U30JC discussion thread

Sorry, georgeju, I didn't mean for you to pay much attention to the BatteryBar's time estimates. They really do jump all over the place. I meant to only suggest it to monitor mW discharge rates. BatteryMon (to me) appears to be much better at quickly estimating power usage and battery life left. You could try that for a day. Just download & install BatteryMon (not BatteryBar). Use your notebook on battery as much as you can. Leave BatteryMon on for a day and watch the graph & battery use/discharge/time left boxes. Report back what you find.

I was originally quoting from my Windows battery/power icon (which ALSO fluctuates, but more slowly.) Windows battery icon typically recalibrates every 1% of battery use, so if you make a power change, it will take 1% of battery use to show you the results.

On discharging a battery, be sure NOT to discharge it all the way to 0% as that can be damaging to the Li-ion battery. Windows will typically shut down at 2-3%, depending on what you set in power settings.

On fully discharging a lithium-ion battery, people often tend to give advice based on older battery technology. Li-ion batteries are different. Be careful. Here are a few interesting quotes:

• "They have no memory effect, which means that you do not have to completely discharge them before recharging, as with some other battery chemistries."
  
  * They start degrading as soon as they leave the factory. They will only last two or three years from the date of manufacture whether you use them or not. (Some people have suggested removing the battery to prevent frequent charging, which is pointless.)
  * They are extremely sensitive to high temperatures. Heat causes lithium-ion battery packs to degrade much faster than they normally would.
  * If you completely discharge a lithium-ion battery, it is ruined.
  
• "Although lithium-ion is memory-free in terms of performance deterioration, batteries with fuel gauges exhibit what engineers refer to as "digital memory". Here is the reason: Short discharges with subsequent recharges do not provide the periodic calibration needed to synchronize the fuel gauge with the battery's state-of-charge. A deliberate full discharge and recharge every 30 charges corrects this problem. Letting the battery run down to the cut-off point in the equipment will do this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate. (Read more in 'Choosing the right battery for portable computing', Part Two.)"
• "Li Ion batteries don't have the kind of memory effect that NiCd batteries have, so they can't be reconditioned.
  
  "Some Li Ion battery packs (e.g. laptop batteries) have a little circuit that keeps track of the capacity of the battery. Occasionally, this sensor can get thrown off-track by repeated shallow discharge and recharge cycles. If so, you can recalibrate the sensor by letting the battery discharge fully (to the discharge cut off - put that screw driver down!! ). This doesn't actually do anything beneficial for the battery itself, it just resets the little monitoring circuit."
  
• "Li ion batteries are *very* finicky about charge & discharge parameters! To quote Wikipedia (emphasis mine):
  
  A stand-alone Li-ion cell must never be discharged below a certain voltage to avoid irreversible damage. Therefore all Li-ion battery systems are equipped with a circuit that shuts down the system when the battery is discharged below the predefined threshold. ... This is also one of the reasons Li-ion cells are rarely sold as such to consumers, but only as finished batteries designed to fit a particular system. ... Short-circuiting a Li-ion battery can cause it to ignite or explode, and as such, any attempt to open or modify a Li-ion battery's casing or circuitry is dangerous. Li-ion batteries contain safety devices that protect the cells inside from abuse, and, if damaged, can cause the battery to ignite or explode.

THIS is a very interesting article:

• "Using only 20% or 30% of the battery capacity before recharging will extend cycle life considerably. As a general rule, 5 to 10 shallow discharge cycles are equal to one full discharge cycle. Although partial-discharge cycles can number in the thousands, keeping the battery in a fully charged state also shortens battery life."
  
  Full discharge cycles (down to 2.5 V or 3 V, depending on chemistry) should be avoided if possible.
  
  Very deep discharges will quickly, permanently damage a Li-ion battery. Internal metal plating can occur causing a short circuit, making the battery unusable and unsafe. Most Li-ion batteries have protection circuitry within their battery packs that open the battery connection if the battery voltage is less than 2.5 V or exceeds 4.3 V, or if the battery current exceeds a predefined threshold level when charging or discharging.

 

Yeah I wasn't suggesting a FULL discharge, my bad for not specifying that! I have my u30jc to automatically hibernate at 5 or 7%, and I don't make it a habit to go down that low.

