U30JC discussion thread

BatteryBar is good. Stick with that if it's working for you.

 

You should just work with the machine and see wether it gets the 6-7 hours of real use. Or just split it up. The best way is just to test it out once by draining the complete battery on energy saving with 50% brightness.

The consumption of the U30Jc is a little odd to what we used to. In the past, notebooks used rather much energy, but energy saving was bad as well. Nowadays, we have loads of energy saving technologies to save energy when we can.

This however leads to a large gap between complete idle (where as much is disabled) to a little workload. At average, the U30Jc consumes about 11W. That equals the 7 hours runtime on the battery. But imagine that you are downloading something. The HDD spins up -> a whopping 2-3W is added. Also, your CPU and chipset are set to work a little bit harder -> + 2W maybe. Then also your WiFi is active, also adding 1 Watt maybe.

This gives you, for a short period, 11W + 3W + 2W + 1W = 17W consumption. So that is an increase of about 55% in consumption. This means that your runtime will decrease with about 36% for the moment. Windows however calculates with this number as you would use 17W all the time, instead of, lets say a minute. That means that it will jump back to the 4:30 i am seeing usually as well. That means that you can run on battery for 4:30 when using 17W. But later, it should bounce back to +- 7 hours when you start to surf only again and use 11W.

That is why you should use the battery untill it drains. Only then you will see wether the notebook got an average consumption of 11-12W during the whole 7 hours. Small periods of 17W occur, but periods of 10W use will give an average of 11-12W afterall. When I do nothing but surfing at low brightness, my laptop is showing 8:30 sometimes as well. Which indicates that I am using only 10W. 10W * 8.5h yields 85Wh, the capacity of my battery

As you can see in this example, the notebook isn't consuming that much, but the difference are huge. In old notebooks, de CPU itself already used up about 10W, then add the old CCFT backlight consumes much. Lets say that the notebook would use 24W overall (which should be right accoring to my C2D T7100 laptop). You wont really see the difference when the HDD spins up and adds that 2-3W for a minute. That is about 10% increase of use, or about 11minutes of lose in time. That is what people usually allow as an error margin for measuring the battery time. The U30Jc does nothing else at all, but the error margin is so huge, that you will need to understand what is happening inside the laptop to see wether it is normal or not.

 

Ah, as usual, well said, GENETX.

I miss seeing you around here. You add much sense to the posts.

 

Okay, so i got Batterybar just to see the discharge rates and all that good stuff. With chrome and digsby open, my discharge rate is about 14W with 50% brightness. I noticed that it also shows Battery Wear. I've had this laptop for about 2 months now and it shows that I already have 5.6% battery wear, meaning 5.6% of 84,000 mWh, which is 79,320 mWh. I was wondering what kind of percent battery wears you guys had because 5.6% in 2 months sounds pretty brutal and if there is anything I can do to prevent battery wear.


Edit: The battery wear just went up to 6%. This is scary.

 

Personally, I'd ignore the battery wear %. It kept moving on my notebook and experience showed my battery was normal and drained normally, so the battery wear % simply confused things and I don't think it was accurate. My battery has been used normally for 5 mo and it shows 81Wh at full charge instead of 84Wh. But doing some more discharge/charging, pulling the battery and reboots seems to change that, so I'm not worried.

Your battery isn't defective and it will wear out in about 3 yrs. Even if you pulled out your battery when plugged in, you can't stop the decay of your li-ion battery's life. Just use it until it begins to hold a charge of 30 min or so, then buy a new one on Amazon or eBay.

The discharge rate, to get a good picture, would need to be monitored for a while as the slightest thing can push it up for a moment or a while. Read GENETX's post again to get his idea.

Mine shows 3.7% wear (has been 5% at times) and 81Wh capacity. I bet if I use my battery up today (down to 5%), shut it down, pull the battery out & put it in and then fully recharge it while it's closed, the capacity amount will increase (wear % will decrease). Let's see what happens. I'll report back at the end of the day.

