Ivy Bridge Zenbook with FHD IPS screen UX21A UX31A UX32A UX32VD

Would love to see 8gb ram option and 255 ssd. I am fine with 128ssd if it can be easily replace

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

Did anyone successfully get everything working on Windows 8 upgrade on the UX31A-DB71? (Such as the Wifi/Bluetooth problems, USB3.0 Driver issues, etc)

If so, how is Windows 8 on the Zenbook so far. Any feedback? Is it stable?

 

no 25watt option.

 

Windows 8 is stable for me but I can't get Bluetooth to work. Tried everything I can think of. Pretty sure 3.0 usb isn't working either. Other than that everything seems quicker and fluid but I find I'm on Windows 7 desktop 90% of the time. I installed Stardock's win 7 start menu and it works great.

 

My windows 8 is working without a hitch... Usually its just taking the time to get the right drivers installed. USB 3.0 is just fine as well as bluetooth.

 

New one UX31A - DH71 vs old UX31A - DB71

Any hardware improvements to:
- light going from display corner issue?
- flexibility of keyboard panel?

Or only difference is W8 vs W7?

Thanks!

PS Model from Miscrosoft Store: ASUS ZENBOOK Prime UX31A-1AR4 13.3" IPS SCREEN 256 GB SSD Core i7 Ivy, 4 GB DDR3 [whcih is like DB71] have any hitches? Will I get SandDisc with it?

 

Sounds good. Which drivers did you install for USB3.0 and Bluetooth?

 

w8 comes with usb-3.0 drivers preinstalled so no need to install any usb-3.0 drivers.

 

Quick question, has anybody upgrade to Window 8 PRO? its $40 but will it remove all the Asus bloatware and what about the track pad will all the gestures go away

OK so its not $40 its $70 for me since i already have Win 8, but i still want to know about the track pad and bloatware
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/feature-packs

 

Firstly. for some of you that have noticed the sound not being up to par. You can enhance, (make louder) the sound by clicking on the speaker icon on task-bar, when menu pops up click on enhancements, and again click on loudness enhancements ... wala,,, much better sound output. if you are playing music while doing this you can hear the difference the menu settings make. real time
The Screen is to die for.. So much better than any i have had in the past, I don't have to constantly move the screen tilt to get just the right angle. I can see clearly now... LOL from the sides at a better angle also. Vibrant colors, slight bleed on start up, but once on page not seeable for me at all.
This computer is a complete remake of the last year model, which i happen to have two of. Keys are great, Hardly ever miss a stroke, and when i do it is my fault. Back lit keyboard is beautiful in dim light, or typing while wife is sleeping. Fast, Responsive. but sometimes i do loose the wifi for some reason,, usually after a sleep period.. I think it is probably due to Win 8.
Speaking of Win 8. I hate it.. Usually stay in the win 7 area. and have added CLASSIC SHELL to get the full function of the tool and task bar. along with the Start menu. I use LibreOffice. seems to work in place of the previous Microsoft scaled down version. I really don't like having to reach over the keyboard and swipe the screen to search for things. I have had cancer in the right shoulder and makes it difficult to continue to reach forward, Esp while hunting for something..
The Screen Fonts in the Win 8 interface are entirely too small.. Have tried many options to make them bigger... so some thing i am not doing i guess... Of course that may be because this screen has the absolute best resolution i have seen IN A STORE. besides the $2000 Mac Pro, so even the small fonts are clear,,, just too darn small.
Over all, I really like this better than any notebook i have had, including my Samsung s9 which was terrible on the batery 2.5 hours as is the s5 i still have. The Asus will get 6-7 hours battery life in every day usage.. Depending on your individual settings. The Mac Air is one nice book, but the screen scares me to no end,, Having a busted one sitting in my basement. Cost more than it is worth to replace on a two year old model. the screen on Asus Zenbook has edge to edge glass.. not just a file as on most computers. Will make it a bit heavier.
Really if you want a great, stylish, functional ultrabook, ?? You cannot go wrong with this one, for the money..Kind of hard to get but worth it.. Buy from best buy,,, If you don't like the computer, take it back in 30 days... No restock fee.. Caution, If you take it back, you might have "RETURNERS REMORSE"
This product is... Easy to set up, Lightning fast, Perfect for business, Good sound quality, A touch pad that works great, A nice compact size, long battery life
About me... Parent with kids, Business professional, Technology guru, Basic web surfing & emails, simi retired
I would recommend this to a friend!
Please send me an email when my review is posted.

 

After sending my UX32VD to Asus twice, I finally got a panel that has no light bleed at all! Not even on maximum brightness in a dark room with an all black image. The panel is completely uniform.