 

J&R has the U30JC-B1 for $809.99. Now I'm regretting my purchase of my U45JC, I could have used that faster VRAM

 

Thanks quatro! always helpful.
So just to clarify... graphics scores (Windows Experience index, 3DSMark etc.) don't change with the doubled VRAM on the u45? Im on the fence between the u30jc-b1 or waiting for the b2 to see if the doubled vRam makes a difference

 

Thus far, no, the doubled VRAM doesn't improve the 3DMark06 score. The core is the bottleneck. Hence why the 1/2-the-VRAM but higher clocked 310M of the U30Jc beats out the 1GB-VRAM 310M of the U45Jc that is slightly underclocked. U30: 3700. U45: 3400. The 310M of the U30Jc also appears to have better cooling and is more overclockable.

The doubled-VRAM might make a difference where the GPU is faster and not such a bottleneck (like the ATI HD5650 or the 350M, which is twice the speed of the 310M.)

 

I have also noticed a difference in online stores:
the u30jc-b1 and the u30jc-b1-CBIL

can anyone confirm a difference?

 

hi guys i noticed a strange thing. while charging, battery charges to 99% nnever 100%, once i unplug, u30jc goes into battery saving mode and the battery says 100% full charged. why is that?
is anyone noticing this?

 

Can you tell us where you are seeing this second model online (the B1-CBIL)? Here in the US, I think we only have the B1 (of those two you listed. There are actually three U30Jc models varients for sale in the US, though one of them, the A1, may be permanently out of stock now.)

 

edit: nvm, CBIL means Chinese Bilingual lol

 

should exchange my u30jc due to the weird battery issue?

 

Guys... Just for you to know, I didn't manage to fix my Intel graphics driver crashing issue I reported a few weeks ago.

I tried everything already, and the thing keeps crashing even after a fresh reinstall from the recovery partition, and after a clean install using a retail disc.

I'm trying to accept the fact that I just got another defective laptop (this is the second one in the last 12 months). I think I can live with that, because this only happens during the startup process, but it stills drives me crazy.

What pisses me off is the fact that I can't RMA the product, because I bought this in Canada, and I'm back to Brazil already. And what's worse than that: I trust no brands anymore, because I already had problems with Acer, Asus, HP, Samsung... I think I'll never hesitate on buying a Mac again.

I even bought the A1 model only a few days before the store had the B1 model in stock for the same price, damn.

Sorry about that, I'm just mad about it. Thanks for all your help!

BTW, this is a great laptop!

 

Hey man, I think I sort of fixed the intel driver crashing when coming out of hibernation issue, so this solution might work for you: in your power scheme's advanced options, look for "intel gfx power management" and set it to Balanced instead of max battery life. Battery life is totally unaffected and the driver has only crashed once, and that was 5-6 days ago! Versus practically every time I woke the laptop up from hibernation, its a huge improvement... its worth the shot!

 

Great, thanks for the tip! I'll try that and report any success.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: Several over on the U35/45 thread have been complaining of crashing when they updated their graphics drivers to the latest versions.

This stopped for everyone once they updated their BIOS! It's worth a shot.

Look HERE for instructions on how to be sure your BIOS is updated!

The latest BIOS for the U30Jc is 210. The file is called U30JcAS210.zip. From the zip you'll extract a file called U30JcAS.210 that you can use WinFlash to use that file to update your BIOS (be sure to turn off your WiFi and your AV and have the notebook plugged in when you update the BIOS.)

See if that helps any. At the least, it shouldn't hurt your laptop.

 

Hi

I need help. I got a Asus U30jc for about a week and I never could make Nvidia GF 310M running I got a code 43 on the device manager. I already downgraded and upgraded and nada! If I disable Intel HD Graphics the Code 43 is gone from the 310m and it looks like its OK but I dont have access to the Nvidia CP and in fact it does not work.
At the moment I got this divers: Asus Bios driver 210, Intel® HD Graphics Diver 8.15.10.2182, Nvidia GF 310M Driver 8.17.12.5896. 310M, OS Windows 7 x64.

Any help appreciated. Thanks

 

Same issue with my u30jc a2. Tried re-installing the drivers.

Contacted Asus, and company I bought it from.

I think I am going to send it back and see if the new one does the same thing.

 

Do you have a u30jc? Just curious if you do and if your mic is working correclty.

 

I have just ordered the u30jc qhda1 with the I-5,
Thanks to all who have wrote about the u30jc on this thread, it's help a lot to make a decision!

 

Sorry, man... It's still crashing. Thanks anyway.

Yup, updating the BIOS was one of the first things I tried. Unfortunately, neither playing with the graphics driver versions or updating the BIOS solved it.

 

Proud owner of a u30jc-b1 as of today =))))))
just one question for the owners though: does anyones scrolling jump around when using the trackpad? When it is actually scrolling, whether it is vertically or horizontally, it seems to be smooth, but when holding your fingers there it starts to jitter around. Would there be a possible fix?

