U30JC discussion thread

I also have the i7 version, and with 50-60% brightness, wifi and using basic Office apps on the IGP i got around 3h of battery life, with a 6cells/4400mha.

I would really like to buy an 8cells battery, in order to get at least 5hours+ battery life (6 would be awesome), but it's quite expensive (123€ http://www.asusparts.eu/index.php?cPath=163571_67674_76961_161613_163703).

 

Oh my. I have the i3-350M (2.26GHz) & an 8-cell battery. You don't say what power mode you were using.

Under those conditions, in "Battery Saving" mode (which steps the CPU down to 1GHz), I would get about 7 hrs. Minimum 6 hrs. Depends what I am doing online.

What country are you located in? In the US, you can find the 8-cell battery for less on Amazon or eBay.
Amazon: 8-cell 5600mAh for the UL or U series - $112-114
eBay 8-cell 5600mAh battery for the UL or U series - $131

 

Hey guys, anyone know how to turn this Chinese translator off?



I'm set to English and everything but I find it randomly turns on when I'm on search fields. It's really annoying.

 

Windows orb -> control panel -> Clock, Language and Region -> Change keyboards and other input methods -> Change keyboards -> Select the Chinese option under Installed services -> click remove

 

Thanks for the quick reply! You rock man alright hopefully this won't pop again!

Another less nagging problem is randomly my Asus U30JC sutters and freezes for a second or two. I owned this for two weeks and didn't notice the problem during the first week. I wonder if it has to do with any of the programs that came with the laptop...

 

No problem

The Chinese language is sometimes factory pre-installed by Asus and you must have pressed the Shift + Space keys to activate the Chinese input. Once you've uninstalled it from your control panel, it should solve the problem.

 

Just placed my Order for the A1 through gentechpc.com I couldn't justify the extra money for the A2B version as I won't be joining domains and have no need for bluetooth. I almost bought the dell vostro 3400, but the U30jc looks like it has a higher build quality, and comes standard with the 8 cell (US i3 version). I'm expecting it next week!

 

Notebookcheck: Test Asus U30JC-A1/QX043V Notebook

The brightness of this display seems to be pretty good. With an anti-reflective-foil , it could be useable under bright lightning conditions.
But the viewing angles seems to be a catastrophe.

I am waiting for the Bamboo UC33 version which is lighter and has a USB 3.0 port.

 

Anandtech swapped the HDD with an SSD on the U30Jc. Just as I expected, not a much better bettery time, but a nice increase in performance:
ASUS U30Jc Revisited: Adding an SSD - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

After all, the powerconsumption of the SSD is also important for the battery lifetime. There is quiet some difference in consumption between SSD's.

 

Thanks for the article link. Fascinating reading, but their charts confuse me. They're charting the relative difference? So if in PCMark Vantage the graph bar starts at 0 and goes to 150, are they saying that the SSD score is 150 higher? The same with the hibernate & resume bars, since each bar starts at 0, I'm unclear where the HDD scores and SSD scores. If it's measuring difference, it's the difference relative to what? Do I go back to their first article's benchmarks of the U30Jc with the stock HDD and then add 150 points to come up with the SSD score?

Can you help explain the charts to me?

UPDATE: Oh, I think I see. They're %'s of difference. So the 100 on the chart means 100% or no difference. 150 means 150% or a 50% improvement over the HDD. Is this correct?

Also, as for SSD's and launching apps, my needs are probably simpler than most, so I find interesting this drive (no pun intended) to launch faster with an SSD for many $100's more. It all feels so relative.

My average Office app on my HDD takes about 5 seconds or less to launch the first time. After it's been cached, it takes about 1.5-2 sec. More complex apps like Photoshop take longer, but we're still talking seconds, not minutes. Launching faster, to me, is more about eye-candy. Within seconds is still fast.

Boot up (until my clock gadget appears on my desktop and I can open an app) takes less than 60 sec (about 48 sec).

Though since I mostly open from 'sleep', boot up is a moot issue for me since it is nearly instant.

Why this counting of seconds? If I boot up in 60 sec or 30 sec, the lower number represents 200% improvement ... but the difference is still a mere 20-30 seconds.

I suspect that's why such articles give differences in %'s or scores, because if we put it in real terms of seconds, the differences would seem much less important.