Now, I am truely happy with this laptop. Beautiful bleed-less 1080p IPS, with GT640M LE performance (because of OC), 10 GB of RAM, and a 512 GB SSD.

About time you got it right Asus!

 

I apologize if this has been fixed, but searching "blank screen" didn't help and too many "black screen" posts involve just talking about light bleeding.

I just received a refurbished UX31A with the FHD screen and when I attempt to turn on the computer, the screen stays black. The keyboard and power key lights up, but nothing else. I have tried the troubleshooting in the FAQ of pushing Fn+F7, Fn+F6 and hooking it up to an external monitor and pushing Fn+F8, all to no avail. Is there anything I can do outside of RMAing it? I tried calling tech support but gave up after being on hold for 20 min.

 

New configuration - Just to report that the model I bought lat week in Hong Kong is UX32VD-R4013H with i7, 6GB RAM, 24GB iSSD, 500GB HDD, Windows 8.

However, AI Recovery is no more present, instead there is an option to create a "Recovery Drive", which copy some utilities and the recovery partition to an external drive (either an SD card in a card reader or an external HDD, I tried both).

I then replaced the 5400rpm 500GB HDD with a empty 7200rpm SATA III 500GB (also Hitachi), connect the Recovery Drive (external HDD) and boot up with Fn9 key, the recovery drive could boot but failed to recover the system but says a partition is missing from the internal HDD.

Anyone who has successfully recovered (on another HDD) with the recovery drive please lend a hand. Thanks.

 

Is there a way to limit the touchpad area so that the buttons function only like buttons and not as a usable part of the touchpad? (so you can't move the pointer when using the buttons)

 

I don't this this is possible. I have never heard of anything like this being available either.

 

Hi guys! I'm planning to buy the big brother of this Zenbook family, the UX51VZ... Is there any common problem for this series I should be aware of before buying, or anything I should check as soon as my notebook arrives at home? For example, build quality, keyboard, track pad, screen related issues...?
Thank you for any advice

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

Just a question that probably has no bearing on your issue but might, and is worth considering in any case: with the price of SSDs so low, why not spend a bit more and conserve space on your internal storage and replace with a 256GB SSD? Thanks speed difference between a 5400 romantic and 7200 rpm drive is almost imperceptible while the diff betw either HDD and the slowest old SSD, even a SATA II drive flour drive rom 2011 (likely still available new via ebay or Amazon) is, like, 4-6X or more. Get a SATA III drive and we're talking 10X or more. Switching drives is a pain of sorts and even an HDD will cost you $50-$75 so if you can possibly come up with an additional $100-$125 and use an SD card and/or cloud drive for less often needed files and you will entirely transform your UX32 from a pokey machine equiv to a $400 laptop into a speed don't that boots up in 20 secs or less and resumes in 2 secs.

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Just to prove a point Luvlaptop, I finally installed a Samsung 830 series 256GB and 8GB (total 10GB) and now the UX32VD is blazing fast - about 16 sec start up in Win7, 2 sec resume. I may transfer the Win8 to SSD later.

will not go back to HDD, EVER!

 

How do I stop Power4Gear to switch from high performance when plugged in, to battery saving when I take out the power cord?

Want it to stay in high performance when i plug it out.

 

This laptop must have a defective design. My second 31a just failed to boot. The battery drained last night and now I can't boot it up. This exact same problem happen 3 months ago. It also exhibited this weird issue where TTY ou couldn't boot after hibernation if the charger was plugged in. You had to remove it, press power, then plug it in.

Now it just won't boot at all.

Anyone have this problem? How could this happen twice on two completely different units? Unacceptable. Big design flaw.

Can't recommend this laptop for anyone who does anythint important on their laptop and can't risk it failing abruptly.

My previous one that had this problem started working again after sitting in the box for a week. It's gotta be a hardware design flaw. Something with capacitance or the battery maybe.

 

Not trying to point fingers, but seeing as there is no mention of similar issues with other people how do you know that its not just something you are doing that is causing this?

For this, I would try right clicking on the battery Icon in the tray (bottom rt) and then going to power options. Then select more options and you should see high performance as an option. Thats how I do it, but I uninstalled power4Gear a while ago.

 

Hi guys! I'm planning to buy the big brother of this Zenbook family, the UX51VZ... Is there any common problem for this series I should be aware of before buying, or anything I should check as soon as my notebook arrives at home? For example, build quality, keyboard, track pad, screen related issues...?
Thank you for any advice

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

I should note that a little bit later it turned on. That said, what could I possibly be doing that causes it not to power on when plugged in, yet powers on when not plugged in? This is physical interaction. Plug in, press button -- nothing. Press button without plugging in -- boots up.

