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

Yea. Obviously since you actually own one and know how to use it properly you know that it works and gives great performance increases. Obviously, most of the problems I've seen are just people who don't know how to use the software tweaks and settings to get the best performance out of their machine. This is why iphones exist... for people who sometimes can't be bothered to customize and tweak their devices. Intel is to apple as AMD is to microsoft. IMO, you can make a lot more use of open ended, customizable platforms such as those provided by microsoft and AMD, but that doesn't create the best user experience for those who dont know how or dont want to bother with it.

What I'm not so enthused about with AMD is having to greatly underpower the laptop/processor to get decent battery life.

I've found the microsd-SD adapter combo can be pretty finicky for most devices.

 

I guess this article explains why asus is not selling this awesome laptop anymore.

 

Alright my Laptop is freezing randomly whenever I play any game, why is this happening? For example when I was playing DoW2 I tried to do a performance test and the game froze. Or when I was playing Modern Warfare 1 I was loading and it just randomly froze.

Is it because I put everything on High Performance rather than battery saving in the switchable graphics thing?

 

I have mine set that way are you overclocked?

 

Nope not Overclocked. It just happens randomly. I barely have anything installed on this new laptop lol. It might just be the game itself probably.

 

Wow. Yield issuse. Of course the A8-3530MX lived a very short life. Maybe only a few thousand units in the DV6z. Maybe a week or so after it launched, they no longer had them available and weren't going to have them available.

Does this mean basically little to no more Llano notebooks until Q1 2012?

 

That would add to the k53TA being the best laptop deal of all time at regular price.

 

You are correct. If only they used GDDR5 instead of GDDR3, then it would be a for sure winner. I mean I'd pay $500 for that laptop easily. I guess that would just make it a 6750m instead of 6650m then though, eh?

 

only thing that would make this almost perfect is to get openGL to work on the damn discrete gfx card.

AMD has been sitting on their butt for almost a year.

Even HP's bios workaround isn't very graceful.

i just played Rage on my desktop pc, with a crappy nvidia 9500gt gfx card, and it blows away the radeon 6520g. Completely night and day difference. The 6650m is supposed to match my 9500gt, but we'll never get to see it in action.

 

I sent Asus an email about the graininess. Here is the reply.

I _am_ using BIOS 207.

 

207 fixed the banding issue, not the graininess.

 

206 fixed the banding issue. We don't really know what 207 fixed.

 

Bios 207 was known to revving up the fans a bit more to help keep the laptop cooler. But I just kept bios 206 since I like it quieter and think it's cool enough. Sounds like Asus isn't going to do anything about the graininess unless more complaints are issued....

I've attempted masking the grain with these settings: Hue 0, Saturation 125, Brightness -22, Contrast 100, Temperature 5800k. Maybe these setting will help a little. (But I still see a little grain..won't really get rid of it)

 

This notebook is no longer listed on the Best Buy website. "Sorry, the page you requested was not found."

 

I saw that yesterday. I liked reading the reviews...

 

interesting that they responded to you right away.

I just asked them to forward my complaint to the bios/engineering team.
customer service just said "ok".

 

It only took them 2 days to respond, I'll ask them to do the same.

 

What's a good stick of RAM to buy for this Laptop?

This is good right?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231266

 

That's just fine.

 

Has anyone here run 1600MHz RAM modules in their K53TA? If so, does the A6-3400M register as 1600MHz or only 1333MHz?

 

I'm quite sure this was tried before and it only ran at 1333MHz. The only processors that can use 1600MHz are the MX series.

 

That's what I was wondering. Some sources say A6 and A8 can run 1600MHz, others say only MX.

 

Hey dude I noticed you OC'd your GPU. How did you disable the ULPS? I can't overclock the GPU. Whenever I try to disable the ULPS in Sapphire it doesn't work (yes I restarted after pressing the button). I also disabled it in the registry and I still get the same message with Sapphire, it keeps telling me to disable the ULPS.

So what should I do here to fix this?

 

OCing GPU only works for me if I use MSI Afterburner(not Sapphire) when following these instructions, but also only if you're using the older chipset drivers 8.863 or earlier. I POSTED & REUPLOADED THE 8.863 DRIVERS FOR EVERYONE since ASUS removed them. see link below.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/7977043-post72.html

 

See my sig for registry files to disable ulps. Reboot after applying. Sapphire Trixx is a mixed bag. I could never get it to work.

 

I can't get the A8-3530mx to run worth crap in K53TA, but it runs fast as hell in my HP (same cpu) It's either bios related or this Asus mb has trouble with a 45 watt cpu. Just don't think it's going to run as fast as the A6-3400 in K53TA. Time to sell and move on. Can someone point me to the for sale section please.

 

I've been reading about this laptop for over 2 months.
I'm going to USA in a couple of weeks, is anyone about to sell this laptop?

 

I've only read that the A6 MX and A8 MX could run 1600MHz RAM.

That sucks. Here's the NBR Marketplace.

 

Got to agree -- While the performance on the 3530MX isn't atrocious it does seem to perform slightly below the A6. Wish I could figure it out but with school started I believe those days have come and gone.. Might head that way myself if I can find my old A6.. Might have misplaced it during my move.

Also in regards to questions about 1600MHz DDR3 -- I can confirm it does run and register at full speed with the 3530 on this laptop but I really didn't see any gains with it either. I'll try it with my A6 if I revert to that later.

 

Thanks bschrib. If you can confirm with the A6 that would be appreciated. I know it should work with the 3530MX. The noticeable gains will be with the IGP only. What brand RAM by the way?

