S96J Graininess Issue Thread

And your opinion of the numerous photographs of the screen showing the problem?

Anyway, thanks for contributing.

 

Well maybe he isnt as picky as some people. I will get mine on Wednesday so Ill see if I notice it.

 

There's a difference between being able to notice something and having it bother you. You'd have to be mentally handicapped, have eye problems, or be purposely ignoring this for you not to notice.

 

It is good to hear that you finally picked one up!

What OS and drivers are you running?

 

I also couldnt see it before, but yeasterday I played HL2 and there is a part there, when you drive sand buggy through some tunnels and in these tunnels this issue becomes SO obvious that it is impossible not to see it... However, I must say, this was the first time it really bothered me.

 

Or perhaps they've fixed something on the newer machines.

Krista

 

When I go to ATI to get it they have a little program to see if it's compatible with your computer, and it says that the Catalyst Mobility 6.7 drivers aren't compatible and that I should go to my notebook manufacturer.

Can anyone else who's having this problem get it to allow you to install them, and, can you get a temperature reading off your gpu? Mine won't show the temp.

Krista

 

I can't get temp readings either. In order to install them, you need to use the direct download link. There is a sticky about notebook graphics cards somewhere on NBR that has the link.

 

i just got my s96j yesterday, and i can actually see what people are talking about. I'm surprised because im anything but picky considering i was using a 6 year old gateway monitor before this computer. That said, the only place that i have noticed the graininess was when i was watching v for vendetta on the dvd player and the blacks and dark blues in any of the darker scenes seemed to show the graininess that people have been speaking of. That has been the only time it has showed up for me, and i actually just find it to be only mildly annoying and such a small and isolated issue that i can definitely live with it. Theres my two cents.

 

^ I feel the same way.

 

That's how I feel. I use my Z96J mainly for coding and homework, during which the graininess really does not matter. It is also basically unnoticeable from within my IDE. I do use it for occasional gaming and such, but it is rarely noticeable when I am doing this. I do feel, however, that everything would just look clearer and more vibrant without the graininess. I can definately live with it, although I'd be very pleased if we saw a solution in the future.

 

Got my F3Ja and noticed this immedeatly, without any prior knowledge of this problem. The screen itself is amazing, did some adjustments and colors are as good as it gets on a laptop but the dithering is terrible. I do alot of web work, using gray is impossible. Light gray is converted to white with gray noise, my four year old compaq laptop did better. What worries me most is that this is a brand new laptop and the problem has been known since May or earlier and nothing has happened, so my guess is there will never be a fix.

 

fr3 has a nvidia chip not ati. I dont think you are looking at the same thing as the s96

 

Ken informed me that he has a case open with Intel about it and if they confirm the problem they'll list it under known issues and, hopefully, from there it will get resolved.

Props to Eddie for not ignoring us and helping confirm it and more props to GenTech for tackling this on our behalf.

 

Dude, the F3Ja has a X1600, trust me on that. The F3Jc and F3Jm has a NVIDIA card, 7300 and 7600 respectively. To not be able to see the difference on the ATI control panel and the NVIDIA one would require you to be blind, and then it wouldn't really be much of a problem.

As far as hardware goes, it is OS dependant too. The Macbook Pro's has the exact same problem while booting into Windows with bootcamp, but not when running OSX natively.

 

ah! darn well there you go proving i dont know everything.
I didnt even know of this model in the states. But tis also the first i hear of the mac book pro having this

 

http://forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?t=1055 is one thread about the subject. The screenshot is a little bit extreme, but it shows what to look for

I've mailed Asus and asked for an explenation, don't expect any answer though. Gonna have to return my laptop and go look for anything with nVidia in it, and that's not easy in Sweden (90% of all notebooks with "real" graphics are x1600 based).

 

Haven't heard anything from Ken about Intel, so I'm commencing with the article.

Feel free to post any links to threads discussing this from Asus or any other mfg.

 

We just have to keep making noise. Thanks for posting the article. They'll have to come out with a fix if enough sites put the word out.

Krista

 

what article?

 

w3j does this too....

maybe its all x1600 laptops

odd thing is I do not see it looking headon or sideways, only when the screen is higher or lower than my eyelevel

 

I've only heard of this happening with the W3J. And that was supposedly fixed with a BIOS update quite a while ago.

There was a similar issue that once existed with the Uniwill n258KA before I got it. When you used standby, and you tried to bring the system back, the LCD backlight would not turn on. So it looks like it wouldn't come back on.

Haven't heard of any issues with the Z96J.

 

You're saying you don't see it with your Z96J?

 

Oops, appears I posted in the wrong thread. Quite odd. Could have sworn I replied in the right one. This was in response to someone asking if the Z96J has issues recovering from standby. It doesn't.

Graininess on the other hand... you should know by now from my 50+ posts in this thread that I fully acknowledge it's existence. I have addressed the issue far too many times to count. Of course, I don't blame you if you didn't want to read through 33 pages of posts.

 

Mostly I've been gathering links and images fo the article and thinking of which angle to play. But I'm not in a hurry at the moment because Ken just got back to me and let me know his rep at Intel confirmed the problem and is forwarding it to ATI. That was really my end goal in all this.....get Intel or Asus to take it up with ATI.

So we'll be getting an answer one way or another, hopefully soon.

 

VERY NICE! Now can we get either ATI or intel to publicly address the issue in some form?