This is hardware related. All I'm doing is inserting a plug and pressing a button. If it's some physical thing I'm doing to the laptop, then the design is flawed as it's highly unlikely I broke two laptops in the exact same way, one within 2 days of getting it.

 

Hello UX32VD owners,

I just bought this ultrabook and I am very satisfied. However I have noticed something weird that may be linked to this post:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...ux21a-ux31a-ux32a-ux32vd-167.html#post8659494

I have an IPS display (the Full HD 1080) and Windows 8. Windows 8 brightness auto adjustment is disabled.

When running on battery there is a brightness adjustment delay when switching between bright and dark scenes.

To reproduce this behavior:
-you can set your desktop background with this wallpaper:
View attachment 90706
-Make sure you are unplugged (on battery)
-Then just display a window on your screen let's say in the upper left corner or in the middle so it allows you to see your desktop background.
-switching between desktop only (by reducing the window) to desktop + window opened, you can see some "flickering" on the desktop background in the gradient parts (look at the right).

This happens only when running on batteries. When the PC is plugged in, no flickering at all. Like if the screen adjust its brightness when running on battery.
You can notice this also when switching between a dark window and a bright window. You will see the brightness slowly increase.

Anyone can confirm this?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.
Lawrence.

 

Yes! I have this issue! (UX31A-BHI5T11) It seems to be related to switching between light and dark backgrounds (such as your image). I definitely notice the incremental dimming/brightening when toggling between desktop and other windows. I have adaptive brightness turned OFF for battery and AC power, also Auto Brightness (Fn+A) off.

Any help on this also appreciated! Thanks

EDIT: Check out this user's post about disabling the Sensor Monitoring Service and see if it helps: http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/693432-xps-12-owners-lounge-71.html#post9044755

 

Hi! I'm experiencing problems with battery on Windows 8 - on full battery while browsing web my UX32VD lasts for maximum about 4 hours. I think it can be because of the power plans, when I change it (for example maximum processor state 60%) it switches back (maximum processor state 100%) after few minutes. Any ideas how to fix it? To reproduce the problem, just change power plan settings and wait...

Thank you,
Michael

 

Yep, I was noticing this too, was driving me crazy switching from dark to light screens.

At first I thought the issue was related to adaptive brightness, but it's actually a setting of Intel graphics (Display Power Saving Technology). The fix is pretty easy:

1. Right click on your desktop, and select "Graphics Properties...".
2. Select Basic or Advanced mode.
3. On the left hand side, click the Power tab.
4. Near the top of the window, set Power source to "On battery"
5. Finally, among the Power Conservation options, uncheck Display Power Saving Technology.

Hope that does it for you.

 

Phatmatt,

one single post so far and you made it!!! Thanks a million dude.

I thought I had made a huge mistake purchasing this ultrabook as a photographer on the go when I noticed this...
Indeed this is an Intel settings. I will have shorter battery life but at least consistent luminosity and colors (after calibrating).

Thanks again, you made my day!

Have a great one.

 

Great post! Thanks a lot, I had no idea about these Intel Graphics settings. Hope this fixes it!

BTW, unchecking the "Display Saving Technology" for some reason didn't want to stay unchecked the first few times. But I kept re-opening, applying and OKing, and finally it seems to be staying unchecked.

 

Did you ever find a fix for the touchpad being unresponsive after resuming from hibernate?

 

I had this problem on my UX21e, too, and there was another thread here on NBR that talked about the same issue but I don't think people had ever listed a response.

In my case I had some permissions problem on the registry key that controlled the setting and I solved it by taking ownership.

(I'm going to assume you know how to use command prompt and regedit and what not...)

- open a command prompt
- type powercfg /list
- find the GUID (funny looking string) of the power plan you're using, and copy it to lipboard
- type powercfg /query (GUID you just copied)
- scroll up until you find the GUID for the maximum processor state, and copy it to clipboard
- run regedit
- search for the GUID of the maximum processor state
- continue to search until you find the key that has a value for "ACSettingIndex" and "DCSettingIndex". It should be inside HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet001\Control\Power\User\PowerSchemes\<GUID of your active scheme>\<some other guid>
- right click and check permissions. If it says something about reordering then you might have the same problem as me, and to fix it select reorder, advanced, then change owner from "SYSTEM" to whoever you're logged in as.

oh, and while you're at it you can set the value to what you want, too, like 60 or whatever. Also you might want to check the MIN processor state too, and make that like 0.

Hope this helps, I'm typing it fast so hopefully I didn't make any mistakes

 

It's a bug in the Asus touchpad software that's causing the problem. If you install the generic one from the Asus web site you'll be fine
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- Drivers and Download Touchpad

 

After testing a bunch of different touchpad drivers I have found one that makes the touchpad a 8+/10 imo.