And yeah, when I had the K53TA I was impressed with the A6 performance. It was on par with the 3530MX I had in my first DV6z that I ended up exchanging due to heat. Only the GPU in the K53TA just wasn't quite up to snuff, nor the screen, and wanted blu-ray. But in any case, A6 is best bang for the buck IMHO.

 

HTWingNut -- I'll be sure to dig around some time this week and see about popping the A6 back in so I can compare. Anyways I'm using Kingston HyperX (specifically these guys)

 

seen one on ebay for $535.00

 

Don't get me wrong people, This is the best gaming laptop for the price I have ever had. I just buy laptops to tinker with and then sell them (at a loss of course). I bought this for the sole purpose of upgrade to 3530mx which did not pan out, It is still a great laptop with A6-3400m and I am sure future drivers will only make it better. On the memory issue 1600 worked on 3530mx at correct speed but did not work for me on a6-3400. Might be the low priced ram I bought. Newegg.com - G.SKILL 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Model F3-12800CL9S-4GBSQ

 

Well no, that just confirms that A6 can NOT support 1600MHz, which was the theory going in based on information we received. Just nobody had actually confirmed it.

 

I saw it from $600 at ebay :s , besides $500 is already the top of my budget.
I'm from Argentina and $500 is already alot of money, besides i have %50 of import tax.
I'd been an owesome replace for my pentium D, 512mb, 120GB desktop.

 

Wait, did the A6 not work with the memory at all or did it just not run at 1600?

 

From what I understood it just didn't run at 1600MHz but it worked.

 

That is correct for the 1600MHz memory in my laptop. It worked with the A6-3400 but it only ran at 1333MHz. That doesn't mean another brand other than my G-Skill 1600Mhz won't work, but at this point I am not going to drop any more money into this Asus laptop (unless someone figures out the A8-3530mx). I have been a computer technician for over 30 years (started out on IBM mainframes) I even modified a IBM PCjr. back in the early 80's, But this just might be one of the few projects I have not made any progress on at all. NONE!

 

Is there someplace else you can upload this file? The download gets to about 15%/23 mb and times out.

 

I'm going to sell mine soon, only because I want to build a desktop for Battlefield 3. I'll send ya a PM.

 

I'll try fileserve next....give it another 20 minutes or so...(ready!)

Code:

drivers ready on fileserve for 60 days after the last download
[size='3'][COLOR="Blue"][URL="http://www.fileserve.com/file/W2xe3pn/Chipset_AMD_Win7_64_Z886300000--asus_8-31-11.rar"]8.863 drivers fileserve[/URL][/COLOR][/SIZE]

 

Thanks much!

+rep

 

Hi there, I got a couple of questions about the K53TA:

I plan to buy the model with a A6-3400M and a AMD Dual GPU Radeon HD 6720G2 for 589€.

1. What is the battery life when you're using excel+internet in energy saving mode ? I've read somewhere it's about 4hrs, which is pretty good. Can you confirm please ?

2. Can you run games like Crysis 2/Metro 2033 with a decent level of details ?

3. What about Starcraft 2 ?

Many thanks,

Aout.

Oh, and I forgot : is it overheating when you're playing ? Or can you play 3-4 hours in a row without any heating issues ?

 

Since i'm only going to be in USA a couple of week i can't afford to try a refurbished item but maybe some of you find this interesting : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834158073&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL101111&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL101111-_-EMC-101111-Index-_-LaptopsNotebooks-_-34158073-L04C .

I think the deal ends today at midnight

 

Battery life only running an application like excel in power saving mode should get you at least 4 hours.*

Yes, and this has been confirmed not only by members on this forum but on other websites as well.**

Yes, this has been confirmed on other websites.**

I have been able to play multiple games for extended period of time without overheating, I do not overclock my notebook.*

* Your results may vary
**Sources: Review Asus K53TA-SX026V (Fusion) Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews
AMD A-Series A6-3400M Notebook Processor - Notebookcheck.net Tech
AMD Radeon HD 6720G2 - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

@Calvin

Cheers mate, this is all I needed to know.

Anyone know where I can buy the A6-3400M and ATI 6720G2 version in the UK ? (I know it is sold in France, but I can't seem to find it here)

Edit : @Calvin - You don't need to overclock the GPU/CPU to get decent performances in the games mentioned above, do you ? (just to clarify the point)

 

You are correct.

 

Just note that you may WANT to overclock/undervolt the CPU from the get-go. The system will run cooler and offer longer battery life. For the CPU I see no reason not to at least bump it up to 2.0GHz, 2.2GHz even for P0 state. Volts will still most likely be same if not less than the stock 1.4GHz.

 

it's pretty descent without any overclocking but it's to your advantage to overclock the cpu a little since 1.4ghz is a little low when it isn't turbo boosting. You can get a few more frames up to +10fps or more from games when overclocking P0 anywhere between 1.7 and 2.2ghz for your nonturbo boost speeds, and turbo boost can be improved easily to 2.6ghz or 3hghz. However it will get hot (around 80+C after a few hours of playing). It's supposed to be safe to reach up to 100C but highest I've seen so far is 85 to 87C since I rarely ever play for more than 2 hours at a time, nor overclock much higher than 2.6 ghz. Temperatures may vary from game to game.

 

This has probably been covered somewhere in this thread, I'm sorry if so. My search didn't turn anything up.

I am getting much worse performance in games when on battery versus when plugged in, even if I switch the power profiles to high performance, or whatever Asus calls it. Clearly the laptop is still throttling itself somehow. Is there a trick to getting full performance out of this thing on battery?

Thanks for any help!