Asus's Macbook Air killer U36

The GT 520m is already an excellent boost upgrade from the mediocre G310m. Now you want a GT 525m.

If Asus grants your wish of a gt 525m, some people will complain and would want a GT 540m and so on. LOLZ

 

This has been annoying me for some time now with this laptop. The monitor has an ambient auto adjustment thing and there's nothing in the manual that indicates if anything to turn this off. On dark background websites, it gets "darker" which makes it annoying and on bright backgrounds, it's gets brighter/normal. Honestly this is annoying. I've read that there is Fn+C, Fn+A or some kind of hidden key but I haven't been able to get a solid answer out of this. So I prefer my monitor brightness remains consistent throughout my routine. If anyone has a solution, let me know or that if this is a permanent thing.

 

on my M50, the ambient light sensor is tied to Fn+A, but it may have changed. Have you actually tried it, because it should pop up a graphic showing the sensor is enabled/disabled.

 

With U36SD's profile, GT520M is already a very tight fit. GT525M will exceed the thermal design (17W vs. 25W).

Personally I'd rather to have a relatively cool laptop with slightly worse performance than a laptop that suffers from thermal throttling all the time.

 

Yes I've tried Fn+A but it just inputs the letter 'a' rather than a keyboard shortcut. Does this have to do with "Splendid Video Enhancement Technology"? Or is this a different program?

 

Splendid is a color-balance app, it doesn't really do much AFAIK. You do need all of the hotkey drivers installed, if you did a clean install, they might be missing.

 

My U36JC has just burnt out in a middle of a game suddenly went blank and not able to switch on anymore.

 

How good is the u36jc at handling heat in such a slim chassis?

 

Current reviews and complaints/cons seems to be from heat issues besides low sound output because of speaker placement and viewing angle issue.

 

I installed the ATK drivers that are offered on ASUS' website here ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - Notebooks- ASUS U36JC unless there is something else that complements the ATK drivers. My fn+a does not do what it says according to online store full specifications

However when I hit fn+a, it just inputs 'a' instead of fn+a. When I look in the manual (from the download site too) for my U36JC-B1, I don't see anything on light sensor or fn+a. So I'm thinking myself that it's either non-existent or it's in another model like the U36JC-B2B.

 

Hi Ken,

Any chance you could check the image links on your handy guide - they don't seem to work any more and I'm dying to install a SSD in my U36?

Any tips on how to actually remove the keyboard/make the case split in two? I've removed all of the screws and got the case to open up around all four sides but it seems to be "stuck" together in the middle? Don't want to yank it too hard!

Thanks,

Josh

 

Hello, guys
I have a problem after upgrade from UL30A to U36Jc
The problem is with touchpad behavior - it doesn't understand two- and three-finger taps (middle and right button clicks respectively)
And it's very uncomfortable to browse web without mouse (in comparison to UL30A)

I didn't find these options in mouse settings in Control panel. Any other ideas? Did anyone have the same issue?

Thanks

 

If you go to your mouse properties in the control panel, it should be under the device settings tab. Click on the settings button the Properties for Synaptics TouchPad window should pop up. There, you can set all your multi-finger gesture settings.

 

That's the problem. I didn't find there settings for two and three-finger taps
I will try to find it again tomorrow when I come back home from work
If you can tell me where I should look for it, then a big thanks from me

 

There's the "3-finger press" and "3-finger flick", but I don't believe there's one for a 3-finger tap for the U36 series.

 

Is there a good way to tell if super hybrid engine is active or not? Because since I installed the latest P4G drivers from Asus U36jc pages, the interface doesn't show that logo any longer on top of the mode icons (high, media etc). And it doesn't blank out when going to and from power saver mode.

I should add that I also removed a bunch of the bloatware, and I perhaps was a bit overzealous.

BTW: In Battery Eater I get roughly 4:30 on Classic and 9:30 on Reader with wifi on.

EDIT: Uninstalling drivers and reinstalling them returned the SHE symbol and all the rest of the behaviour. Now, let's see if it makes any actual difference.

 

Bump of this laptop- I was wondering if someone could tell me what kind of SSD they have put in this laptop? I posted earlier this year that the Corsair Force was not working properly in it. Anyone have one they have been using so I can purchase one I know works?

Thanks.

 

Attached you finde two Registry files (you need to rename the extension of the files from .txt into .reg): one to enable these two features and one to disable them. These tweaks work flawless on my U36...currently I use the newest Synaptics Driver from Asus: v15.3.6.0 (You can find it on the ASUS FTP Server: Win7 64bit / Win7 32bit)

EDIT: Please take note of the best practices:
1) uninstall all current Synaptics Tools & Driver
2) reboot
3) install the new driver
4) reboot
5) apply the Synaptics_MOD_2FingerTap_3FingerTap_ENABLE.reg
6) reboot
(Each time you use the Registry-File you need to reboot OR log off and then log in OR restart the processes SynTPEnh.exe + SynTPHelper.exe)

 

Is anyone having noise issues with their U36-SD? I got mine and the thing was CONSTANTLY thinking/doing something. I know it's a small complaint, but it never stopped. Also, after updating and whatnot the boot time was embarrassingly long so I reformatted.

After reformatting, it still goes through spurts of random processes and the task manager doesn't help; it always says there is nothing happening.