 

yes, battery charges to 100% now woot so happy.

 

Were you able to talk to ASUS tech support about your problem?

 

Yes and yes.

 

How is the battery life for you now with all battery saving features on?

 

so far its been a bit strange with optimus. I have encountered times where it hasnt even enabled at all, or times where it is enabled but i dont see a difference. I tested it with a game of warcraft 3 and am lagging at medium settings...

 

Did you download the nVidia Test Tool to be sure your nVidia GPU is active when you are in game?

 

that i did, but it seems to be bugging a lot. Turns on when it feels like it. Will try to reinstall all drivers and see what comes.

But btw Quatro, do you lag on WC3? on highest settings and DotA? lol it seems strange because the experience index claims it should be more than capable of running wc3 (which is all the gaming I do anyways, so i thought the 310m should suffice?)

 

What nVidia driver are you using? The latest is 258.96.

What BIOS are you using? The latest is 210.

Once I had updated those two (and the Intel HD graphic driver to 8.15.10.2182), Optimus became MUCH smarter with its auto-setup templates.

Well, I only play a few games like HL2:E2 which hardly tax the 310M. I don't play WC3 so I can't comment on it.

But we had WC 3 on our older desktop. The 310M should handle that just fine!

 

antonyfl:

I play tons of mmorpgs on my u30jc on pretty much max settings (or at least on high). A couple of things... a helpful tool that tells you if the 310M is running or not is already built into the Nvidia Control Panel. To turn it on, right-click on the desktop, click on Nvidia Control Panel, then click "View" on the menu bar. Choose "Display GPU Activity Icon in Notification Area".

Second, from the NVidia Control Panel you can fine tune which programs switch to the 310M upon running in "Manage 3D settings", Program Settings tab. If that doesn't work (and in my experience it doesn't sometimes with Steam games), you can go to the Global Settings tab and pick "High-performance NVIDIA processor" as the Preferred graphics processor in the dropdown box. That should do it.

Edit: oh, and of course make sure you're on High Performance power option settings.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

p.s. - I'm on the 258.96 version of NVIDIA's drivers.

 

Just wondering if anyone has tried the test_off.sh script under linux at Linux Hybrid Graphics. I have been considering purchasing this laptop, but it is pretty useless to buy a laptop with optimus if you can't even switch the nvidia card off...

I noticed that GENETX was complaining about the poor battery life under ubuntu because optimus wasn't working...

 

i have updated the graphix but have yet to update the bios. I will try that and report my findings, thanks guys

edit: apparently I already have the v210 of the BIOs hmm....

is there a software switch to turn on the gpu? when im plugged in, i dont care about power saving so i dont mind having the GPU on all the time

I have also noticed that when I turn the intel's HD Graphics options "Panel Fit" to the default (Maintain aspect ratio) Warcraft 3 turns to non-widescreen mode. Only when i change the settings to "scale full screen" will it become full screen. Shouldn't the G310m not be affected by the Intel HD's screen display settings when gaming?

 

Heh, one person wants the 310M off in Ubuntu and another person wants it on all the time.

Sorry bdkoepke. I haven't tried it in Ubuntu yet. I'm bound to eventually. Had Lucid Lynx on another laptop - great OS.

antonyfl, there's no hardware switch or key combo to turn it off/on. The closest thing to keeping it turned on is using what I suggested earlier: make the 310M the preferred graphics device in the Global Settings section of the Nvidia Control Panel and use the High Performance power option. In that configuration, every game I have tried (i.e. Portal, Alien Swarm, D&D Online, Oblivion, etc) ran with the Nvidia gpu at high to max settings, 30+ fps.

 

I e-mailed ASUS, nVidia and Intel. None of them were able to explain why this is happening. ASUS just told me that I should send them the laptop for the RMA process. nVidia said that this might be caused by defective hardware. And Intel didn't help me because they said that this issue was already fixed within the last driver version, and that the laptop manufacturer should deal with this.

 

Can you part with it and let ASUS check the problem? If uninstalling & reinstalling the 2 video drivers (to the latest versions) and updating the BIOS to 210 didn't fix your video problems, you may be one of those few who received a defective unit and indeed have a hardware issue.

If so, letting ASUS repair it is your best bet, but you may lose it for 3 weeks while they fix it.

 

Sure, I would... Problem is, international shipping here is damn expensive, and I'll never risk sending a $1000 laptop though mail. I'd say it would take at least 2 months to have it back, unfortunately. That's about the average time people have to wait here to have their RMA products back. Mail and customs here sucks...

