Building Myself the Asus M6BNe!!!

Well I finally decided to go with the Asus M6BNe. As soon as all the parts get here I can put it together GO FEDEX! GO UPS!

I have one question though, what's the best order to install all the drivers/software in so I don't get conflicts and the cpu speedometer doesn't get "messed up" like others have had problems with? (OS, Intel wireless, Omegas, asus drivers, speedstepping driver? etc etc) Thanks!

I'm also weary about installing SP2 on xp pro because of the negative effects it has had on some programs. I have been running xp for 4+ years and have never been infected with a virus. Just the occasional spyware that adaware/spybot took care of. I think I'll stick to SP1 and do the other updates. With a router,NAT,firewall, etc it doesn't leave much room for anything. Plus I never receive file attachments as 99% of my email is online. Well that was more like a little comment on SP2, so anyway...back to the good stuff[ ]

Asus M6BNe 15.4" WXGA
Radeon 9700 64MB
1Gig Kingston pc2700
M6 DVD/CD-rom combodrive
60gb/7200rpm HDD
1.7 Dothan
2200 B/G
Bag
Mouse
Arctic Silver 5
$1,620
[ ]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by kronus
Well I finally decided to go with the Asus M6BNe. As soon as all the parts get here I can put it together GO FEDEX! GO UPS!
...snip...
Asus M6BNe 15.4" WXGA
Radeon 9700 64MB
1Gig Kingston pc2700
M6 DVD/CD-rom combodrive
60gb/7200rpm HDD
1.7 Dothan
2200 B/G
Bag
Mouse
Arctic Silver 5
$1,620<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>Nicely done Kronus! Basically the same system as mine though much cheaper!
Congrats! [][8D][][8)][)][] (Best I can do without dancing nanas!)

........Peter

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On the way..............
Asus M6BNe 1.7GB Dothan w/Arctic Silver
15.4" WXGA, Radeon 9700 w/64MB
2 x 512MB Corsair PC2700 DDR333
Hitachi 60GB 7,200 RPM Harddrive
Combo 4X +/- DVD R/RW-CD R/RW
Intel PRO/Wireless 2200 b/g LAN card
Windows XP Professional
3 yr warranty, 1 yr no dead pixel policy
from Powernotebooks.com

 

I got pretty much the same laptop as you (only with 512MB ram) pre-assembled. I installed WinXP pro myself without a single problem. I think I did OS, Intel pro wireless stuff, latest Intel INF from intel.com, all the stuff from the asus cd except gfx drivers (+ updates from asus website), directx, omegas, SP2. I have all the firewall and annoying MS junk disabled from SP2. I think the additional run protection is worth installing it for. Btw, I like to use SpeedswitchXP to control battery life/performance instead of the included PowerGear. You can check it here if you like: http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/

 

Yeah, speedswitch is pretty cool, but it doesn't do any dimming control for the screen. I think PowerGear works well enough most of the time.

old: Sony PCG-GR300P 1.13GHz PIII-M, 512MB
new: Asus M6Ne 2.00GHz P-M, 2GB

 

But u forget something,

it must have a DVD+R+RW...it s necessary...
And I believe Asus makes it well...W1 is really excellent design...



Fujitsu-Siemens AMILO M 1420,1.7 dathon,1 gb ram,ati 9600pro 128,crystal bright+15,4 WXGA over 22 million

http://www.notebooksbilliger.de/images/m1420_big.jpg

 

kronus, where did you get all the parts for so cheap??!

 

Well, I think I know where he got all the cheap parts from - www.newegg.com, isn't it right??? I plan buying a whitebook too, but am not sure about some things so I need advice from experienced users i.e. some comparisons with the other brand notebooks. So far my choice No.1 is Asus M6BNe, but I'm really worried about the DVD writer - they can deliver the barebone notebook with the original Asus DVD writer, but it's 1x (I really don't want to wait 1 hour to write e DVD disk[V]. The other thing is the memory - do I need to buy DDR400 since all similar notebooks are equipped with DDR333 (the CAS Latency settings of DDR400 should be better), but I don't know if the notebook is going to run with it. Kronus, where did you buy this memory from & how much does it cost? Can you post some tests from SiSoft Sandra and SuperPI - http://www.enscape.net/bigz/utilities/super-pi.exe . I read lots of good things about Kingston but didn't find tests and comparisons. And the most important thing is - how long does the notebook work with the standard battery and in different loads and applications/standby/games/multimedia/etc. It would really be useful if tell me (us) that so to know if a second battery is necesseary (it should add about 3 hours to the working time, but if the primary battery works more than 4 hours, I don't think anyone needs more). In advance, THANKS A LOT !

My future notebook: [ ]
Asus M6BNe 15.4" WXGA
2.0 Dothan 2MB (possibly OCed and moded cooling - just joking [8D])
ATI Radeon 9700 (M11) 64MB
1Gig KingMax PC3200/2700(DDR400/DDR333)
DVD writer
Hitachi 60GB 7200rpm 8MB
extra battery (optional)
ext.FDD
ext.HDD Western Digital 200/250GB 8MB
2200 B/G
Samsonite backpack
Kensington wireless & optical mouse for notebook
Arctic Silver

 

From my experience go with the ASUS CD-RW/DVD-ROM and an external DVD-Writer. Its cheaper than buying the internal dvd-writer and its faster.

Also, DDR400 does not work in ASUS M6BNe laptops from my experience. I tried crucial DDR400 and it didn't work at all. Reverted to DDR333 and I've been happy ever since... mostly cuz it boots now.

 

re: battery run time - it is very very very (get it?) very variable.

MobileMeter will show your battery discharge rate in Watts when you're running unplugged. The primary battery is a 63Wh battery. The secondary is about 38Wh. I see discharge rates from as low as 16W to as high as 33W doing various tasks on my system. 100% CPU usage gets up in the 30s, so that tells you that at full burn you'll only get around two hours max on the primary battery, while at minimum speed / mostly idle it will last around 4 hours.



old: Sony PCG-GR300P 1.13GHz PIII-M, 512MB
new: Asus M6Ne 2.00GHz P-M, 2GB

 

re: the DDR400 - don't do it!! I just wasted a bunch of cash on Kingmax DDR400, they didn't work in my machine and now I'm sending them back to NewEgg and losing $78.00 restocking fee in the process. I'm back to my DDR333 Kingmax memory.



old: Sony PCG-GR300P 1.13GHz PIII-M, 512MB
new: Asus M6Ne 2.00GHz P-M, 2GB

 

10x for the answers - they'll surely help me a lot! I found a site, where I can buy a new Asus DVD writer but the speed is 2x and the price..... >$400 (are those people nuts!?). Found one very good choice for a substitute - it's the new NEC ND-6500 (or ND-6100A) DVD writer. The price is about $165. They are compatible with Dell notebooks, but couldn't find any more info about other brands and especially the Asus M6BNe. What do you think - is it compatible with the M6BNe? No replies from customer support (Asus) so far!!! Maybe I should write to customer support NEC?!?

 

Only ASUS drives are compatible with ASUS laptops. Beleive me I know. I bought a toshiba cd-rw/dvd-rom drive from newegg and though i was saving $25 over the asus drive... it definately did not fit. SO I had to send it back to Newegg and find an ASUS one.