Asus U36SD-A1 is now available for pre-ordering at GenTech, price is even cheaper than U36JC

Ken, do y'all offer backlit keyboard options? Is it possible? Does ASUS offer a backlit part replacement like they did with the UL30?

See sample part that I'm not sure fits this model: Replacement Keyboard

 

Unfortunately not and I don't think it'll fit U36SD.

import tax is out of our control, it's basically by luck.

 

any news on white U36SD in US market?

 

Welcome to the forum!

You linked from the post on pg 17, so perhaps you saw my post on this question reply directly below it. It's highly likely that it's never coming to the US.

 

I guess this kills all the idea of upgrading CPU on U36SD, thanks Asus.

 

Damn.... That womps

 

no way it's stuck on there like a !

crap!

well the u31sd is looking better everyday!

 

This is a disappointment indeed :-(

@GenTechPC: So are we to take it that the 36SD-A1 has about the same screen as the u36jc? If so, then I don't really see any redeeming values on this model.

 

So does this mean you cannot change the thermal compound either?

Side Note: Thanks for keeping this thread updated with insight into the supply etc., I've been lurking and looking for a new 13.3" ultrathin for a long time (since my beloved xps m1330 failed, I've been using just a tablet). You'll definitely be getting an order from me in the coming days, cheers!

 

I could be wrong, but in the picture looks like the heatsink was removed, showing the cpu built right into the mainboard. I presume that gentech can just put thermal compound on and reattach the heatsink. I'm sure ken will confirm that this is true.

 

yeah what a disappointment, I had my testing tools ready to test i7-2920XM on U36SD:


http://gentechpcforums.com/Images/Asus/testing_tool.JPG

Everything is the same as U36JC except U36SD has 2nd generation core i5 and GT540M.

You can still change the thermal compound even the CPU is soldered.

Correct, the picture is with the CPU removed showing the CPU.

 

Thanks for the quick responses. Disappointing, but since this is crunch time for most student's looking to get a laptop, it's appreciated that you are keeping us up to date

LOL @ the testing tools ;-)

 

As long as the palm resting area is not really hot when gaming, I am fine with it. Do give us some feedback

 

Oh, Ken .... now that's what I'm obviously missing in my toolkit for my Eee 1005HA power adapter .

(still laughing on the floor in hysterics) ......

 

Hi,

I've been stalking this thread for the past couple of weeks, and as newly owner of a U36SD I thought that I'd chip in with my initial impressions and experiences. Even though it is somewhat unrelated to the recent direction the thread has taken.

I got the U36SD one day ago and immediately swapped the HHD for a Vertex 3 (and a clean Win 7 64 bit Pro install). Other than that its specs are as stock (I5-2410m, 1x4GB memory, switchable Intel/Nvidia GFX, and an 8-cell battery).

Lets start with SSD and Windows installation.

Installing the SSD was definitely a more comprehensive task than what I am used to from other laptops, but I found it straightforward when following this guide: ASUS U36JC-B1 13.3" Notebook w / Windows 7 Home Premium. ASUS U36JC-B1 (customer review no. 1), which was correct in every detail. Nevertheless, I would recommend that people with no experience in disassembling laptops, should not take this task lightly.
To my surprise it turned out that the disk drive's Sata port was a Sata 3 port, which was indicated by Intel RST showing the disks transfer rate as 6 Gb/s, and was confirmed by a short sequential benchmark showing read speeds of ~450 MB/s. Eg. the Toshiba r835 only supports Sata 2: R835 - Limited to SATA II Transfer Rate (3 Gb/s) -... - Toshiba Forums.
Initially the SSD worried me, as it randomly froze for periods of ~10 seconds. This was solved by installing the newest Intel RST (10.6.0.1002) as well as disabling LPM manually by following this guide: Solution: C300 Disk Freeze-ups in Windows 7 solved... - Crucial Community (to be honest, I am not sure whether either one or the two combined solved the freeze-ups). Since then the SSD has worked flawlessly

A clean Windows install results in surprisingly many unknown devices in the device manager (I installed from media with SP1), including Atheros Wifi+LAN, Card reader, USB 3.0 port, GT 520m, and Atheros Bluetooth. These were all found at Asus' driversite. As you can probably guess from the Atheros devices, this was one of the cheap U36SD models. I did, however, swap Asus' driver for the Synaptics touchpad with the newest version (15.2.20.0) from Synaptics driverdownload, in order to successfully enable multitouch gestures.
Note: I could not boot/install from a made-bootable SD-card (an old Acer booted from it flawlessly), and thus had to install from an old/slow USB drive [insert curse-word of own preference].

Moving on to the laptop itself:

Generally I am very pleased with laptop, although there are some nuisances.

