Noob laptop owner has some questions

Hey all,

Just bought a F9DC-A1.

Specs:

AMD Turion™ 64 Mobile Technology Dual Core TL-56 1.8GHz, 2-CH DDR2, Pacifica, L2 Cache

WXGA, 12.1" (16:10) active matrix TFT, 1280x800
Video Graphics & Memory

NVidia GeForce 8400M G, External 128MB VRAM
Hard Drive

etc.

I was just wondering

1) is it normal for it to produce so much heat? The hot air it blows out to the left is very noticeable. I could put my lunch next to it instead of in a microwave.

2) while the laptop is plugged in to the AC, can I freely remove and reinsert teh battery?

3) I didn't receive a copy of Vista with the packaging. What do they expect me to do if I want to format and reinstall Vista? Is the image stored somewhere?

Thanks

 

Hi warmpi

Since you have a small laptop it may produce a fair bit of heat because theres less airflow inside the case. My dv6519tx is a 15.4" with similar specs and i know it gets pretty hot underneath. As long as your fan isn't straining (I knew when my old laptop was cos it sounded like it was gonna take off!) then it should be ok, or you can look into purchasing a notebook cooler (basically a desk with fans in it, most can run off USB power).

You should be able to insert/remove the battery while its plugged in without causing any problems but you may want to double check. I do on my new laptop and i used to on my old laptop without difficulties

Most likely your computer has a recovery partition which usually shows up as a separate drive in My Computer which you cant access and is labeled recovery. If not, did your computer come with Quick Restore disks, or is there an option to create some using software provided on the computer. My laptop and desktop came with recovery partitions and a utility to burn recovery disks. Its a bit annoying because recovery disks/partitions will only let you do a complete format so you have to move all your data off before re-installing.

Any other questions, just post or send me a PM (private message)

Good Luck

Grand Admiral

 

1. Heat is normal with ASUS (& not only) for such a small computer. Monitor your CPU and GPU and HDD temps and if they get really high (> 70-75 celsius CPU, > 90 GPU, > 50 HDD) then you should worry about it & post back.

2. Do NOT remove battery while notebook is on and/or plugged in. Unplug and shutdown before doing that. It might be safe, but it won't do the computer much good.

3. You should have received a recovery DVD or 2 recovery CDs with your system. NOT a Vista installation DVD, ASUS does not provide that. You also have a recovery partition that you can use by pressing F9 at boot time.

You can use however the recovery DVDs to do a clean install of Vista, by not inserting the driver CD when it asks for it.

If you did not receive the recovery, driver, and software (DVD player, Nero) disks with your computer, you should tell your reseller and they should provide them for you.

 

That battery thing is called "Hot Swap" and many business computers have it these days. I don't know about the F9 though. If it is, it should be written on the spec sheet

 

Yeah, but an important thing to remember about those business notebooks that can hot swap is that they have a second battery.