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

I have a U36JC (in signature) and it lasts me roughly 5-7hrs with normal web browsing, typing Word document, etc. In lowest LCD setting. No gaming. This is the actual time, not what the battery indicator on the lower right hand side says. I installed almost every driver on ASUS, except for the NVidia graphics card.

I don't think it has to do with Windows 7 Ultimate edition because you can always configure your settings to maximize battery life such as no Aero theme, etc.

How long did your laptop last before? How long does it last now?

 

I'd have to say the LCD on my U36JC is not that great compared to other laptops I've seen. The viewing angle is very bad vertically. You almost have to adjust the tilt so it faces directly at you to see the colors correctly. It's side angles are acceptable though.

 

Looks like the price is coming down a lot on the 36SD. I see it available for $799! on JR.com right now. I got mine for $969 on amazon when it was first available which wasn't very long ago.

 

Wow, just wow. A week and half after I bought the U36JC for $750 - $50 rebate from TigerDirect.com.

 

Hi Hanime, thank you for your feedback!!
Well, actually, if I make only reference to the battery indicator, it seems that with the OEM installation it lasted pretty much than now. Unfortunately, I hate OEM installation (too many applications installed, many of them are useless for me). So, I decided to delete every partition and begin a fresh installation (right after imaging the HDD).

I am still trying to find out the best combination, although I have quite a few problems when I try to set up the Intel parameters too using the IGFXtray icon (it simply does not keep the settings).

I suppose too I cannot blame Ultimate for the battery performance, but I also need to check it out more carefully.

Why didn't you install the Nvidia graphic driver? Are you keeping only the Intel HD graphic card?

 

Hey,

I know this has been asked before - heat issues:

My current laptop get's crazy hot, so hot in fact that I need to use one of those fan things that sits under the laptop to keep it somewhat cool, hence my biggest fear when I am about to upgrade my notebook is heat.

I mainly surf the web, watch videos, work in office (excel/word/PP) and listening to music on the notebook. There's also some statistical programes being used such as SPSS, Eviews and the likes, but no really heavy tasks.

Will this create a lot of noise/heat? I dont play any games, and if I do it's some pretty basic old school games.

This laptop seems to fit the bill perfectly, but there's always something popping up on the negative side, and this time it is heat - my long time nemesis.

 

Update. I played a video (same video in loop for 4 hours, Battery saving, full screen). Laptop lasted for 6h 07mins

Then I restored the original Asus installation.
Same result!

Problem solved

Thanks!

 

Glad it's working out for you. Sorry for the confusion. I meant I installed all the drivers from ASUS website, with exception to the NVidia graphics card. The graphics card driver, I got that from NVidia itself. :]

 

any1 can give me gpu frequency?

 

I have no problem with the heat issue on the U36JC. I think it depends on preference. I do common tasks and it does not heat up one bit on my lap. If I put it on the bed where there is no air flow on the bottom, then there will be a little noticeable heat on the left side vent. Overall, this laptop keeps the heat away from you very nice because of its engineering. I don't feel heat on the bottom at all.

 

will gentech match JR.com price? $799??

 

i dont think they will. I called them about the price drop and they said that the shipment in august cost them more than the one in september so they could not do it.I am kinda mad that i had bought this laptop on the 21st for $969 and now a couple weeks later the price drops like this. I'm a student and coulda really used those extra $$$$.

 

btw i noticed a couple things about the laptop.

1. It comes with 1x4gb of ram vs 2x2gb. I had asked this question earlier and did not get a response so i ended up getting 2 sticks of 4gb ram.

2. I replaced the HD with an ssd and had some trouble installing windows again. Everytime i booted the usb it gave me an error saying that the device driver for the cd/dvd drive is missing. I was like ?? because this laptop doesnt even have a cd/dvd drive. What you have to do is go onto ASUS support page for the u36sd and download the intel rapid storage driver. and put it on a flash. When it asks for the cd/dvd driver just point it to the intel driver on the flash. Everything will work fine after that. When you plug in the flash make sure you use any usb port other than the 3.0 port because the drivers will not be installed for it and the installation will not pick it up

3. I will post a guide on how to replace the HD with some pics later on for anyone interested.

 

Have you tried any games on it? I'm really waiting for some benchmark type info here so I can decide what to get.

 

im installing css as i type this =). CSS is the game i basically play the most. So hopefully i will get a decent framerate and useable temps.