Screen:
The screen is glossy, and with a black image it unfortunately doubles nicely as a mirror... Other than that it pretty much on par with screens on similar priced laptops.

Case:
Very solid with only little flex at the palmrest areas when firm force is applied. The same goes for the bottom of the laptop. The hinges are pretty firm, leaving the screen only a bit wobbly right after it has been adjusted. Bear in mind though, that the case does not compare to more expensive business-laptops. I like the matte material it is made from due to its light weight, but don't be fooled - despite it being superior to a pure plastic-case, it is still poor-man's aluminium. The boasted 19 mm height (yes, I am European , is left unfulfilled due to both the 8-cell battery sticking out as well the laptop's heightened rubber-feet.

Input devices:
The keyboard-keys gives a good impressions with a firm travel and only minor wobbling. Their sound is pleasantly muted, except for the space and backspace keys which make a much louder click-noise. However, I believe that this is not standard. I am not very pleased with the layout, because the Home, Page Up, Page Down, and End -buttons are positioned at the rightmost position of the keyboard. I prefer a Vaio or Mac-style keyboard-layout. But this is possibly a matter of personal preference. The touchpad has a sufficiently large size, especially after disabling the scrolling areas (replaced by two-finger scroll), as well as a nice texture. The mousebuttons make a rather loud clicking-sound, leaving me to prefer tapping the touchpad whenever possible.

Heat & Noise:
Except for the lukewarm right-hand palmrest and bottom, the laptop stays cool while browsing, typing, downloading games from Steam, open monitor programs, and occasional install of applications. In this scenario (CPU-utilization at ~15%, using Intel graphics, and on battery), the CPU stays at 50-52 degrees celcius. I am yet to put it under serious load. However, the lukewarm right-hand worries me a bit, as the only thing placed there is the SSD. I might have to take it apart again to investigate.
In the aforementioned scenario the laptop stays almost completely quiet, with the fan taking an unnoticeable spin every few minutes. During a short 3DMark06 benchmark the fan speed up and got rather loud, as would be expected. I have not experienced any high-pitch noise from the fan.

Battery:
I am still on my first discharge, but so far it seems pretty good - ~5 hours with full brightness in the aforementioned scenario.

Speakers:
They suck. Sure they can play loud, but the sound-quality is very bad. But then again, one should never expect much more from laptop speakers than the occasional OS-sound. At least I don't

Performance:
As mentioned before, I am yet to put it under serious load. But I am going to throw a variety of games from my Steam-account at it, just to test it out. Other than that, the SSD make it seem incredible fast.


Well, that's it. Thanks for staying with me if you made it this far

If there's anything you would like to have tested/tried, please post in this thread, and I will see what I can do.

 

Double post....

 

guys i'm looking for a laptop for photo editing on the road, there are very few 13" laptops out there with nice screens.
i was going to go the lenovo x220 with ips, but that's only a 6 bit screen.
What would this screen be like in comparison to the x220?

 

Can you take a picture of how far out the 8 cell battery sticks.

 

You can still use your BBQ tester to let us know how hot the default CPU gets! I'm eagerly waiting to find out if my lap will be slow roasted or grilled

 

Would this be one of the reasons that this laptop produces more heat , that it is solder to the motherboard thus it is not as raised as the one direction above a socket?

that is why it's so thin i think no? i might be wrong but solder chips and paying for laptops in that price rante is dumb.

 

Getting ready to place an order. Anybody have recommendations on wifi and HD upgrades.

 

Yeah I remember your Eee, you definitely need my testing tool.

I'll test it this weekend.

 

Pretty terrible if I'm not mistaken... it's the same screen as the u36jc.

NotebookCheck had this to say about the U36JC:

Review Asus U36JC-RX081V Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

The x220 is a nice screen (very nice contrast ratio), though still not super bright (IMO, but it's a Thinkpad ) nor does it cover sRGB spectrum. Really, you can either pony up for a Vaio Z or an MBP 13", or wait until September(ish) and import an LG P330 from Canada (assuming it actually makes it there).

See: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-ThinkPad-X220-IPS-Subnotebook.55639.0.html for more info on the x220

 

Thank you for that review. When you describe poor man's aluminum, what are you referring to? The back cover of the screen is magnesium (usually superior to alu but more expensive) but what is the bottom of the case made from? It should be plastic, probably a type of polyethelene (HDPE or LDPE). If thick enough, this could be as sturdy as aluminum with less heat conductivity.

How much of the U36's 'all magnesium construction' according to Asus, is really magnesium? I remember articles talking about how the case of the U36JC was actually plastic.

We are all looking forward to your CPU+GPU stress test results too!

 

Sure. As you can see it is quite significant, but it has not bothered me thus far.

 

that looks to be less than my xps m1330's battery sticks out so it shouldn't bother me that much.

