U30JC discussion thread

UPDATE: WinDVD 9.134 Plus is proving to be more stable than at first (no idea why) and blu-ray playback is smooth ... but it, like PowerDVD 9 Ultra, is being played via the Intel HD IGP rather that the discrete graphics, though BOTH have had the same setup to have Optimus play them using the discrete chip. Optimus isn't listening to it. It insists on playing them via the IGP, or so GPU-Z0.4.2 is showing me.

Very odd.

 

Well, if it's smooth on Blu-Ray with the IGP then there's nothing to worry about. It seems to me like it would be loads of fun to play with an Optimus system to see if I could tame it, but I already have an MSI GX640 now.

 

I'll give Total Media Theater 3 a try to see if that program will use the discrete graphics.

 

Thank you, eugenes.

The only way I've found to see if the discrete GPU is running is by looking at the "sensors" tab on GPU-Z 0.4.2 (that, and the sudden warm air flowing out the side! )

 

Hooray! My U30JC is now in "Shipping Soon" status on Amazon. It looks like they're finally starting to work through the backlog of orders. I'm eager to get my hands on it, and it looks like it could be on my doorstep as early as Tuesday.

Although, now that I've seen the specs on the HP Envy 14, I'm starting to think I might be better off with that instead. Even if it costs me a few extra dollars, I could easily see that Envy lasting me 4 - 6 years.

Oh well. The important thing is, my U30JC is going to finally get here this week. Yay!

 

I am no longer seeing the U30JC when I search for it on amazon!

 

I suspect getting supply to meet orders has become a real problem.

 

FYI - PortableOne got a shipment in on Friday (5/7/2010). I am tracking my purchase!! Free shipping. You might call and check about availability.

I just wish that the U33 was available.

PS Good company and a good price. However, I am not sure what Amazon was selling them for.

PPS Actually have not used them in a number of years. (They did not carry the Japanese version of Panasonic laptops so I went elsewhere) However, I did check reseller rating before purchase. So far they are exceeding my expectations.

 

The U33Jc will be in ASUS' Bamboo line, meaning that it has bamboo dark-wood surface where the U30Jc has brushed aluminum.

That usually makes it a lot more expensive, so you may not have wanted to buy it if it was out for several $100's more.

 

I wanted to post to check if anyone else is having this problem. First of all, my volume on the u30jc doesn't seem to be loud enough even with everything at 100%.

Second, I can only hear sound through the left side speakers on the notebook. There is supposed to be another speaker on the right side, correct? I wanted to open it up and check what's going on but it seems to be a pain to get the plate off. Has anyone experimented with the machine?

Thanks for any help.

 

There should be sound from BOTH speakers. Did you test them both using Control Panel>Realtek HD Audio Manager: "Speakers" tab. Click on "Test" and it should play a sound via the left then right speaker. There you will also see a L/R balance slider & volume.

The balance & volume can be accessed from many locations.
Under the "Sound Effects" tab, I've selected "Carpeted Hallway" & "Live". Try out the various effects and see how they sound.

I would NOT open it up, but call ASUS tech support first (if the tests show no sound from the right speaker.)

My sound is fine. Not super loud. Not great speakers either, but the notebook size affects that. The speakers on the front are easily muffled when on my lap so be sure & test it on a flat surface like a table or desk.

There is more than one place where you can affect sound so watch for that. What music playing app are you using? I mostly use Winamp as it is simpler yet has nice equalizer presets (mine's set on "Live") that GREATLY affect volume & sound.

NOTE: One small thing you can do. Click on the sound icon in the lower-right taskbar > click on the speaker icon at the top of the slider bar (this opens "Speakers Properties") > Enhancements tab > tick+highlight Equalizer > in "Setting:" (below) select "Powerful". This strengthens the signal on mine, but increases the treble quite a bit as well.

Some have said that also checking "Loudness Equalization" in the list has helped them. That has seemed to actually decrease sound on mine (I think it equalizes sound at the upper & lower ends). Try it and see.

Good luck!

 

I guess I will find out what the pricing difference is. The U33 is supposed to be released on Thursday. I will have to look at the shipping configuration of the U33, availability, the pricing differential and the restocking fee if any on the U30JC.

 

Where are you located?

