K53TA.. The best deal ever... could be!

Wow that's amazing. I figured they would have some kind of nice warranty but BestBuy site lists only 1 year.

 

It took me a couple of reboots or so before disabling ULPS in the Sapphire Trixx would even work. I know the first couple of times I tried it, the program would tell me that ULPS was still active.

I was going to try and disable it in the registry but I can't find where it's at. I've googled it and every site shows the same registry location but there isn't a "EnableULPS" file there for me.

 

Well guys, I went to see this laptop in person and I'm very impressed.

The keyboard is comparable to a 1000$ laptop (and no missing strokes like the G73 series; I spent a couple minutes typing in notepad). It's very light, touchpad is average (two touchpad buttons are quite good) and the screen looks fine. I didn't get a chance to toy around with it much, though.

It's just too bad the price tag is 599$ (Staples) in Canada, but 449$ (Best Buy USA) in the US.

I didn't see this screen issue people were talking about. Perhaps Best Buy USA received all the faulty ones. Nonetheless, BIOS fixes it

I just found it hilarious that within 30 seconds of being in the Staples store, I was swarmed by reps trying to sell me Norton 360, warranty extensions, etc.

Some of the stuff this rep told me was so idiotic, such as the laptop would be attacked by viruses as soon as I got home on the internet. If I refused to get the Norton 360 setup for over 100$, I wouldn't be safe. Also, I inquired on a 500GB 7200rpm (stock is 5400rpm, yuk), and he mentioned it would cost close to 200$ to set up (meanwhile I wanted to do it myself and the drive is 60$ lol).

@LancerEvoX:
Best Buy generally always skims the warranty down from 2 to 1 year on Asus laptops unfortunately. This way they can sell their overpriced/awful warranty service through their store.

 

no. every region has different warranty terms.

warranty is one year only.
says so on the sticker underneath the laptop.
(Warranty: 12)

 

build quality is above average for a plastic laptop. I'd rank it somewhere between an Acer and Vaio.

if you're anal about imperfections, then this may not be for you.

trying hard to find flaws, here are some imperfections i saw-
left mouse button sticks up a little,
palm rest area not exactly flat,
keyboard numpad area has some flex (but supposedly, double sided tape can anchor it down)

but these aren't things that are glaringly obvious.

 

Those aren't as bad as some of the other things I seen, like netbooks that wobble on a flat surface. I'm more worried about the durability of the hinges and how sturdy the cover is protecting the top screen. Things like that.

 

Somehow the 6650 seems not to be used properly. Driver issues?

 

It's driver/BIOS issue I'll say. I hope Asus will allow user to select the graphics soon..

 

Stopped by BBY today to check this out and was actually really surprised. Expected to pick up a super flimsy cheap feeling piece of plastic but it felt better than some laptops that were twice as much. Seems impressive for the price and should meet most of what I need to do for school with Visual Studio, UDK and run some games nicely. I'm still a little worried that when I need to do some work in 3ds Max the lower clock will let me down, hopefully someone will have thrown Max or Maya on one and tried it out.

Really curious if anyone who's been using it for a bit give me an idea of what to expect from battery life since I haven't really seen much indication of that anywhere. Being tethered to the wall with a 2 hour battery that you usually see in this price range would be a deal breaker. Still not entirely sold on a 15" since I'm going to be using it on my lap exclusively and carrying it around for 12 hours on the days I have class but if this will meet my needs similar enough to the Acer TimelineX AS3830TG-6431 it's going to be hard to spend that extra $300.

 

From what I've been reading, the Asus has a 5-6 hour battery life. The Acer you mentioned (that I was also looking at today) has something like 8-9 hours.

What's odd is that AS3830TG (i3 version) is 599$ here in Canada @ Staples, so it's cheaper here, but the Asus is 150$ more than the US. When you say 300$ extra, that means 449$ + 300$ = 749$, therefore making the i5 version 749$ in the US and the i3 version 599$ in Canada. I can't justify 150$ more for going i3 to i5 on the Acer.

I got to play with both of these laptops in-person today ...it's a very tough choice. The thing I didn't like about the Acer was the cheap-feeling keyboard compared to the Asus' high-quality one.

More screen real-estate is always good, unless you're keen on keeping it small (Acer = 13.3"). I'd have a harder time choosing between both if the Acer had a better keyboard; the one they're using feels like a 300-400$ cheap HP laptop low-quality junk keyboard.

I checked the benchmarks for both GPU's ...they're equal for most, but the Acer's 540m beats the Asus in Starcraft 2 by a little. Nonetheless, both are great GPU's for the price tag.

Could a current owner verify real-world battery stats when browsing with 1 tab? I don't trust web page claims b/c you generally have to deduct -25% off most battery power claims.