Thanks

 

You are right - the magnesium screen back cover does a very good job in terms of rigidity and weight. What I meant about poor man's aluminum is top of the case itself, which seems inferior to an aluminum-construction because it cannot shake of it's plasticly feel. To be honest I am not quite sure whether it is magnesium or a plastic+magnesium combo. But don't get me wrong - it is a very solid and rigid case.

As I am going to move this weekend I don't know if I will get time to do it before next week.
Nevertheless I will probably limit the benchmarking to temperature readings from respectively GPU and CPU intensive tasks or benchmarks, and not actual stress tests of said components (as in performing multi-hour tests).

Are there any specific requests?

 

Got the time to test the CPU today in order to evaluate how the U36SD handles heat. My aim with the test was to see whether the laptop would overheat as it is said to do in the review at netbooklive.com: Asus U36SD / U36S review – what an ultra-portable notebook!.

The results in short: The CPU gets hot under load, but the thermal design of the laptop is up to the task despite the fan being loud, leaving the claim made at netbooklive.com as unconfirmed in this test.

All temperature measurements are measured in Celsius. When talking about lowest and highest temperatures, I refer to the core with the measured lowest or highest temperature. There were seldom more than 2 degrees difference between the two cores.

Test Environment
The laptop was positioned on a surface with good air intake possibilities in a ventilated room with a temperature at 20 degrees.

First I tested the laptop's idle temperatures, having only Hardware Monitor, Task Manager, and Process Explorer open (I was simultaneously seeking out what eventually turned out to be MS Security Essentials that started using ~25 % CPU after ~15 minutes). In this scenario the lowest recorded temperature was 37 degrees at the CPU cores, and the fan was inactive. A quick general note concerning the fan - whenever the CPU temperature is below 50 below the fan is mainly inactive, with only brief, infrequent, and almost noiseless activations.

Second I used Prime95 to run 4-threaded calculations utilizing the CPU 100 % for a period of 60 minutes, while monitoring the laptop with Hardware Monitor, CPU-Z, and Speedfan. The highest recorded temperature was 90 degrees at the CPU cores, but this was not a consistent temperature, as I will describe now.
The initial temperature increase happens pretty fast until it reaches ~75 degrees, after which the increase slows down significantly. After the initial temperature the stepless fan runs between ~3600 and ~4200 RPM keeping the CPU temperature between 77 and 90 degrees, which is also the most drastic temperature cycle recorded. Whenever the temperature nears 90 degrees the fan revs up to ~4200 RPM which, if it keeps running at the same RPM, can drop the temperature below 77 degrees. This runs as a continuous cycle albeit with variations, meaning that a cycle just as likely can be between e.g. 82 and 86 degrees. It all depends on how many RPM the stepless fan runs, and for how long.
During this test the CPU runs at 2.7 GHz (presumably two core turboboost-speed), and I experienced no signs of throttling (monitored with CPU-Z).
The case stays quiet cool during 100 % CPU load (cooler than the scenario described in my earlier post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/583568-asus-u36sd-a1-now-available-pre-ordering-gentech-price-even-cheaper-than-u36jc-22.html#post7808826), bearing witness of a competent airflow design.
Even the righthand palmrest is cooler, as the intake vent placed in front of it starts sucking in air as the fan revs up.
Air temp at fan outlet: Std. electronic thermometer shows 47 degrees at 1 cm distance at its hottest (measured right about when when the fan revs up). It is not unpleasant to position your hand at same distance.
After terminating Prime95 the temperature quickly dropped to 60 degrees, after which it over a course of ~2 minutes dropped into the 40s while smoothly turning down the fan's RPM. After closing down CPU-Z and speedfan, the laptop eventually returned to the earlier described idle state with temperatures below 40 and an inactive fan.

All in all, considering heat I disagree with review at netbooklive.com, where it is claimed that the laptop overheats. The CPU does gets hot and the air blow from the outtake vent is loud, but since there is no degradation in performance, the case stays cool, and the CPU never gets warmer than 10 degrees below its specified Tjunction, it does not overheat. In contrast, despite the U36SD's small formfactor, the thermal design is up to the task when considering CPU intensive tasks. Whether the same goes for CPU+GPU intensive tasks (gaming) will be subject for a future test.

 

how about under normal usage? surfing? typing up some stuff or just chatting away.. i assume it stays cool?

 

Yes it does. I wrote this in an earlier post:

Except for the lukewarm right-hand palmrest and bottom, the laptop stays cool while browsing, typing, downloading games from Steam, open monitor programs, and occasional install of applications. In this scenario (CPU-utilization at ~15%, using Intel graphics, and on battery), the CPU stays at 50-52 degrees celcius.

I believe I had about 20 browser tabs open + a bunch application-windows while downloading via wireless, which is pretty much normal usage for me

 

would you suggest ordering the laptop with the diamond thermal compound applied? how much of a difference would it make?

