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    Ivy Bridge Zenbook with FHD IPS screen UX21A UX31A UX32A UX32VD

    Discussion in 'Asus' started by Mech0z, Apr 25, 2012.

  1. Don1

    Don1 Notebook Deity

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    Every black (dark brown) box I have seen and I have seen at list 7 or 8 have a sticker on them saying sandisk or sandforce. Of course I have only seen the UX31As and with the 32s there is no SSD anyway, is there?
     
  2. tommedema

    tommedema Notebook Enthusiast

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    They have a 24GB iSSD for the cache.
     
  3. Maverick0984

    Maverick0984 Notebook Consultant

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    You should really try and not have two consecutive posts in a thread. That is what the multi quote button is for.

    Additionally, there is the UX32VD that doesn't have an SSD but the UX32A does. To avoid confusion, '32s' isn't specific enough.

    Technically yes, but that isn't the SSD in question.
     
  4. Don1

    Don1 Notebook Deity

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    Yes, but they don't have different brands which would require a sticker so that people knew what they were getting. They do need to do this for the main storage drive because this is a gimmick ASUS has been doing since the original UX31 a year ago and it has angered many of their customers, myself included. Go into any BestBuy and play with their demo and then open up device manager and you will see it is an Adata drive. Buy one and bring it home and you will see you got a sandisk.
     
  5. Maverick0984

    Maverick0984 Notebook Consultant

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    Sigh. Please don't spread false truths. Many people, myself included which you are aware of, got ADATA drives just fine. From Best Buy as well.
     
  6. Don1

    Don1 Notebook Deity

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    And more have gotten sandisk..give it another month and they will all be sandisk.
     
  7. Maverick0984

    Maverick0984 Notebook Consultant

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    You are just randomly making things up and posting it here as fact. It isn't useful and is detrimental to the forums. I am asking you nicely to please stop.
     
  8. Don1

    Don1 Notebook Deity

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    None of it is made up. It happened to me three times with the UX31, once with the ux31e and to people on this very forum with the ux31a. You seem to be the official full time apologist for ASUS, is that right?
     
  9. Maverick0984

    Maverick0984 Notebook Consultant

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    Stating that you are for sure going to get a Sandisk drive when you have absolutely nothing to substantiate such a claim is an outright lie. Combing through this thread, it is more on the order of 50/50. Once again, you are just mad with your own personal experience and taking your frustration out. I really don't understand why this is so difficult to understand. You can't just say things that you come up with in your head and call them facts.

    Honestly, this would be the same thing as me saying you will get an ADATA no matter what. Since my own experiences are limited to that. I will just ignore all the other reports...I am sure you would object to that, right?
     
  10. Don1

    Don1 Notebook Deity

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    Well, I didn't state I was sure I said experience tells me that is what will happen and not just my own experience either.

    Well, here is something positive which I am sure will cheer you up.

    I just got back from my local MS store where they had two high end UX31As on display and we maxed out the brightness and rebooted both twice. GHranted we couldn't turn off the lights in the store but every indication is that both screens were perfect..not good..not a little bleed but perfect..no bleed on the bottom, no spotlights, no bleed on the sides..perfect. So does that mean yoiu have to buy a high end PC to get a good screen or have they finally figured out what their problem is and fixed it?...I may just order another DB51 from mazon to see if they fixed those too.

    Of course they had sandisk ssds but I haven't heard of anyone getting Adata 256ers.
     
  11. zonebook

    zonebook Notebook Enthusiast

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    You won't see any backlight bleed is due to the store is too bright. If you take the unit to a darker room (ex. like your regular bedroom), than you will notice all the bleeding.

    I know this because of my own painful experience. I took my unit (i7, 256GB)back to MS store and one girl their was complaining she can not see anything wrong, which is true. After I insist, we than went to back of the store to their employee room and turned the light off, that's when all the blacklight bleed suddenly shown up so clear.
     
  12. zonebook

    zonebook Notebook Enthusiast

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    Has anyone has deal with ASUS RMA before to replace or fix their Zenbook? How long is the process? Are they willing to replace the unit? If they do will they just exchange with a refurb unit?
    Please let me know and share you experience because I might drop off mine to their RMA HQ at Milpitas, CA later today. Or anyone did exchange the unit at their Fremont HQ?

    My unit has:
    1. backlight bleed.
    2. dead pixel at the center of the screen, very annoying.
    3. Compare to my other 2 units before, the touchpad on this unit is loose, you can feel it and hear it when you softly tap the touchpad.
     
  13. Don1

    Don1 Notebook Deity

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    I knew it was too good to be true.
     