 

ill be trying 3d max on it soon along with all the adobe CS5 programs. ill report back on how they all work.

the laptop from what i see with last between 3-6hrs depending on what you are doing. ive gotten over 8+hr with it just downloading on utorrent

 

You'll be my hero forever. Also forgot to ask about how hot it gets, especially on the lap, when playing games or something that's tasking it harder.

 

You actually think the asus kb is better than the acer chiclet keys?
The asus one is supposed to be cheaper, and these are not chiclet keys.

this probably isn't for you. The lid plastic feels flimsy. You could press down on it easily. It's not sturdy like aluminum, so you definitely don't want to pile books on it.
The hinges are alright.
From what I've seen, they are metal hinges, covered with plastic, with a rollcage up the sides of the lcd.

 

Interesting. Guess I'll go stop by the BestBuy and take a look tomorrow. I had my netbook in my backpack all the time with random stuff in there and it seemed fine. I just graduated from college and work now, so if I did carry it around it'd probably be in a separate case or something.

 

I fixed the stuttering problem playing WOW. I installed 11.8 drivers then uninstalled the display driver and put in 11.6b display drivers. I did have to install the asus AMD Chipset Driver drivers but gaming seems much better I do have crossfire off.

 

First off, I love this notebook. I can't believe that I am playing Bad Company 2 on a mix of High/Medium settings for only 450 dollars. I am in a state of shock.

I noticed in CPUZ that this notebook is not using 2x2GB memory for dual channel, rather 1 stick of 4GB. It seems that this notebook has even more potential with dual channel enabled. Is it possible to add another 4gb stick irrespective of brand/model? I know the AM2 athlons had issues with that, I was hoping llano was a little more flexible.

 

I am not sure why but League of Legends seems not to have great performance. A processor speed issue?

 

From the price and what I've read in this thread this looks like a great value deal for a multipurpose light gaming laptop.

How are you guys finding the cooling and fan noise? Are the levels comparable to the G53/73 series. From the reviews on those models the laptop stays cool and fan noise is fairly silent even when gaming.

 

The cooling is pretty good and the fan noise is negligible with it being super quiet.

Is anyone having dismal transfer speeds over the wireless?

 

I tried both the Acer and Asus keyboard and when using the Acer, I really didn't like the keyboard layout -- it felt like the keys were too spaced out and the user would have to make the extra effort to type properly as well as the cheap-feel factor. With the Asus, I was able to type without error or discomfort (felt like an excellent keyboard for the price)

Don't get me wrong, the Acer is still a good machine; it's like a budget M11X R2 (i3) with the an R3 GPU and you get a bigger screen (13.3").

 

That begs the question: Is the wireless card upgradeable on this machine, or is there a BIOS whitelist that would prohibit it?

Edit: Took a trip to BB on my lunch break and played around with it a little bit. Very impressive. The build quality on the demo unit they had was exceptional. No keyboard flex that I could find, and the feel of the keys themselves was far better than you would expect from a $450 notebook. Its thinness was also surprising. It would be great for traveling. I am seriously tempted to pick this up and return the HP Envy 14 I have ordered. I'd also likely get a SquareTrade warranty alongside it. With a coupon code, you can get a 3-year ST plan with accidental damage for $90.

Question - is it easy to remove the optical drive from this notebook? It looks like all you'd have to do is remove the cover from the RAM or HDD bay, then undo a screw to pull it out. I'm just wondering because it would be pretty cost effective to add an SSD. Further, has anyone tried running this machine with two sticks of RAM? I would think performance would be, at worst, marginally improved by populating both DIMM sockets.

 

if you read the first post it shows you have access to the network card along with the ram and hard drive. i see no reason why you cant swap any of these out.

 

I was speaking of a BIOS limitation. Yes, it appears that you can swap the hardware itself quite easily. That doesn't mean whatever card you put in there is necessarily going to work. The BIOS might have a whitelist embedded in it that limits what you can put in there to whatever Asus decides. This is a problem with most HP notebooks.

 

The takeapart guide is here, see for yourself-
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/602531-disassembly-guide.html

Are we even talking about the same laptop ??
I'm surprised by your comments, and that you would trade an Envy, which is mostly aluminum and small form factor, for something as plastic and cheap as the asus.

this asus is not exactly thin. It's pretty standard size, like all the other 15" laptops.
It's heavier, and not exactly "great for traveling."

while i do like this asus, and I am gonna keep it, I recognize that it is a budget laptop, and build quality reflects that.

 

It's half the price.

 

The Envy is 0.04 lb lighter and about 0.2 inches thinner than the Asus.