What I'm getting at is, it's great if I can open Quicken a few seconds faster, but then I still have to input the data and output the reports. I still must deal with & write the emails.

These seconds of difference provide a nice 'snappy' feel to the notebook ... but to me, the real bottleneck to work is the human (me)! We're the slowest component.

Ah, if only we could make SSH's (Solid State Humans.)

... But having said all of that, I probably WILL get a hybrid drive the next HDD upgrade around. After all, I like 'snappy' too!

 

Or get a hybrid HDD and hybrid ODD. Boot off the SSD on the hybrid ODD and install apps on the hybrid HDD

 

Yep. I thought of that. Two things prevent me:
1) After 2 yrs of having only an external slim ODD that Windows saw and then repeatedly required a reboot to see again after unplugging, ... I've grown used to this internal ODD. I actually LIKE it! I'll miss losing it.
2) SSD's are still very expensive. A mere 80GB SSD will still cost me close to $250. Not worth it to me for a bit of speed on launching apps.

But a hybrid's 4GB SS chips provide some speed boost (nothing like a real SSD) but for a small price increase.

... now if I had an extra $250-350 to blow ....

 

I really like the speedboost on my desktop with the SSD. But the thing I like most of the SSD is the noise from the HDD spinning that I lost.

For notebooks, there is also another great improvement: shock proof. With my upcomming laptop, I can walk around with it without caring about a drive crash.

But they are very expensive indeed. I am lucky I've gotten my 2 SSD's with ~40% off. That deal was just enough to get me invest in the new technique. I wouldn't pay 250 bucks for 80GB either. 210 bucks for 128GB is still much, but the deal is much better.

 

SSDs usually consumes less energy, aren't they?
So, it also influences the battery life.

 

Some of them consume less energy, you really have to study up on this fact to learn where you can and can't gain battery life.

 

I got my U30JC last week and I'm loving it. I just ordered an HDD caddy that replaces the DVD drive for my U30JC. (Ebay from China for $11) I've got a 30GB OCZ Vertex (same type as the Anandtech review) where I'll install Windows and my most commonly used apps. I only very rarely use the dvd and I have an external for those occasions.

I used the Vertex in an older HP core duo laptop and it made a huge difference. I wonder if it will be as noticeable on the U30JC.

 

It will. In any system, de HDD is the bottleneck. And the SSD is a bottleneck as well, except that it is up to 3 times as fast. So you will see this 2-3 times faster loading times on any system.

 

Hey guys, does anyone get a slowdown on their UC30JC? I have like 10 tabs open in firefox or chrome and every so often i won't be able to move my mouse or do anything for 4 - 5 seconds. I hope my processor isn't messed up, I'm been able to run everything fast except for this slowdown.

 

I can't say I've noticed much, if any, noise from my stock 320GB HDD, but I'm rarely in utterly quiet environments.

Fan noise in my desktop (and some notebooks including my ASUS 1000HA netbook) is what used to drive me crazy.

The speed boost and non-shockability do sound really nice. Well, a smaller SSD like 40GB *is* a lot cheaper ...

 

can anyone tell me if the U30JC can use both the vga and hdmi to display dual external 1900x1200 monitors by chance? I don't need the laptop screen to be on when doing this btw, this is for when i "dock" at my workstation.

 

I'll be able to tell you next week when mine arrives from CA. I work at a service desk where i have 4 24" dell ultrasharps around me i'm able to test with

when you do get the new caddy, can you mention if you can put the original DVD faceplate on it? I'm tempted to buy this one (might be the same) 12.7mm SATA 2nd HDD caddy for ACER BENQ HP DELL ASUS - eBay (item 130396240750 end time Jun-28-10 19:15:02 PDT) but I'm concerned if I'll be able to put the original faceplate back on, as aesthetics are important for me

 

today happened a strange thing, I was working normally and then it happens a BSOD and restarted. After restart windows was with a low resolution and in the device list there wasn't any of the GPU in the list.
I had to enter BIOS and reset defaults and then it booted normally and with both GPU in the list.

This already happened to any of you?

PS: I'm using factory bios revision 204 and latest 257.15 beta drivers. Should I update BIOS to revision 205? It doesn't say what the improvements/fix of the lastest BIOS does.