Is the U30Jc even in stock in your country? I look forward to hearing the actual pricing & specs on the U33Jc in your area.

Reading the ad on the U33Jc, it seems it comes with a brushed aluminum surface under the keyboard as well (the U30Jc's is silver plastic.)

 

I am in the USA at the moment. The U30JC-A1 is in stock at Portableone for $868 USD. ASUS U30JC-A1 Laptop I will be heading to SE Asia for 3 months. However, I am not sure about spec or pricing in Asia.

 

REQUEST FOR U30JC OWNERS:

Can anyone tell me if they have gotten PowerDVD 9 or WinDVD 9 to run using the discrete graphics (using GPU-Z>"Sensors" tab to see % load on the GPU to confirm)?

Optimus, for me, keeps insisting to use the IGP, but I suspect that the discrete NVIDIA chip gives better colors, etc. (or so it was reported with the UL30Vt & UL80Vt).

 

Oh excellent!

Did everyone see this who are still looking to buy the U30Jc?

It's in stock at portableone.com for $868:
http://www.portableone.com/product.asp?pf_id=U30JC-A1

 

Hey everyone,

I've been shopping around for a new computer and the U30JC is one I'm really looking at. I was wondering if its available with a i5 processor anywhere, since on the Asus site it says the processor can be i3/i5/i7. I've only found it with an i3 processor so far though...

 

In the US & Canada, only the i3 model is sold, except for Infonec.com in Canada, who sell the U30Jc with the i5-430M processor & w/ bluetooth:
http://www.infonec.com/site/main.php?module=detail&id=450921

The i5 model is also for sale in Taiwan and perhaps some countries in Europe.

Where do you live?

 

well Quatro has a link for 1 of the i5 variations (there is 1 i3/ 3 i5/ 1 i7 variations(if you belive their spec's page on asus.com))

The i7 variation witch i am more interested in I have only found on czech websites (Anyone know a good service to order crap in the czech republic & get it forwarded to usa let me know!)

Damn shame tho one would think the usa would be one of the worlds leading consumer markets (sure not the only market, But one of the bigger customer base's) So why are we getting stuck with the short stick on options

{was waiting for ul80jt still might wait but if i can get the i7 of this ill jump ship soooooooo fast!!!}

 

I can get the 310M to show up in the GPU-Z Sensors tab if I tell the Nvidia control panel to use discrete graphics when I launch TMT3. However, I can't get TMT3's SimHD function to use the GPU, only CPU is available as an option.

GPU-Z also shows the default driver for the 310M does not allow any GPU computing fuctions.

 

Perhaps this is a driver issue and an NVIDIA Optimus graphics driver update will eventually help this (we hope).

Are you using the 189.79 NVIDIA (Optimus) driver?

Thanks, eugenes!

 

For someone who just uses their computer for internet, downloading, streaming hd videos to their ps3, etc. is there any advantage of going with the i5 vs. the i3? Its a bit more money, obviously, and I am wondering if I would get better battery life with the i3. Any input appreciated.

 

Which i5 processor are you trying to compare to the i3-350M (2.26GHz)? ASUS lists 3 possible i5 processors for the U30Jc: the i5-430M (2.26GHz), 520M (2.4GHz) & the 540M (2.53GHz):
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=IZfJRyRqVpStMi76
There are several types of i5 processor:
List of Intel Core i5 microprocessors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Are you asking specifically about the U30Jc, as in should you get the i3-350M version or spend more and get the i5-430M version? The i5 can be Turbo Boosted (overclocked), the i3 cannot.

CPU-wise, battery life will be affected by GHz speed of the processor and how low it can step down (under-clock). My U30Jc's i3-350M gets its best battery life when it steps down to 1GHz ... but then it is slower as well.

If I want speed, I'll sacrifice battery life. If I want higher graphics quality using the discrete GPU, I'll sacrifice even more battery life.

 

double-post

 

My apologies. I am in Canada so my options right now are the i3 and the one linked on the last page (Intel i5-430M). I am asking, as you suggest, which U30Jc I should purchase given my criteria stated above. There is about a $70 difference between the i3 version and the i5 430m. If the performance difference is negligible and the i3 will get better battery life I would go with that.