Compare the specifications for yourself:

Envy

Asus

Exactly. Even if you swap the 5400 RPM hard drive for a 7200 RPM one and change the one stick of RAM for a matched 8 GB pair, you won't be spending more than $100, so you're still $300+ to the good on cost versus the HP.

Now the Envy has fixed graphics that allow for full OpenGL support on the discreet AMD GPU, so there is that. However, I would personally use OpenGL only for really old games (Half-Life and Oni), so the iGPU of the Asus should be more than up to the task. Heck the iGPU of the Envy would be just as capable, too.

 

i guess the
full metal alloy and aluminum case, better build quality,
7200rpm, core i5 sandy, beats audio, hd webcam, 8 cell battery,
....aren't worth double the price...

but when there are 25% off discount coupons, as in the past,

for $750, it would be a warmer deal.

Comparing the weight is apples to oranges. Our weight is all plastic. Envy weight is magnesium alloy and aluminum, with sturdy lid.
I know i'm not gonna throw around this laptop, so the flimsy lid doesn't affect me much.

 

Awesome thread, guys. Picked up this laptop yesterday. I've never had a laptop before, and i'm not used to the drop in performance from my beast desktop. I do like the laptop and was surprised with the stock performance, but I want a small boost in gaming performance if I can. Im a little worried about overclocking, because i've never overclocked before. UnXpectederror, I really appreciate all the info you've put into overclocking in this thread.

I have a couple questions. Do you use any aftermarket cooling to keep the temperatures down when you overclocked? also, will overclocking to say... 2.2 ghz lower the lifetime of the laptop and void the warranty if it happens to overheat? I plan on spending hours gaming at friends houses now and afraid a combination of overclocking and long gaming sessions might destroy this laptop.

I'll have to look through the thread again, but could you guys post screenshots of your current overclocking settings, so I can gauge the difference between stock and overclock settings in K10 and such?

Oh, I forgot to mention. I downloaded the http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/radeonmob_win7-64.aspx catalyst display driver, and it gives me an error that says "AMD Catalyst Mobility cannot be downloaded due to incompatible hardware/software on your computer. Your computer does not contain a proper graphics adapter"

I took a screenshot of Gpuz and it shows the memory size to be only 512mb instead of the 1gb it should show. http://i.imgur.com/2TowN.png Any ideas?

 

Is the K53 really Asus's budget line?

Newegg.com - k53

Some of the specs are really up there with the price.

 

Quick note - the 206 BIOS (which addresses the screen banding issue) is officially on Asus' site now.

 

Alright guys, so I updated the Catalyst drivers to 11.8 along with the display drivers, and the integrated/discreet graphic card combo is playing very nicely with all my games, as opposed to before when I had to disable Crossfire. Also have my processor undervolted at 2.3ghz with K10, but can't seem to make the task for it to start at startup even after following the entire guide..I did a fresh install of Win7 Ultimate, and didn't even install the Power4Gear thing, as I think it was bottlenecking the processor. Anyway, question time...

How in the HELL did you guys overclock the 6650? I think I've tried just about everything to disable EnableUlps! I tried using the feature in Trixx, that didn't work, then I manually went to the registry and 0'd all the EnableUlps's everywhere. I literally searched the entire registry and 0'd EnableUlps and EnableUlps_NA. Still, when I try to overclock in Sapphire, it says i need to disable Ulps...In Afterburn, my sliders are maxed at 600 and 900 so no budging there either! I even edited the .cfg to allow unofficial overclocking...

Anyway, the only weird thing is that even when I enabled crossfire in the AMD Vision thing, my registry would still show it at (0). Weird... any help would be appreciated.

Also, is it worth it to buy two DDR3 Corsair sticks 4gbx2 or should i just buy another 4gb brand stick and throw it in? does the Dual Channel really matter?

help

 

The only problem I have with this notebook is the shoddy display. Even with the banding fix, pictures on the screen look worse than on my Toshiba and text more straining on the eyes.

 

lol oops, i forgot to mention that you also have to enable unoffical overclocking. i know you already tried it but maybe you missed putting in the words under the EULA part. its very important to other wise it wont work unless they are there... here is how to do everything for everyone else in this thread.

To enable the unofficial overclocking it is necessary to edit the MSIAfterburner.cfg file located in the installation directory of AfterBurner (typically Program Files (x86) MSI Afterburner):

You need to alter the following:

Seek UnofficialOverclockingEULA field and add following text:
I confirm that I am aware of unofficial overclocking limitations and fully understand that MSI will not provide me any support on it

Set UnofficialOverclockingMode to 1 to keep PowerPlay active (may not work on old ASICs), 2 to traditionally disable PowerPlay or to 0 to temporary disable unofficial overclocking path

if that doesn't work it might be the 11.8 drivers as i remember the hp llano users saying that they could only OC with certain drivers.. i could be wrong though.

as for the ram from what i read the llano platform benefits greatly from a dual channel memory setup. im about ready to order some myself..