BTW i noticed that in the windows logs it gives me this warning:

The speed of processor 0 in group 0 is being limited by system firmware. The processor has been in this reduced performance state for 71 seconds since the last report.

is this the intel turbo boost stuff thats causing it? Or is it throttling due to heat? This is basically in idle so i don't think its a heat issue. So far it has only happened once.

 

Also if anyone knows how to make the two-finger scrolling useable on the touchpad plz post. My last asus had an elantech touchpad which blows this synaptics touchpad out of the water

 

i just finished the video stress test built into css. It averaged around 135 fps which means it should easily run source engine based games. Next im gonna try l4d2 and post back.

 

@King Khan. You using Sata II or Sata III SSD?

 

1. Mine came with 1x4GB also, and it is a U36JC from TigerDirect.com.

2. My USB port (any of the 2.0 ones) works straight off the bat. After creating a bootable USB for Windows 7, I put it into the port, and boot up the computer. Went into the BIOS, and there is an option to boot from the USB. Did that and installed Windows perfectly fine.

3. Guides are always nice. I recently put an SSD on mine too and love the 20sec boot. :]

 

Did you download the Synaptics touchpad from the ASUS website? I did that and my touchpad has the two-finger scrolling. I have to say sometimes the scrolling up does not work so well on my laptop though. It is kind of glitchy.

 

I upgraded the wifi to Intel 6230. I use a Lynksys e3000. The download
speed on N is half of what my Lenovo. The Lenovo will download at 34mbps while the Asus sitting in the same spot will only download 17mbps. When I switch to G the Asus is downloading at 24mbps so I don't think it is a Windows issue. Anybody else?

 

Just picked mine up for Memory express (Canada) and im loving it so far!

 

After all the Asus machines I have bought this is the first that's ever had a problem.

Another problem just happened tonight. I'm having the same problem that NWADAMS has. When transferring a large file from the 3.0 USB drive to the Asus, the portable drive disconnects after about ten minutes.

 

when copying large files (~100gb+) i tend to not trust the built in windows utility. I use somthing called ycopy. It lets you copy files without stopping for warnings like in windows. Instead it will skip those files automatically and tell you what errors it encountered in the end. Try using this program and see if the problem still exists. I myself still have not even tested my usb 3.0 port since i dont have a usb 3.0 device

 

Unfortunately, disconnects when copying files are something that's fairly common with USB 3.0. There doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to these incompatibilities, and I think it can primarily chalked up to the relative immaturity of USB 3.0. The three primary chipset suppliers are NEC/Renesas, Fresco Logic, and AMD. IIRC, the U36SD uses Fresco Logic, which is probably the worst of the bunch. I've personally never used it, but have experience with NEC (in previous notebooks) and AMD (in my current system). A SIIG-brand hard drive enclosure that worked perfectly on a NEC USB 3.0 system would frequently disconnect on the AMD I use now. I switched to an iNeo hard drive dock and, knock on wood, I've not had a single disconnect.

You could try a different hard drive/enclosure to see if it gives you better results, or simply use what you have on USB 2.0. You will probably have to wait until Asus updates the drivers. The nice thing about NEC is that they update their drivers and firmware pretty regularly, and they can be easily downloaded by end users. I checked Fresco Logic's website, and they say you have to go through the OEM (Asus in this case) for support.

 

Hi! I need some advise over here. In japan, they just release the U36SD with i7 2620m config. ‰¿Ši.com - ASUS U36SD U36SD-RX2620 [ƒuƒ‰ƒbƒN] ‰¿Ši”äŠr

1.Is it good to get the i7 or i5 is good enough?
2.Will there be more heat for i7?
3.Will there be noticeable speed increase for i7?

(Sorry for the weird link, it is in Japanese)

 

^^ I've been waiting for the i7 version actually, after seeing the updated specs on the ASUS website. But I am not sure if i7 is necessarily battery efficient than the i5. I read somewhere the i5 is perfect for this laptop, but if you decide you needed more power to render videos, photoshop, and other high cpu work, you might want the i7. Yes, the i7 should give you slightly more heat. I use my U36JC (old gen model) for school daily and love it to death! The people with Apple Macbook Air gets really jealous.

 

Does anyone know where I can find a 5600mah battery (not the 4400mah one) for the u36JC/SD? The only ones I come across are the 4400mah ones.

