Just bought the Asus F3JA - Little Help Please

I was originally planning on buying an Acer Travelmate 4672WLMi but got scared off by the negative reviews of the x1400 that I would have been getting with it. Add to that the fact that I would have had to merge the partition and change from fat32 to ntfs I just decided to change the laptop I bought to this for only £10 more.

I do have a few questions though.

Are there two partitions? This does seem likely to me and I don't really mind it too much as it should be simple enough to merge them.

I wont have to change from fat32 to ntfs will I? Again not too much of a problem as partition magic does both.

how much Asus bloatware comes on the laptop? What can I concievably get rid of?

A friend of mine bought an A3 (at least I think it was an A3) about 6 months ago and he messed up his Asus wireless card software, can I get rid of that software and just use the XP wireless connection tools or do I have to use the Asus software?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Hey,

- ASUS notebooks usually come with 3 partitions: C, D and a hidden recover partition. It's quite easy to format and recreate the partitions, or just merge them using Partition Magic as you said.

- You don't have to change to NTFS, but there's no benefit of staying with FAT32. NTFS is newer, and handles files better, also provides more security at file level. If you're gonna convert to NTFS as opposed to reformat from scratch, make sure you follow the preliminary steps

- Not much bloatware.. mostly ASUS utilities. It does usually come with Norton Internet Security, which lots of ppl seem to dislike and uninstall...

- Yep, you can surely just use XP wireless to manage your connections.

 

I'll be using partition magic to change the format to ntfs is needed so do i need to follow those "preliminary steps" or will partition magic deal with that on its own?

 

Not sure... coz I usually format new PC's on mine, so I've never had to follow those steps.

I think you might still need to follow those steps, since Partition Magic just deals with the partitions, not file systems.

 

apparently patition magic can also change the file system so thats why I was asking about that.

 

Ah .. ic... never tried that.... but just to be safe, I'd still recommend doing the preliminary steps... shouldn't take long...

 

On the desktop of all ENSEMBLE units there is a NTFS converter, so just run it and voila, it'll make your drive into a NTFS.

 

Actually, you don't need to use a 3rd party application to convert the format from fat32 to ntfs. You can see a program on desktop "converter", only click it and run it. Another choice is to go to command prompt to type "convert c: /fs:ntfs". All the steps can be finished by these 2 options.
Cheers

 

I'm assuming thats the converter on "ENSEMBLE" units that coriolis mentioned.

But thanks for all the help with my questions so far, it's a friendly board and I think I'll be around here for a while. Very Informative.

 

Whichever method you use, just remember the prelim steps before you convert... there's supposed to be some drawback if you don't do the cluster conversion ... since converting to NTFS is a one way street...

 

If you haven't installed anything major yet, you can use the Asus Recovery CDs to re-format the computer, and set it to use only a single partition from the start.

All the programs and drivers are installed automatically, and the computer will be the same as when you bought it (except with a C: only instead of both a C: and a D

You could do this if you don't have or don't want to use Partition Magic.

Just open the Asus recovery CDs package - there's an instruction sheet in it. The few times I did it, it asked for the Driver disc and gave me a problem a couple of times. I just had it keep re-trying to read the driver disc and it eventually worked.

You should run the NTFS converter from the desktop afterwards to convert to NTFS, and follow everyone else's suggestions of Prelim steps first.

 

It hasn't come yet but should be here sometime in the next few hours. The idea of using the recovery cd sounds like a better one for me, I haven't really done anything like this on my computers before and the recovery cd way would probably be the easiest.

 

Just got my laptop now and im about to do this, just one quick question: does this also make a new hidden recovery partition?

 

ok new problem. The preliminary steps include using a floppy disk to boot from. I don't have a floppy disk so should I just carry one without using that bootitng program or is there an alternative that doesn't require a floppy disk?

 

This doesn't require a floppy disk. Depends on the resource for booting up. If the resource is a floppy disk, you can use a USB floppy drive and set the USB is a 1st boot sequence in the BIOS. Nowaday, all the booting program should be default on CD such as a Windows CD or another 3rd party CD. For example, you can put a recovery cd to the optical drive, it can boot it up from cd directly as long as you already set the boot sequence in the BIOS.
Cheers

 

so this computer comes with fat32 filesystem, why? how about the hidden recoverydisc, is it not possible to use this as normal, how?
also i have heard ppl having problems with their spacebar, having to press the very middle at it. anyone experienced this? i know this is an issue on the a6ja...

 

Hi Wizard Of Oz,

I myself am intrested in this laptop, any chance of a review?

If not, do you play games such as Counter Strike Source?

Any information on how this performs would be great?