Also, when I have mine plugged in it makes an extremely high-pitched noise, almost like a vibrating spray paint can with the bead bouncing around inside really fast.

Does anyone else have problems with this kind of stuff? If not, I think I need to send it back for a new one.

Thanks!

 

I've been using this notebook for the last 5 days and the fan noise is a bit random. It took off when gaming obviously but also when doing some word processing or when it's about to shut down, other than that it's mostly quiet.
And no I don't have that high pitched noise when plugged it in.

 

Strange. There are only two moving parts in the laptop that could be to blame: the hard drive and the system fan. Your description of the vibrating spray paint can reminds me of a problematic hard drive -- that's the exact kind of sound that hard drives can make if they're going bad; the heads are moving back and forth rapidly. That could also explain your performance issues. However I don't see why that noise would only happen when plugged in.

Do you have a spare laptop hard drive you could swap in, just temporarily, to see if the noise is eliminated?

You could also test the fan itself using a program like Speed Fan. Try turning the fan speed up to a high level when on battery and see if the noise is reproduced. Likewise, when plugged in try manually lowering the fan speed to see if it goes away.

 

Awesome! Thanks! I don't know why they took this feature out of their standard drivers.

Anyone else having troubles with the two finger scrolling? this touchpad feels a hell of a lot less responsive then my old 1215N's it seems to work for a bit then just stops and I end up having to fight it

 

YES!!! I hate this touchpad for that reason. my old K40IN had the elantech which is lightyears better than this one in responsiveness.

 

Hi Guys,

Does anyone have any suggestions re where I could get a replacement touchpad connector clip for my U36 (shown by the blue arrows in the photo below)?

I now have a much speedier U36 with a SSD (after following the guide on this thread), sadly my butter fingers led to me loosing the touchpad connector clip somewhere within the carcass of my U36, despite disassembling almost the entire laptop, it is still MIA, and my touchpad and buttons now do not work!

Thanks for any help!

Josh

 

@josh2345 the clip probably isn't replaceable, you might be able to get away with taping it down.

 

I just bought one of these but am having issues with the bugger. Follow my pains on twitter.

As a matter of interest, Apple has much better customer service and follow-up than ASUS UK... should of got a MacBook Air, the extra money be worth it.

 

Not trying to be so lazy but does anyone have a list of common problems of U36SD? I did extensive reading on UX31 and just curious if there are common problems. I know I will be missing out resolution difference and very poor speakers (I use earbuds so doesn't matter).

Is this laptop upgradeable as far as core/memory/graphics are concerned? Thanks.

 

the only things that are upgradeable are the ram and hdd. Everything else you will have to live with. The cpu/gpu are soldered to the board.

 

Just ordered U36SD-DH51. I don't think I can stand WiFi issue with UX31.

 

Just got my U36SD from the Microsoft store and swapped the HD for a 128gb Samsung 830... love it so far. I do have a few questions though.

1- Is there a way to default to the Fn keys rather than the F1-F12? I hardly ever use these but would love to have volume and brightness without having to hit the function key.
2- Do you all have any advice on setting screen resolution on my TV? It's a kind of old (~6 yrs) Sharp 720p/1080i tv, native 1366x768. I have tried everything from 1280x720 through 1920x1080 (stretched and centered) and none of the resolutions are the right size for my TV.
3- Does the button opposite of the power button do anything? According to the manual its for switching power modes, but it doesn't seem to do that.

 

Just to let you know guys that 2x4gb Kingston HyperX 1866MHz is working great with this notebook, it is running at 1866MHz 10-10-10

Also you can check my review here

 

Has anyone ordered some kind of a sleeve pouch for u36sd from ebay? There are many alternatives on ebay for 13.3 inch notebooks but I would like to know if some model fits u36sd especially well with low cost.

My second question considers the overheating issue. Has anyone replaced the thermal paste on CPU and GPU? What are the temperatures after replacing if you have done that?

My laptop is a second hand one and the previous owner broke the touchpad cable while replacing the hdd. I'm searching for a replacement but the cheapest one that i have found costs 25€ with shipping to Finland :/ Is there any place where I could find it cheaper?

Thank you very much for your time if you answer my questions.

 

Try here http://www.asusparts.eu/index.php?cPath=67674_76961_211705_222225

 

That's exactly the place where it costs over 20€ with postage to Finland and I haven't found it elsewhere :/

 

To those who installed ssd. Do you all install fresh copy of windows? I'm wondering will it be better if I clone the whole hdd to the ssd instead?

 

Do you guys think that could I use any 12 pin ribbon cable as a touchpad cable? I have one from my old HP laptop and it's exactly the same size with same connectors as the u36sd one?

 

For all your guys information I removed a touchpad cable from my old broken Asus C90S and it worked perfectly on my u36sd! The cable had the same product number attached to it as the u36sd one so it's basicly the same cable.

 

Has anyone had issues where the sound won't turn on after coming out if sleep? I'm assuming it may be a driver problem.

Also, for an ssd upgrade does it use 7mm or 9.5mm? Thanks.

 

I have a display in which the backlight doesn't work. I can see the picture with an external lamp but it's very dim. Is there anyway that I could replace the inverter from these 13.3 displays? I have another broken display but it has working backlight. Any ways to make one working display from these two?