My advice? Stop worrying and just use your battery. Watching the discharge rate over a long period can show you if something is going on that is eating power in a hidden way or in the background that you'd do well to stop if you want to save battery (like my HWMonitor was or some other background monitoring program might be on your notebook). 17W over a long period will eat it up much faster than 10W. 10W average should give you about 8 hrs 30 min.

Here is GENETX's quote again:

Also, BTW, the reason I switched from BatteryBar to BatteryMon was that BatteryBar began to give me really odd estimates on battery life. For example, right now on 50% brightness, wifi ON, only Firefox open (one tab), Battery Saving mode, 89% battery (and it wasn't at full capacity at the start) BatteryMon shows 5 hrs 31 min. Win 7 batt icon shows 5 hrs 10 min. BatteryBar show 1 hr 27 min. Batterybar, for me, even over a longer period, shows much less battery life then the other two so I've discarded it.

As well, my avg discharge over the last 15 min has been about 15W, dipping as low as 11.5W but not lower. Mostly 14-15W. I wonder if BatteryBar is using Watts and resources like my HWMonitor was. I'll uninstall it and report back.

... yep, with BatteryBar gone, my usage dropped back down to 8.5W-9.5W.

Also, with BatteryBar gone and Watts lowered and battery at 84%, Win 7 battery icon is now showing 7 hrs 45 min and BatteryMon is showing 7 hrs 28 min (amid plenty of fluctuation so I have to watch it over a longer period then just 5 min.)

I'll let you know if I succeed in getting my "full capacity" number back up toward 84W instead of 81W (wear number down). I bet you can do the same on your presently-79W capacity battery (that's actually 84W)

UPDATE: No, I can't seem to change my present capacity of 81Wh. I'll try a discharge/calibration this weekend. If there's any change, I'll post it here.

 

I got my U30JC last Saturday, the one with i5 430M and win 7 64 pro, 4Gig ram, 500Gig HD. Well I tried a F9 restore and could get it to boot or get into the BIOS. So ASUS deemed it DOA and am waiting on a new one in a box.

I am upgrading from eeepc 901.

Wait and see when I finally get the replacement.

From what I saw, ASUS put a lot of bloatware on there.

 

Canadian Bilingual. English with green French words on some of the keys.

 

It has been about 3 weeks now and I love this laptop!
one gripe though: The fan is awfully loud. It seems to be constantly on even on battery saving or quiet office and is loud as ever. The only time the fan is quiet is like the first 30 seconds of a fresh startup or wake-from-sleep.

Anyone else have this problem/got a fix for it?

 

My fan is always on, but doesn't feel loud to me.

There are times when it will go into a higher fan speed and the temps look okay (50C) and I can't only get it quiet by shutting off the notebook for a short while.

 

Just sent the order request in

 

I picked up a used u30jc-a1 last weekend. so far i like it... i upgraded from an asus eeepc 1000h, so sticking with the asus family.

I have a weird quirk with my u30jc and I'm wondering if anybody else has this problem. I tried to do a search here, but couldn't find it. Problem: when I boot up the laptop with my mouse in the left side usb port (either one) it hangs on the black screen with the white asus logo. when i unplug the usb mouse, it runs. if i stick it back in, it hangs... until i put it out again. weird. i've never seen this on any laptop or computer. i checked bios, nothing looks out of the ordinary. any advice on what to check for? it's kind of annoying to have to unplug my mouse just to boot up... seems almost ridiculous.

 

that's weird.
I've my mouse connected to one of the usb on the left side and I haven't this problem...

You can try with another mouse and check if the problem is with that mouse or with all mouses....

 

yeah that's what i'm going to try. it is just a standard logitech optical mouse that i'm using currently. I'll grab a mouse from work and see if it does the same thing. actually i'll also try plugging in other things like my external hdd and flash card reader...

 

You may want to check your boot order in your BIOS. It could be that your BIOS senses that you have a USB device plugged in and it's trying unsucessfully to boot from it.

Be sure your HDD is the first boot device.

 

>>> I have a (stupid) question: why do Asus laptops seem to have longer battery life than other brands'? Of course, base on the same specification (same CPU, same graphic, same battery capacity, same screen size...)