  14. Don1

    Don1 Notebook Deity

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    Interesting that the Microsoft Store stopped selling the new Samsung S9 13.3 inch. They ripped it off the floor and off the website. You can't even find it by doing a search on the website. When I was there they said they had two in the back but were told to take them off the floor. Wonder what that is all about.
     
  15. Alchemist

    Alchemist Notebook Deity

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    You don't have a sticker, because you don't have the adata or sandisk ssds. Those are for 128gb ssd units. The hybrid HDD+mSSD are a different spec entirely.

    For units with the 128gb or 256gb ssd the sticker should be on the black interior box. The brown box just says SSD on the white label.
     
  16. Alchemist

    Alchemist Notebook Deity

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    I had 2 units from best buy... first had adata (and the fan issue) the second had sandisk (and light bleed increasing over time).

    If i had to guess id guess its either...

    a. total random depending on who had stock when they needed them.
    b. they were once all sandisk until early reviewers complaints had them switch and they are selling old stock.

    one thing is probably sure, the cheaper ones will end up in the best buy models. So if they get a deal on sandisk we will see them, if they get a deal on adata, etc.
     
  17. reddd123

    reddd123 Notebook Consultant

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    Everyone the Santa Clara, CA microsoft store gives you both 20% + Free Xbox 360. Other stores do not, so if you can travel to there go for it! I wish I could!! I'll just wait until the end of August or early September before picking up a laptop, hopefully another deal like this comes by then! Because right now they don't even have the UX31A with i5, just i7 its useless without a dedicated graphics card, and no UX32VD!!
     
  18. Maverick0984

    Maverick0984 Notebook Consultant

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    Sounds like a mistake they may quickly correct once HQ notices. If you are in the area, I'd jump quickly. I'm in Chicago so this doesn't apply, heh.
     
  19. FlyBriUR

    FlyBriUR Notebook Enthusiast

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    I guess now I'll have to figure out how well Windows works on a Macbook Air. I need to get a new laptop for school soon, and all these issues are making me want to kill myself.[/QUOTE]

    I used Windows 95% of the time on my Macbook Air, and it got annoying, which prompted me to sell it. My big gripe is no horizontal scrolling, so working in Excel sucked. Just something to keep in mind...
     
  20. Don1

    Don1 Notebook Deity

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    This was talked about a few pages back..it doesn't work well with the apple keyboard. Depending on what you do there are a lot of keys that jus dont exist for a windows user.
     
  21. coldlimit

    coldlimit Notebook Enthusiast

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    Using speedfan to monitor the fan, my fan will spin to about 3200rpm even during simple browsing for prolonged periods of time.

    Is this normal for you other UX31A owners?
     
  22. Maverick0984

    Maverick0984 Notebook Consultant

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    From what I understand, 3200rpm is pretty harmless and is barely audible. It is the 5000rpm+ that gets annoying.
     
  23. coldlimit

    coldlimit Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thanks for the reply. So the infamous "fan issue" that many have made reference to is specifically the instances of the fan frequently throttling to 5000+rpm?
     
  24. reddd123

    reddd123 Notebook Consultant

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    No it is not a mistake? I called the them in Santa Clara, I told them why are you guy the only store offering both? He said he doesn't know, all he know is he got the okay to offer both!

    Also J&R on amazon, selling the UX31A for $999 + $9 shipping!, and Amazon officially sells for $1033 now!
     
  25. ZenErik

    ZenErik Notebook Guru

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    On my second UX31A. So far I had a fan spin up issue once. Happened a few hours after a resume. The fans would spin up 3 or 4 times over the period of 5 or so min then go back to normal for 10 or 15 min before spinning up again. I ran a BIOS update after that happened and the problem has yet to return. It's been 2 1/2 days. I still have 11 days left in my return period so we will see how things go. No random shut downs yet. May be a keeper.
     
  26. supremekizzle

    supremekizzle Notebook Enthusiast

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    I'm having a strange issue. My auto resume seems to be really hit and miss. Sometimes when I open the lid it will auto resume and other times I have to press the power button before it will come on. Any help?
     
  27. dannyp32

    dannyp32 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hey guys I just wanted to ask what kind of battery life are you guys getting?
    I originally read about 5 hours, but even with brightness all the way down, the keyboard backlight turned off, and in battery saving mode, I'm still only getting around 3 hours which I think is not that great :/
    Battery life was a really important factor when purchasing it and it's about 2 hours less than I was expecting
     
  28. supremekizzle

    supremekizzle Notebook Enthusiast

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    Rebooted and now it will auto resume weather its on power saving, balanced, or high performance. I've had this happen before should I return it? I have light bleed too so maybe I should just get a new one. But I don't have the fan issue so I kind of don't want to return it in case I get a fan. I know its incredibly lazy but I hate when I have to hit the power button to resume. Sorry for two posts but I wanted to add to my initial one. Thanks
     
  29. Maverick0984

    Maverick0984 Notebook Consultant

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    Um, what exactly are you doing during that 3 hours? And is this a fresh install or the Asus image? I'm getting significantly more than 3 hours. So much so that I don't even really know how much.
     
