Does This Seem Right to You?

After having my W3J for exactly one week, I can say that I am extremely impressed with the build quality, power, and look of the machine. What I have not been impressed by is the level of service provided to me by a certain reseller.

According to them, it is "normal" for a laptop to run as hot on battery as on ac when using battery saving mode. So even though the processor is clocked back to half speed, it is still the same temp. It is also "normal" to have the amount of light leakage I have on my screen. To both of these issues I say this is not normal.

I could have purchased my laptop from Newegg but decided not to because of this forum and the resellers who are active on this forum. But now looking back at my decision, I wish I had purchased it from Newegg. After the purchase my emails and questions have not been answered in a prompt manner. So now I can send my week old laptop into Asus for repairs.

 

Do you have the ATI PowerPlay settings set to reduce the video card's performance during battery use? I found when my powerplay was not working properly (leaving the GPU at full power during battery use), the bottom of the notebook was uncomfortably warm.

 

well, for the first issue, i do think it is normal to run as hot on battery as on ac. even though your cpu is clocked down, you also have to realize that that the fans are also clocked down and will probably turn on at higher operating temps than when you are on ac. if there is no fan to cool it, it is difficult to bring the temps down.

as for light leakage, i couldn't really tell from your post, and it looked more like a viewing angle and exposure issue. either way, i don't think that asus fixes screens for light leakage, but i could be wrong.

if you have an issue with the reseller, explain it on resellerratings.com.

 

Ati Powerplay is on and I have it set to clock down the video card. As for the temps, the cycle is always cool machine to 51 degrees, heat up to 60, cool down again. On battery, I experience the same cycle. These are cpu temps btw, not case temps.

 

what temp is it on ac versus battery? if it is between 51 and 60, the fans will not turn on, and the cpu will take a long time to cool down on its own, even if it is only working at half the cpu speed. and what activity are you doing? if this is while you're word processing or using the internet, your cpu should be clocked down to 1 ghz anyway b/c you don't need full power for those activities.

 

On AC, it follows that cycle. Climbs to 60 degrees, then the fan kicks in and cools it to 51 degrees. This repeats every 2 to 3 minutes. Quiet office is selected. On battery it is the same thing: climb to 60 degrees and it actually stays there unless I change power 4 gear from battery to quiet office.

The only thing I am doing at the time is word processing.

 

if all you are doing is word processing than you definitely shouldn't expect a decrease in temperature. your clock speed while word processing should be 1 ghz if you have dynamic switching on, which should be the same for when you are on battery power. and your cpu temps should be in the 50s, which is very normal. what are you temps?

 

Ok. My point is though it does not stay in the 50s. It is a constant cycle from 51 degrees when the fan turns off until it reaches 60 degrees and the fan turns on. So it never actually stays in the 50s for longer than 2 to 3 minutes. I find it interesting that the temp cannot stabilze at all.

 

These actually ARE normal. It is a combination of crappy Asus fan control and um... a leaky screen? They are very common.

 

From what you said I don't see anything wrong at all. The temperatures are normal like people have told you over and over again. If you send it to Asus it's going to come back with the same temperatures.

 

Yep. If I put on Quite Office in power4gear, the cpu clocks down...and the fan slows down with it. The heat will generally increase by a bit, due to fan inactivity.

By the way, which applications are you running? I find that Illustrator makes my notebook cranky when I save a 600+ layer document, even when the CPU load is only 50%. The heat skyrockets for the moment of saving, up to 70c; that's pretty damn hot, considering that the gpu isn't being worked.

If anything, you could adjust fan speed by NHC (notebook hardware control), and see if that helps. Personally, I stick to undervolting (which reduced my temps by around 8c) with RMclock utility.

 

If the fans turn off - not slow down, but turn off - there is nothing that allows the cpu to keep a lower temperature. Computers with passive cooling (Macbook pro) are generally hotter than fanned ones, and in your case it should be hot, cause there is no cooling. What seems odd to me is the fact that it runs on this cycle. When i installed NHC and added the acpi drivers for the A8Js, the fans ran a similar - if not that exact - cycle. It freaked me out, so i turned it off.

 

Did you uninstall the ACPI drivers and NHC? I have ACPI installed but not NHC. I have not tried undervolting nor have I tried adjusting the fan speed.

 

I meant NHC:s ACPI configuration files for the A8Js, just couldn't remember the right name, sorry. I disabled ACPI-control in NHC. By default my fan is always on, only on lower RPM than when it heats up. Are you using Power4Gear?

 

Agreed it shouldn't cycle like that. About the rest, like other said, it's normal for it to have the same temperature range when idling on AC and battery.

To solve the cycling problem: Remove all third-party ACPI software like NHC RMClock SpeedFan, turn off Power 4 Gear, and use Windows Laptop/Portable power profile. If it still does it, update BIOS. If it still does it, get used to it. It isn't what I'd call "normal" though.

 

You can get new NHC config files for the A8Js here. Just change the name of the files and all the references inside them from A8H to A8Js. I'm using them in my A8Js using temp zones and the effect is fantastic! my fan now works most of the time at 2333/2444 rpm (you can't almost ear it) and kicks in to higher rpm when the temperature passes a given threshold (in my case I've decided to use 55º to increase the speed of the Fan to the default 3200 rpm). At the 2333/2444 rpm, the CPU temp is around 47/48º when working in a Word, Excel, Outlook, web, and some minor (not CPU intensive) applications. If your laptop shuts down the fan, that on/off cycle will occur, as temp builds up. If you install NHC you can avoid the cycle, keeping the fan at a low rpm that allows for the CPU to be cooled all the time. Btw, NHC is not Vista compatible. Maybe next week we'll have a compatible version (that's what the author told me).

 

All that technology packed into such a limited space.... don't expect your computer to run cool because of that.