 

Yeah, it's weird. I have the same problem with my PC. When I plug any Mp3 Player through the front USB of my case, the screen stops at the brand of the mainboard. When I unplug the MP3 Player, the machine runs as normal.
I tried on some PC and sometimes I got the same phenomenon!!

 

The U30 vs U33/43/35/45/UL30:
Core: 625 / 606
VRAM: 790 / 667
Shaders: 1530 / 1468
3DMark06: 3700 / 3400

That was from Quatro. The VRAM there makes a big difference doesn't it?

 

I've no idea. Better implemented battery-saving techniques? The others are catching up though. Acer's 3820TG has some pretty good battery results for such a powerful GPU. The Sony Z gets amazing battery life, etc.

I still wonder if this is a BIOS boot thing.

I'd try to be sure that your BIOS boot order lists the HDD first, DVD 2nd and then the USB port 3rd. That it isn't trying to stupidly boot off of your MP3 Player (it does see it usually as a flash drive).

 

Easy to bring the U33/35 to be equal with the U30's 310M speeds. But the U30's GPU is more overclockable since it starts higher and heating may be less of an issue (I think the thicker U33 runs even cooler than the thinner U35.)

 

Ordered the U30Jc-B1. It has a 320G HDD so I'd like to get a new one.

1) How hard is it to put a new one in?
2) Whats the best way to set it up? Recovery disks?
3) Does a SSD take more or less power to run? I hate to get a SSD then have it eat my battery!

In addition, is there anything I need to do when I get my new Asus? Is there a new BIOS I need? New drivers? Or can I just delete the extra software and start using it?

Edit: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227551 Will that drive save power or take more power?

 

1) Easy, if you know what you're doing or get help.
2) To me, the best with a new HDD is to download a legal copy of Win 7 x64 as an ISO. This is an image file that when used with Nero, or some ISO program, will create a nice, bootable Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit DVD for you to install from. Then you use the ASUS Drivers & Apps DVD to install your missing drivers & ASUS apps.

When you first open the U30's Windows, it will prompt you to make recovery disks. It will take about 4 blank DVD's and about 2.5 hrs to burn them. I did this, but never used them as I installed clean from an external Win 7 DVD. It accepted my key code on the bottom of my notebook, though I had to phone in to activate it later.

If you're in a hurry, you can just use the set up as is easily and just remove stuff. If you want only one partition, that F9 reinstall goes very fast if you have no personal info on it.
3) No, an SSD seems to use less battery as it has no moving parts like a HDD. And lordy, but it is fast with an SSD (though it won't help games much. It just loads things much faster.) Disc access speed increase is phenomenal ... though an SSD is very expensive and small in size. Some have pulled their 320GB HDD and popped it in an USB external enclosure and put extra files on that and ran the OS and apps off of the SSD.
4) WHen you get it, the HDD is divided into 3 partitions, the first being a hidden recovery partition and then C: & D:. Some perfer to see one drive only under Windows, so when they get it, they boot up and press F9 while booting. Recovery mode will come on a walk you through the reinstall of Windows. It will ask if you want two partitions or one. If you want one, it will repartition the drive (leaving the hidden partition alone) and then reinstall Win 7 on the C; drive. This will take about 30-45 min.

There are lots of trialware (games, Office, etc) and "bloatware" on it that you can choose to uninstall. That will take you about an hour.

Be careful not to remove too many ASUS apps as some of them are very helpful. Look at each app and uninstall what you don't think you'll need.

Do be sure & keep in "Intel Management Engine" and ASUS Splendid Utility as it controls the Fn+C hotkey (color tints on the screen panel) and "LifeFrame" as it control the Fn+V hotkey (webcam setup).

There is a new BIOS. You'll want to flash it via ASUS' WinFlash with everything off (AV, wifi, screensaver, other programs, etc), nothing plugged in the USB, sound off and power on High Performance & plugged in.

On the lovely SSD, it should be the same or less power.

BTW, I forgot to mention that other things you lose getting the U30 vs the U33 is that the U33 also has bluetooth and a MUCH better webcam (2.0MP vs 0.3MP). Oh well, sorry. I forgot to mention them, though I'm sure you had already read up on the specs between these models.