  30. slowrey

    slowrey Notebook Enthusiast

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  31. intarweb

    intarweb Notebook Consultant

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    So, perhaps against my better judgment, I decided to take the plunge and buy a UX31A. Right off the bat, noticed pretty bad backlight bleed. Then, I noticed a sort of ring about 5cm in diameter, maybe almost a circle shape in the upper right quadrant, that is red and iridescent. Shows up most clearly on a black background. No idea what the story is with that.

    Good grief. Obviously going back. Not sure if I want to try a second one or just find something else to get.
     
  32. dannyp32

    dannyp32 Notebook Enthusiast

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    I really wish I was getting significantly more than 3 hours. This is the Asus image. Well this was my first day of usage, and I was basically installing software for about an hour. I disabled a few startup applications (none of the Asus one's though). Then for the next two hours I was simply browsing the web and watching a few Olympics videos. Also, the battery life estimate after a full charge is 2 hours and 58 minutes. Could it be that I just need to tweak some settings? I also have bluetooth turned off.

    Edit: I currently don't have any CD's, so I won't be able to try a fresh windows 7 installation until this weekend.
     
  33. Alchemist

    Alchemist Notebook Deity

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    Well, my ux31a saga finally came to an end today. I returned my 4th ux31a to best buy. They were nice, I explained the problems and they processed the return. Pretty smooth experience, better than usual for best buy, maybe their new 30 day return policy also changed the attitude a bit about returns.

    It didn't take me long to get something else. I decided there still may be an asus in my future since some of their windows 8 models look promising so I wanted to go with something cheap to use for the next few months. I ended up picking up a previous gen (sandy bridge) Samsung Series 9 11.6" model. sandy bridge i3, 128gb ssd, 4gb, intel 3k graphics, usb 2/3, mini hdmi, micro sd card slot, etc. It was their last one, got it for $629 (original price $1249). Not bad at all. The screen is gorgeous, the keyboard is plenty of travel, better than any other ultra book ive tried, and its pretty much as advertised except its wifi card gets terrible reception.. ill be swapping it out for an intel centrino card.

    I really like the ux31a, there are just some issues that cause me not to trust its screen long term. Hopefully they will do better next time.
     
  34. bosun120

    bosun120 Newbie

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  35. Pettza78

    Pettza78 Notebook Enthusiast

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    It's actually not a hybrid drive, the SSD is part of the motherboard. Check the Windows 7 on SSD thread for answers to your question.
     
  36. sev*

    sev* Notebook Enthusiast

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    my solution was deinstalling the intel dynamic thermal framework, no full speed after waking up ...

    worked for me...
     
  37. Hendrickson

    Hendrickson Notebook Deity

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    Yes, not a problem. I did a clean install. Formatted my 24GB ssd first, downloaded all the drivers to this drive. And make sure I unzipped the usb3 drivers for the clean install you will need this later.


    FYI, if any one with a 32vd is interested in increasing there gaming FPS, the 620m overclocks nicely since its under clocked by default to lower temps. I only recommend doing this if you have repasted the GPU and CPU with IC diamond or AS5 etc.

    3d mark 2011 scores have gone from P1100 to P1400, and this has given most games a good 6-7 fps more.

    WEI graphics rate up to 6.4 from 6.3.

    NVIDIA GeForce GT 620M video card benchmark result - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3517U CPU @ 1.90GHz,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. UX32VD score: P1413 3DMarks
     
  38. normz.muufin

    normz.muufin Notebook Enthusiast

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    So BestBuy has the i5 version of the UX32VD in stock. Should I pull the trigger? The i7 is still nowhere to be found.

    What % increase is the i7 in terms of performance and battery life?
     
  39. Don1

    Don1 Notebook Deity

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    That's my problem too. I really wanted this to work out. I have only had three but I am just too gun shy to try another. MS has taken the new S9 13.3" off the floor and off thir website which means no chance of getting a deal on that and I don't think my BB ever carried the 11 inch version so that is out too. I am really at a loss as to what to do now. The prior version zenbook had an atrocious keyboard and the price is still high anyway and really the S9 and zenbook are the only two ultrabooks I am interested in right now.
     
  40. Alchemist

    Alchemist Notebook Deity

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    Yea, how I got myself out of the round and round on the zenbook was decided I would probably be wanting something touch in a few months anyway so went with something usable for now instead of good for the next 18 months. The 11.6" series 9 I got originally sold for $1295 but its a sandybridge i3 with a reputation for having bad nic cards so got it for less than 1/2 that.