 

windows give me an estimate of 7 hours generally speaking with about 30 percent brightless or bit more But im not sure if im getting that 7 hours since i dont use it continuously. i will do a quick check next time when im fully charged

 

Hi, I got my U30JC 5 weeks ago, and have been consistently having problems with it starting up, coming out of hibernation or rebooting. It doesn't happen all the time, but frequently (around 40% of the time).

What would happen is I would power on/restart/wake up the laptop and the screen would remain off and black and I would hear the fan turn up very high and loud. It remains this way until I do a hard shutdown. Usually, if I try to turn it on after the hard shutdown, it would start-up fine.. However, sometimes it stalled on the fan in high gear a couple times in a row.

The laptop fully recognizes both graphics card btw, so this is not an issue at the time being.

I installed all the new drivers as this thread indicated. I also made sure to have the Intel Management Engine Interface installed. I also flashed the BIOS to 210, the latest that I know of. I've also tried reformatting with my own Windows 7 Pro DVD and installed all the drivers on my own separately.

Nothing has worked. If any of you have any idea what the problem may be -- please let me know!

 

i would suggest an RMA.

its a bummer that my dv9 had the same problems. where it would do a bootup then shut down immediately. hate those lock-ups.

 

gargh..thanks killab, i think that's what i'll have to do.

Also, it seems to be the same exact problem infinityloop was going through. I wonder if he ever found a solution before I send it in for an RMA.

Does anyone know if there is a number to contact for ASUS that can quickly get me to the RMA service?

By the way, I appreciate and am thankful for all or any kind of advice/help.

 

If it is doing that on a cold bootup and all you get, sometimes, is a black screen & the fan on high, that sounds like hardware or BIOS issues as it's not enough time for the Win OS to even kick in.

RMA it! Wise move.

 

I was looking around my device manager, trying to do anything else before I decide to send it in (btw, does anyone have a good experience with ASUS customer service? I am afraid that they won't actually fix the problem and I'll just be without a laptop for 2 weeks).

But I found something very important. I found a yellow exclamation mark next to "Intel Management Engine Interface". The drivers are all up to date. Has anyone else experienced this? If so, what's the solution? Thanks!

 

On mine, it meant the Intel Management Engine driver was not installed or not installed properly.

If it is installed properly, it should also be listed in your programs list under "Programs and Features" in Control Panel. It is listed in mine.

If it is in yours, try to uninstall it, reboot and then reinstall it from your drivers DVD.

 

has anyone ventured the backlit keyboard mod like the UL30's?

and also do you think this http://ncix.com/products/?sku=46868&vpn=PLS-13&manufacture=CASE LOGIC will fit the u30jc?

 

I just read about georgeju's battery problems and i'm sad to report that my battery problems are even more severe. quatro, i believed you suggested that we should get at least 7 hours of battery, but i am still getting about 4 hours 20 minutes with 20 percent brightness with wifi on and only one tab in google chrome. no flash or anything like that. I believe i posted before about this and i tried unplugging everything (usb, speakers plug, etc.) and it still reads about 4 hours. i am going to college in about 2 weeks so i dont know if sending it back would be a great idea right now. btw, this is kind of embarrassing, but what is RMA? Is there a way to send back only the battery?

 

I think RMA means "Return Merchandise Authorization." It's when you get a company to agree to repair or replace or refund you on a purchased item.

Before you do all of that, I'd first try to charge the battery to full. Shut down and reboot. Unplug your notebook and unplug all external devices from it and use your laptop strictly on:
1) battery saving mode
2) 50% brightness or less
3) no wifi
4) no MP3 music in the background
5) be sure your antivirus is off so that it doesn't begin a scan in the middle of this test
6) just using basic Office apps like Word

Try this, boring as it sounds, for an hour or so. See if your battery meter ever shows you 6 hrs or more. It should. Right now, I just unplugged, I'm on wifi (obviously), 40% (about) brightness and battery saving mode. My AV is active but not scanning. Two tabs open in Firefox.

My 5600mAh battery shows 7 hrs 29 min (92%) on the Windows 7 battery icon and BatteryMon (a separate free battery monitor program) shows 7 hrs 31 min.

You should get the same if you have the same size battery and are on similar settings. The Windows 7 battery icon will fluctuate with each % used (it recalibrates after each percentage used). So now Win 7 batt icon shows 7 hrs 08 min (91%) ... and then jumped to 7 hrs 32 min (90%) whereas BatteryMon shows 90% 7 hrs 17 min. It does fluctuate around. A few times, BatteryMon has shown (90%) 6 hrs 59 min and then (90%) 5 hrs 58 min . . .