 

The lower webcam doesn't bother me. Does this Asus come with 64 bit Windows installed or 32 bit? I don't want to install 64 bit if the drivers are intended for 32. I did this with an HP I had a few years ago, even went to the web to get the 64 bit drivers AND it had a 64 bit processor - it ran MUCH slower @ 64 bit.

Can I make a windows install disk directly from the computer? A disk that will just install a fresh copy of windows? If I can do that, I can just install the new HDD, put in the disk, install windows then do the updates from the disk. Also, is this new bios helpful? Any real reason to install it? What do you mean AV off? Disable screensaver and wifi I get, but "AV"?

 

They all are coming with 64-bit these days because Win 7 32-bit can't see more than 3GB RAM.

I think the 4 recovery DVD's you are asked to create at the start will let you do that, though I'd still recommend a fresh install from a Win 7 DVD. See my post HERE on where to get that ISO file.

Plus if you use the restore recovery DVD's, it may set up the 17GB hidden partition again, which is a lot on your 128GB SSD. You'l need all the space you can get on it.

AV is antivirus (and you're offline, of course.)

 

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I have a question re the audio card for the U30JC (the -B1 in particular). I am considering this notebook for purchase and wonder if the audio card has "what u hear"/stereo mix capability. I use Camtasia Studio and need the what-u-hear option built into the sound card. I was sorely disappointed in my last desktop (a Dell) when its integrated audio card did not include the option, and I wound up spending an extra $100 to install a SoundBlaster xFi. Can anyone verify whether the U30JC has this capability? Thanks!

 

Could someone please hel me? Looking forward to buy a notrebook, this U30JC looks interensting, especially the 330UM equipped model. I'm interested about this notebook's common issues and built quality. Sorry to drop in with such a common question, read back some pages but didn't find any summary.

Thanks in advance!

 

Where would that option be located, if it is there?

 

Where are you? I've never seen any U30Jc using an ultra-low voltage 330UM processor. The available models use the i3-350M (2.26GHz) or the i3-370M (2.4GHz).

For a very good analysis of the U30Jc-A1 model, I'd recommend reading the very thorough AnandTech review HERE.

 

I believe it would be in the audio properties--at least on mine, the easiest way to see it is to double-click the volume control icon in lower right corner, select Options, then Properties, then Recording, and see if either "What U Hear" or "Stereo Mix" is an option.

 

Found it. There is a "Stereo Mix" and under the tab "Listen" there is the option I can tick named "Listen to this device".

Is that what you wanted?

 

I believe that does the trick, Quatro! Thanks so much! The U30JC sounds like such an awesome laptop--I'm so glad to know that option is there, too!

 

Sorry, it's a U30JT, I'm not so familiar with Asus notebooks, let's say it's a basic knowledge, I thought the U30JT has the same chassis as the U30Jc, anyways, this is the notebook I'm talking about:

Asus UL30JT-RO091X UL30JT-RO091X Számítógépek | Notebook / laptop / netbook

Thanks for the link!

 

Does anyone know if ADDING ram (total 8 gigs) will hurt the battery life?

 

You are confusing yourself by repeatedly calling it a U30Jt (leaving out the L). There is no such machine. It is the UL30Jt (the UL stands for "Ultra-Low voltage") and there is a special thread for it HERE.

Search for reviews on it and read up in its thread.

 

You're right, I've figured it out too yeseterday, my mistake, as I've said before, I'm note familiar with ASUS models, thanks for Your help...again!

 

No.

Meh, message is too short

 

Looking at my screen on an angle where the light hits it just right, i can see all the finger marks, dust etc. that I have given it, so i started looking at screen protectors. I took a look at SGP (because i use their screen protectors for my phone) and saw there was one specifically for the U30JC!

SGPStore.com | Stylish Premium Quality Cases and Screen Protectors for Your iPhone, iPod, iPad, Laptop, Camera, and More!