    If you want a cheaper ultrabook you can get the 2gb, 64gb ssd version of the 11.6" series 9 for 599 at tiger direct. About 1/2 of them will have the broadcom wireless card which has terrible range in that duraluminum case so you would have to swap it for an intel wireless (remove 8 screws and take off the back to swap the car). It only has a 1366x768 screen, but its 340nits, sharp as hell and consistent lighting. It only has an i3 processor too so its not as powerful. It does however have a great keyboard (like it better than any ultrabook ive tried) and screen and its only about 2.3lbs.
     
  41. Bunneh

    Bunneh Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hey,

    how did you overclock your system, MSI Afterburner? I have the same system and mine overclocks to around 840 max boosted clock. Do you get 775+90Mhz boost for a total of 865 Mhz? Did you try going higher than that on the core? What's your max temp? Sorry I'm asking so much, I'm wondering if I should go for the thermal re-pasting. Thanks!
     
  42. Don1

    Don1 Notebook Deity

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    I think in the latest version they put the antenna along the hinge which is the only place that is not metal in order to fix the reception problem...or so I hear. With the current sale that ends Sunday you can buy the latest and greatest 13 inch s9 for $1000 in the MS store..I am tempted to try it but still not sure about it. It has a blue backlit keyboard which I am not fond of and the screen seemed dull to me and I am sure that is because it's true matte.

    Oh, and did I mention that it too has a sandisk SSD and it only gets a 5.9 score in WEI.
     
  43. bridger71

    bridger71 Notebook Enthusiast

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    This is for those of you that have the Best Buy UX31a (128GB SSD) and use it in conjunction with an external drive. How well does that set up work for you? If I go this route, I'll need to maintain my iTunes library externally and was wondering if you find that to be too much of a pain. I'm guessing you only have to connect the external drive if you are going to do anything within iTunes, otherwise it can just stay tucked away wherever one stores their external drive.

    Thanks in advance for any replies!
     
  44. Maverick0984

    Maverick0984 Notebook Consultant

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    Consider Google Music. You upload your entire music library and then can just listen/stream your entire music collection from the Google Music interface. This will keep your music collection off of the SSD and also available everywhere else you go. You can still store the main music files on the external drive AND use iTunes when you absolutely have to, but casual listening and such won't require you plugging the drive in.
     
  45. flotheking

    flotheking Notebook Enthusiast

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    Spotify, so great :)
     
  46. Alchemist

    Alchemist Notebook Deity

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    Thats a good price, the sandisk, waiting for delivery and some complaints on the samsung forum kinda kept me from going with it though. That and I know im going to want something with touch once windows 8 comes out. So I opted for 'the devil you know'. The sandy bridge samsung as pretty much one issue, the wifi and that can be fixed by swapping the broadcom for an intel card although it still won't get the best coverage due to the metal case. Going that way saved me $400 which ill throw toward something else in a few months.

    I would have loved to get the 1600x900 screen and if it had been 1080p I may have went for it but couldn't justify 400 this go around when I know im going to be in the market again soon.
     
  47. Don1

    Don1 Notebook Deity

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    Well, I just picked up the new S9 from the MS store..at least it got a 7.5 on the sandisk score with this one. The screen may be great but to me the ASUS screen is much better, the fonts much cleaner but I hear that is because of the matte screen..who knows. I also don't like the blue backlighting..you can barely see it..at least they give you 14 days.
     
  48. uppeli

    uppeli Notebook Enthusiast

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    Just remember that the i5 version of UX32VD is NOT FullHD and dont have IPS screen i belive, Atleast the one they sell here only has 1366x768 resolution.


     
  49. FlyBriUR

    FlyBriUR Notebook Enthusiast

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    Well, my 3rd UX31a from Best Buy is going back...for good now -- no more exchanges. Backlight bleed is HORRENDOUS (I was was willing to deal with an acceptable amount, like what I have seen on some reviewer's videos, but this isn't even close to acceptable). Even worse, this new unit started to run very hot -- idle temps are 12-15C higher than the last unit I had, and this is with 0% CPU load, so obviously an issue with the CPU itself, or improper placement of the heatsink and/or not enough thermal paste. As such, the fan would run 98% of the time, and would shut off for about 5 seconds, and come back on -- very annoying. I have to say, while this laptop on the spec sheet is great, Asus didn't execute -- their quality control has much to be desired, and unfortunately ruins what could have been a great laptop.
     
  50. supremekizzle

    supremekizzle Notebook Enthusiast

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    Could someone please answer to why my laptop won't wake when I open the lid? I'll give ya $2
     
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