 

Lucky fellow! You do have a choice (unlike the rest of us.) For the $70 extra, I'd get the i5-430M version. Reasons:
1) It comes with bluetooth. The i3 ver. does not.
2) It is the same speed as the i3, but is overclockable via Turboboost (Intel) & ASUS' Turbo33 (33% further overclock). The i3 isn't. It's there if you need or want it. At the default 2.26GHz, they'll both use the same watts & battery life.
3) Typically, all of the US units have come with Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit. The Infonec unit comes with Professional 64-bit, which means you get WinXP compatibility mode if you need it. Again, that's better.

Oh, looking again at the Infonec page, they WERE offering it with bluetooth. It's not listed now. Price has dropped as well, so perhaps this model doesn't have BT now. You could call and ask.

Still, I'd get the i5-430M version as it has more possibilities for a small amount of $'s extra.

Anyone else have an opinion?

 

I'd probably get the i3 version if it doesn't come with bluetooth. But thats more because I have a W7 Enterprise edition here. The TurboBoost (and I think it hasn't got Asus Turbo33) adds too little.

Interessting is what I saw lately on the dutch market. First, only on webshop had the U30Jc, but that is a German version. Another shop now has this model as well on the digital shelves. The interesting thing however is, is that the second shop first offered a Core i5 450M instead of i5 430M. The next day I checked the page, it was changed to the German model...

The i5 450M is a yet to be official introduced 2,4GHz processor. And no, it is not a mistake with changing the digits into the existing i5 540M, which runs at 2,53GHz. So upgrades could be due soon.

As for the i3 350M vs i5 430M:
I see them as equal. The Turbo is the only difference and that one will barely be used. Usually my CPU gets underclocked (when browsing) or I am stressing my PC with some multithreaded applications. With my use, the TurboBoost would probably kick in only 1% of the time when simulating or so. The i3 vs i5 naming makes you think it is a big difference, but in real life you will most likely never see any difference at all.

 

Hey

Do you think that the turbo boost will be helpful for Starcraft 2 gaming? I am also deciding between these two laptops and hope to order in the next day or two.

Basically i need to run SC2, but thats the only game. Otherwise it will be MS Office and web browising etc

Thanks!

 

Extra clock speed would probably help for Starcraft, yes.

 

I got my U30JC today. I've only spent a few minutes with it so far, but off the cuff, I'm impressed with the general form factor of the laptop. The size of the machine is VERY nice, and I'm pleased with the thickness and the weight of the laptop. It feels very sturdily constructed, which I know was a problem with some of the older machines.

But I do have to agree with the previous complaints about the system.

- The viewing angles are limited, and trying to get it to the sweet spot every time I adjust it in my lap is kind of a nuisance.

- I absolutely HATE the rocker-style button on the touchpad. I'm sure that part of this is that I'm just accustomed to having two separate buttons, but I've found myself clicking on the "middle" of the button. When I do use the left side of the rocker, though, it feels like I have to click it a lot harder than I should.

- The speakers on the machine are pretty bad, especially compared against my Inspiron 700m from six years ago. Listening to music and watching a TV show, the laptop does fairly OK when it's sitting on a table or a fixed surface. In my lap, though, the sound is muted, even when the audio is cranked all the way up.

Since Amazon gives me 30 days to return it, I'm going to keep using the laptop for a few weeks and see if it grows on me. I've needed a laptop for my trip to Ireland, and plan to take this with me on my trip in order to do some work.

But as much as I've had my eye on the Envy 14 since its announcement, I have a sneaking suspicion that I may end up returning this and getting something else. This is so very close to what I want. But with as much as I use my laptop for my daily work, and since I plan to use my new laptop for the next 5 - 6 years, I don't think I want to settle. Maybe it'll grow on me though. I like the form factor and I love the cost.

 

Well put, GENETX. You've convinced me.

And looking at the ASUS U30Jc site, it indeed doesn't list the Turbo33 overclock software (though the page has both overclockable i5's & non-overclockable i3.) The i5-430M will only boost from 2.26-2.53GHz. A small difference indeed, esp as the CPU underclocks itself unless needed.

I would have preferred the Professional 64-bit version (I do own the Professional 32-bit ver), but not sure how many of my apps take advantage of the 64-bit.

 

Huh? The i5-430M can boost on two cores as well, you know. In fact, strangely enough, it boosts to 2.53GHz regardless of whether one core or two cores are active.