 

Yay!
Well, I hope it goes somewhere. This is bugging me more and more. It's odd 'cause the screen looks so pretty otherwise. I guess that's just the gloss.

Krista

 

Any updates on this guys?

Krista

 

Probably something on Tue, or Wed, as Ken is busy(Vacation I suppose )

 

Ken is supposed to hear back Monday, but it's a holiday. So, ya, I'm guessing mid/later part of this week.

 

to those of u who find this unbearable, adjust yoru **** screen, i mean reach up and physically change the angle, the screen has horrible(maybe there all this way, its my first notebook) vertical viewing angles, but i find if i have the viewing angle off the grainyness shows up horribly, if i set the angle properly it all but dissapears

 

Wow, none of us ever thought of that! Genius! How many people even knew you could adjust the angle of the notebook screen?! I thought it was locked at 90°.

To your point, if you get the screen perfectly perpendicular to your point of view, there is, indeed a strip maybe about 15% of the screen that appears unaffected, but I tend to believe this is due to reflection drowning out a wide range of colors and the rest of the screen is still affected.

I'd also like to mention that the vertical viewing angles of the screen are nothing spectacular but, overall, the viewing angle is above average for notebooks. Feel free to stroll down the aisle at an office Depot and check out all the notebooks there. And this doesn't explain why the problem ceases to exist on this same screen when placed in another notebook without the X1600.

So, no, we're not all idiots, bro.

 

How do you have 2 rep points?

 

i honestly dont know how i got the rep points, im usually not this crabby, but honestly the only time, me or close friends (two of which are artists) have noticed the grainyness is when staring closely at the crystal clear background, or safari mod firefox tabs looking for it, or when i dont have my screen adjusted properly. for those of u who have not seen it, if u do look at a bad viewing angle u will see the grainyness quite clearly. it may have been harsh, but when i hear people whining about how its unbearable and easily noticable the only thing i could think of is that they were looking at a bad viewing angle, either because they never thought to reach up and adjust it, or because they like accentuating it so they have something to ***** about. honestly out of all my complaints about this notebook, id complain much more about the horrible verticals of the screen (even when adjusted perfectly it seems some part of the screen is starting to get a bad angle) and the cheap feeling keyboard intel put on here.

 

never seen a blind artist before...

 

i was just thinking, others have mentioned that diff s96j's theyve used have had problems to a different extent, and someone mentioned that it seems it might be a problem with the connection to the main monitor, could it be that it is a result of an actual hardware problem with that connection and the badness of the connection varies, because honestly i can see the grainyness sometimes easily(Bad viewing angle, or it seems when its overheated), sometimes it takes looking hard, but id still take the screen in here, over just about any matte screen, it may just be that mines one of hte better ones

 

Mine was really bugging me last night. I hadn't been using the laptop much, recently, as I had family visiting, and being away from it just made it all that more noticeable, I guess.

If someone discovered it was a hardware issue, I'd be willing to take the entire thing apart to fix it. However, people with Acers and Macs, both using the X1600 have had the same complaints.

Krista

 

i was refering to the guy who was theorizing that it was the way teh x1600 connects to the main monitor, meaning it could still be something present in all mobility x1600s, i dont know just thinking, basically it seems weird to me that if it was purely softwear, that theyd all be to different degrees.

 

The Intel guy did told me if I don't hear from him (I didn't) then just send him a email so I did sent him a email today.

He will only give me updates not solutions since ATI is not their product, they can only get Asus and ATI involve and at this time, most likely the answer will come from ATI since they made the GPU, I also found there is a VGA BIOS in the notebook BIOS, so let's hope ATI will release a BIOS update for the VGA that can resolve the grainness issue.

The case # I created with Intel remains open at this time.

Note:
To other resellers, I don't like reseller wars and that's the main reason I don't post in NBR often so please, let's just hear from Intel and see what's their response is. The fact is grainness bother some one and others think is subjective, the case remains open and we will hear from them,Thanks.

 

Update:
Intel called this morning, the issue is now at engineering level in Taiwan headquarter. he'll call me every once a week to give me updates.

 

VERY nice. Thank you so very much, Ken. I'm starting the believe that something might actually be done in the manner of a "fix" for this. Thanks a again!

 

man i love you.

 

Hahaha wow. Awesome....even though I don't have an S96J to complain at the screen with..haha. But I'll have one soon...So I can revel in all its glory once the update comes out Great job Ken

 

Thank you Ken,

I know that I'll be sending business your way if any co-workers or friends are interested in laptops. I would buy there myself but I enjoyed putting mine together myself I'm not going to do tech support for someone else though. heh.

As to the graniness not bothering some people... maybe they're just not used to clear displays... I don't know. But my colors have freckles. Freckles can be cute on pictures but not on monitors.

Krista

 

Yeah, if it weren't for the video issue, this laptop would be pretty much perfect, IMO

Krista

 

hopefully the fix will apply to w3j too

 

Thanks Ken. We're all holding our breaths for a driver update on this.

 

If there's a fix, would that apply to Z96j laptops as well? I notice the graininess issue on my Z96j laptop too and it would be awesome if there can be a fix to it

 

FOR THE FINAL TIME!!! Both the Z96j and S96j are the same notebook!, just different screen res and BT. Not to be rude, but this happens too much.

 

calm down donkey! Not everyone here is a 10.0 on the nerd scale.