 

Newegg.com - SAMSUNG 2GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model MV-3T2G4/US

Is that the ram you were referring to, UnXpectederror?

 

UnXpectedError,

Would you mind posting a screenshot of your k10stat settings? Would like to use yours as a guide to do mine. Currently just running 2.3 on all.

Also, are you still overclocking the B0 state for the turbo boost? Or did you just let that go?


Thanks!

 

As far as aftermarket cooling goes, there really isn't anything besides notebook coolers. They'll help drop the temp some but I wouldn't expect any miracles from em. You could always apply some thermal paste but it would void your warranty opening the case.

I highly doubt they would ever know you overclocked your computer if that would cause it to crash in the first place.

And as far as only seeing 512mb on GPU-Z, it's because your viewing the laptops low power gpu. I think it's only supposed to have 512mb. The 6650 has 1Gb of ram. You just need to switch the gpu on the bottom of the GPU-Z app.

 

I have read the enire thread, seems like a nice machine.

Can anyone please tell me if the cooling fan ever stops? Will it be possible to use the laptop at the lowest cpu speed and the fan stays off most of the time?

I'll install a SSD, but i want to know if it ever will be 100% quiet.

Anyone with the i3 version could comment this also?

Thanks a lot!

 

I dont know if it would shut off completely, but the fans are very quiet. I only hear them when I really push the system.

 

The fan will probably never shut off, but it should stay pretty quiet, especially if you under-volt the CPU. Less electricity going to the processor, the cooler it will run, and the less the fan will have to work.

 

i have a quick question. i missed out on this laptop because i ended up buying k53e-bbr7 for the same price and im out of my 14 day return policy. can u tell me what the difference between the 2 laptops? i know one is an amd and mine is an intel. i am not familiar with overclocking, can my model be overclocked? do i have one 4gb mem stick or a 2gbX2?

Sorry if I sound like a newbie.

 

Duplicate post

 

You can manually disable ULPS in the registry: Crossfire - disabling ULPS - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net

Or just start up a program like GPU-z, set it to "high performance" mode then you can overclock with MSI Afterburner. This is something talked about extensively in the HP DV6z forums as well. I'm interested in giving this laptop a look see though. For $450, as much as I want 1080p and blu-ray, I might just have to live with 1366x768 and DVD!

Anyone give this a battery life run yet? Can it easily exceed 4 hours?

Try downloading the Crossfire profiles. It seems to help.

If not, on the DV6z we've been installing the 11.8 beta catalyst package, uninstalling the video drivers from the device manager, then installing only the 11.6 video drivers. That has been helping with any stuttering.

The Intel CPU cannot be overclocked nor can the GPU. The Asus with the AMD CPU & GPU as far as gaming performance is far and above better than the Intel version you bought. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. It's not a bad laptop, just gaming performance is nowhere near what the AMD version is.

 

I have been messing around with overclocking and have mine set to 2.3GHz at 1.15v. My greatest concern is this thing overheating. In runs of BC2 with discrete GPU only, my cpu gets up to 85C. That seems awfully hot. When the drivers mature, it was my hope to use crossfire more. However, if I run the IGP, the CPU is going to get even hotter. I was hoping some of you can share your temperatures so we can compare. Maybe some better thermal compound could help, but I am not excited about opening up my week old notebook.

Looking at the bottom of the computer, I noticed that there are no obvious intake vents for heatsink fan. Instead there are vents near the front of the computer, I suppose are the intake. I was hoping maybe an application like speedfan could increase the fan speed, but that doesn't seem to work. I don't mind some noise if I can avoid frying things to a crisp.

 

Check my post above for improving Crossfire stability.

 

Just placed my order from Best Buy, will try to pick it up tomorrow.

 

Gotta lurk on this one.
found out about this sleeper on a thread about the very good hp g4-1117dx... this looks better.
except:
does anyone know if there is a 14" or smaller version of the same???

 

Glad you brought that up. I was wondering why they don't put this in a 14" form factor.

That HP G4 only comes with the integrated GPU, no dedicated like in the Asus. And that HP G4 is a 14" unless you were referring to the Asus K53 in 14". I haven't seen any yet, but would be nice.

 

I believe this is the only Llano setup from Asus, I think Toshiba offers a 14" setup but if I remember correctly it had lower end graphics and was more expensive.

 

Notice the INTEL? That's why.

 

Its not that but there's a lot of owners from here and on Slickdeals indicating that the build quality is decent. I just figured if Asus is willing to charge that much for the K53, makes me wonder if the K series is better than people say they are.