 has an i5 that is slightly better than the U35/45's i3 370m.

All that being said, the Asus has Optimus, and the Samsung does not. The tradeoff is pretty even though: slightly more power or slightly more battery life.

 

I am not sure what his name is. But yeah it seemed like they didn't know for sure. He also alluded to the possibility of further delay as well. But hopefully they get some in stock soon for those of you that are waiting!

 

In the UK the Samsung Q430 only comes with the same i3 CPU thats in both the Q330 and U35JC so does that make any difference?

 

A little BIOS flashing tutorial...

A couple people have asked, and there doesn't seem to be ANY documentation or instruction on the ASUS site, so here you go (I hope this helps).

It's actually really simple, there are a couple ways, but the easiest is to use the provided utility for flashing within windows ( View attachment Winflash_WIN7_32_64_z2301.zip - this is available from the ASUS site too, but I couldn't find a way to link to it so I figured I'd just embed it).

Once you've got that installed open it and it'll ask for your BIOS file, point it to the U35JCAS.208 file you downloaded (the latest BIOS version) from the ASUS site.

It should then go into the program itself and tell you which version your BIOS is currently (I would guess 207), and which version you're attempting to flash with (should be 208), and it should then say the file is valid and you're ready to proceed. Tell it to flash, then sit back and wait.

I would recommend closing pretty much everything else before you do this, and being plugged in, because you really really don't want the machine to shut down for any reason in the middle of the process or your computer will be a very expensive paperweight.

The process should be exactly the same for you (although your BIOS file would, I would guess, be U45somethingsomething.208) but if for some reason you can't get it to work or you don't want to flash the BIOS the previous version of the NVIDIA drivers (version 257.21) works with the older BIOS and still makes Optimus work correctly.

Good luck!

 

Yeah I just barely figured this all out before reading this. Winflash makes updating the BIOS super easy and you just get the U35.208 update from Asus's driver site (use IE and use their detect drivers option) like beavertank explained. I am currently running the latest Nvidia drivers and Optimus is working perfectly! Thanks for info beavertank and the great review!

 

I'd go with the Asus on this one. Unless you need an extra 5fps in games, the Asus is better overall.

 

Ive been following the forums for some time and now I have a question of my own:

My U35Jc is already in the mail, but I think I messed up by not selecting the wireless card upgrade. I'll be using it in college (nearly exclusively wifi) and I would like to know if it would be worth it or even possible for me to try purchasing the Intel Advanced-N 6200 and upgrading my U35Jc myself?

And thanks beaver, I'll be sure to follow your directions when I receive it tomorrow.

 

Just curious, what's wrong w/ the wifi card that's included already?

 

You can check this post and see for yourself what you would need to do. Even though I think that I would be technically able to install a new card, I still wouldn't do it myself. Too much of a hassle, not to mention probably voiding your warranty.

 

So even if it would be useful for me, I probably shouldn't? Question about that...do upgrades from the retailers void the warranty?

I planned to use wifi alot in college, maybe even to the point of playing a few older, less intensive games when I have a lot of downtime (wishful thinking I'm sure). I just didn't think there was enough of a difference in the wifi cards to justify the upgrade when I initially ordered.

Sounds like I screwed up by not ordering the upgrade in the first place?

 

Hey. I had the same WiFi woes as you with my desktop (for specs see my signature). I had no clue how to fix it, and started using the neighbor's wifi instead (they had a 200GB Limit). But after seeing that our D-Link router (802.11N) was only working at 802.11G speeds, I decided to tweak the settings. I say try making the wireless mode that the fastest wifi enabled device in your home has. So, since your U35 has wireless-N, configure your router to broadcast wireless-N at it's highest output (ours was 300Mbps). This solved my issue and I have never experienced any problems with it.


P.S. Suprisingly, an iPhone 3GS (802.11B/G) can easily connect to our network.

 

Slightly better battery life? Laptop Magazine shows the U30JC (which is comparable to the 35/45) getting over double the battery life of the Q430-- 7:07 versus 3:17.

Samsung Q430-11 - Benchmark Test Results

 

Really! Wow, dude! I thought it was more along the lines of 4 hours vs 6 hours

 

I am also very interested in what the advantage of upgrading the card is. Aren't they both basically the same? Both N cards, no?

 

im updating my bios using easy flash in bios.. tht one more secure for me as thr will b no interruptions...

 

The U35JC comes with a stock Atheros AR9285 wireless adapter which is a very low end wireless card designed for netbooks. I believe its only a single antenna and can only achieve speeds of up to 150 mbps. There are known issues with this card randomly dropping signals or having connecting issues with routers.

The Intel Advanced-N 6200 on the other hand is dual antenna and can achieve a 300 mbps data transfer rate. It operates on dual band 2.4ghz and 5ghz and thus is more resilent to interference, has greater range and stability as well compared to the atheros card.

 

So I did screw up by not getting the upgrade....

