My new a8jm

Just got my A8jm. I ordered from Danny at MilestonePC. Everything went well and Danny is the man!

This thing is beautiful!!! You really have to see it in person to know what I am talking about. You just cant bring out the beauty of this notebook no matter how good a picture you have.

Anyway, cant say much yet since I am still testing it out.

By the way, the touch pad clicker is one piece. It sticks out a little in the middle (1 or 2 mm) since its a 2 button. Does anyone notice this?

 

Congrats on the purchase ... yeah the middle of the clicker is a bit raised... it' been mentioned in the A8Jm owner's lounge

 

congrats...hope u like it. hows does the screen look? is the glossy screen annoying because i've seen glossy screens that have lots of glare.

i've got an A8Jm on order....ETA 2 weeks....the wait is going to kill meeeee

 

2 weeks! I ordered mine Thursday night and got it Monday afternoon! Where did you order from?

 

The touch pad is a little not smooth enough when moving it, i guess it relate to the painting. Probably, nothing can be figure out this issue, but you can try to set to slower in a pointer speed, otherwise, to use a USB mouse instead of using the touch pad for easy controlling.
Cheers

 

Infonec in Toronto, Canada.

hey shadow85, I've got a question. Does ur A8Jm come with 1x1GB of 533 or 667MHz RAM? or did it come with 2x512?

 

The default should be 1X1GB 533Mhz RAM... unless they upgraded them to 1X1GB 667Mhz @ Asus... but when I got my A8Jm about 1.5 months ago it came with 1 stick of the PC4200(?) RAM and I got another stick of Cosair 1GB PC5400 (667Mhz) RAM... so the Cosair should down clock to 533Mhz, but at least I got 2 GB... maybe if I get another laptop next year I might switch over the slower RAM to the Tablet and get another stick of "devil's (666mhz) RAM", hehehe

 

thx y2b_3k. looks like i'll just get a stick of 533mhz ram then...wont be upgrading anyways.

has anyone experienced this so-called flex in the keyboard? I read someone sent it in to be fixed by ASUS and now it came back totally fixed. Can anyone with a recent A8Jm say it's also fixed in the manufacturing stage?

 

It should be 1 stick and I'm sure its 533. I dont want to unscrew the bottom at the moment. Its my baby! So if you know a way to check it in windows, I will let you know.

The keyboard is straight. I dont see flex. Ok fine, I found that the fn key is flex down a little. I dont even feel it. Like someone once mentioned, dont look for problem or else they will find u.

Now to be honest, the glossy coating on the touchpad is em... terrible. But this shouldnt stop you from buying this beast. I just wish asus had left it the way it was (meaning feeling like the rest of the plastic with out the gloss). The only solution I can think of is you either got super dry hands or u can put a cloth over it (but its not so practical).

Coming from a matte, the glare does take sometime getting use to. But I havent removed the plastic covering the screen. Will get back to you on that one. (will also remove them big old stickers. bleh)

 

Update on the middle of the touchpad sticking up. When I held it down, it makes it really hard to click so the middle being raised helps. =)

 

Download CPU-Z

http://www.cpuid.com/download/cpu-z-136.zip

If you could take a screenshot of the Memory Info screen and SPD timings screen and host it with imageshack.us....that'd be perfect


CPU-Z is a freeware that gathers information on some of the main devices of your system.

CPU

* Name and number.
* Core stepping and process.
* Package.
* Core voltage.
* Internal and external clocks, clock multiplier.
* Supported instructions sets.
* Cache information.

Mainboard

* Vendor, model and revision.
* BIOS model and date.
* Chipset (northbridge and southbridge) and sensor.
* Graphic interface.

Memory

* Frequency and timings.
* Module(s) specification using SPD (Serial Presence Detect) : vendor, serial number, timings table.

System

* Windows and DirectX version.

 

Slot #2 empty so its 1 gig stick

Module size: 1024 Mbytes
Max Bandwidth: PC2-5300 (333 Mhz)

333Mhz??? This is weird......

I will have them images for you tomorrow.

 

Heh. That's great... PC2-5300. That means its DDR2-667MHz. It's better than having 2x512 of 533 or 667 because all it takes is another $80USD or $100CAD and u get 2x1GB of 667MHz(PC2-5300) in Dual Channel. Much better than 2x512 because you don't need to replace both modules to upgrade to 2GB in the future(costs more).

Because 333 is the actual data rate....but 666 is the combined downstream and upstream....but it's hard to explain...all u gotta know is...frequency x 2 = DDR speed. By the way, the FSB RAM ratio should be 1:2(if you're using a Yonah CPU with 667MHz RAM...because Yonah/Merom are 166FSB(quad-pumped to 667) and the DRAM speed is 333(pumped twice for DDR).