It's an imperfect science.

But using it gently like that for over an hour should show a steady loss of power and give you a better battery life reading (a more accurate reading) over more time .... if it doesn't, either your battery isn't really 5600mAh size, one of the battery cells may be defective or something else is wrong.

But do try that first before you RMA it (return it for repair.)

 

Thanks for the input quatro. I did what you told me to do and it read 10 hours. I plugged in a usb mouse and speakers, and it read about 7 hours and 30 mins. This is all without wi-fi on. I kept those things plugged in and turned on wifi and it read about 5 hours. Are these sounding normal? Oh, and i kept the brightness constantly at about 20%.

 

Good. Now we have a clearer baseline to work from.

Yes, those figures sound more normal.

The 10 hrs -- was the battery icon showing that amount for very long? I'd have thought that you'd only see that figure a short while as that sounds much higher than average.

So you can get higher than 4 hrs which shows your battery is likely fine.

I don't know why, but sometimes, while on internet but no video pages, my battery shows around 4+ hrs. If I look and can see that there are no moving flash ads on any web pages I'm on, I figure it's a wrong figure and my OS is still responding to something I did earlier and it thinks I may do it again.

But sometimes it just stays on that 4+ hrs for no clear reason, even if I reboot ... then if I continue not to tax the CPU or video card, the battery will drop in its percentage but suddenly read something like 6-7+ hrs or even higher.

As I said, it appears to be an inexact science.

A good rule-of-thumb if you're using something like BatteryMon, it's big box shows you lots of figures including (in the upper right) the "Discharge Rate" in a mW figure. You want to aim at keeping that figure around 8,500-9,500 mW to get a longer battery life. It will fluctuate LOTS, but just watch to see if it is generally staying around those figures (if you want 6 or more hours on your full battery).

A few points to keep in mind:
1) if you're depending on the Win 7 battery icon, it only changes the amount as the % drops. So you may do something that will drain or help the battery but still not see the real result for a few minutes. BatteryMon recalibrates every 9-10 sec so you see the effect of a change faster.
2) web page moving ads and any video can drain the battery faster.
3) external USB devices, like mice, bluetooth & HDD's, draw power from the battery. I'm not sure if external speakers plugged in the sound jack draws power or not, but USB plugs, by their design, take power from the laptop's battery.
4) A battery monitoring program like BatteryMon (esp when you use its small icon in the taskbar section) tends to give a more general & accurate reading then Win 7's battery icon, but both work in the long haul.
5) I suspect that some background services can quietly tax the battery as well (like my O&O defrag or my AV) when they activate something in the background & I don't realize it. For example, I was running HWMonitor to watch temps and realized that on battery, it pushes my avg power consumption up from 9,500 mW to 11,000-14,000mW! That one app alone was changing my battery reading from 5+ hrs to 3+ hrs! And it is just a quiet little side app. I had no idea that it kept my CPU so busy. You may have the same in some other side app you have.
6) As you can see, to get those higher battery life figures, you'll have to sacrifice in areas: lower CPU speed, no video, 1/3 brightness, no external devices or speakers plugged in, minimal web use with limited number of pages open. So while in school & you need the battery (no time to charge or the charger left in your room), you'll have to be frugal. Then it is a notebook for note-taking and limited web access (no video, games or webcam use).

But at times, for me, if I know that 4 hrs is all I'll need before I have access to an electric outlet & my charger, then I use my notebook at a higher CPU speed and leave the web open ... but still avoid any video use.

You'll learn the power habits of your notebook and fit it in with your daily tasks. But it sounds like your battery is fine. You just need to discover where you'll need to sacrifice for however many hrs of battery you need.

 

Does the AV running in background impacts that much on battery life??? Should I disable it while in Battery Saving mode?

I'm using Microsoft Security Essentials here...

 

No, I meant for him to disable the AV only for the battery test. Nothing more.

It impacts battery life a bit, more if it is scanning, of course. But you need your AV on, especially if you are online.

As an example, I unplugged my notebook. After a minute of settling in, it read 9,500mW discharge rate and a time remaining (at that discharge rate) of 7hr 52 min. I turned on my AV's quick scan and it read a new discharge of 16,500mW and a time remaining of 4 hr 47 min. A full scan pushes my mW discharge up to 19,000mW. So active scanning by the AV does affect your battery life (a full scan for my AV takes about 3 hrs to complete! So that would really chew up my battery life if I wasn't watching.)

 

Oh, I see...

Do you know if there is any freeware alternative to BatteryMon? I'm trying BatteryBar here, but I don't know if that's the best option.