Is there anything I can do at this point? I mean the laptop is already shipped and I don't want to void the warranty, especially since I'd have no idea what I'm doing if I tried to install the N 6200 myself.

 

Sorry, p0int, but I can't agree with you in this point due to personal experience (on the Atheros AR9285 card ... I agree that the Intel Advanced-N 6200 looks to be an excellent card!) I just don't want others to quickly discount the Atheros AR9285's abilities.

My U30Jc is right now using the Atheros AR9285 wireless card. It has two antennas and is the absolute most powerful card I've ever owned, and that includes an Intel 4965AGN wireless card I installed in another notebook of mine.

You can look back on the U30Jc thread to confirm this. Most everyone commented that they (and I) were receiving far more signals and stronger reception then ever using the Atheros AR9285 card. We were all dumbfounded. Me especially as my ASUS 1000HA had had an Atheros card with only one antenna (not the 9285) and it was pretty weak, and so I'd upgraded that one to the Intel 4965 wireless-N.

HERE is a comparison I found on April 18th between the three notebooks in my home (and my ASUS netbook has the nice Intel 4965AGN card):

• A point of interest on my U30JC's wireless card:
  
  My ASUS 1000HA 10" netbook shows 6 available connections in my condo area. (I had upgraded the internal card to an Intel 4965 bgn+added a 3rd antenna).
  
  My wife's 13" white Macbook shows 7 connections.
  
  My new U30JC shows 13 available connections (whoa!).

 

That's exactly why I swapped out the Atheros in my 3820TG and put in a Intel 6300.

Of course, it's a million times easier to switch the WiFi card in the 3820TG than the U35jc. Just open a door and swap!

 

Well, now that I realize the integrated card is 2.4Ghz only you can do what I'm planning to do... upgrade it yourself. I've looked at it, and in order to do it you'd have to pull off the entire bottom of the laptop, but that's it. It looks like a maximum of 18 screws (plus two on the card itself). As semi-advanced hacks go, it should be pretty simple.

The wireless card is just toward the bottom (speaker side) edge from the harddrive, but is on top of the entire motherboard, so it should be a simple procedure.

I couldn't see any telltale breaking stickers, so while doing this may TECHNICALLY void your warranty you could (in the event you need to do a warranty exchange) put the old card back in and no one would be the wiser.

 

Unless you ship it back to GenTech, it's very, very hard to install yourself. I've installed several wireless cards and generally fiddled and replaced many things on my notebooks and built my own desktops, ... but after seeing Ken Lee's photos of the U35's wireless card location and what you have to do to get to it ... I wouldn't attempt it myself!

 

Beavertank, have you looked at Ken Lee's photos? You have to take off the keyboard. Take off upper surface and lid/screen (not the bottom only, according to Ken's photos). REMOVE the motherboard. Flip the motherboard over and then you can get to the card.

HERE's are Ken's photos of the procedure.

It looks pretty daunting to me.

But if you do it, let us know how it went! You're a brave man.

(Those photos did make me glad I wasn't trying it!)

And by saying the Atheros AR9285 is the most powerful I've used, I'm talking about strength of signal and power of reception. You're right that it's just a 2.4GHz signal ... but even when I used a 5GHz, my home's server plan is still my bottleneck (6-7 Mbs), so even with a "better" card, my throughput was no better. Just sayin'.

 

When Quatro speaks, you should listen.

 

Yeah, I definitely won't be trying myself. I guess I'll have to talk to Ken at Gentech (which is where I ordered from) and see how much it would cost for shipping + the upgrade. Or else, I'll just have to settle!

Thanks for the help!

 

Ah, no, I hadn't seen those before... I dug into my own notebook a bit more too, and that does seem to be the only way to go about it. There's also one "Warranty void if broken or removed" sticker to get through to pull that off, too.

But there's no reward without risk. I'm going to give it a shot anyway, I think. I'll document it for posterity I suppose.

I had to do pretty much the same thing three times with my previous laptop, so this won't be too new to me. Hopefully I don't manage to strip out any screws like I did the second (and third) times with that laptop... I do have to take back my "it shouldn't be too tough" comment, though.

 

My U45JC will arrive tomorrow, and since I don't have any classes, I'll have all day to play around with it!

 

Awesome. I like a person who's willing to experiment (though I'm still glad it's not me as I'd worry about voiding the warranty.)

Lots of luck! Tell us how it goes!

 

I see what you guys are saying about the wireless cards, but I think I am fine sticking with the stock one. There is no way I will ever need more than 150 mbps. I don't get speeds that fast from my wired FiOS internet connection. And I have no need for insanely fast internal file transfer. As for stability, I guess I'll deal. My house had a strong network signal, and my school (University of Washington) also has amazingly strong network coverage.

On a side note, my U35JC arrives tomorrow! I am soo excited! Taking it to work on Tuesday and playing with it all day instead of getting things done!