 

I'm sure this has been covered in here, so I apologize for asking. Is there a way to tell what graphics are being used at any one time? I was hoping something would pop-up on screen telling me that I am in discreet/integrated mode but no such luck. I just got the computer yesterday so still trying to figure it all out. Oh and do you guys use the Asus power utility thing or just the regular power saver, battery life, and high performance modes?

 

Hi fullsleeves. I use the "Power4Gear Hybrid" utility mostly, which is just power-saving (or not) modes. At times I use the old ones too, like "Balanced" or "High Power" (if I don't want the PC to shut down during a large download or a long AV scan.)

As for knowing which graphics chip is in use, I use GPU-Z (found here) to tell.

You select the card you want to know about on the bottom left of the 1st screen/tab of the app, then select the "Sensors" tab. In the bottom few "Load" sections, you'll see if the GPU is under any % load or not.

% load shows it's being used.

A glitch in this method: if you have the default graphic setting in the NVIDIA Control Panel as Intel HD Graphics, then when you open GPU-Z, if the Intel IGP is running, GPU-Z doesn't give you a choice of NVIDIA at the start. You'll only get info on the Intel chip. If the NVIDIA chip is running, then you'll see a choice of both.

To get around this, while I'm looking/inquiring/testing, I set the default to "High perfromance NVIDIA Processor". Then I always get the choice of the two under GPU-Z. Choosing the NVIDIA chip doesn't mean it's always running on it. Often Optimus knows when the Intel IGP is still better.

BTW, one quick way to watch your NV GPU come on is to go to HULU.com and launch a TV episode, esp in 480p, and you'll see the discrete chip idle during the commercials and then kick in once the show starts.

 

Could someone comment on the quality of the display of the U30JC ? I'm very picky on this and some reviews identify this as a relative weakness.

Thanks !

 

Contrast, brightness, color reproduction, and white levels are all, in my opinion, well above average for a notebook LCD. Black levels are average or even a little better, with relatively little backlight bleed. The one part of the screen that is markedly below average are the viewing angles, which are pretty atrocious, especially vertically. It depends on what your main concerns are, I suppose. For my purposes, the excellent picture quality trumps the poor angles, as the screen's angle can simply be adjusted. If you needed to give presentations or something though, it could be a problem (though using a 13" for presentations will make people more than a couple meters away hate you anyways).

 

Thanks lowlymarine, this is helpful. How annoying is the glossy aspect of the display ?

 

Unlike Lowlymarine, my backlight bleed seems pretty aweful. On a large black screen, or full-screen HULU, at least the lower 1/3 of my screen is washed out in the black areas. In this regard, my $300 ASUS 10" 1000HA netbook is much better.

Here, by AnandTech, is the best analysis I've read yet of the U30Jc's LCD panel:
ASUS U30Jc LCD Analysis

Summary:
" The test results above confirm our suspicions that this is yet another lousy laptop display (YALLD). Contrast ratio is in the middle of the pack, but at 211:1 all of these displays are very poor. The 200nits white level is fine, and color accuracy is actually slightly better than most laptops (notice that the spikes on the U30Jc are only 3.5 to 4.5 instead of the 6.0 to 8.0 spikes on many other laptops). However, decent color accuracy isn't something most users will notice (or need) whereas a good contrast ratio can make a good impression.

Viewing angles are par for the course. It surprises me when I see other reviews talking about the display being "above average" or having good black levels. To be clear, a black level of nearly 1.0nits qualifies as pretty severe backlight bleed and is in no way "black". For a display running at 200nits, we would like black levels closer to .30nits. ASUS has done this (and more) with the 1005HA, 1001P, and the G73Jh; now we just need better quality displays in their nicer "budget midrange" offerings."

When you have the time, you should read the AnandTech review/report on the U30Jc. Very thorough.

 

Yeah, light bleed on my screen is pretty ridiculous, too. I usually have to gamma correct for it, which I have never done before. To be completely fair though, if you don't look directly at the screen, it makes the light bleed look even worse, when I position the screen exactly right, the bleeding problem is not so severe.

 

Hi all,
anyone knows how to activate Express Gate? in the asus.com site it refers that it has express gate but I can't find it neither at bios or applications.

 

When I look at the specs for the ASUS U30Jc on ASUS' product page, Express Gate is listed as "(Optional)".

I don't see that it is sold or included in the US models.

 

Perhaps my screen just has issues, but since the vertical viewing angle is so limited, there is only so far one can move it.