 

Source?

Afaik it only boosts one core while the other one will be underclocked to keep it within the tdp-rate. It is what all the images from Intel stated... I was curious about this too, but at the launch I only saw one core being overclocked, while the other ran at a low frequency...

Edit:
http://www.lapnotes.net/showthread.php?t=113

I see now, some other sources speak about it too. I couldn find a clear answer just afther the release tho... This makes the i5 430M much better indeed. If I look at the benches at notebookcheck, I can clearly see the i5 430M performing about 10% better which indicates Turbo Boost available on both cores.

Thanks for pointing out!

 

How does the U30JC fare against HP's new dm4? It's a lot cheaper and comes with a core i5 and optional discrete ATI HD 5450 graphics. The trackpad looks way better. It's got eSata and higher quality webcam. I'm definitely having second thoughts on the U30JC now.

 

dm4 looks like the battery slot is big enough for a 4 cell. good luck with battery life...

 

This probably sounds like a stupid question (and it probably is) but how exactly does the mouse work? It looks like it's only one button, but can you still do left and right click just with the button? Or do you have to do some sort of multi-touch to right click? And if you do have to multi-touch the trackpad to right click, does it work well?

 

It's like a seesaw ... it rocks in the middle. The downside is that it requires significantly more pressure to push.. the closer to the center that you push.

 

Ah, I see. The appearance of no right click scared me for a second. Thanks. Can anybody think of any reasons why this laptop wouldn't be perfect for college? I don't really need the discrete graphics for anything, but if they come with a long battery life, why not? I couldn't find anything else with a long battery and comparable processor.

 

I'm considering this laptop or u33jc (hopefully may 13th). Regarding Nvidia Optimus, is there a way to have it default to always run programs from integrated gpu and just manually choose discrete graphics when i want? I don't want it to switch to discrete unless i choose too.

 

So I just got my U30Jc from Amazon a few hours ago, I hope no minds if I give a few quick first impressions.

I have bought and set up for others a lot of OEM computers over the years, and as such seen my fair share of bloat. Nothing can compare to this. The initial boot took nearly half an hour. Upon completion, I found that the system was using over 1.5GB of RAM ( not including cache) and a staggering 26% of the CPU while idling. The MSConfig and Remove Programs dialogs show dozens and dozens of programs. I'm still in the process of burning the recovery DVDs, but it's safe to say I'm not even going to try to salvage the factory installation. Fortunately I have a Windows 7 x64 DVD from MSDN around here.

Speaking of the recovery DVDs, the program helpfully informed me that it will take five discs, and the process has been going on for nearly an hour and a half at time of writing and is still only on the 3rd disc. ASUS, of course, did not provide blank DVDs, so you'll ahve to use your own.

The glossy screen is bright and color reproduction is outstanding. Blacks are deep and rich, and whites are bright. My screen has no dead or stuck pixels. The viewing angles are very poor, however, though I've likely been spoiled in this regard by my ThinkPad. The screen also has a noticeable "sparkle" effect, not unlike the much-maligned screen for my old Inspiron 9300. I got used to it there, though, so I'll probably get used to it again. Hopefully there won't be any vertical lines this time.

I've never used a chiclet keyboard extensively, but this one seems acceptable. It's not my ThinkPad's keyboard, but I wouldn't expect it be.

I can't accurately gauage performance at this stage, but the Core i3 copes admirably with the amount of crap thrown at it by the factory installation. Oddly, Windows reports that only about 3.5GB of my 4GB of RAM is "usable," which shouldn't be for a 64-bit operating system. Hopefully reformatting will correct this.

More later, time for NCIS.

 

Someone can probably confirm this, or correct me... But I'd have to imagine that since the integrated gfx is on the i3 chip itself, it pulls from system memory instead of having its own dedicated vram.

There is usually a setting in the BIOS to configure just how much is dedicated to the integrated... someone else will need to chime in if that's an actual option in the bios. 128MB should be plenty but it sounds like it's pulling 512.

Also, does the nvidia 310 have its own vram, or does it also use the system memory as well?

 

Yes, the 310M has its own dedicated VRAM (512MB) and the IGP steals RAM from the system RAM. I don't see any place in my BIOS to configure this.