 

Lol, I'm going to agree and just be happy. My old desktop on a wired connection is getting 10.0 Mbps (pathetic, I know), and it's just fine for me and some games. So even 150 mbps would be AMAZING for a noob like myself.

Mine arrives tomorrow too grats! Too bad the best time frame UPS can give me is 8 am to 7 pm

EDIT: I also had Gentech do the CPU/GPU thermal compound upgrade...did this already void my warranty?

 

Definitely let us know about it!

 

Amazon.ca still doesn't have any in stock...

I need it by next Tuesday

 

According to UPS, I should be getting mine today too Lets see.

 

Hello lads, have been monitoring this thread for a while as i'd had my eye on an asus for a while and plumped for the u35, got it on fri. So thought I'd throw in my 2 pence worth...first off, the one i got was the brushed black aluminium and my god, its an absolute magnet for smudges and fingerprints, its shocking. Its really hard to keep looking any way clean. Might seem like a minor point, but still. Awful design idea. Ive only tried one game on it, not really a gamer, but it plays Blur...passably. Just. Weird as my 3 year old radeon 3850 eats that game. But that's comparing desktop to laptop so probably not realistic comparision. Took me a while to get it (the game) working as well, as the optimus wasnt activating the geforce automatically and the game was crashing during loadup as it was trying to use the intel graphics. There was a ridiculous amount of 5hite installed on the u35 as well, annoying, im still finding weird asus bits and pieces around the place. Its also not particularly light. Not heavy, but not that light. Would have liked a physical volume control.

sound like im ripping on it, but the good points are, it's fast. Keyboard is comfy. It lasted me almost a full day yesterday on a long train trip on battery.
Good wifi signal. Overall its a decent bit of kit, its not a MBP by a long shot but then it is half the price.

 

Desktop GPU cards blow away laptop GPU cards.

The U35jc's GPU card is quite easy to blow away.

 

Anyone planning or currently using a Zeroshock III with one of these?

 

thanks for the review! also...we've had reports by ken that it's 4 pounds with the battery. did you not know that beforehand or did you have higher (or lighter) expectations?

also, have you tried to upgrade the bios and install the new nvidia drivers? that should fix optimus not activating.

 

Just an update for anyone who ordered from Xotic. I believe i was in the first batch and just had one upgrade. But anyways, i talked to Justin W. through live chat just a few minutes ago and he said my order should ship later today! So Xotic is now shipping i guess.

 

I have just ordered the u30jc qhda1 with the I-5,
Thanks to all who have wrote about the u30jc on this thread, it's help a lot to make a decision!

 

I just got my U35 and am sitting at the startup screen with a small problem... the mousepad doesn't work...

Is this my fault? Is this normal? Is there something I'm supposed to do to activate it?

Thank you!

EDIT: Kinda worried I got a dud and have to send it back

 

I think i had unrealistic expectations, its my first new portable in ages and id seen some hugely expensive but amazingly light sony, probably gave me false impression. Its fine though, perfectly portable. Quiet as well.

I'll give the bios upgrade a go, cheers. Im also gonna try some 3dmax rendering with it, see how it deals with some hardcore vray work, rams more important there though so should be fine with it. Just tried blur at 1024x768 and flies along, so it can certainly deal with some slightly compromised gaming. Still miffed with the black finish though, its smudge city, silvers def the way to go

 

Just got my U35JC today, first thing i noticed was a lot of whine/whirling sound coming from the harddrive. The sound is persistent and doesn't stop. and my laptop stalled for a long time while trying to start up about 7-10 minutes.

Definitely would recommend grabbing an SSD.

Fan is barely audible while web browsing. Left vent and left palmrest are mildly warm, about body temperature.

Not as lightweight as I imagined but certainly still very light. Keyboard flexes in the center with mild pressure but no flex whatsoever while typing.

Horizontal viewing angles are superb but vertical angles are horrendous

gosh the bloatware is just ridiculous, maybe thats why my laptop hanged for 10 minutes before reaching my desktop

 

Initial impressions:

The trackpad is a bit iffy, since it seems to spaz out here and there. I'll play around with the mouse settings in a bit.

There is no keyboard flex on my unit, except on the top corners (next to the clips securing it to the body). There is a bit of give there when I press the ESC or delete keys.

The battery wobbles a tiny bit, But I'm not particularly worried about that, since there are two switches that one must flip in order to remove the battery.

I'm in the process of getting rid of all this bloatware...it's actually more hilarious than annoying. There was a pre-installed wedding simulator...yes, you read that correctly.

I figure that everyone already knows the PC/3Dmark figures, so I'll just post some framerates for games later on tonight.

 

So everyone else's touchpad worked on startup? I have a defective unit? Can anyone help me?

 

I don't own this laptop, but if it is easy to take off the keyboard, you might try that and then see if the ribbon cable for the mouse is just unplugged. I don't know if it is that easy as I don't own this laptop.

 

mine worked fine :/