I can't remember where I downloaded it from, but I put it up here: Elan_touchpad_11.7.8.5 (It's a Samsung branded version).

After installing you would want to adjust some of the settings in Control Panel -> Touchpad:



Click advanced:



For me this will make the touchpad very stable, smooth and non-jumpy.

Only thing I'm missing is the fn+F9 button to disable touchpad manually when I use my Razer Orochi (automatic works fine, but want manual). So if anyone have a solution for this, I would highly appreciate it.

 

Thanks a lot for this touchpad driver. The difference is night and day.

 

Cud u guys HELP!! My UX31A won't start up. My computer was plugged in. I just shut it down. When I pressed the power button it didn't turn on plugged in or without. The splash logo doesn't come either. Its completely dead. The computer is charging however. Plss.. HELP

 

Asus got a bunch of new updates for the 2013 new year, a touchpad, wireless driver, and intel hd 4000 update, and audio!

 

218 firmware for UX31A.

 

I just flashed it. what are the notes? It all seems working fine.

 

The solution is: write in the proper thread.

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

You need to drain battery I believe?

 

I'm lookiing at purchasing the UX31A Touch. However, I'm not too pleased with the 4GB RAM or 128GB SSD. On the Zenbook website it says up to 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD. ZENBOOK Touch UX31A

Does anyone know a retailer selling the beefed up version? Or if it's available in the US? I chatted with an ASUS rep earlier who claimed the 8GB/256GB was available in Canada with no release date for a US version. I can't find any confirmation of that on the internet.

Any info would be apperciated.

 

Just found out they are currently being sold in Australia. Model UX31A-C4043P. Same as our Touch, but with i7, 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM. Outrageous that we don't have access to it.

 

My UX31A is behaving odd so I'm doing a clean install of win 8. The drive is in MBR format.To install in UEFI is dis wat I'm supposed to do:
Format USB to FAT32 and copy the install folders
When it boots from usb Go to troubleshoot and in command prompt type disk part and then list disk number then select disk and then clean

Will it then become unallocated to install in uefi

 

8GB definately isn't available in Canada.

 

I hear ya. Just played with one of these at BB in the states with 128SSD and 4GB ram. Wow, what a nice machine. Even with the lower specs this has got to be the best ultra portable at this point in time. And I'm hearing it has decent battery life as well. I could live without the 8 GB ram, but I really like to have the 256 SSD. I'm hearing Intel may drop Haswell in June. This machine will probably get 8 hours battery life with Haswell. I hear the user only has about 70 GB when new with the 128 SSD. But I think one may be able to copy the restore partition. With a 256 SSD there would be no need to do that. I'm hearing BB is about the only retailer that is getting any of these machines. With the 100 dollars off, and 128 SSD they come in at 1100 dollars. I imagine they want to keep the price point near a grand. In reality, I wonder how well the 256 SSD would sell? I'm just hoping that SSD prices drop some more. Still really expensive upgrades.

 

has Asus announced a successor to these models yet?

 

I imagine Asus would wait until Haswell ships. But I'm hearing Intel may start shipping in June. If so, that would be in time for the normal back to school product refresh. The other issue is how much initial capacity Intel can produce. Hopefully they retool and turn all their Ivy bridge lines over to Haswell but that's generally not the way it happens. If Haswell actually delivers in increased battery life then every manufacturer is going to be screaming for Haswell processors. I really don't like W8 but in a way, it seems to be pushing technology for ultra-portables like no tomorrow. I no they say you can't wait forever but IMO there really is going to be some amazing devices coming out later Q3-Q4. By that time, W8 should also have windows blue update which should speed up the OS a bit more and hopefully smooth out the rough edges of W8. But don't expect a start button :\

 

I was incorrect. The 8GB/256SSD is only available in Australia (as far I as found). But the 4GB/256SSD is available in Canada. So, I found a retailer in Canada and purchased one through them. Available through their website or through ebay here:

Asus UX31A DH71T CA Ultrabook i7 3517U 4GB RAM 256G SSD 13 3" WIN8 Touch | eBay

Haven't received it yet.

In case you're wondering, there are two versions available: the "CA" version is black while the "CB" version is Silver. Otherwise they are identical.

 

Ouch, thats 500 USD more for an additional 128GB SSD. However, it has the i7 so thats why its that high. What I'm seeing is manufacturers like to bundle the i7 and 256 ssd together on the high end ultraportables with no price points in between. Its like pay 1000-1100 or jump right up to 1500-1600 or 30 percent more which adds up on a these high end systems. I'd rather build a CTO system but Asus seems to like to use online retailers and shops like BB to push their devices. Also, what is the warranty on a system you buy in CA that you ship to the US?

 

According to the information I found, it's the standard ASUS 1 year Global Warranty.