On the up side, I've not noticed any great CPU/lacking-enough-RAM problems under Win 7 64-bit. It just flows smoothly for me.

I can't comment on the bloatware as I repartitioned & reformatted my HDD & installed the OS fresh.

I DID eventually install ALL of the ASUS drivers & apps and then slowly removed what I didn't seem to need, because I didn't have full functionality with my hotkeys & drivers when I did the driver installs (picking & choosing) myself.

To LowlyMarine, the blacks look great in normal use, but just open any episode on HULU and GO TO FULL SCREEN. You'll see how washed out the large black areas are in the lower third of the screen. Just the way it is.

But in normal use, my screen looks quite sharp & nice IMO.

And to GENETX & getthatguysomecheese: will that extra 250MHz in each core really be that noticeable in general Office & app/web use as he said he only planned to do? Demanding apps, sure. And unless demanded of, even the i3 does clock back (sort of). If I leave it in "High Perfomance mode", it will clock back to 1.2 or 1.5GHz when not in heavy use.

For the extra $70, I'd go for nearly anything extra but I'm not hardly pushing my i3 2.26GHz as it is. Those two cores (four virtual cores or whatever the four threads are) seem to do a very nice job for me.

I just wish I could get Optimus to obey me more often! It runs TotalMedia Theatre 3 under the NVIDIA but insists on only running WinDVD 9 & PowerDVD 9 Ultra on the IGP.

Oh well, as you said, it works. But I wonder if my color and resolution control would look better under the discrete GPU.

 

I'm running 189.79.

 

After your post (thank you for that), I downloaded & tried ArcSoft's TotalMedia Theatre 3. As you said, GPU-Z showed the NVIDIA GPU working while it ran.

An odd note though, I had added each of the 3 DVD players (TMT 3, WDVD 9 & PDVD 9) to NVIDIA's control panel (NCP). The launch file for TMT 3 shows as " udtstart.exe" and it plays under NVIDIA as requested. But WDVD 9's launch file in NCP shows as " _windvd.exe" and PDVD 9's launch file shows as " _powerdvd9.exe". BOTH of them (unlike the actual file name) were named with a beginning underscore (" _") and BOTH, though requested to run under the NVIDIA GPU, ran under the IGP.

So why does NCP list those two files with a beginning underscore ... but not TMT 3? Would that explain how Optimus is "seeing" these two programs differently from TMT 3 and refusing to run them under the NVIDIA GPU?

Mysteries, mysteries.

 

What concerns me is the specs GPU-Z output for the 310M. 1 ROP and 0.6 GPixel/s fillrate and lack of any ability to use the GPU for computing purposes. Hopefully this is a bug with GPU-Z.

Can you run a few blu-ray movies in TMT3 and see how the U30JC reacts?

 

Some further impressions:

The keyboard is actually pretty decent for typing, but there's substantial flex, so that's something to keep in mind if you think it'll bother you. The whole chiclet design is going to need some time to grow on me, but I'm afraid it's unlikely to replace my ThinkPad as my go-to machine to write reports, papers, blog entries and the like on. One nice touch worth mentioning, though, is that the [Fn] key is located "properly" (as far as I'm concerned, anyways) inside of the Ctrl key.

The screen really is hell-of-bright. I always thought color reproduction on my T61 was pretty decent, but the U30Jc's screen just trashes the T61s in that regard, especially in whites and blacks.

The recovery partition was eating up almost 17GB of hard drive space. Sweet baby Jesus.

The touchpad is large, and that's nice. Of course, it needs to be since it's not terribly sensitive. The lack of a pointing stick is a bit of a bummer, even though I never really took to using it extensively on my T61. There's only two mouse buttons - well, one really, but it's a "rocker"-style button. Again, I've never really seen laptops other than ThinkPads with 3 mouse buttons, though, so I can't complain too much. There's basic multi-touch here; two-finger scrolling and tapping, that sort of thing. No pinch zoom, but I can't honestly say that I've ever intentionally zoomed in a web page before so I don't really care. The whole concept of multi-touch touchpads is basically a "big whoop" sort of thing now anyways, since the latest Synaptics drivers enable multi-touch on pads as old as my Gateway 7422GX's.