For me, moving it does little to help. On bootup or resume from hibernation into Windows 7, the screen is all black for a short time (and gamma correction isn't engaged yet.) There I can move the screen back & forth and see the bleed fully plus a kind of bleed-based banding. I move it back to darken the lower part and the top 1/5th begins to go into negative. Pull towards me to repair the top and the bottom washes out even more.

Mostly in daily use, it doesn't bother me. The color sharpness looks nice to me and in regular app use, blacks are minimal or reduced to thin black lines.

But HULU is the time I REALLY see it. Large black areas are common then and that lower 1/3 I can't get the light bleed out (gray, washed-out blacks) unless I push the screen back so far, the top darkens & darkens until it nearly goes into negative.

I usually settle for the top 1/4th edge to be abnormally dark so that I can get the lower section not so annoying (though never really black as the AnandTech article reviewer found by sticking a light meter on it).

I went to the Apple Store for my wife and while there, I tried the same experiment on their 13" MB & MBP. No noticeable light bleed at all. The blacks were really black during movies. (Note: my wife's 1-yr-old 13" screen has is cheaper and has equally bad light bleed from the lower section as well. But the newer ones do not.)

That, at least, is my experience with my screen.

 

Hi everybody, first of all - sorry for my english, hope you understand what i mean . 2 days ago i bought U30JC and i love it.Everything is perfect for my needs except one little problem.When i started NFS Shift just to try Optimus my screen was black and there's the same problem with movies.Black screen with music.With integrated card everything is ok.I'm using Nvidia's 188.71 and Win 7 Ultimate 32bit.Also in Nvidia control panel the rotating logo is black.Any ideas how to fix it?

 

I'd update your NVIDIA graphics driver first. The latest non-beta driver is 189.64
You can find it here.

You'll need to search for your U30Jc drivers and then specify Windows 7 32-bit.

If you're curious, there is also a compatible (works for me) NVIDIA Beta driver 257.15 for the U30Jc and discrete card 310M found here.

 

The latest driver i found is 189.79 here.
And by updating you mean that i need to uninstall current nvidia drivers and then install the latest or it can be done by update driver option from device manager? Maybe it's a stupid question but just to be sure.

Thank you.

 

Oh yes, I forgot about the Optimus drivers over at NVIDIA. I was referencing the latest drivers at ASUS. I've used the 189.79. Very stable for me. I'm presently using the Beta 257.15 drivers right now and they are working for me as well. I'm using a U30Jc-A1 sold in the US.

Usually, I don't uninstall a video driver when I'm updating it. NVIDIA just writes right over it. You can do that.

Or, since you're having so many problems, you might want to just uninstall the NVIDIA driver you have in now & reboot (stay offline). On reboot, Windows will complain and go to install a new driver and even want to look online. Close that and install the newer NVIDIA driver you have already downloaded.

Good luck & let us know how it goes.

 

Yes you can. Today, I received my U30Jc from gentechpc.com, and i can confirm that you can have 2 24" monitors hooked up at 1920x1200 (but not the laptop display, it doesn't like 3 displays) i hooked up 2 24 inch dell Ultrasharps, one through HDMI and the other through VGA and it worked great!

 

hi buddy, when did u order it from gentechpc ? and did they sent it quickly?
i am searching a trusted seller to buy u30jc. all websites says it is out off stock or sold out.

 

i ordered Asus U30jc a1 laptop from amazon dot com about 15days ago. the seller was buy dot com on amazon website. when i bought it, it showed on page "in stock". and i paid for expedited shipping. (the total was 912$)
i waited 12days and they didnt sent any information mail and order status was seems "not shipped yet" untill i sent email this morning.

this morning i sent email buy.com seller on amazon and asked order status. they replied that they couldnt complete my order because of their provider and sent me $50 discount coupon for other orders and said they r very sorry. and they canceled the order.

it is really a very big disappointment for me. they showed it "in stock" i paid full cost with my credit card and waited 12days with pation and they canceled the order and said sorry.

is it a good business? the customers has not got any rights about it?

now i am searching a trusted seller to buy this laptop. i checked lots of websites but most of them says it is out od stock. and some of them writes they have 2 or 3 left in their stock (i m sure if i order it they sent it s outof stock)..

i located near the houston/tx usa.