Also one with Anti-glare. I wonder how that would help the glare issues everyone hates

 

Is their anyway to change the Power4Gear battery saving desktop to NOT auto-hide the task bar?

 

If you open P4G (right-click battery icon>P4G), in the "Battery Saving" mode and "On Battery" setting, look in the lower right where it reads "Battery Saving Desktop". Select NO.

That stops it removing your wallpaper and may fix your taskbar as well. It should stop it turning off Aero as well.

Though my taskbar auto-disappears because I've set it that way via right-click on the taskbar>Properties. Under the "Taskbar" tab, in the upper left, you can select "Auto-hide Taskbar" or not.

BTW, There are LOTS of hidden settings for the power modes (incl Battery Saving) if you look in:
right-click battery/power icon > Power Options > Change Plan Settings > Change Advanced Power Settings. Lots of subcategories will pop up with tweaking options and you can tweak settings for each of the power modes available, one-by-one.

 

So um, I haven't turned my laptop on in 3 months... woohoo! How's everyone enjoying theirs so far?

Thanks for the help yesterday Quatro, unfortunately I needed Vista and thought they were all grouped together but I found it!

 

Did you end up getting a different notebook or what? Not turned it on in 3 mo?

As for Vista, dude! I have two spare Vista install DVD's laying around my house unused. When I had 2 notebooks with Vista, I immediately formatted them and installed WinXP. Now I've moved over to Win 7 x64 (x32 on my netbook) and I'm loving it. A pretty decent OS, IMO.

 

I'm not sure if I asked this in this thread, but what's the battery life difference between the U30JC-B1 and the U35JC-A1? Also, is the weight difference very much?

 

Ok so I posted this first in another U30JC thread but I don't think it will get read there.

I recently purchased the U30JC-B1...I love the look and feel of this Asus but I had a couple of questions.

1) Does anyone else have vibration issues with the optical drive -- when I installed a game it was vibrating quite loudly and almost shaking the whole laptop (it was sitting on a flat desk, when I pressed on the door of the drive it seemed to soften the noise quite a bit). Could this be a defective optical drive in my unit...should I consider an exchange before 30 day return policy is up?

2) I initially had trouble connecting to my wireless network at home...figured out I had too many of the wireless adapters enabled. But now it seems my U30 is interfering with my wife's MB Pro internet connection. If while she is connected using her MB when I open up my U30 and attempt to connect, her connection drops and mine struggled to connect...it appears only one of our machines can connect to the network without interference. I have tried several remedies including resetting my router and adjusting to specs. Any suggestions?

3) If I were to exchange it I would consider an upgrade to the A2B model...I would like built in bluetooth and a faster HDD, but what is the biggest difference between Win 7 Home and Pro?

Thanks!

 

There should be no weight or battery life difference. The faster core may affect the battery slightly, but nothing too dramatic.

The only differences I'm aware of is the B1 has a faster core (2.4 vs 2.26) and a WiDi-capable wireless card (WiFi). Everything else is the same.

UPDATE: I misread this post as asking about the B1 vs A1 versions of the U30Jc. Of course, he/she were comparing the U35Jc with the U30Jc. My mistake!

 

I have the U30Jc-A1.

My optical drive (ODD) vibrates quite loudly on installing something, but it quickly quiets down after initially seeing the files. If it continues to vibrate loudly, it is often because I have a dirty, scratched or poor quality DVD/CD that it's having trouble reading.

I'd try a few other DVD's to see if it still keeps vibrating with all of them all of the time.

My wife has a 13" MB and I the U30Jc. We had an N router, but now have just a G router. We both connect just fine. We don't notice a lot of bandwidth loss if we are online at the same time unless we are both watching movies. But we can do that as well.

We have a 6Mbs DSL line through AT&T which isn't fast compared to some of our friends. Here are a few questions:

• What's the speed of your connection? To check it, go HERE. Check via the closest city to you. What's your avg download speed?
• What type of encryption is your router set up on? Typically, there is a way to link by cable to your router (not wifi) and use an address that accesses your router's setup. My wife & I had repeated signal loss and signal drops and difficulty getting back on (esp my wife on her 13" white Macbook). I saw that I had originally set us up using WEP2. I changed it to WEP encryption and all of our troubles disappeared (for the router connection, any way).