Thanks

 

Never written a review before but I might do one in a week or so. I've been using the notebook quite a bit and so far its been pretty much perfect. Counterstrike Source does run very well on it. With the card on stock settings and everything turned to high, 6X AA, native resolution (1280X800) I get about 70-90 fps. Apparently the stock on the F3Ja is slightly underclocked as well soyou may be able to push it a bit more to get better frames per second but as I'm sure anyone here wll tell you, you don't really need more than 25-30 for the game to be playable.
Half Life 2 I only play with 4XAA cos the ammo meter is a bit messed up with 6XAA, not sure why but half of it appears in the right/middle of the screen.

I should be getting F.E.A.R. soon so maybe I'll write up how it does after seeing how well it handles that and maybe some photoshop work as I'll probably be needing to do some this year for uni.

As for the space bar problem, I haven't encountered it on my notebook.

 

wiz, do you have the 9cell battery? if so, does it build out on the back of your notebook? someone said it was bigger then the chassis, and he had problems fitting it into a slim carrycase.
also, how is the mobility in general?
thanks.

 

Yeah, its the battery that sticks out of the back,but its literally just 2/3cm so its not a hassle for me and I'm just using the asus case that came with it for now (poor students have to buy other more important things first, FEAR). Mobility is pretty good for me, I've used it on a coach, while sitting in the back of my car and in my uni's library so far, haven't had any lectures so can't say for that but I don't see there being any problems. Battery life seems good so far as well i get about 3-4 hours normally and 2-3 with wi-fi on.

 

maybe I should mention the "heat" as well. Just got off cs source after a few hours and its a little warm so thats pretty good. No overheating or anything, its pretty much the same with hl2 after a few hours.

 

Alright, nice! I'm really heading towards buying this notebook now. Did you preform the os reinstall? Did windows handle all the drivers, or did you have to install them separatly? Was there CD(s) provided with drivers?
First of I'm gonna reinstall windows to get rid of the recoverypartition and so on. I like it clean.
Thanks alot.

 

I used the recovery discs provided to get rid of the partition (seemed like it would be the easiest way). That got rid of the second partition but it kept the recovery partition which takes up roughly 2gb.
Using the recovery disc also didn't reinstall a lot of the stuff the laptop had installed when I had started it up first time round. The only thing from them that I reinstalled was the asus dvd software as I kept getting a message saying the dvd software was not installed so I couldn't watch dvds. After thats installed you don't need to use the player to view dvd, you can use whatever you prefer.
There were two recovery discs, one which reinstalled windows and the second had all the drivers on it and it was all simple to do.
Just out of curiousity how much have you seen it for? I got mine for £884 including next day delivery, didn't wanna have to wait too long before I got it.

 

Okay... £884 is about 9500NOK. I'll have to pay 11000NOK for mine wich is £1000 including the case, bigger battery, wireless mouse. I asume you got the same bundle?

 

Them CSS Settings seem good, very good infact.

Its between this and the HP NX8430, the HP is quite ugly.

Can I just ask, whre did you buy your ASUS from?

 

Yeah I got exactly the same stuff you mentioned.

I bought mine from laptopsdirect.co.uk, although a quick look through their website now and the f3ja isn't on their website anymore, replaced with the F3F which isn't as good. I think they also used to have the hpnx8430 you mentioned in a student bundle that was about £40 cheaper than the asus but thats gone from their website now as well.

I suppose you could try to call them using the number on the website and see if they have any more of either laptop in stock.

The F3Ja is a good looking laptop and it works very well for me so far so I can't recommend it enough. Its good enough for the games I've played so far, and I shouldn't have any problems doing any work on it.

 

how the hell do i enter the bios? i want to change the first boot device settings so i can boot my winxp cd. the f-hotkeys only takes me to some windows98 recovery menu. help please!

 

No idea how to get into the bios. I'll have a little mess around and see if I can find out though.
Are you trying to install a fresh windows xp or use the recovery cd? If its the recovery cd put it in the drive and restart the laptop. When the asus sign comes up press esc, that will give you the option to boot from the cd and start the recovery process.
Just had a quick look and theres a mention of a bios set up page in the user manual. Unfortunately I don't have the manual handy as I am at university and the manual is at my family home about 3 hours away. But if you check the manual it should tell you how to access the bio, otherwise if you're willing to wait two weeks I can check my manual when I go home .

 

I have now installed a fresh windows xp. The one that came with the computer was so messed up. I could change the first boot device by pressing F1 during startup, but never came to the bios settings. Anyone know how to get there? Also, I want to get rid of the ASUS startupscreen with the ding dong sound. Its not that convenient when sitting in class.

Edit: There was not provided any info on bios or its hotkey in the manual.