 

Thanks for the response. . This is my first 3.0 and I thought I had waited long enough for the bugs to be worked out. Your positive experience with the iNeo dock lends credence to my belief that it is a voltage issue since the iNeo dock does not depend on the 3.0 for voltage. I have another 3.0 case that can be powered from a wall wart so I'll try that theory.

 

I have been using this laptop for about a week now and it seems as though my touch pad decided it wanted to die. =( The buttons themselves work but the touchpad doesnt. ive uninstalling/reinstalling the drivers, disable re-enable with fn+f9. nothing worked. i ended up calling asus and they are picking up the laptop today for repairs. Does anyone have any last minute suggestions?

 

Install the drivers from Synaptic instead of Asus.

 

After a few weeks of use, I really don't see much wrong with the screen. The gloss grew on me. Heat is also not really an issue, unless your playing a game on it, then that one fan pumps out a fair amount, but that's understandable.

I highly recommend this laptop!

 

Anyone know what SSD is in this new model?

Amazon.com: ASUS U36SD-XA1 13.3-Inch Thin and Light Laptop - Black: Computers & Accessories

 

thats what i was wondering as well, but if you think about it. You could get an ssd for ~$200 and keep the hdd for a backup drive with the regular u36 as opposed to the the xa1 where you only get a ssd

 

i did that as well but the touchpad is still a POS. i actually had to send my laptop in because the touchpad failed on mine. I only had my laptop for a week and now ive been without it for a week now while it gets fixed =(

 

Most likely Intels

 

so i got my laptop back from asus. It seems as though they do not care/notice if you swap the hdd for an ssd.

 

Touchpad issues fixed?

 

yea they apparently had to replace the touchpad. I just wanted to let anyone who wasnt sure whether their warranty would be voided by installing an ssd

 

My U36SD has throttling issues, it races to 90c on both cores and gt 520m to 88c in just 2 min when firing up WoW Cataclsym and i caught it by using fraps.

Steady at one spot my fps was sitting at 90fps and after about 2-3 min, it went to 40 fps. Tested this over and over again and at first i thought it was some kind of gpu or driver glitch.

Tested diff drivers for the gpu, the default, the updated asus, even the new nvidia driver from official page and to no avail, they all show the same results.

 

It's amazing how people wants to game on a slim 13 inch notebook and expect not to throttle

i mean, this laptop is not built for high end games people

i can understand if it's playing Steam games ( like Terraria and all that )

and so just you know, GT520 is pretty low end graphics

so its not driver issue, it's just not MEANT to play those heavy games


-----------

anyway, just curious, which GT520m does the U36SD use?

the GF108 ( 128bit ) or the GF119 ( 64bit ) ?

and for everyday use ( Photoshop, Ai, Premier Pro, and games such as Terraria ( mainly Indie Steam games )

which one is better? higher bus width or higher clock?

 

Is there anywhere I can purchase the model mentioned below in US with a choice to extend global warranty?

ASUS U36SD-SSD-RX146X
Core i7 2620M, 4GB, 160GB SSD, 13.3" HD (1366x768), Geforce GT520M/1G, N WIFI, BT, Webcam, 8 Cell Battery, Win7 Pro 64

or

ASUS U36SD-XH71
Core i7 2620M 8GB RAM 160 GB Solid State Drive @ a cheaper price

 

anyway what is the keyboard hotkeys package named on the driver section?

i tried looking everywhere on the u36sd download section from Asus website, but they do not include the keyboard driver?

anyone know alternative site for the keyboard driver?

thanks

 

you need to download the ATK hotkey driver. It should work fine after that.

 

i did install that one, but only the Volume key isnt working, wifi and the rest are fine...

oh and 1 more, might be a bit too late to ask

but my u36sd Camera is upside down

i used the LifeFrame software.should i use something else/

 

U36SD-XH71 now available for pre-ordering at GenTech

 

that's nice, i hope it comes to Canada any time this week, i am planning to buy that spec for my brother

and swap the ssd into sata3, and you probably have the best slimmest 13 incher in the world

 

That is weird. I installed that driver and everything worked fine for me. As for your camera being upside down, you have to install the right driver for the camera. If you dont then the picture will be upside down.

 

ah yeah i just reinstall the ATK and it worked thanks

 

i think my laptop's messed up. =s anyone else experiencing any of these problems?

1. only turns On when the screen is beyond a 90 degree angle
2. sometimes restarts when i press shut down
3. sound driver doesn't turn back on after continuing use from sleep mode