If you haven't noticed, "it's great, but it's no ThinkPad" seems to be the montra of the overall build here. The hinge is strong, but it's not as storng as my T61's. The lid is sturdy, but not as sturdy as my T61. That sort of thing.

One more thing that is definitely in the "not as good as my ThinkPad" category is the speakers. They are easily the second-worst I've ever used (my old Averatec 3270's being the worst, though it's a close call). There's no bass at all and very little mid-range. You're going to want headphones. I happen to have a nice pair of Bluetooth ones, though, so...

...oh, right.

(Note: I know I sound like I'm being overly critical, but on the whole I like the machine. It's just up against some pretty stiff competition since it's replacing my ThinkPad T61. I'll have a full review on my blog sometime this week.)

Edit: Oh, how could I forget to mention the wireless radio? ASUS must have put some sort of government satellite antenna in this thing, because I can see between 9 and 10 wireless networks in the suburbs. My T61 can only see 5 or 6, and my Inspiron 9300 can only see 3 or 4.

 

It wouldn' t make any sense at all for browsing. At this moment I am writing this at my Asus T91 netbook with an 1,33GHz Atom Z520 and still I browse with Chrome at normal speed. I have to say that I am running Ubuntu 10.04 here, but the machine is compiling at the moment as well

 

I hadn't noticed that. You're right. Please read my post GPU-Z comparison charts here on the UL30Vt, U30Jc & UL30Jt:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/449726-u30jc-discussion-thread-76.html#post6220621

GPU-Z 0.4.2 on both the UL30Vt (210M/manual switching) & UL30Jt (310M/Optimus) record the Pixel Fillrate as 2.4-2.5 GPixel/s and Shaders as 16 Unified (whatever that means). Only the U30Jc's 310M/Optimus shows a Pixel Fillrate of 0.6GPixel/s and Shaders as 0 Pixel / 0 Vertex.

I would have thought that this was a GPU-Z error given the lack of info in various places, but the UL30Jt, like the U30Jc, are both working under Optimus and both using the same discrete chip, so that can't be the problem. And why can GPU-Z read one and not the other??

And while TMT 3 Platinum (Trial) will run video/DVD's for me, when I try to play a blu-ray from my external, TMT gives me this error message:

"Failed to utilize video overlay in the graphics card, please update your graphics card driver. If the problem still exists after the graphics card driver is updated, your graphics card may not support video overlay."

PowerDVD still plays the blu-ray fine, though choppy due to running it via the IGP. And suddenly, WinDVD 9 Plus won't play the blu-ray at all ....

It did yesterday before installing TMT Trial.

Something's clearly wrong, but I don't know what yet.

 

Substantial flex?? I've taken off the keyboard. It's a SOLID metal plate on the underside of the keyboard AND that solid metal plate sits on top of another SOLID metal plate (with one small hole exposing the 1/2 height wifi card.)

How in the world are you getting any flex at all, much less "substantial flex"? What more do you want them to do? :confused2:

Perhaps your keyboard isn't popped in securely around the edges. But trust me, there is no real flex in this keyboard or its underside.

NOTE: I just took off my keyboard again. The upper middle edge of my keyboard lifts up veeerrry slightly when flat on its surface. It's not 100% flat (more like 99.9%) , but that's not structural flex related to the chassis, but the bare keyboard's flat fit on the undersurface. I'd check your keyboard fit in its slot (tight & flat or not) around all the edges. But two metal plates shouldn't give any flex at all.

 

It's like you're taking an immediate defensive position for some reason? Being argumentative like this and trying to thrash his take on the laptop seems a little off.

The keyboard does have more flex then older brick style laptops, if you're a fast type'r, you'll notice it starts to have a bounce in it when you're getting toward 60+ wpm and can get annoying. Compared to my Toshiba Satelite that this is replacing, the keyboard does have substantially more flex. The Toshiba is roughly 8 lbs and has a much heavier/rigid frame too. It's hard to keep weight down and loose all flex in a laptop. It does have less flex in it then the UL30A and VT though, I've used those and they are pretty bouncy in certain spots.

Also Quatro, to your PowerDVD issue...

Try opening up HULU and leaving it open in the background then try playing the blu-ray on PowerDVD and see if it plays any better. Trick her into thinking that it needs to have the nvidia gpu running for hulu. LMK