I use Win 7 Pro. It provides better XP emulation to run XP-compatible programs within Win 7 via compatibility settings. That's mainly it for a home user (I think).

As for the A2B, personally I didn't feel the small bit of RPM boost on the HDD (5400/7200), internal bluetooth (you can get a tiny USB dongle for $12-18) and Pro were worth the extra $100. For that money, I'd rather wait and get the Seagate 500GB Momentus XT hybrid drive with 4GB NAND flash cache that acts like a mini-SSD attached to the drive. It speeds up opening programs a lot. And then I still have my old 320GB drive that I can put in a USB HDD enclosure for a backup/extra files drive. And I get 500GB instead of 320GB.

But that's me.

 

But the U35JC-A1 is listed as 3.7 pounds on Amazon, and doesn't have an optical drive.
http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-U35JC-A1-13-3-Inch-Laptop-Silver/dp/B003UNHGFQ

And the U30JC-B1 is listed as 4.7 pounds, and has an optical drive.
http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-U30JC-B1-13-3-Inch-Laptop-Silver/dp/B003UNF1B2

 

Oh dear me, I've misread a post again! You're right, of course. I had read that he was asking the difference between the U30Jc-B1 and the U30Jc-A1 (instead of what he really wrote, which was the U35Jc-A1.)

Sorry everyone. I must be tired. I misread a post over on the U35Jc thread as well. :/ *Sigh*. Time for me to get some sleep!

BTW, people actually weighing their U35 have put the weight at 4lbs. My U30 on my digital scales weighs 4.8lbs, so the difference is 0.8lbs or 13oz which would definitely be noticeable.

With SHE on, several U35 user are showing battery life reports of up to 10hrs (not sure if anyone really was able to get that) but on the lowest discharge rates possible (wifi off, brightness 0%, no apps open, battery saving, SHE on), they were getting discharge rates down to 7.2W. The lowest I can get on my U30 is about 8.5W. So, theoretically, with both of us doing nothing, the U35 user should get longer battery life if he/she also has the 5600mAh 84Wh battery.

 

So what's the actual battery life in hours with wifi on, 30% brightness, power saving on each one?

 

On those standard power settings, if I am mostly doing Office apps and a small amount of web browsing (one tab only open at a time and no flash video sites), and I only had the wifi on when I was looking up something, I typically get 7-8 hrs.

Only once have I actually sat that long using the notebook, and then I got about 8hrs.

Right now, I'm working on Quicken accts. I have 30% brightness and WiFi off (except for posting this). Battery Saving on. BatteryMon has reported for the last 10 min that at this usage, I'll get a tad over 9 hrs.

You'll need to ask over on the U35Jc/U45Jc thread the same question and see what they say.

The best is if you could find a review site that tested BOTH of these notebooks under similar discharge rate scenarios and see what the results were.

UPDATE: HERE is a link to a recent battery life test by an experienced U35Jc user!

 

I'll have to think about it

 

Hello people.

I bought a U30JC-A1 when they first came out.

I thought that would be able to use a bluetooth dongle without any concern. The reality is that I found my self many times using all the 3 usb ports and having to unplug my bluetooth dongle to be able to use the usb port.

I have dismantled completely my laptop and found the internal port to plug in the BT internal dongle that is located internally next to right position of the card reader.

I have looked everywhere conceivable for the internal bluetooth cable and dongle part number. I ve tried to find an equivalent (not necessarily asus brand).

As you can see in the pictures the connector is 12pin.
[/ATTACH]

I ve asked ASUS tech support and the answers have been of no use for not to say crappy. They stated that my SN did not included internal BT therefore " Kindly please buy a USB dongle to solve my problem, sorry for your inconvenience".

Is there anyone out there with a U30JC-A2B that could post me the device manager model and the hardware ID for the BT radio, or even better a PN for the cable and dongle by looking inside the laptop.

PS: I ve managed to upgrade my CPU to a i5 520m without no temp issues so far.