 

Hi! I ordered it on the 31st (memorial day) they emailed me confirming the order on the 1st, shipped it on the 3rd, received it the 7th, so once it shipped it took 3 business days.
gentechpc has the A1 model, as well as the A2B model (win7 pro, bluetooth, better hd) and I believe xoticpc also has the A1 model

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So far I absolutely love this notebook! IMO, the screen quality is negligible. I think it's just fine for general laptop needs. Chances are if you are using it for personal use, it'll work perfectly. I think Quatro mentioned in an earlier post to use an external monitor if you need.

It DID take me 3 hours for the the "ai restore" to create the backup DVDs, but you can just quit out the program early and use the ISOs anytime to create the images. There was a bit of bloatware, but it was all manageable. All of my hotkeys work just fine, facial recognition works decent. Steam gave me a couple of hiccups when i first tried to run Counter Strike: Source, but after a steam reinstall it worked perfectly. It came default with the OS C drive and then a data D drive, which really saved me time because I would have done that anyways.

 

I uninstalled my driver and then installed 189.79 and now everything is ok, games, movies..

Thanks for your help Quatro!

 

I tested out the battery life today. I used the built-in Power4Gear Battery Saving plan, and I had Steam (running in background), Digsby, Outlook 2007, Word 2007, and Firefox open the entire time. I did NOT change the screen brightness and just left it at the power plans default settings. Right now I am at 8% (30 minutes)remaining after being on steadily for almost 6 and a half hours. This laptop really is perfect for travel/school.

NOTE that the Power4Gear battery saving DID disable aero and set the task-bar to auto hide, which might annoy some users. You can always create your own power plan to meet your preferences.

 

How would this computer do with multitasking? I like to have an internet browser on while I play World of Warcraft so that I can have something to entertain me while I'm waiting around. I also like connecting my computer to my tv and playing Hulu/Netflix while I browse online. My computer right now (Macbook 10.4.11 that I purchased summer 2007, running on Tiger with 1GB RAM) basically can't do stuff like that well. Can anyone explain how buying this computer would improve my computing experience? I don't know much about computers, but this one has been recommended to me and I want to know what makes it better than the one I have now. Thanks so much

 

i received my u30jc 2 weeks ago from amazon and so far it has been pretty good. however, occasionally my screen flashes black in and out. i am assuming this happens when i unplug my computer because it is changing to the battery saving desktop, but it also flashes black when i am just surfing the web on my battery. does this also happen to other users? any feedback would be appreciated. thanks in advance!

 

I don't understand how Anandtech's FPS results for various games are so much lower than everyone else's. Other sites report that L4D2, for example, is very playable at high settings, yet Anandtech writes that on high settings, their average FPS was in the low 20s. I understand that this is an average, and that there will be intense moments where the framerate may dip. But I don't understand how other sites could report such a framerate as "playable."

 

guys, i just tried running the batman demo and its fine during cutscenes but the first gameplay part was laggy as hell. =[ i put the details on medium. any suggestions?

 

just wondered does ASUS have an irish/european base for repairs?

Im considering the ASUS U30JC, purchasing it online from the US or while Im over there in July.

what do people think of the warranty outlined here?
http://www.btotech.com/_e/13_Asus_La...s_U30Jc_A1.htm

would it be sufficient for me if purchasing in the US and bringing back to Ireland?

 

Is there any more info on the U35jc? I'm seeing some European prices at 933 euros

 

Hi all, just wanted to add my .02 as I just received my U30JC and have been using it about 2 weeks. Some people have been asking about Starcraft 2. It runs fine on Medium settings, which is really all you need for that game. I was gaming with itunes runnning, and a few windows open, and it worked like a charm.

I upgraded from a 4 year old Toshiba, so really anything would have been great, but I am really happy with this laptop. I have had no issues. Runs smooth, solid battery life, quick to open apps. All in all, a great laptop, especially for the price.

(i have the Canadian version btw Infonec Computers - Computer parts Canada, PC Components, laptop computers, motherboards, processors, CPUs and much more : Asus, U30JC-X2C, Intel i5-430M (2.26GHz) , 4GB DDR3 1066 DRAM; 2 x SODIMM socket, 320GB 5400RPM , NV G310M 512MB DDR3 VRAM , 13)

Definitelly not a techie, but from the average user point of view, this comp is great.

 

nvm guys, batman runs swell in medium settings =] i love my u30jc again. turned my discrete graphics on.