Is there a slightest chance that there might not be a BIOS update to Merom for W3J?

The only thing I'm concerned right now is it not being able to support Merom. I have never owned a laptop before and I would like to be able to use this puppy for a couple of years having to worry about being future-proof.

I don't feel like waiting for a couple of more months to get the W3J because even if the refresh comes out in Sept/Oct, there would still be some shipping time and probably out of stock until late of this year and I couldn't be bothered to think about all this when finals will be coming up as well. They are going for really cheap with the T2300 models around $1600 in Taiwan and it comes with free 100GB HD and 3 year global warranty, tax included, and no shipping. The major difference being the CPU and Memory updates with the new refreshes. This might be the best chance I have to get this machine before 2008.

The only thing I can think of why they wouldn't make a BIOS update is because it voids the warranty and that it is part of a Ensemble package and they don't expect you to touch anything in it? I couldn't think of other reasons why they wouldn't have an BIOS update. Maybe someone with more experience with Asus can guess what they would do based on past experience.

 

Yes, of course..... but here is the real issue which should make you worry less...... Merom uses the same chipset... it's just a pop in swap. So the motherboard is the same as what the current model has and there will deffinately be a Merom model W3....... sooooo there must be a bios for it and that bios is going to work with the current model, at least in theory, because nothing else is being changed and if a bios needed to be made for it, as long as it comes out, you'll be able to update that bios......

... but there's even more of a chance that a bios update won't even be needed....... I'd say that has more of a chance than not being able to do it at all.

 

Well, there was an earlier post that the A6J already has a BIOS with Merom support. Released today, and the A6 is an Ensemble model... so I think you don't have to worry about ASUS not releasing a bIOS for W3J... it might be a bit later on , but I think they will do it..

 

I have to agree with Proportable, if it uses the same chipset, which has the same motherboard and front side bus speed, the only difference with the new model, will be that it will have the 64bit dual core chip. so I see no reason why you couldn't get a new merom chip and just use the bios for the new W3J actually thats a point Justin, are they still going to call it W3J, I assume so they normally only change the lettering to corrspond to new chipsets.

 

I'll have to have a slightly different moniker... "J" stands for dedicated graphics on the 945 chipset.... anything after that could stand for that plus Merom...... it would be unlikely to be "a" or "b" or "c", as "a" is one way they differentiate nvidia from ati on some models that have both.. and "b" and "c" is one way they differentiate analog tv tuner from digital tv tuner like on the W2.......

I could see it being the W3jm - "m" for merom, but even that doesn't work.... I doubt they want to change the graphics letter already because they're going to start running out of them eventually...... and it's only going to stick till next spring when the next platform comes out...... but they could go with the W3k and say W5g..... but K has been used before for dedicated graphics on the AMD systems.....

It has to change a bit so that people know the difference.... Most likely it'll be "J" with a lowcase extended model letter next to it.