For example, this SS is from the 1GB of DDR2-533 or PC2-4200 of an Asus A8Ja. Notice the CAS 4 Latency...dead giveaway...all of the 667MHz DDR2 SODIMMs that I've seen on the market are CAS 5 latency.



And thanks for the info shadow85, greatly appreciated

 

dang you are fortunate. the earlier releases came with 2x512 pc4300 at 266mhz.

 

cpu-z has been historically incorrect. I ve seen it give false readings even with the banias and dothan chips. Desktops and laptops alike.

 

how did you order it? by phone/online/in person? what was the process like, because i'm interested in buying an asus myself from MilestonePC.

 

true...but most of the time...readings are correct.

just to be sure, you can also try Everest, WCPUID, SiSoft SANDRA.

 

For anyone that's interested the touchpad gets much smoother over time. I've had mine for a month and it's perfectly smooth now.

 

I am having a weird problem. The charge light wont turn off! Here how look from NHC. It would charge all the way to 51469mWh (full). Then when it reaches that, it jumps to 51216mWh and just stuck there. This causes the charge light to stay on. I already did a full charge, them full discharge, then full charge again. Any idea?

update: I have BIOS 209 if it makes a diff

 

Hope you are right. I thought people were just being picky till i touched it. I was disguiseted for lack of a better word. i cant belive this slipped QC. A better question is how will the painted touchpad hold up over time

 

what is this problem you speak of?

shadow, have you tried updating the BIOS 210 to see if it makes a difference?

 

Interesting.. I've never heard of BIOS 209.. I got mine with 207, ASUS released 208 and 210... I was wondering what 209 did...

Shadow: mind going into BIOS and see if you can find anything related to TPM? 210 was supposed to enable TPM option in BIOS, but so far none has been able to find it.

Hmm.. the battery light not going off is weird.. try profchaos's suggestion and see what happens when you either update BIOS to 210 or downgrade to 208

ps. The touchpad does take some getting used to... after awhile, it'll feel better.

 

Here the CPU-Z images:


Ok in my BIOS it says:
System BIOS Version: A8JAS.209
so i guess its 209

I took off them big old stickers. Is the number on the sticker relavent to warranty?

I checked in device manager and found that the hard drive is:
hts541010g9at00
I googled it and found that its a PATA. PATA???? I thought its suppose to be SATA...... Any Idea?

I will get back to you about BIOS 210 and the TPM thing.

 

your SPD information on your ram chip is odd >_>

 

I was pretty worried about it when I got it and started to wonder if I'd have been better off going for something with a keyboard with ctrl where I wanted it and a better touchpad. I couldn't understand how they managed to make plastic STICKY against dry fingers.

After a month I've mostly gotten used to the former (though I had to get "I Hate This Key" to disable my windows button) and the latter has worked itself out. A few adjustments to the vertical scrolling area, sensitivity and palmcheck and it feels completely natural now. The right click is still up to 10x louder than left click depending on where I click it though. In short, I'm quite happy that I was able to play Oblivion while waiting in line at the passport office =D

 

Nope.. the A8Jm only supports PATA..

 

flash to 210. no TPM anywhere =(. Nothing special, I am gonna unflash now.
Also time to format and get XP pro on this thing.

 

does 210 also make the fan spin at 2800 rpm?

And it seems that Asus is pretty good with releasing new firmwares but none of us like the new ones lol

 

alright so apparently the new versions ship with PC2-5300 Ram...great news.. because my a8jm is on the next batch of them arriving around sept 4(probably will arrive with bios 209 or 210..and hopefully get 1x1gb 667)

the SPD information is like that because its an OEM manufacturer too lazy to punch in their real spd info. On my desktop I've got 2 sticks of 1GB OEM DDR RAM and it has 00000000 as the manufacturer and FFFFF as the model number...

but it is real ddr2-667 ram because of the timings...4-4-4 for ddr2-533 and 5-5-5 for ddr2-667

wouldnt u want a bios that starts the fans at like 40c to keep the computer cool instead of starting at 50+?

 

Even if it starts at 50 i dont notice any instability issues. Moreover after updating the bios...teh constant fan spinning sort of bothered me yes i know its really quiet but it just did.

Well a quick question for you, with the newer bios wats ur idle temperatures like?

 

darn, PATA. I hope samsung will make a hybrid drive in that interface.

Have anyone notice the cd drive light? Its there, just that the bezel has no hole for it to shine through. (when warranty is up, its time to dremel a hole)

 

Ok, confirmed with MilestonePC.com (Danny) and it is now all 1x1024 667.

Well Seagate will probably make a hybrid HDD for Vista in laptops...though I really don't see a NEED for hybrid HDD's...another hour of battery life would certainly be nice though.

 

you said it ur self =). and it will also help a little with the heat issue.