 

Since none of the regulars have answered your question I'll give you my .02 cents worth. If you have the case open for some other reason ( changing out HD or another reason) I might change out the compound. I would not, however, crack it open just to change it out.

Now if I can just decide if any of the wifi options are worth the upgrade.

 

i don't plan on opening the case at all actually haha.. i was just wondering because gentech offers it as one of their configurations for $35. so should i just pass on it and save the money for something more useful?

 

Enhancing the cooling properties of a 3/4" thin, $1000 laptop and minimizing the heat exposure of the computer's internals is about as useful as it gets. I do my own repastes for only the cost of the thermal compound so to me, $35 sucks. But if you're not cool with opening up the case (don't say 'crack' it open, or you actually will) just put up the extra $$$. It WILL make a difference in the core temps. A tube of ICD 24 will cost you $20 so the extra $15 charged for Gentech or whovever to apply it isn't an unfair price considering what must be done to do the job.

If you want to try it yourself, there are less expensive and still top rated pastes like Shin Etsu, Gelid, Tuniq or Arctic Cooling. They're in the ~$8-$15 range.

Also keep in mind that with the U36, you can't undo a few screws on the bottom for an easy access door to the hdd. The user manual says the hard drive is not self-serviceable because the keyboard must be removed to get to it.

 

Hey GenTechPC,

What kind of temp improvements do we see with the U36 when changing the thermal compound on the GPU and CPU?

 

Hey Ken, just wondering if I will get an email confirmation when my order is shipped with the order details and if a tracking number is provided with usps priority to canada. Thanks!

 

I haven't got a chance to test it yet but I'll do my best to test as much as I can.

yes if it's shipped you will receive tracking number by email whether it's UPS or USPS.

 

After reading NBR user temp reviews I can now consider the netbooklive.com review to be inconclusive.

Can anyone please test gaming on this laptop? Starcraft 2 should be a great test as it is both CPU and GPU intensive. Should give the system a good run for its money.

Thank you in advance, rep will be given of course.

 

For the price you pay, sorry to say, but not much. The most you're going to see is about 2~3C drop.

 

My U36SD Arrives sometime today according to UPS. Will test it with a few games (Eve Online / Team Fortress 2) with my IR sensor and CPU monitoring software for thermal measurements.

 

newegg.ca is listing it as in stock now
Newegg.ca - ASUS U36 Series U36SD-A1 Notebook Intel Core i5 2410M(2.30GHz) 13.3" 4GB Memory 640GB HDD 5400rpm NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M

 

Anyone with a custom order from gentechpc get their u36sd shipped yet? I pre-ordered mine and i'm dying for it to be shipped haha. Can't wait!!

Edit: On a side note, if you're Canadian and thinking of purchasing a u36sd... Staples has it for $849.99!!!

http://www.staples.ca/ENG/Catalog/cat_sku.asp?webid=343098&AffixedCode=WW&cmSearchKeyword=u36sd

 

Any of you that ordered from gentechpc still stuck at pending status?

 

I got an email yesterday that said it'd ship within "2-5 days."

Opted for the upgraded Intel wifi card w/ 3rd antenna and thermal paste.
Have 8GB of Corsair RAM and a 180GB Vertex 2 waiting to install when it arrives.

 

Damn... I pre-ordered in early july and never got that email yet.. When did you pre-order it?

 

We just got the first shipment last Thursday, most of non-custom build orders has been shipped. if you ordered it with custom configuration we will need time, U36SD takes time to build, even just wireless card you need to remove the top case, for IC Diamond we need to completely disassemble the system. but we should be able to ship all the pre-orders by this Friday, thank you for your patience.

 

Aahh!! Thank you Ken for the updates! Take your time, I'm not that worried. I know my u36sd is in good hands

 

I didn't preorder, I ordered it Sunday night.

 

Yeah that is not fair, how can a guy that just ordered 4-5 days ago has shipped already compared to others who pre-ordered back in June/July with stock configuration and still waiting?

 

In Canada it appears we have 2 options:

U36SD-A1 and U36SD-CST1

From what I can tell, the only difference is the warranty. A1 has 2 years from Asus, CST1 has 1 year. The price difference is $150 (CST1 is cheaper).

Is warranty the only difference between these two models? Can't see anything else in the spec list but maybe I'm missing something?

U36SD-A1 ASUS U36SD-A1, Notebook (Black) - Intel Core i5-2410M, 13.3" HD (1366x768) LED-backlit, 4GB RAM, 640GB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 520 1GB, 802.11b/g/n, Gb LAN, Bluetooth, Webcam, USB 3.0, HDMI, 8-cell, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit | Canada Computers

U36SD-CST1 STAPLES | BUREAU EN GROS