Asus W3J Heat/Fan Questions

I really don't mind heat in a laptop, but the fan constantly being on CAN annoy me. On my old Dell Inspiron 8100, the fan stay on CONSTANTLY and many times, its comes on a FULL speed that it causes the whole system to lock up and lag horribly. How is the fan in the W3J? Does it stay on ALL the time? Does that cause the machine to lock up and lag? Does the heat cause the system to shut down irradically? Please let me in on all the details. Thanks.

 

The w3j is a little on the hot side- but thats cuz there is so much stuff packed in there. When you first start up the machine it seems like there is a low fan on but not bothersome at all. It will heat up to 59C and then the fan will turn up a bit to cool it down to 51C. The fan really isnt that loud and its only on for maybe 3 mins. It repeats this cycle over and over again. When gaming the max temp it gets is about 63C with the fan constantly on. I don't find it too bothersome- but I did just buy a lapcool2. I find with that on I have a stable temp of 49 C when idling. the lapcool2 is definitely louder than the w3j fans tho. Duo core processors can go past 100 C or something ridiculus so I wouldnt worry about the heat. I would also say that the fan noise, although variable, is not very bothersome. You wont get any lockups.

 

My W3J never locks up or lags even when I totally stress it for hours at a time. The fan is not that intrusive during regular office / internet use, it barely turns on. During gaming or other processor intensive tasks it'll be on much more often but IMO is not very intrusive. And most certainly the heat does not cause the cpu to scale back or anything.

It IS hot though. Mine will max out at 71 during heavy use and you will not want to put your body near that vent.

 

Yah Mine is stable at idle around 51-59 deg and the fan is inaudable, I think for most things it runs really quiet.

Then if I am doing some intense work (Like rasterizing a large eps file in photoshop, which causes the processor to sit on 60-70% for 5 minutes solid), then the fan kicks in bit I still think for the power this laptop has, it runs very well.

I would even say the palm rest runs cooler than a Dell Latitude I have used, and this is way more powerfull. and my friend at work has a new Mac Book , which has the same X1600 and Pentuim Duo, and the palmrest on that is really hot!

I mean hot air comes out the vent when you push it hard, but it seems to do a great job of keeping the temp down, I woud rather have hot air comming out the side, than a hot chassis.

 

It's a quiet machine, don't worry about it.

Even while playing games like bf2 for hours on end, I can't hear it with headphones on...even with the headphones off, it isn't what I would describe as loud.

Actually the only time it gets loud is when the disc drive spins up, but I'm sure you'll find that with any laptop.

EDIT: Like everyone else said, the only heat you'll feel is from the side exhaust. The chassis itself barely gets warm. I was actually suprised how cool the chassis is. I remember having a dell laptop several years ago that had a 450mhz p3, and the bottom of that laptop was HOT in comparison.

 

Yeah soo true Yoseph, I checked out my frinds mac book tonight, we both had out laptops running all day, both have Duo processors and same ATI X1600 GPU.....

Dam that mac runs HOT, it relies on passive heating, no fans!! there is a slight grille under the hinge of the lcd, the heat gets disipated by the chassis, and gues what........... the chassis is DAM HOT, after a day of light use the palm rest on my W3J is still cool on the left side and just a asmall amount of heat on the right palm rest. and underneath the left side is cool, right side under processor is warm, but get this.... his mac is hotter on the palm rest than mine is underneath the CPU! and both palm rests are hot, and the underneath of the mac is absoloutely scorching!!

He actually said he would prefer a system like mine that has got hot air comming out of the vent but keeps the laptop cool, he sits next to me and bot of us cant hear the fan on my W3J. He is actually thinking of contacting apple because he said when you start working it, it gets even hotter.

Mind you his mac is about a 1/3 less thick than my W3J.

so believe me when I say the W3J deals with the heat really well compared to others.

 

heat is definitely more than say compared to the a8jm just due to the difference in thickness...but definitely bareable even at full blast when gaming or doing cpu intensive work

 

The base get warm. I've used it a couple of time on my knee. Its not painfully hot, but its definatly hot enough to be slightly uncomfortable. Still what do you expect for that much power.